001good evening I call this meeting to order let's do the roll call Mr Garing pres Miss Miller here Miss Williams here miss Garcia here Mr Foster here miss Lanning here Mr reer pres all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge of Al the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all if you can stay standing okay we did have U three or four or five recognitions the first one Lily um Basquez Central High School somebody from Central want to come to the podium oh there's okay hi good evening everyone my name is l Wen I am the director of bands at Central High School we have three Allstate students to celebrate tonight with you all um I'll kind of speak to all
002three of their Journeys and then we can we can just get them all up there together for you uh Lily Dayton and Jaden all auditioned for the Northwest Missouri music associ Missouri music educators Association all district band back in November and all three made the top all district band which made them eligible to audition for the Missouri All State band in December students from all over the state who made the top District ban in their their home District um Geographic District we eligible so we're talking a thousand 2,000 students who are eligible to audition for the Missouri All State band which has about 120 students in it total um Lily was named as the first alternate tener saxophone player to the Missouri All State band tener sacks is a tough one I know because I
003play OBO they only take two in the whole band and Lily um was listed as the first alternate we don't ill wish anybody but there's a couple situations in which you kind of get that you hope that call that somebody's sick but um huge accomplishment for her nonetheless so we'll celebrate Lily being first alternate Dayton Fitz Patrick is a sophomore clarinet player um and he was another student who was eligible to audition for The All State band and was named to the honorable mention band they take uh 24 clarinets and he was in that second group um for the honorable mention band huge accomplishment out of hundreds of clarinet players that room is non-stop all day for audition and then finally we have um Junior Jaden Ingram who um made the allate band there are
00411 trumpet players in that Allstate band Jaden was third shair trumpet player so I call him third best trumpet player in the state um huge accomplishment for him for all three of these students I never even got to audition for that group in high school and so um many many Aspire and very few make it and so we're really lucky that um we have these students to really model hard work and perseverance in our Band program and they're all three very worthy of our celebration [Applause] tonight [Applause] wow awesome announ uh the next thing is uh we just wanted to make note and congratulate Donna and uh Donna Baker and Cassie Holmes in January 2024 the Missouri school boards Association recognized Donna board secretary and Cassie administrative assistant to the superintendent for achieving certification as
005board secretaries Donna and Cassie received this certification as two of the first since it launched in June of 2023 so let's give them a round of applause then next uh Dr Melissa Cory are you in the house come on up [Applause] Melissa Melissa Cory was one of 10 honores to win the 2024 I Love My Librarian award this award is presented through the American Library Association honores are exceptional Librarians from academic Public School libraries who were nominated by patrons for their expertise dedication and profound impact on the people in their communities students at rubido enjoy the full book experience for Mrs Cory's biannual novel Nation Book Fairs using Grant entitle one one funding she researched and purchased more than 12200 lowcost high quality books and each student took home three free books her efforts to
006date have provided more than 5,000 books to our St Joseph Community earning her numerous accolades for amplifying access to literacy and then a personal note Mrs Corey has been instrumental and helping me in this role in the last two years there's been a lot of attention drawn to books and Scholastic and I have uh full faith that she is making sure we are in compliance um and following all of our board procedures and I just have so much respect for Mrs Cory and our fellow Librarians thank [Applause] you congratul conratulations [Applause] okay item three on the agenda is audience participation and we do have several people who are going to be speaking tonight so I just kind of want to go over the guidelines you have uh 3 minutes um to speak and I will
007have a timer so I apologize if it goes off I'm not trying to be rude or anything but we just probably need to keep the flow of the meeting going and secondly I want to apologize for uh the lack of chairs um I think we have every chair um in this building in here but I um we didn't expect this many so I do apologize up front for that and Miss Garcia is actually going to help me with the pronunciation of a couple names when we get to them because um there was no way I could say them so I appreciate her doing that so audience participation we'll start uh with Mr Gerald Reynolds thank you all for giving me opportunity to share first off I want to con condone or not condone but congratulate
008and and exalt our teachers that we have we have a great teaching staff uh to give you a little bit of background my family and I have put 12 children through the school district here we have nine more going through the school district at this point and we have been to 12 different schools in this district and we've only lived in two different locations in St Joe so we've got to know a lot of teachers and spend a lot of time with teachers uh through those years and I have the deepest respect for all the teachers that we have the concern I have is with this four-week plan is that uh doesn't sound to me like there's been a lot of study and a plan put together to implement it and put it to work
009in the way it should be done the other issue I see is the fact that children who have learning disabilities which we have had four in our family who need that special Extra Care uh to go through school and dropping another day off of their their ability to learn and have that extra care is going to make a Dr itic change in the way they're able to go through school I have done some research on this in in the last few days and everything that I've been able to find is that the 4-day week does not change a whole lot of the the academic standards of the children that go through it compared to a 5day week the other thing is it doesn't show that it keeps uh accredited teachers on staff either it doesn't
010seem to make a change so those are some of the concerns I have before you make that decision I would love to see you put together a laid out plan that shows exactly how it's going to work how it's going to affect the the staff as well as the teachers and how it may affect students and families especially single moms and that have children and need deare uh while they're working so that's my concern and I hope you really consider that before you make a rash decision thank you thank you uh Jennifer Abbott thank you for hearing me tonight I would like to take the opportunity and say that I too along with my previous speaker uh really do commend the teachers that we have in the school district I would also like to state
011that the 4-day school week will not negatively affect my household uh however my concern is um while I live with extended family members in my home who can care for my son before and after school and get him to and from school I leave my home at 7:00 in the morning and I do not get home until 5: :30 at night my concern is going to be for the lowincome families in our school district in our area my son goes to Edison Elementary and there are many families in our school who rely on the two additional meals that they would get on that fifth school day so my questions to you and I did post this to Dr Edgar about a month ago when we received the surveys online there were two questions on the
012surveys whether or not we would agree to a 4-day school week and what age or grade our children were in that is not an accurate enough survey to get an idea of what the families in the school district are going to need if you go to a 4-day school week we need to know what's going to be done about those meals is there going to be a a recreational youth day or something that the school district will provide for our kids to be able to go to for the single parents like me who will need something to keep our kids occupied while we're at work is there going to be stem uh stem programs or um any other uh clubs or camps that the kids can do on that fifth school day that they would
013for example you guys proposed a Monday off on those Mondays what are our kids going to be doing during that time I'm on board with a 4-day school week as long as I know that the families in our district are taken care of thank [Applause] you thank you Natalie H hi good evening and my name is Natalie Han I'm the president and CEO of the S of Chamber of Commerce an organization that has over, 1300 business members in our community last week we issued a survey of how a 4-day work week would impact those businesses those that responded were mostly in leadership positions in their companies and about 65% of them said it would negatively impact their business the top takeaways from that survey all focused on how employees would care for their children on
014that extra day away from school many were concerned about the requests to alter their work schedule and the effect that it would have an already understaffed Workforce in our community they were also concerned about the extra financial burden that this would cause their employees and if they could not change their work schedule what that would do for them and their ability to keep their job besides our survey we also had several people reach out to us with calls and emails and they wanted us to voice the voice of the business Community to the Board of Education I have spoken to the chamber's executive committee and we stand in unison of our full support of the St Joseph School District over all we really appreciate all of you the teachers the staff and the hard work
015that you do every single day to and we vow to continue to work in Partnership to help the district for the betterment of our children and our future however we cannot support the isue on a 4-day school week until there's a clear plan for child care and transportation thank you thank you C Dr hi for one to start with I appreciate you not being on your phones talking to each other and actually listening to the public can't hear you we can't hear your microphone's not on okay I appreciate you guys not being on your phones talking to each other and actually listening to the community concern I have is policy What policies we follow and what policies we're not following it's a conflict of interest in two different ways that I see it two board
016members deal with child care so it will benefit them there's two other board members that are married to teachers everything I've read in policy tells me that you can't vote if you have an immediate person in your family and it's conflict interest so I see two here and you're a lame duck in a month we're changing this board why did we bring it up now why did we divide the community pretty much teachers and community over something that can be changed in a month there was no reason for this it's hurried there's no plan in place there's no long-term studies that you can possibly say that this is going to help anybody I just think slow down table this back it off until the study is there until we know how it affects every everybody
017in the community not certain people everybody what is our number one thing here who is number one students students are number one so how does it affect them that's all I care about Community the teachers the parents they're a side note how's it going to affect the students they are number one that's who we're here for and we got to start being here number one for students that's all I got to say thank you thank you Michaela Miller hi uh my name is Michela Miller I want to thank the board for considering such a big decision and Dr Edgar for being willing to explore some new ideas to try to benefit things for our district um I actually do agree with one thing that um Kim just said and that is that we need to
018bear for the students um but one thing one of my favorite quotes is that a teacher's working environment is a students's learning environment and so I think we need to go back to that because these teachers who are coming in myself included who are burned out and who are tired and who are taking time away from their own families that is affecting our students learning environment um I'm here to speak in favor of the 4-day work week in order to improve staff morale and to improve teacher Recruitment and Retention I'm in my 12th year teaching I've taught Elementary and Middle School in my 12 years as a teacher I've worked with about nine different teams depending on how you switch it up I've been volun told to switch classrooms after the school year started twice
019um I've taught jump rope during summer school when I was 37 weeks pregnant I've broken up fights I've been called names you know all the usual teacher stuff um I've put my own family on the back burner so I could grade papers plan better lessons go buy supplies for experiments and parties and gifts for my students and here's the thing I am nothing special there's probably teachers behind me who have done much more than I have done um I'm full aware that I've had it easy compared to many teachers in our district you can walk in any building in this district and you can just walk down the hall and you can see teachers doing amazing things and going above and beyond for their students unfortunately I've watched in the last 3 to five years
