Board of Education Study Session from August 4, 2020

001[Music] aj yes scott angie yes david andy yes yes yes meeting minutes yes good morning august typically don't have an august study or july study session for that matter we wanted to bring back our board professional learning several different things studies discussions presentations along the way you'll recall one of our last board retreats started a conversation around versus injecting conclusions this works been going on of course the last several years most recently like as of july 1st welcomed a new position officer held by dr andre what we wanted to do this morning is to reconvene that conversation the board table as far as professional learning with a little bit of a follow-up from our last conversation help at our retreat paul we talked about frames and lenses how we approach equity both as we self-reflect

002our upbringing and perspective and also the work that we do in our respective world we're going to ask dr andre dixon to come and take a few minutes walk us through some questions that she's been utilizing as part of her entry point working with leaders across the system across the district also bringing that to forefront with our board allow you to have the opportunity to reflect share a little bit [Music] good morning everybody how are we today at this screen is 304. i want to pull something up here on the screen for everyone it's telling me it's currently used do i need to how do i okay okay so good morning again all of you should have received as of yesterday morning some questions around diversity equity and inclusion those questions were an ethical part

003of the equity talk sessions that we have been having with every single cabinet member director school leader across our organization and the purpose for those questions was really to just kind of recall the work that we've been doing over the past four or five years here at public schools so of course long before i arrived here and really just trying to get my opinion on the pulse [Music] where are we at the cabinet level where are we amongst uh directors and school leaders because everybody's in a different place and so um as we were having these conversations uh had an epiphany and realized that there's another very important uh sector of this organization that we need to include in these conversations and that would be the government's funding with u.s board of directors so the

004reason you got the uh the questions what could appear to be in the last minute is so that you did not have time to prepare to answer the questions because the equity talk says you're giving a number there you use your feelings right and so with the ap talk sessions i did not release the questions in advance anymore because i did not want to receive any scripted answers i really [Music] and so i just wanted to very quickly um just kind of share with you how we kind of created what we're going to refer to as the brave space for these kinds of conversations to be held on the beginnings of this work but then also for continuing this work and so one of the texts that i believe i've shared with you that i

005have been reading it's kind of a field guide if you will is this text here that's on the screen belonging uh through a culture of dignity and so cobb and cran out crown apple um they are the authors of this work and really the premise of what they're writing about is how to create how do we create inclusive cultures within an organization so that everybody can feel an integral part of the work that's been done and so that we can get further along in the work and so as um they were really um presenting this idea of creating the brave space there's a framework that they have in there centered around the dispositions of dignity and we've heard the word dispositions before around visible learning and the work we've been doing there so automatically that

006was a connector for me dispositions of dignity well what are they and as i was sharing and having the dialogue with every single leader in this organization we started out with this and i really asked them is this something that you can live with this is something you can agree to is this something we can all adhere to in terms of these dispositions can we all center ourselves around this work on equity uh in an attitude or spirit of empathy empathy being that uh different perspectives are going to be shared and how do we allow those perspectives to be shared without judgment and ridicule right um patience how can we really meet every single person particularly leaders in this organization at their point of need and help to bring them along around dr tucker's vision

007of where we're going with equity work with your full pledge support and endorsement and that idea is really about you think about the old fable about the tortoise and the hair you know slow and steady wins the race well this isn't a race but this is work that we have to do very steadily very consistently very strategically openness is going to be key that's another tenet that's created that that allows us to create brave spaces openness in terms of there's a point and there's a place where we all have to be vulnerable there's a point in the place where we all have to just be transparent and we have to be truthful and i didn't know that i didn't realize that there comes a moment for all of us in this work that that that

008has to happen but it can't happen if we're not open right and then the last tenet of this work is listening oftentimes it's easy for us to listen but then already have in our minds what we want to say back but this is not the kind of listening we're talking about now this is listening where we truly seek to understand where others are coming from right and so we we started out our work around that and then we went into uh for the others nine questions you only had eight and so i tried to keep it at as high of a level as possible without getting in the weeds and so the first question was around just when you hear diversity the word diversity what comes to mind and many of you have already responded

009to that question and really what we were after was just what does diversity look like within the context of our larger school community right we all know diversity is not just about race so we can just say that address the elephant in the room right and we understand it's bigger than that but what does it look like here in liberty okay the next question you received was around equity that's such a it's such a big word like what does it really mean so what does it mean to you right and ultimately what we'll get to do as as we compile all the data is we'll really be able to frame what we mean when we say equity here in liberty public schools the next question is around inclusion and it's a it's a loaded question

010right but it's really after how prevalent are issues of i say inclusion here but really it's about exclusion what about the sense of not belonging how prevalent is that in our school organization and so i had to ask every leader have you had to deal with issues where something came up where someone said i don't feel included i don't feel like i belong and then how did we respond to that because see there goes that goes back to the listening part right the next question was around what makes you feel comfortable and comfortable in the sense of confident competent at doing the work and addressing issues when they come up this helps us to understand what are our strengths here in liberty public schools we've been on this journey now four or five years surely

011we've gotten good at something right and so this helps to understand what are we feeling pretty confident about as we address equity issues of concern the next question being the inverse of that uh what makes you uncomfortable what makes you when the issues come up you go oh gosh i don't know about that one i don't know right what makes us feel not so confident or competent when we're addressing issues that come to the surface and so this helps us to understand what additional supports do we need what additional resources what additional training what kind of professional learning do we need our next question centers around what are and i asked this question a little bit differently for you as board leaders what are the opportunities for developing our professional learning this is really helping

012me to understand what are some things that we can begin working on at the governance level and so that's why i asked you what do you believe individually what do you believe is the most important equity focus area that is board of directors we need to learn about okay because we're all on a continuous cycle of improvement we're all devoted to learning particularly being in an education organization the next question which equity related issue has from your perspective been the greatest challenge for liberty public schools this is looking over the banister at the system what are some things from a system's view keep coming up as challenges that we know at some point hey we got to deal with that we really got to take a closer look at that right and so as we

013address that thing or those things whatever they are from your perspective that is what can help us as an organization begin to lead to transformative change right and so that's why that question uh was posed the next one uh any additional questions you may have about having an equity focused equity centered strategic plan what additional questions or comments do you have about that that was posed so we can get at how do we better align the work we're doing with the strategic plan in other words we're not just doing things just to be doing them but they have a very strategic purpose so these questions were posed to you and if i do not have your responses yet i'm just asking if you can get those to me no later than today i want your

014answers to be candid just raw just whatever the answer is for you and again when we go back to thinking about creating the grave spaces the brave space starts here the government's left and then it transcends to the cabinet level and then it transcends throughout the entire organization as i've been having the equity talk conversations it came to me that you know our those that follow our leadership they can't go where we won't grow [Music] and so i just wanted to just kind of come back to you because i realized that we had not put the questions out there for you and you were an integral critical part of this organization and setting the direction for where we go in our equity work and so if you have any questions or comments i'll entertain those

015at this time i do want you to know that i'm in the process of compiling all the data as i did put in the weekly update and my goal is that by the time we have our next board meeting then i can have an update of kind of what that data is beginning to look like and how it's speaking to us as an organization you know i tried to think of what would scott ask yes how many equity talks have you got i have held approximately 50. so it could be 49.51 i just lost count after about 40. just yeah so about 50 uh you know leaders across the entire organization you know i am but i have to keep it top secret for now um i am i'm seeing some trends and uh so

016that is why i wanted to get at kind of where where we need to grow so that we can just begin tackling that but yes i am seeing some trends positive trends and some areas where we can we can work on for sure that's a follow-up presentation absolutely follow-up right not today any thoughts did anyone want to weigh in at all on maybe how the questions impacted you and situations i think we're going we're going through a very similar process outside of that [Music] enable [Music] advocates anyone else all right thank you i will add that vote from a workplace [Music] but one of the questions was what are the [Music] beyond that what would it look like this type of conversation is embedded throughout the entire not just the footprint of liberty liberty [Music]

017we have coming up on thursday [Music] that's where mine not just within businesses certainly with us [Music] thank you what is uh reflected on the screen is a series of definitions and aspirations of the last couple of years i might have seen this from time to time brought it forward with our diversity equity inclusion but i think over the course of this last month equity taxes award on a couple of occasions subsequently we want to [Music] what those aspirational pieces are as we think about our strategic plans what we've accomplished tells us this will be some somewhat of a guiding document a companion piece that i wanted to bring forward before this topic of professional learning this idea [Music] and there's no shortage of opinions and perspectives i was actually at a commencement event graduation

018and it was for international online there were only three graduates two of them were from africa one of them was argentina and one of the commencement speakers who was a good friend of mine actually grew up in the same country that i also started her commencement address with this excerpt you might recognize it simply says it was the best times it was the worst it was the age of wisdom it was the foolishness it was the epoch of belief epoch of inequality it was the season of life it was the spring of hope it was the winter of us we had everything before us we had nothing [Music] we were all going direct to heaven we were all going direct the other way in short the period was so far like the present period that

