001I get the thumbs up from our video crew before we start. Excellent. Thank you, Madam President. As you know, we are approaching the end of the first semester. In fact, we just have hours left before the first semester is over. What a great semester it's been. I can't say enough about our students, our families, our community, and especially our teachers and support staff who have made this tremendous first semester possible. And to celebrate that, we have a special video tonight we want to share with you. We asked students at several of our schools one simple question. What are you most proud of this semester? [music] Something I am proud of this semester is my grades. >> Going to recess and playing with my friends. >> I'm proud of getting a B+ [music] in AP Chem.
002>> I'm proud of uh probably my solo I did for uh the choir [music] concert. Making more friends >> this semester. I'm proud I got into all district band. >> Um, probably just um I think middle school has been super hard, [music] but I feel like just getting into like the flow of it has made me really proud of myself and I feel like my confidence has gotten so much bigger with being more independent in middle school. >> I'm still top 20 in my class. >> I passed my youth court bar exam. Uh, I'm proud of making the A team football and leading them to a winning season and making basketball. So, yeah. >> I got a new skill in gymnastics. [music] >> I'm proud of my creating creative writing in ELA. >> I'm proud
003of passing all my classes. >> I'm [music] really proud of it. All my friends at school. >> I'm proud of being in school. [music] uh finding new friends and learning. >> Something I'm proud of this semester is that I got an internship for [music] next semester at the Lead Center. >> Uh I'm proud of uh having a good volleyball year, >> hitting a new [music] PR and weights. >> I'm proud of going from spa failing Spanish to not failing Spanish, [laughter] >> winning a state. probably just um [music] getting all A's and getting an A on my algebra test because I work really hard. My teacher helped me a lot. >> Something I'm proud of this semester is I learned how to manage my time and turn in my work on time so my grades
004[music] can be good. >> I'm proud of the whole entire world and the school because it has a great community. >> I'm very [music] proud of all of my students. Um, something I'm proud of is definitely my grades, uh, football, basketball, and then this year I think I've grown as a as a student, um, from all [music] the past years, and be super glad that I go to Ray Peek. And yeah, >> I graduated in the top 20 in my class. There's 24 in it. It's a proud accomplishment. Thank you, >> Mr. Kaufman. Yes. [clears throat] >> Isn't that fun? That was a great video. We ask our staff to do three things. To deeply care for kids, help our students do hard things, and continue to provide life-enhancing learning opportunities for everyone. And what
005you just saw is a first semester snapshot of some of that work. The student voices are a reminder of how far they've come and how far we've come in this first semester. It's been a good one. We need a break, but it's been a good one. We couldn't be prouder of those kids and our staff. So, Madam President, back to you. >> Thank you. All right. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. On toformational item safety and security. >> Yes. I'm going to ask that Darlene Santiago Dodson come to the podium for her presentation tonight. Darlene is our director of safety and security and since joining us in July
006has conducted a comprehensive safety assessment of schools across the district and tonight she'll share both her findings and a plan for how we can continue to position ourselves as a safier and more secure learning environment. Darlene, the floor is all yours. Thanks for being >> good evening. So tonight, I will present the safety and security comprehensive plan developed using a three-year strategic framework covering 2025 to 2028. This framework is intentionally aligned with the requirements and intent of the Missouri Senate Bill 68, which is a school laws that were signed by the governor and recently enacted. This plan establishes a phased approach. Year one is focused on assessment and planning. Year two is implementation and year three is evaluation and improvement. So the purpose is to ensure that every student, staff member and visitor is safe,
007supported and prepared every day. This plan strengthens physical security readiness, prevention, and crisis response while aligning with state law, Senate Bill 68. And you'll hear me say Senate Bill 68 a lot during this presentation. And you'll also hear that we do a lot of afteraction reviews. So, Ray Pek grows in size. We're we're expecting growth, but with that also are the safety and security and uh needs are going to grow with it. So, this three-year framework, it'll build on current safety layers already in place. It'll standardize expectations districtwide, strengthen training, prevention, and emergency response, improve coordination with law enforcement, fire, and emergency partners. Establish a cycle of continuous improvement and accountability. And you'll hear that a lot through this slot through this presentation. Over the next three years, the focus is going to be on
008physical security and technology, preparedness and emergency response, behavioral threat assessment and intervention, training, drills, culture building, communication and stakeholder engagement, evaluation and accountability. So physical security and technology upgrading and standardizing access control surveillance secure entry perimeter protection to reduce the vulnerabilities across all campuses in alignment with SB68 emergency preparedness and response ensuring every building has a current emergency operations plan which we now do and also a district overarching plan that we're working on improving refining those plans based on afteraction reviews creating reunification plans which is in alignment with SB68 behavioral threat assessment revise and strengthen the multidisciplinary team process which will identify early indicators and support the needs of the students in doing that we found that we have a great process for students, but we didn't have one for staff and external adults. So,
009we recently created and implemented a risk assessment protocol that aligns with the behavioral threat assessment process we already have. Again, we'll review results to improve intervention and prevention training and drills. So we're going to deliver ongoing rosp specific training to staff and students running scheduled drills with fidelity which are lockdown evacuation sheltering and reunification and embedding a culture of safety awareness and shared responsibility again in alignment with SB68 communication and engagement building a robust internal and external communication protocol. calls for crisis. Thanks to Christie McNarland here and ensuring messages are timely, clear, multilingual, and accessible and leveraging trusted community partners, parents, local agencies, and media. So accountability and evaluation, annual security assessments that are conducted, we have finished ours for the year, afteraction review process and reporting structures to monitor the process, which is important
010to monitor the process and adapt priorities and ensure accountability to district leadership, the board of education and the community again in alignment with SB68. So the anticipated impact by 2028 strengthen physical security and emergency response readiness, improve coordination and trust with first responder partners, increase staff and student confidence in emergency response uh capability and improve culture of safety and security. And the culture here is great already and we have a great foundation already built. So when I say improve, I just mean maybe focus more on preventive uh a preventive culture and then maintain compliance with state school safety mandates and continuous improvement cycles. So we put together a district safety committee. It's a multidisciplinary team. It's made up of district leaders, school administrators, law enforcement, fire EMS partners, community partners. So the key responsibilities of
011the of the uh district safety committee is policy and plan development. So you review and update policies on a consistent basis, risk assessment, which is super important because you identify the potential safety and security risks across all campuses and facilities. And then you recommend mitigation strategies, training and drills. Basically support the drills that we have to do mandated and maybe add others that can help and make sure there's fidelity with the drills. Incident review. So evaluate safety related incidents, pay attention to trends and afteraction reports are important to identify the lessons learned and improve our response. coordination. Collaborate with all school administrators, law enforcement, fire departments, emergency management, and all other community partners to strengthen a preparedness and response communication. Just promote consistent and transparent communication across the district. Safety and security programs and procedures