020so many of my colleagues who are amazing teachers leave this District they've crumbled under the pressure under the impossible workload some of them have just left the district but some of them have left teaching entirely I've watched some of my friends and my mentors leave this district and I nearly left myself last year I was pregnant I have two other little ones at home and even though I have great administrators and great colleagues I didn't know if I could make it I want to share this quote with you it's that our dilemma is that we hate change and we love it at the same time what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better we can't expect things to get better by keep keeping on doing the same thing that
021we've always done we have to make some changes um I don't think that if we don't make changes things will just magically get better change is scary I know there's a lot of fear I appreciate the objections and the things that have been brought up by other people who are opposed to this because I think we do need to come up with a solid plan but I do believe to move forward as a district We cannot put Band-Aids on gaping wounds this is a serious problem we've lost teachers every single year and it's getting worse and worse and worse I believe that we can as a district problem solve this I believe we can figure out the childcare situ situation on Mondays and we can figure out how to make this work just like many
022other districts have will this completely fix all of our problems no absolutely not but I do believe that this will give teachers the break that they need thank [Applause] you uh christe Marino good evening members of the St Joseph School Board I first want to acknowledge the most important stakeholders in education and those are our children our students over here I'm christe Moreno I'm the community advocacy and impact officer with rol educa Missouri education advocacy organization and I'm also here as a member of the National Parents Union a parent L organization that works to advocate for policies and initiatives that support families and promote educational equity today I am here to express our concern about the proposed shift to a 4day school week a model that has both sides of the political aisle in Missour
023very concerned while we all have heard that the data does not show negative impact including the study released recently by Missouri stessie we agree with the commissioner Dr vanav what she said about the study as well the data also does not show any positives either chronic absenteeism in St Joseph is a 74.3% for reference anything below 90% attendance rate is considered chronic absenteeism Dropout rates are twice the dropout rate of the state of Missouri 3.4% versus 1.8% if students are not here today where will they be with a shortened week now we have heard much about how this model is inspired by what the Independent School District has done and there's no data yet on its impact on academics and growth I want to share some direct perspective from parents and caregivers from ISD longer
024school days elementary kids often don't get home from school until well after dark in the winter students are very hungry and hangry by the end of the day and teachers are having to constantly request donations of snacks for their students for food insecure families it's three days every week where kids may not have food at home instead of two it's important to remember that 73.4% of your student population qualifies for free and reduced lunch transportation to and from fifth a options is not available and things are scheduled such that kids can only be in most of the activities for only half a day thus needing r if parents are working many parents are stuck either paying for child care the day of the day off or leaving students Home Alone unsupervised because jobs aren't 4
025day weeks for kids qualifying for special education services it's harder to maintain a regular schedule especially with so many inconsistencies and for many kids school is their safe place and they're missing out on interaction with safe adults our teachers and peers one more day a week so to conclude we are asking that you put your students and families at the center of all your decisions and that you think critically about the implication of a rush decision that has the potential to impact the district's accreditation while going down to 4 days may be appealing to some it puts the majority the most vulnerable at risk ultimately your families are your customers and we know that when school districts put their families first they grow and Achieve together thank you for listening thank you Mar lady marz
026she said hello good afternoon my name is Lady Mighty lady Mighty lady and I have credentials as an educator in Venezuela my home country as a teacher she said as a teacher I am alarmed and very concerned about the proposal to offer class classes only 4 days a week with the intention of L making the schedule longer these four days in my professional opinion as a teacher the school day is too long as it is um she repeated the same thing she said that right now the school day for eight hours is would be a long day she says um to lengthen the day even more um it would be hard to for the children to [Music] concentrate she said I'm not in agreement with the day being um longer [Music] summer she said frequency
027of lessons and repetition is vital to a a child's learning many teachers here talk about the summer slide um the concept that many children forget what they have learned during the school year in the summer and all of August and September she said teachers must spend extra time reteaching them knowledge in all subjects the same applies when we are considering a short week and longer weekends don't you think the children will have forgot what they have learned she said again um as teachers we know that this would have back the students learning um she said also the consequences of young people who have nothing to do for an extra day um and sadly taking a path that is not the for the best interest than you she said parents and Community we are um not
028wanting our children to be at home an extra day on their tablet on their phone um by themselves this is something that worries um the community and uh the [Music] families for she said we need to invest in the children they are our future um as a teacher I don't understand how any teacher could support this um she said that we need to Value them we I'm coming from V Venezuela where we um make the minimum there and education is so important so she said that um she's just not in agreement with it and hopes that um we take into account that and that the students come first we want to have this city Prosper with um amazing education with um amazing students who have um success thank you W thank you okay for lady
029[Music] t okay she said good afternoon my name is Laney de Marquez um I am here as a mother and Aunt who takes care of many nieces and nephews after school I care about the Children's Health um if they currently come home now starving because the food at school is neither of quality nor sufficient in quantity what will happen when the days are longer um we try our best to feed our children healthy and complete meals but now with the with longer days when will the children have time to eat as a family if they stay at school late because you decided to take away a day of instruction and intend extend the school day um in conversation with many moms we also worry about what are we going to do with the kids um
030on this extra day another day with the tablet and the phone our children deserve the best not to be thrown out by their own School District when it is not convenient for them to offer 5 days a week like most schools in the world she also said that um with the days that are extended the times she said that the kids who participate in after school activities um it wouldn't be the same they would come home um and not want to do that because of the longer days and being tired um she said we can't help the teachers by hurting the students and this is why I am here thank you Maria Ramirez r hi everyone um many of you I have the privilege to talk to private where I know many people doesn't have
031that privilege and I appreciate that um no many times you see no many times you see so many people that want to support teachers but it gains a decision and that is where we are today today uh I know that you receive a letter for the union of the biggest companies in this town say that they don't support this you have the president of the Chamber of Commerce today say the business Community to the teachers that I know your your pain I've been in your shoes let me tell you and we want be with you we want fight for salaries salaries is the way we need to solution this because you see the teacher from Venezuela I am from Venezuela and what I see here is a deju the where I came from in couple
032years with four days you will be inable to afford to continue teach here no matter what so what we will be going to three days so I really appreciate the time that you took today to hear on the people but I wanted you thinking about if you are able today to put two scenes that they don't are together very often unions and Chambers who's thinking about that that can be possible what about if we work all together for May the teachers May the salaries they need and the support of a staff because here we are defend teachers and we support you teachers we want you we want you to stay here but we need you also fight for what you need days a Salary thank you thank you Marcel VOR hi hello well my mom
033and my dad they used to be teachers so I understand what is this about but currently I have some concerns about all these issues currently the academic performance we have in St Joseph is not the best even having five five days how will the school district achieve that children will assimilate more content per day when we know in advance that a longer day of classes is not optimal since this does not mean that children will acquire more knowledge by spending more hours at school the second question is children who do not speak English and who are currently in the elll program my daughter is in that program how much longer will have the proper how how much longer will the proper learning of the language of the adoption of English as a second language be
034delayed since that is reflected in their academic performance when when we just moved here since 2 years ago we have been told at at the school district that my daughter will be considered fluent in five maybe seven years so my biggest concern right now is how long does it going to take maybe not just five or seven years maybe it's going to be 10 I think this going to be more expensive um in the same the same topic is by having thecas in school days for all children will they reduce the hours of el or will they miss more essential classes either way it's going to be impact the performance what would happen to parents who do not have the financial capacity to cover days of daycare those childr are are at risk of being
035left alone at home or becoming the the nanes of the siblings they are not prepared to be nannies or to babysitter little kids my other concern is the following the school is an area inter in intended for study where the educational authorities are located for our children there the principal their teachers their tutoring everybody of there is their authorities for kids so if we convert this space in a daycare we will be destroying this place I mean this not be longer a space when they they have to respect their authorities this this this place will be become a a playground so I'm not sure is this going to be be a good idea um have you ever think about the social impact that there will be on student on students after having experienced a confident
036du Co there was an increase of in anity anet anxiety and depression in children due to lack of contact human beings are social by Nature as the school district will be able to address them issues with parents and students let's remember that school of for many childrens is basically the only stable and constant space that they can have in their lives thank you Marley Alvaro for she said good afternoon my name is Marley and I'm representing my son who attends scate Elementary in second grade I stand before you to ask you to not change a school schedule from 5 days to 4 days because my son and many others will be affected too much my son's dad and I have supported his learning at home as much as possible he even had private tutoring three
037times a week to help him learn to read and write well my son speaks and understand Spanish and English without issues even as teachers agree that the problem is writing with errors and reading more easily not the language I feel that he doesn't have the problem in the language it's that he needs more dedication more time dedicated to him um her question is if he's having a hard time right now making progress and the teachers are not able to help him oneon-one during the day which I fully understand because there are so many children in the classroom how are they going to help him if they take away instructional days she said currently he stays one day after school for extra support from a teacher now if classes in later and then he stays for