019some of its noisiest stories insisted on being received for good or for evil obviously the opening to fail a few cities what a great introduction to this notion of hilarity you have competing issues that have varying perspectives so as we think about this framework kind of walk through we looked at this about a year ago with our board at a retreat we also worked on this leadership and it really has two portions look at the top side it speaks to this notion of the upside of differing perspectives so choose an issue choose the perspectives one on one side one on the other four versions and what you end up seeing is that both of those perspectives have an upside down and as you walk through the framework in and of itself the upside speaks to

020questions that include what are the values and opportunities from both perspectives beyond that what action steps can be taken to achieve values identified again from little perspectives secondly what actions [Music] brings about what blind spots or fears similarly ask the question what are the early warning signs of blind spots followed by what are the early warning signs of potential fears or issues that might arise as you work the framework you identify the positive pieces of both perspectives you identify kind of the negative piece which is really the blind spots or those fears but then by navigating that framework our hope is that you come forward with a series of action steps to be able to move the values and opportunities of both perspectives forward while at the same time identifying what those fears or blind

021spots are attributed to both perspectives maybe this is a good framework in the day in which we live there are some specific pieces though that i think apply to the work that we do as a board some examples that i thought of would be obviously navigating a pandemic who's done that before i don't think any of us have but perhaps this framework assists with that or even navigating social i know what it's like 100 years ago i know what it's like navigating social and racial justice issues um considering the economic impact of where we're at presently an upcoming election as far as a presidential election that is proving to be contentious and so really the question for us is how do we respond how do we respond as a district how do we respond as

022a board of education from a governance standpoint and so i wanted to frame that in two ways sometimes it's things that happen around us and so how do we respond we always listen in addition to the listening piece perhaps we message whether it's administration messaging something out broadly to the community or perhaps it's the board of education messaging something out broadly to the community we've done that before additionally perhaps there's a position that's taken by a board whether it's in favor of a particular path as we navigate those frameworks or maybe it's even opposing something that we don't believe is beneficial for our community the other instance is when perhaps things occur within our system so if things are occurring within our system sometimes there may be a student issue that surfaces that we need

023to attend to or address perhaps there's a staff issue or curricular or an instructional issue other times it might be operational operational in the sense that as you see across the country and racial issues that are going on across the nation maybe it's a statue maybe it's a mascot maybe it's a building name something to that effect as we think about these and we struggle with these issues they can be polarizing but yet i think there's a framework for us to be able to navigate that moving forward the reason i leave this here is just that i think it fits with the conversations that dr dixon seahorn is having because oftentimes those can be contentious issues but at the same time beyond that when we look at the pandemic when we look at economic uncertainty

024when we look at social justice issues inevitably it lands at the governance table and causes us to reflect on what we do be able to have those difficult conversations in brave spaces as we continue to move our community forward and support the work on behalf of our kids i just wanted to revisit that this morning certainly open open it up for any thoughts or reflections before we move on throughout the remainder of the agenda not this morning just those yeah that's follow-up any thoughts or reflections this morning i think there's an interesting um framework kind of in the spirit of um don't go so fast that you don't think deeply about these kinds of issues um but it's it's fascinating to me how one week we could be looking at something like this with a

025fairly balanced view another week we may look at it with an emphasis on the values of what we were trying to be about and then another week things change same facts are on the table but you could shift to working out of fear heavily and so i think it's helpful to take the time to move through things and try and find the right way forward and i think we we've learned that as well and sometimes we we hurry to quickly develop something or a response to something to your point sometimes it's better to go slow and kind of navigate those issues be able to reflect how we move forward on it good point other thoughts reflections i would just say i think that we have a couple of specific issues that we've talked about working

026through with these so we'll need to look at it yeah okay you give me the blower what time sorry are you giving me the floor uh no you can have it i think that uh this learning experience that we've had this morning leads right into what a topic that i would like us as a board to talk about uh i have uh into having conversations about this confederate monument at fairview cemetery in liberty i was talking to liberty patrons school school members people live in the community shared with me that what is the liberty school district going to do about alexander donaldson's elementary after all it's named after a slaveholder and as i reflected on that i thought that is something that we as a board need to look at sometimes we don't look in

027our own backyard and i don't say i had to complete answers but i think one of the things that we have to begin to think about is something that we may have valued at some point in time uh doesn't clearly fit today's standard in today's world and we need to think about that and talk about it and find ways to to address it and to discuss it and to find solutions uh and so i think that's something that can be relevant to what we just talked about this morning i recognize that names monuments and that they're a lot of money's invested in those things and so they represent they reflect our value they're symbolic but they have importance and they have impact and and i think that at this point in time we need to

028evaluate and assess do do we want do we want our schools do we want the uh now don't get me wrong i've been looking at alexander donovan he's a he's a complex individual but at the same time he's a slave holder and we need to give serious consideration to that and i think from my perspective aj bird's perspective of being an african-american in this community that slavery is truly our first sin and when are we going to step up and really say no longer as a nation we're going to tolerate anything that's relevant and we're going to get rid of all the messages that contribute to that into that kind of thinking we've got enough enemies in the world that we're not united and if you watch until we address this it will continue to

029rise and our status in in the world is being reflected this we didn't win the cold war based on war as a weapon we want it based upon based upon people believing in the concept of democracy that we profess and really fulfill those if we really fulfill those you know every time we repeat this uh pledge of allegiance it's just the powerful portion of it that if it was so true if it was in so much truth to it how powerful a nation we would be and be united i want to give others of course i'm encouraging others to speak to this uh and i know it's not an easy solution we could we could ignore it and walk away but we need to face it head on if we're going to expect our school

030district to really come be about what it's going to be about we're going to have to demonstrate it as a leadership policy behavior follows policy last year when there's an incident in the school about racial slurs and how teachers handle the situation and the use of the n-word the board stepped up and put policy in place and there's other things working there but it made a difference because we didn't have at least unaware of any major incidents like concurred last year and we continue to make the news regarding that just need to think and talk about it thank you so yeah i think that's an example of if you look at how you've kind of quartered this out that's one of the things that falls under opportunity what i'm looking for and i've mentioned this

031some of my answers to the questions that andrea presented earlier i'm looking forward to find specific things that we can address and not assume that we can fix things with these overarching policies because i think policy is one thing i mean i honestly don't believe that we haven't had another incident because of the policy i do believe that if there's another incident similar to that now we have a policy that addresses it but i really don't think that people say oh the school board implemented a policy so we can't do that anymore that's not really the way life works i'm look so i'm looking to your point i hope to our point that this is one of those specific opportunities we can address as we move forward because i'm looking for specific things that we

032can stand shoulder shoulder on and address as a group as opposed to again these watered-down policies that we think are going to affect the entire organization policy really doesn't do that we've got to look for specifics that we can address and say we're going to fix this and i think that's an example of one of those things so let's put it on for the next study session to work through the framework specifically in relation to alexander donovan which also will give everyone time to do some study of him in the issue and another piece to that to scott's point within board policy so board policy specifically spells out how to navigate facility questions that arise in and around school names and so forth not only on the front end whenever you're building a campus electing

033a name then also assessing that specifically working through committee structure so there may be an opportunity to follow that board policy piece and we can bring that forward as well with respect to that so certainly at the next study session we'll pull the policy forward so so you all can see that and what that entails that then can kind of chart a course moving forward um but to to aj's point and to dr dixon c horn's point if we're really going to make change in our organization and in our community it's time to make some good trouble so let's have those conversations and i think alexander donovan just thrown it out there that's the tip of the iceberg right here is benjamin franklin lewis and clark i mean i don't know how far we want

034to go with some of these issues i'm not sure how far we should go to some of these issues but i do know we have a board policy now that doesn't allow us to name buildings after people but it starts with us having the conversation for some of those reasons right for these reasons right so it may not just be that one building it may be well let me say this that's what our constituents brought to us alexander donovan we as a board could deal with that alone and not have to go any further well unless that demand was made up true the question's not going to stop the question is where we start absolutely yeah and you're right aj i mean it starts with addressing alexander donovan but i do think you have to

035look at all of them so i'm not saying we got to wait till all of them come together right i mean alexander donovan's the one that needs to be addressed out of the gate for sure but i i do think you got to look at them all but we do need to process and plan for doing it in a way and that's it's it's a policy so i think if we can start by reviewing board policy then that'll that'll give the board something to start from and pulling a select group of individuals together for the committee structure and that we've looked at that policy attributed to naming so if you'll think through what i shared in terms of those three examples whether it's a statute like what we see a statue over at the cemetery

036whether it's mascots we're not necessarily dealing with that in our district we know of other districts that are in making or having conversations at the board level level in terms of whether or not they renamed their high school mascot and the third piece would be on the facilities side as we talked about this morning we may find other pieces the other thing that i would think i would cause us to reflect on would be what board policies do we have in place that perhaps we need to approach through a different set of lenses that we've not done before and so think of a policy audit that is a huge undertaking but at the same time if we're truly thinking about the diversity the equity and inclusions pieces how do we approach board policy with the

