001um last week we unveiled a new and it's a it's a pretty simple initiative um to our leadership our staff families and communities some of you may have seen this in recent days on our social media it's called gratitude grams and it provides individuals an opportunity to thank someone in lps for a job well done we frankly have been overwhelmed by the response and have received dozens submitted in just a few days since its introduction tonight as we close out the semester on friday i thought it'd be fitting if i would share just a few of these that have been submitted that have not been uh posted on our social media this one is to all lps staff liberty has the best teachers and staff i have two students at north and one at heritage
002and i can always turn to those working with my students to help them through rough patches thank you thank you thank you for always supporting and caring for all these students and their families that was from b mason this one is to lillian schumacher and shoal creek staff as a grandparent of elementary students who love school i sincerely appreciate your professionalism commitment and willingness to help to bring some sense of normalcy normalcy stability safety and joy of learning to their lives you make such a difference thank you to everyone in our school district for working hard to keep the schools open tax dollars well spent to the liberty virtual school team i appreciate the intentional planning time effort and commitment that the liberty public school district has put into the virtual school option this year
003the preparation and dedication to the students show in the intentional scheduling on all education platforms also the patience and dedication of the teachers to work seamlessly with the students is greatly appreciated in all the work they do day in and day out that was from jennifer b and to the maintenance facilities grounds and custodial staff i'm so thankful for the work you put in each and every day and more recently the above and beyond work done to prepare our schools and districts for return to learn from creating shields to room preparation moving furniture here to there and sometimes back to here all while cleaning and disinfecting and measuring six feet and so much more our buildings look beautiful thank you that from jennifer s and then finally i thought i would add this it's short
004but meaningful this to the liberty public schools board of education thank you to the board of education these individuals work tirelessly behind the scenes to provide a great environment for our kids thanks for all you do from michelle wilson so again as i mentioned as i introduce this such a simple concept but i think in a world right now with so much noise and negativity i have the pleasure to be and the honor to be able to open up that portal each morning and i've spent minutes you know five minutes every morning getting ready getting the opportunity to start my day with that which is pretty awesome and this has been obviously a challenging semester but going through and reading these dozens each and every day there's so so much good going on so we'll
005continue to share those in our social media outlets in the days and weeks to come probably over uh the winter vacation but just wanted to take a moment to share a few of those with you this evening so that concludes honoring excellence for tonight hope everyone has a great holiday thank you dallas public comment mr rose grants do you have any comments anyone else if we don't have any comment tonight so move this on to our consent agenda okay consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion documentation concerning these items has been provided to all board members and the public in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review items may be re removed from the
006consent agenda at the request of any board member do we have a motion to approve and move the board approved consent agenda items 4.01 through 4.07 thank you second center aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes kim marie yes smashing carries all right moving on to reports in the administration dr tucker we're going to begin with 5.01 in our innovation and learning department so we're going to ask dr westfall to provide additional items tied to their update this evening thank you dr tucker we just have a couple of highlights for you tonight and want to theme them with the holiday season of gratitude and celebration so our first one is um with gratitude we want to share the report that we received from colleen jones for the tremendous success that we had
007in our real world learning opportunities this semester with a huge shout out to our business partners because they offered so many opportunities for our students to still to still get their internship times and so we just wanted to make sure that we shared our gratefulness to the business partners of liberty public schools the second one is a celebration and that is despite all the different constraints that were placed on our fine arts department we were able to provide an amazing season of concerts and and theater and so if you have not yet seen the live stream videos that were captured on lps53.org backslash sorry fine arts um you'll see that with a huge shout out to our directors um aaron money and matt allison and then sorry i just have one comment about that sure
008our family actually had family watching in three other states that's amazing and we're thinking it was really cool yeah i mean i know so many people with from naz media our technology department were involved in that and they just did so many things and our kids experiences were exponential out of that transition but they're just so great like it just if you want your soul warmed in that just watch those though it was great thank you um and then just to lead off of what dallas had um we have a little gratitude gram of our own uh just from dr moore and from me all of our directors and the building leaders of innovation and learning we thank the board of education for trusting us and for leaning into our decisions and for making sure
009that we put our students first in all of our decisions and the leadership decisions that we had to make um we just honor our superintendent for all the things that we've all gone through with that we want you to know we appreciate you and happy holidays hard to ask if there's any questions do you have any questions for dr westball before we let her sit down i feel like this might be a theme tonight this morning right now oh thank you thank you dr westfall you're good so i appreciate it i appreciate your expression of gratitude as well so we'll see it next up in 5.02 dr andre dixon seahorn in the office of equity i will say this that she will be famous tomorrow as the coffee with the community is pushed out so
010she's had a full day finishing up that project doctor dickson's horn will turn it over to you thank you so much it is really hard to follow that that may not have hurt me but i said that is so not fair and then i have to own up to something kim marie uh somehow the letter in e in your name got dropped off in this uh list of names of people that i was going to share here that will be part of our district cohort as part of the equity of schools code so that is completely on me i do know how to spell your name okay it gets filled all different ways all the time all right so i just wanted to just bring attention to uh just really three big things that were
011in my report uh and they're under the departmental goals and one of them is just sharing with you the names of those individuals that will be a part of the equity and schools cohort which is sponsored by the kauffman foundation and i think i put this in my weekly update but the kaufman foundation is investing they're investing a lot of money in those school districts that are participating in this cohort at ten thousand dollars per district so there are ten districts in this first cohort and we're so pleased and honored to be a part of this and then it will be facilitated by beloved community you've had that information available to you to read in advance but very pleased to announce that kim marie will be a part of the cohort dr tucker myself dr
