001All right, we will move on then to the Schaw Early Learning Center update. >> Thank you, Madam President. We'll begin tonight with a presentation from Dr. Mary Shatford. Dr. Shatford is here to share the great things happening at Schaw and the important work taking place each and every day with their youngest learners. Dr. Shatford, I'll turn it over to you because I can't wait to see what we got planned tonight. >> Thank you for having us here tonight. Um, we are so excited to share some updates on Schul early learning. Let's see. There it goes. All right. We want to thank you for having us here tonight. We have our building leadership team members and they they brought some of their amazing students with them tonight. So we're going to introduce them later in the
002presentation, but if you have any questions along the way, please feel free to ask and we are happy to answer. So we are currently sitting at 232 students and we have three more starting on Monday. And so we have an amazing child finding process and so our program is always growing and we really appreciate your support. We believe that students learn best through joyful, hands-on, per purposeful learning. And so what we do at Schaw is that we combine child-directed play with intentional learning opportunities to help build the skills and confidence of these young children so that they are ready for kindergarten. And so, as you can see, this is one of the classrooms that received the carpet install that you approved last year. And so, this is Mrs. Bamer's classroom and she is here tonight
003and um we just want to thank you for that carpet install in our remaining full day classrooms because it really transformed those rooms. Um carpet just makes the classroom so much warm and cozy and it really helps with the acoustics when there's 21 little 20 little ones in there. So, thank you so much for that carpet install. All right. It is We were so excited this year because we launched our first three-year-old full day classroom and Mrs. Goodwin is the teacher of that classroom and she is here tonight with some of her students. And these students, it's been so neat to see their growth and more importantly the bond that these three year three-year-olds have made throughout the school year. Um, they are truly a school family and when that cleanup song goes on, these
004kids go into action and they are the fastest cleaner uppers I have ever seen. So, they are amazing. Um, we love our partnership with Rayek High School. We have every semester we have intro to early childhood students. They come for three days a week in our classrooms and then al we're hoping that there will be future early childhood teachers come from this program because these students are phenomenal. We along with the high school tutors that we have every year, we also have high school early childhood intern. And Tracy Elliott is here tonight and she has had the same intern first semester and second semester and this young lady is phenomenal with kids and the relationships that she has developed with those students. It's so impressive. So, it's a it's a great program. We also have
005a school work program and we have Miss Maya. She's a senior at Ray Peek High School. She works at Schaw parttime in our cafeteria and Miss Mia is very popular and she has just been a great addition to our staff and um Miss Mia will show you on the next slide. She just received um a student of the month award and so this is the first year that we had the high school book club come to Shaw and they read to our students for World Readaloud Day and they had a phenomenal phenomenal time. Our students just adored their their time when they were visiting with us. So, that was something new and exciting that happened this year. Um, the Ray Peek Academy students put on an amazing fall festival for our kids. They had so
006much fun. They they were so engaged with the kids. It was so impressive. Um, and one of those students that helped with that fall festival um is ahead on her credits for graduating. And so she asked if she could come to Shaw and volunteer for an hour a day and so now she does that second semester. So it's wonderful to have her um in our building and I hope that she'll be a future par profofessional in our building. So this was the first year that we had football players come and read to our students. Um that was very exciting. The kids loved when it was time for their um weekly visit. And um you're going to see on the next slide that despite the fact that they were extremely tall um the kids were not
007afraid at all of them and um and they really built a great bond and they were very sad when their um reading time was over so at the end of the semester. And so, so that is a picture of Miss Maya receiving her um she had her student of the month certificate and that top picture is the high school students from the book club for the world readaloud day. All right, as you know, we have an phenomenal parents as teachers program. These ladies do a great job building and serving um the families of Ray Peek. They um over the over the course of last year, they did 330 developmental screenings. Um they facilitated 11 group connections and they did 1,43 personal visits and they shared 209 resource connections with rape families. And so these ladies
008are really our first line of intervention our and so they are part of our child find process. And so that's one part why it's so successful. All right. Well, I want to share with you our building leadership team members. And so I'm going to um call their name. They're going to stand up and then they're going to introduce who came with them tonight. And then after we introduce everyone, they have some gifts for you. So they'll come up and pass out some gifts for you. All right. So Cassie Paso, she is a full day prek teacher. >> And I've got Mason Roer. He's here. And we've got my Nelson. And I've got Lisa McN. And Lisa is the pair professional in the classroom. All right. And then Miss Lori Glenn, she is an early childhood
009special education teacher. >> Hello. I have Olivia and there in my class. >> And then Tracy Elliott is also an early childhood special education student. OH, TEACHER. SORRY. SORRY, TRACY. >> Can I have Liam with me tonight? >> All right. Okay. And next we have Crystal Bamer. Crystal Bamer is a full day prek teacher. >> Um I have Ren Isis K and Scarlet Page with me tonight. And Amanda Hadu is a full day prek teacher. >> I brought Oliver Saunders and Laura Collapse. >> And we have Laura Goodwin, our full day three-year-old teacher. >> I brought Porter Wilson, um, Hadley Wright, and Roslin Shan Sean. All right. If you guys would like to go ahead and walk on up and you can pass out the gifts that you brought for them tonight. You can go
010up the side here if you want. You have to do at school. I like Thank you. I'll just run these by you before I publish any of them. >> Sounds great. That's the cutest thing. Wait, wait, wait. One, two, three. Love it. >> Oh, there it is. maybe. >> Okay. >> So, we want to thank you um for putting the bond on that ne the upcoming election. Um we are very excited for what the future may hold for Shaw Early Learning Center. Um early childhood is just a powerful intervention and the more students that we can serve, the greater impact that we can make. And so, thank you for continuing to support our amazing program, our and our amazing teachers. Thank you. And our amazing students. Thank you. Have a good night. >> Well, thank
011you for being here. I'm not sure how we're supposed to do any business now because that was the highlight of the night. But I have seen our own my own personal revelation in the last six months with early childhood. and you all truly do make an impact that makes a huge difference not only in that kiddo's life but in a family's life. So, thank you for all you and your teachers do every day. >> So, thank you so much. Have a great night. >> Dr. Shaterford, before you step away, >> uh, as you know, board, she's retiring at the end of this year. So, Mary, I want to thank you behalf of the board of education and a grateful community for your service and influence on so many young lives throughout your career. And just
