001[Music] so [Music] she said [Music] under god indivisible with liberty and justice good i moved the board approved the agenda as presented aj yes scott yes david yes angie yes andy yes nick yes marie welcome good to be back um haven't physically been at the podium for running honoring excellence since i think march and um we're glad to be back to recognize some very deserving individuals uh we're going to make a point of it over the course of probably the next few months of recogni recognizing several members of our team that have made this re-entry possible and and tonight and i talked to steve anderson a few months ago and he really wanted not that everyone's uh you know everyone's deserving but he wanted to elevate the nutrition services team for what they've done uh
002dating back to march when the shutdown began if you follow our social media this team just surpassed 250 000 meals served since march and it's an incredible group and as steve uh told me last week he said rather than you just stand up there and read could we come up maybe with a video so i don't take offense to that that's that's just kind of how how we roll so um we were able to go out to liberty oaks just yesterday and you'll see some familiar faces here that we'll introduce as well but without further ado brian let's throw to the video from liberty oaks when we recreated [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Laughter] [Music] every day to our managers [Music] with [Music] today [Music] and the opportunity to provide for households and families what
003[Music] so a huge thank you to this team and we have several members of their team with us tonight uh we have the director of nutrition services von goliford she's here vaughn want to wave to us they're in the back also assistant director of nutrition services misty newland well there you are misty and then they wanted me to uh to introduce and have them come up for the official presentation of the certificate and that would be cafeteria managers from both heritage middle school and liberty oaks who you saw in that video vera vera holloman from hms and sarah mcleod from liberty oaks if you guys would come up accept the award and let's give them a big round of applause our final recognition was one that we tried to do i think back in march
004and it was postponed and postponed again we are able to pull this one off tonight as i would like to introduce mrs melody moore and mr bruce dickerson they are here representing the missouri alliance for arts education tonight they have a special presentation hello so it is our honor to present which apparently is a bit of a surprise presentation you know a lot of surprises have so many surprises been going on for the missouri arts alliance of missouri alliance for arts education we have the administrator of the year award and one of the things that i have the honor of presenting is a note from mr roger kelly our arts education director from the missouri department of elementary and secondary education this administrator of the year award of course goes to dr jeremy tucker superintendent
005liberty public schools this is from mr kelly congratulations dr tucker exclamation point you exemplify the ideas of the missouri alliance for arts education which we call maae administrator of the year award under your leadership the liberty arts program continue to excel and are strong examples for other missouri school districts to model in days where many schools are being faced with financial challenges liberty public schools continues to set the arts as priority receives an incredible return on their investment again and again and again and i'll put another again in there fine arts teachers want to teach in liberty and by hiring the best your district has human capital that sets high and rigorous expectations for the more than 12 000 liberty students involved in the arts that is life changing this does not happen without great
006leadership on your part as noted by your districts your district receiving for the eighth year in a row the 2020 best communities for music education under your leadership the arts are important for all students and your community your district's work in arts integration and their participa their partnership with the kennedy center for the performing arts provides new and innovative training for your teachers as well as other districts in the kansas city area from the missouri department of elementary and secondary education congratulations without question your leadership blazes a trail for others to follow sincerely roger kelly arts education director missouri department of elementary and secondary education good evening and in addition to what melody read from roger i know that roger has ties to the district here but having been a music educator in the kansas
007city metro area for the past 40 years i want to affirm and underscore the fact that these differences are noted statewide as well as with with my colleagues here in the metro area the investment that you have made and that you have led and supported and and by the your board and staff is i think even more significant now with the role that the arts will have in teaching our students ways in which to be able to communicate and to express what they're going through at this time not just emotional trauma but physical trauma are addressed and neurons are redirected through arts education it's not the only subject where that happens but it's significant they have found that in in much rehabilitation and it's not just feel good but it helps the brain to be
008able to rewire and to be able to address and to be able to communicate in ways that aren't always thought of as ways in which to communicate and so i the district is going to benefit significantly and your community because of the leadership that has been exemplified by dr tucker by the liberty schools and by your arts instruction in music in arts theater dance opportunities as well and so all of this is significant in the lives of our community and so i would like to read missouri alliance for arts education administrator the year award presented to dr jeremy tucker of the liberty public schools in 2020 congratulations and thank you also as a grandfather to some kids that are going to matriculate through the liberty schools in a couple years i am more than thrilled
009even though i taught in independence for for a long time i i knowingly and willingly give and give my endorsement and love for what my children and grandchildren are going to be experiencing because because of you thank you thank you so before i close i talked to aaron money a little bit earlier and with this being a surprise tonight we fully expect to be put on a plan by dr tucker first thing in the morning that concludes honoring excellence for this evening we are hungry foreign so i couldn't hear what he said sorry all i heard was something about three minutes so apologize if there's anything wrong thanks so so i can't possibly address this in three minutes and thankfully i had a chance to visit dr tucker almost an hour last week so what
010i can't get through at all i really can't start i'm just hoping to create a dialogue and hopefully you'll take up somewhat of the cause or at least push forward wherever you feel is necessary i just want to start with this with a little story we moved here about a little over a month ago from out of state and we love the school district so that aside let me just say that so far it's been terrific we'll move here we have a one son left in our home um and i'll just set the stage we we go to school everybody's in mass i'm not a mass guy no offense to anybody that is but but it is what it is so um we go to school he gets there um he sits by like what
011you guys are always probably farther apart school's cut in half two days a week so he comes here he knows nobody he sits in a class with a mask on where he knows nobody and can talk to nobody um he makes friends very easily that's not the problem um walks down the hall where he there the reason they're not separated really is because well there's so many kids that can't possibly keep them six feet apart so to speak he's in a shuffled into a 20-minute lunch break because it's broken up into five sections where he sits by nobody [Music] goes back to school and does the same thing so we're thinking no problem we'll be in the football game this weekend and we learn that outdoor sports remember only those students who get two tickets
012who are actually involved in it whatever it is to whomever they want to give it to and we can't go we can't support and he gets to know nobody so we're left with a dilemma i'm much more willing to work with this kind of stuff in the school districts and i know the school district falls under the cdc ultimately or the local health district which falls under the cdc's guidelines and i had this conversation with dr tucker so i don't mean to i'll let you again address that but the point i'm getting at is when you look at these kids who go to these games they're all huddled by each other with their mask on you if anybody watch college games i'm a big college guy no fans of the chiefs love the chiefs now
013but i'm a college guy they all sit with each other right with their mass on they all sit with each other we can do much better than we're doing to help our kids and outdoors is a perfect place to do it this is a time and a place where i propose we begin some some push back there is no better place than outside to do this and this is a great place and another example and i'll close with this because i'm out of time like i tell i do a lot of flying and in my flying i sit 18 inches apart from somebody on the side and when i fly i see it 9 to 12 inches apart front to back and wear a mask how is it that the covid knows that it's okay