012review current safety layers and update and improve as needed on a continuous basis. So the goal objectives by year first goal area security assessments which are mandated by SB68. Now so to give you a little background on what a security assessment is it provides a compre comprehensive evaluation of K through2 school district's overall safety and security posture. Identifies the physical procedural and technological vulnerabilities. reviews existing policies, emergency operations plans, and staff preparedness to determine our strengths and where we need improvement. Findings are presented with actionable prioritized re recommendations to enhance the safety of the campus, guide funding decisions, and support long-term planning. It establishes a baseline for continuous improvement, helping the district maintain a safe and secure learning environment for students, staff, and visitors. Year two, purchase and implement implement those safety and security enhancements
013options. Year three, continue to purchase and implement the next phase of safety and security enhancements. Goal area, emergency operations planning. So, we're going to use a two two emergency management frameworks. the two guiding systems. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I jumped ahead. I'm sorry about that. So, emergency operations planning, year one, review and update all district and school emergency plans. We're doing that right now. The schools have adopted and created their building specific emergency operations plan. And the district safety committee right now is reviewing and updating and making our emergency operations plan robust in alignment with SB68. Year two, evaluate and revise those emergency operation plans based on the lessons learned and new information. It's a living document. Year three, conduct a full-scale reunification drill and align emergency operation plans with our regional partners. Goal area
014training and drills. Year one, review current training and drills for student and staff. We're currently doing that. Provide recommendations for improvement or changes. Year two, implement student safety awareness and campaigns or programs that could be beneficial to our students. Year three, review and revise those adopted programs. Behavioral threat assessment goal. Year one, collaborate with MTSS coordinator to review and revise the current behavioral threat assessment process. We were currently doing that and out of that is where we got the risk assessment protocol. Year two, evaluate effectiveness and update those protocols. Analyze the results, identify prevention measures and trends. Year three, provide bianual refresher training for the threat assessment teams. Goal area student programs review current student programs related to safety, security, and wellness. Year two, expand student support programs and partnerships. We're trying to adopt and
015we're looking into adopt the I love you guys foundation which is a standard response protocol which we by SB68 we have to have a standard response protocol. The I love you guys foundation is being currently used over 70,000 schools across the nation. And the good part about the I Love You guys Foundation, it was created and and the focus was for K through 12. [clears throat] So year three, integrate mental health metrics into safety reporting. And to integrate these me mental health uh metrics into safety reporting, it'll strengthen prevention. It'll improve our decision making. and it's going to support a safer, healthier learning environment for the students and staff. Community partnerships is another goal area. It's going to strengthen our memorandums of understandings with law enforcement and first responders. It's going to establish a relationship
016with our juvenile office, which is super important, and we're currently doing that. Year two, continue the relationship building and expand our external partnerships. and year three, maintain, sustain, and deepen those relationships and external partners. Now, the emergency management framework that I mentioned before, there's two guiding systems we're going to use. The first one is the long-term framework. So, that is prevention and prevention is the threat assessment teams, physical security upgrades, safety education. The preparedness is the drills, the staff student training, emergency supplies, communication systems. The response is the crisis command structure, the communication protocols and reunification procedures. And then the recovery is the counseling, the debriefing, the incident documentation, and the facility restoration if needed. The incident command system is the tactical response. And that tactical response is a standardized all hazards approach and it
017makes it so that the structure of all agencies involved can work together uniformly and be effective. So annual requirements, the required drills we're going to do uh again with fidelity and uh then bianual staff tabletop exercises, new staff orientation. We want to add a safety and security component so we can catch up our new our new team members with our safety and security protocols, procedures, expectations, and culture. And then districtwide crisis response team a refresher every summer. So each building each principal will give their team their building team a refresher and then we'll do a district refresher as well evaluation and continuous improvement. So an annual board report such as this and then afteraction reviews which are super important because you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been. And then
018staff and student perception surveys and hopefully we're going to see good results. So, I'm confident that we will with that. And that's it. So, well, let me tell you our goal. It's very clear. Every student, every staff member, every day safe, secure, and support. Well, first off, I'd like to say thank you. Um, you know, this is something that has your position has been one that's been on the board's radar now for several years, and we're very, very thankful you're here now. >> Thank you. >> Um, a couple of questions I had out of it. I am. And if there's ever a question that doesn't need to be answered in public, please don't hesitate to say it. >> I'll let Dr. Schlaggel tell me that. >> There we go. [laughter] >> He's going to intervene.
019>> Um, I would assume that drills will be done age appropriately at different buildings levels, you know, because maybe what you can drill with at the high school is going to be, in my mind at least, very different from elementary. And I think that would be a parents question of making sure that, you know, um, we aren't scaring their kids to death, you know, or whatever, but we're doing age appropriate drills and special education students, I would assume, could potentially be different types of drills as well. >> Absolutely. And that's also in our emergency operations plan. Even our reunifications, we have a we So we know that the functional skills may not in an emergency situation, it may not be good to be included with everybody else. So we even have already designated a separate
020room for them and so yes we absolutely and everything in safety and security we take into account h and what's appropriate and um even right now they're doing that already. I mean honestly that's been done I mean the foundation I have to tell you and I'm not it it's phenomenal and especially for not having this position I commend that what they've been able to do uh with without it. Um, so yes, that will absolutely will be a focus. >> And I know a couple of board members specifically have had questions in the past. Um, have we or are we looking to address um football stadium area when there's events going on, you know, track tournament or whatever they're called? >> I think Dr. Vulkar can tell you how I focused on the football operations. >>
021Very focused. Very focused, >> you know, because it's such a wide open space and we've always been very um I don't know if lax is the word, [clears throat] but >> yeah. Um, that was one of the first things we worked on and I think this year we made we took some strides. Um, and I know that with our district safety committee ne uh now put together we're going to take even more strides. But yeah, that was a that's funny you say that because that was like a a quick focus. >> Madam President, I will add part of our facility needs analysis has been taking a look at safety across the district. There are so many things you can do in a current stadium like we have, but some of the improvements we want to
022see in that in that facility are safety related uh that Darling has brought to our attention as to maybe how to separate home and visitor traffic from the get-go so they don't cross uh and some other safety elements. So, there's some structural things we need to be doing to our stadiums and facilities as well that are a part of this. It's just not all behavioral. Sometimes it's environmental as well. Well, I would like to remind the public or also that a lot of these things we were already doing before you've done the tremendous amount of work that you've done. So, you know, none of this is necessarily new to us. >> Yeah. Oh, no. The foundation was phenomenal. >> Any other comments, questions down the line? Oh, I just have a question on the I
023love you guys and that's so if tragedy happens that's the response program that we would implement. Well, it's a standard response protocol and it actually uh right now we use the ASERT uh so it would replace that uh and it is uh it is a a very very uh data supports that has been very very um successful and it's simple and [snorts] now that the uh SB68 mandates that students need to be trained this has specific training for K through second for and then secondary. So it was created and and the focus was K through 12. So yes, it it would be our standard response protocol throughout the district and shared with parents. >> Well, I just did a quick Google search and I was very impressed already with what I saw on Yeah, it