012know we celebrated the accomplishments of a couple high school students tonight, but it all starts with a solid early childhood learning program that you have provided over your years. So, thank you very much for your work and your service. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. >> I have been blessed. It has been a wonderful educational journey and the joy that I get every day from doing what I do. Um you can see by all the smile wrinkles on my face I've had a lot of joy in my life and so um it's a true blessing and a true honor. So I love Ray Peek. So have a good night. That was good. Oh, that's good. That's good. You'll be here before. >> All right. I like I said, I'm not sure how
013we follow all that, but uh I will entertain a motion to approve the consent items as presented. >> So moved. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Now on toformational items. Dr. Schel. >> Yes. Our first information item tonight is an update on our CAN program which is caring about nutrition. This initiative serves students and families who are experiencing food insecurity and it reflects our belief that students learn best when their basic needs are met. The proposal before you tonight uh consolidates our food pantry and panther closet clothing store under one roof to create a more coordinated and dignified support system. Very excited about this initiative and Dr. Bar and Scott Dobson are going to talk you through it. So Dr. Bar, I'll turn it
014over to you. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. So super excited about this opportunity um to do some real great changes that are going to then integrate again our special ed, our regular ed, and our community and our staff. So it's um pretty exciting. So, our current reality is um briefly what was explained. Um right now the can program is housed in the old art room here in this building at the academy. Um bags of food are sent home every Friday um for students with food insecurity and then larger bags are sent home when we have um larger times off like before spring break, holiday break, things like that. Um there are wonderful volunteers from the foundation who kind of head this up. Um they also use student volunteers. We have student volunteers from the
015academy. We have our student leadership team kids who also work with our um transition and functional life skill kids to put together the bag. So again, that integration um is already happening. Um and right now our Panther closet is housed at Raymore Elementary in the basement. So kind of far apart from each other for families who maybe need something more consolidated. So our new vision is to create a food pantry closet for one-stop shopping. So there's only one place that people have to go. it would be open to students, staff, and the community um to go shop in there by appointment or do online shopping and have it ready for them. We will still be doing the bags. So, that's also not stopping. This is just expanding our current opportunity um for our community. Um
016and so we are going to renovate that art room and then also extend to one room over. Right now there's a door that goes to the next door room and the tech old technology is housed there before we surplus it. They call it the tech graveyard. Um, and so Ryan Gidding has graciously agreed to have us move that tech graveyard to a a different empty room here in the building. Um, and then we'll do some work to make that one big space, which Mr. Dobson's going to explain in just a little bit. Um, so we're going to utilize our students in this renovation. They're going to help us with the demo work, redesign work, branding work because we're going to rebrand it. That was a decision um made with our foundation volunteers that can can
017still be the backpack home program, but this because it's also a clothing um closet because needs a different kind of branding. So we have some kiddos working on that right now for a outdoor sign that we can have and then some indoor artwork in the space. Um it again will be in person or online. Um in person would be by appointment only so we can make sure that we have students and staff there um to to supervise. Um there are again integration opportunities um that we've continued to have. So we'll continue to have regular and special ed students working together um in stocking and looking at um the numbers of items that we have and then how to maybe you know window dress some of the different areas. What do you do on the end
018caps? So there's even a lot more opportunity. There's also a lot of job training opportunities particularly for our special education students in that they will be able to practice some of those skills that they then could put on a resume when they're wanting a job maybe in a grocery store or um a store like a Walmart or a Target or something like that. So, we feel like this will give them an edge up that they don't currently have. I am going to let Scott though talk about what the redesign looks like um and how this all comes together. >> Thank you so much. All right. All right. I think it'd be uh important to start at the exterior. So, one of the major changes with the new space is going to be an exterior entry
019that will allow our our students and staff to be able to come straight from the outside and really give it that welcoming feel instead of currently having to enter through the facility and navigate into a classroom feel. This way, you'll be uh entering straight from the outside. We'll have some dedicated parking stalls uh here behind us. And we'll have also a lot of signage over that door to really uh showcase where that entry will be. Once you enter the building, uh, into the double doors there, kind of in the middle of the screen, if you will, you will enter right into what we'll call our gondola shelving. So, gondola shelving is simply just a fancy term for all the shelving what you see at Walmart, Target, Dollar General, things like that. So, it's just our
020ble shelving. We can change it out for baskets, displays, hooks, hangers, all the different things. So, we can display from small goods all the way up to large clothing and our food items as well. So, if you kind of split the space into two, if you will, uh, what would be the screen right hand side will be the back of house. So those tables there where a lot of our packing takes place for our volunteers that were spoke about earlier and then our students that work on packing a lot of those items. And then also there'll be a large portion dryer up there at the top right hand side of the screen that will allow for staff to be able to accept all those donations that we that the district receives from all our gracious
021donors across the district and be able to go ahead and launder all that before it's put out for uh sale or for for giving away. And then we'll have uh on top of that there's a large sink in there to allow for prep. And then there is a large refrigerator. I think the the goal is to expand the program into some refrigerated items where folks will be able to come in and shop and get those items as well instead of just uh canned goods and things like that. So from there, there'll be a large checkout section there on the right or on the left screen left of yours that will allow for kind of a point of sale system and students to be able to check other students out or other adults out and give