014when i'm on a plane to be in that thing but once i get off the plane i gotta move to five or six feet and nobody's getting more sick from flying planes how is that you get my point it what we're dealing with here is guidelines guidelines that can be worked with and guidelines that are overkill especially outdoor stuff and i would like to just simply close with at the very least i want to establish i would hope we could establish individual guidelines that are not based on what i call fear at least for the outdoors and based on guidelines that i think are failed i've been wearing mass for 15 years i'm in the house waste industry there is nothing okay thank you thank you for hearing me i move the board approve consent
015agenda items 3.01 to 3.06 um aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes marie yeah thank you first off is our innovation and learning department so we're going to welcome dr moore to the podium to speak on their behalf dr moore thank you and congratulations dr tucker um thank you everybody we have had our first full week of school and everything has been off to a good start and we've had to make some adjustments here and there for different areas both virtually and face to face but the innovation and learning department would really like to recognize our teachers and our administrators who made the start very smooth the administrators were all very well prepared and the teachers welcomed back kids again both virtually and face to face and it's just been
016great to see the students smiling faces and this friday we do have an early release on the calendar which was already pre-scheduled buildings will use that time to reflect on the start of school and to begin focusing on their school improvement plan and their knee evaluations so we look forward to that time we're also starting this week with some assessments and so students will begin taking the i ready in math and reading to see where they have hopefully had growth since the spring also special programs the children's service fund is in full swing and we have expanded our services to many different areas we are getting ready to send a survey through panorama to see where we can also identify other needs that students and families may have and then finally as you know i
017think it was in the spring i've lost track when we did this but we talked about program evaluations and how those could perhaps look a bit different and what areas we felt we needed to evaluate department of innovation and learning did work with the directors this summer and came up with some ideas for a new program evaluation and we would like to present that process that we went through at the october study session and get your recommendation to move forward with that in the meantime we have included in our board report for this month just some updates on areas that we would typically do a program evaluation on in september so you'll see the a plus program we were able to finish the year and get a student's a plus certified also what we're working
018on right now to ensure that students can still do tutoring is some virtual tutoring options for the high school student so they can get their hours i'm working on that with both high schools right now and then career education we had over 100 students last year who did job shadowing we had many students as you know who participated in internships this year we're excited that we have over 120 students participating in the eip program with melissa taylor and then you will see some additional information on ell and i think that's it so if you have any questions we would take those now i have a couple awesome um there was a note in there about the elementary and doing the i ready and the reading diagnostics and is that also for the virtual kids because
019i thought they were doing all sats so are they doing two separate tests what i just you want to talk i think they're all well i because it said it specifically said the i ready and the reading diagnosis diagnostics were for the face to face and that this okay okay and what can you tell me about the behavioral analysis analysts who who are they looking to work with that was something under rebecca's program it was it's grant money oh through the children's service fund right yes so they will um different different buildings depending on what the needs are that the principals share so for principal shares that they have a need then we bring someone in so is it just kids in general maybe experiencing anxiety not necessarily your special ed population no any students
020okay can you explain that a little bit more okay so anyone can use can utilize services okay then my last question i saw that uh sped is doing a newsletter now is that going to be like a weekly thing a monthly thing and what is there i mean that was just last week right that that went out it was last week so if they had much feedback on that okay just curious because it was an interesting newsletter form g has been a lot of it so yes trying to trying to work through and make sure everybody's on the same page okay thanks all right so to ping off of the old set question i know we've got some tests that are in person i'm assuming i shouldn't assume is the psat all in person as
021well as of right now yes so everybody will be taking it on that same day on 10 14. the psat yes um that is still as of right now we're kind of working through what that looks like okay yes i'm saying same right act one day okay and then if we if we've got students i mean i look i know there's all kinds of stuff in here right we've got some students who have you know critical health parents at home or whatever family members can't come into the school are they just going to not do any of the testing or are we going to find a way to allow them to participate in some way shape or form if they don't want to come in if we have the online option for students then we
022will go through and do that so that is what we did with the act and so we're still doing the act vouchers for this year so that we don't have all the students testing so if we have the ability for a student to do it online we will if not we've told the buildings we will make do here you know if we need to put a couple students in different places and spread them out we'll do that as well so we're not going to let them be penalized for being at home perfect other questions of dr moore innovation thank you thank you uh next up then under 4.02 we're going to welcome dr dixon seahorn to the podium to give us the equity department report good evening everybody promised to be short and sweet i
023just wanted to highlight just a couple of areas from the report that you've already received and i'm certain have had an opportunity to review the first one is around um plan number 13 from the equity center strategic plan and that is really about the fact that our cultural competency work group that we have finalized our customized version of panorama's dei survey and this is really for the purposes of family engagement so we have turned over our customized wording and phrasing of the statements that will be on that survey to really get a feel from our families of uh how diverse how equitable how inclusive we are and then after getting that feedback from them so the survey will roll out uh the weeks of october 5th through the 16th and then our goal is as
024a result of that survey to have parents those that participate to just give us insight on whether or not they want to participate in a focus group and then for second semester we're hoping to generate those focus groups and really dive into that data that we get the feedback we get a little bit more so very excited about that the family engagement survey will have really three areas around barriers to engage school climate and then also school fit so another thing that will be unique this year when we roll out the panorama survey so there's the social emotional learning side of panorama that's what we've been doing we're also going to of course add the family engagement piece and then also we're going to add a student survey that has a dei focus panorama already
025has this designed it is typically distributed to grades 6 through 12 we've elected to add fifth grade because we believe we need that i'm coming out of elementary school perspective and so we're going to take that survey to the fifth grade level the difference will be that for grades six through twelve it'll it's already normal reference we won't have that kind of data for fifth grade but we'll be able to create our own baseline this year uh secondly wanted to highlight plan number 17 and uh this is actually hot off the press our cultural competency work group has been working very diligently for the past really six to eight months on curating resources around um cultural competence cultural relevance cultural responsiveness unconscious bias and so we finally have launched that resource as of uh yesterday