038an hour what time is he going to come home to rest she said we are still waiting to receive homework instruction in Spanish which I requested at the beginning of the school year to support his learning at home parents are willing to collaborate with the school district to achieve academic success for their children why aren't you willing to collaborate with us she said we are willing to collaborate 100% gracias she said my son like many others need very specific detailed instruction which he is not receiving at the time in your District they need quality instruction and full-time classes the typical 5 days of school to develop into successful students this will not be accomplished by closing schools or cutting days the consequences will be fatal to their education thank [Applause] you thank you Louise and
039in Sosa Mary Sanders good evening um I'm going to start by saying I'm usually not a speaker I'm a doer so this is kind of little weird for me to be up speaking um I'm gonna say I've been an elementary teacher in various buildings for the last 10 years I am not going to use my time to try to convince you to vote Yes for a 4-day work week because I know you've already made your minds up I'm not a big business I'm don't belong to any big political parties and um I can't promise you re-election votes what am I I'm just a teacher um so what am I asking of you right I'm asking to remember our motto at the beginning of the year what was it did we forget one team instead of
040letting outside forces dictate your decisions seek out your Amy babers your Derek freeling your Vicky Murphy's your Melody pwns your Stephanie Simmons your Michaela Millers and so many others for those of the people who have stayed and spent double digigit years double digit years teaching our kids of our community While others have left we all know we can't keep teachers the pay the behaviors the lack of respect so what am I asking you to help what can we do we can change the culture and act as one team I asking you to inspire their Community to work together when new teachers seek a place to call home and see the online rhetoric the arguing and publicized meeting the division within our community and the negative comments on social networking this does nothing nothing to retain
041teachers what can we Salvage for this year this year that all we've done is talk and do nothing remember the people who deserve better our kids I tell my fourth graders not always will we love who we work with but we must respect them and try and help them succeed because in our classroom we are one team I love my job I worry about my kids all the time it never stops we have to do better lastly I want to say I am so grateful to the district leadership I love my sister stacea stter she did not want me to say that for all the work that they do Ashley mcginness I know what you pour into our district it does not go unnoticed from your teachers thank you they deserve your support too I
042want to say a huge thank you to Dr Edgar for listening to the teachers finally 10 years we have a superintendent who listens to our teachers Dr Ed please don't give up on us we will continue to be the voice for our kids we are not going anywhere we need you to the community members who spent countless hours posting negativity about the district every day I have a mentor program at persing elementary I invite you to come attend every Thursday my fourth graders meet with a a celebrity we call them the stars of St Joe come come see what we do and I am passionate about that program or I can even help you fill out a sub certification we need those two what am I asking you to do St Joe is be a
043part I'm of the St Joe one team I'm not done imagine the teachers we could recruit if everybody had the one team philosophy four or 5 days my classroom door will always be open even on a Monday I know many teachers also will step forward and do the same like we always do we need help too thank you Barbara Spencer Dr Edgar and members of the Board of Education my name is Barbara Spencer and I'm a teacher at Spring Garden Middle School I was raised in St Joseph and graduated from Central I have been a teacher for 16 years and all of them have been at Spring Garden in the Southside I am deeply committed to this St Joseph School District and I'm here to ask for your help recruitment in our district has become
044a state of emergency there are buildings in our district that have had zero applicants for full-time teaching positions they're still unfilled we've had so few applicants in the last few years that we've had to use and pay for an outside company to hire the bare minimum of teachers needed to run a functioning building thank goodness our friends from other countries have stepped in and helped us but they're short-term those teachers can only work here for 5 years the expense of those teachers and the turnover that goes hand inand with their employment is not sustainable they cannot contribute in a long-term significant way to our building culture or our district culture they cannot grow our programs they cannot help us reach long-term goals like student achievement we cannot count on short-term staff to continue teaching students
045if we want learning to improve we need highly qualified Educators to teach our students students support our colleagues and strengthen our district the 4-day work week will help us attract highly qualified certified staff to those buildings it will help retain those already here our own staff overwhelmingly want it tonight I implore you don't succumb to outside pressure to do what is right for them do what the teachers and students overwhelmingly asked for you to do and what your District administration is asking you to do help us give the best education possible to our students please consider this tonight as you cast your votes thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you thank you Sarah Fortune I not a speaker I was not prepared to speak but we appreciate Community Support sorry I'm also emotional so much we appreciate
046your support but that's not going to get us through I have taught here for 15 years in elementary and middle school and we have less teachers every year we have people that are trying to help but we can't get subs we can't get qualified teachers it takes a toll on the rest of us we don't have what we need all we're asking is for your support if this 4- day week has not been proven to hurt children or see significant gains why aren't we trying it um people are great and they're like we want to pay teachers more fabulous but in the past our community has not supported that I don't mean that will never happen but what if they don't then we're stuck in the same rut with no teachers nobody to teach your
047guys as kids I have children that go to school here my babies at Middle School are my babies all of my past babies are my babies we want to teach your babies we want them there every second of every day but if we don't have teachers to be there for them then what do you think that 40 kids in a class or dumping my teaching Partners kids in my class because we have nobody to cover on a day off is better is that better we don't have anyone to cover these classes we don't have anyone to fill the vacancies that we need what else are we going to try I appreciate like hey we need to pay teachers more I totally agree but right now that's not an option we need something that we can
048do right now to try it if it doesn't work who's to say that we can't go back to a 5-day week in another year why can't we try it we have got to try something I'm never going to leave I'm 15 years in I love my kids everywhere I'm never going to take my kids from this District but we have got to try something if all our people leave who's left to teach all your babies I'm I'm a parent I'm a teacher we want what is best for your kids but something's got to give we don't we it's got to give we don't have any other options at this point we can't keep filling positions with like random random people we so appreciate their support but we cannot keep putting unqualified people in spaces just
049for bodies that is not doing a thing for your children either it's not helping thank you for letting me speak I feel like why not at this point we're at the why not it can't hurt to try right that if this is our only option at this point because we can't pay teachers more at this point that that comes from community support and every time we've tried it gets voted down so if that keeps happening I'm not saying we can't aim for that but that keeps happening what else are we going to try I think this is our only option it cannot hurt to try thank you that's all I [Applause] got thank you dick shot brought my own tonight I address my comments to the school board members who are in favor or leaning
050towards supporting the development of a 4-day school week the objective of the 4-day program has clearly been dis been stated is one improve teacher Recruitment and Retention and two deal with teacher stress that was recorded 70% of the parents with children attending k6 qualify for free and reduced lunches that is about 4,000 students as you well know one criteria for the qualification is income approving the 4-day program will absolutely require parents of KC k6 students to plan for child care one day a week during the school year just paying a minimum a minimum of $100 a day for each week the cost of paying for just 20 weeks and we know the school is longer than that is $2,000 consider this real cost members of the school board must not place this financial burden on
051these parents who are just trying to maintain income to support the basic needs of their family the school board is quoted a survey results that show a rather high percentage of parents approving the 4-day program this survey results would be valid if at least 70% of the parents surveyed were receiving free and reduced lunches and two if the survey read are you in favor of a 4-day school week and understand that you as a parent are required to pay and to plan for any child care services the cost of parents is real the school board must not approve the 4day program as reminder to everyone it only takes four members of the school board to disapprove this 4-day week Place yourself in the shoes of these parents who now must pay the added cost my
052final statement is to the school board I've been I've been in education for 32 years I know every aspect of it I know that the school board has a responsibility to put together policy they don't don't make plans they do policy and they do policy at the entrance of the students and the parents and they have the they have all of the information to do that you are telling the administration we have trouble with recruiting we have trouble with retention there is an enormous amount of talent at this administrative level an En an enormous amount of of uh Talent at a at amount cost means that they need to present to you a different way to deal with t student retention and student and EXC teacher retention teacher thank you Sean Connors got to find
053The Sweet Spot um good evening uh in this discussion of the 4day school week I've been on record as opposing the idea I had good reasons that have been stated by multiple people including child care food access job schedules among other concerns it wasn't until last Thursday at the retention recruitment meeting when one of the teachers pointed out what is our plan B if this fails there was a stunned silence because there is no plan B I too want to see a tax levy put on a ballot even if that passes it would be two years before we see any funds from that Levy for our teachers and staff it has been said that reasonable people can get new information and form new opinions I urge this board to approve the 4-day school week and
054then work with our business Community to ensure that our working parents can adjust their work schedules to accommodate the 4-day school week thank you for your [Applause] consideration Maggie Sigman it's been a long time since I've used a microphone can you hear me is it better in here my name is Maggie Sigman I have just a very few things to say what do you really know about the outcome of a 4-day school week I have worked the 4-day business world it's not easily accepted does this 4day week guarantee teacher retention I don't think so I know you have some information on that but I don't think you have firm statistic information has this been thought out about how will affect working parents and child care for that day and has the cost of extra daycare
055been considered I want you to vote no against this and I think one of the things I figured out here tonight and I've known for a long time the high level of poverty in this community is one of the reasons we don't retain or attract good teachers thank [Applause] you thank you Lois [Music] Mustang I've supported the 4-day week like I was talking about this 20 years ago I fundamentally support it and I think there are um benefits I think it can reduce stress for students teach it can reduce stress for students and teachers and building administrators but this isn't ready to pass this isn't ready for approval you haven't put a plan on paper that people can look at and know that they're going to be okay and I feel like um that's been
056purposely neglected um and I think I think it's important I think it's a matter of respect for families and the community to have a natural plan um this board has a record of approving things that are that do not exist plans that do not exist and this is an example if you approve this you're approving a plan that does not exist and to me that's not okay and I feel like this should be tabled and until a plan is on paper and can be you know the community can be communicated with that they know what is going to be available what is going to happen and how it will affect them so that they can express their concerns and have those concerns answered I just think I I totally support the concept I have for