037intent of ensuring that they do include not just those three terms or have those three lenses in place but how do we keep individuals to what dr dixon seahorn shared from being excluded from opportunities within our system i think that's a much broader conversation as we reflect on policy as well so plenty of work to do as it relates to our next study session well it sounds like we'll have a lively one so jonathan will be on the next study donna beginning starting with that board policy piece specifically okay um that moves us to 2.02 our return to learn plan so this morning we wanted to bring that back to you as you all recall back on july 14th we brought version one i believe of our return to learn plan and as we've shared

038with our focus groups and with the board re-entry and reopening planning really started back in march immediately after schools were closed for the rest of the semester in early april by the governor's decision we started that process of re-entry and reopening planning with a variety of chapters or phases along the way a couple of updates that we wanted to bring to you this morning hit on these areas as it relates to the student census that we conducted over the course of the last couple of weeks week and a half some revisions or recommendations to our return the learn plan that includes some calendar updates both for liberty public schools as well as epic in addition to that adjustments to our learning schedules for elementary and secondary we'll talk through those in just a moment some

039additional considerations that are on our horizon or radar and then lastly round out with a communication plan and frequently asked questions before we dive too deeply into that just to give you a little bit of a refresher or review as you'll recall kansas city missouri health department has issued guidance um beginning with a joint press conference between dr rex archer and clint mayor clinton lucas recommending that schools not reopen until after labor day that was the initial press conference since then kansas city missouri health department has kind of revisited the topic made some adjustments and really have kind of divided up schools into that elementary component and that secondary component based on some research based on how the transmission of the virus is occurring at the younger grades comparative to older grades and really leaning

040on the idea that elementary schools can reconvene face to face while secondary schools are best suited to be able to have kind of a hybridized approach to learning where rather than five days a week face to face perhaps it's two or three to be able to contain capacity within a building that then allows for greater social distancing to be able to put in place in some of our larger campuses shifting then over to the clay county health center side following the kansas city joint announcement between the health director and the mayor we were waiting on an official message from clay county to the community a couple things that we are told is that guidance is forthcoming we had learned it would likely be released yesterday or today so we'll see when that gets pushed forward

041a couple of key elements that it will reflect is k5 being air pre-k through grades 5 being able to resume their school year in person or face to face middle school through high school students are not recommended to start until after labor day with some type of either virtual or hybrid model of attendance and then eventually being able to return to 100 capacity over time depending on how the virus is performing and then lastly it spoke to masks and face coverings being recommended for all students and staff at all grade levels with very few exceptions this is an additional piece to the clay county ordinance that was issued a couple weeks ago we spoke about that at our last board meeting you will know that that is set to expire on august 23rd what has

042been typical is that as they reach that expiration date they revise the order or revise the ordinance that then extends it beyond its expiration perhaps with a few changes so we anticipate that mask piece remaining as far as masks being required in places of accommodation either through the extension of that order or through the guidance that is released by clay county public health center in the event that neither of those two pieces i guess fulfill our expectation as a board and as a district that both staff and students wear masks at all time with very few exceptions we could certainly bring that back to the board table for your consideration in terms of mandating masks being required for staff and students so that's something we're going to continue to watch closely i know we had

043some discussion at our last meeting about that but that's something we'll watch within the clay county public health center ordinances the last thing that i would share as that guidance is released hopefully we'll see that today there's a follow-up meeting with clay county superintendents scheduled for monday august 10th in which we will be connecting with our health services staff within our districts as well as with clay county public health center to walk through the guidance that they're putting out there the idea being that kansas city missouri health department the county health guidance that then matches the return to learn plans that districts are putting in place across the metropolitan region with that said then shifting over to some census information that we've been monitoring and sharing with the board as we get updates a couple

044of highlights our census closed on monday july 27th and as you'll recall we were asking that students and their families identify their choice following the announcement of our return to learn plan as to whether or not they intended to return fully face to face or whether they wanted to pursue an online or virtual only option as you can see by grade level across buildings what we end up with is 2 480 students that have chosen or elected to be a a virtual only student as we move forward i think it's important to note that albeit it sits at 2480 today that can certainly change um and we're going to allow opportunities for families to adjust their decision as we as we approach the first day of school as they learn more information their position may

045change as we learn more data in and around the virus transmission positivity rates their decision may change and we understand that that's a very personal decision for families and there's absolutely no wrong decision for a parent we want to reiterate that because it truly is a very personal family by family decision as it relates to what their children do student by student as well even within the same household for sure the companion piece to this as we look at it by building you can see the students that prefer a face-to-face as compared to virtual with a grand total those are those first three columns represented the percentage of virtual in aggregate is 20.61 with one of the highest encroaching closer to 30 32 at liberty academy and then working our way down to the lowest

046at 12 percent at shoal creek elementary this also reflects a 94.15 percent completion rate someone asked me the other day you know what is our aim as far as percentage completion it's a little different than a survey with a survey you're usually satisfied with you know 30 to 40 percent's a good representative sample in this instance we want to get to 100 so that we know what our students um and families are electing to do as of the close of the survey on monday we've transitioned to principals and administrative staff at buildings connecting with their respective families for those that had not yet completed the census to be able to follow up follow up with them engage their election for the coming school year any questions over the census piece observations scott just a just

047a thank you to the district because i know parents have been all over this english anxiously awaiting what the decision is going to be today but to have this high our goal is 100 but to have 95 90 91 complete on some of these it's just amazing so that's been really good input for us to make decisions moving forward a lot of work behind the scenes so i appreciate trey and innovation and learning's team um for for doing a lot of the lift behind the scenes to get the data to us and to make sure that it's complete and just shout out to liberty oaks right i don't know there may be a little bit of a competition there too make sure and make all of the calls i'm just saying so well and hey

048i know it's a personal decision for everybody are there any trends within this data i mean we've got obviously your point some schools at 12 some schools at over 30 percent is there anything that's concerning as you look through this or you guys have evaluated it a lot of observations i would say as to you know why are some buildings lower percentage than others both in their ability or their percentage completion their response rate but then also their selection rate so anecdotally i think there are some observations where you might have thought that some of your higher socioeconomic schools would elect to go virtual versus your lower socioeconomic schools electing to be more face to face i think anecdotally that was our assumption going into the census what we have found is opposite has become

049true and so why is that why is that occurring that's hard to drill down to but that's certainly something on our radar as we monitor that as we kind of try to navigate that i also think there may be some shifting between now and the actual start of school as we revise our plans as parents learn more as they get closer to that actual first day of school you might see some shifting both directions the other thing that's interesting here is that this does not reflect new enrollees to the system so this is based on the students that we had last year what we're looking at right now is to see new enrollees into the system as well as transfer out so that 94.15 completion rate today might actually include some students that are not

050intending to return to the district similarly as we talk with student services and their enrollment processes there are students that are enrolling in the district some from home school some from private schools because they're hearing those options that either their school is providing of solely face to face and wanting to flip into virtual or if they're homeschool students they're seeing the virtual the online support that the district's providing and they're electing to return in that online environment we've seen that observation across several other districts as well the last figure that i saw was we had 40 new students entering the system who are given that opportunity to elect the face-to-face or that online so as we know more we'll share that information with the board as well and then the 20 seems roughly i think

051what we were thinking of how is that comparing across other that's a little high on our initial thoughts and our pre pre-survey questions that we pushed out even back in june we were asking families this question and so our initial gauge ballpark was in that 10 to 15 percent and so early on as we were watching that we're like hey we're kind of in that range we identified and then it kind of has increased to that 20 range what we've seen in other districts is that there are some as low as 10 percent there are some as high as 30 percent nationally i think it's even a little bit higher if you do some national polling and surveying of families of whether they want to return face-to-face or online i think it's also a little

052different on how you approach it as a district so some districts have approached it from a messaging standpoint of we're going to have face-to-face school if you want to opt out let us know and we'll work with you versus the messaging and approach of we're going to give you choice and allow you as a family to elect whether you want the face-to-face option or whether you want the solely online option and we know there's some hybrids in between we're going to talk about that in a moment but that approach i think has resulted in differing percentages as you look across districts that make sense um so we'll continue to watch that and see where those numbers adjust the challenge is not only in building those robust online offerings and we're in the process of doing

053that with our innovation and learning team beyond what we experienced fourth quarter and that it looks different to start a school year that way the other piece to that is how do you staff it in a repurposing staff those that want to be virtual instructors putting a process in place that allows them to transition successfully from the traditional to the virtual at the same time realizing that it is different than the fourth quarter and so staffing that and then in some instances approaching teachers and asking them might you be willing to become an online teacher for us and assist us in that process we're working through that right now with our principals to ensure that we have us covered off as far as that virtual staff other thoughts or questions on the census piece so

