February 24, 2025 Board of Education Meeting

001e e e good evening let's call this meeting to order Ro call please M Miss Garcia here miss Miller here Miss Williams here Mr Moore here Mr Garing present miss chzn here miss Lanning here I'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge of alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all board members if you can come to the front we have some recognitions okay well good evening um the first recognition tonight is actually one of your own board um Miss Williams will have served on the board of education four years this April during this time she has been an active member of msba earning 90 credits in 2023 she received both her Advanced

002and master certification and now has achieved the highest level of certification in Missouri distinguished latan is also a member of mba's board of directors and will receive her distinguished plaque at the msba award lunch in June so I want to have a special congratulations to Lan Williams on her I've got a plaque for you so congrats [Applause] thank you okay our next award arold come for please Mrs Arnold was recently honored as ad ministrator of the Year by the Northwest Missouri school counselor Association she's a strong advocate for the vital role of school counselors Champion the social and emotional well-being of our students in our building we deeply appreciate her dedication and unwavering support of this important work thank you Mrs Arnold [Applause] Sarah it's me hi everyone good evening my name is lyia Wen

003I'm the director of bands at Central High School tonight we're recognizing three of our ex what is the word I'm so lost for amazing phenomenal amazing uh students uh who are members of the Missouri All State band their journey to making the Missouri All State band began back in November when they auditioned for the Northwest Missouri music educators Association all district band uh the three that we have tonight are Dayton Fitzpatrick who earned first chair in the All District Band jayen Ingram who earned first chair in the All District Band band and assab Guta who earned Jazz Vibes and the Jazz all district band in December they traveled to Colombia to audition for the Missouri All State bands students from every District in the state were uh who were eligible to audition also made that

004journey and it amounted to over 1,400 students uh through the rounds of call backs Dayton and Jaden emerged Victorious uh you might remember we we honored these two last year uh Dayton had made the honorable mention band but this year I'm proud to report he was second chair in the Missouri All State band this year last year Jaden earned third chair in the band how do you go up from there you get second chair this year in the All State band and assab uh was named as the first alternate to the Jazz Band they only take one player in that group on his instrument and so I like to consider all three of these people the second best players on their instrument in the state um mini schools have no representation in this group and

005so we are extremely proud to have all three of them in this group um they got to travel to mmaa at the end of January to perform with the allate band under the direction of Emily tryan who is the director of bands at the University of Minnesota what was really cool that I only learned like a week before they were going was that they had the privilege of recording and premiering a brand new arrangement of the star spangle Banner uh which the All State band Orchestra and choir recorded versions of to be used at any Misha events throughout the state that do not have performing ensembles so they're forever enshrined in a recording for all for all schools in the state uh my colleagues Mr child lencott and Dr Castleman who are both here tonight

006and I are so proud of these three and we hope that you are too so uh this is Jaden right here WHo's ear second chair trumpet in the All State band go on [Applause] up this is Dayton Patrick who is second chair clarinet in the All State band and there's assab who is the first alternate for jazz vibes awesome thank you [Applause] [Music] and as there is no audience participation um I will take a motion for approval of the agenda um with the removal of action item 8D I'll make that I have a motion a second with me is it will be brought back in March we just didn't have the contract ready yet Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Miller yes Miss Chesney yes Mr Garing yes Miss Lanning yes Mr Moore yes

007and the motion passes 70 next we have the consent agenda is there a motion for approval I'll make the motion thank you Mike is there a second I'll second thank you Rhonda call the vote Please Mr Moore yes M Lanning yes Mr Garing yes Miss chesne yes yes Miss Miller yes Miss Garcia Miss Williams yes and the motion passes 70 okay Dr Ed your report okay in the superintendent report tonight I would like to uh talk specifically about three items that were on the work session agenda um last I guess been two weeks ago uh the first one uh being Workforce housing I know that that was a a topic of discussion and I I wanted the Board of Education to know that I reached out to uh Natalie at the Chamber of Commerce and

008she has set up a meeting with myself and Mike Gro from Kansas City he does a lot of work in the space of Workforce housing in the Kansas City area and so I have that meeting scheduled for the 27th uh this Thursday at 10: a.m. so I'll have some information to report out after that uh the second thing I would like to touch Bas on is the C uh first of all I'd like to thank uh Stacy huff and uh Rebecca shaik from U Food Services who uh diligently put some numbers together for us in regards to uh what it would take uh for us to be able to do uh the community eligibility option through Food Service without it costing the school district I I believe this becomes a legislative issue and um so

009I think we need to kind of shift gears uh we did provide the numbers for you and um it was not feasible to do that in 242 or 25 26 but um I do think if we pass the information along they have provided us provided us with a number an ISP number that would allow us to come to a break even point and so I will begin those conversations with uh Brenda Shields and talk to her about that um I don't know that there are any other school districts right now I do know a lot of them are researching it I don't know that anybody is taking advantage of it because they're in the same boat we are and then the third thing I wanted to touch base on was the uh um paid parent

010leave uh we did look into some numbers as to what we would have spent um in the uh 24 25 school year if we would provided this to the employees um now I guess the the deal is we need to figure out what exactly that expense is so I I do we continue to work on that um Heather Adams from the uh human resources department is putting some uh numbers together I'm not going to share exactly what that cost would be because we have to go back in and figure out um what we would have paid for anyway and uh so we know what the the added expense would be but we also need to add back in what we would have paid for in a regular situation so we're working on that I just

011wanted you to know and I'll pass that information along uh to you via email and we'll put it on the work session agenda for for March any questions in regards to um any of that if there are none thank you Dr Edgar y thank you Dr mcness sure yes thank you you should have at your workstations a little packet for me one including this information so I'm just going to touch on a few of our goals to give an update goal number one for us is to increase academic achievement I think we all know that but I wanted to report on specifically action step one and two so action Step One is the expansion of early learning I did report on this school back in December our goal that we set last spring was to

012have 575 students in early learning in December we had 585 so we met that goal but now currently we have 313 students at Lake 310 students at Mark Twain for a total of 623 students so I think that's great um we all know early learning is the key to get kids in our door sooner so um we are filling up in both of those buildings but I think it's great action step two um so you can see I put met on goal um on action step one action step two is an opportunity for growth and so at your stations you should have our foundational practices and then also our lesson plan framework I know you have seen those pieces before um but just from being in our classrooms and and doing observations on a regular

013basis with Dr Gilpin and Dr Adams I would say this is an opportunity for growth making sure that we are implementing the lesson plan framework in our tier one instructional practices consistently across the board um so that's something that we will continue to work on with our teachers um the foundational practices are really like the basics of what we want to see in all of our classrooms so those are kind of the foundational pieces um and then goal number two is about district attendance so going to 90% we are up from where we were this time last year action step two is about regular collaboration with the juvenile office and prosecuting attorney's office so we did have a meeting last week I put that in the Friday update with you guys but I just wanted

014to make that public too that we are continuing to engage in dialogue with the juvenal office and prosecuting attorney I think that's important to keep attendance a priority for everyone in the community and so we will continue to do that and then goal number four graduation rate the two action steps for that we want to hit on action step number one the creation of a portrait of a graduate Dr Lao is leading that committee and I I do believe she'll be reporting out soon at a board meeting I think that you guys know we have dispositions established now so those are problem solving communication respect courage and engag citizen so last Friday at um two weeks ago 14th when we had PD at Missouri Western we offered sessions that Dr Lao and Mrs stter LED

015and engaged teachers in building out the Continuum for those dispositions so what they worked on is what does this look like for a third grader what does this look like for a fifth grader what does this look like for middle school and for high school and just building out that Continuum for all five of those dispositions so it was great to have teachers involved in that process and then we're also tapping into our Communications Department for graphics assistance so all of those pieces are happening and then we're also using this feedback to let's do a little bit of a rebranding with our vision mission and values and so some of those pieces are in play too and then action step number three continuing to monitor our data at all four high schools I think you

016guys have heard me speak about this before but basically when a student comes to high school their freshman year they are factored into that graduation cohort so it's important as those kids uh come up to their senior year that we're tracking who was on their roster as a freshman and stayed on their roster as a sophomore so we're meeting with high school principls this this week along with uh data management and then the last piece that I wanted to bring to you guys's attention and to the public is something a board member asked me to do was create a comparison so thanks to Dr Davis Mr Noti they contributed to this Dr Gilpin as well so this shows courses that are offered at one high school but not at all three high schools so for

017example Algebra 1 biology government those are offered across the board at all three so those aren't listed so this just highlights some unequal opportunities I would call it um between our three high schools you can see there's a there's quite a few bit quite a few more honors courses at Central High School compared to the other two schools I will tell you I think this becomes super important when we have seniors aiming to get Latin honors because to get the highest rank on Latin honors suum L you have to have four AP or DC credits and so um providing opportunities for students to be able to meet that goal is a little bit more limited in the other two schools just wanted to throw that out there for informational purposes but I'd be happy to

018entertain any questions you guys may have can you talk about why the offerings are so different yes so as a former principal at Lafayette High School I can tell you U Mr freeling always wanted to have DC European history we would put it on as an offered course to our kids every spring and then when you only have six or seven kids sign up for that it doesn't make us a course we can't have classes of six and seven um we just wouldn't be able to manage that so typically 15 students is where we aim to have a class I will tell you there are some honors classes at Benton and Lafayette that probably have closer to 10 or 12 because we really try to provide those opportunities for kids but it's not always manageable