012jessica meisenheimer as our director of special programs dr dwayne smith is our compliance officer mr jeremy bradham middle school principal and then we have two community representatives that also serve on the district's diversity equity and inclusion committee uh as led by dr tucker and that would be mr and mrs jordan highlands were so very excited about that uh the first session will get underway january the 25th by way of an orientation and then also preparing us to conduct our own equity audit using the tools and resources that they have available so in other words when we come back from winter vacation we're literally rolling up our sleeves and we're getting to work this is an eight month long endeavor so it's going to be uh labor intensive immersive but we believe will be worth the
013experience for us as it builds capacity in all of us as part of the cohort to lead equity here at liberty public schools also heard some music that was nice i also wanted to call attention to the equity action planning sessions that have been underway for really about the past month and a half at the school leadership level at the director level and then within the department level for human resources operations and communications which is really just dallas but he carries a big stick in terms of being overseeing that particular office so that means that every school leader has a plan every director in the academic realm has a plan and then the hr department has a collective plan operations department has a collective plan and the dallas has a plan for the communications office
014uh these plans i just kind of did a quick scan today kind of just a brief analysis i'll give you just an overview of the roughly 30 31 plans 37 percent of them that's about 11 of them address professional learning that means that these leaders these equity leaders the capacity we have right here in liberty public schools identified by way of the equity talk sessions that we had as part of the office of equities uh entry planning process identified on their own the need for professional learning whether it's cultural sensitivity cultural awareness unconscious bias these are the focus areas that they've identified for their teams and they're readily using resources that we already have available to make that happen for this year okay uh roughly 20 of the plans and this is more so on
015the school level but there are a few departments that are addressing this area of concern and that is this idea of the sense of belonging and creating a culture of inclusion for our students and families another 13 equally split between taking a deeper dive at the scl social emotional learning data points around the mtss process multi-tiered systems of support for students and panorama dating again looking at data pieces we already have access to right to make equity happen for our students another 13 percent are looking at equitable access to the educational opportunities and learning experiences that currently are afforded to students and we have particularly the director level they're taking a deeper dive in looking at who's in some of these programs and who isn't okay and then we have roughly seven percent looking at
016discipline practices taking a deeper dive in terms of analysis okay and then another seven percent looking at diverse representation in terms of um experiences that our staff and students are having and then workforce development is closely related to that so just wanted to share that as a highlight and then the last thing i wanted to touch on is this idea of we're going to and this is in partnership with the innovation and learning department so dr westfall will be my partner there in this endeavor and that is for second semester we're all ready right now we've put out an email to all lps staff for those who would like to express an interest and being a part of our lps curriculum task force and the task force will just serve a very unique purpose and
017that is to help us conduct a curriculum audit uh even if it's on a small scale even if it's just a rough sampling to determine where diversity and equity inclusion may be missing from our curriculum so we're very excited about that uh our those staff members that are interested have until tomorrow to put their name in the hat and then we'll undergo a selection process to determine who will be part of that project and we're very very excited about getting the ball rolling in the area of curriculum so those were the highlights i wanted to share for this evening if there any questions or concerns i'll be happy to entertain those at this time just a brief reminder on the equity in schools cohort what's the thought behind what we're going to how we're going
018to learn from that what are we going to get out of it i know it's new i know there's a lot of things not known but i figured somebody would ask about that so it's really about capacity building for district leadership in a given school system so they can take it and then make it work for that system because every school system is different okay so liberty is vastly different from a park hill or summit or kansas city public school so you're taking the uh topics that will be addressed so for example there'll be a session on racial identity development and intersectionality and we get to take that and make that a conversation piece here in liberty what that looks like for us there'll be a conversation piece around talent development the good thing is
019we're already working on that piece because we just showcased where we are with grow your own doesn't mean there aren't more lessons for us to learn but again we get to take it and make it applicable to our workplace culture another session will be on intercultural leadership again that's about equity capacity building amongst our own so we can go and really kind of spread the love across the organization and then of course the equity audit is going to be a huge huge piece of this work that right there alone is very labor intensive and so we'll get to work with across the aisle across the organization to make that happen perfect good thank you can i is it okay if i just add a little bit to that absolutely um so it's also capacity building
020across the region since we're not the only district there are multiple districts so there's the idea that we'll all come along together um but i also just want to for the board since i've participated in a few of the sessions it will challenge us and it will be an opportunity for us in this room to really support the work and we may need to have some hard conversations about why we're doing it and why it's important and just be ready to talk to our community about it absolutely i think for us it could not have come at a better time in terms of just being able to dive in a little bit deeper and have the hard conversations we've been having some conversations but i think then creating this network makes it easier because i
021think there's strength in numbers so it's going to be a great approach to putting equity into action any other thoughts or comments or questions other questions for dr dixon seymour thank you thank you next up then 5.03 uh miss sullivan from the finance department good evening i have two donations to share with you tonight we had a donation from sandra perkins of a hammered dulcimer valued at 750 for elementary fine arts teachers to use in class for demonstration and for students interested in learning to play the instrument we also had a donation from dean buford of a cello case and two bows valiant at eight hundred dollars to be added to district inventory for free and reduced students who are in need of a cello to play at school we'd like to thank mrs perkins