022us a lot of learning opportunities through that. Shelving is flexible. All of it is adjustable and we have made a couple more tweaks uh to it. We're finalizing that right now and our hope is to bring this back for some several action items to the board possibly next month as well. With that, we have mostly construction. This one is actually all going to be done in-house this year. We're not really looking to subcontract anything except for the exterior door install, which will be the cutting of all the masonry installing some structural supports there and installing those doors. Other than that, everything will be done uh this summer in house utilizing a lot of the lead center into that May. We hope to start this actually project the 1 of May. And with that being said,
023uh we'll use the electrical, the carpentry, and the HVAC programs this coming um May essentially before they graduate. Just like we talked about the the uh timeline there, we'll start at the end of May. We'll go through June, July. Our hope is to move in all the furniture towards the end of July and be able to stock the pantry back with all the items. We're going to I think move all the items from Raymore towards the end of or middle of August to end of August and then all the food be back in there and hopefully ready for our first customers towards the end of August or at the start of school and happy to answer any questions on that part. Would you like would you like to partner with any of the grocery people
024in Kansas City? Balls, McKvers, Constantinos. >> Uh to my knowledge, currently they have uh pretty extensive partnerships. I'm sure they're always looking to grow. Uh but I do know for instance working just at the warehouse with that, we do receive quite a few donations monthly and weekly from Hi, uh Sam's Club or some off the top of my head. I don't run that part of it, but I do receive all the the donations that come in weekly. >> I mean, just as far as like taking kids as kind of a little internship into some of the grocery stores around here. >> I think Dr. Bar will probably have the most knowledge on that. >> So, honestly, that's been a little difficult for us to get kids or special education kids in those areas. And so
025we are hoping by letting them practice and build those skills in the pantry that then they would have something on a resume that then communicates, hey, I I have experience on this and will open more doors up for them for that for that purpose. >> Okay. I had some relationships with those three families around Kansas City and I just was thinking I could go to them and say, you know, do you want to be a part of this somehow to help train these kids? >> Sure. I think we could definitely explore that. >> Yeah. I for the board's information, I believe part of this project will be the fund and need focus this year at the Gayla sponsored by the Ed Foundation. So, uh we will upfront a lot of the cost and labor, but
026just know that there might be community partnerships involved to help some of that cost. But what a tremendous idea getting our students involved, the integration piece of it. So, we're very excited about where this is going. >> I'm excited to see the clothing move over here because getting downstairs was a hindrance at the other building. >> And so, this will be much more user friendly and just a lighter, more energizing space that Yeah. >> So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Moving on to the sharp focus. Yes, Mr. Craig Derking is here tonight to talk about midyear NWA results. So, Craig, >> good evening everyone. Um, love to welcome you again to the new sharp focus for this month's iteration. And, uh, this month we're going to be talking just like Dr. Saggel
027said, a little bit about the NWA work that we had um, and some of the amazing things you're about ready to see. Um, first of all, whenever you look at data, you always have the statistical coin where we have truly a growth and um, we're going to have a little bit of a glow. So, when we look at these pieces, how did we do um, where did we go? How how did all these things work together so that we can grab these positive glows? But then to look at the other side of that coin to say, okay, if this is true, then what about the other side? So, I'm going to take this proverbial coin and we're going to talk about both sides of this. First of all, I really want to focus on the
028growth trend and some of the amazing glows that we had from this test. When you look at this first piece where we talk about student math skills, 79% of our total student population either maintained or grew their score. That's huge. So what I did with this test is I looked at when we took the beginning of year test which we took in September and then I analyzed that versus our January middle ofear test. So to have 79% of our kids either improve or keep on that same what we call that RIT score how they moved forward is a huge number. And in fact to kind of get a spoiler out immediately I saw more growth in this test than I have in the past three years of track data that I could find. There's a
029lot of things to be excited here. On the other side of that, let's talk about the growth. Three years ago, 33% of our student population was outpacing national benchmarks. As you can see by this graphic, we almost doubled that. 62% of our kids outpaced benchmarks. Now, let me explain to you what that means. When NWA looks at a kid, they look at their background and you get a projected growth. NWA says, "This is what we believe this student can do. This is what we believe they will get on the next test. This is how much they should grow. 62% outdid that. That's huge. So, we are growing faster than what the NWA and their national benchmarks predicted that we would. That's a huge accomplishment. Now, I'm going to flip that coin and say if this
030is our globe, then how do we grow from this? When we look at that piece where I said 79% were maintaining obviously we have 21% of our kids that lowered their score a and immediately when you look at that if if we're looking at that piece again we're proud of that 79% but then how do we move forward on that 21%. And then if I talk about growth, we did have that huge 62% are outpacing. Well, then the other side of that is we have 38 that are still working towards matching their projections. And here's the good news about that. We were able to identify those students, identify the classrooms that they're in, and we are immediately trying and really making breakthroughs on all of those pieces. This is the power of interim assessments where
031you have MAP and EOCC tests that we take once a year. Those are great tests and and they serve a purpose, but the interim exams like NWA are the most meaningful for teachers because we can take action on that 21% and that 38% right now. And when I say that we could, we are I've been in meetings with administration. I've been in meetings with the building level principles with teachers and we're breaking this down to the single student piece where we can say okay this student didn't is it is there an anomaly in the data what's the story start how does the data portray where they are and where they're going what do we see what can we do to intervene and that's the power I believe of the interim assessments in looking at all
032these pieces the big thing here and I think this is the biggest celebration I'm not one to read slide word for word but This deserves it. Vulnerable learners showing the fastest academic growth in the district. When I first started here so many months ago and we talked about that that you know this is how if a ray students been here three years, this is what their growth looks like. If they've been here for a year, this is what their growth looks like. And if they just are coming in, this is how they grow. In this time period from beginning to middle, our vulnerable population, the kids that are the furthest behind showed the absolute most growth. And what can easily be concluded from this? Our intervention and support systems and welcoming everybody to the Ray