019when you have five or six enroll for a class what would you say to um the public who's sure to get upset by this information as anyone should it's not Equitable um to comments or questions about why you can't just either bust those students to Central or provide online learning for them online learning is something that we we do right now I wouldn't say it's the same experience as having a real teacher in front of you and engaging with your classmates on content um we actually did try to have kids go to Central High School when I was at La yet for a course um and I think that particular kid who went just didn't feel included uh there wasn't that sense of belonging like there is in your own School community and so I

020think it it just kind kind of fizzled out and she ended up coming back to Lafayette nothing against uh Central but I just think that the busing would be difficult uh the busing is difficult now without throwing in this kid has second hour at at Central U making that I don't think it would be manageable for the bus company the reason we were able to do it at Lafayette is because she had her own transportation and the parent approved that but even then I think just that feeling of this is my school um didn't work out for her right and I understand that I know that we talk about this a lot but I think the general public those are the common like comments and questions that I hear so thank you yeah it also

021makes it very difficult to go there for second hour when the course is offered and then come back to your home school for third hour and be on time so you're going to miss a course somewhere at one of the two locations so Dr mcin I mean a quick estimate I mean there's like 70 classes or opportunities here that aren't equal across the district uh could you comment um I mean you obviously said that that it's a lot about numbers right so the two High School model that's part of the long range plan would help that could could you comment look into your crystal ball with with two high schools do we get most all of this offered equally half of it what would be your guess I think for for sure there would be

022a better possibility there's going to be a much stronger possibility of providing all of these courses to all of our kids yeah um because you would have higher numbers and higher requests for that so um for example that DC European history if you had seven kids from from Benton and eight kids from Lafayette who wanted to do that then then or whatever St Joe South then then that could that could make that could make the class um yeah I could see there being a lot more opportunities and the other piece of this is the Athletics that Mr Niti added on there and this past let's see last spring we had boys volleyball also at Central and Central only this year Lafayette and Bitten are going to try to have a team so a lot of

023that's dependent on recruiting and what they can get out for those teams to make them happen I see that kind of the same way with some of our academics recruiting kids to take certain courses if it's um creative writing and poetry getting getting kids um collectively to want to participate in that class but absolutely without a doubt um there would be much more opportunity for that cour work can you so you touched on Athletics and I and I I will admit I was I ran on the um purpose of trying to keep three schools I come from a small District I value small District I know that we all you know understand that in some cases smaller is better um can you talk to the athletic offerings that we currently provide and why going to

024two schools would potentially be better for kids might lean on Mr Niti for that a little bit um well I think as far as offerings go if you had two schools um you look at some of those school you have freshman and sophomore teams um if you have two schools of the equal size um you would be able to offer more teams more opportunities for those uh those athletes to play um you know in Benton L's case you usually have a varsity junior varsity sometimes not um and it it changes too with the sport because I know we've had a few Sports at centel that didn't have enough for full junior varsity but um I think it offers more chances for you know at least three if not four teams to be fielded um in

025a lot of these Sports and be able to give more opportunities for kids to participate and play games and and be a part of the team thanks I have a question when I'm looking at just the freshman football in general um is there football still offered at all of the middle schools yes but they combine okay so two middle schools combine another two middle schools combin because my thought process on that is I get to play at middle school and then I get to high school and there's no team to even be on and another thing I look at when I think about graduating from high school and entering College um that the opportunities that students have been in Lafayette are not receiving to get some of that background knowledge to take some of those

026higher level courses when they get to college is is very concerning um because you can take just you know even just the AP classes you can get some of your college hours out of the way while you're in high school and our students at B and laan aren't even getting the opportunity to do that which in the long run saves you money when you get to College because you already have some of those credits to transfer in so it's limited there um and then just to go back to your the football piece the it's all based on numbers so if you have the numbers to make the freshman team they have a freshman football team but it's just it's all based on again those numbers if you were able to combine well I think the

027concerning thing you know I think specifically about football is when you're an eighth grader going in and playing on a freshman team is a lot different than we don't have a freshman team and so now I'm playing JV before I may be ready to do that and that's a sport that you're going to it's going to be kind of painful if you're if you're not ready to play at that level level and then you don't have the retention as you go through school so I appreciate that question coming to us to create this comparison like I said I give kudos to our team members who who help put this together um but it does definitely show that we do not have equal opportunities within our three high schools right now Dr mcness just for clarification

028um with Transportation aside don't the students get to choose where they go to high school wise yes we have open enrollment so if they wanted to take some of the courses that were pertaining to what they want to study in college they could choose to go to Central yes okay just wanted cover thank you but don't they have to provide them their own transportation they would their own transportation that's why I said Transportation aside yeah are there any additional questions for Dr mcginness thank you I appreciate your report thank you okay Dr seist yes uh for you first thing I want to look at uh you've got several things in your packet tonight first one is the uh budget amendment um if you recall our original budget um that we presented um our we were

029going to spend down reserves this year at an estimated about 3.1 million uh and anticipated a 27.5% uh uh fund balance at the end of that um so our expenditures have increased on this budget amendment and our revenues both have increased uh the expenditures are up the areas that we uh are up there and we knew especially would be salaries because of the 2750 raise that we give to all staff uh with the with the props C passage um also some areas that are are up a little bit uh we have a budgeted additional areas uh amounts for HVAC at Central as we're finishing up phase four there I want to be very clear about the HVAC at Central none of that is Bond money that's coming out of operations budgets there so I want

030to be very clear about that and as to finish up the uh air conditioning projects at all three high school so when that project's finished this Summer that will be the completion of the three high school projects there also expenditures are up in sped contracted Services uh and also some in repairs as well um we are still down um 1.1 million from what our expenditures were last year so even though they've increased from our original budget they are still less than what our fiscal year was last year revenues those have increased due to the propy roll back from the original uh and also because we did have now better numbers knowing our increase in AV uh so we know what that actual number is uh we still though have the loss of the Ada from

031prior to covid so we're down about 885 on Ada on that but we still because of those other items we do have a little bit of an increase in Revenue uh again as I mentioned the original budget showed a spend down reserves of a little over 3.1 million this revised budget uh has a spending down reserves by $952,000 so we've U gotten to the better by about 2.2 million with this amendment and again the fund balance was anticipated 27.56 and you look at this and go well now the estimated is 25.26042 is not on there but it was 26 .6% so we're back very close to what we are were prior to all the eser money coming through so be happy to answer any questions you might have about uh the budget amendment can you

032all talk about the fund balance the legal requirement that you have to keep it at but where we really want it to stay at and why me speak sure I'll let you speak to that okay well the legal balance is 3% um if you fall below 3% 3% fund balance then uh the state comes in and they take that over but the legal balance I I think you got to kind of put that to the side because really what you have to pay attention to is what does it cost for payroll okay obviously our driving cost 78% of our driving cost is payroll and in the months of November and December uh the way that the education system the money flows into the education system because you have half of it coming from state aid

033which is an equal payment each month which is fine then you have tax dollars when do people pay their taxes okay so actually you run through and you'll you'll have a lot of money in the month of June July August and you you go down and then whenever you get to the month of November and December in a district our size I can tell you you have to have at least a 14% fund balance to make that payment in the month of November if you don't then you're not going to be able to uh make payroll so um when I was hired in July of 2018 I can just tell you that the board charged the fund balances were uh just a little below 15% or right around 15% and the board charged uh me

034to get those to um over 20 and I think a comfortable spot for a district this size is 22 to 26% and we're sitting right there where you need to be um for that can you speak to why you wouldn't want it to be 30% 40% why why you wouldn't want it to be an a significantly larger number yeah especially in a district our size uh you want to make sure that you keep it across the board because I mean it's it's not fiscally responsible to go to 35 or 40% and then uh you would get to a point where um staff they see that and they're like well all you're doing is building a bank account well whenever you start putting money into the salary schedule it's a recurring cost it's something that's going

035to build right so it might be $2.2 million in 25 but that number is going to be $2.9 million 26 and $3.7 million in 27 and you're never going to keep up with that so I think it's important to keep that right there where where it's uh where it's good and you said where we at right now uh we'll be we're going to end the year right at 26 mhm are there any additional questions um I did I have one more question so um when you were giving your um presentation on your um superintendent report you said that we were looking into the staff housing and other stuff that we had talked about at the work session how will this affect the 26% that we currently are at does that affect it at all no

036this would not on the workforce housing the only thing that I'm going to uh specifically speak to in regard ards to that is trying to build some sort of a partnership we're going to have some facilities that we could you know turn over to entities so this would all be um Grant funded gr yeah it has nothing to do and it would be down the road wouldn't be part of this year's budget yeah yeah if there are no additional questions is there a motion for approv that's yes is there a motion for approval I move thank you Whitney is there second a second thank you Mike and whenever you're writing Mr Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia Miss Miller yes M chesne yes Mr Garing yes Miss Lanning yes Mr Moore yes and a motion passes