026and so we're so so so excited about that it went out to all lps staff we recognized that there are others other than just classroom teachers that also need to be aware of the information that's provided in terms of those resources and so as of yesterday evening we had just under 200 hits at around 187 visits to that site so we'll continue to monitor that we'll also continue to kind of switch out the resources so we keep it fresh and new and different for all of our staff one last thing i wanted to highlight is that i've been on sort of a tour de france if you will right here in lps in terms of having conversations at the building leadership team level around unconscious racial bias and so we've just really used an excerpt
027of the reality of unconscious racial bias from the book unconscious bias in schools which will be one of our featured book talk subjects for the purposes of our dei district leadership team books book talk series so we wanted to really get the message uh to the boots on the ground at the building leadership team level uh recognizing that the principal cannot do this work alone a chief equity officer can't do the work alone and neither can a school leader and so they need those influencers in their buildings uh to help them do the work and so it's been opening up some really good really deep conversations around diversity equity inclusion we're now those those members of that team the larger building leadership team are uh rallying around principles supporting them and undergirding them and doing
028the work so we have been to at this point uh 17 of our 19 schools uh we have liberty north that will be i'll be facilitating that conversation with their team next week we have plans for liberty high school the last week of this month so moving forward with that work i'm very excited about the conversations that we're having any questions for me at this time i have a question i okay um on the resource hub i think [Music] we have an educator and let's say as an example they're going to switch out a text right that makes sense so this is really a year about laying the groundwork and establishing the foundation we have learned through the conversations at the building leadership team level that people are in different places right but the good
029thing is that most are eager and willing to learn new things and so no this is not about a code switch where you just turn some things on and off and i'm going to stop teaching this way and start teaching this way this is really about helping to build mindsets and to really further develop belief systems about what's the right work to do and so because people are in different places some are readily taking the resources and incorporating it into what they're already doing others are okay i see this i understand it give me a little bit more time to kind of massage this and understand it better and so and that's okay because we have to start where we are recognizing every school every team's at a different place and move the work forward
030slow but sure and so that's the goal of this but providing the resources so people have kind of like one-stop shopping of where i can go and get something it is not by any means an exhaustive list of resources it's not that but is it a place where you can go and get some information and and start building those muscles around cultural competency which is really about knowledge and skills and dispositions you need to have being more culturally relevant in terms of my planning for instruction be more culturally responsive in terms of how do i respond to students and families that come from various cultural backgrounds okay that's really what this is about this is about education and exposure at this point logistically on the family survey how are we communicating to families that that's
031open and available to take we have a whole process that we'll use with panorama when it's time for that window to start opening up we'll roll out the communication in advance okay and we'll be sure to message this in the way that this particulars dei server that this is something new uh we really want your perspective we want as many of you to participate as possible it's important for everyone to complete the survey where possible yes perfect other questions of dr dickson thank you thank you next up 4.03 then our finance report ms cindy sullivan good evening two donations to recognize tonight a donation of topsoil fill dirt valued at 2 500 donated by vince armelio to be used on future projects at the liberty high school athletic fields and a donation of labor and
032material valued at thousand 74 three dollars donated by hollis and miller architects to construct outdoor classrooms between the south valley discovery middle school campus and i have included additional details and renderings of that donation at the end of my report if you would like to see what that is all about it's quite quite a project and we're so appreciative of both of these donations and the generosity of the people donating them to our district of a couple things i wanted to highlight in my report to you tonight um the first one regarding the payroll tax deferral which i explained i'm sure most of you are familiar with that but i just wanted to let you know that we have received only a handful of calls from staff that this might affect and not one of
033them is asking for it most of them well all of them are asking to opt out of it so as a district as i indicated in my report we have decided not to participate in this payroll tax deferral opportunity and um i don't know of any district in the state of missouri that is opting into it so we feel very comfortable that this is the best thing for our employees and if an employee does want to participate we would entertain that on a one one by one situation and allow them to do that but we just haven't had any interest in it at all so i wanted to bring that to your attention and the audit and finance committee did meet last night all seven members were in attendance we started the evening with a
034closed session where they met with the auditor denise and i excused ourselves ourselves so they had the opportunity to meet with brian eckoff the partner in charge of our audit so that they could ask any questions about the process or what he will be auditing and express any concerns that they might have about anything that they happen to look at or are concerned about it with general things in the district that lasted about a half hour and then we can reconvene into open and we had a really great meeting and i wanted to pass along that they were extremely complementary of the processes and the things that we have put in place on the return to learn process they all had just a good experience unfortunately and just great things to say about all of
035the work that the people sitting in this room have done so i wanted to pass that on always i think there are things they thought could happen differently or maybe better but nothing that they wanted to complain about or pass on to you so i felt that that was a good um good thing that i wanted to pass on to you about the people in the community on that committee and what they're hearing and saying so their next meeting is scheduled for october 19th where hopefully the auditor will be back to present the financial statements and the audit to them and then the next night on the 20th he should be here to present that audit to you at the board meeting that evening the auditors have been here things seem to be going well
036from all i know so i don't expect any differently but we'll see what they have to say when we have our exit meeting and when they come back to present to you that's the things i wanted to pull out for my report for you tonight i would be glad to answer any other questions that you might have questions of cindy thank you thank you uh operations report then 4.04 mr anderson dr dr vogler was a little eager to kind of beat me to the podium so i will be brief just a few things to draw to the report for you all tonight just real quickly under health services as is mentioned the entire nursing team has gone through uh the close contact tracing program run by johns hopkins and has kind of brought that into
037buildings and are part of those building teams which has been very valuable for those groups also wanted to point out with respect to nutrition services uh much as was mentioned earlier um just really wanted to kind of celebrate them and and as they pivot forward so i think as we mentioned last month or a couple weeks ago usda has decided to extend that waiver through the balance of the school year or the calendar year i should say and as part of that our work to not only serve our folks uh but now everything's free lunch and breakfast but in addition anybody under 18 18 and under within the community including you know all the way from uh birth to to kindergarten those folks are served as well um and then the challenges in between managing
038those hybrid students uh that we are providing them options for meals now free meals when they are not in school for secondary and then our virtual students so as you can imagine it's just the logistics is pretty intense but can't say enough about the work that they have done a little glitches along the way but have really pulled that off quite well already in the first week or so i also wanted to mention kids own staff because at the elementary level many of the i think all the buildings are having lunches within the classroom and so the teachers are not getting their normal break during the course of the day and those breaks can be fairly important and necessary and so the kids on staff throughout the district uh have agreed they're getting paid for