033Peek family, it's working. And again, this was probably in looking at data and looking data for many years and looking at Ray Peek data for many years. There is more growth going on in the district this first semester than I have seen in all of the years of NWA pieces that I've seen in the past. I know you guys are going to have a lot of questions about this. Um, so please jump in. There's a lot to decipher and get into these because you know the question is how are we looking at things? How are the standards play in? How do all these pieces work in? Um there's just a lot to put together to come up with really the whole picture of our student, our student body, one that can be used by the
034administrators, the teachers, and the students. >> Do you think some of this has to do with the new math curriculum we started a couple years ago? >> It can be attributed to a lot of things since this whole focus was just on math. Um I I would I would say possibly, but only being here for six months, I wouldn't have the background of that. But I can tell you there's solid learning going on in the math classrooms. We still have room to grow and you can see that by the numbers, but we're growing faster than ever. >> I wonder if our teachers would say also that some of the math interventionists we've brought in would help >> if our math interventionists have had an impact. >> I I do think so. I also know >>
035podium, please. >> Sorry. I always forget >> I I would say so. I also think I know with the elementary math curriculum that was new several years ago, they've done a a recharge, a kind of a hey, let's let's make sure because we spent so much time on the science of reading. And I do think that's probably helped to kind of reignite some things um especially at the elementary level that maybe you know had gotten a little bit maybe forgotten just because so much focus on the reading. >> What other questions do you guys have? this. So the data is districtwide or so it's not u grade specific or building specific. I mean you probably tease those out. >> I'm going to say yes to all. Everything you saw is truly every student that we
036tested from K through 12 where EOCC's and MAP only started in third grade and only hit specialty courses through high school. This is every student that took the NWA test and it is our entire student population that takes that test. Do you see different levels of students? So, like are the are the elementary students faster learning than the high school students or is there different? >> I'm going to say yes to that. But but there's a difference in that. With NWA, you're going to grow more because that kindergartener has so much more things to learn. And as the points break down for NWA, they the expected growth for a kindergartener versus a junior is much smaller. So percentage-wise, they're probably the same, but that young mind, that sponge is truly there's so much to learn
037and there's so much anticipation with the learning versus that junior or senior that is pretty much tapped out of the high school curriculum that would be assessed that. So yes, we do have it broken down by every grade level, every class, every course, every teacher. Um, and every teacher has been able to get those results back, but appropriate to their age, every kid, regardless if it's that kindergartenner that has this much to grow, is growing this much. And the high schooler that only has this much to grow is still growing this much. So, the growth is truly throughout the entire spectrum. >> So, is it safe in saying that each building then can take this data and say, okay, building specific to them, what can we do to improve our numbers? >> Absolutely. This was
038an entire Ray Peek school district piece. Every building got their own piece of this and by every single classroom so that we could prescriptively look at teacher classrooms at students to say, "Okay, let's share our best practices. Let's collaborate. Let's build a community so that if those teachers are really knocking it out of the park, what are you doing in your classroom that you can share across the district so that we can all kind of glean from your knowledge?" I was going to ask if like especially with elementaryaries can they work together building wise to say okay you guys really did well in this what can we learn from that >> absolutely it's already started in PLC's when the test ended within the first four days all of this was disagregated and sent to principles
039once principles have started that they started with these types of you know really just data conversations and data talks with their teachers that afternoon um and from there we have had multiple conversations multiple action plans and multiple goals started because of this midyear piece. >> Have they been able to with it being so new with you this year, have they been able to come back and say, "Okay, >> we need you to go into this specific whatever area or numbers >> to get us more >> every day." Okay. And it's but I I love doing it. I I get requests for data on specialty things all the time. An example would be the ninth grade center. you know, they decided this year we were going to do a special vocabulary and readingformational text across the
040entire building because vocabulary stretches throughout every single content and it touches every teacher. So, we're looking at the data and I was able to take that and say, "Okay, here is your roster in the beginning of the year and here's where your kids started." Now looking at that vocabulary, now that they have their second semester rosters, I can show every kid how much they grew, how much they were projected to grow. Did they meet those projections, and where the standard error of measure is with that, they're able to say, "Okay, are they close to meeting it? Were they really meeting it? Did they always meet it all along?" And they're able to take that information and possibly do different reading texts within their content. The work that's being done by our educators in this district
041to use this data and to disagregate it to make student learning possible has been phenomenal. >> I think back to last month when the ninth grade center he was sharing with us how they had that program of the mentorship and that checkin. I bet that's really been an added piece for them to have that data like that. >> I hope so. I I every building that I have worked in which is all of them have really seem to appreciate this and the questions I get truly on a daily basis to what's the next level? Where can we go from here? What are your thoughts on this? How do the projections look? Every building is in a different place because every building has a different priority and a different set of kids. So, being able to
042tailor that to every building specific need, I think, has really been something that people have really latched on to. I just want to say that your sole focus of of data is um amazing because as you know data is just data until you analyze it and and some people get overwhelmed by it. And so by you being able to focus and funnel really is going to be very helpful for our educators and our teachers that you're the data expert and they can say I need I need to know this but I don't know how to get it. So I just really appreciate and I'm really thankful that um your your position is is here and helping them. Um, and so as we continue to look at what are what are good things, what are things