037zero okay Dr seagar uh the January financials probably aren't nearly as important since we just did a budget amendment uh but I'll talk briefly to them a couple areas I'll talk a little bit about um salaries and benefits are up by 5.1 million this year from last year which we anticipated that our Capital expenditures are up a little bit too and I mentioned the HVAC that we're finishing up at Central also some of you're starting to see some of those Bond projects you're starting to see some of that in that uh capital budget as well revenues State revenues are down about 900,000 uh again that's because of that loss of the pre-co Ada numbers um also uh we're down a little bit because of last year there's some hb2 money uh for a lot of

038things at hilard so that money is not coming in this year as well our tax revenues though are up 6.2 million and and that's due to the propy roll back and to the increase in assess valuation so um so that's just briefly that uh talk a little bit about the health care trust the health care trust makes a lot more sense probably this month as we've gotten caught up on payroll amounts um with the investment account uh our assets in healthcare trust at the end of January sit just a hair over $6 million um that's up a little over 2 million from the end of December but again that's that's mostly because we've caught up on the payments with the uh payroll but to give you uh just a a a comparison at the end

039of January of 24 um we were at about 5.58 n million so we are up uh about 417,000 year-over-year from last year to this year at this point so we're in good shape right now um talk a little bit of specifically about the plans uh our total plan is running at a claims to funding ratio of 10.4% uh at a deficit of 219,000 so not too bad that numbers come back a little bit better uh as the year's going on that's to date that's to date yes for the fiscal year and the fiscal years J July one since July one so when you say okay gotcha go ahead okay uh the EPO plan is running at a claims to funding ratio of 46% with a deficit of $955,000 again we've discussed that we probably are

040going to have to look really hard at the EPO and Lockton will be here next month uh to present you with some numbers and some options on that the PO excuse me is running at 119% with a funding deficit of 281,000 and the HSA uh is running at 75% uh with a surplus of just a little bit over $1 million so uh you can see the percentage of employees we have in each of those plans uh the HSA obviously is carrying the other two plans right now um so happy to answer any questions you might have about the financials or the healthcare trust so lockton's coming next month to talk about the EPO plan and then if that isn't something that we renew that would go into effect in July what happens with those those

041employees would have to move to either the PO or the HSA or we're going to look at if we keep the EPO does does the employee have to pay more to keep that so that's what I was yeah they're going to bring those numbers to us yeah so they'll have a full presentation next month course there are additional questions is there a motion for approval thank you Whitney is there a second a second thank you Rick ready Mr Moore yes Miss Lanning yes Mr Garing yes Miss chesne yes Miss Miller yes Miss Garcia Miss Williams yes and the motion passes having zero approval of the bills uh yes you've had the bills for a couple of days if there are any questions i' be happy to answer those if not I'd ask for approval of

042those make a motion to approve second I'll second I have a second over here with Miss K oh got it Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Miller yes Miss chzn yes Mr Garing yes Miss Lanning yes Mr Moore yes and the motion passes have zero thank you Dr seagis okay Dr cross evening um don't think there's anything unusual in the um Personnel report the supplemental Personnel report what's unusual there is it's much longer than usual uh this afternoon Donna um emailed all of you the reappointment list for administrative Personnel uh we for as long as I've been hearing before that I believe we've always done administrative contracts in February teachers in March classified staff in April so uh what she emailed you was the reappointment list for um the administrators and then the regular

043supplemental Personnel report is attached as well did anyone have any questions on those there are no questions I would ask that you would approve them as presented I have a question okay so on the information that you emailed us um is that also meing a motion is that an action item is what I'm asking it would be or is that only information part of the Personnel report okay just like the supplemental you guys vote on that every every month okay um did everybody have a chance to look at that I know that that was just emailed this afternoon right and it is attached to the agenda I did not um it's okay so um and I didn't look at it until like maybe 5:00ish and it was not like in detail um and I don't

044want to vote on that and we haven't really looked at it or anything like that to say did you make copies to bring or did you just do suppl no I knew they had been had an email to them I didn't yeah I know um it is an action item is there a motion for approve one uh was it an attachment it was an email does everyone want to look at it for a few minutes be awesome yes missing something T thank you after you guys have a minute to look over it I'll take a motion for approval to approve thank you Whitney motion I yeah got it thank you thank you just go all reappointments correct okay would you like to second I will second thank you Mike I have a motion in a

045second whenever you're ready okay Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Miller yes Miss chesne yes Mr Garing yes M Lanning yes Mr Moore yes the motion passes EV zero thank you Dr cross okay Dr edar okay u in your packet of information you'll have u a resolution that I would uh recommend the Board of Education signed tonight in regards to House Bill 711 if you pay attention to the screen uh there's some information I'm going to read through I just wanted to make sure we put it up there at the same time um but in regards to open enrollment there's no data research that shows open enrollment approves academic achievement House Bill 7-Eleven shifts the local effort tax burden from citizens responsible for students to Citizens and other communities not responsible for those students

046this reduces the dollar availability to provide programs for student students doile in their own Community House Bill 7-Eleven will require districts to create fund marketing programs to maintain or attract students recruiting for sports and other extracurricular programs will become the new Norm causing major issues in all districts involved open enrollment allows for those who can afford who can afford to move to choose alter alternative alternative districts and those who cannot will be forced to remain many believe this will lead to a new era of segregation of our schools the halves and the Have Nots House Bill 7-Eleven allows for a talent drain in our schools and communities and House Bill 711 along with Senate Bill 727 Senate Bill 190 and other choice legislation will lead to school district consolidation and potentially the demise of smaller

047communities throughout the state of Missouri so those are just some um uh talking points that were provided from The Cooperative school districts of Greater Kansas City which I am a member of or the S Joe public school district is a member of so I would ask that the Board of Education uh sign the resolution to oppose House Bill 7-Eleven and this is also opposed by Missouri School Board Association yes Missouri School Board Association uh moasbo Massa yeah which would be Missouri Association of school administrators as well are there any additional questions yes I'd like Dr mcginness how does how has that open enrollment for our high schools worked how well or has it not at all do we not have very many participating you mean that currently to attend yes this is not the same

048thing I think we're talking about a different open it's just wide open okay yeah let's talk about the high scho I mean they're able to go wher they want to go just for clarification I mean are you meaning about like to other school districts or inside of our district to get a feel I know it's different okay okay I just want to clarify okay so we already have busting issues with just within our own District right if we have students that want to attend a different High School I think I think we have busing ISU period just keeping it real there but so basically kids can go wherever they want to go they're freshman year and then that is their home school if a kid decides sorry Mike do you have a question no they

049they choose once right they choose at the very beginning so wherever you you decide you're going to go first day of school as a freshman that's now your home school and October if you decide that you want to go to a different high school then you would have to reach out to that principle and then there's some criteria based on grades attendance and behavior and you may or may not be accepted to unless you live in a different District right but why but how this is not even the topic of this hosit but that's a question I had just to get a little picture so say we opened that up then for other because they're only talking a cap of 3% right that would be able to travel to a different District it's already difficult

050within the system so to have others come I'm sorry what's difficult the busing and handling that and if it's open enr you provide your own transportation right so it's not a busing so if we have students from other districts who want to come here smaller schools right yep okay so they have to find their own yes and it's capped at 3% yes so 3% of our total population can come in from the outside and 3% of our total population can leave and go to the outside and to the outside I mean other public schools in the state of Missouri correct I don't think there's anything wrong with your question I think this is a boardroom and as a boardroom we have to uh be able to listen to other people's perspectives I think the point

051that you're trying to make is that people are choosing to go to Central because they offer more yes so we are stopping our community kids from going to another school because they might offer something that they would want to study is that am I getting it that's the deal because Central looks really appealing right so it could also attract students as well as students leaving our district correct from smaller schools I get the rub it it will be tough because some some can't do it some can't afford to do it it gives the district opportunity to say no we don't want you uh but there is a cap yeah there is a cap and I think there's a lot of how much would that be there's well 3% of your total population I mean I

052don't know I can't off top of my head I couldn't tell you exactly how much money it would be but it would be a lot what was your vot before well I think that you you have to look at it from all different perspectives and one thing that I would say is that s Joe Public School District um have a lot of really good offerings for students that are challenged we have a lot of resources we have a lot of things along those lines so I mean there's just a lot of there's a gamut of things that uh you need to take into perspective here and open enrollment it's it's not good is not good for public education period three so if you took 10,500 kids 3% of that 315 so you take 315 time

053$7,000 okay I put it at 65 because I didn't do the upgrade $247,500 and that's that's at the wrong number is that like a 3% every year or just a cap over like all years it's 3% each year 2.2 million is what it would cost our district so there's no hopes of 3% coming to oh absolutely yeah I mean I think I mean are we are we not confident about our district that we could reel in some people as well so because we're looking at it as we're losing money but we could look at it as you know getting money I'm not willing to take a $2 million gamble I think it's difficult to predict yeah it 3% we do have I'm just speaking from an academic standpoint we have a lot of like Dr

054director was saying supports and resources within our special programs U but my concern would be they are not going to give us any additional funding for Staffing um if those numbers do increase and so some of those require like Dr Anderson comes up and and is constantly bringing contracts to us for services well that's what I kind of want to go to is that some students are are more expensive and less expensive I mean from a cost standpoint and so we we've talked about you know the fact that we've had to contract classrooms if if we have more students that require those needs and we have to contract more classrooms that becomes considerably more expensive I mean and and there's a possibility you could see that again it's it's the unknown it is unknown and