057before anybody else is talking about it I was talking about it 20 years ago but you can't it's it's inappropriate to approve a plan that does not exist and this board has done that repeatedly and it doesn't it that doesn't go very far for um garnering community support and I think Community buying does matter parents matter students matter teachers matter administrators matter every matters and I just think I think it's it's not ready bring it back when it's ready [Applause] yeah thank you L Wen good evening I am lenia won now acting as St Joseph Nea president um this has been obviously a very hot topic amongst our members we represent teachers counselors um many many many different um Educators in our district um we surveyed our members and I bring to you tonight report
058of the survey that we conducted 65.7% of our members in the St Joseph Nea are in favor of this 99.8% are indifferent so it's not like the remainder of them are against it that's a good number of members of our Union um I didn't want to speak as lanaa I wanted to be a voice to our members I am going to read to you in the time that I have um words that I have received from members on what a 4-day week means to them a 4-day work week would save me hundreds a month in daycare daycare costs are astronomical as we've heard this this door swings both ways and especially since we don't make much money it's hard to figure that out as a family my fiance and I both work for the district
059and are planning our family around cost of daycare with one less day a week that would save us working extra jobs to pay for things both sites can benefit as a coach and sponsor of many activities I'm working a minimum of 17 weekends half of the weekends in a year a year uh excuse me 17 weekends a year including events during the evenings and on on school days a 4-day week would ease the feelings on burnout and exhaustion from creating um extracurricular opportunities for students the exhaustion from working weekends has impacted my ability to be best prepared for classroom instruction come Monday morning across the district there are numerous teachers and staff putting in countless hours Beyond regular contract time and are not compensated adequately for their time if we can't raise salaries give teachers
060more time another member said a 4-day work week means that if my plan period is used for covering classes or for my postobservation conferences or because I'm dealing with the aftermath of a student crisis I know that I won't be scrambling because I had time to do adequate planning on Monday a 4-day work weake means that I can take care of the PDC and courtesy means needs of my building without trying to figure it out between lessons or staying after school another member said a 4-day work week means there is no longer an expectation of teachers to work the weekend if grading or planning don't get done we get to reclaim our weekends another member said a 4-day work week means I am refreshed and ready to give my students my best on Tuesday I
061get to be a mom on the weekend and have the opportunity to spend Monday preparing for the upcoming week it will make me a better teacher finally a 4-day week would allow me sufficient time to plan and prepare for each week it would provide ample time for collaboration and meetings and and meeting the needs of students it would also allow me extra time with my family doing things we love and recharging for another week at school a majority of our association is in support of a 4-day week we hope that you are too thank you uh Kelly Bristol in the interest of time I will keep it very short I am Kelly Bristol and I am here representing the Missouri State Teachers Association St Joseph region of which I am the President um like Nea
062our membership has spoken loudly we took surveys we've done multiple surveys over the last couple of months when this idea was first proposed each of those surveys have grown exponentially in the amount of teachers that and staff that have added the answers to those surveys in our survey the most recent one with the the most recent calendar that was proposed our membership said spoke loudly 70.9% of our membership now that's not just teachers that's classified staff that's administrators that's all kinds of people that represent the people in this district one of the things that I want you to remember is we are here to educate children we are not a social service agency and we are broken we are broken and these teachers you've heard you've watched it on their faces I represent them lanaa
063represents those people and we have got to find something to be able to give them some hope and at this point I a th% agree giving us raises would be lovely we would all love that but that's not feasible this is a plan that is feasible the only thing that I would say is I agree with a lot of what our community has said I hope that if you choose to move forward with this which I pray that you do I hope that you come up with a plan that is equally sustainable for our classified staff as our certified staff thank [Applause] you thank you re Rebecca dice um hi um my name is Rebecca Dice and I'm a school bus driver for the school dear Street and I have been so for 15 years
064um most of the discussion today is Central around parents with children K through2 I'm going to talk about the financial impact we experien as bus drivers because of this if we miss one day a week if not able to drive we will lose money over the period of the school year I myself I personally myself lose over $5,000 in 9 months of pay every Monday is a holiday for us that we get paid and if it's off we do not get paid for that um and because of this I strongly am against this 4 day school week unless it's fair for everyone um we're kind of like the bottom of the barrel I haven't heard anything about bus drivers but we take all these children to school we try to get them to school all
065the time and with the 4 day week financially I can't make it and there's people that make way less than I do and so it's going to be really tough for us to get the kids to school I don't know to anyway that's all I have I'm not a speaker I just I just know that sometimes that you know we're thrown under the bus for a lot of things and we don't get thought of really and so I'm here to speak for me myself and the other drivers and everybody there we need help too because there's a lot of people like you guys say that AR that are against the teachers about a lot of the community are against us also and we would like just to be thought of like everybody else out here
066thank you [Applause] thank you Jeff leak hello my name is Jeff leak uh taught in school district for 25 years uh I'm GNA hold this because it don't go high enough uh 20 of which I've spoke in front of the board uh I'm sure there's not a present or past administrator I haven't pissed off at one point or another but usually I'm 90% against the administrative recommendation and trying to explain to the board why they need to say no tonight I'm kind of in a odd situation because I'm trying to convince the board why they need to say yes uh in an era in a world where people don't want schools raising their children it sure sounds sounds like that a lot of expectations and demands are put on the schools which is great I
067understand every concern here and these concerns are here if it's a 5-day or a 4- day week and in an Ideal World a five-day week is going to be better because you have 100 quality teachers teach it five days a week but what you have to understand right now is we don't have a 100 quality teachers teaching five days a week we're missing we don't even have jobs filled then we have people that are teaching out of their certification area we have people from other countries who are doing their best but it's a little bit different when your child's in the classroom we have people who are not showing up all the time my son has had two teachers not finish the year and has suffered and I will take a quality teacher 4 days
068a week over mediocre 5 days a week any [Applause] anytime 90 % attendance let's do the math on that 90% attendance is 16 days a school year I missed one in high school in four years 16 days a school year our average attendance is at 73% 79 we don't even have kids going to a 5-day week now at 79% 79% means that we are missing 33 days of school per year if we could raise that to 90% the revenue formula would provide enough money to pay every classified staff parent and everybody their full salary that they're making now over four days give a raise to the bus drivers so they don't lose money and offer every tutoring and and and program we need to on a Monday that's if we just get to show up
069so whether this passes or not my challenge is to the business community that is coming in here and telling us what we need to do go to your employees and tell them to get their kids to school we have programs to Fe kids we have backpack buddies that give stuff for 7,000 students over the weekends we are now 14 days over their required amount we raised that by 10 11 days about 12 years ago there are already 11 mon 11 4day weeks there are three that are three days or less this isn't that much of a change in people's lives they handle it now on the weekends they handle it in in the summer I love being around my kids so it would benefit me I understand I understand the challenges and we can adjust
070and we can help those people out but it's a simple supply and demand issue 30% less teachers coming in the workforce they're just not there they're not there I warned people four years ago I offered to donate my salary if I could not help raise our retention rates and I sto still stand by that but here's the thing you don't have any other options at this point and I'll I'll I'll go real quick we're already on fire we can't wait to see why things are burning and if we can't complain that the water's going to run the carpet if we use it to put out the fire we're at a point where doing little studies and and having more Jeans day it ain't going to cut it so you got to make a choice and
071the last thing I'll read with is this to raise salaries close enough to Kansas City to where we could retain and attract people we would have to pass a levy twice of the levy that I helped co-chair Mr Foster Two Times Higher we would have to pass that Levy I would love to do it but I'm not going to hold my breath thank you very much wi Virginia as a property tax payer the description on a teacher's recommendation for their job title would have to include babysitting under this proposed plan and I don't think that's why I pay my taxes I want it to be used for the students and I think forcing students to attend school four days a week and make the days longer so they're tired they're hungry I just think you're
072going to do more damage than good and I am a person that has lived a lot longer life than a lot of people in this room I'm in my 80s and please think of the children and not the benefit of the parents thank you okay I want to uh take this opportunity to thank everybody who participated in public participation and um we will this concludes this portion of the meeting and we'll move right into the next portion so thank you do we need a couple minutes or do we just want to go into it all right okay next on the agenda I will take a motion to approve the agenda the change of moving action item 9g to 9M just switch 9 9 and 9M and we're doing that just out of U respect for
073the people that are going to be presenting in front of that I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as amended is there a second I'll second thank you David and Rick would you call the vot please Dr Miss Lanning yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr rer yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller Mr gar yes and the motion passes 60 okay the next item is the consent agenda is there a motion I'll make that motion thank you David is there a second I'll second thank you assr would you call the vote Please Mr Garing yes Miss Miller Miss Williams yes Mr reer yes M Garcia yes Mr Foster yes Miss Lanning yes and the motion passes 60 okay next up are the committee reports item a the policy committee that's me and Miss
074Miller um did everyone have a moment to look over the new policies um just a quick overview only changes in the policies where to comply with Ms ba and the new marijuana laws are there any questions about those or do you any additions Kim no okay perfect it's our it's our recommendation to bring these to the board for approval is there a motion thank you Kim is there a second I'll second thank you David would you call the vote please miss Lanning yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reader yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr Garing yes and the motion passes 70 next academics report Miss Kim [Applause] yes I need to catch my breath I don't know about youer so we had our academic meeting on February 20th 2024 and we
075had several teachers in attendance to help us um get an idea of what's being brought to us as the board first we talk about teacher evaluations and we were given examples of what they look like and how it how you go about um evaluating in the classroom sorry there we go so sometimes those teacher vows are pretty rough if all you get is a number so they're working on changing that where you have opportunity to speak and speak within uh 48 Hours of getting the evaluation so it's always nice to have close feedback to when that happens so I appreciate that information especially for those who are new to teaching those who are are uh International teachers it's good to have feedback I know they are our teacher mentors so it's good to see how