054then switching to one of the motion items that is included in board docs this morning is based on the kansas city missouri health department guidance the clay county guidance that is forthcoming amending our calendar to push the start date back to the first day of school being on september 8th which is a shift for us from our previously approved calendar a couple of high points to point out for you as far as dates the first date for our new teacher institute would be august 12th through 14th staying on course with that teacher in service being the week of august through 24th following the recommended guidance from kansas city missouri health department and clay county health department in resuming school the first day of school on september 8th is the big change as we've looked at

055these changes think of your calendar that you approved back in january really all we're doing is compressing the front end of that calendar and moving the start date to september 8th keeping everything else the same as we do that and looking at the minutes that we have the hours that we have by building i appreciate bob citro and his team for looking at that we're able to remain above the 10 44 deci required number of hours in the school year by doing that and so no school falls below that as it relates to the district's calendar new exceptions that we're working closely on and logistics as it relates to bell schedules and so forth are the early childhood center and then the epic calendar which we'll talk about in a little bit something unique about

056the early childhood center is that this last year was the first year for us to be able to actually capture attendance tied to early childhood students also keep in mind we put in a full-time option for families so we're working through the logistics of that but their start date would also be on september 8th you mentioned earlier you started out by talking about that the original thought was to move everything to the eighth or later or after labor day but then there was some additional discussion about starting elementary kids on the 25th so what is it about that hybrid option that we decided not to do i'm i'm i'm okay with this if this is what we need to do right i'm just disappointed we can't get going a little earlier i was ready with

057the hashtag libertyleads and not following the herd mentality but i'm curious why we moved away from that hybrid so quickly so there i wouldn't say so quickly yeah that there was quite a bit of deliberation in and around that keeping in mind staff and their timing ability to prepare from elementary to middle school that was one component another big component of it is the integrated nature of our school districts think of it from where people reside i may reside in liberty but i work in parkville or i may reside in johnson county but i work in liberty so the interconnectedness really creates some struggles or issues from an hr standpoint and so if i am a individual teaching in liberty public schools but i reside south of the river and my district isn't starting until

058september 8th we could certainly do that we could start earlier on the 25th with elementary face-to-face that creates issues for those families that don't reside in liberty proper because then they don't have child care for their children because their respective district if they're in another district is likely going to wait until the eight so it's a community thinking issue across the entire it's a regional issue i would say in part um the other piece to that is the readiness to be able to fully prepare and fully move forward with all of our options so even in keeping with our contract for teachers the new teacher institute teacher in service beyond that time for them to be able to prepare in their classrooms whether they're teaching traditional or virtual or getting ready to go between both

059um there's the value in the added time from a teacher perspective not only to prepare lessons for both modalities but at the same time to be able to go in get acclimated with the social distancing requirements the way finding that we might put in place in schools the protocols as it relates to health guidance and so forth there's a tremendous amount of work to be done you could split it secondary on this calendar elementary on this calendar having talked through it the recommendation we're bringing forward is to wait and do both on the eighth to be able to have them in lockstep the other the other component to this is the family element in terms of having students that are splitting through secondary and elementary that's going to be complicated enough as they're doing a

060face-to-face and a hybrid let alone those differing calendars so those are kind of the main reasons as to why the recommendation is is what it is this morning albeit you're correct based on the clay county casey mo guidance which i think is built really upon the american academy of pediatrics and some of the cdc guidance and research that's out there along with children's mercy allows for those elementary campuses to start a little earlier other questions around the lps calendar doesn't transportation also play into this that one of the things that we've been encouraging the district is for parents that can transport transport their own children and so with those schools elementary and high school operating in sync allows the transportation to be a little smoother am i correct i think it does i think what

061you would do though if you're starting elementary earlier on the 25th and then you're bringing back your secondary students on the 8th you could do it's kind of a gradual phasing in toward that so the elementary piece could go ahead and get started but then you would have to plan it with that secondary consideration in mind because once you hit the eighth they're both running together right so you have to plan for both albeit your starting one a little bit earlier the transportation piece as you're all aware are items that we've folded into our operating procedures following deci guidance cdc guidance as well as to how we navigate that in terms of transporting kids to difference so that phasing in if we had started elementary two weeks earlier than high school we got coverage for

062the younger kids that are taken care of by older kids neighbors older kids whatever the first two weeks of school then have a hangover in may where younger kid out for two weeks before the older kids were out yeah potentially um in terms of in terms of the hours for elementary as compared to secondary the other thing you would keep in mind is by starting on the 25th you do have that much more instructional contact hours that many more hours in place for those elementaries as you do your secondary on on the back end in may though the question would be do you compress that stay within the that's where you end up in those two examples of elementary versus secondary and trying to have some semblance of parity do you amend the back end

063of the calendar for elementary or did you keep it the same rolling through the individual that's another complex piece so as we think about it you could theoretically have an elementary calendar a secondary calendar an ecc calendar and an epic calendar if you were to truly segment all of those portions out and run them separately as compared to trying to limit it to two calendars with the district and a separate one for epic elementary from my perspective and another reason to consider the later start is as if you know i've been fairly critical of federal state and local guidance and the lack thereof that we've had and for once i actually feel like we've got some specifics we're getting specific guidance that says don't start until after labor day cdc is saying don't start or

064do distance learning until your positivity rate drops below that five percent and as of a couple days ago in clay county we're over seven percent as of july 30th i think it was about it was between seven and a half and eight percent so this gives us a couple extra weeks to hopefully see that decline because as testing increases i mean i'm no mathematician by any means but if as testing increases if there's fewer cases your positivity rate should decline so if we've got all this testing but our positivity rate is holding steady or still increasing that means that we've got an issue with this still spreading throughout the community at a pretty high rate and hopefully with the mask ordinance and social distancing and people making some good choices out there we're going to

065start to see that come down and this just gives a couple extra weeks for that to occur so i want to take advantage of actually getting guidance and and using the the people who are the experts in the field and not rely on the politics or the facebook experts and um so i think that the right decision for the kids and for our teachers and staff is to give this a couple extra weeks and andy amy brings up some of those additional considerations we'll hit on here in a little bit later specifically around gating criteria we've been having quite a few conversations around that which we'll share a little bit later on contact tracing and our ability to put a system in place we have a system that we utilized in july for face-to-face summer

066school that we feel good about but we also know that will evolve and it's interesting that those two examples of contact tracing and gating requirements as of now are being shifted onto districts to try to navigate where some of that guidance doesn't exist yet at the state level or at the local level and so we're working collaboratively with a variety of agencies to get some type of a cohesive approach across communities across districts whether it be at the state or be in the kansas city area to establish that gating criteria that does say hey at five percent and below you're in this green status you know six to ten percent perhaps you're in a yellow status and then it becomes like an orange and then red black being that you're completely shut down we've seen

067some examples of that in johnson county we're jumping ahead a little bit but i think andy brings up some of those pieces that we're currently working on that we hope can be developed between now and september 8th the value and having that guidance is how we reopen but at the same time as we've seen other districts that are starting virtually at some point they're going to need that same guidance on how they phase back into face to face so that gating criteria is valuable on both ends irregardless of how you start school that's a critical piece the question in our minds however is what's the integrity or the validity of the data because we know right now with testing it can be a quick turnaround or it can be anywhere from 10 to 10 days

068to two weeks prior to someone receiving their information their positive or negative results so yeah and i would just add to that that is very valid having personally gone through it this weekend um but i know that in our community there's a shift to being made to getting test results more quickly so that two weeks will help give us more accurate information as we get closer as to what the positivity rate actually is right now it's with lots of tests out there that are two weeks old the other thing i would mention um that gives us time to see over the course of this next month how we're doing as a community i also have in the back of my mind what's labor day look like are people taking it a little more cautious or

069are we going to see similar activity as we saw around memorial day weekend and then july 4th celebration here we come with labor day just last weekend down the lake again i mean it's if you want businesses to remain open and you want schools to be face to face i mean just make better choices bottom line um which brings us to mass of course and you mentioned that earlier and you know i'm a proponent of a mandate and i'm comfortable with the ordinance and it's in effect but i still want us to explore our own mandate so that we have control over where that ends for our institutions rather than relying on others to potentially end it sooner than we think it should end for the safety of you know the kids and the teachers

070and staff so i don't think it needs to be action item today with if the delayed start because then it gets us out after our next meeting but we may want to revisit that again at the next and now there's that in place i'm i'm for that and just vote on extending what was in place even if they don't do it but now the logistics are lined out in that document i was trying to avoid having to do all those things no no i understand this was our last meeting before i think epic was going to start for example so what i want to bring in doing what you want to do and i'm fine going to the 18th before we start talking about that again where the health department's at then we'll continue to

071monitor that closely with the health department the other thing that we brought up with clay county public health center was the understanding that their initial initial reopening plan if you will recall back in early june it has four phases really the meat of it sits in phase two with four steps step one two three four the initial thought was those could be as little as four weeks each or each of those phases or those steps within phase two could be multiple months we currently are hovering at phase two step two in order for schools to reopen based on the plan we have to move to phase two step three or the plan has to be amended and so in talking with the executive director at clay county public health center i know they're looking at