055and from talking with Brenda Shields too um she had mentioned she had her kids and she wanted them in the Band program and so Dad opened up some opportunities for her kid and so it's just hard to predict which way that will go for us yeah but overall you're not really feeling well me personally yeah personally my concern is with the cost that comes with some of our services within special education it be overloaded well and I think aside from just the financial inability to to budget from year to year I think it opens the door as with all of these parental choice propaganda that it opens the door for discrimination of kids it opens the door for segregation of kids it um is not helpful to lowincome children or families um and I think

056it opens the door for defunding and dismantling public education so essentially putting our signature we're just adding our District's name on the list yeah yep so it might still pass okay but we're but we're still but we are just adding to the fight against it yeah okay we'd be joining what close to 200 yeah and that list was from last year so I would say it's probably closer to 300 but I don't have that number okay 243 those were some of the questions I know that are out there like through our sped Department because we do have some specific services but it increases that cost to us yeah right that's the issue yeah yeah I think the other thing that's important that I don't understand with the Open Enrollment argument is that your kid can

057go to whatever Public School District you want them to go to all you have to do is live there and pay taxes it's so you can send your kid anywhere you want them to go just have to live there pay taxes there I do think the students from wealthier families would have more opportunities to go to other districts compared to students with less resources I think that would be creating a bit more of a barrier which is the transportation how do you get there all that someone supporting them they wouldn't have that opportunity that's just my personal opinion I feel like they don't even have that opportunity within our own District right and this is the recommendation of administration right yes are there any additional comments or questions if there are not is there a

058motion for approval I will make that motion thank you Rick is there a second I'll second thank you Mike would you call the vote please Miss Donna Mr Moore yes M Lanning yes Mr Gary yes M chzn yes Miss Miller yes Miss Garcia and Miss Williams yes and the motion passes six to zero with one exstension okay let's move on to Dr seis uh yes you got a change order in front of you uh some of the Fine Arts projects that are going on from the bond um part of the flooring installation the Lafayette Auditorium there's some additional flooring needs U some stair coverage in the theater room a handicap seating area and then uh the B choir room when they took the original flooring there was a second layer of flooring that had some

059additional demo costs uh and then in the Truman choir room as they removed those uh uh risers uh they uncovered some air returns that needed some grates and some things like that so these are all included in this uh we're still well within the budget on this but these this change order that we need for some of those fine Arch projects that was going to be my question are we still we're in good shape with him in good shape okay okay are there any additional questions if there are none is there a motion for approval thank you Rick is there a second yes thank you Ken you have the vot please Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Miller yes Miss chzn yes Mr Garing yes M Lanning yep Mr Moore yes and a motion

060passes seven it's on you Dr seagers yes um you have an RF Q RFP for uh mun Municipal Bond advisor currently LJ Hart is our adviser U the contract is up at the end of June this year so I'm asking for approval to put this RFP RFQ out uh and then we'll bring back the recommendation to you at the March board meeting so I moved thank you is there a second I'll second thank you are there any questions if there are none would you call the vote Please Mr Moore yes m Miss Lanning yes Mr Garing yes Miss chzn Mr Miss Miller yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Williams yes the motion passes I don't see her okay next Dr seagis um yeah we're on actually on the HVAC contract move that up uh yes Schneider

061Electric um was approved at your October 28th meeting uh to provide development of some uh energy efficient cost savings some HVAC uh we've worked quite a bit with Schneider already and so also I'm going to have them provide you an update tonight of where they're at with the with our original Esco with them uh Drew cilus and Peter Hinkle are here tonight so I'm going to have share them a little bit of the update and then we'll also talk about the contract we're asking you to approved tonight good evening um I've got Kenny behind me some I was a little nervous about what that might entail as well you should be no appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you guys tonight so as Dr Seeker said we'll kind of run through an update

062uh we've got a couple of actual projects ongoing right now within a couple of different sites within the district and then dive into uh the rubo project that we've been working on for about the last three or four months really trying to get this ramped up and going for summer construction and I'll have drew take over and kind of talk through that portion of the project so skip through the agenda and kind of kind of get moving so just as a quick highlight we've been working with the district since around 2019 uh first phase one two and three all kind of came during that 2020 22 23 era uh we really focused on a combination of really two main goals phase one was looking Energy Efficiency identifying some of the large energy users within the

063district itself and then phase two three and four we started to really dive into some of the challenges facing the current three high schools at Benton Lafayette and Central High uh with phase two and three uh and one excuse me Phase 1 2 and three already complete uh we're currently under construction for phase four there at Central High which will complete uh four pipe within each one of those three high school facilities and allow air conditioning and heating and cooling uh to be met in terms of the needs of those students in those learning environments um to give you a little bit of deeper dive on the Central High project um and again I think Dr seced on this earlier that project I don't know if you want to make a a statement before I

064keep moving well I I just one thing I do want to mention about that again because I think there's some uh confusion out there the central project has nothing to do with the April 2024 Bond um the central project was part of this original phase four uh large portion of that was paid for with eser money there was about a little over 9 million left uh to do and we've managed to budget that money over three fiscal years and so we're going to get that final 9 million done we talked about doing a bond for that at one point we decided we didn't want to go ask for Bond money so um shout out to to Katie and Jenny and some other people in the business office and uh Casey and and Daniel and operations

065that we've managed to to budget and find a little over 9 million over three years to be able to pay for this project this has nothing to do with April 2024 Bond money I can't be more clear about that so um so just want to mention that but is on schedule to be finished I'll let I'll let Peter go ahead and talk more about that yeah I appreciate that and our our great construction team uh we have construction managers basically living here I think I've mentioned Justin Brock which I think some of you have ran into or I've had him to at least one board meeting in his life he's not exactly the greatest uh or interested public speaker let's put it that way but he does a great job at managing g a diploma

066though yeah yeah this will be his fourth full year of working within those three facilities as well as the original phase so uh we need to get him some sort of a plaque or an honorary degree from Benton Central and Lafayette at this point uh as he spent a lot of time both inside the tunnels which you can imagine is not pretty work uh as well as in the classrooms trying to make those as as best we can for the students that you have uh but Central High it's about 80% complete in terms of behind the scenes work in the tunnels piping um running duct work things of that nature really what's going to happen is as we start to go from the Shadows uh if you will so a lot of the work that

067we're doing is not in the classroom itself so this summer we'll wrap up that work as well as actually fire up uh the the two pieces of the central plant so the first one will'll fire up will be in late May uh that will be excuse me end of the school year so late May that'll be we actually fire up uh the chillers and then the um the uh boilers will actually fire up then in the fall so we'll just need a load to be able to test those and then finalize the commissioning on each one of those systems but that project in all intensive purposes from a construction perspective at Central will be wrapped out before the end of the the summertime uh with all the the pieces and and bells and pieces and

068whistles installed just a matter of commissioning some of those pieces that will take place during the school year which again will not impact students will be out of their hair off shift or not even in the spaces of the classrooms necessarily a lot of that's going to be computer work and making sure that we've got uh proper ventilation in classrooms and temperature reads or reading the appropriate temperatures in the spaces so forth and so on the other project I'll bring up this is the one that was approved uh I guess was last summer May May thank you um this is Coleman and Lindberg this is the expansion of your building automation system uh the really cool thing about this project uh and I'll I'll give props to kind of the great partnership that we have

069here so that was done through what's called 179d money so Schneider Electric a big international company we pay a lot in taxes one of the ways that we give back to our partners is trying to identify funding mechanisms uh whether that's grants incentives rebates and this is actually an incentive that they've set up that allows us to take some of the the funds and I won't go into great detail but uh essentially making your buildings more energy efficient has allowed us to then leverage those dollars off of our taxes and then we give that back or donate that back to the district and so that project was approximately $550 $580,000 um for the entirety of the package the entirety of Coleman and lamber to be added the Bas there and that project was paid for

070with about $500,000 of our incentives our rebates given back to the district so we're able to cover a pretty large portion of that project and continue that expand expion of the system and the building automation system is really vitally important to Casey and and Dan and Daniel and his staff just so that they can get on the computer system see how these systems are working or in some cases not working uh and trying to make sure that the students are as comfortable as well as the staff as possible Within These different these different sites across the entirety of the district and I just wanted to point out to Coleman and Lindberg uh their automated systems were at at the end of their supported lifetimes so what was in place was no longer going to be

071supported from Computing standpoint so that's why it was kind of important for us to replace these being able to do this with this uh incentive money was was a tremendous piece for us so we appreciate that partnership with them to be able to do that and then this project it's nearly complete um it'll be completed in March uh in terms of all the parts installed and then it'll be just a matter of commissioning that system so again making sure that the system is functioning the way we want it to making sure we're able to see Comfort energy saving so forth and so on in each one of those spaces that'll take place from at the end of March beginning of April uh through the first part of the summer and then we'll come back in

072the fall for the same systems because when we go from heating to cooling or cooling to heating we have to recommission a little bit differently within how the system is set up so we want to make sure that you know you're not getting hot and cold calls simply because we didn't do it in the right temperature settings so we'll be able to handle all of that and knock that project out again in about the same time frame as as Central High um to give you a quick update on savings so this is still only phase one so because we've bundled Phase 2 three and four all together as soon as phase four is done which will be this summer you'll start seeing this number start to increase because there is savings that comes from that