076how well that process works also we were also given um a rough draft for St Joseph's career ladder plan and that looks like right now uh we've been using Esser funds to close the gap and right so after that desie will expect this uh career ladder plan for our teachers and it doesn't allow our new teachers years in years one and two too of teaching to to enter this because it's a just a plan to um other teachers get to volunteer and it's a process to earn money by the amount of time they spend with the students the amount of time they are uh working toward academic Improvement and it has some requirements for how many hours and then you earn stiens as you as you enter this plan so it sounds like a good
077idea uh there's a requirement of that 50% contact hours with the students one graduate course if you're taking some graduate courses it it equals 10 career ladder hours so that's an improvement over what we're doing right now so after that we talked about our kindergarten Readiness and I love these things because not just because it's colorful but it's a way it's something you can put in the hands of parents and saying this is what we're doing come on this night we can work with your kids we can get you registered and here's what you need to do to have your child kindergarten ready so what a remarkable way um it gives you m there's a a code at the bottom where tech savvy parents can can enlist and prepare in time so there's a couple
078evenings that that's going to take place in our district they also showed some uh charts for our kindergarten entry assessment for me that sounds kind of weird I'm I'm fairly old I may not be in my 80s but I remember a time you just went and you colored that's all we did but it's amazing what what our kindergarteners are doing now so they're assessed we have our Littles who come um ready to learn a new language their home uh is encouraging that so they they have a chart on the things that they look for in our Readiness of our kindergarteners uh number of participating districts percent of kindergart is ready in different domains and they have a list of things that they're looking for literacy and language and you think well yeah they're they're barely
079talking but it's amazing how how easily they pick up cognition general knowledge social emotional development approaches to learning physical development all kinds of testing that they take care of to make sure our our lles are ready for school and interaction so the last piece of data and a lot of what we pay attention to for our our older kids are some diagnostic results that come from the middle of the year did I get that right Ashley okay so we have math scores and we have reading scores that are taken and right now because it's mid December numbers our reading level is 41% it's on track for 41% is on track for grade level 33% on one grade below and 27 for two grades below it sounds it doesn't it's not where we want to be
080but that's something we have to work on as always and it's it's midyear so we try to move them up to particular uh percentages for first grade I have to say that first grade improved placement they moved from 37% to 70% that's astounding so it's working it's just not working as fast as we might want it to work so our math again was fairly low 28% on track 45% uh on on a grade level below and 26 on two grades below so we're working on some uh interventions some revisions to curriculum and the resources teachers I very much appreciate the work that you do with our students they do need you so I appreciate that thank you Dr mcginness for all your investment and your staff that takes care of this thank you Kim finance
081committee report K Whitney Dr sers I wasn't there um we will uh touch base on a couple of things that were in there they're on the agenda so agend we we'll defer to the agenda for the finance report thank you facilities Rick yeah thank you um we had our facilities meeting last week um pretty interesting we were given a draft of uh what Gabe and the administration and um came back with a long-term plan U there's a lot of moving pieces in it um I don't really think I want to go into everything here tonight I don't have that draft in front of me Dr Ed I don't know if you want to speak to some of the highlights I think um I think the main thing is that the administration and they have mentioned
082it before is that they have come to a conclusion that they feel like St Joseph is a two high school town and what this long-term plan does is uh talks about some different Avenues whether that be two brand new high schools or renovating two of the high schools we already have and um just kind of talks about if that passes if it doesn't pass how does that look um moving forward and so I don't know Dr Ed if is that available online on the website or where people can see this it is we are um actually at Version 9 now and I will'll be speaking to that in the information items okay very good thank you Rick recruit and retain C andar yes so we had a uh Recruitment and Retention committee meeting last Thursday
083and it was well attended we heard a lot of similar um comments from the public and teacher teers about the 4-day school week and um we ran the committee in a way where people were able to express themselves and uh finish what they had to say um and it was uh very informational so thank you um I have a couple of comments about the Recruitment and Retention committee and really um the first are just some requests for the next meeting and then um the next part are just about the committee itself um I just want to publicly request that we have the next meeting before our next school board meeting um I know that originally this had been planned to occur after uh so I just want to make sure that that's at least been
084requested um go ahead oh I'm not loud enough that's a first um okay so my first request is just that we ensure that the committee meeting happened before the next board meeting uh so that we can use those to inform decisions at the board level um at the last meeting I had requested more information about the propy we waiver and Levy information um it is concerning to me that we talk about how we need to pay teachers more we need to pay teachers more but that hasn't even been something that we've discussed um so that's concerning um I also would like to make sure that on the agenda um T and I have been working with some members of the Latino Community to work on a proposal to address recruitment of members of the local
085Latino community and I'd like that added as well I can get you the documentation on that um those are my requests for the next meeting um overall I just want to express concerns for our current committee structure um much of what was mentioned in opposition to this um having background as a social worker and and spending my entire adult adult professional life caring for low-income kids and families um I understand the concerns and I think what's what's concerning to me is that we've we've addressed a lot of this the problem is our committee structure doesn't allow us to discuss things uh with the superintendent with his staff get ideas get feedback come to Solutions um they've just been great fests so unfortunately because our committee structure is not set up in a meaningful and intentional
086way um a lot of people don't know that we've talked about child care I Dr edar will not say this to you but I I know we can make that free I know we can I do it for a living latan Williams does it for a living uh Miss Garcia Works in that field I know we can do it for free he won't make that commitment but I will food access we've talked about about that we've talked about the Partnerships we've talked about having things open we've talked about all of these things but because our committee structure is just a freefor all we can't get anything done so those are my concerns I've shared those concerns every single time I think if we had a better committee structure that was more intentional you would see
087more buyin from the community and more information for the community that's all I have I would respectfully disagree with what Miss Lanning said I don't believe um if we had a better committee structure that we would have more buying from the community when it comes to a 4-day school week I believe we didn't allow enough work sessions to hold a conversation about the 4- day school week uh blaming the committee structure I believe is a cob out um I've asked several times why we haven't allowed our community to have a public forum when it comes to the 4-day school week which I believe our parents and our our staff should be able to not only have this opportunity but several others not just the Recruitment and Retention committee um so like I said I I
088don't believe the committee structure is what the problem is I do think that there are some community members that are a little too vocal which I agree with that but I think it's on the committee shair and leaon to really reel that in okay so ladies are you each um thinking about a discussion of the committee structure um I would assume that I'm in the minority on this request and so if it's not the will of the majority then we can keep doing it the way we're doing it um I will say that our again our current committee structure 4-day week or any other solution um it doesn't give the public the opportunity or us the opportunity to work through Solutions in a meaningful way um and to be honest they're embarrassing are there any
089other members of the board who have an issue about the current committee structure do you think it's working um should we make changes additions alterations anything like that or are you each okay with how things are going well my question is haven't we give haven't we given our administrators the ability to make these changes as they see fit is that what we agreed on yes it was agreed in the beginning um I don't always think that that occurs as we intended on it and I think that that um is an issue that has has been complained upon um by admin and members of the community I guess speaking for myself um I made a comment at the the work session we had I believe in September um that I did prefer the way that committees
090were done beforehand and I know I'm only one of seven but you asked and so um I I I liked how we did did it that way is there a reason why um I felt the meetings um were more just um word I'm looking for here I thought the meetings were just more orderly I thought there's more orders to the meetings um I thought they just rain smoother that way and again I I know I'm only one of seven that's my personal opinion on that I think I think our purpose was to include more of the community to have say in what we're doing or to at least here to come and and open it up to have an opportunity to speak to the issues that we're bringing to those committees I thought that was
091our purpose for opening it like that I would agree with that I think that that was a good intent okay but the purpose of the Committees is also to get work done sure and if there's no work that's being done then that's an issue I mean is there a way of a compromise is there a way to do both I think and I think what I had had in mind is including public comment periods and you know including public comment opportunities um now you know and I I said this at the beginning when when we have a committee or a core group of people that have been talking about an issue I've been attending regularly and then you have you know a big decision or something big come up and you have people who haven't
092been there um campaign season is a great example of that um you know we we've been told that we haven't looked at this or we haven't looked at that but in facilities we've been looking at it I've been on it for a year and a half so I I think it's hard to continue work when we don't have set expectations I think involving the community is wonderful and I I like it I love it but I think we can do it in a more intentional way and get work done okay for the um sake of time and a long agenda let's um I will contact over to Donna to look at um schedule in order to do a special meeting to talk about this issue and um how to make a compromise of sorts thank
093you is everyone okay with that I would just like to make a last comment um I could see what the other board members perspec persectives are about it not being as productive as it was before so I definitely acknowledge that um the only other concern that I have is you know coming from being on the board for two and a half years I've heard that whether it was the structure before or the structure now that the Committees don't get anything done so um I disagree with that I think that you know they allow us to get the community perspective um and like I said I don't personally have a problem with the structure we've only been doing it like this for about four to five months so let's give it more time to develop but
094I'm open to having a work session thank you okay any more comments about that yes Mr reader waste of time committees are just fine next as always I appreciate your input admin reports you Dr edar okay um Dr mcness and I are going to uh do the superintendent report together this evening um obviously last month uh there was a job description for the Dei position on the agenda and uh after we looked into it um it did pass and so I just kind of wanted to give you an update of where we're at uh with that and so uh we went back administratively we took a look at uh what we do now um as far as what type of offerings what type of trainings we have for Dei and um Dr mcginness is going