043we can improve upon, um, I I the data doesn't lie and it's really going to be very helpful. So, I really appreciate I appreciate that and I hope that all of our teachers and buildings know this resource that that's here. So, that's what I would want to make sure that um that you're inundated daily. That's really what I want is yeah my hope for you is that everybody wants some of your time >> and that is my hope as well and truly it has been it's very fulfilling to do this coming from a classroom from a coach from a district level position to be able to put data in the hands that can make the biggest impact and the change uh truly is a dream job for me. So again I would like to thank
044the board for offering this position in this district and hopefully I'm able to make a difference. I would also like to thank you for approving this position because it has been transformative for our department as well. >> I was just thinking you could probably with having the as many years as we've had in WA even get down to the student and go back and see how they've done in the past and to see did something change or you know something that would help them as an individual student. That's a query I literally had yesterday where I pulled four years worth of tests, which three tests per year were a 12 cycle of how that student was able to grow and and looking at how their coursework versus their national peers versus their rate peers. We
045were able to plot a projection of where they should be and how they're doing. >> Good. >> That's meaningful and that's that makes change. >> All right. Thank you very much for being here. >> Thank you guys for your time tonight. >> All right, on to policy review. >> Thank you, Madam President. Our third item tonight is policy 5215. This is it for its first reading in introductory tonight. Uh this policy is required under Senate Bill 68 and addresses stop the bleed kits and related statutory requirements. We delayed, if you recall last month, we had 14 or 15 policies that we introduced. This was supposed to be one of them. We pulled this to allow for additional legal review to make sure we are comfortable with the uh with the description in the policy. The
046version tonight presents uh the reflection that has been carefully considered so it comes before you uh in its final form. We either are or will be fully compliant uh with this policy uh by the end of the school year as uh as defined by Senate Bill 68. And so tonight is introductory only. I will entertain questions if you have any tonight or over the course of the next 30 days. If not, this will be on your consent agenda for the month of March. >> All right. Thank you. >> Oh, absolutely. I'm sorry. >> Just as a as a I guess a plug, I saw it on the list of activities for the AI summit. >> Yes. >> As a stop to believe class. >> Yes. Yep. There's a probably required of us somewhere to have
047that conversation collectively. So yes, and more information we get out the teachers hands into support services hands the better. >> All right. Thank you. On to action items. The budget update, Mrs. Banks. >> And I was going to say and happy birthday. >> Happy birthday. >> Thanks so much. Thanks so much. It's just a great day being 29 again. >> Thanks for spending it with us. Yes. Good evening. Included in your board packet are the detailed financial reports for the period ending January 31st, 2026. So, I'll briefly highlight a few key points um that explain those reports at a very high level. For the first seven months of the fiscal year, total revenue is approximately $4.5 million ahead of the same point at the same time last year. The primary driver continues to be strong
048tax collections reflecting assessed valuation growth and solid collection rates. In addition, this year reflects the final 20 cent levy transfer from the debt service fund to the operating fund which favorably impacts operating tax revenue as compared to the prior year. We are also seeing positive movement in state funding title tied to weighted attendance and membership updates along with a full year of the Missouri Missouri quality prek funding compared to only a partial funding of last year. These increases are partially offset by normal volatility in areas such as sales tax receipts, interest earnings as rates have moderated, gaming related distributions, and the expected phase out of federal pandemic relief funds. Overall revenues remain healthy and are trending ahead of this time of the pre previous year. On the expenditure side, year-to- date spending is slightly below
049last year at the same point in time. Increases in salary and benefits reflect board approved compensation adjustments. Those increases have been offset by lower spending and purchase services and capital outlay primarily due to timing differences in contracted services and equipment purchases compared to last year. Overall spending patterns remain aligned with budget expectations as we move into the second half of the fiscal year. In summary, revenues remain strong, expenditures are tracking appropriately, and the district's financial position through January reflects stability and continued alignment with our approved budget. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Sorry, I wasn't able to answer your call earlier. I was in a board prep for my bullet um all day today. So um and I'm I feel like I asked this question on our committee call, but when we're
050looking at the increase in revenue where we are compared to last year, are we on target with budget for the revenue? Um because you know expenses are the same >> and we're comparing last year, but where where do we plan to be? Is that really where we are? >> Yes, actually Dr. and Slaggel and I look at that budget to actual every month. Um, and we are trending favorably for the rest of this year. Um, part of that has to do with the way that we budgeted um, the state adequacy target and basic formula money. Um, that's just one component of it. So, we are trending favorably revenue-wise. >> Okay. In relation to that, did I read it correctly that the gambling money, the >> all those monies that we were supposed to get rich
051on, those are all actually trending down a little bit right now because people aren't at the boats buying lottery tickets, all of that like they've done in the past necessarily. >> Yeah, I actually heard about that on the news this morning, too. Um, but yes, so I want to believe I don't want to go off my memory. Um, but Desi just published, I think that they are a 30 to $40 million shortfall in anticipated funding for classroom trust fund money, which when they have a shortfall, we don't get the money that the that the governor has um said he was going to pay or or a plan to pay because of that. So, we do expect to have a decrease in that. >> Was was the and I don't remember was the cannabis money supposed
052to help education or was that just for veterans? >> I don't believe Dr. I might be able to speak highly of that. >> It It had no tie to public education. >> Thank you. >> Right. Any other questions? >> Thank you, Tiffany. >> You're welcome. >> Yes. Thank you. >> All right. I will uh entertain a motion to accept the update. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion, comments, questions? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. >> You're welcome. these new updates every month have really helped. Thank you for >> being here and having to take your time on your birthday to uh educate us. >> What what other place to be really? What other place? >> Well, thank you. Well, still here, district auditor. >> Yes,
053ma'am. Um, pursuant to board policies 3106 and 3510, the district did issue a request for proposal for independent independent audit services for fiscal year 2526 with the option to renew annually for up to four additional years. We did receive one proposal in response to the RFP from Westbrook and Company, who has served as our independent auditor since 2003. During the February 18th Finance Audit Committee meeting, the committee reviewed West Brok and Company's qualifications, experience, and familiarity with the district's operations. After discussion, the committee expects confidence in their expertise and professionalism and agreed to recommend that the board approve their selection to continue providing audit services. Administration supports this recommendation and respects respectfully request board approval for the FY26 audit with renewal options through fiscal year 2030. And with that, I'm happy to answer any additional