073project but as you can see on that initial phase which was very energy focused a lot of LEDs uh recommissioning of the systems that were in place um some water savings uh building envelope things of that nature we really focused on trying to maximize the investment made in the savings that you're seeing and so a total guarantee so that's electrics that was what we estimated we projected through energy models versus what we're actually seeing is is significantly greater so we're happy to say that the project is working the process and the model is working and it's really about a testament not only between our staff and what we call our client services or our past team but their kind of interaction with Daniel and Casey and their staff so that if issues do arise or

074problems come up we can kind of help to mitigate those and it's the same same thing in all the other phases as those start to fall out of construction and into our client services team we've got a support team that actually helps the the district on the back end to then make any of those modifications or troubleshoot issues as they arise as well as help to monitor how the systems are performing and the last piece is kind of the last good news story I guess so this is from last year so it's a little old but um we didn't get a chance to really share this out uh the last time we presented this was from our Earth Day event so this is our second annual Earth Day event that we did um as you

075can see uh it's a combination of a couple of different things but getting some of the kids involved for uh solar bug projects solar cars which was a big hit um even though as the Grand Marshal as I was deemed as I was judging who was winning I was getting yelled at by several students um that they felt like their car was first and not second which I try to explain I'm very impartial and I don't care who wins but uh they didn't and none of them paid me so they didn't really understand how it worked in the grand scheme I'm kidding um but at the at the end of the day it was a really great project and it's it's kind of fitting that this year on Friday actually I found this out we're

076going to be working with rubido middle so where the next phase is we'll kind of be able here I think it's April 25th if I remember right uh we'll be having an event there very similar to what we've done in the past this year we're going to be doing solar houses so they'll actually be building kind of I don't think Grand think small table ties but they'll be actually building these solar houses that'll be able to kind of turn a flywheel and it moves around with with the sun itself once it's actually been built um I've tried to do this once myself it is a little challenging so we felt like Middle School was probably a better Choice than Elementary School students uh at ping or pick where we've done in the past but I

077think it'll be another great example of us kind of continuing that partnership here for the third Earth Day event uh with the district here at rubido here in only a few gosh about five six weeks away eight eight nine weeks away I guess at this point um but any questions on the past project before we kind of dive into this next phase sing then so re the middle I'll have drew kind of dive into the scope of work Drew super quick history lesson on rubido middle it's one of seven School fa District facilities that has uh technology called vrf equipment vrf is variable refrigerant flow it's all refrigerant based it's completely heat pump um you know a great idea today in several parts of our country this is really not one of them so ever

078since its installation in 2016 the district has struggled mightily maintaining proper levels of comfort uh in this facility specific speically as well as significant operational expenses um I think we calculated over the last two years it was nearly $140,000 that had been pumped into this facility alone uh so an average of $70,000 per year in maintenance that the district is spending to keep up with this failing system um obviously discouraging because it's only 9 years old um but really just completely inoperational today to maintain a proper learning environment uh during some portions of our a it we noted space temperatures that were 50 55 degrees when uh students and staff were in the facility so obviously very unacceptable and um kind of the reason that we're here is to is to hit the reset button

079on this facility this building is unique because nearly 100% of the building is served by vrf um we kind of analyzed breaking out portions of the facility and at the end of the day we did present packages to address um just the um learning environment the class facility portion of the facility is about 60% of the square footage and then the gymnasium um classroom sorry the gymnasium the cafeteria locker rooms those are about the other 40% so kind of analyzed options to replace all those systems fortunately um what used to exist for the classroom area is what was referred to as a multizone system you can see on that that picture on the left there there's a lot of distribution duct work that we are fortunately able to reuse with our solution for today um

080there's about you know 5% in the mechanical room that must be rerouted to a new packaged Rift toop system and the final 10% in the classrooms needs to be done unfortunately uh the previous contractor cut that duck work and and went down to one supply diffuser in all those areas so we have to redo all of that classroom space for really proper air distribution in in those spaces so um package rooftops to serve those classroom areas uh that will feed existing duck work they'll get new dampers to continue to have individual classroom control so I want to kind of stress that it's going to be one thermostat per classroom one Zone per classroom not having to have two teachers agree on what the the temperature set points should be and in the gymnasium the cafeteria

081the uh kitchen computer locker rooms those will all get individual rooftop units to serve those spaces as well associated with that you know Peter mentioned earlier the building automation system that's just a fancy way of saying thermostatic control right we have installed this at I guess now with um Lindberg and Coleman that would be our 11th and 12th facility um this this would be amongst those 12 facilities now that would have ecost structure by Schneider Electric as the comprehensive District Wide building automation system that gives Casey and Daniel the ability to see these set points to troubleshoot from their cell phones from their tablets from the district computer really anywhere on your on your facilities so gives that ability to be flexible and access multiple sites from a singular device I went through that really

082quickly any questions from kind of about tech I just want to add one thing to with that with the building automation systems if you remember we are have participated last two summers in 's uh business demand program the more of our buildings that are on the automated systems the more of our buildings that we can also have a piece of that potentially get some money savings on Utilities in the summer too yeah and the bulk of those turnoff just to to be clear are summertime type turnoff it's not you know middle of classroom day on September 12th you know it's often times going to be early August Late July when they need to have a load shifted and schools are kind usually happens the first day of school just true it's also true but uh

083but usually most of their times have been you know over time been over in the summertime um so to get to kind of the final project financials of kind of where uh the final pieces All Shook out Drew mentioned what we've done and and kind of where we're at so we've taken design gone out to bid had a couple local contractors had three actually involved in the overall process uh looking to replace uh the units there across both the educational sites or facilities in inside of rubido as well as the gym cafeteria and music kind of see that broken down um and then we continue to look at the vrf systems so you know this is one of several that you have within the district and this is kind of the first phase of eliminating

084it all from one of the buildings that has caused you guys some serious headaches over the past uh let's call it several years uh since we've really started and trying to identify you know new funding streams one of the things we've talked about is how do we continue that 179d opportunity how do we look at opportunities for Grants and rebates and incentives unfortunately you see about grants grants have kind of all of but dried up in most cases just with kind of how uh the new Administration is looking at funding um hopefully those come back as we start to get more clarity if there's any that come up we would want to look at that as well but this kind of gets us in the right uh the right direction in terms of eliminating uh

085the vrf systems from one of the sites there within the district with future ones that have obviously been planned and Drew mentioned we've looked at all the different vrf sites I mean we've looked at Mark Twain persing pick at all of them in terms of just what's the need and what's the cost rubido is probably the worst just from what we've seen and that's more of the D and Casey kind of sharing this is where we're spending you know 80% of our time or 60% of our time in terms of troubleshooting and and really diving into issues so not only is it hurting their ability to get out and do other spaces you know it's eating up a lot of the Manpower and resources you already have internally just to try to deal with this

086problem and once it's replaced as we as you mentioned uh vrf will be eliminated we'll go back to more packaged equipment I'm going to try to anticipate a couple questions that that make it asked um you know it we we have talked at length about the Dy units have have been an issue for us across the district and um I'm not sure anybody when they installed this could foresee that you know we would have these issues with them especially with once it gets down to - 25 wind chills things like that they're very efficient when it's 15 20° to 85 90° um um so understandably uh you can see why someone thought they look like a good idea at some point but what we have learned is that they're just not they they can't keep

087up with what we're doing um and you may ask well why why Ruby do why is Ruby do the first place we're looking at it's not the first place we looked at but it was one we thought we could within what we have budgeted in the bond be able to completely eliminate uh the dyens um some other buildings we could look at but we may only be able to do parts of a building um as I mentioned at our last work session we're looking at some alternative Solutions and some of those other buildings too I mentioned that over the last three years we've managed to put about 9 million in the budget to do to finish up project at Central we're going to look at doing that as well we're going to have to find

088money in operating budget as well to do some of the HVAC and so you can see if you look at this this is a little bit over 3.5 million in the bond we budgeted 2.65 million for HVAC okay you may be going well how do how do we do this well we're coming in a little bit under on some other areas and we stipulated at the very beginning if we had money left over in other areas possibly we would move it to HVAC or sidewalks I can tell you we're going to move it to HVAC um sidewalks are just taking too long to get done for us probably to move too much more of that I see a question out there sometimes too is well we passed this bond in April why haven't we fixed

089things yet well this isn't Tom's Heating and Cooling coming to your house on the weekend replacing your residential unit uh we can put Band-Aids on while school is in session which is what we've been doing Drew mentioned the amount of of emergency repairs we've been doing over the last several years in some of these buildings uh we can put those Band-Aids on what school's going on I and I don't know if you're aware last week at rubydo we had classrooms that were in the 40s okay so you may have not heard as many compaint complains about rubydo but rubydo is one of our big problems and so we can put the Band-Aids on whilst class is in session we can't do complete heating and cooling system Replacements while school is in session that work has

090to happen when students are not in session so that's why when the question gets asked well how come this Bond money is here how come we haven't fixed it already that's why because you can't fix it while the students are in session and so uh majority of this were you know he talk they talk a little bit about the central project you know the behind the scenes work that's G on they're doing as much as they can on those projects while students are in session but they can't really finish it until there's nobody in the building or until students are not in the building it'll be the same way with this um some of those other Solutions we're looking at we're hoping maybe we can work on some of those um you know over over