039this of course but they are working extra hours either after their am shift or they're coming in early from their pm shift to provide that relief for elementary teachers which i know they appreciate the building leadership has been great and of course tanika brown and her leadership has been very very helpful in that regard and the last thing real quick on construction update everything's over at liberty high school right now we had a meeting earlier this uh this afternoon the atrium um the theater and the lmc will all be concluded wrapped up by october 1 uh and then the 800's by thanksgiving and so if all goes well what that means is really for the first time in in quite a few years that over the holidays and for the next few months we'll have
040a little bit of a break from construction um but uh so all the guys are kind of looking forward to decompressing a little bit so anyway all is well there and we're excited to wrap those projects up with that i'd be happy to take any questions eve the kidzone people yes thank you um because i know that's difficult for the elementary teams that either have their break first thing in the morning and then are done for the day or have to wait until late afternoon i know that that has been a big relief for those teachers if they can just get used to asking more recent more often for their necessary breaks because they struggle with that um also i had the opportunity to go and watch one of the school cafeterias those nutrition service
041people are amazing they are they've got that system down to getting the lunch getting stuff together getting the carts out it's interesting i'm not sure how the carts are going from the cafeteria to the classrooms in all the buildings i was at schumacher and those are being delivered by admin and the instructional team um but that is quite an endeavor so they are well deserved of their kudos for that so thank you thank you and i will pass it along to both of them they appreciate them they'll appreciate that it's amazing yeah echo what angie said and steve the question i keep getting from parents is how the heck is this working how are we paying for this but i don't know if you could take just a second maybe to talk about what you
042know about the usda about your program or how it operates um that's a good question i don't know if i can wade too deep into it other than i know that everything is effectively reimbursed and and ms sullivan might be able to kind of help me out a little bit uh on the back end of that but i know with that waiver um all free reduced and non-pre-reduced are are all those meals are reimbursed so our job is to track all that work and then submit that uh for reimbursement is that pretty close to that end federally that is that is something that we advocate for every single summer when we're in washington dc as far as the snap program school nutrition assistance program so it's been kind of nice not to have to do
043that the last several months and this summer as they've continued to extend that beyond just that pre-introduced lunch population so the question then becomes is this our new normal or at what point do we kind of move back to kind of the traditional so even as we're providing free meal assistance for families all families we still want to encourage families to complete their free and reduced lunch information so that we have that on file at whatever point we revert back the other piece to that is we utilize that data for other things than just nutrition services as far as additional assistance that we provide families the other thing and i know it's in here a little bit of a blurb but as we think about transportation coming back i know we're a weekend week and
044a half everything moving smoothly feel good about it yeah it really has those first couple days are always interesting as you can imagine but they they really were able to get by with just a few little hiccups along the way i would also add that we had the opt-in program this year across the system usually that's only secondary but to help us in our planning we went k-12 on the uh opt-in and then it was i think jeff said it was the day before or two days before i think he had 130 families say oh by the way uh we need a ride and of course they just put their heads around it and took care of it all so some of those little glitches those first couple days was a result of their willingness
045just to take all that on uh so i appreciate it that they did that without i mean i didn't know about it until a couple days later of course which is which is great okay thank you next up the long anticipate anticipated 4.05 human resources report dr vogel r thank you i'm very excited to share with you the report on behalf of the human resources department today actually we've uploaded a full report but a couple things i do want to highlight from that one is with regard to the work of our compliance officer dr dwayne smith he is hosting in partnership with two entities some very important training opportunities for our leaders one we did a year ago this is the second year we'll be doing that and it's in partnership with moxa the metropolitan
046organization to counter sexual assault and that training is really designed on victim sensitivity and how to uh manage students who have experienced sexual assault in a way that doesn't re-victimize uh people when we did this last year we got tremendous feedback from our leaders many building principals also talked with the moxa folks about replicating that training in their schools with their counselors and their teachers so we'll be doing that training again for our leaders a refresher for leaders returning and then for our new leaders will be a first time experience for them the second training is one around gender equity training and this is in partnership with glscn this organization will come and train our leaders coming up in the next month specifically around creating a culture of inclusion uh for uh students with uh
047with gender identity questions uh issues of gender identity or orientation this is a really important training for our leaders because many times these students wrestle through these issues and don't have anyone or don't feel like they have anyone to talk to and so this training is really important because we want to create a pathway for our leadership and and for our staff as well uh to open lines of communication so that people feel safe uh feel like they have someone to turn to so they're not left alone uh wrestling with their thoughts so those trainings are very important i wanted to draw that out because this really does represent a passion of our department the work of our our chief equity officer of course this is high on her list as well and the in
048the partnership the corner that we're turning as a district this partnership is really resulting in uh in some opportunities to uh to train and equip our leaders to really better reach and teach kids uh we're after the whole child and so that those two training specifically that are coming up are very important in that process i also want to draw out uh the work of our wellness coordinator she is working with area fitness centers now to build bridges that will result in some discounts for our staff we've got a very small budget and part of that budget is utilized to offset the costs of people who participate in in wellness initiatives and activities that they get a break from their gym memberships if they meet certain benchmarks and goals we want to expand that and
049part of expanding that of course means creating partnerships with area fitness facilities so that they'll come down on their rates and then when we offset and reimburse that we can allow our budget dollars to go further so that work is taking place with some positive results in our community that will benefit our employees also want to draw your attention to the benefits enrollment obviously tonight you're going to be hearing from holmes murphy you'll have an opportunity to take a first look at dr tucker's recommendation for the insurance renewal all of that is pointing toward our benefits open enrollment window that starts wednesday october 28th it'll go through tuesday november 10th and it's in during that window when all of our employees with about 1700 employees that will be needing to enroll in benefits and so
050that's what we're working toward and as part of that open enrollment opportunity this year we're adding a new online benefits decision support tool we're utilizing a company known as pickwell for that work and this online benefits decision support tool allows individual employees to go in and put in their personal information that normally you wouldn't be sharing in consultation with the human resources department or with concierge services like avon benefits but they can put that information in and get a counsel basically back from that portal that will help guide them in their decision-making process we want to make that available to our employees leading up to that open enrollment window so they'll be better equipped and more confident in their uh health care decisions there's other information in here i'll certainly be willing to entertain any
051questions that uh that you have with regard to that report at this time dr vocal art did you say did you mention counselors would be involved in some of that moxa training or is that a future yeah we're doing it with leaders so our building principles and assistant principals will undergo that training now and some of the building principles have connected with moxa about replicating that training in their building with their broader staff um my top question is always substitutes how have we had much of a need for substitutes yet and how are we doing with building subs yeah excellent question uh right now we're we're very fortunate of course the beginning of the year has always uh historically been a very good year so we're down in our demand in fact i just had