024it's really uh I did a lot of research on it and you know uh I I I was super impressed >> and I would assume you know sometimes people think safety and security it's just about people coming into our buildings but it's also about the kiddos inside of our buildings and you know are we looking at maybe doing uh more professional development with our teachers and staff as far as deescalation? >> Well, I would love to. Yeah, I I mean >> or do you see that as a need? the deescalation part. Teachers pretty much just being teachers, they're pretty good at that naturally. Um, so it's not so much I don't think the deescalation. I think more so is the preparation and confidence to be very clear on what's expected with each prompt or each
025situation. So, it's it's more a preparedness uh than anything. I don't think teachers necessarily need deescalation. I think they're naturally really good at that. They're patient people. They wouldn't be in this business, right? So I I I'd have to say that, you know, that's I mean, you can always use it. Everybody can always use it, but not really a focus. >> I had a question. You had mentioned that Senate Bill 68 goes in effect of 2028. Is that January 1st or is it the school year of 2028? >> It's actually in effect right now. Um, but they gave us in the the Senate bill, they gave the schools time. So like this has to be done by the 26th. This has to be done by 27. They give you to 28 and 29, but it's
026actually in effect now. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Well, I think that was all that the board had, but thank you very much. I know we've all been >> waiting anxiously to hear this from you. >> Well, thank you. >> Well, let me just summarize. Darling, first of all, thank you. there's tremendous amount of work visiting all of our campuses, working with our building principles, um really giving us a a real in-depth look at how we can continue to improve ourselves in the safe, secure environment uh across our district. From this point forward now, we will be in going a variety of of phases. One will be implementation on some of this early stuff that she's talked about. Others will be uh kind of looking at our facility space, the hardening of it, and part
027of that will be part of our facility needs analysis. uh there might be some things that we can do just with our ongoing uh maintenance efforts that we have throughout the summers. Um but we've taken two different tracks, the behavioral piece, the environmental piece so that we can make continued improvements across this district. So I guess that's a long way of saying stay tuned for more uh information about what we're doing on both ends and maybe some requests uh coming before you in the near future around March April time frame for additional uh expenditures on key safety items. Thank you. All right. On to policy 1432. >> Yes. Thank you, Madam President. On the heels of that presentation, I'd like to introduce to the board tonight policy 1432 for its very first reading. Uh this
028policy has been vetted by our legal team, our insurance carrier, and our policy oversight committee. It comes you to you tonight for introduction only. It'll be uh set aside for 30 days. will be voting on this next month. In short, policy 1432 adds one sentence that allows the district safety and security director to carry a weapon under very narrowly defined conditions. Specifically, this applies to individuals. This policy says that this will apply to individuals who hold a valid HR218 card, meaning former law enforcement officers who require maintaining annual training and who are employed by the district in the role of safety and security director. In short, we have narrowly defined this policy to be only one person in this district. And we feel that this is a a uh factor that we need to uh
029bring into our broader effort to create a safer and more secure learning environment for our students and staff. We believe this policy supports that goal and we bring it forward tonight for your consideration. Be happy to try to answer any questions tonight on it. Uh if there are no questions or we'll set it aside for 30 days and come back for a vote next month. This is something we've talked about in an earlier discussion several months ago about when we do have a safety security director, is it the board's will that that safety and security director be able to carry a weapon given that we have fact we have fashioned her responsibilities to be about safety and security. So, we're bringing that to you tonight. It requires a policy change for us to do that
030and that is uh the policy 1432. I stand for questions. >> All right. Thank you. If you do come up with anything, just let Dr. Slegel know on that. All right. We will move on to special education updates. >> Yes, we have Dr. Amanda Coleman with us this evening to provide an update on last year's special education program review. As you know, Dr. Coleman has been working diligently on follow-up actions and continuous improvement efforts across our special ed programs. And she's here tonight to share her progress and outcomes. Dr. Coleman, it's all yours. >> Good evening, guys. >> Should I see my slides? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, it's always a pleasure to come before you. Thank you for this opportunity. Um, the slides tonight, I mean, you you have them. They have content in
031them um that kind of detail the action that we've done this year and even some from last year. Um, but I really wanted to kind of frame tonight to talk about a couple of stories um that shine a light on um some of the things we've been doing in in the realm of special education. Um I also want Oh, right. So, at the end though, as you listen, if there's something I don't cover, please ask me at the end. I want to make sure I'm always responding to your questions and concerns. Um I also wanted to acknowledge very briefly an email that I know that you received um a couple of months ago. At the conclusion of that email, there was a statement about um the work of the district to take energy and action
032to improve our special education programs. I want you to know that I could not agree with that statement more. We have done a lot of things over the last year and a half. Um and we have more things to do. the kind of work um the expectations that I have for what special education teaching um and learning looks like in this district is not something that is realized in a short amount of time. It's something that requires intentionality. It requires focus. It requires commitment which you have from your special education teachers and department. And it requires support which I am so thankful that you all so willingly and graciously. Um, I want you to know that when I sit in this seat, my pledge to you is that I will not ever cease and my
033sincere action um to do all that we can to continually monitor what we should do next to strengthen our programs and services for students with disabilities in this district and there's stuff in my throat. So [clears throat] that being said, uh goal number one, the way this is outlined, these are each slide that follows the goal will identify the metrics that we identified to align with our four program goals for the department. Um this number seven 97 um articulates the percentage of student percentage of teachers last school year that agreed that the professional learning they were given um strengthened their work. uh the words that you see there underneath the 97 is percent is the professional development that teachers have received this year. The second column um really was a was a metric action that
034we intended to start working on this year. What I want to highlight there is the learning progression um by the beginning of next school year. Myself and our instructional coach um are working this year to create an articulated vertical progression of most essential standards and skills that kids should learn. If a special education teacher knows and has a document that outlines in this grade level in this content area, these are the skills and standards that are most essential for students to learn. And then they also have a a map that details these were the most essential skills students should have learned before they came to me. then the IEP goals that we write will be much more focused and will strengthen and advance student learning. The third column um describes the um courses that we
035added this year. I want to talk my my first big story is about the creative theater workshop class. Were you there? Did you just >> I got it. >> No, I I saw it on >> Okay. Um so on December 5th um the creative theater workshop class was created by Jamie Overreet and it is was designed specifically for the students in our functional skills program at the high school. Uh and so on December 5th they had their first play of Mother Goose. So I sat in the audience um that was completely packed um at the in the old high school auditorium and I watched our students star and excel in that play. Um, I also watched peers in the audience actively encouraging them. There is a student in our special education classroom at the high
036school who's I have watched him over the last two years. His initial reaction to I want you to do this hard thing is um, absolutely no thank you. Um, and in the middle of the play, he was supposed to come on stage. He did not. I could see him like on the sidelines not coming on stage. And then in my peripheral vision at the end of the aisle I was sitting in or the row I was sitting in, I saw these three boys like go saying his name like and motioning him the whole time. Come on, come on, come on. So the next time he was supposed to come on stage, he came on stage. Um I was hugged by parents afterwards. They told me that um this was a dream for them come true.