022and mr beauford for support of our finance program it's very generous of them in addition to my report tonight i wanted to share a few things with you november appropriation as you saw was up to 90 we're continuing to monitor state revenues they are trending positively still um so fully anticipating in the destiny finance memo this month that we will reach the anticipated level of 94 if not above so that is still trending to be that way we'll find out more in january as the revenue picture again becomes clear every month that we get behind us as we move more toward budget season we are actually hearing more about fy 22 and the potential tax cut that will be triggered under senate bill 509 so the focus is what will that do to fy 22
023revenues and since i'm moving into budget season for fy 22 that is very much on my radar as well so we'll continue to provide updates as we hear more on that as well we did receive our december county payment of property tax this morning and we've talked a little bit about that every month and the news continues to be encouraging there and it was higher than it was a year ago at this time and it was um 1.6 higher in fact than at this time last year according when you compare it to our budget so that is also encouraging because i feel that property tax revenue collection percentage will be stronger this year than last year which we did not anticipate the lower percentage collection last year so seeing it come in higher already this
024year that leaves me encouraged at what we should see with the january collection so and that's encouraging news as well um the afc did review the finances financial statements this month and they did not have anything to pass on to you tonight and i too wanted to express my appreciation for you all and i hope you all have a very happy holiday season with your families and that's all i have unless you have any questions for me tonight any questions of cindy thank you thank you next up then is our operations report 5.04 mr anderson thank you just a few things i wanted to pull out of the reports that are that are in front of you on board docs uh first is our the rapid testing site located over here by liberty high school
025is up and running and we got off to a pretty good start uh in in the uh just in terms of the organization and scheduling and kind of moving folks through there fairly quickly we're testing about 20 or so staff and students per day so i appreciate that the team that's been when uh working that uh program uh also as i uh has been mentioned we are uh actively engaged in planning in and around the vaccine uh anticipate that at some point in the coming month or two that that will uh be uh coming to us for distribution to staff so certainly more information to come on that front but just wanted to assure you that we're actively working with the folks on on what that plan needs to look like nutrition services is getting
026ready to uh for next semester to expand the family meal kit program that's been really successful thus far but has been centralized at liberty north because of the demand for those meal kits they decided to move it into each elementary school to make it within the neighborhoods as best as possible so that that really did require a little extra work they knew it was the right thing to do and put together a good plan to put that in place so that will roll out next semester i appreciate the team there as you remember a couple months ago you all authorized the purchase of 10 propane buses they're my understanding understanding they're on the way to us now they should be here within the next week and a half we anticipate that those buses will be
027up and uh working the streets here uh uh the beginning next semester so that's that'll be a good change for us and last real quick on construction update um everything now is scheduled to wrap up uh ahead of next semester so right now primary focus is over at liberty high school the atrium the the lmc and then of course the 800 wing uh 820 is is all pretty much wrapping up we had the chance to get over there today there was an event in the 800 swing and it really looks great uh appreciate the construction team but really wanted to send a thank thanks to april adams dr adams and her team that they're really critical in the design of that space and did a great job so with that i'd be happy to take
028any questions any questions for mr anderson would only add that we continue to work closely with clay county health departments kansas city health department in terms of what they're navigating as it relates to guidance and changes and we'll continue to do that as we roll into the new year so i appreciate steve and his team kathy ellermeyer chris gabriel and others that stay close to that on a daily basis so all right next up 5.05 then dr hoglar our human resources report thank you very much we've uploaded a report for you i'll pull a few items out of there the uh human resources department right now is uh getting ready to launch our our plan year that starts january 1st we anticipate every year when that happens you know there's always a lot of calls
029that come in just as people are transitioning to new plans so our team is working heavily on that special thanks really to to my hr department i have four members of the team right now who who either you know some or all of their job is really kind of set aside to deal with the covet related issues um uh with staff and and so they are working tirelessly and have in a lot of ways a thankless job but i do appreciate the work that they do in the report you'll notice a a blurb in there about the grow your own teacher program that's up and running thank you to dallas for spotlighting that uh today the committee's work uh headed by v rose crans in partnership with andre dixon seahorn and a steering committee made
030up of members throughout the district really are prioritizing marketing efforts the video you saw today is one part of that marketing effort to reach kids in our high schools and even into our middle schools that have a great promise for careers in education to begin to kind of turn the needle of interest in that arena so their marketing efforts are are in full go and then the second part of that committee's work is uh a month-to-month um kind of scope and sequence that we're equipping our mentors with the mentors that are assigned to folks that are in the grow your own program as they graduate and matriculate through college so it's one thing you've heard me say this before it's one thing to woo people into the profession and that's another thing to just help
031them matriculate college and then come back to us as teachers this is a great program full of a lot of promise it is the fruit the the work that's being done is really the fruit of an idea in partnership that goes back to my days working with andrea dixon seahorn when she was a consultant for the missouri department of elementary and secondary education trying to tackle the teacher pipeline issue that confronts the state of missouri to a high degree and diversity in that teacher pipeline is a high priority so thank you to dee to andrea and to the steering committee for all the work that they do to to really give legs to that idea um the other thing uh that i wanted to draw out is with regard to rebecca fisher's efforts this is
032our wellness coordinator january's focus for wellness is going to be on self-care this has been obviously a high priority in and around our buildings for for quite some time rebecca fisher looks at a lot of data to assess where the needs are in our district and then designs a wellness campaign to address those needs and so january's focus is going to be on self-care and the final thing i wanted to draw your attention to is with regard to our early notification incentive in there a deadline it indicated 11 people have expressed interest we have one more participant so there's 12 now who've taken advantage of that early notification incentive that of course is not an incentive for people to retire but people who know they are retiring and can give notice it's an incentive to