054questions you all have. >> Is there any concerns that we only had one bid or is that just because of our needs? >> You know, we were actually kind of pondering that this um this afternoon in a meeting and you know, school finance has become pretty intricate knowledge, specialized detailed knowledge. Um there aren't as many firms that are moving into that line of business. So, a lot of the mom and pop hop shops, I know, um, previously I was aware of of other districts calling local firms to see if they would bid and those local firms didn't want to do that. So, Westbrook um, has a large major a large client base of school finance. So, they kind of have a little bit of economies of scale um, and are able to really >> So,
055we're not the only one with that issue of only having >> I don't believe so. >> Yeah, we talked about that in the the committee call >> with that uh, question and I'm I think like Miss Banks was saying um that the expertise and really the liability >> exactly >> um is shrinking the pool and the other clients that Westbrook has are also our size. And so um we recommended going forward >> and this firm does um audit many of our peer districts as well. >> So they come very highly recommended. >> All right. I will entertain a motion to approve the bid for auditing services from West Brick and Company for fiscal year 2526 with options to renew the contract each year through fiscal year 2930. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Any
056other discussion, comments, questions? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to the 2627 school calendar. So the 202627 school calendar um has presented some unique challenges um based on the placement of things like Labor Day which is the latest it can be this year and the requirements to maneuver several legislative um restrictions such as when we can start um and that we have to have 169 student contact days. So the calendar committee started meeting in December. Um this committee is open to anyone but it largely consists of members of team Rayek and the Rayek professional learning committee. Um members then begin by discussing likes and dislikes of the current calendar. We review survey data from both our staff and our families and then we also analyze a
057reciprocal calendar and kind of start from there. Um the team then creates several drafts and then receives feedback from team Rayek and on the Rayek professional learning committee. Um, this year presentations were made at each building to explain the calendar creation process and then also explain those legislative restrictions that the committee has to take into account. It also gave a time for them to ask questions and I did ask for any great ideas they might have um because I will go anywhere for great ideas with this year's calendar. Um, once these visits were visits were concluded, a survey went out proposing two calendars and asking staff to vote for their preference. over 450 members um responded and 64.5% um voted for the calendar that's being presented tonight. Just some highlights. Um August 25th is a
058Tuesday. It's when students start. May 21st is uh a Friday when students end with the two staff days tacked on after that. Um total collaborationwork PD days is 15. Um our first semester will be 80 student days. Our second semester will be 89. That is the closest we could get out of um the many many many drafts. I do need to commend the committee because they worked very very hard this year to draft, reddraft, try again, think again. And so that's the closest they they could get. Um our next steps um after approval is I form a teacher committee um that then looks at those early release and PD days throughout the year and I get their input on how should those divide up like how much should be district professional development building professional development
059um teacher personal time. So that's kind of our next step to kind of iron that out and then we um push that information out um to our building leaders to talk with our teachers about what those days will look like next year. questions. >> You know, I think it's very telling uh when 20% of the districts around the state almost filed an appeal to the state board because of what the legislature did. Um so, we're not the only ones unfortunately in this mess. >> And we also filed as well, we were a signature on the 39 districts in the Kansas City metropolitan area who asked for um some relief from that that was ultimately denied. One just very small piece, the words under January say school starts the 6th, but it's the 5th. >> We
060will change that. It does start the 5th. That was one of the changes that we made. Um, and so I will make sure that is done. Thank you. Mhm. As a as a parent of older kids, there's not enough no school days, but as a parent of younger kids, there's pl it's wonderful, right? Because your kids are in, so you're working, but um so we would just have to, you know, you look at April and you're like, "Oh, there's only one." That's part of our education process as well is is you know elementary people will be like could you put some of the days by quarters and we like we can put some but secondary does twisters and so we have and so it is kind of that I think that education was helpful this
061year for people to kind of hear um and help understand like real where the real difficulties were. >> Yeah. No, I commend everyone that had pieces of this because when we came out with the new calendar four years ago, um that was met with much resistance and then just having to to redo it for not even we don't want to redo it, but we were required. So, thank your legislators for that. >> I was going to say, please share our appreciation and thanks to all that worked on the calendar committee this year. Um, I know several of us were reached out to with frustrations from teachers and we're just as frustrated. We don't like being told when we can start. You know, our our district knows best what we need. >> So, we do sincerely
062appreciate all of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into this. >> I will let them know. >> All right. I will entertain a motion to approve the calendar as presented for 2627. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? Comments, questions? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> On to the South Middle School rooftop units. >> Good evening. Thank you. Uh as we prepare for this upcoming summer, I'd like to bring this evening um the first action item for FY27 for capital projects. One of those large projects uh the district is wanting to complete this coming year is going to be uh the rooftop replacement at the South Middle School. As you recall, last year uh buildings and grounds replace 39 of those
063units uh what would be called the northern half of the of the building um for the classroom section. And this year we'd like to change the remaining 13 units that would serve the south side of the building. U with that this work will be uh completed all in house again this coming summer. The district is only looking to subcontract the physical crane itself as we obviously are not not able to do that or own that piece of equipment. Uh with that being said, our hope is to move forward with Linux. Uh Linux has been a longtime uh vendor and partner with the school district utilizing the TIPS cooperative for $52,700. And I'm happy to answer any questions in relationship to this. Are we using any of our leaders during the summer? >> Uh, actually, no.