072that that guidance is forthcoming that hopefully reflects those adjustments or those changes so all of those moving pieces will still continue to stay close to along with the order as we've talked about and it being amended prior to its sunset on august 23rd so i appreciate the refinements that both kc mo and clay county health have made over the past few weeks first pronouncement was a little bit of a blunt instrument here for the entire casey metro area where the facts vary dramatically we have one answer for all grade levels but factoring in some of the science around younger kids versus teens um some of the differences in areas i think we have an opportunity to learn together around this and refine it and get more nuanced as we go so i appreciate clay or

073casey moe revising their guide i mean the practical side of it was if we're all going to start on the same day and high school isn't going to start until after labor day no one's going to start early in that case but i also think things like we have to be ready to flex measures like positivity as we get more intelligence around them doubling the number of tests that are done might drop that below five percent it does not change the amount of spread within the community it just changes the measure as we go about what are these measures about i got two weeks delay some of the results that we're getting today people are better by now right or they've been walking around in the community for two weeks without knowing they're positive right

074let's shorten that everything we don't do that here 24 hours is better we've got to push clay county and casimo on those and i think they are working on that there's major corporations that are turning their test results around for their employees a heck of a lot faster than our community and i do think just just to state the obvious but i know we have people watching at home but we may get two weeks in and think well this is the date that we thought we were going to start school but if the numbers are changing we may need to pivot again so there's just as things unfold we need to be prepared for flexibility and change that's a great segue good that's good in playing part because honestly as we've started this re-entry and

075reopening planning conversation again since the beginning of april sharing with the governor that hey reopening is as difficult if not more difficult than the decision to shut down for the fourth quarter as we've thought about all these various scenarios we're starting to run short on our remaining scenarios so as we talk about the specifics of our detailed plans here in a minute um just keep that tucked away and that as things of all these things changes will flex when we need to flex and communicate when we need to communicate and appreciate the board and our community and our teachers feedback along the way and solicit feedback from them again if we need to go ahead yeah nick go anger i'm just looking at the calendar thing and for some clarity teacher in service is the

07617th through the 24th of august what is going on for those two weeks between the 24th and may following can i turn that over to innovation and learning i know they are working through that with principles dr westbrook so we have um we have some plans coming out we're going to take the one week that we had already planned and instead of having it those we're just going to make it smaller thinner bands across the learning but we're going to do synchronous and asian this morning so we'll have some sessions that run during of the day and let the buildings know and then we have some things that they can do on so we're stretching that out and then you really expect that time because this is really a shape in their instructional practices right

077so we're going to give them time to work with their team on developing those lessons because they have to give classroom lessons at the same time they have to figure out how to do lessons receiving my mom so we recognize the students this gives us that change and we're going to guide them through the whole thing so will they be on-site or comp are they going to be hybrid as well well so there's a possibility of that for sure our virtual teachers have that option but we recognize there's some value to the facebook page right and then at the same time the buildings are going to control that time and they're you know really working with them on what those things look like but but part of it is that they need to be in

078the building working with their team that's really part of the process but then are we keeping in when we talked last time and we talked about how much time they had in building pd we had kind of you guys had kind of put a a limit on that is that limit gonna stay the same are we increasing that because we have still limited because they just don't need that many buildings they will have some you know in the front right but then over time the professional development the district is providing is like like i said like a thin ban throughout the entire three years with the last few days being here so we're about we're this close to rolling that schedule out we're just looking at the exact topics that we recognize those vendors that

079we want we really want to work on social emotional learning we really want to work on trauma and form so we had to shift from that week to stretching it out to give people some more time so so jeanette basically what i'm hearing you say is we're looking at yeah there'll still be some professional development but we really want teachers to focus in on being prepared for whatever situation presents itself whether it's they need to bone up on their virtual information they need to get things together i mean really the instructional action guide that we presented we're really taking that apart and taking that out that's really why we built it instead of just saying here it is now we have time to figure it out and then on top of that um right one

080of the things we is we just shortened first semester so we have to figure out how to do content we have to move over how that confidence is you know how can you start moving and keeping that thinking because as you're online oh there's a lot there's a lot and then how do you start school with the virtual audience we've never done that before so it's really critical that we work on relationships right [Music] because i know somebody's going to ask me that question so i might as well just ask you now well i promise you julie will make sure that the buildings are also saving that time okay as that schedule develops keep in mind we had a we had a pre-service schedule initially that we have now scrapped and going back to the

081drawing board and so as that detail comes together in support of that instructional guide as dr westfall shared we will communicate that to the board as well for your awareness good question it will probably you had a question yeah just point to clarification as i'm looking at the amended district calendar the second sheet um did i hear correctly that the ecc pre-k is gonna start nine eight or does it start nine two nine eight okay is the intended start okay we have some logistics that we will need to um talk through to get them to their now that you're capturing that early childhood attendance okay sorry no it shows nine two on the sheets we will fix that and then apologies i know it's just a type typo i assume but lshs should be lhs

082i'm assuming yes okay there's no shortage of acronyms that's right so the only the only school starting a little earlier is epic so if we're ready to are we ready to switch to epic okay for the sake of time um just to kind of walk through this one then as you'll recall as you know from the original um calendar that was approved by the board epic has historically started a little earlier than the rest of the district and so as we look to that push as well teachers actually resumed this week with their teacher in service days that began on august 3rd yesterday and runs through august 10th if you look at the revised calendar that's in front of you this morning pushing the epic first day of school to september 2nd this does give

083them a few days head start from the rest of the district keep in mind they typically run separate or parallel from the rest of the district anyway those families are used to that staff are used to that give staff some additional days as far as opportunity to prepare and collaborate within their grade level teams content teams a couple of other implications it keeps the last day of school at may 11th or sorry june 11th and then the overall hours part of why it starts on september 2nd is because they're that much closer to the 1044. but with that september start that september 2nd start their overall hours sits at 1050.95 we've looked at three or four different scenarios whether you start them a little bit earlier perhaps on that monday of that same week if

084you were to push them back to that september 8th date then they fall below the 10 44. they could start face to face they could start virtually what we've talked about is them going ahead and resuming face to face because it's permissible at that elementary level for guidance from kcmo health department and the coming clay county guidance so that's our recommendation as far as the epic calendar if we were to do anything differently as was shared we'd have to go back and look at early release days professional development days length of their start and their schedule over the course of each day whether we would extend it by a few minutes i know the goal is to get them out middle of june as compared to having them go later because that butts up against

085summer school offerings for second session and just extends their school year as we've experienced over the course of the last several years so that is a little bit of a recap as it relates to the epic calendar questions or discussions on it we feel comfortable based on health department guidance starting elementary pre-labor day okay as of 8 16 this morning yes keep in mind we're still waiting to see the finalized documentation from clay county public health center but in those pre-conversations we feel confident based on those conversations and well yes this sort of gets in the return to learn plan so if i've got individuals who are saying uh you know we're gonna go virtual at epic do they start the same date or do they start on the eight so then in respect to

086the first day of school everybody resumes on the same day so lps on the 8th epic on the second whether you're face to face or virtual okay that is the new start date okay for all of our campuses second and eighth respectively um but yeah that's a good point of clarification any questions then over the two calendars that we've presented to you okay i'm going to shift then we do have some motion language that will follow but i wanted to walk you through the elementary and secondary learning schedules as what was shared on july 14th this is a caption from that return to learn plan that one page infographic that we shared that sits on our district's website the elementary programming remains the same elementary or pre-k through grades five both with face-to-face as well

087as virtual online options so those resources are uploaded on our district's webpage in addition the instructional guide that was shared as well as the parent support guide that information will just continue to evolve as we continue to trap questions provide responses but then also continue to develop the details in and around the start of school whether you're a face-to-face student or whether you're a virtual student shifting to the secondary piece this is what ends up being slightly different per guidance from kc mo and clay county public health center and that is the ability to bring students back in a blended or a hybridized face-to-face model so as you look at this graphic this is a graphic that will accompany our communication later today following your approval a couple of key pieces to point out this

088respective schedule is fitted around sixth through twelfth grades there are no changes as was mentioned to families that select a fully virtual learning option there may be some tweaks along the way in how to engage and how to go about you know courses and so forth but as far as those families that elect fully virtual they're fully virtual five days a week in terms of the hybrid the flexible or blended approach it's a blend of face-to-face and virtual learning in which a student is engaged in learning five days a week it just differs from day to day whether they're participating face-to-face or participating virtual and we hope that this graphic kind of depicts what that's going to look like in terms of a day in the life of a student at that 6th grade through

08912th grade level you'll notice some groupings there's group 1 and group 2 and the easiest way to slice that is alphabetically and so group one currently is a through k in the alphabet group two is l through z group one would attend school face to face on mondays and thursdays group two would attend school face to face that's l through z on tuesdays and fridays you'll notice that yellow wednesday is blocked out and so on wednesdays think of this in terms of all students engaged with their classroom teacher instructor virtually so all students attend virtually from home teachers will lead online instruction engage with all of their students virtually all secondary teachers will become be coming to their school sites and facilitating instruction on those wednesdays from their schools from their locations but that really