033get them to give notice as early as possible january 15th is the deadline for that and it really does set our school system up for success in terms of going after the very best and brightest during the hiring season to fill those positions there's other items in the report i'll be glad to answer any questions you have but other than that that's the hr report for this evening anything for dr vogellar okay thank you up to segway on something he shared in terms of the month of january being in and around self-care and that focus we have been having conversations for the last several years for both our students and our staff the adults in the organization and the importance of mental health well-being and self-care and would just put an exclamation around that for
034where we're at presently um we had a leadership team meeting just a couple weeks ago in which sonia richardson thomas came and spent a good hour with our leadership team talking about strategies and being able to balance the personal and the professional knowing that in service to others those two are so intertwined and then fold in a pandemic on top of that so we know those those are real needs for our students certainly for our staff and cannot thank our community enough for their efforts and their work over the course of the last semester really going back into last year even and over the summer for getting us to where we're at today so we we look back and celebrate all the accomplishments a lot of the struggles the challenges but we we express appreciation
035for flexibility patience your ideas and so forth and we'll continue to lean on that in the coming months as we look to the 2021 school year a couple of additions as it relates to our update we did have the opportunity over the last several weeks since really thanksgiving break to get into schools and visit classrooms at the elementary in the middle and the high school level and there are phenomenal things happening as you can imagine i would also say whether they're face to face or in a hybrid model or learning virtual students are making progress in terms of their academic gains and it's due in part to the support they have at home but also want to recognize our teachers and our staff for the tireless effort that they're doing both during the course of
036the day after hours on weekends face-to-face on zoom calls via email just all different platforms in support of our nearly 13 000 students pre-k through grades 12. on a side note taking a look at our state we continue to have conversations at our state level with the department of elementary and secondary education is how we can not only continue to navigate the pandemic but also think post pandemic as to how we emerge out of this and so one of those areas of focus and of importance is being able to take the lessons learned to pull those forward specifically in and around assessment and accountability as of now we are looking at end-of-state assessments being administered this spring that creates some challenges that we'll have to walk through and we'll be working on that as we
037approach the latter part of the spring semester but then we also want to take advantage of an opportunity to be able to rethink assessment rethink accountability not only the importance of literacy and numeracy but then also that social emotional learning piece as well as those real world learning experiences things we've been working to advance at the liberty school district level wanting to take those to the state level so we had a lengthy conversation today with the department of elementary and secondary education the kauffman foundation as well as other districts on what we can do to be able to support that work and think differently as it relates to assessment and accountability on a similar note december 1st was the pre-filing date for legislation and we're seeing a lot of bills come forward that have potential
038to impact public education and so we're watching that closely and we'll be continuing to have conversation with our area legislators as the spring legislative session begins in january last thing that i would say that was expressed by others as well as thanks to the board for your work and your energy over the course of the last several months we wish everyone a happy holidays hope you're able to take time to unwind and enjoy family and friends to whatever extent that looks like in your homes but we look forward to starting a new calendar year in 2021 so with that said would certainly entertain any questions from the board thank you dr tucker we'll move on to unfinished business with our board policy revisions so these items that are presented to you this evening you have
039two sets the first set under 6.01 is the board policies for your review this evening for first read we will bring them back in january for consideration so if you have questions or concerns between them then please let us know our administrative team cabinet strategic leadership team will be in the process of diving into those a little more in depth over the course of the next several weeks the second set are just administrative administrative procedures for your review as well those do not require action as you all know so we just present those to you this evening just for informational purposes we'll see those again in january there's a lot of policies here are these all from msba or there's is there a theme they're all tied to msba yeah no particular theme we cover
040a variety of topics as you can see by the the policy uh titles this is just their next wave of recommendations yeah would you add anything to that sandra it is periodically they will go through and just do a group of policies that be updated by legislative actions best practices and this is their latest one plan accordingly in your board prep next yes a little light reading some all library 6.02 the return to learn plan so as dr moore is coming up just to give you a little bit of a back story here as you've seen over the course of the semester we've learned a lot and we've adjusted a lot and we continue to desire to receive feedback from faculty staff students staff parents and so back in october we administered a pretty wide
041scale survey toward the end of the first quarter took time to digest not only the qualitative but quantitative feedback that we received had in some subsequent meetings and opportunities to connect over the course of those weeks in november we brought forward some of the themes that we were hearing from our feedback and our survey data as far as some considerations as we turn and look to the second semester just a few weeks ago we were talking about how we might scale up more face-to-face opportunities and we're continuing to run those scenarios but we're not at a point of being able to do that widespread and so what we wanted to do were to provide some revisions to our return to learn plan we have since solicited solicited some additional feedback since our study session through
042a presentation that was provided to our staff about a 30-minute overview of our return to learn plan in addition to that particularly at the secondary level some on-site visits for a q a opportunity with staff as it relates to what we might see differently during the course of the second semester so appreciate steve and the operations team taking a look at that as well as our innovation and learning department and wanted to have dr moore kind of hit the highlights as we think about the second semester and updates to our return to learn plan thank you dr tucker thank you board after the december 1st meeting where we shared some ideas with you for second semester we went back and as dr tucker mentioned we did visit some schools got some more feedback and so
043have a little bit more to share with you this evening since that december first study session each member of cabinet has visited at least eight schools each member cabinet has also talked with teachers students and administrators during those visits dr tucker also shared a video message he referenced with staff that was sent out to them on december 4th that was about 30 minutes in length that really clarified a lot of the questions that people were having after that december 1st meeting and dr tucker mr anderson and myself made additional visits to each secondary school during the week of december 7th through 11th being available for staff who may have questions or want to give us feedback and this allowed time for us to discuss the return to learn plan shared at the study session and