091breaks uh over spring break maybe in some different situations or or during Christmas break maybe next year as well and so um you know I I would love to say we're going to have everybody's HB repaired and replaced we probably could do a $20 million Bond or could have done a $20 million bond for HVAC all right but we did a whole lot of different projects uh on the bond that was passed last April so I hope that answers some questions um it may have created some questions but um happy to take questions happy to have any questions for these guys too as well yeah the the only thing I would add any of this is so we're trying to to do all of this again during the summer so we've got a window of

092approximately two and a half months just to give you a sense of the magnitude um equipment lead times are about 12 to 16 weeks so it's it's kind of critical so that we don't get too far behind in the summer to be able to order equipment here in the next couple of weeks before hopefully the end of February beginning of March that'll put us kind of right in line for equipment showing up um you know as the students start to get out that means a lot of any prep work or pre-work that we can do um and then getting on site uh will be critical obviously we we know that you know classes and try not to interrupt that we've we've worked with the district long enough we know how to kind of handle uh

093those conversations and kind of if you were approve tonight I think kind of one of the first steps is kind of outlining our schedule a little bit with the building principle luckily he's already kind of on board with Earth day so I'll I'll twist his arm if we need to get any extra days out of him about the Earth Day event but uh I'll certainly work with him and try to make sure that we can avoid any issues I know you know they did a great job at Central like when we were doing the gy gymnasium if you all remember that conversation of squeezing three and a half months worth of work into about a month um with our teams and working with their ads so that they could have their gyms back in the

094early part of August to make sure they didn't miss any uh practices events and camps and so same thing here once we kind of get this moving uh it'll be a lot of working with the key stakeholders over there to ensure that any unknown issues or any unknown scheduling um challenges we can address now and then work through them as a team and with you as your partner and we've also discussed we want to get equipment ordered as soon as possible um you know a concern across the industry right now is is if tariffs come in place we don't know what's going to happen with costs so we'd like to lock some of those costs in a lot of place a lot of things are only locking in a cost price right now for 15

095days um which is much different than the industry standard has been so uh that's the other reason we kind of want to move too you got all my questions and even the budget questions so I don't have anything uh but once we approve this can we make sure that the bond status on the website gets updated I mean like right now it says I can't remember what it says but it just says like identifying the contract and I think it said that we had to pick Schneider but if that was the only update I had to that yeah I know I just want to make sure that it gets updated timely that think the last time I updated it was uh Friday I may have looked it before yeah I was not here did you

096have a question yeah gentl I just want to comment thank you for all the help right these are obviously tough problem so thanks for what you do keeping ahead of it trying to get us ahead of it um and I just for my own terminology so the these heat pump systems they they can't keep up um and we kind of referred to them by their brand name dcer what d d d okay that's the brand name okay and then and then and then I have a heat pump are these things like G natural gas backup when it gets so cold or or or they no backup are you referring to the vrf having backup I think so there's no backup for the vrf that's the big issue with it is if we had some sort

097of backup heat we might be able to make these work so in in a residance you have either natural gas to back your back it up when it gets below zero or below freezing or you have uh you know resistance heating elements which makes the meter been like this right here right but uh but neither one in the schools huh yeah so so for for instance in your in your home you you might have a residential heat pump you're not required by code to bring in any outside air in a school district especially when we do a project we have to introduce code required amounts of outside air uh it costs there there's a a lot of Your Capacity dedicated to treating that outside air right it takes a a lot of energy to to

098treat zero degree air like it was last week um so in those instances it just it physically cannot keep up yeah gotcha and in the future State we're going to go with natural gas fired equipment you know we've had a lot of success with it that's what we did at Benton Lafia in central we're going to kind of stick to tried and true and just make sure that we have reliable natural gas to um Supply these units and and something to add to that statement um you know one of the things that we spent a lot of time with with Daniel and Casey and the entire maintenance staff is really trying to understand what are they comfortable with and and now that they're not uncomfortable with the dyen units I think they could work on

099them but how the relationship with your manufacturer set up they really can't with the units like the units that we're looking at installing those are you know that anybody can work on them uh whether it's them or one of the five six7 local um hbac Techs in town but also themselves so it gives you more options uh where right now you know Drew mentioned 140,000 that's all from from one company um a lot of the service or any of the service really has to go through that one company so makes it a challenge for the district um and that's because of the proprietary nature the Dyan you know all of these vrfs are all very propri I was just at a school today they have the same problem and there's was insult in 2022 they

100can't get their spaces up above 50 degrees last week so same exact issue you're not alone in this but I will say that this does open up some opportunities for you to look at others from a a you know 10 15 years down the line from a service perspective should that be needed thank you yep you need a motion to approve the contract there's a motion on the floor is there a second I'll second thank you we've got Whitney and Mike Miss Williams yes Miss gcia yes Miss Miller yes Miss chzn yes Mr Garing yes M Lanning oh yes Mr Mo yes the motion passes thank you guys appreciate it looking forward to it appreciate can you good evening Dr Adams this is always a challenge with the microphone sorry um the first thing on

101the agenda is the ASA contract with Progressive community services and I would just ask that you approve that as um presented this contract um allows Progressive to provide the funding for the teacher that we have at the all students achieve um program that we has a mosaic life care for students with developmental disabilities to become employable make a motion I have a motion in a second are there any questions and if there are none would you call the vote Please Mr Moore yes M Lanning yes M Gary yes Miss chzn yes Miss Miller yes Miss Garcia Miss Williams yes and the motion passes next item on the agenda is also um for our department for contracted orientation and Mobility Services for our students that are blind or visually impaired um these providers are are very

102difficult to find there are actually only a few across the state and we have availability with Doug paper he has provided those services for us on an as needed basis and so that's what the contract reads as needed so I would just ask that you also approve this contract so we can utilize his Services as needed thank you you're ready Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Miller yes M chzn yes Mr Garing yes Miss Lanning yes Mr Moore yes and the motion passes thank you the next one is for the enhancement grant for Hillard Technical Center and I would ask that the district approve a matching funds um with the Grant and they have changed the um criteria a little bit um they do not cover anything within $200 but from 200 to 499

103um it's 50% and anything over 5,000 is 75% match and so the attachments if you'll see um they there's a little bit of a narrative for each program at Hill your tech center for the CTE courses and then there's a couple from our building courses on marketing and prart and so it gives you a little narrative and then the last page uh breaks out exactly um what they're asking for and from the District what that match would be and the state and the total and I could speak to some of the items but I can't to all of them so if you have any questions additional questions I'd ask approval Dr Gil general question the the the grants are state grants is that is that the deal yes okay yes and then and then the

104the the part of the the ask that's from the district is from a normal operating budget help me with the yeah we we've built this into hillard's budget for next year okay yeah it's it's it's kind of a guessing game with the way they do the funding but yes whatever they' have asked for we built what would be our part into the budget next year thank you the tool they had on there with what has been turned in would be from the district is 87,000 but um they they will not exceed a 100,000 so that's why got you thank you thank you I have a motion is there a second I'll second I have a motion and a second K would Please Mr Moore yes M Lanning yes Mr Garing yes M chzn yes Miss

105Miller yes Miss Garcia Miss Williams yes and the motion passes thank you thank you Miss gin okay next on the agenda if you can look at the attachments it's a renewal of my of my application for approval of my board in order to be on the board of msba it's renewed every odd year and I would entertain any questions or motion make a motion to approve I have a motion is there a second I'll second I have a motion and have a second yes are there any questions it's it's it's continuing the same rule you've been in yes thank you and you don't want the next board to vote on that because it doesn't have to be done until the 18th of April um made a motion I'm okay either way but I have a

106motion on the floor in a second there any additional questions okay M Williams I don't think I can uh Miss Garcia no Miss Miller no Miss chzn yes Mr Garing yes M Lanning yes Mr Mo yes and the motion passes 4 with one exension and the next item um I actually added this on the agenda if you're able to look at the attachment um it is attached to the agenda and it is a letter to the community leaders and the representative asking for official support of prop two from the city yes it will go to the mayor and the councel to the representatives and the Senators thank you um because if we're asking the community to buy into this I think it's important to also request of the community leaders as well I like a

107motion to I have a motion is there a second a second thank you assar and mik are there any additional questions if there are none you can call the vote Please Mr Moore yes M Lanning yes Mr Garing yes Miss chesne yes Miss Miller yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Williams yes and the motion passes 7 to zero and what I will do is I will email this out to all of the community leaders and I will attach all members of the board and you d as well too and so everybody will be able to look at the information that goes out okay informational items Dr cross letters A and B are um both very much the same the a Department already has uh high school equivalency teachers both full-time and part-time what they've done is

108made some very minor changes to the job descriptions um let's just take those two together are there any any questions about those again this is an information item just to remind you there's no District money involved in the a program they have a a grant that runs on a three-year cycle uh and so their their task every year and they they provide services in a number of different communities U besides St Joe as well uh so their task every year is to make sure that their expenditures fit within their budgeted amount because there is no subsidy from the district uh so these um two job descriptions have just some minor modifications to them does anyone have any questions about those two so we'll get those as next meting yes yes this it's an information item