095to go through each one of those and kind of speak to those briefly but um at the end of the day uh we will not be moving forward with the from an Administration recommendation with a diversity Equity inclusion uh job in itself and we're going to explain to you uh why that recommendation has changed Dr mcness so these are the modules that all of our staff go through every year these go through HR so one of them is discrimination awareness in the workplace and I can give you a second to read that the next one is diversity equity and inclusion practices staff to student and then the third one is actually one that we have custom created discrimination harassment and ret retaliation I'll give you a minute to read that one these are additional learning
096opportunities that we have so on the left side we use a program called Vector that's through HR and there are additional trainings for example if we have a staff member who we believe need some assistance or support with some of these items we can assign those modules on the right those are opportunities that we have provided for principes or our staff either through a gauge or through our monthly U principal meetings and so we've also had some of our principles take this back and implement it into their building PD so this is just an overview of some of the additional learning opportunities in the required modules that go through HR um so personally I feel like this position was stemmed from a need out of the English language development department because we know that our
097numbers are increasing um but we are providing Dei learning to our staff each year it's a requirement any questions can you explain what what are we doing I don't understand what do you mean I mean what are we doing so last month it was a recommendation to do the job description that was a fiasco but it passed and then this month we're saying we don't need it well we went back and looked at all the trainings that we provided and for 2425 we don't feel like we need the position in itself the the reason for the conversation um for the position was the pressures that we were receiving from the ELD Department that's what originally had sparked the conversation and we still need to address some issues from the ELD Department concerns as well we're
098looking at that on on what we can do so we decided that we needed this job description and we needed to address the needs in the ELD department but now we don't need it to address the needs in the ELD Department yeah we figure there there's another I mean because of the trainings that we offer we feel like the Ed ELD department is where the pressure is at and that's what we need to fix right so um I uh voted for this last time uh we had talked about this in advance um I don't I think it seems like this is again uh a oh no it's a woke idea um and so let's all freak out uh I will tell you I did not vote on this because of any political reasons I voted
099on this because of the needs of those students I voted on it because the items in the job description are needed for our children and I think that it was needed last month and I think it's needed this month um so this is wonderful this is a piece of the puzzle um but I think that if it was needed last month it's still needed this month and we have a job description that addresses how we will do that I don't care if you call it Dei I don't care if you f i don't care what you call it um if if it's if it would make everyone feel better to change the name of it um that's fine too but if we needed it last month we need it this month are there any other
100questions or comments in regards to the presentation I agree with the recommendation was $120,000 position that's three teacher salary for 27 teachers saw short um maybe we should take a vote on it because remember that vote was pretty skewed last time it's not an action item Kenny well I at least I tried to make a motion I respect that thank you so I would like to say um I spoke to a couple of teachers in the ELD department and um after talking about the Dei or um what that would look like they did Express concerns on just the work that the ELD department is in itself to be splitting that job between ELD and the bullying and all these other things not that I don't believe all of those um criterias need to be handled
101properly but I do believe the ELD Department in itself is such a huge job to have somebody say we're going to give you a de Dei label but you're really going to be coordinating the El Department would be a disservice to that department so I believe this is this is a good route to take I just don't think that um it should be in either or position I think that there's a need in the district in order to address each of those needs all of those needs and to choose a group over anothers doing a group of disservice may I ask what specifically drove this conversation from the El Department was there one or two or three specific issues um well it's just the numbers I mean the numbers Drive everything Mr Foster if you
102look at the number of employees that are serving um the ELD department or E ELD students versus the number of students that we have in the department like could say uh compare it to special education I mean I provided those numbers for you the last time and they're not even close and so the pressure is there from an ELD department and that's what we felt was our um that's what was necessary to address for 2425 and we'll be bringing that back to you in March and I do think um Dr Edgar that you're correct that numbers do Drive positions so my question to the board members who are claiming that this is being taken back because of wokeness or whatever their they're claiming where are the numbers that show that we actually need a Dei
103position where are the reports that are saying that our district is suffering so immensely from reports that kids are being discriminated against where are those so I'll I'll step into this and I realize that there is some irony in in this that I am a white woman saying this um if you want to see the need in our school district then go to the News Press article where the Dei position was discussed and look at the racist comments so it is needed I've talked to many people and many teachers and many students in our district that talk about their struggles with racism again I get the irony that I'm explaining that to you all the the percentage of the population that we have what 10% are Ells sped again this is not just a white
104black brown issue this is children with with disabilities it's children who come from families who have Two Dads it's all of that it it's all of it and a district of our size cannot continue to ignore that this is something that we need but again my perspective only there is evident that it's not ignored because it's in the things that the teachers when they first come on everybody has to go through that but for right now it makes sense to keep it in the El department where the need is greatest and I'm sure it's not going to leave any student behind because it's covered at least and if things arise it'll be addressed okay I just want to add that our stance is that all of us every single employee every staff member should be
105embracing diversity should be promoting equity and should really be welcoming every student staff member with open arms and so I I just feel like it is our responsibility to treat everyone with respect respect and dignity regardless of what color they look like where they come from or any of their background but do we need to spend over $100,000 for a position specifically for that no I think that's all of our jobs every day so I'm going to I'm just going to go ahead and say this is what frustrates me is I make decisions based on you all's recommendations I sit up here and I take it every day from these people I take it on social media every day every day I support you all and your your recommendation changes in 30 days that's really
106difficult for me to stomach but if this is your your recomend recommendation and it's changed I'll go with it I think we all agree we want every student to be treated equally and if this is the way to get there I support it until next month and if they change their mind I'll support them all right on on this topic Dr mcginness yes ma'am are the modules available for the board to take as well I believe so and that's all ran through HR so I think if you just emailed Dr Krauss he would allow you to to view those could you get us a link for those yeah I think they're much needed okay let's move on I think it's your turn Miss yes it is and I left something at your station just a
107report that's a front and back so I have just a few items to touch on we are very focused on the teacher evaluation process for next year I think that's going to be beneficial to move to more qualitative process than quantitative we're working on the Desi career lad plan that we will submit to desie in April but three things that I want to hit on one is the consideration of student retention so this is something that's been brought up in a couple of committee meetings as far as policies about retaining kids so I left that there for you Senate Bill 681 policy ik specifically outlines if a student has a substantial reading deficiency at the end of third grade the appropriate District staff will meet directly with the student's parents to discuss whether the student
108should be retained and then a form would be formulate a plan would be formulated to remedy that deficiency that is part of Senate Bill 681 so that is something that we do sometimes if it is in the best educational interest of that student last year 37 students were retained and repeated the grade again we look at that on a caseby casee basis and what's on in the best interest of that student second item is summer school and I'd anticipated going to a little more detail on this but we don't have everything ironed out with catapult yet and some of that information is actually on the pay rates item here in a little bit on the action item third just a quick academic Services go progress update on two items one of them is our graduate
109followup so we talked about this in December that we are responsible for tracking our graduates after 6 months to make sure that they are either in the military or are competitively employed or they are um at a technical school or a college so we have points or worded to us when those students are in one of those positions if we can't track them we are dinged for that so we need to be at 90% to get our full APR points right now Lafayette is there and but we have biton and Central at 86% so I'm just telling you that right now our data management has submitted that data to desie but we have an opportunity to resubmit and so we will make sure we work with those building principles to get that above 90% so
110we don't leave any points on the table and then academic Services goal number five was to create and maintain a positive climate in culture as evidenced by the q12 survey and Mr Foster I know you asked about this last year and what the questions were so I put those on the back of the page and actually have it broken down by school so you can see that and that's also posted online for the public November of 2020 we were at 34% and the following year we were at 30% and then last year and this year we are at 37% so we did meet that goal and I have some strengths listed there and some opportunities for improvement and then you can kind of see it broken down by school but I just wanted to give
111you an update our department is constant stly focused on our APR report and our goals and so those are two areas where we have seen some progress so I just wanted to let everyone know that any questions for me I had one question about summer school do we know what the hours that that's going to be yes and I believe that is on the summer school pay rates item 7:15 to 1:15 I believe so it will not be full day it will not be a complet full day and uh Monday through Friday yes except for June 19th are there any additional questions okay let's move on approval of the bills Dr seis thank you um several of you submitted a few questions about a couple of the bills with some questions and I think we
112were able to get those answers back to you so uh if there are any additional questions I would ask that you approve the uh bills at this time I'll make that Mo I'll second thank you Rick you can we have discuss can you ask questions go ahead I just wondered if you mind for the audience and repeat you want the questions that were asked and how did you answer I'd have to go back to my emails and look at I don't have them off the top of my head I I can I can tell you that one of them was just clarification on what AIG was which um is the international teachers um there were several others but I'd have to go back to my email look at it that's Robert thanks than Mr Gary
113yes M Miller yes M Williams Mr reer yes M Garcia yes M Lanning yes Mr Foster yes the motion passes 7 Z January Financial yes financials through January uh we're at about 58% of the year the fiscal year at this point uh operating is running at about 61% of expenditures but overall we're at 54.8 a lot of that is due to fund two uh salaries are are a little bit lower there 49% uh that's due to some staffing positions that that we just haven't been able to fill this year I will uh likely be bringing you a budget amendment in April um so we'll have a little better look at that but we're tracking pretty close to where we expect to be at this time expenditures are up 8.96 million um going sound a little