044those meetings we range from having just a couple of people come to almost the entire staff so it just depended but we got a lot of feedback through those which i'll share the feedback that we've received over the last couple of weeks with regard to the elementary level has been appreciation for the upper possible opportunity for the early release wednesdays there have been some questions regarding changes to iep minutes for students in special services and we're working with our special education department and those teachers to make sure everybody is comfortable with that dr westfall hosted an elementary curriculum council meeting where she talked with teachers to let them know about possible changes and then communication with special services and our peak department about possible changes at the secondary level some of the themes that came
045out of our meetings just asking for clarification regarding changes to the five days of learning and wanting to know what that looked like dr tucker's video message really helped teachers understand that there were a few more questions some questions regarding schedules that we need to communicate we now are at that point where we have a lot of different schedules for secondary we have an inclement weather schedule we have a what if my school or my classroom closes for two days what if my building just closes and then what if we go fully virtual so the innovation and learning department has put together a one page sheet that says in the event of this here's what you do and in the event of this here's what you do so that will be going out to families
046through the buildings in the coming days concerns were shared regarding bringing back students on virtual wednesdays and when that would happen so we shared that we don't there's not a date for that that is just down the road when it allows for it and then there was a desire for early release time for our special programs at the secondary level that are going to school five days a week which we're asking you to consider this evening in addition dr westfall hosted a secondary curriculum council meeting and dr westfall and i both had a meeting with secondary principals just to discuss the hybrid expectations for students and teachers so tonight we are asking for you to consider the early release wednesdays for elementary teachers and an early release on virtual wednesdays for our five-day special education
047programs those would occur on as i mentioned the virtual wednesdays if we have like a four day week which is like an a-b-a-b and no friday or no monday we have two days of in-school learning for both groups so we would not have a virtual wednesday on those weeks the other thing i would add is within our strategic plan this was one of the areas we identified as far as incorporating early release wednesdays that we really have seen the need to accelerate in part to the strain that this is placed on our elementary teachers as far as navigating both face-to-face and virtual students kids coming in and out of quarantine or parents electing for a period to have their students in a virtual learning environment because of the virus secondly pulling back on professional development
048experiences for the sake of keeping our teachers in the classroom due to substitute pool shortages that's been an issue so you pull that early release into this for second semester but then as we think about 2021 2022 we'll look to here in a moment have a conversation around the calendar and how we might broaden that experience as far as early release days a little bit deeper into the calendar across pre-k through grade 12. so so with the elementary i know we had talked about early release students we've got to find a place for them are we making accommodations from a transportation standpoint or some other accommodations to help out or is that just they're coming home when they release the students we are as of right now the plan is that if there's an early
049release students would go home tomorrow if this is approved we have a plan in place for tomorrow to send out an email to all families at the elementary level to share with us if they need support if they need after school care and then mr anderson and mr gabriel are working with mr kotzer to put something out tomorrow we're going to try to get that back by friday so it'll be quick so we can kind of judge what people are what families are needing and then we can kind of get a plan in place to use support at the buildings also use kids zone to help those families and then ideally the goal would be for families to pick them up at the normal time but if we have any extreme you know situations that
050we'll work through those on a case-by-case basis and then are we anticipating a similar rate of virtual versus in-person hybrid for second semester have we got a gauge on that we've had it i don't know it kind of flipped back and forth we've had several people who have switched to um virtual but then we have quite a bit who are coming back face to face so i feel like it's kind of been an even trade i don't know if you want to speak with them we have more elementary returning to the classrooms and it's looking in the trend for secondary to move toward virtual so that's been it's about even though in respect to this swap okay that was a conversation we had this morning even in cabinet as we turned the corner for the
051new semester in terms of trying to keep social distancing in place and that physical distancing of six feet we feel pro we feel pretty good right now that that would not be compromised based on what we're seeing as far as the ask to go one direction or the other so anything else to add dr westfall just the our population is still about 20 24 2500 so okay dude those numbers look to be steady for elementary as well i know they had a number come back and as you said they're they're coming they're going do elementary class sizes look to be about the same size as they're at face to face yes so for the most part the principals have continued to do a really nice job of letting dr vogeler and i know if their
052numbers are at a point where they can't so we've had three or four buildings who've reached out and say i've said based on the numbers for second semester they need additional support and so we're in the process right now of hiring either classroom teachers or associate teachers to help out one building has a classroom of mid-20s and they had a set of triplets enrolled the other day and so they said you know we want to put them together and that is the classroom we want to put them in that has 20 that means you know there'd be around 28 and so the principal asks for an additional teacher to help team teach because the person's in two classrooms and so we're in the process of finding someone to team teach with them so that those
053students can still be spread out with another building said their numbers were getting a little bit higher at the second grade so we're in the process of hiring a second grade teacher to support that building so i want to say we've probably it's been three or four buildings that have seen more of an increase of the face-to-face and i said i don't have the room in a current classroom to put them so that's um we've had to hire more people sorry dr moore thanks to you and the team for going out and proactively getting some feedback from the secondary teachers i think that's been helpful as we've kind of reframed things so i appreciate that thank you have you had to move any students from their traditional school to other schools as a rough to