037They said it was a dream for their child come true. Uh we will make sure that you know when the spring play will be. I don't want you to I don't want you to miss it. It will be a huge highlight. Uh Jamie Over Street deserves significant accolades and praise. It was incredible. Uh okay. So this slide um just details some of the action we're doing this year with regard to goal number one. Um I want to highlight the strategies of learning course. Strategies of learning is something that we offer for sixth through 12th grade students. I would describe it as study hall on special education steroids. Um last year we um created a little bit of strengthening to it by creating a course description. That course description in its most simplest form is teaching
038kids the academic behaviors to be successful students and teaching them the job skills to be successful employees. Uh this year what we're working on is really a clear roadmap for instruction in that course that aligns content to six researchbased academic behaviors that translate to academic success that also align with students individualized IEP goals that are focusing on executive functioning skills that they're lacking. So by the beginning of next year, we will have a structured curriculum, if you will, um to really strengthen student learning um in that regard. This slide really just talks about stuff we've already done, but it's there because I wanted you to have it. Okay, goal two. Um I say a lot doesn't if you if you have a vision, you have a great vision, you have a great mission, you must
039have systems in place to realize those. So our three metrics with regard to goal number two have already been met. Um but that does not mean at all that the work has stopped. Um this week alone um in collaboration with our BCBA with in collaboration with the Shaw team, Timber Creek team, Eagle Glenn team. I wrote down on a post-it last night, we created eight different systems that we will start implementing that will strengthen the work that we do for kids. um three of those that um I thought were more noteworthy than others. Um one is making sure that our K through8 program teachers have an opportunity to collaborate with our BCBA once a month to go over student data. Another one I met with the Shaw team and we really mapped out some guidelines
040so that the the teachers in at Schul would know what students really need access to our most intensive classroom that we have in Schul at Schul. Uh and then another one is working with our Timber Creek and our Eagle Glean Eagle Glenn teams um on the work of PLC and putting some PLC structures in place so those teams can continue and strengthen their collaboration about instruction in their classrooms. Okay. Um what I want to highlight on this slide is the survey I sent recently sent out two week beginning of last week sent out a survey to our administrators and our special education teachers. Um I wanted them to comment on the responsiveness that they feel that myself and our assistant director Amy Tucker provide to them. Um the of 38 responders as of today um
041two individuals stated that we responded somewhat slower than they expected and the other 36 individuals said that we responded in a timely manner that resulted in improved outcomes for students. Another thing that I asked in that question or in the survey was tell us what tell us what we need to be doing to continue to strengthen the work that we're doing for kiddos. um and items that were repeated I thought you would want to hear. Good news, these are already things are on our radar. Um but I don't ever assume that there's something out there that I haven't considered. Um so we'll continue to do this type of surveying of our teachers and staff twice a year. Um teachers and admin. So what was identified um by teachers or admin was increased opportunity for teachers
042to collaborate when we write IEPs as kiddos transition from one level to the next. So from middle school to high school, actually that was not as big of a deal. Elementary to middle, it's pretty big. Early childhood to kindergarten, pretty big. Um they talked about um us continuing to monitor that ratio of students with disabilities and students without disabilities in our secondary classrooms and our co-taught classrooms. They also talked about increasing supports for students who have a lot of special education need but they are not so severe that they require an educational setting that is exclusively in a special education environment. Um and then just continued instructional coaching uh for our special education teachers. I will take that data to my leadership team. I will give that to them and then together we will kind
043of map out our strategic implementation of their recommendations going forward. Okay. Again, those are action steps that we took last year that we're just maintaining. All right. Goal three is focused um on secondary. The metrics you see here, that is our um success towards achievement. And those descriptors really outline the work we did last year when we modified scheduling um it at the secondary buildings to ensure that we were capitalizing on teacher talent on co-eing partnerships and aligning our courses for the benefit of our students. This year our primary focus at the secondary level from an instructional lens um is with the co-eing and the PLC. So this year our instructional coach has been working exclusively with the secondary teachers really as I said kind of earlier focusing on what is most essential to teach
044and then also having conversations about those co-eing structures that lead to the greatest student learning and growth. Next year the intention is for us to really dig in with those partnerships and really strengthen their professional collaboration when it comes to instructional design and delivery within their classrooms that will enhance learning for all of the kids. Okay, last year um I we contributed really through high needs fund and reimbursement we receive students who are attend our district but are placed in foster care almost a million dollars that we recouped back into general budget. Um this school this school year we received more money back in high needs funds than we had the prior year. Um, we spend a lot of money in special education, so I'm going to try to put some back, too. Um, these
045action steps again outline the systems that we have in place that we use to monitor our expenditures as well as inform some staffing decisions. So, this is my last slide. I have two more stories I want to tell you and then I want to open it up for anything you all may have for me. Um, I got this email this week. I really did want to kind of capture and and um things that are happening right now. You know, these are this is every day in the life of um a special education director. Um this email was sent to me from Dr. Jennifer Pearl, who is um the coordinator at Bridal Ridge. Bridal Ridge has our autism programs. We have three autism classrooms that we refer to as CBSS. These classrooms um serve students that
046um have s have significantly low cognitive ability, low or no verbal language, high behavior. It requires a high degree of specificity and teacher talent. Um and it also requires a high degree of training, right? And we have been putting a lot of time, a lot of resources um into the development of these classrooms. They're new classrooms. We have new teachers in those programs. So, this email um is from the coordinator of that school. She said, "Tuesday, I met with a parent, the parents of a new of a student who came into our program this year for an IEP meeting because the student has already met five of her goals, which is super exciting all on its own." The parents stated a couple of times during the meeting how nervous and apprehensive they were when the
047move from their home school to CBSS was proposed and how they have now seen her blossom since coming here and seeing the new skills she is developing carry over to home as well. Um my last story is about the PMI class that we started this year, the peer modeling intervention class that we started at the high school yesterday. Um I was participated in a tour. We had some individuals from Lincoln County come to the integrated learning house for a tour. We had two of our students in functional skills help on the tour and two of our peer models helped. And so the four students were taking the um visitors around showed them each um area within the house showed them and explained to them how we use the house for instructional purposes. Uh while we