064Still a great question. Uh, yes, we actually are are beneficial enough to have um some interns. Um, then we'll hopefully those will be here still this summer. Uh, we do try to encourage them to go get their true full-time employment, but we do have some juniors. So, therefore, we do keep those employed over the summer into their senior year. >> It's great experience. >> It is a great Yep. We had a couple last year with us. So, actually, Right. Thank you for for reminding me on that. Yes, we had two students with us last summer and I hope to have a couple of those this summer, but depending on when they start their their full-time employment, we'll have to see. >> All right. I will entertain a motion to approve the bid from Linux utilizing
065the tips cooperative to pro provide the 13 remaining RTUs at a cost of $52,700. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? Any other discussion, comments, questions? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. On to the phone system. >> Mr. Gooding, good evening. >> Yes, good evening. So, tonight I'm proposing the transition from our aging Cisco phone system to a new Zoom phone system that that's cloud-based and purchased through a competitively awarded Omnia Partners co-op contract via Kerosoft. The 5-year agreement effective July 1st, 2026 has a fixed total contract value, no surprise hardware refreshes, no escalating maintenance or unexpected capital requests, and results in a $60,000 savings and total cost of ownership over the next five years over our current Cisco system. Teachers and staff are going to gain some practical benefits, including have
066having soft phones on all their MacBooks. Um, we'll have voicemail transcriptions which will make hopefully for faster response times for parents and enhanced privacy via district number masking for teachers and coaches. The contract provides four months of free services for advanced installation, configuration, and testing. We did this to ensure that we have a smooth go live in July. So that will give us plenty of time to do all of the things over the next four months so that that we're prepped and ready to go because we have a small staff to to do kind of this heavy lift. So we're glad that we got that free from from Zoom as part of this. So this upgrade is going to avoid a significant near-term hardware expense which we'd have to put in place if we were
067going to keep our current system. We're looking at probably a $75,000 expense just to upgrade and stay current with the software that we the hardware that we have right now. Um, and so it really aligns with district policies, supports stronger family engagement, um, prioritizes staff safety and privacy, and aligns with our district goals for fis fiscal responsibility and operational efficiency. So, tonight I recommend the approval to proceed with the 5-year contract with Kerasoft for the Zoom phone purchase through Omnia Partners contract with a total contract value of $324,22865 and be happy to answer any questions about it. >> Ryan, does that include the software and upgrades on a with a maintenance contract, the 324? >> So, that is a turnkey solution for all five years. >> Okay. doesn't see. I'm sorry. >> I was just
068going to say we we switched to Zoom phone two years ago. >> Um and it's weird to not have a phone, but we all have headsets. So, I don't know. Are you have it is that part of it or >> Yeah. So, if you have a physical phone right now, you're going to have a physical phone moving forward, but we have physical Zoom phones as well. And part of this is they are comping us the phones, which is one of the major costs whenever you go through a refresh like this is buying the hardware that works with the the new vendor, the new provider. So Zoom is actually comping around $48,000 in hardware to give to the district. >> Doesn't seem like this year we've had as much of an issue, but we've had a
069lot of issues with the phones out at East Middle. Will this help resolve some of those issues? So phones are a great thing that nobody thinks about so they don't work. So um never promise that's going to fix everything. It does give us a lot more flexibility. Getting a lot of that hardware off of our network allows us to use uh and and I'll tell you just a quick story. Uh one of the things that brought this on is if I rewind to the very first day of school and we have power outages and we don't have phones in buildings and then Dr. Dr. Mike Schllegel calls me into his office and says, "I need you to fix that problem because I don't want that to happen again." This is part of fixing that problem.