109for this month and then letter C the do Ed high school equivalency coordinator and Proctor job description uh what they are doing with that one is redistributing existing tasks uh taking some from kind of combining a couple of different positions and making a new one as well and again this would fit within their their budgeted amount um currently the director is also doing many of the job jobs that will go onto this coordinator and Proctor job description and so they're separating some of that out and again they'll reallocate the the money that they have in their Grant to make sure they can cover their expenses any questions there all right thank you oh I guess D is mine as well yes okay um every year the district has three employee committees that meet there's calendar

110uh benefits and insurance and the salary committee uh we do this to uh comply with the statutory requirement to meet and confer with employees uh all of the Committees have a maximum number of 25 I'm pretty sure Dr mcguinness's committee was full they had 25 the others I think have 17 15 respectively um the salary committee's main task is to look at um anything related to salary and give recommendations none of these groups are are policymaking none of them they're all advisory in nature what they do is give um a recommendation we meet monthly typically September through uh February uh sometimes we go later this year I don't believe that we will and so then they make recommendations um to me as District administration and then I pass this on as information to the board

111uh so what I want you to know from the the recommendation is they were very supportive of the district administration's um proposal to add 500 to the teacher base which equates to 1.17% to the other salary schedules uh to give a step and to move the secretaries from range three to Range four below that on the handout that I provided you um they are saying if the board deems appropriate and if there's any money to do so uh again these are salary committee recommendations they're not administrative recommendations but there were four bullets there um in order they're asking to add $500 to every sell on the teacher SC salary schedule beginning with the Masters plus 32 column moving to the right which would have Masters plus 32 plus 48 in the doctorate columns uh that

112would affect 137.5 teachers and cost 68,800 uh the rationale behind that was that as you move from left to right on our teacher salary schedule we become less and less competitive with our comparison subset okay uh some districts front load their salary schedule throwing more money toward the start some of them throw more money toward the back ours I would say is very level and the way you can check that is if your top left cell and your bottom right cell are basically double if the bottom right's basically double of what the top left is that's a very evenly um spaced salary schedule all right so there uh but as we go from left to right we go from the 60th percentile and above with the first few columns into the 50th percentile on the

113others and so that was their recommendation U second bullet to increase the number of days in the pre-service structure for new teachers from two days to three rationale for that being we are bringing on every year more and more teachers who have not come from traditional teacher prep um programs they're not uh anybody in our Pathway to teaching uh some of our grow your own folks and so the the needs are different for someone who's come from business and industry and gone into into education um one thing education is famous for is acronyms we've got a million of them and so I may know what idea means and what an IEP is and what um all those mean but if I've not come from an education background from an education program I have no clue

114what those are so their needs are different from somebody who's come from uh a traditional teacher prep program that would affect about aund we have about a 100 new teachers a year uh they get paid $200 a day for those so if we did that it would cost approximately 20,000 to implement uh their third proposal was to add 5% to every sell in the extra Duty schedule that would cost approximately 2,750 um rationale for that as we analyzed salary schedules extra Duty salary schedules from our comparison set we we don't Fair real well uh below the 50th percentile on most of them on many of them and then the fourth one was to increase the stien for curriculum writing currently at $1,700 uh for the year to increase that to 2500 uh the number of

115people on the committee who either are now writing curriculum or have in the past and they when they figured their total hours it it really was not paying much for the amount of amount of work that they do uh so those were their suggestions again that's uh take it or leave it that's a a recommendation excuse me from the group and then there are some other bullets below that that they're asking me to look at in the future as things that could be addressed does anybody have any questions again this just an information item I have a question on um adding extra day for new teachers would one of the would you break people into two different groups for example people who've come through a traditional program would have whatever and then you've got people

116who are not coming from a tradition a traditional program would have different needs so would one of the days separate those groups of people yes so Mrs stter does our professional learning development plan and they do have that broken into groups but I would advocate for that bullet uh number two while I have this opportunity to speak on this one I think it's imperative that our teachers have that extra day two days is not a whole lot of time to prepare for the first day of school um so I would appreciate that support from an academic lens IE it's needed you so we're going to bring this back how where do we go from here this is strictly an information item and so if as a board you say we'd like more information about bullets

117one and three or whatever um I mean it can always be brought back at any point as an action item if it's something that you want to pursue well could I mean could you all provide a recommendation on I mean a lot of these are going to have budget implications could you bring back what's feasible what's not feasible what you as Administration would prioritize over the other I mean I hear you say the the day yeah I the issue is we're a little premature on the budget right now that's yeah we're still having me we're still having meetings with buildings we us we usually do that in April right did we do salary SCH in April I was hoping to get them approved this next month in March March okay so yes to answer your

118question yes we'll have well at least if you I mean at least if you if we can work with you on prioritizing like here are the top things as you're going into that um you know being able to say like we couldn't fit that in but we could do something that was cheaper whatever that looks like could you bring more information back at the work session absolutely Dr seers is that feasible could you give us like an estimate of which one would be best I would just tell you that right now I I don't know and part of the reason is is that um you know we anticipated the SAT was going to go up next year based upon the governor's budget proposal I don't anticipate it's going to go up now I think revenues

119are going to be very flat next year um I thought this was going to be our real challenge year um because we anticipated we were all kind of told that the SAT was going to go up to this number over two years um and by Statute they do it over two years but I don't anticipate that uh the legislature will come back and add more money to the budget for Education from what the governor did I just I I don't historically that has not happened so I think it would be foolish for me to try to budget anticipating that um that being said that means your revenues are going to be pretty flat unless you see a tremendous increase in assess valuation um this is reassessment year could you see a little better number possibly

120um but you know we've raised we've raised salaries 13.1% the last 2 years those are ongoing costs those are not onetime costs those are not HVAC costs that we build into the operating and then don't have that expense the next year so um so when we talk about salaries yes absolutely do want to see increases for staff 100% but we also have to be responsible understanding that those are going to be ongoing costs that that do not become less and so so what is the recommended um increase percentage wise in two years I mean are we way over when you say we increased at 133% I don't know if there's a recommended it's just that we have worked very hard and invested resources to to move those to bring staff up to be uh competitive

121from a recruitment and a retention standpoint and I think it's great it's it's good that we've done that it's just that um you know we can't replicate 13.1 over the next two I mean you won't have the revenues to do that again well I think I think that I mean we to aar's point I mean we should to me we should be looking at doing what other companies typically do of like one or two% because otherwise and I and I I get the pi analogy I get it but when we stop doing that we get back in the situation where we're behind everyone we can't recruit we can't retain so to me like it it has to be a priority and I again I get that there's only so much money but yeah and I'm

122and I'm not I'm not being dismissive or saying against anything right now I'm just saying it's very premature from a revenue standpoint for me to have a good guess on that well if we can just the work ask the question is I wasn't being dismissive either it was just is it something that you could assess giving that we have even talked about the budget like you said well and at the work session I mean I I guess what I would want to see at the work session is we have the staff's input from administratively what would you all prioritize and then move that priority list onto the budget well I would definitely agree with the 500 debase yeah it's pretty easy I mean what I would agree with the exact same things that Dr Krauss

123just presented you know the with the 500 to the base and then U we can look at those other options um the top three I would I would 100% yeah I do uh have a meeting with Dr Krauss and Dr seagis this week or maybe next week in regards to the um extra Duty salary schedule as well it's a mess and uh so we'll be bringing some inform we' have to restructure that and um there's some thoughts behind all of that stuff so uh and that was one of the things that was on the list anyway and then the secretaries we've been talking about them um for seven years now and I think it's time to make the uh so your top three were the 500 to the base the um pre-service day and the

124secretary the top three were the 500 base the movement of step for everyone for the MS secret yeah those were the top three and then the 500 Bas is top is the number one choice yeah I mean well I think you uh I I don't know the promise I don't know if the promise is still there but if you remember when we passed uh the levy the last time back in 20 there was a promise of so many years last year so I think we have to do that the thir three years is there a way when we look at that fourth one because I've been on a curriculum writing committee before and it is a lot of extra work and when you look at $1,700 and you spread that over how many hours it

125is is there some way maybe still doing I know this is premature question but still doing it maybe not going clear to the 25 00 or something but I just think that is such a critical job when teachers do that because you're writing the curriculum that's going to impact every teacher across the entire district and um it's ours and lots of it is done in the summer so they're doing it for that amount of pay in this summer so I would just really Advocate that we not let that one go anywhere because I think that one's important well I would tell you too I mean if it's a priority of the the committee um it uh that's a very minimal expense I would agree for a lot you're getting a lot for your money I

126think you're bringing information on all of these items correct at the next meeting in March on the work session and we'll be able to prioritize them then right yep okay are there any additional questions thank you Dr Krauss welcome okay next staa stter who's that curriculum director she makes some work really hard in writing that curriculum huh just okay how long do I have an hour here to share about the College and Career Pathways District committee I'm just going to give you a very brief version uh first of all I want to thank Dr Edgar and the academic service team Dr mcginness um and Dr gilin and Dr Adams everybody for allowing us to have this collaborative space to work within these committees and so what I'm going to share with you today is um

127not my work but it is a work of a great team and so um Sam um Davis um Chris over at hillyards Dr La Dr mcginness Mr ni um Colin pedigree and Katy Reed they have been instrumental in um like researching and studying what's going on in best practices and to ensure that every student in the St Joseph's School District district has access to a meaningful exploration and development of opportunities known as a career identity and so I have a um presentation there that you can kind of access if you like I want to say this work is deeply rooted in the learning of uva's partnership for leaders in education and a success ready Network um and so um what we're talking about here is a system okay and Dr um there it is right