054try to keep this balance has that been a thought to do that what aj is asking about um we have we have talked about that for students who come in new but really we haven't wanted to make that adjustment for anyone you know coming in and thinking that they're going to the neighbor school and you know neighborhood schools that's right down the street and then asking them to go somewhere else and then possibly next year switching them back to that school so no we're trying to keep those students at the school that they're designated for and finding ways to to make that work for them there were some very early scenarios early early like may and june that we we quickly kind of moved beyond that thought through what would it look like if you
055moved some grade levels around and used larger spaces for your smaller kids and so forth because we were contemplating hybrid but you don't see very many districts that have made that complete shift of grade levels to different buildings like elementary kids to a high school level and vice versa albeit there was some scenario planning around that early on so then the expectation is early release will be that first week of school correct and everything will be lined out and ready to go there will be growing pains we know that in terms of getting everything squared away and expectations for kids while they're there during that after care period getting parents acclimated to it but then the value that that provides teachers in and around planning professional development and so forth it will take time to
056hire now certainly our team is has already come laid out with mr anderson and his team what we'll get ready to do tomorrow morning if this is approved and then having some deadlines for friday for parents to let us know what their needs are and then our team will come together on friday and kind of map out we don't have a lot of time but you know what can we do over the next few days to let families know what we're ready to offer and so we have scenarios in place for your higher needs kids at secondary and elementary okay so one more question um the the change in wednesdays for secondary yes what was the feedback that we got from teachers about their comfort with being able to handle virtual and in-person at the
057same time the um initially i think that most teachers thought that it was going to be that they were going to have to zoom and face to face all hour and so one of the things we said is that's not what we're asking for anyone is we're just asking you to engage students all five days and that's the expectation and dr tucker did a nice job of sharing some examples of things that he had seen in walk throughs and that we'd all seen to say this is really this is really what we're wanting to do and many of you are already doing this so keep that up but then we also others said i'd love to see what some of these people are doing so our goal is to really showcase what others are doing
058and not that you have to that a student has to zoom every hour but that they are engaged somehow in that learning that's helpful yeah in fact we had we had more examples of teachers coming and saying well here's what i'm doing does this count and the answer it was great to say yeah absolutely do more of that that's awesome and that i don't think it's realistic because we've all been on zoom meetings i don't think it's realistic to expect a middle or high school student to be in seven hours of zoom meetings learning that way some teachers may elect to do that others that we talked to were utilizing technology and flipping their classroom and that there's the content acquisition piece that might happen on a non-in-person day and then the application that happens
059on the in-person day or vice versa whereas some p some teachers had figured it out we saw some great examples of this get similar to an arrangement like this where the teacher's desk is in the middle and the projector is on showcasing those kids that are connecting virtually and something that we heard from this particular staff person that comes to mind is she found herself paying attention to those kids that are there virtually because she knew those kids that were on the periphery face-to-face you know she's got access to them so she found that scale being tipped toward more of those virtual students and so i think it's showcasing and spotlighting the lessons learned over the semester and then challenging teachers you know if you're doing it keep up that great work if there's something
060more that can be done it really boils down to engagement more importantly students crave their teachers in that access particularly right now and we saw that in our data and we were able to show that from our data and so that's what we really want to try to accomplish as we turn the corner for the new semester so we had so many secondary teachers who also just came and said thank you for allowing our kids to be in school we know it's not you know we'd like to see them more some are still hesitant with you know the current cases on the rise of having them on on a wednesday but they said they're so thankful that they get to see their students at least two days a week so we appreciate that all right
061i move the board approve the amended return to learn plan to include early release on wednesdays for elementary schools and secondary tlc best and esc programs second aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes kim marie yes nation carries all right moving on to the edge micro school proposal so this is something we shared with you at our december study session as well and we have a couple of examples of which we have kind of a school within a school model or a micro school concept that really kind of springboarded out of what we've done at epic elementary so heritage middle school by design was really our first go at it with the secondary level and then north nation by design and now we're bringing forward a proposal for the edge micro school
062at liberty high school so you've probably seen promotional information coming out in terms of trying to plant that seed with students already in families because here in january we begin scheduling for next year and so wanting to get that concept out there we've had great interest so far and wanted to be able to share that we're continuing to have those informational meetings to get both students and parents up to speed on what the edge micro school will look like think of it as an integrated approach as far as bringing curriculum together around areas that students are interested and passionate about but then also folding in real world learning experiences competency-based approaches in terms of trying to create something within an existing school that may be a little bit more unique than traditional approaches and so
063then can you take those ideas and then expand them into traditional content areas over time so we want to bring that to you again we saw it at the december study session so this evening we would bring that to you for your consideration for beginning in the 2021-2022 school year what else would you want to add to that dr moore i would just add that we've had we have four meetings scheduled to have taken place so far one being just yesterday and both of those have been at the max tickets allowed so we're excited about that and two more meetings coming in january also when dr tucker mr anderson and i went to discovery middle school this past week two of the teachers from edge were there presenting to the eighth grade students and there
064was a lot of excitement on their part we've continued to say pending board approval but we wanted to get it out since it was we are coming upon enrollment season but there's a lot of excitement around this and we're really excited about the possibility we've been really working hard on this for the last two years so we appreciate you thinking about this for us questions comments this is super exciting i'm so pumped i really this is great i shared the excitement of the eighth graders it's not just the eighth graders i'll tell you that i have access to high school kids and the ones that i know are incredibly excited and will be very disappointed if they don't get to go what was exciting to me tonight is before the board meeting i was watching