070So, this would allow us to bring in hotspots and everybody at the district would be able to call from their computer as if they're using whatever line we wanted to actually assign to that. So, part of that masking that you see in there, um, it allows teachers to use their phone at night, whether if they're at home, they can use their phone at night or their computer, excuse me, at night. call parents and it shows that they're calling from their actual desk phone or from the school phone. So, it masks their actual phone. So, it's really something that teachers have been asking for for a really long time. And to be honest with you, we've looked at it a lot and it's always been kind of a pipe dream way out of our price range
071to be able to afford. And so, uh when Zoom came to us with this offer, we feel really lucky to to have the opportunity to jump on it. So, will those hotspots be in the buildings so that if something does happen or is it something that somebody's going to have to get out there? >> Yeah, so all of our teachers or all our principles have hotspots on their phones right now. So, we would just attach that phone hotspot. We have hotspots with our technicians in buildings. So, as an example, at the high school, Dan Schwarz or Dan Fischer has a couple of hotspots. He would be able to take them up to the to the front office and and get them on the network and very you would have very minimal downtime. Um, this will
072all be dependent on internet when it's local. So, it won't be any more hardware or depending on more of a local vendor that we've had to depend on right now that sometimes has let us down. So, um, I feel a lot more confident in Zoom's ability to to keep a like a 99.99% uptime for us. >> Do we have the the bandwidth for for this? >> Yeah. So um recently actually we re-uped our contract with um Moret who is our internet provider through um our title one funding our USACK title one funding and we actually have doubled our bandwidth for the main campus. So we went to five gigs on the main campus from two and a half and we haven't we haven't really touched that. So that's been really nice. And we also upped
073our bandwidth at East Middle School to 400 megs. Um and that's just for that one building. So as long answer, yes. >> Okay. >> So yes, feel good about that. >> Okay. >> All right. I'll entertain a motion uh to approve entering into a 5-year contract with Caroft through the Omnia Partners contract for Zoom phones in the amount of $324,288.65. >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate you. >> All right. On to committee reports. >> We had the audit committee which um we heard what we talked about. Um so that's a short committee report. >> Our legislative uh meetings have been going swimmingly >> up river. Um, if you guys have not heard, the foundation is
074turning 35 this year. Um, our Taste of Ray Peek is on Saturday, April 25th at 5:30 p.m. at the Raymore Activity Center. I hope to see everybody there. All right, any other committee reports? All right, superintendent's comments. >> Thank you, Madam President. Uh, we are now three weeks into our bond information campaign for the April 7th election. We are in the process of scheduling presentations with staff groups, community organizations, and parent groups. Um, the bulk of that work will occur in the month of March as we get to the home stretch of this uh information campaign. Appreciate the board's leadership in placing this on the ballot and allowing the committee the opportunity to consider these improvements. At your table tonight are a couple things that I want you to be aware of. The first is
075theformational brochure that our communications department has put together. We've had the chance to hand this out and walk several groups through this and that is kind of the uh the cliffnotes version of the bond proposal. also are some talking points for the board uh that uh Christy Mcern has put together for you if you have uh a chance to review those and want to you know commit those to at least some sort of working memory of the elevator speech and the key talking points about our bond election so that you're better prepared to have these conversations with our community as well. In this week's update, you'll have from me a schedule of our presentation schedule. If you would like to accompany any of those with a presenter, I would love to have your attendance. So,
076that will be in your update this Friday. I want to provide a brief legislative update. Uh, traveled to Jefferson City several times so far. uh most recently last week where I was able to testify before the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee regarding House Bill 2913 which was filed by Representative Bill Irwin who represents part of our area. Uh 2913 uh seeks to provide legal protection to teachers in the event of trying to break up violent instances. during my uh testimony uh before the committee was able to share that we do not have these very often but I don't want our teachers to have to assess the legal risk of trying to keep kids safe and so this bill u aided in that bill is still in committee has not been voted out but it
077was a good time for all to be at the at the hearing uh as President Johnson said our legislative advocacy team has been actively engaged while I was there I had a couple representatives come to me and and said they had voted no on a couple different bills largely because of the advocacy that our team had reached out with with additional information. So that was good to hear that it was uh is being impactful uh along those lines. We've also reviewed House Bill 988 which is the open enrollment bill. Uh at this time we have not taken an official position on the bill. We're going to monitor its progression. uh we may take an official position. If you recall with our Cass County Kids First official legislative positions, uh we have an official legislative position
078to oppose that bill or any kind of open enrollment. Uh right now we have not uh done so officially as that bill is still early in the process. The last thing I want to talk about is a um conference that happened earlier this week here in Kansas City and I'm going to ask Dr. bar to come to the podium because she's going to aid me in this information. Uh but first of all, I really want to recognize Dr. Bar and her expertise. So this conference that the Kaufman Foundation sponsored uh had about 500 uh educators from across the country to converge at the Lowe's hotel for a couple days to explore in-depth real world learning. The kind of the learning that we are doing across our district and making even more opportunities for students than
079ever before. Dr. Dr. Bar was a headline speaker at a couple of breakout sessions um well represented uh across uh a variety of opportunities to speak to other people and really look into her expertise and leadership and don't be shy about this. You were one of the headline uh speakers that people went to. So I want to recognize her and her expertise in this area as well. I want you to talk a little bit about who we had at the conference and how we were um edified. >> Yeah, so we were represented at the pre-conference on a panel. Um we were represented there were four learning strands on the second day um that people spent all day in that strand and Rayek led two of those four strands. And so um shout outs to Stephanie
080Russ, Emily Craig, Katie Huff. They were working on the student agency side of it. Um and then on the third day um there were seven possible site visits and we were chosen as one of the seven. So we had a group um come in that Wednesday afternoon and um go to the lead center and we immediately released them to the kids and said just go ask them. Uh and so they got to spend a good like 45 minutes just getting in with the different teams and talking um about what they're learning. And then the students led the tour. And then we ended with a um student staff panel um which I thought was really good. U just a funny side story. I don't even remember if I've told you this. Um one of our middle
081school people went to a different site um and was trying to get some information ideas about Del, you know, for Delta um our middle school program of choice starting next year. And they they were asking the the site, you know, what are you guys doing? And they're like, actually, um we're waiting for for Rayek. we they got this thing going on and we usually followed them um not realizing they were speaking to Ray Peek people. So it was a it was a compliment um to kind of what our our people are are doing. >> So we're very well represented. Uh I think our our middle school Delta group that was there took >> we had three teams um there. We had um our um academy team, we had a high school team and then we
082had the Delta middle school team was there um to learn So, very well represented. Very proud of Dr. Bar and the team for the work that they're doing in this area. >> Thank you guys for leading the way in a lot of this stuff. >> No, thank you guys for saying yes almost every time I'm up here. >> All right. Thank you. On to board of education comments. All right. On to calendar of events. March 12th, our next work session at 6 PM. March 24th is our next regular work s next regular session. 6 pm is closed and 7 pm open. >> I'd like to remind the board that the March 24th date is a Tuesday instead of a Thursday. So make that adjustment to your calendars. We'll have the board meeting on Tuesday the
08324th. >> And on that we are adjourned. Thank you guys.