090is kind of the high points as it relates to that currently we're working with the high school middle school administration and their teams and planning for what this blend or this flex or this hybrid approach looks like as far as the detail but this is a very high level overview what that entails a companion piece that we know is of interest to high school students middle school students and their families is how this might impact fine arts activities as well as athletics as of yesterday august 3rd the missouri state high school activities association association put out a press release that they are exploring options those they so they say they're working with schools and areas where local health departments have required virtual learning options only and that we really have two areas the st louis

091area many of their districts are starting virtually only we also know that lafayette county lexington school district they made the decision just last week to start virtually only that then has implications on sports seasons fine arts activities and so initially the missouri state high school activity activities association issued guidance that if a school did not offer a face-to-face option that they could not participate in missouri state high school activities or their seasons would be amended or changed or they would just cancel them entirely so we're glad to hear that the executive board is looking into that as far as options some ideas that they've identified per their press release include rearranging their their seasons as far as postponement of fall activities potentially until later they're also looking at the ability of schools and only offering

092distance learning to their students to still participate in activities even though they're not holding in-person classes as well as looking at regional competitions outside the traditional season once school is able to resume in person that's just something to keep in mind for those districts that are already only beginning virtually in that we offer a face-to-face option as it sits right now we would continue to move forward with activities albeit it all hinges on guidance from our local health departments casey mo clay county we have learned from clay county that they will be providing some additional guidelines probably in the next couple of weeks as it relates to activities so that's something that i know students are interested in families are interested in we'll continue to pay close attention to that as well any questions as

093it relates to either the elementary or the secondary learning schedules moving forward with this revised return to learn plan we'll call it 2.0 so the week of the 8th what does the high school schedule look like on a week like that it would it would start like this in terms of those those days is kind of our initial plan we know it's a little different with that monday being off you want to speak to that dr moore you guys have spoken about that um right yeah this this is not the only week where this will be right consideration um if there's a day that's off whatever was going to happen on that basis kind of the general direction and the student the student then could be given in theory a calendar that just shows hey

094this week is your a b a b as compared to that wednesday thank you thank you for that clarification and so look into the next slide with your the color codes um this could be a fluid situation where we might be yellow for a couple weeks of september and then if the criteria is met we end up switching to say green or you know the other direction throughout the entire semester so it's not necessarily we're saying that we are going to do this for the entire semester or any specific length of time right that's the degree of flexibility we need yes um and we'll we'll talk about the the gating criteria but even even in this instance of a hybrid schedule or a flex schedule keep in mind we're kind of shortening down our number

095of scenarios so if we end up getting into a situation where the positivity rates say double or through the roof then that would then cause us to go virtually secondary level perhaps at the elementary level so then how do we transition into that so we were talking yesterday about how you might take this five day schedule this hybrid a b approach push it into a virtual mode and then potentially come back into it depending on what's going on with the positivity rate and that gating criteria so so therein lies the the ebb and flow as it relates to what's going on in the community as far as transmission levels and positivity i just wanted to make it make sure it was clear that this isn't saying this is the way first semester will be end

096of story it's more of a fluid situation depending on what's going on absolutely i appreciate you mentioning that as of today this is our intent moving forward so if i if i am a parent who chooses virtual learning i will go elementary focus in there i choose virtual learning for my student do i have is my teacher my what would be my in-person teacher or is this a completely different teacher that is focused solely on virtual classrooms going to speak to that ladies as far as three so those are scenarios 2500 students that we have that have already made that decision they will have a specific virtual future that is only a teaching virtual need and i can say that with 95 confidence you might and it's based on the number of students that they

097have so people sacrifice right if you have a percentage ten percent or three percent and you get this many features and it's according to the students you're contributing so each school agreement and then we're putting them on grade level teams yep the objective obviously with that would then be that the virtual teachers have a similar class size that we would have in a physical school i mean a little bit more right because really they're not doing the management aspect right it's just the connection so they have more time for them sure yeah sure elementary specials already deals with 500 right right so that's a different i don't want to act like it's not a classroom but not it's not unreasonable and i know we're allowing elementary uh students to say hey let's do it quarter

098by quarter if you want to come back in second quarter or whatever great but so that re-entry would then be i'm basically a new student in a new class right at that point okay so we are anybody who's uh like elementary school anybody who's teaching elementary teachers from that building all the students from that building are going there but obviously if there's 11 buildings and if there's four teachers on the third grade level then all 11 buildings are not represented correct okay so jeanette are you tapping in class sizes and virtual classes yeah trying i mean like we have a fixed number of staff right so right at some point the cap is going to get pushed right we recognize that but we do we're looking actually we're working on a kind of a trigger

099point last night where we're watching the flexibility of size numbers so like the elementary team has they have a document where every time he pulls out every day they're uploading it and watching what happens in a plus one minus one situation so we're i mean we're as good as we can be in every minute of trying to figure out and then we're going to have a like the chart that's following this one where we have a we're watching this um let's say virtual size where it's starting to get too high and we might need another teacher or we might need to pull one and put them back into the physical space so we have that system setting up and then dr voglar has a backup pool of people that we can plug in as we

100need them it's not huge but it does exist so then are your class sizes on virtual a little bit larger is what i understood correct um and if i'm a parent and i say my child needs i don't know geometry um and i go in there and it says oops sorry you're done i i can't what happens do that okay we are just i mean we're going to be we're going to meet a parent every place we can like we even have some special requests that we're really trying to work through we have some families that are doing some some grouping together we're trying to get those kids together i mean we're not saying no we're saying how can we how can we make it work like it's really stretching our thinking but we're not

101saying no okay so we may not be able to do it exactly the way we ask but i mean i'm going to tell you andy it's really putting a lot on our our teachers are they're taking days i i i know i know it's uh but we're doing that right that's what we can to manage both sides is a little different but not to hijack conversation ethic's a little different right because there's only one teacher or two teachers epic ecc and the liberty academy are going to be a little bit different than the group right right and so they're handling their people internally because it's kind of specialized and so those three are actually and we're working with so curriculum across elementary and secondary whether you're virtual or in person gonna be similar i know

102there'll be differences based on how things flow and management of classrooms if it's in person but the goal is everybody's gonna be roughly on the same path is that correct we're coming from our curriculum still posted still they're still essential so where a lot of districts are trying to figure out how to capture that essential learning and catch up we were actually there ahead of it so this is not new but we really are able to diagnose where our kids are pretty quickly figure out what they need and put them in the right spot that's not new to us for a lot of places any other questions on the elementary or secondary learning schedules again lots of planning a lot of detail being put in place can't express enough the appreciation for our district level

103team but then also at the building level as they dive in and try to wrap their head around at the teacher element the administrative side um and really trying to put some meat to these these uh skeleton outlines so to speak um yeah david so help me understand that the middle school high school level um how the schedule the av schedule supports the distance within the building yeah good point and so then keep in mind at any point during the course of the face-to-face experience so that monday thursday tuesday friday you're lessening your population 50 percent so that's where you end up with that a through k and that l through z grouping which then just makes that not that it's ever easy but it makes it that much more um easy to navigate you

104want to speak to that from an operation standpoint as far as the work you're doing in and around the readiness planning a lot of it just depends on what what type of so i guess if there's a classroom that had 28 kids in it that teacher is still going to have that group of kids but only half of them will show up on monday half of them will show up on so we now really have 14 kids in that classroom so within that classroom that's correct on average on average yeah l's and k's bunch of kids with the ce last name yeah so so in the building we'll have half as many kids in each classroom we'll have half as much that's the intent yes within three plus if we've taken ten to twenty-five percent

105out of that building because of the virtual we're also dropping the numbers down yeah the only other piece you would extend beyond that particularly at the high school level is students that are pulled out of that classroom experience that are participating in those real world learning opportunities that does not go away in that hybrid approach so your caps your early college kc tech academy career centers are still moving forward with providing that face-to-face option um so then that just lessens the volume of students that you have at the high school level in particular the other thing i would add is that principals are currently working with operations as well as their teams to be able to go in and assess and look at classroom spaces configurations looking at ordering desks right to be able to

106se to separate in social distance a little bit better than you know tables that are pushed together or high top tables so to speak we're actually kind of reverting back from some of those flexible spaces and learning configurations do more of that forward-facing desks socially distance so more to come as we finalize those plans the other thing that i know people are going to want to know at the elementary level but then it's beneficial at the secondary level for social distancing is how those rosters play out what's the class size for third grade at warren hills or what's the class distribution roster distribution at the high school as it relates to horse offerings period one through seven so those are the pieces that we're still working through we monitor that every year with hr's help