052a conversation with dr tucker this morning our demand overall is lower at the start of this year than compared to the same start last year so it's not a september to september comparison it's the first five days of the school year which last year was in august first five days of the school year this year in september and we are seeing a lower demand this is good news it means our staff are taking uh being present at work very seriously we've we've uh obviously communicated to them the unknown variable of not being sure exactly how much demand the pandemic might place on absenteeism and on subdemand and so people are being very conscientious about being at work when they're healthy and well to be at work and that has paid off at least in the
053first beginning of the school year with with a lower demand on our subpool overall but do we have building subs in every building or are they just placed strategically their place strategically so we have enough to cover every building but because the pre-k through fifth grade environment is fully face to face monday through friday we've actually doubled up those uh dispatch subs those building subs in those locations then they'll fan out from there depending on where the need is they might have to fill a position at the high school so they would go then from their home building over to a high school but if the demand isn't there and they are not needed then they're available to assist in that elementary school building but did you guys have any input into who those building
054subs would be or did kelly just say here's your building subs yes we we had input and we have input just like we do with any long-term subs we have input so kelly does the the heavy lifting the lion's share of the work uh gathering uh those people who are interested in doing that work and then they report those individuals to us we have a kind of a right of refusal if you will in that process so i'm not sure if this is a you question or somebody else's question class sizes at the elementary are those generally at the place we thought they would be if we had kids coming back from virtual already i know we've had kids coming back from virtual already yeah and some of those class sizes have popped do we
055have a class limit um how how are we doing that question well it is and then there are others who are equipped to answer that question as well so it's something that's being monitored regularly uh going into the school year we had uh class size based on the information that we received from from families some have changed and so that does affect depending on where where those families select to go can impact a class size we of course always have people that move into the district who are new and then go through that enrollment process and that can tweak or change a class size here and there so we we have that and as a result of that there's some monitoring and adjusting on those class sizes i don't know dr westfall talked this morning
056about that i don't know if you want to speak at all to the class size monitoring or dr moore back from virtual back to face to that face very tight right now or at the limit of making sure and so we can't possibly right now bring other students in so that we have to look at kind of put them in another space just today we send out to the buildings a list so they can start keeping track of families who are requesting moving from virtual to face-to-face or vice versa so that comes the quarter for but for the most part so do we have like a preferred class size limit at secondary and elementary good however looking at our buildings some buildings can fit 23 in a classroom and still have the students six feet
057apart so we've done that we really don't have any classrooms over um that size but then we have yeah we do buildings one or two maybe events but but very few but we also have some buildings that have smaller classroom classes it's a smaller room right and so that across the system class sizes the physical classroom space is a lot of different uh shapes and sizes and so you you can fit a larger number and still maintain that social distancing in in some classrooms and it's just not physically possible in another and so that will really always be your your limiter in having some kind of across the board uh you know number that is a threshold that would trigger an additional teacher or something like that okay thanks uh okay thanks any other questions
058no it's it's just a thanks uh to dr smith obviously for finding those opportunities on the gl scn and then obviously for you and dr moore and supporting that and getting that off the ground i think it's important training to have and i appreciate that yeah thank you very much just a quick comment which is really just i'm going to say the same thing that nick said but um glsen is an amazing organization and even for adults in the room if you want to expand your thinking following them on social media would be a great way just to think differently about issues that kids are facing around orientation and preferences yeah thank you very much anything else for dr voglar thank you dr vogeler you a few items to add to my report for you
059this evening you will notice on your table tops you have a couple of books so we're going to dive back into board professional learning we put book studies on a little bit of a hold since march given the pandemic we're going to start with shattering inequities and then follow that up with belonging through a culture of dignity so i'm going to give you your next assignment chapter 1 and 2 for the october 6th study session out of shattering inequity so i think that dovetails well with what we've been working on in developing an equity-centered strategic plan and that it starts at the board level all the way down to the classroom and so one of the things that dr dixon seahorn and i have been talking about is i would hope all of our cabinet
060members but i would include the board at some point could stand and give a presentation in and around cultural competency and present it well and so that then leads us into that second text belonging through a culture of dignity uh which we've already started utilizing in many of our presentations and conversations throughout the system um so we're going to equip you uh with the ability to present at some point in and around developing an equity centered school setting culture but then also in and around what cultural competency looks like so that would be the first item that i would share um in my update secondly wanted to re iterate our worker in and around the strategic plan as we've tried to create an agile strategic plan we look forward to providing you an update at
061our october meeting we have identified a couple of point people that will be assisting us with kind of monitoring and tracking the strategic plan dr westfall is going to lead that work working closely with our consultant scott fuller previously dr heidi had done that additionally the link to the building level or the school level is dr moore tied to school improvement plans and then obviously the work in and around equity across all of our strategic plan plans will be dr dixon c horn so we look forward to sharing that information with you in october as we reconvene and provide that update i also wanted to thank everyone in this room but then across our system for a great start to the school year a little delayed obviously last week but as we were walking through
062schools one of the groups that i was missing or worried about were those staff and students that are participating in liberty virtual school and so while we can touch base and see faces and physically be in our school settings and environments as we welcome staff and students back i was worried most about those liberty virtual school staff and students around 2 500 students that are engaging in a different environment over 100 staff and shortly after my concerns dr westfall reached out and said hey we're doing a debriefing with our liberty virtual school staff on thursday of last week and so i was able to jump on a zoom meeting with nearly a hundred of our liberty virtual school staff and check in on them as well and they're doing great they're off to a great
063start certainly lots of challenges lots of problem solving but i worry that if we don't continually support them and reach out to them both students and staff that they might feel a little estranged or isolated from their school setting but also from their peers whether it's staff or whether it's students so appreciate dr westfall and her team our innovation and learning coaches for continuing to wrap their arms around those individuals that are teaching virtually for us across our system we'll continue to do that as the weeks unfold another item that i wanted to share is that we are continuing to work with clay county public health center the kansas city missouri health department mid-america regional council as it relates to datum data monitoring have a conversation later this week tomorrow actually in and around common