048were we were visiting the students had left. We were just kind of debriefing with the team. Katie Huff, one of the students had left because Katie asked a student towards the end. Katie Huff asked um our two peer models what they got out of the peer modeling class this year. The first student said, "I think every uh student in the high school should take this class because what we are learning in transition class are teaching us just independent living skills that we all need." We suspected this might be an outcome of of the peer modeling class. Um the other student said, "I have learned about perspective." She said, "I have learned that you really don't understand another person's world view until you see it through their eyes." >> So, I have gained considerable perspective by
049being a peer model. Um I am proud of the work that we have done over the last year and a half. We aren't done. Um but we have a very solid and dedicated path for continued growth for our kids. What questions can I answer for you? First of all, thank you. Did someone want to start? >> Yeah. I just will you explain to me the weighted case load formula? >> Sure. Under the >> Yeah, I believe in um bagg borrowing and stealing where other people are doing things. Well, that actually came from Lee Summit. Um so, basically, it's a formula that allows us to put rather than just looking at case loads by I serve 30 kids, right? That's my case load. So rather than limiting a case load to number of students, it weighs
050in the amount of extra work that is required if a student has an AAC device if the SLP is the case manager. Um whether the student receives speech and language services or just speech services. So it provides additional weight to a case load based on the needs of the students that are being served. >> So you would possibly have two SLPs at one building. We don't need two SLPs at one building yet, but it does give us a clearer view and lens of how great the need is. If I've got an SLP at Bridal Ridge that has 18 um students, that that's an ex 10 students that use a device um versus at Creekmore that has zero students that use a device. you know, they're they need we need to I need to ensure that
051my SLPs have the time to do all the things they need to do. >> Um just a a quick question um because of some research I've been doing on my own for personal reasons. Um, do our teachers in general get any kind of professional development on students they may have in their classroom that have autism but either are high functioning or partially verbal? >> Yeah. You do you mean general education teachers? Yes. >> That's not something that I have implemented yet. I think it's a fantastic idea. Um what we do do that creates opportunity for that professional learning and development is we have some really solid collaboration structures that are built within the school day that lend itself and there is a um a commitment of all teachers special education and regular education teachers to
052really engage in that collaboration. When I was at Timber Creek this morning, we were talking about that and how the two self-contained teachers push in with their grade level team specifically for the type of collaboration that you're talking about. But your idea is great and something that that we'll we'll consider for sure. [snorts] >> Any other comments, questions? >> Well, thank you and your team for all of the the hard work you guys have done the last year and a half and it doesn't get lost on the board how much you guys have done. So, thank you. Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to shop sharp focus 4. >> Yes. Thank you, Dr. Coleman. Appreciate that. For our final information item tonight, board, Mr. Craig Derking is here to present our
053data focus of the month. And with a festive shirt he has on there. That's that looks outstanding. [laughter] Craig, the floor is yours. >> Good evening, everyone. >> I'm so proud. [laughter] Well, I'd like again to thank you guys for this opportunity to speak for the fourth iteration of Sharp Focus. Uh, tonight we're going to do something a little bit different that actually stemmed from the conversations that we had last month. Um, the topic tonight's going to be from data to action. How do we go from the data that we get in the CSV form that you kind of see there to the action that the teachers are doing and implementing every day in our classrooms. So, what I did is this time I wanted to give you first the data piece. I really wanted
054to give you guys I wanted to give the board a lens of what do we give to our district leaders. So I grabbed a random school in this case peculiar elementary and every one of our district principles gets a a spreadsheet and really a presentation just like this one. This is the exact one um that I've already had conversations with the principal about so that you could kind of sit in that seat for a second and see how we go from the data that we're getting and really implementing change across the Rayex school district. So what I wanted to show you first was to say this was their APR score. This is the most generic form. It's the easy one that everybody can look up and see. Um it shows you how many points were
055possible, how many points did you earn in the two categories, performance and continuous and you get a percent. That's truly what an APR score shows for the most part. But we took that a step further and we really wanted to dig into why are we performing, how are we performing, and where are we really in the whole scope of things. So I went through every district and every school in the state of Missouri and and put things together so they would have like comparables. So for example, there are 579 either preK or K through fifth grade elementary schools in the state. of those I was able to break it down into what percentage of APR range they were so that then this exact elementary could see where their score was within the range of APR
056scores across the state. This is the big piece here though rather than just looking at like the performance points versus you know the continuous improvement. What I did is I said here are your performance points that you scored in ELA only. We broke that down by all students and then the student groups which you can see on the top of that sheet. how many points were possible, how many points we earned, and basically what the MPI was. Now, the MPI, which is the MAP performance index, that's the big piece because depending on where that score is as you go down, shows you exactly where you will score on the DESIE's emerging approaching on track or target look. I put these two things together so that administrators would have a quick glance to be able to
057see here's where we are and then here's where we could be in the scope of things and how those points worked. Now, you would be able to pull a lot of this information because again now it breaks it down into just ELA and to the all students or student group. But I wanted to take that a step further and I analyzed it and said here's exactly how many points you are away from the category that Desi defined. This basically says where are you not just the points but where are you within those how far away are you from the next category either above or below or where how many kids are taking the test. So on the bottom I had the exact number of kids that took that exam in that building and the participation
058rate. So I wanted to put this in a compact form so everybody has everything at fingertips. So for ELA, you have a complete overall look of where are my groups, where are my all students, how many took it, all the big pieces in one place. Now they can analyze it from here. And I think this is a big part because again, we only have so much time in our academic day. Where do we put our time? Where what do we look at? How are we performing? And we get to make those academic decisions to make that most impactful, meaningful lesson for those kids. Now I did the exact same thing for math and then again for science. Now as we look at these numbers, not only are we looking at where do we make impacts
059and maybe where we need improvement, but we also need to look at celebrations. And I I and I point this out because again in the very beginning score you saw what the APR was in the percentage. Nowhere did it say that this school scored 100% on science for the all student group. That's huge. That's where the celebration occurs. Um, and again, that 400.3 MPI was a little bit above the first target, but it doesn't matter if you're an inch or five miles. We hit the target goal for the state of Missouri. And celebrations are huge. And that's what we get to do here. When you get to look at this stuff from a different lens of not just a score, but when you break it down again, that's where the impactful learning and celebrations can