065the studio 5 showcase with epic and their focus on hunger and you know just talking globally and i thought oh this is a perfect segue into what we're trying to do with this micro school so i love the um what's going to be possible because of this and how we can bring it down into the elementary buildings i moved the board approved the edgemaker school at liberty high school second all right sandra aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes kim marie yes mission carries yay all right moving on seal it by literacy 6.04 then is an extension of another program that is familiar to the board and that is the expansion of the seal of biliteracy pathways and we spoke to you about this as well at our study session and earlier
066this month two pieces come to mind and we shared this but to reiterate it it's for those students who perhaps are acquiring a new language or interested in that not only upon you know completion of high school and having attained that those credits over the course of their four years in high school performance on an assessment to be able to qualify for that seal of biliteracy so that is one path new language acquisition the second path is for native speakers who may have moved to liberty from other countries or other other parts of the world who we want to continue to encourage to grow in their native language as they're learning english whatever the case may be so many of those students come to us at a very early age of which they have a
067higher risk of losing that native language and so thus the value of that ka pathways to do both encourage that native speaker in growing toward language acquisition but then also encouraging new language acquisition for those that perhaps are looking at exploring additional world language with that said would recommend that the board consider approval of the ka pathways program tied to the seal of bi-literacy anything to add from innovation and learning okay unless there are questions from the board i move the board approve the syllabi literacy k-8 pathways program second aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes kim marie yes motion carries right legislative priorities uh do we have we have some course proposals oh we do i'm sorry secretary sorry so just before the legislative priorities be 6.05 our secondary course proposals
068that are submitted this evening for your consideration from our innovation and learning department specifically tied to our edge micro school courses that center around computer hardware operating systems one and then cyber security essentials and global activism in support of the micro school program that you just approved so i would recommend that to you this evening anything to add dr moore dr westfall okay it is the innovation and learning show tonight that's right questions comments remove the board approved secondary course proposals my favorite chaos computer hardware track rating systems one cyber security essentials and global activism second aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes kim marie yes motion carries now legislative priorities yeah thank you so this is something that is familiar to uh to you all as well and that we've been
069talking about this the last several weeks um liberty public schools for the last five or six years has been submitting legislative priorities to all of our area legislators and we've been updating this with the board's help and overview every every year this time of year in preparation for the spring legislative session as a reminder our legislative considerations include key priorities focused on learners innovative spaces as well as resources and then those considerations center around high quality staff governance taxation economic development incentives as well as bonding capacity and so we have time to continue to solicit your feedback in preparation of the spring legislative session we are in the process still of calling through all of the pre-filed legislative information and bills resolutions to be able to see if there are additional areas of focus that
070we want to incorporate into our priorities we will then upon approval in january submit a letter to all of our area legislators on behalf of the district and the board with those legislative priorities so please take a look at what we have presently in draft form and then over the course of the next few weeks we'll continue to watch closely what's coming at us through the legislative proposals solicit your feedback as we finalize that for communication to legislators in the month of january so appreciate your feedback along the way what is the deadline for us to get feedback and to get feedback to you how's that um really just prior to the january board meeting okay um so we have we have space or time to be able to do that still so please feel
071free to send anything our way okay i will acknowledge that i have been delinquent in this so i will challenge anyone else who may have been delinquent to give it some energy in the coming weeks new business district academic calendar tied to the legislative session we do not know where that conversation will go this spring session as it relates to flexibility provided to districts and setting calendars and beginning of school dates and so forth and so we want us we want to start the conversation around our academic calendars with that and so as we typically will approve a calendar in the month of january have our calendar hearing just know that this year might look different that's an understatement but specifically as it relates to the calendar and that we may approve a calendar but
072then depending on what happens in the legislative session we may come back at the end of the spring semester at some point to be able to say okay here's what's different do we want to make a shift in our calendar and so i want to preface this conversation with that otherwise you have in front of you two drafts one of the liberty public schools calendar for 2021 2022 and then a second calendar draft for epic elementary specifically these are built upon the current provisions that are set forth within missouri statute and changes that have occurred within the last year year and a half as it relates to start start and end dates start dates specifically and how early we can start school i want to start by thinking team liberty and diving into this with
073virtual meetings this year a limited opportunity to sit face to face in person but really tackling these issues and and folding in some different approaches including early release so you'll see that reflected in this calendar not every single week but it is embedded over the course of august through may and that's something that we'll be kind of walking through as well during that spring semester semester a couple of highlights as it relates to the first day of school for the district that is slated for august 24th for epic elementary that first day of school would be august 10th additionally thanksgiving holiday that week of the 24th and 26th in november the end of the first semester primarily for secondary schools would be december 21st with our winter vacation commencing on december 22nd through july or
074through january 4th fast forward to spring the spring semester with students convening on thursday january 6th march 14th would be our spring break the week of the 14th through the 18th schools would be closed that last day of school for the district being slated for may 27th and then for epic elementary being on june 10th and then you can see the other pieces that are there listed below as far as kind of the key or the legend for the calendar provided down below the breakdown of student contact days first semester second semester returning teacher contract days new teacher contract days are listed there as well what you don't see is inclusion of inclement weather makeup days and that we have the opportunity to be able to do that virtually and so that is unique as