064gating criteria across our region we've also been working on a dashboard that we will look at bringing forward for the public's viewing of how we're performing within the system as it relates to positive cases but then also total number of quarantines that we're seeing among our students but then also among our staff so i appreciate our teams that have been working on that as far as collaboration with family and stakeholders we are reconvening groups like our lps pta council our diversity equity and inclusion committee as well as vision 2020 in the coming weeks so we look forward to reporting out information around those key stakeholder groups with that would open it up for any questions that the board may have of me i mean you bring up an interesting point about virtual and i know
065it's always nice for us to be able to interact in some way shape or form in the building level so if there is a way either you or dr westfall or anybody has that we can certainly show our support and participate in some way with the virtual that would be great happy to do it come on over to my house good point the other thing we've talked about with communications and with mr ackerman we do a lot of our videos as we go into buildings and we highlight programs how does that look if we're segmenting or highlighting liberty virtual school so working with families to get a glimpse of what they're doing working with our teachers getting a glimpse of what they're doing to draw that forward because that's an important story as you think
066about nearly 25 percent of our students that are in that virtual environment over 100 staff and then students and teachers that may go back and forth over the course of this year so we'll continue to look at ways to pull that forward engage the board i saw dr westfall shaking her head so we'll put our heads together as to what that can look like any other questions okay that concludes our administration report okay we'll move on to 5.01 board policy revisions you have three sets of items under our board policy revisions the first of which is a series for review so policies for review i believe there are four there included for you another list of policies that are listed to be adopted on second read for this evening you saw these previously in the
067month of august and then we do have a couple of administrative procedures for your review as well that would present that slate to you this evening action only on those policies that are listed for adoption as this is the second read what are there 20 there's yes something like that there's several but the majority of them appeared to be related to a single legislation change but affected multiple policies that accurate yes 23 of them in total yeah policies listed for adoption on second read second all right yes god yes angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes yes next is new business 6.01 legal services agreements this item we wanted to turn it over to mr anderson to give us an update on as he relays kind of the renewal with the variety of legal
068coverages that we have thank you um this is actually uh one more extension for one year for all three firms um we will put this out for rfp uh next late summer and it's just time to do that so this would be one last extension for one year for all three and the only note uh as we typically do um in this case for this year all rates are are the same as they were last year um and as you can see in the report they all do different levels and types of work uh but cover us off for all legal issues that we deal with on a daily or weekly basis happy to take any questions remove the board approve legal services agreements with the firms of gwen mundorf llc two with keaney cooper
069mohan and jack stat pc and withers brandt igo and molinex aj yes that angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes yes 6.02 local compliance plan so the local compliance plan is specifically related to services for students with special needs under the individuals with disabilities education act this is an annual requirement and school districts are afforded the opportunity to either adopt the deci model plan or develop their own iteration of that we continue to align our district's work with the deci model plan and so we would present this to you this evening for your consideration again as an annual requirement i move the board adopt the model compliance plan made available by the department of elementary and secondary education aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes yes 1.03 utilization and
070recommendation yeah so this may sound odd but a sign of normalcy is renewal as it relates to health insurance um albeit we've had to get a little creative as to how we facilitate that with um team liberty both some in-person as well as virtual conversations and meetings so we appreciate team liberty rolling up their sleeves over the course of the last month really and diving in and hearing what these renewal figures look like and numbers look like as a reminder their recommendation then is brought forward to the superintendent for review upon my review then my recommendation then follows to the board of education so a couple things you have uploaded this evening uh the first of which is a letter from the superintendent to the board kind of recapping or relaying what i had heard
071from team liberty appreciate them as well as dr vogel r cindy sullivan a few other administrators that assist with that what we wanted to do this evening is bring our broker holmes murphy forward to be able to walk through the process the findings as it relates to our insurance renewal so we're going to welcome them to the podium to be able to kind of give us a recap through this slide deck as it relates to the renewal moving forward welcome thank you dr tucker uh matt wheeler uh vice president of employee benefits with holmes murphy on behalf of my team i would like to just once again give a great amount of kudos to team liberty their level of conscientiousness compassion in making these very weighty decisions in a very deliberate and diligent basis is
072is very admirable i have the inadmiral job of in less than ten minutes summarizing what was at least seven to eight hours of deliberation by the team and uh again uh we just can't commend them enough for how they weigh the way these decisions uh very very in brief format here is while it is some normal scenery and they're discussing re insurance renewal there was a lot of consternation about what this renewal cycle would look like the coveted circumstances present some unique challenges uh there was lots of unknowns around how the underwriting and insurance community was going to respond to dual issues suppression of claims that did in fact happen in april and may and secondly how they would respond to future anticipation of escalated costs for pent-up demand so going into this we anticipated
073particularly when we look at the utilization here on the next slide that there was going to be some upward pressure on the renewal which given the circumstances is really intolerable in a scenario where expenses have to be held as constant as possible so really the main discussion that was deliberated upon by team liberty was largely the medical that is the component main component is up for renewal dental was up for renewal was marketed and the decision was made to retain the incumbent carrier at no cost increase this slide simply summarizes what the utilization landscape look like and and if you look at the circle on this on this diagram it basically indicates that before covid and suppression of services happened in the medical community the liberty public schools policy and utilization was running above contract
074which is the red line on this slide that is typically going to indicate that there is going to be some adjustment to get it to contract plus dealing with medical inflation in the next year which would indicate as much as 10 plus percent impact on a renewal so there was some concern going into the renewal around that best there was marketing conducted to to basically anticipate that and figure out how to weigh the best path moving forward the next slide really looks at the covet related claim suppression in april and may to document what in fact did happen with the district's claims part of the reason why this is important is all of the medical community and underwriters are putting some adjustments in the proposals that they're making based upon what happened with the claim
075suppression we wanted to make sure that that was just or unjust for what they're applying to liberty public schools basically what the answer for liberty public schools is shown in red here is that the annualized claim suppression just over two months was equated to seven percent of total claims distribution so there was a little bit of fool's gold in in how the plan performed a little earlier in the year that needed to be taken into account and make sure that it was handled appropriately in the way that the underwriting community was viewing the district's claims the next slide really looks at the the overall landscape of what happened with both the renewal release from blue cross of kansas city as well as what the marketing response was for the district's particular utilization and opportunity moving
076from left to right you can see that blue cross of kansas city released the renewal at 10.4 percent it was initially revised to 6.9 percent um one of the things that we'll talk about the team liberty decided upon was renewal of a contract feature that more than likely in 2021 would not have delivered any dividends to the district so the decision was made to remove that which took the renewal to 4.9 percent and then ultimately that was compared against a competitive proposal from humana that was was weighed by team liberty that was at 4.2 percent over current the team ultimately decided to adopt a a prescription change a called the premium formulary to add an additional percentage of savings which essentially put it on par cost wise with what the competing carrier proposal was on