114bit like a broken record here where those areas are coming from but salaries and benefits are up 3.29 million purchase services are up 4.6 million uh that's primarily in sped Contracting and transportation and then capital projects and supplies are up about 1.7 million a lot of that can be attributed to the uh the hilard expansion revenues right now State revenues are down just a little bit over 3.05 million from last year uh that really is related to this timing of some payments uh with ecse and a some reimbursements there and then our tax revenues are up 6.88 million at this time compared to last year any questions about the fin financials there uh before I talk about the healthcare trust okay the uh healthc care trust uh ended the month uh 2.55 million and then
115you have to remember we also have about 3 million invested so uh the total there is about 5.56 million uh if you look closely you see we did not have a payroll uh deposit this month that's just the timing of how payroll came this month um so that excuse it by just a little bit that would be about 1.1 million additional uh so at the end of this month about 5.56 million for comparison at the end of January of 23 we're at 5.43 million and again if you think about it we probably have another 1.1 there because of the payroll that hasn't didn't didn't hit yet uh the plan itself at the end of January was running a 92.9% funding ratio at a 645 ,000 Surplus the EPO we continue to keep an eye on
116that it's running at 120% of the funding ratio uh right now A $445,000 deficit the PO is running a 93% funding ratio $22,000 Surplus and the HSA is running a 78% funding ratio of $888,000 surplus there any questions about the healthcare Trust okay no further questions I'd ask for approval of the financials at this time um I just wanted to bring up one thing in advance of financials for next month um sorry again it's never the problem um so I just wanted to bring up um some just to have some conversation about expenditures coming up I know that um we get pretty closely scrutinized for any trips that we take or any um travel that is reimbursed by the school district District um that's always a sunshin item or a hotly contested item um when
117we went to Great Northwest days we had paid for five members to go uh we didn't meet with our legislators as a group and that's fine that's every everyone's prerogative um but we also have another legislative trip coming up in um April I believe it is the DC flying uh that too every year is hotly contested um so I just want to talk here publicly about what we plan to do with that um it's obviously my first year being on the board it's been my understanding that historically that's the President and Vice President uh along with the superintendent and so I just wanted to have a conversation about whether or not that's what we plan plan to do again this year I do know that I planning on I planning on on attending keny does
118also as well um as mentioned in the past it's normally the president and the vice president who always attend and so I mean there's never been an issue before like in the past I do understand that that's always a question only it is just an item it just always is are we all agreeable to that I will be here in uh after April but uh I've been agreeable in the past you will be here in April after oh April 6 I will be okay um did you mention about issues about Great Northwest a I mean if there were issues I want to get them out and open um I just transparency and all I think I can address that when we get on to the legislative partnership contract um are there any other comments or
119questions about the financials okay is there a motion make a motion to approve thank you David is there a second I will second myself okay would you call the vote pleas Miss Lang yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reer yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr Garing yes and the motion passes 70 the Personnel report and no Dr cruss and AD hello um I did put the seill report on all of your guys' areas um so I ALS I just ask that you guys approve the personnel and supplemental reports as presented if you don't have any questions approve is there a second they no wh Mr Garing yes m Miller yes M Williams yes Mr reer yes Miss Garcia Mr Foster yes Miss Landing yes thank you on the motion passes 70
120nine action items a student teacher job description s um beginning of this school year we did start paying our student teachers um so since we do that we asked that we get a job description in place for them so I'm asking you guys tonight to approve this job description can you talk a little bit about uh why we're paying student teachers and what we're paying them to do and why this is a strategy that we're using um I can go to anybody I'll speak to that I mean the board approved this last year uh other districts are starting to do this um we feel like if we can encourage people to student teach with us and then also get them into our buildings we have a much better chance of being able to recruit them
121as a as a full-time staff member and if you take a look we are uh already signing contracts with a lot of our student teachers before they finish student teaching so essentially it's because we have a difficulty recruiting and retaining staff recruiting yes this is a recruitment piece right and what are we paying them $3,000 so they get $1,000 at the beginning and then $1,000 when they finish their student teaching and then $1,000 once they have um accepted a position is this a semester or a year um sometimes it's a semester there has been a couple that have been the full year and it's the same pay whether it's a semester or yes I think I was in North Kansas City the first time I saw a district do this and um a lot of
122other districts I think do it as well um sounds like a good idea good recruitment strategy yeah I mean you you all approved this last year we're just asking you to prove the job description now so we're dotting the eyes across and my point to ask that question was really just to illustrate the fact that we have a dire situation for Recruitment and Retention you know what I was doing um I want to reiterate what we heard in the recruitment or retention committee meeting uh from teachers who talk about the fact that when you have student teachers that are in classrooms as your co-teachers uh that can be very difficult for 10e staff and it adds an additional burden on them however I will vote in favor of this and I'm glad we at least
123have some idea of what we're doing can ask a question I don't remember like it was answered a year ago or whatever um David asked about the amount of the pay it's no change if it's like a semester or like if it's a year why is that or does anybody know um I think it's just I mean we just that we set a flat rate to pay student teachers and most student teachers are going to be one semester right I think we may have had one or two that were going to be the full year but they're typically just one semester there's quite a few that we are actually signing as teacher of record off that's the situation that we're in could you repeat that I could hear you there's quite a few that we
124are actually making teacher of record so they may be doing student teaching but they're also the teacher of record so we're also and there's still only making a 3,000 no they're getting paid as a teach okay okay just so you know this isn't as often as you may think because we often have to go ahead and make them a teacher even though they're not yet okay Dr C I just wanted to clarify um so what you're saying is this initiative is used by many districts because when we uh sign the student teacher it becomes easier for them to want to work here is that correct yes I believe that that's what the intent is okay thank you are there any additional questions he is there a motion I'll make the motion thank you David is
125there a second I'll second thank you assar would you call the vote Please Mr Garing yes Miss Miller yes Miss Williams yes Mr reer yes Miss Garcia yes Mr loer yes Miss Landing yes and the motion passes 70 action item B that is also un the SI yes so um the summer school pay rates um you guys all receive the attached information with the pay rates giving you the details um showing the number of days and the length of days for the students and the staff so I just ask that you um approve the summer school pay rates for this school year you have any questions okay there's a motion if there are no questions is there a second I have a question so again I just want to reiterate we're only going till 1:30
126just 130 115 students students 115 students 115 I just want to point out the irony that we're talking about kids not going full day and that's a problem and that they're you know the four day week so I just want to point out that irony but they are going five days but only till 1:30 Yeah we actually took a lot of feedback from teachers in this decision because the feedback from them was that the day was so long and the summer school days lasted for so long that they didn't want to give up their Summers and so we reduced the number of days we reduced the hours to try and get most high quality teachers we can get in front of our kids I think listening to teacher feedback and acting as one team is
127always a great idea so summer schools they uh how many classes are they taking during the summer in one days are they just taking one or two it depends on what level you're talking about it depends on how many kids we have that sign up for summer school we're going to do our best to recruit um but if it's Elementary they're pretty much in the the one classroom and then High School is all virtual High School is virtual okay are we still um offering incentives for summer school yes that's part of the Catapult program any additional questions okay I have a motion a second Miss Lang yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reer yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr Gary yes the motion passes 70 action item number c parent educator
128professional development D I was looking for you yes I'm trying to make my way up here sorry um so Jessie you'll see on the attachments on there um that desie is put they put out and they've done this for other groups too in the past but it's um it's basically they provide professional development for our parents's teachers our Educators and our supervisor and if they go then there is um money available from desie so again the theme of recruiting retain right um so Jessie has suggested and recommended that we pass that money on to our parent Educators so it's highlighted on there if you read that and so today that's what I'm asking is that we just go ahead and pass that money on make a motion to approve I'll sign thank you if there
129are no questions would you call the vote Please Mr Garing yes Miss Miller yes M Williams yes Mr reer yes Miss Garcia yes Mr Foster yes Miss Landing yes and the motion passes 70 action item D dependent Care Dr seagis I'm so excited yeah I'm I'm excited to bring this one to you uh this was a discussion in the insurance committee uh this is a benefit that we'd like to ask the board to approve for next year this would allow staff to receive up to $1,000 annually independent care reimbursement um the estimate from locked in is utilization is benefit by 50% of eligible staff would cost the healthcare trust about $117,000 a year if youve if you've been as every month as we've talked about that right now the healthcare trust can absorb that um
130again this is not going to impact all staff but it will impact a large number of our staff uh there are a lot of different ways that this can be utilized and we think it's a great add condition to our benefits for our staff and I know $1,000 those of you as little kids it's not going to go very far uh but I hope that at least it's a step in the right direction to uh give a benefit to our teachers and our staff that they don't have right now so I ask for your approval on that we also talked about this in the committee is this the recommendation of the committee yes perfect are there any questions all right if there are no questions I'll take a motion I'll make that motion thank you
131David is there a second I'll second thank you R would you call a vote please miss Lanning yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reer yes Miss Williams yes M Miller yes Mr Garing yes motion passes 70 action item e also Dr seers yes this is another uh recommendation from the insurance committee uh smart Shopper is an additional benefit that creates an opportunity for staff to receive reimbursement uh by choosing a lower cost lower cost facility for a variety of procedures or uh tests for example um what smart Shopper will do is if you are scheduled to get a colonoscopy uh most people don't care where their colonoscopy is what what provider or what facility that's in U smart Shopper may say hey if you do it in facility a instead of facility B
132we will send you a check for $0000 uh because their cost is less um and x-rays MRIs CT scans all those U the timing of this is really good too and that uh with some changes with uh some stuff with Blue Cross Blue Shield and Mosaic our staff have already started to learn that they need to request that their blood work goes to certain Labs um so so we already kind of trained staff a little bit to start to speak up on this this is an opt-in they don't have to do this um if they say nope I want to go to the more expensive uh facility they still have that option uh but this gives them an opportunity to to look at this and see hey I could go to this provide or this