075we move forward for the 2021-2022 school year and some of those experiences learned over the course of this last year year and a half now as well as during the course of the pandemic so that is where it stands as of now certainly no action needed this evening but we'll take the next month to be able to provide feedback we may learn a little bit more over the course of the next month as well but then set to bring that back in january for your consideration anything to add on the calendar side of things dr goldalar no other than uh i would echo your appreciation of team liberty uh we did this via a sub committee like dr tucker mentioned with the the virtuals uh i would uh comment in conversations with surrounding districts especially
076their northland caps districts they're all in the process of creating their calendars there could be some fluctuation in the march spring break window just depending on how things land the northland caps follows the north kansas city school district's calendar and my last conversation with them as they're looking at at possibly doing spring break the third full week of march uh team liberty is aware of that fluctuation and uh they you know their conclusion was that they would be okay either way uh with its current placement or a week delayed uh depending on how things flesh out with the northland capped schools obviously we don't want to create a hardship for the kids that participate in the career centers or the northland caps any questions of the board otherwise we'll see this in january with our
077calendar hearing and those annual pieces that we have for board considerations 7.02 contracts purchases and bids we do have several items to bring forward as a recommendation this evening so we'll turn it over to mr anderson thank you uh we have three items uh all under the uh policy djf-1 emergency purchases and actions uh the first pertains of manor hill where we had a fairly significant leak on the roof and so we hired a roofing contractor to come out there and repair that we also had some roof issues at donovan that we had to call somebody in to remediate quickly that was with weatherproofing technologies and then last i did want to stress this last point using karazak dollars the district did move ahead with a pretty significant purchase under the same policy whereby we
078did procure 920 hepa filters to be distributed and put into place into every classroom across the district our plan is to have that in place in most classrooms come the start of next semester and just wanted to share that this is something that we've really been focused a lot on with our team and steve alters and his crew and and steve actually has a long-standing partnership with children's mercy and their environmental air folks and so in working with them and things that we can do to improve airflow we've done everything we can we did that right out of the gate and kind of just in terms of our systems which are a little bit older and they're large and they're hard to really regulate uh in a super highly effective way but they do perform
079well for us we keep the systems running pretty regularly but but this would be the only next step that we could do practically and so we were able to kind of work with that karzak dollar procure expedite delivery will expedite install uh and really this is a really significant positive measure on that air filtration part of which is very important uh in this time the other thing just to stress is this is a good investment going forward as well those units can stay in those classrooms will be helpful in the flu season you know and just going forward post pandemic uh so we felt it was a pretty expenditure to kind of move forward again using those dollars that were available for such expenses um i'd be happy to take any questions and they're relatively
080quiet yeah they are we we made sure that we had a couple of test test runs to make sure that they weren't disruptive at all and i've been assured that they are not i moved the board approved the listed emergency purchases and agreements aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes kim marie yes mission carries all right board of education section legislation and advocacy mg bills are being filed msba has sent out a request for board members who are interested in testifying regarding educational bills they are pretty sure that there is going to be another push to move school board election dates to november which msba opposes and a push for more vouchers particularly due to virtual the virtual things that parents have run across in trying to get tutoring and other private
081services paid for um those are their two big things they see at this point in time so be aware upcoming meetings we do not have a meeting until january 5th and then we'll start our 2021 list of meetings and board remarks i had the opportunity to do character trade on friday and i actually went to the chamber of commerce but for those of you who haven't gone over yet be aware they want to video you um they want a few words that they will cut and splice into a video that goes out on the chamber website um and it includes the kids they it was really cute to have all the kids there um they had a number of parents that were also zooming in it's fun to do it at the chamber because you
082get to see all the parents but the children receive a gift bag with about a hundred dollars worth of stuff in it so that is a great increase over the amount that has come from the past year and a number of new vendors so when you go and do that they caught me when i came in to sign certificates so just be aware don't go in your grubbiest clothes if you care about how you look on a video and she you know she'll give you as many takes as you need for doing that but it's not as much fun as being there but you still read the little cross the little pieces you say congratulations everybody waves gives thumbs up so it is it is fun in that respect just not as much fun so
083all right i have a few remarks and i'm going to read it and i'll just warn you that i'll probably get weeping so as you would expect with me um so uh you'll probably remember at the beginning of the year i did a video and welcoming staff back and um and i asked for all of us to lean into discomfort for the year and at the time um had no idea what that would mean um so this year has been a difficult year with a lot of discomfort for a lot of people a pretty heavy load for staff students and families um and i applaud that we were able to get through all of that and finish the semester no one no one expected that we would be here today having gone through all semester
084but we're all due for a break um on the other hand some of that discomfort has led to really amazing things happening and we've had to evolve and learn and implement new practices thinking expectations dr westfall talked about implementing video over fine arts there have been so many examples of those things that we've had to do differently because of the circumstances but they're amazing in innovations and i hope that we can learn from those and embrace them and carry them through to whatever comes next um and in my board remarks at the beginning i also asked for us to extend grace to each other and that is something that i have seen in tremendous amounts grace support love in our school community and to our school community and i hope we can continue those things
085in the new year as well um so take a deep breath thank you to my fellow board members it has been the hardest year since i've been on the board dr tucker everyone on the administrative team every single employee in the system it's been a tough year but we've got here together so i wish everyone a peaceful and restful break and new year and thank you again you're here yeah all right okay no actual tears just correct me all right and that leaves us too no way to follow that up all right sandra aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes nick yes marie yes now she cares kind of hard to do [Music] you