107and innovation and learning this is as dr westfall mentioned this is kind of a day by day monitoring as we get closer to the start of school to identify where rosters are so that information will be pushed out to teachers at a later date as well as to families in terms of their class assignments teacher assignments as well at the elementary level those may not be pushed out until like right before as we're so flexible and fluid right okay that's what i thought and so then just to confirm clarification on high school um it doesn't matter if you go on monday or tuesday in person we're doing concept one on monday we're doing concept two on tuesday so on and so forth right okay and then i i i honestly think there are still a

108lot of people in the community parents who believe the virtual learning is going to be with the teacher that they would have had at their home school and it's going to look very similar to what happened in the spring so i don't know as i read through this i'm not getting that hey virtual learning is going to be very different from what happened in the spring you will have a dedicated virtual teacher it will most likely not be your home school teacher etc i think it probably needs to be communicated in a more explicit manner which i know we've got in here that we're going to do different options and detailed information later but i think that's going to impact a lot of people i want to speak to that i think partly where that

109sits is that instructional those two instructional guides so for those families that are opting for virtual that's where more of that detail sits and that will continue to evolve but to your point perhaps we need to bring some of those pieces more forward-facing as it relates to future communication so anything to add around that so the only time that it will be similar to that is if the student actually pops out for covid's quarantine right word yeah right and it very much will run we tested it that has students going back and forth between every so there's none of the here's an assignment see you next week right that that won't happen at all in virtual school every day multiple times a day yep building that learner agency where the students are able to interact

110back and forth and we don't have to focus primarily on parents so we're working on that which totally get that and understand that i think you know just to clarify where i'm coming from if my student is in the first supposed to be at kelly brook in the first grade class with mrs smith and i say you know what we're going to go remote i don't want to do in person i think there are people who think i'm still going to have mrs smith at kelly brook as my teacher which is not a true statement we have a virtual school staff yep yep which i think there's some confusion in the in the community about as parents decide what they're going to do yeah and we can we can work on messaging so yeah thank

111you for bringing that forward any other thoughts or questions on the elementary or secondary learning schedule so then just as a reminder there are two motion items within this one for the calendars and the separate for revision to our return to learn i moved the board amen the 2020 2021 district academic calendar and epic elementary school calendar to reflect changes in the first day of school second any additional discussion andrew aj yes scott yes yes david yes yes yes yes and i move the board adopt the return to learn plan to include the elementary learning schedule for grades pre-k through 5 and secondary flexible learning schedule for grades 6 through 12. second any additional discussion on this one aj yes yes yes yes yes yes yes so the the companion piece as we wrap this

112up would be just additional considerations but before we leave that entirely we've talked about most of these items as it relates to contact tracing working with county and city health departments one of the issues they have identified is that they are not fully staffed or equipped to be able to handle the degree of contact tracing that they believe is necessary or needed so therefore does the district step in and put systems in place or identify teams hire a bath to be able to work with putting contact tracing in place one of the things that we've identified is some actual training that's available through i believe is johns hopkins uh johns hopkins provides some online courses to be able to train people that are working on contact tracing so we're working on that within our system

113the other is might we be able to leverage some federal dollars through the cares act to support a team of contact tracers and that would be what they do on behalf of staff as well as with students that that's positive or have an exposure how we navigate that with the county and city health departments the second piece that we've heard from both city and county health departments is the availability of testing specifically reagents that are utilized whenever you're working with the actual test to determine whether it's positive or negative and that there's a limited supply so the faster we can get more testing the better we can identify the better we can respond and so forth that piece is really beyond our control albeit we have had some initial conversations in and around perhaps the

114district's approach to testing as testing either evolves becomes more readily available or there's an another application that can be used for testing so steve do you want to speak to the testing piece as far as what you've explored um and we'll uh and then the only other item we've talked a little bit about on that gating criteria um just know that we're continuing to advance those conversations with our two health departments across our region with help from mid-america regional council and the kauffman foundation in our nine county area both missouri and kansas city metropolitan proper so to speak and then last thursday several superintendents met with the governor and on multiple instances we raised this issue for our state and whether you are out state missouri in a small county or smaller districts or in

115a metropolitan area we believe this gating criteria is beneficial as we've talked about earlier this morning the last two pieces then are in and around communication and what we'll follow before we get there can i go back to the testing i had mentioned to you before and i just want to make sure that we continue discussing with respect to testing and teachers and staff and whether that's something that they're going to be you know sort of on their own to seek out or if that's something that we can help facilitate as well since there a lot is being asked of them even more than usual and if that's something that is financially possible and something that we can you know partner with you know whether it's through liberty hospital or something to try to get

116make that available for them so it's not impacting them as financially and also maybe help with some peace of mind that they might have for any potential exposures good point i know we've explored some of that with staff and our ability to navigate that dr voglar can speak to the employee side as it relates to us working with blue cross blue shield you want to clarify some of what's available to staff yeah so kevin casey holmes murphy i had a conversation with him and he's working on negotiating with him to contract out those services what that cost would be what they might subsidize or cover that cost to make that available the main reason is that right now you know we connect employees with their doctor and then their doctor connects them with a testing

117facility to go test you work on the results and the main difference is the facility is doing a rapid result test or one that goes shipped off to a lab and comes back that's the main indicator of the difference between the two so i don't have an answer back from kevin casey yet on what it would cost to bring that in exclusively to our employees so right now the the system is to go to primary care positions through the virtual app all of those costs are covered there's no cost sharing blue cross blue shield extended that cost coverage through the 23rd of october so it pushes it out even further that would include also any care related to symptom servicing uh surfacing uh with 19 as well all those costs are covered so i i

118think you've got a pathway or at least a conflict to a pathway to provide testing two employees in-house but the cost of that is still an unknown and so until we have that portion of it subsidized the status quo is to work through primary care we'll we'll bring out additional information as we learn more so so is there a criteria tied to that too like you have to have exhibited symptoms or had direct known direct contact or is it just i feel like i need one because i've been around kids for two weeks and kind of stressed about it and i just want to find out well right now it's it's symptomatic or contacting or close contact that those would be automatics if somebody had anxiety wants to know and they went through your primary

119care physician you authorized for a test you know that's a one-off decision but yeah anytime those close contact letters go out that's the evidence of going and getting tested or being symptomatic we don't require the testing i don't think that it doesn't require again we'll we'll message that as that evolves okay okay so with the contact tracing i i've received some comments from community members parents i know we've seen it in other districts what is our uh maybe obligation is too strong but how are we going to talk about cases that happen what's the hipaa regulations all of that how are we addressing when a case happens in us on the communication side you want to speak to that steve yeah we've already had to do this and then anybody's been identified like what's expected

120of them mostly self-monitoring the systems if they're not systematic right are we going to be communicating out to the public to say hey look we've here's the cases the other thing that we're trying to figure out especially at this student level and classroom level even if you're not in close contact available maybe because my uncle who i was with you know four years ago positive i'm not symptomatic you know what do i do and so they have you know responsibility but then that was a close contact of that close contact but it gets pretty complicated capps legal counsel is also working with clay county uh in terms of navigating this specifically because as it sits right now those numbers particularly at the student level are small enough that they could be identifiable and so that's

121something we want to make certain we're sensitive to so as we learn more from that legal side that will inform how we communicate forward so more to come on that as well the the last couple pieces then on this before we leave it is our communication later today and so you have a copy of the return to learn plan revised document that includes a message from the superintendent a little background as to our journey and how we've solicited feedback along the way our priorities commitments collaboration and partnership with a lot of those health entities we've shared children's mercy liberty hospital the two health departments and then the specifics attributed to our learning schedules at the elementary and secondary level and then lastly already preparing some frequently asked questions and trying to anticipate what we might

122see through let's talk or through a variety of emails these are a few of those questions that we've identified we're already putting answers to these questions in place in terms of wanting to post that information as well so later today we'll begin communicating that out leading with our district leadership team followed by our liberty public schools faculty and staff and then lastly share that more broadly with our liberty public schools families as soon as what we've found over the last several months as soon as we put more information out there we get an influx of questions and so we appreciate dallas and his team as well as all of our leaders at the cabinet level and throughout the system for stepping in and responding as dr westfall said really working closely with each family we

123talk about customization this has pushed us into customization that much faster and trying to get responses to families and meeting their students needs so that rounds out the um 2.02 item so then the next item as far as our budget update we wanted to invite cindy to the podium to really hit on a couple of quick items tied to missouri federal dollars at our regular month good morning um as you know the fy 21 budget restrictions were announced on june 30th and that included 123 million dollar reduction to the foundation formula that is where we ended fy20 so we started the year out with the same reductions what happened as a result of that in july um our state payment was paid out at 54.8 percent and this was approximately three and a half million

124dollar withhold what we would have expected otherwise in a normal july payment one more time after all of what we've talked about all the work that we've done yes what's happening yes our funding as of july has been reduced or withheld because of the state of the state revenue and that cost us about three and a half million dollars for july however based on where the state revenues go in the coming months there is the opportunity for that to be recouped but that picture is not clear as of today state revenues came in in july very favorably that also though is in part to the extended tax payment deadlines which cause individual revenue collections and corporate tax revenue collections to be pushed into fy 21 as opposed to fy20 yes so um that's out of