128there that presentation um do you see that supporting link there yeah no see the it's underneath the item there yes um and so really Dr mcginness when we went to UVA she challenged us to think about an individualized career path for each and every child um but how do you do that in a large organization like this um what does the systems look like and so we went on a a search and we um spent some time thinking about this system um and and the um end goal here what you'll see is um this Vision wasn't um just built in isolation it was built with other districts and what they were already doing um in their Innovative work and one of the partners in This was um I'm really good friends with Chris nef down

129at North Kansas City and North Kansas City had already established this system uh for each of their schools it was working in Winnetonka and it was working in Staley um and so what you'll see is and if you'll just scroll through here real quick so what you see there is the individualized career path keep going and we talk about career identity this um language comes from the success ready Network um is shared vocabulary across the state and what we're talking about with career identity and if you keep scrolling past this that's that systems thinking like how do you make this work in a larger organization like this and so we had to think through a system um and you may keep going there when you think about a system you got to think about communication

130and awareness repurposing of Staff reallocate existing funds those professional learnings and we already have such a great network of business and Community Partnerships we wanted to keep this going we wanted to keep the momentum going and so if you'll scroll through here are meeting times we have been um really uh taken off since we've come back um over the summer so seber 4th um a group of us went down to it was free it was real world learning down in Kansas City um it was September 17th and September 19th September 20th Dr LA and um Cara vanez and myself we presented the concept of a portrait of a graduate which I think um Dr La will be sharing at another another time then we came back to September 27th September uh 30th October 14th um

131October 30th November 20th you'll see all those dates there um we actually had had a date scheduled for this past week but the snow and cold kept us um out so um here is the vision I like to look at the end goal and so if you'll scroll forward here um here is the um kind of the beginning works of the St Justice School District 9th and 12th grade College and Career Pathways and so um in the study of other districts you'll see them called schools ories vice versa the language is different um health and wellness human Services Business and Entrepreneurship leadership and the school academy or design Innovation and technology and so what we would hope happens that um when a student is entering in ninth grade they would say I believe like my

132my nephew he's a freshman over at Benton right now he is sold that he wants to go to Altech and he wants to take part of the welding and so I've already talked to him about like okay what does that look like he's in woodworking right now he wants to do m working and so he knows his path he knows what he wants to do um on the other hand I have a niece over at lafette and she is a senior over there she knows she wants to go into education right and so she is set that's where she wants to go so she would join the school academy of Human Services okay but this is the end goal we have things to do as a district as a system to help our kids get

133here by nth grade and so what you'll see here is Dr Gilpin and myself Kelly lock and Jana Brown last June we presented to you guys a course Revision in the um careers course okay and so in that career's course we have implemented a full semester now and so I had the opportunity to go visit with those um teachers to get feedback on that and and see how that course is going so that it was a total revamp there continuing to monitor that work um and so what we're trying to do as District right now is think prek through 12 what experiences and opportunities are we given to our kids in a district in this District that um would set them up for success by the time they're nth grade and it's called the continu

134Continuum of like navigating for your career if you'll move just ahead Kevin so there's that eighth grade course you'll see if you go on that link you'll see the teachers feedback there uh for the academy prep if you continue on the other work that we've been spending a lot of time is making those ey caps more meaningful to students students take those ey caps at the middle level okay they were just taking it it was a checklist and now we're really trying to dig in deep to say hey this is you're showing a lot of interest here having those conversations with students I mean if you'll scroll ahead so this is where we are right now we're trying to build the foundation and so what you'll see is the portrait of a graduate work with

135evidence that sha shared vocabulary when we're talking about market value assets what are we talking about that eighth grade course um and then by May what we hope to have is if you click on that link for navigating career identity from prek to um graduation this is the model that uh Mr nef down in North Kan city and Dr Sutton shared with me this is their College and Career Readiness Continuum and so you'll see what they do it becomes about Equity right it doesn't become about what school you attend um and so we're ensuring that no matter what school you attend in the state Justice School District you have the same experiences and opportunities um and so we're going to start with what do we already do and so um I just wanted to share

136this information with you we have a lot of work still to do and you could see that pbl works um I'm so thankful for the client connected projects we already um you know we lead and work with Altech Innovation um that challenge but we want to do other client connected projects as well and then we have some work to do on our cores like what's that design the pathways and the score schedules look like so I want to thank you for allowing me to share this um work from our team and if there are any questions I'd be happy to answer thank you thank you thank you okay that is you okay I would like to bring your attention to uh policy GB CBC uh um and it's an administrative procedure one for staff absences

137and tardiness administrative procedure um I bring this to your attention tonight because of um it's kind of driven by a lot of the snow days that we've had and um going to kind of rewind here about four years ago um the school district or the Board of Education voted uh to allow uh three paid days for uh support staff employees so everybody that was a support staff employee was guaranteed to have three paid days if we chose scenario a scenario B is a district closure so everybody gets paid during scenario B uh you probably saw a little bit more scenario B this time around um it was very intentional on on my part and the reason for that um I think it's um I think it's crazy to penalize uh the folks in the school

138district that make the least amount of money and so uh I think we did a pretty good job throughout this uh crazy winter storm uh in protecting those employees uh we appreciate them just as we do everybody else and so um I I thought it was important for them to be paid so we kind of thought outside the box a little bit uh we required them toh complete some tasks along the way and so I'm thankful to say that uh we did protect them now um with that being said I think it's we need to look at this we need to look at this policy as a whole there are inconsistencies in regards to that um I think you can just take that completely out um that statement and just hey people you know I

139mean if you're out of school you're out of school um Dr mcginness and I have talked about um like if you get to the 12 to 15 inch you know like we did at one time uh could we possibly allow um staff to work from home you know on one day uh where it would be District closure District closure work from home um it also states that uh we provide virtual learning um in this setting all the time and we do not and so that's another inconsistency that is within this there not going to be any changes for 2425 uh but I I just wanted to bring it to your attention that will be looking into it and we want to do what's best for all employees and you'll be bringing this back in the

140future yes thank you so basically are you saying that instead of just getting the three days I think you just take that completely out and then it just Falls where it falls you know so if you have one day they get paid for the one day if you have I guess they would get paid after three so that didn't make any sense but if you have seven they get paid for seven my daughter was in this situation when she was a parah and that was I mean she was get analized for something she had no control over whatsoever yeah I agree yeah are there any additional questions if not okay tennis report that's me too right y all right on the attendance report you'll see in your attachment uh we did decline a little less

141than 1% uh since school resumed after the winter break um as of 24 High School month attendance was 66.4 Middle School attendance 68.7 6 and Elementary 72.4 obviously those numbers are very low uh the year-to date attendance is more encouraging um you got high high schools are 7682 Middle School 8374 and elementary schools are still pacing at 86.5 uh schools above the 90% Mark include Ellison field Oak Grove persing and picket so um kudos to those schools for continuing uh to keep up and schools between 89 and 87 include bod Edison hosia Parkway and skate so if you see the attachment uh as of February uh 2014 sorry February 14th 2025 we're at 83.2 4 uh year to date so we are pacing about three and a half% ahead of where we were well 4

142and a half% almost 5% uh where we were a year ago at this time so we're not anywhere near our goal in 90% but we're continue to uh focus on this and there's a lot of discussion as you can see our high schools are they're hurting us bad and uh so that was part of the conversation that we had the other day with the uh prosecutor's office and with the juvenile office those folks are the attendance intervention is having any they are and and one thing uh the county did uh help us provide a resource uh that we split Andrew weeders his name um that's who works directly with the attendance interven positions um I think he's just overwhelmed especially at the high school and we did discuss you know possibly uh partnering to expand

143that position do we have district attendance interventionist um how many eight yeah eight no yes so there's roles that are family involed positions and those also help with ATT tends those AIS are really focusing on the 80 to 9 90% kids because they're the most likely that we can move to the 90% level so um anybody that drops below 90% goes on Mr scher's radar but the AIS are really laser focused on that 80 to 90% well that's what I was going sorry that was my um reason for asking how many we have because are we looking at the schools that are excelling and pouring more attention into them or are we spreading our eight that we have to work towards the ones that are really suffering that's exactly where they're at the schools that

144are actually excelling probably don't have an attendance intervention and so yeah they are I I'll give you an example I I talked to uh commissioner hook on the phone after our meeting the other day and um he was just giving me a specific example he walked into Andrew's office Andrew sweter is the person I'm talking to or talking about from the that's a partner with the county and the school district and uh he received a report from Central High School in one day there was 64 kids um that were reported to him so um that's what you're talking about I mean it's just a it's a lot yeah thank you yep okay any other questions in regards to that all right future meetings and event March 7th is the end of the third quarter March

14510th no school teacher work day and 5:30 p.m board work session March 10th through 13th parent teacher conferences March 14th no school district CL closed March 17th through the 21st no school spring break March 17th and 18th District closed spring break March 24th 5:30 is our regular Board of Education meeting we need to adjourn to Executive session presum 61021 Clos meetings and Clos records need a motion to adjourn is there a second s Ronda would you call the vote please sorry Miss Williams yes Miss Garcia yes Miss Miller yes Miss chesne yes Mr Garing yes Miss Lanning Mr Moore yes and the meetings returned