077the next slide there's a summary provided for some of the key components that team liberty decided upon in their deliberation clearly the first one before these particular factors were decided upon was whether or not to retain blue cross of kansas city as the medical carrier and partner for the district or to make a move to humana it was a very a very good discussion lots of deliberation around that topic and ultimately due to some prescription changes some formulary disruption some unknowns in the way that the network was structured and handled in long-term sustainability the decision was made to to renew with blue cross for the 2021 contract within that and we highlighted that on the summary page um the there was a contract feature that was altered the maximum refund it delivered um it delivered
078some premium savings that were immediate um this was was ultimately a contract feature that was a toss-in several years back by blue cross so it was an opportunity to to gather savings without having to give back anything and based upon where utilization's pointing it it made good sense for for the team to to choose that pathway number two team liberty decided upon choosing the blue cross premium formulary it resulted in an additional 131 thousand dollars in premium reduction it has the added benefit for a long-term mitigation of one of the biggest inflation components of the plan that we've talked about in years past and that is the prescription plan uh so so the team decided to adopt this there is some some offset to the savings and that is that there is some disruption of
079scripts and part of the reason why the team deliberated upon this and decided upon it was any market option that is out there other than blue cross of kansas city has some level of formulary that includes some of these plan features so for instance there the new formulary will have two percent effectively of scripts that will be excluded from the formulary there will be other therapeutic alternatives provided that members would need to switch to um so so the team weighed that understood that the rest of the marketplace operates in that capacity and decided that was in the best interest of the plan moving forward and then lastly a large part of the discussion and what's included in the recommendation by the team was what the subsidy level would be from the district so there was
080deliberation around whether that subsidy would remain tied to the existing ppo plan to hold that subsidy constant or to to tie that subsidy to the 1500 ppo plan ultimately the team decided upon the approach to to keep the subsidy constant from year to year to make sure and free up funds for other portions of conversation so in essence that was the next slide just summarizes the overall cost scenario for for the district which held liberty public schools costs constant or for the active population at around 11.7 million dollars for medical dental and vision coverage and then the additional 486 thousand dollars that is reflected in the the premium change that's in play will be uh basically associated through uh payroll contribution changes and that was ultimately the decisions and the output of of the team's
081recommendation any any questions that we could help answer oh so what you're saying is that at 486 000 and change premium change is coming from from payroll deductions from employee payroll deductions okay so that's going to up the pay the cost of insurance to the staff yes depending upon which plan they elect and that's not true across all plans there's still two free plans so the high deductible health plan would still be a no cost plan for employee only coverage as would the 1500 ppo if someone for instance is on the existing 500 ppo plan or the or the zero dollar epo program they would have an increase in payroll contributions to remain on those on an employee-only contribution basis thanks so i i would just add to that that i had the opportunity to
082sit in on um the second or the conversation earlier this week last week sorry about that particular issue angie and there was a lot of in-depth conversation about it and yeah team did finally come to a consensus that this was the right option and i will say team liberty for as many years as i was involved with it and i'm sure it's pretty much the same now they're very thoughtful about how that's going to impact staff they don't just go carpalasha say oh that's going to be whatever and and to them commend them for really being involved with that process and involved in i'm sure good questions to you guys that made you do some extra searching no it was phenomenal questions great deliberation very conscientious and again always looking out for their peers and
083how it impacts everybody up and down and throughout the district in every building in every role and so it's it's a pleasure to watch it in action it's it's the way it should operate so the teams to be commitment commended i this after eight years of not being involved in team liberty um you know in the actual meetings this is my first chance to sit in on the dialogue and the in the discussion the debate and the quick analysis on matt's team and bob's team of hey what if we did this what would that save us what would that you know how would that affect people um i i really appreciated the chance to see it up close and personal i think that they did a great job of trying to understand the impacts on
084very small numbers of people that are going to come from this prescription drug changes is going to be a thing for a few people um for a lot of people it's going to be not issue or actually maybe a benefit um but there's going to be some people that really have real life impacts from any time you do a change like this but that balance of both the individual and and trying to figure out what's the right thing for the district level i was impressed with that level of conversation i was curious in your carrier proposals and responses aetna and cigna declined did they give any rationale as to why i think if um i don't know if we could toggle back to that aetna may have been on there at a higher price point
085it's the bar chart with vertical blues uh there we go on the far right uh so at no etna was aetna was in uh uh so here's um here's and team liberty spent a lot of time discussing this dr tucker what's you as as you know you know that the school district today is on blue cross's blue select plus network it is a narrow network based on the i-35 corridor so it has a reduced number of providers versus the broader community in exchange there's a lower price point of at use uh that has delivered some cost savings over the last several years that that district employees have benefited from where uhc's position was is that they presently don't have a network to impede against that thus didn't feel like they could get as fiscally competitive
086as the rest of the field cigna does have the narrow network locally it is it is just a poor geographic fit versus where the district's footprint is and so those were the distinct reasons for their declinations and not being able to get as aggressive as they otherwise would have lagged great what other questions for matt all right thank you again you will have the rest of um now until our october meeting to be able to ask questions if you think of anything please let us know again appreciate holmes murphy team liberty dr vogel r cindy for diving into this over the last couple of weeks and please let us know if you have any additional thoughts questions in the coming weeks otherwise we would bring that forward in october approval by the board of education
087your consideration that then would set the stage for us to be able to move forward we'll move forward and prepare for that transition into the coming program year so thank you all that concludes the insurance next item is 6.04 clayton holdings lease purchase so uh this one i believe miss cindy sullivan is going to provide an update for you and background in and around clayton holdings thank you dr tucker um this clayton holdings lease purchase is an eight year lease purchased at one point two eight percent interest and it is the funding document for the purchase of the ten propane buses that were approved at your august regular meeting um they will hopefully be delivered sometime in december so we wanted to have the funding in place to be prepared to pay for those as
088soon as they were ready to go and that we are asking for you to approve this on first read questions for sending cindy the the rationale for the least purchase is what instead of buying it out right well we're paying over eight years right yeah we're paying it stretches it matches the payment that we had been paying for the previous um mass purchase of buses that we did so we just kept that funding stream in place in the capital budget to purchase more buses this way and draw out that funding so we can keep this going and keep the replacement cycle of buses at a pretty steady pace gotcha to match what we're already have been doing okay at a very low rate at a rate under two percent correct is that what's likely how