125july just july it's 54.8 percent proration correct we have not been um given any information on what august payments will look like yet it is due out on the 21st as i indicated state revenues for july came in very strong but we know why so we are waiting to see what happens in august and how the next quarter really plays out for state revenues so the finance picture will not be clear probably until after the election as where the state revenue is going but the state is currently prorating our payment and we anticipate that that will happen for the rest of the quarter if not the half first half of the year [Music] based on my experience they wanted to well not based on my experience based on what we have been told right this

126is the biggest chunk of the withholding that we will experience from the state unless revenues continue to fall off and it becomes clear that the revenue shortfall that is anticipated will be greater and then we could see a bigger dip in proration it's anticipated that the whole proration could be about five percent over the year so i don't anticipate that august will be prorated at 54 percent this is a little different than what we saw in 708. think of it as being front loaded in july rather than making it more difficult for organizations as so we we feel a little better about that because we now know that we can expect a more stable revenue stream throughout the rest of the year instead of being able not to anticipate what each month's payment will be

127so yes we hope yeah subject to change just like we ended the year very differently than we had anticipated absolutely no no this is new characteristic it makes it a fun job to budget and try to figure out where we're going to be so in we won't have the payment at the next board meeting yet but hopefully i will have more information to share with you what we might anticipate that that could be so more to come on that for the next few months so we'll keep you updated as we get new information as well i understand thank you the second thing i wanted to talk about briefly was the cares act funding and as you know we received two pieces of cares act funding one was through desi through the cares act money that

128the um school this the secondary and elementary schools were allocated and of a 200 um it was a 208 million dollar allocation to deci our district received about three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars um clay county was also given care's money and of the cares money that the county received we received 1.2 million dollars of that so of care's money that was allocated the district has received about a total of 1.5 million dollars to date we've spent 200 or 921 000 of that and we have another 930 000 encumbered to be spent so all in all when it's all said and done to date we will have spent 1.8 million dollars so there's a little bit of a shortfall between what we've received of 1.5 and what we've already obligated ourselves to spend of 1.8

129to that degree we are working to try and partner with the city of liberty who has some funds that they received through the cares act that they may not be able to spend so we have put in a proposal to them um to pay for the student desks that we know that we are going to need of about 243 thousand dollars so that will go to the mayor and the city council in the coming weeks it looks favorable that we should receive that though so that will be helpful and that will almost get us up to paying for everything that we've spent to date through the cares act that would leave us about a hundred thousand dollars short but then that brings us to the coming opportunities that we may have to see some additional

130funds there are um three deci grants specifically two for transportation and one for a supply grant that were just announced last week so the information specifically how to apply for that and what the parameters are and that will come out later hopefully this week from deci so we'll know if we are able to apply for it and what we might be able to get toward that also there are two proposed acts right now in front of congress one is the heels act and the other is the heroes act and uh the heels act has 70 billion dollars slotted for k-12 education and the heroes act has 58 billion dollars slotted for education um keeping that in perspective the cares act had 13 and a half billion slotted for education so it's quite an extensive addition

131to what may be available um they're debating that both of them are allocated on student census population and title one to some um differing degree between the two acts for the heels act the thing to note that's important is that one third would be available immediately and the other two thirds currently is proposed to be tied to some form of in-person learning so there are criteria around it could be 50 percent so there's quite a few things that go into that two-thirds so that's in that proposal so we'll see how all of that shakes out which one shakes out and what the combination of the two of them look like but those are in front of congress right now so i don't have an expected date on that but there could be more funding coming

132our way because we do realize and recognize that we know we're going to spend more than we've already spent to replenish supplies to provide pd money for our teachers to develop the curriculum for liberty virtual just the unknown things that come about um that we don't even know that we're going to need at this point so we know that there will be more expenditures on the on the horizon for us for that but we're sitting with the karazhak big bucket [Music] correct that is correct totally correct and at last board meeting i did provide in my report a breakdown of what we had spent that on and i will keep updating that as we keep spending in my monthly report so you can see what we have done with that and the last thing we

133could potentially have funding for still is the fema grant if we um choose to go that route if all of this runs out and figure fema yeah fema grant through the state and federal agencies so that kind of wraps up what i know today about what's coming down the cares act shoot with the new two things on the table the last thing i wanted to talk about real briefly was the tax rate and we've talked at our last board meeting about this that we did get our preliminary numbers in we show a 1.66 percent increase in assessed valuation which will generate an additional 1.4 million dollars in revenue over the prior year at a 97.79 collection rate i'm hoping we get our final numbers next week we need them in order to have our tax

134rate hearing at the next board meeting which it is scheduled for the 18th at our regular board of education meeting we will have no change in the current tax rate the distribution will change by less than a penny from debt service to operating based on the ability to move between those two but it will look much like the prior year as it sets right now now typically those numbers do change a little bit from the preliminary to the final number so as soon as i get that we will have updated numbers for you and that's all i have for you today unless you have some questions for me [Music] thank you the last item then on 2.04 is remaining cabinet updates so wanted to provide an opportunity for cabinet to be able to report out

135any quick updates that they might have so innovation and learning dr westfall or dr moore any updates from you all so um from our perspective as you know july 31st summer school so one of the things i want to give a shout-out to christopher and lisa johnson because they really walked through quite a few different scenarios that helped guide us in our planning we weren't necessarily thinking through summer schools when we thought about it back in january had pretty good results from that so i would say thank you to them and then all the site directors and most especially um our teachers you know jumped in there we've created a few facebook superstars out of this that have helped us really understand what it looked like in the classroom and really did some exciting innovative

136um you know starting in the month of july but july uh into august deciding what innovation brought the whole team in and just started looking at what kind of contributions that we could do together and how we could work side-by-side that was a big part of that conversation and then um last but not least the upcoming information different to issues the process of getting still going to happen and it's coming on monday and um questions of innovation and learning dr westfaller dr moore you for that next up then equity dr dixon c horn anything to add and it's also crossing the state line so we'll have history such as lee valley missions um uh um around cultural competence cultural relatives contacting bias and then also calling out those conversations we heard from business services anything

137else to add cindy thank you for your update uh operations mr anderson uh construction-wise uh so feel free to share that as well and then um square feet have reached out to the city uh uh lastly then uh hr dr vogelar yes so uh communication uh regard to virtual teaching assignments dr westfall has gotten a list of the assignments that are ready to communicate there are still a few to keep that openings so 104 people applied for virtual teaching assignments 101 of them as of today so you have something that voluntarily goes some of that will happen after this no at this time recognizing that things may continue to fluctuate and change so those letters are slated for later this morning to go out uh we use an accommodations my department's working uh diligently with

138those we anticipate will start seeing more of those requests as we get closer to the school year from our our summer attempt to acquire as many of those potentials as possible we've gotten 34. um remember the board meeting it started at 19 through 21 there's 34 in there now 21 we do anticipate actually having some lead protection under the number 34. we're also um very closely with kelly educational services just to make sure there's a readiness for the return to learn right now kelly services has 770 subs in their pool with a goal of 850 to sort of north kansas it's hard to know whether that's going to be enough or not they've got some incentives planned and anticipate somewhere between 40 and 50 participation rates based on their survey data we have doubled our

139dispatched subs our emergency dispatch subs just in anticipation of that we've asked for 20 of those 19 are filled and i had a conversation about that one more coming at this point uh we aren't sure if we will distribute those across every building or try to put the emphasis of the elementary schools where that's going to be face-to-face and maybe double up or just have some of them there whatever the need is they fan out that there is um i mentioned earlier the uh the coding coverage so all of that is really the the need of the hour work of the hr department but we are looking proactively as well uh some changes with title ix uh that go into effect on uh august 14th policy and our employee handbook that will affect probably most

140dominantly it'll affect the way and and who will provide services to investigate inquiries and then we're working very closely with dr moore to train all building administrators on an lgbtq sensitivity that's been an initiative and a priority for a while and so in october there's a training opportunity for our building administrators this year to do that we're bringing in a specialist who actually has employed the parkville school district who's done this in parkfield that trains as a part of the group that's designed to open up dialogue and communication with kids who might be feeling isolated because they can't go home and talk about what they're going through with mom and dad but they also uh you know maybe feel like they don't have peer groups or relationships so it's a way to create or improve

141a pathway for communication to adults who are in their life for the purpose of caring for them and meeting their needs and so that trains them be glad to answer any questions oh i'm sorry good man how many subs were in place last year when we started do you know between uh okay how many any idea about virtual teachers how many you will actually need or an estimate at this point in time yeah i think that we're still some parents will say now that i know what that concludes our cabinet updates for this one all right that brings us to the end of our agenda go vote i move to adjourn thank you election day oh yeah right go vote all right motion move to adjourn yes oh sure [Music] you