060really happen. The next part of this was the growth scores. And again, as you look at this, I I think this is the most important thing that we could ever do in a school. Um, we're not chasing numbers. We're trying to get kids to move forward in their learning to have those impactful experiences. So, as we look at growth, we look at growth through the lens of ELA, math, and science. And we look at it from how many points possible and how many points earned. Again, there's a lot of detail here, but I also put the score charts. But beyond just looking at how are how are the kids growing, we also did an analysis of this. And the analysis showed us, you know, of all of the 28 points that were possible, this school
061scored 25 out of those 28 points for all students, which is huge. That's a huge accomplishment. When I look at the student groups, it showed that we scored four and a half out of 12. So immediately that just shows you, you know, maybe this is a target that we need to be looking at and working with. Now what I did is I correlated both the NWA and Desessie's predictive model. Those predictive models say you know here's where your kids started, here's where they ended and here's where they thought they should have grown. So by putting both Desi's uh map which is called VAM data, your value added and looking at the NWA data which I know the board's very familiar with, we were able to correlate those two pieces and easily say our kids are
062ready and can do more. And again that's the big piece of this. We know that our kids are capable. So then how do we bring those lessons and those pieces in to make the most impact for their learning. Now we also go through a little bit of the continuous improvement. Um but that's the whole scope of what an APR looks like from a principal's perspective. Now I know I went through that quickly but the data pieces are are a huge important part. But this is the most important part. Now we get to do the actions. And what I want to kind of do is take a couple minutes and just kind of brag about what everybody has done so far this year. You know what what every teacher has right now is what I call
063a baseball card. When the kids that are sitting in front of them right now, because we built it off current rosters, they have a three to four year map history. They know how they scored on every map test, not just by the category, but a specific score within that category to really help them see that. they can see how they've grown using those numbers throughout the past three or four years. We also bring in their NWA scores. We have the beginning of year and as you know the middle of the year window starts in January and it's going to be exciting to see how much they've grown from there so that we can then look at both lenses of what does the Missouri map test say we're doing and then what does NWA say we
064should be doing and then again even though those two tests are doing different things we can really grab a hold of that learning and say our kids are going in the right direction and that's how the academic decisions can be made. Now, with that baseball card, it's impressive because every kid has that complete history. What's big about that is on the flip side of that, right now, all the teachers have access to their former students um uh how they did like where they're advanced, proficient, where they are percentile on both the NWA and MAP test as well. So, that's where they really can look at their craft as a teacher and say, you know, I did absolutely amazing at this. I would be willing to show this to the rest of my department to say
065or my class even grade level to say look at the scores how are you guys doing and even though I'm going to jump around that's really that bottom piece there is collaboration gets to occur now everywhere every grade level every content they get to have those collaborative discussions because again you know who's sitting in front of you and you know how they left last year and how your practice was. An example of that would be to look at the nth grade center. The ninth grade sitter right now is working on their SIP goals. And what they wanted to do is they wanted to have one goal for the entire building. So rather break it down to just math or science or math or any of those pieces, what they decided to do is we're going
066to work on a simple strand of vocabulary because if you're solid in vocabulary, you can do those questions in math that are harder. You can get into a lot more reading in either social studies, science, or whatever. They use vocabulary as an all-encompassing piece. And by looking at those pieces and that one strand of vocabulary data on the NWA, they were able to give those teachers every single kids history of vocabulary. And by the middle of the year test, we're going to be able to see if some of the things that they're doing, the differentiating instructions are working, which ones are working better, which ones may need some work, and we can go look at those best practices. We look at growth models from multiple assessments, kind of like I talked a little bit earlier.
067Um, but the key here that I really want to the takeaway here is we get to be predictive in our professional development. We get to prescribe what the best practices are because when everything that I've said above, we have that broken down by state level. We have it broken down by district and not just this district. When we talk about map and APR, we have the ability to look at every district and every building within every district's APR data and we get to collaborate with those people that kind of like Dr. Dr. Coleman said, you know, we're going to beg, we're going to share, we're going to look at some of those best practices that are really making an impact for kids' lives, and that's what we're going to move forward with, and we're going
068to share those practices. We can do that within our courses, we can do that within our grade levels, we can do it within our classroom, and we can do it within our students. I it's exciting to see what some of those numbers and those spreadsheets have yielded across the district and the opportunities that teachers, administrators, and directors have already started um to really impact the learning of students. What questions do you guys have for me tonight? >> First off, Deian is going to be really sad she missed you. [laughter] >> She is. >> Wow is all I can say. I mean, you know, in all the years I've been here, to have those kind of numbers and see what you're able to give those individual buildings is just amazing. >> The the meetings and it's
069not just even giving them the numbers. It's how they're taking those numbers and immediately the conversations that are already happening. Anybody could hand this stuff off. But what the real impressive story here is your administrations like your principles, your teachers, your coaches, that's the hero of the story. They're using all of these things to be honest. Like last week, for example, we had a cohort of curriculum writing going on with ELA and they were looking at all of the Missouri learning standards, how we scored on them, not just last year's test, but the past couple of year's tests. We're looking at them by item, by standard, by teacher, and they've got a full access to all of that. So again, when they're making their curriculum maps and their guides to see what type of lesson
070should be taught, when it should be taught, and at what do level, they have a hold of that. Um, and I think it's making some of the most rich professional development that I've ever seen. Um, your stakeholders here are phenomenal to work with. >> Well, and it's not just adding more to their plates. It's actually helping take something off so they can do the work that they want to do. >> I could not agree with that more. >> Could you possibly dummy this down for me the next time? [laughter] Just >> absolutely. >> Okay. >> Well, and again, the big piece here, the big takeaway is what do our principles see? And while there is so many complexities within this, um, we could go crazy into all the different directions with this, but the important
071piece is, and I think the big takeaway here is instead of focusing on everything and trying to make everything better, the big major goal of all of these things is what's one thing that my kids can get better at and what does the data show that they have the ability to get better at tomorrow? And if we can take just one or two small goals and we can show them that we can make a move, that's the pure win in this. >> Well, it builds their confidence too. >> Absolutely. For the next thing they >> This just a side note, what what are the schools doing for I mean these are huge celebrations. These are huge successes for these students and I love it. Uh what are the what are the buildings doing to celebrate?