089long do we keep buses typically how long do we typically keep about 10 years i'll move the board adopt the resolution authorizing the district to enter into state and municipal lease purchase agreement between clayton holdings llc and liberty public school district number 53. second aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes marie yes ocean carrick next is 6.05 we have several contracts and purchases that we are going to walk through and so we're going to tag team this starting off with mr anderson yes thank you uh this was actually a follow-up this rfp uh was first presented last month where we renewed an agreement with alc transportation services and this is for alternative transportation for district uh students uh as part of that rfp we had a second submittal uh and
090this is with assisted student transportation uh and is really a good complement to alc uh and so we would like to engage both firms so we did last month with alc this would be with assisted transportation and really believe that utilizing both of these firms will reduce the cost overall for these programs rather significantly over the course of the year as it relates to behavior consulting services yes this is a contract with um the behavioral consulting services and really to provide services for students and families this is funded out of the um [Music] buildings hoping service is fun thank you um and actually this is that's the same there's another agreement here similar to that but i'll pause okay and then the the next item is a ewing marion put this on here leave the
091award letter back down [Music] the second one was kind of the year zero we call it as relates to real world learning and then fast forward the award that we've received for year one subsequent years two year three potentially applying for and hopefully receiving additional funds this is to advance real world learning opportunities market value assets across our secondary students population at the same time it complements the work that we're doing with our strategic plan and advancing the skills and dispositions that we see within our graduate profile so there's that item there as well next up then back to you mr anderson yes this is again tied to the children's services fund this was another rfp uh this specifically is for um in-home family therapy and case management services uh with great circle another item
092we wanted to present to you is blue cross blue shield of kansas city dr voglar around human resources thank you very much currently our arrangement with blue cross blue shield is that they provide a reimbursement for a wellness coordinator that's rebecca fisher rebecca is an employee of saint luke's hospital and they provide the wellness coordinator then blue cross blue shield reimburses them we were given notice that st luke's is abandoning that program in all of their school system so it's not just liberty and in their entities they're pulling that out for us the effective date is the end of october blue cross blue shield will change that reimbursement anywhere else to again continue to provide a wellness coordinator and so this mou is between us and blue cross blue kc would reimburse liberty public schools
093to employ a wellness coordinator what this does is it allows us to have continuity of services we would be in control of whether a program ends or not the value out of a wellness coordinator to our school system especially a system of this size is enormous and uh avoiding a you know a break or discontinuity of service is a high priority to us so this memorandum of understanding would allow blue cross blue shield to provide the reimbursement for salary benefits and wellness budget directly to liberty public schools to employ a wellness coordinator you want to wrap us up then mr anderson happy to um these are a handful of emergency purchases and actions that were taken in accordance with uh board policy dj f-1 so real quickly american trailer and storage we with all the
094influx of desks we didn't have any place to put that those things that were displaced so we are renting some trailers for that purpose edgenuity is for virtual courses for students uh pleasant valley baptist church we asked them if we could utilize their space to help us with the pickup for virtual students right before the start of school and then there was a handful here of emergency repairs within the facilities and maintenance department just real quickly walk in freezer at liberty oaks temp con was the company that we brought in for that some fire panel issues at liberty oaks keller fire and safety came in for that uh some elevator phone issues uh at liberty north uh and those were two separate contracts and that's incred elevator came in for that work uh we had
095some minor mold issues at manor hill before the start of school that were discovered we brought in hl restoration to handle that work and then last we had a couple water heaters at early childhood that needed to be replaced in north point boiler was contracted to handle that work that concludes the contracts and purchases i moved the board approved the list of emergency purchases and agreements on first group second aj yes that yes angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes and marie yes right moving on to section 7 7.1 legislation and advocacy really don't have uh too much to relay uh this evening unless there's anything from the missouri school boards association i know that the conference is coming up virtually um rather than face to face this year so um prepping for what
096the spring legislative session has before and obviously looking forward to november and upcoming pretty significant election um nick sent me some requests to send back to missouri school board i sent them i heard from one of the mics i'm not can't remember which one the two first issues regarding adding some verbiage into their mission statement about lgbtq um what he explained to me and i'm probably not going to do as good a job as he did um msba is starting a study on that on how they want to deal with that so they've kind of put that on the back burner he said but it's not that we've forgotten it and then help me out here what was the third one that you sent because i tried to look for my email and i was
097like darn it i can't find it but there was a third issue that's going in and will be discussed at the delegate assembly this uh technology technology gap suburban rural yes and um oddly enough there were lots of school districts who also had that very concern and um there will be a piece in the delegate assembly that deals with that and that is next week yes next week so i'll be zooming in for that but i've also heard from them they anticipate quite a bit of education legislation coming through and so if possible i will go to jeff city and have life's little conversations or testify whichever what right just a reminder all board members are registered a complimentary registration for this annual report so prepare to participate in the virtual conference all board members
098are registered thank you 25th 26th right yes i'm sure they'll send out another reminder about because we just got one within the last week i saw all right um upcoming meetings we have our list of upcoming meetings there including our study session on october 6th and 7.03 board remarks i have a remark this is from our friend phyllis barks at missouri school boards association and she says congratulations once again on achieving the governance team award for 2020 we regret that we are unable to honor your achievement in person during the igniting great idea summit in june or alternatively at the msba conference in cooperation with nasa in september we did not want any more time to pass and hope that you will celebrate your achievement during an upcoming board meeting thank you for your leadership
099and best wishes for a successful new school year we hope that we will see you at the virtual conference we have received our governance award for 2020 and we can start working on the next year all right i would just like to put a big shout out to all the staff that is out there after week one have survived the first four days um and haven't quit i know that there was a big steep learning curve when kids finally hit the doors they are doing amazing work every single solitary day trying to keep those distance things going masking is also quite a lot of fun i'm sure um eating in your classroom is i my hat goes off to them for that because i know that that that is a difficult um thing but they
100are uh doing their best and so many different things are going on in so many different buildings so um thank you to all of those people who are taking care of our students throughout the day yeah i would um just add to that that as i was reading through getting ready for the meeting tonight i kept seeing the word collaboration come up in all of the reports and in the tours that we did in the schools ahead of before school started just to see everything that's been put in place and reading through in all the conversations what i've heard over and over and over again is that we've had to collaborate within the district outside of the district and i just appreciate that we continue to be open-minded and think of new ways to do
101that because we're seeing them hopefully seeing it be successful thank you i'd like to say congratulations to dr tucker leadership some start at the top makes a real difference to what happens below so great job thanks for the leadership manager don't ask me to sing [Music] all right aj yes scott yes angie yes david yes andy yes nick yes marie yes [Music] you