072>> Uh it's every building is doing something different because every building is celebrating something different. Um I think one of the very first um sharp focus we did was the social studies uh having over 400 MPI um and being at Target at uh Rayek High School. Um there was a huge celebration in that department. There was a huge big um during the faculty meetings and every principal has their own way of celebrating within their buildings. Um sadly I don't get to go to all the celebrations. It would be a lot more fun if I did. Um but just to be able to provide that for them and then they can find the way to make that meaningful for their staff. Um, it's again it's it's their building and they get to celebrate in the best
073way possible to really thank everybody for the jobs they do. Are there any other questions? Guys, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak about >> I hope all of you have a happy holiday. >> All right, moving on to action items. the uh fiscal year 25 audit. >> Yes, Madam President, I'm pleased to bring Mrs. Tiffany Banks to the podium this evening. As you know, Miss Banks is our chief financial officer. She's joined by Mr. Brian Ekoff of the Westbrook Auditing Firm, who will present the fiscal year 2025 audit. >> Now it's on. Good evening. Um I have Brian Echoff here. He was the partner on our audit and I'm going to turn this over to him and let him give his presentation. >> Good evening. I'm Brian Ekoff with West & Company.
074Um we're going to do a brief overview of your financial statements. If you have questions as we're going through them, don't hesitate to stop me and we can address them. Um on the screen you can see the independent auditor's report and you can see the red box presented fairly. So this is a clean audit opinion or a good audit report. So exactly what you want to see in your audited financial statements. This is the statement of activities. It's kind of a different financial statement. It has your expenditures down the lefth hand side with revenues through the middle of the page to show a net cost on the right hand side. Um the one we highlight is food service. Um we always talk about it during COVID. We talked about how everyone was making money on
075food service and now we are postcoid and everyone is losing money on food service. So, um, this year, food service actually cost your district about $75,000. This is the balance sheet as of June 30th. Um, you can see that across the four funds, there was 51.8 million. Um, you know, general fund was sitting at 38. Special revenue fund is your teacher salaries and benefits. Standard practice in school district is to take that to a zero balance as of the end of the year. Um, debt service fund was at 9.5 and then your capital projects fund was about 3.8. And down below you can see the various fund balances. um those are split. Um so in your general fund there, you're required to spend a certain amount of your basic formula on professional development. If you
076don't spend that entire amount, you're then required to track that and carry it over to next year. Um that's what the $68,000 is. Um on the committed amount, um we had some contracts that you had approved as of June 30th, but had not been paid yet. Um that's the 107,000 that's in the general fund. And then in the assigned category, student activities, that's your clubs, organizations, sports, things like that. That's the amount in their balances right at a million dollars. And then the unassigned balance of 37 million is your day-to-day operations at the district. Uh your debt service fund is always shown as restricted because that can only be used on debt service. And then in the capital project fund, we had 54,000 of construction that had been approved but had not been paid. And
077then the remaining fund balance in your capital projects fund is always shown as assigned because that will be used on future capital projects. This is a statement of revenues and expenditures. Uh you can see the district had 107 million in revenues and 102 million in expenditures. Um so increase in fund balance of 4.4 million. So a good year financially for the district. Um down below you can see the general fund increased almost $5 million. uh debt service fund decreased 583,000 and the capital projects fund increased 121,000 and you can see you did make a transfer from your general fund over to your capital projects fund to 2.8 8 million this year. So, good year financially for the district. This is a summary of your debt. Started the year with 95 million, paid down your normal
078annual payments, ended the year with 88.9 million. Um, standard payment will be due again this fiscal year you're currently in, and you will make just standard annual payments through 2041. So, no balloon payments or anything there to prepare for. This is a five-year comparison of your revenues. Um the highlight here is the far right graph, the federal dollars. Um you can see we've gone from 8% down to 4% on federal dollars. That is your CO dollars coming in and then no more COVID dollars obviously. Um so what I'm seeing across the state is a more and more reliance on local dollars. I mean you can see that you started at about 55 56% on local dollars and we're all the way up to 59% now. So, um, state funding's staying pretty flat and we're becoming
079more and more reliant on local dollars. This is a five-year comparison of expenditures. Um, overall, you can see expenditures proportionately have stayed about the same. Salaries and benefits make up about 72% of your overall budget. Um, so what that tells me is based upon the chart, all of your expenditures continue to increase just like everybody else's, but they're all increasing at the basically the same ratio across the board. It's a five-year comparison of your reserve ratio and your average daily attendance. Reserve ratio this year was 43.4. We consider that a healthy, financially stable school district. And then your average daily attendance was basically flat. 5,925 basically this year. So not much change in your average daily attendance. Um so nice to see an increasing reserve. Would prefer to see an increasing average daily attendance, but
080it's not decreasing at a significant rate. So pay staying pretty flat. While we're here, we look at Missouri laws and regulations. If we come across any violations, we bring it to your attention. And you can see here that it says it's fairly stated. So, no state findings. We also look at internal control. We don't give an opinion on internal control, but we use it in our risk assessment. Um, if we come across anything, any deficiencies in internal control, we bring it to your attention. And you'll see in this report, it says we didn't identify any deficiencies in internal control. You also have more than $750,000 of federal expenditures. So, you're required to have a single audit, also known as a federal program audit, also known as a uniform guidance audit. Um, so while we're here,
081we do testing of your federal expenditures. And if we come across anything, we bring it to your attention. And in this report, you'll see unmodified is clean opinion or good audit report. So, exactly what you want to see. No all the way down except for the bottom one means there's no findings, no question costs. Um towards the bottom you can see that we did all of our testing in the special education cluster and title one. So that is where my auditor spent all of her time pulling invoices to make sure all the expenditures were allowable based upon the program. And then in the bottom did you qualify as a low-risk audit? When they wrote uniform guidance they wrote it for acrruel basis financial statements. 99% of the school districts in the state of Missouri are
082cash basis financial statements. Um so you will never qualify as a lower risk of tea. Don't change to acrruel basis financial statements. state cash basis. Just know that we're required to audit a higher percentage of federal programs because of it. And none and none is exactly what you want to see. That means there's no findings at all on the federal side. So clean there as well. Uh while we're here, we had one minor thing that we did make a change to and I that's in this uh comment right here. Um we made a a minor change to your mileage on your transportation information that was reported to Desi. Um we had some mileage that was actually doubled up and reported in two spots. So, we took it out of the one that wasn't supposed to
083be in. So, that was the only minor um improvement that we made this year. So, overall very clean. Um a good year financially, just one minor little change while we were here. So, I want to thank the staff. They did a great job. We truly appreciate all our hard work. >> So, board this is annually. This is a the audit that uh we are required to do. It is an action item. Before you go to the action item, if you don't have any questions for Mr. Draov, I do have one. You do a lot of these across the state, across the region. So, tell us a little bit about how you would feel coming here and what what we have compared to the health overall financial health of some of the other districts you were
084where we where do we kind of rank and I we haven't discussed I don't even know. So, just this is a real question. Tell me what you think. Um, from a financial health perspective, I would tell you you're one of my stronger districts. Um, overall with the reserve ratio and the status of everything, um, from an overall central office staff knowledge, things like that. I would also say you're one of my stronger districts. So, and I would say that even if she wasn't sitting here. [laughter] So, >> well, thank you for that and happy holidays back at you. Thank you. [laughter] >> Uh Tiffany, thank you for the work of your team to to get us to this point. Outstanding. >> All right. I will entertain a motion to approve the fiscal 25 audit as
085presented. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? All in favor? >> Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Tiffany, and your team for all the work you do to keep us well like that. >> Thank you. >> All right, on to the finance report. >> Yeah, Mrs. banks will remain at the podium as we move to action item number two, the financial report for the board's consideration this evening. It's all yours. >> Thank you again. So, before I um kind of get in the details, I want to just um take a minute and kind of set the context um for November. One of the key things I want to make sure that everyone understands is that we are in a planned transition from temporary one-time funding to more of a
086steady ongoing flow of revenue. Brian just mentioned it when we looked at the federal dollars. You can see that from 2021 to 2025, we've seen a shift. Um, so as those one-time dollars roll off, the comparisons year-over-year comparisons can look a little bit different, but that shift is um expected and healthy. The good news is that our core reliable funding sources are growing and our spending is tracked tracking as planned and the district's overall financial position remains stable. Through the end of November, the district has received about 23.7 million in revenue, which is about 124,000 or.5% below uh this last same time last year. The de that difference is largely driven by lower investment earnings, fluctuations in Proposition C sales tax, and the absence of one-time revenues that were received in FY25, including federal pandemic
087relief funds and certain grants. Those declines are being partially offset by stronger performance in our core recurring revenue sources. State formula funding is up about 1.44 million year to date. Pupil activity revenue remains strong due to increased student participation and federal meal reimbursements are higher due to increased participation. On the expendit on the expenditure side, year-to- date spending is slightly lower um below like last year, even though salaries and benefits are up as expected due to compensation and benefit increases. That increase has been offset by lower capital project spending tied to the timing of projects along with normal shifts across spending categories. So overall, November continues to reflect a transition away from the one-time revenues to toward a more stable ongoing funding with expenditures tracking in line with expectations. I'm happy to answer any questions
088anyone may have. >> I have a question. Yes, ma'am. So, with the um bedding now that is legal in the state of Missouri, the sports betting, >> um they were interviewing a lady on TV that was talking about how um the boats, the um casino money is really a positive for public education. Is is that a fact? >> I >> do we really see that amount? >> I would not say materially or largely impactful. I think in Kansas that happened a years back and I'm not sure on the Kansas side, but I don't think that they've realized that impact. Um, I would say just comparing revenue year-over-year, I wouldn't say that that's largely impactful to us. Okay. >> For our revenue sources >> across the state or >> um I'm speaking only from our numbers,
089but I I I don't know that it is. >> Okay. >> I don't have I wouldn't have I wouldn't be able to speak to the details of other districts, but I don't believe it would be. >> Okay. Carol out this um the marketing for that was geared around how this will be a boon for education. >> The percentages that come back to education after they spread out across the state are very very little if they're realized. Some of the early estimates of what they were projecting, you know, experts were looking at that and saying there's [clears throat] no way that that's going to meet that level. So um beginning that it just happened December 1st was the first day that you could go sports betting we are not going to see any of this for
090a year or so and there is some also some talk that whatever you see will be reduced on the other side of the ledger. So the overall net gain on this might be zero. >> So we this is not playing in whatsoever to our financial projections. In fact, it's not even in the same county, in the same state, the same, you know, nation as we're taking a look at this thing. It's just is just not something we are banking on whatsoever. >> Okay. [cough] >> So, I believe what you're hearing is probably a lot of um cheerleading and not so much substance. Well, that's what I that's what I was, you know, believing when I saw this big ad and this lady talking about, you know, how it's helping public education. But, okay, >> it
091if it does help, it's not going to help for another year or so. And I promise you there'll be a way to balance that out. And that, you know, just like the some of the other uh funding sources we had through the state, >> right? I remember when it first was legalized um or when it was campaigned, there was an early cost, you know, bene or revenue benefit from it and it was little to our overall run to our to our overall revenue sources. >> Okay, great question, Carol. Thank you. >> All right, I will entertain a motion to approve the finance report as presented. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any other questions, comments? All in favor? Motion passes unanimously? Thank you. On to committee reports. [clears throat] Did
092anyone have any this month? All right, we'll move right along then to superintendent comments. >> Thank you, Madam President. Board, once again, has been a tremendous first semester. Uh thank you for your continued support and for everything you do on behalf of our students, the visits we've taken to classrooms. We thoroughly enjoyed uh our staff and community are very appreciative of your efforts. Uh my superintendent updates are included in the official agenda and available for public viewing. But I do want to highlight one thing that's not in our updates. Uh that is my the recent work around the state level around school finance here in the state of Missouri. I was asked to serve on the committee on local tax tax effort which is part of a special committee commissioned by the governor examining Missouri
093school finance system. That committee included its work just yesterday. We had six meetings throughout the first semester. There are four subcommittees in total and I served on one of those four. Uh it was a great opportunity to uh represent Rayek as one of only two superintendents serving on that particular subgroup. Uh the work from each of the committee will now be folded into the larger committee's recommendations which will be presented to the state legislature about a year from right now. So part getting ready for u the legislative session of 2027. They will have a lot of challenges ahead of them as they look at a new finance system, but I'm glad that we were able to speak into this part of the process at this point. I will keep you informed as the work moves
094forward. Uh, but it was a a fun effort to be a part of that uh of that group. As we head into the holiday break, I want to wish you and your families a wonderful uh Christmas time. I hope you're able to spend some great times with grandchildren, children, friends, and family throughout the next couple of weeks. So, merry Christmas, Board. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to board of education comments. >> Thank you for saying I asked a good financial question. [laughter] >> That was a great question. >> Thank you. >> Because I think the public has a um a viewpoint because of advertising and different things and it's not always accurate, but so that was a great question. >> Thank you. >> I just want to wish everyone a merry
095Christmas and a happy new year. >> Absolutely. Thank you to all of our teachers for all the hard work they've done this semester and I hope they are able to relax and enjoy their break that starts at uh noonish tomorrow. So, merry Christmas to all of them. All right, on to calendar of events. January 8th is our next work session at 6 pm. January 22nd, our next regular meeting. 6 pm closed, 7 pm open. And with that, we are adjourned. Merry Christmas, my friends. Merry Christmas. >> Merry Christmas.