133facility to get my x-ray instead of this one and maybe they send me a little bit of a reimbursement there so um initially uh we had recommended we were going to recommend this anyway uh in the interim we've talked Blue Cross Blue Shield the Blue Cross Blue Shield is actually going to do a guaranteed Roi on this for us so there's no risk uh to us that even if it doesn't meet the parameters set forth uh Blue Cross Blue Shield will cover the difference there so we make a recommendation to uh add this benefit to our health insurance plan for next year are there any questions make a motion to approve thank you Whitney is our second I'll second thank you s you call please Mr Garing yes M Miller yes Miss Williams yes yes
134Mr reer yes M Garcia Mr Foster yes M Lanning yes the motion passes EV Z action item 9 f moest equipment housing uh yes you uh approved an M several months ago uh this is uh to help uh equip the CAC Missouri Western um there are some money available to us uh from the governor's office to be able to help uh out get that some equipment these are the bids that we put out for bid anything over $50,000 and the bids that came back um the recommendations are the engine laths uh we recommend for baldon services option one 66475 the manual Mills uh from baldon Services option one $ 47,9 the robo drill from adx $88,900 and the CNC uh from hos uh 97,2 25 uh I want to give a shout out to Jenny
135P did a lot of work with Dr Dan deasus from Missouri Western um there was a lot of time and effort went into putting all this together the equipment and everything so uh please don't ask me to explain what any of this equipment is but I would ask that you would improve uh those low bids that we shared with you thank you Dr C are there any questions if there are no questions I'll take a motion for approval I'll make a motion to approve thank you assar is there a second second thank you Rick call please miss Lanning yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reer yes yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr Garing yes and the motion passes 70 okay now action item G was moved to M and so m
136is now G and that will be Dr Edgar so uh just wanted to talk uh about the legislative partnership uh you have a copy of a contract in your um packet of information uh right now we have a we work in cooperation with the uh St Joseph chamber of Commerce uh banan County banan County Convention and visitors bureau uh Missouri Western State University and also the city of St Joseph we all partner um to use the same legislative lobbyist and uh there were some questions in regards to whether we were getting um our bank for our buck so to speak in regards to this contract and so I encouraged uh members of the Board of Education to reach out out to the lobby group to find out um whether we were getting our money's worth
137and uh so tonight um I make the recommendation that we enter into the agreement with the organizations that I said minute ago the lobbyist agreements about $10,000 per year and just to recap you do think the partnership has been beneficial yes and you know sometimes our um um the things that we are lobbying for might be different uh than what the um the other members of the group are lobbying for but Mr Foster I think the more important thing that I see is the partnership you know working together with the Chamber of Commerce working with Missouri Western working with the folks that I mentioned I think that's the biggest benefit that we get out of this are there any other questions or comments I'll make a motion to approve I'll second all right if there
138are no other let's get that over to David there are no other comments yes there is okay just asked that you didn't say that okay um well thanks very much for the partnership but we met with the lobbyist I've been a registered lobbyist for 12 years we do not need to throw $10,000 at this and we found out in this group meeting that we're just one of seven Partners so we're not even priority if we're serious about hiring and spending money that could stay here we don't have the money these other organizations have plenty of money so the idea that we're going to continue to be a part of this we pulled it back for a while we made a smart move there nothing against these organizations we do not me to be in a
139group with seven people giving this type of money to a group that we're just one of the seven I know it's only $10,000 in $146 million budget but every $10,000 adds up when it's throwing away on a Feelgood butt rubbing exercise so I'm not against this I'm surprised that we are going to be like sheeple again and go down the road for this you know one thing that I would make a comment in regards to uh Mr reer and I appreciate your stance as always um I think if you asked each one of those Partners the school district is the number one priority then they would say that to them I me able to say that to you so I say anything to get to $10,000 Dr Edgar if the district got their own lobbyist
140how much would that cost if it was just only ours well if you look at this contract it was 70,000 okay so um as much as it pains me uh I'm going to agree with Mr reader um so we went to Northwest days and we met with a lobbyist three of the five that went to Great Northwest days um I express concerns Mr rer expressed concerns I think for me um my concern is and I hear what you say Dr Edgar that uh this group The the biggest concern is the school district but I think you'll see from tonight and Natalie Han knows that I mean nothing negatively by this um they say they support us but they support us but um when you tell them that I and I know you met with them
141on February 19th I know you told those Business Leaders here's why we need uh a 4-day week here's what our staff are are needing um here's the Dire Straits that our district is in um they didn't heed that advice they still said well we don't care about your Workforce we care about our Workforce so do what we want um I agree with Kenny um Kenny my my favorite thing I know I know I know what I love about what I love about the things that you say Kenny is that uh we should fight the corruption of people coming into our board room and making decisions for us and for our staff and that we should work as one team uh for the betterment of our own Workforce right right remember that in about two items
142um so uh um I do worry I I had expressed those concerns to the lobbyist that I was concerned that as a group um if the six other members or the seven other members decide uh School Board you have your decision you have your idea of what's important for you but we the business Community or we the other partners disagree what's to stop that so that's my concern and we saw examples of that tonight are there any other questions comments or concerns so the only alternative would be to have a lobbyist that works specifically for us well the district we don't need a lobbyist we educate kids and and do we need well we also have a lobbyist through msba and other state other associations yeah and I forward you guys quite frequently we have
143one through moasbo we have one through um Massa and we have one through msba um Dr Edgar if there's all these other lobbyist opportunities are you only in agreement with this one over the collaborative effort amongst the local Partners well I mean I I said that that's the biggest piece I mean I do think that there's other uh benefits that come with that I mean there's a weekly call uh every Friday at 11:00 a.m. uh which several of you guys participate in every Friday and um you know the there's a lot of legislation out there right now that is uh attacks on public education and so I think it's an important time for it so I mean I do think the partnership is strong but I also think there there is a need for that
144as well I would just like to comment I know um we're not talking about the 4 day school week and I don't like going off of what the agenda item is but since Miss Lanning opened it up I would just like to say um I don't believe Miss hans's um Mrs hans's statements were we support you but um I think at the end of her statement she did say that that we still had the chamber support wholeheartedly and I had a conversation with u Mrs Han and their hesitation is with the quickness of it as elected officials of the board we're supposed to bring the community along with us and do what we know is going to benefit the community in a positive way and I don't think we did that by pushing this along
145the way that we have so of course the businesses are going to express their concern concerns as did the Union at Triumph and many others because they have a right to because what we're doing is going to affect the whole Community I are there any other comments about the 4 day school week at this point yes hold up we're not on school day because I know we're not at we just one of I know we're not at that point right now one of 500 districts and guess what Jeff City and we spoke with these lobbyists um guess what we're not the only School District down there there's 500 districts lobbying and doing the same thing we're asking so there's this is become a social club it's not there to help educate a single kid okay
146are there any other are there any other comments about this particular agenda item okay it's a motion a second would you call the vote Please Mr Garing yes Miss Miller yes Miss Williams yes Mr reer no Miss Garcia yes Mr Foster yes Miss laning no and the motion passes 5 to two okay action H car yes so I am presenting the 2024 um all students achieve contract this already came to the board in October for approval but this is the finalized contract um through Progressive Community Services it's for our uh ASA program that is housed at mosaic Life Care it is for some of our special education students that receive on the job training and the hopes is is that they will receive employment opportunities after the program so I ask that you um just
147approve the contract and sign I make motion okay I have a motion and I have a second are there any questions comments concerns okay would you call the vote please M laning yes yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reer yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr Gary yes and the motion passes 71 okay mine's also the next one um we have two sesy contracts um in front of you as you might remember um we house two classrooms at Webster previously we us to send students to Milestones which is a special School in Kansas City um and previously we sent around four students currently we have um 16 students in that program and we can hold 18 um so by bringing it back to the district that has been a fabulous benefit to
148our students um the other contract on there is for three contracted classrooms at Oak Grove those are considered our foundational skills classrooms this year we contracted for one um starting in January because that's um that program is highly specialized um we really struggle to get staff and stud or to get staff for that um program and so next year we have 20 more students coming from the ELC that will require that programming and so that is why we're asking to uh contract with cesi for those three um extra classrooms I did provide that extra handout um an email and then it was attached that kind of uh talked about the cost savings of using the cesi um programming over the previous Milestones programming so I just ask that you approve those two contracts I'm thank
149you Kim is there a second I'll second thank you Rick are there any questions comments or concerns um I just wanted to just make some kind of General observations about Webster um one I think Dr mcness we had talked briefly about um man training at least the first portion of that is that going forward yes it's going to be just that deescalation of pce perfect I think that's important and all of the staff will get that yes perfect um the other um just just a throw out there as as a just a thought um and I think this probably be more appropriate for Dr Krauss but I worry sometimes about how we are trying to make this a really rehabilitative um service intense learning opportunity and right now um I don't think they're quite getting
150those rehabilitative services in the way that would to lend to that um I had visited with staff this is probably fall um about how often they're getting services from um the school psych and and those types of services um I think last when I had spoken to them it was every other Wednesday um so just to me things like that if we really want to make this um a successful rehabilitative program and not just a holding cell uh then that's going to be important for us to re reorganize those resources thank you for mentioning that they have a social worker um they have counselors over there and they have some support so that I appreciate you mentioning that we'll follow up with Dr Richardson and I just want to say these programs are separate alter
151yeah we were talking about alternative in of services that's why yep I'm with Dr Anders I did want to um just say Obviously the cost savings are important but you get what you pay for and I've heard there are a lot of parents who are concerned with the cesi program um there's been a lot of complaints on how the kids are are being handled um maybe other things that I can talk to you about um just the specific report that was sent to me but my question is have you seen an increase in reports where parents are not satisfied with the cesi program compared to Milestone I'm going to be honest with you I was not in this position whenever um Milestone we were sending students to Milestones but what I can tell you is
152we had concerns with Milestones because we were virtually getting no reports and we were not seeing progress with our students and that is one of the reasons that we really requested to have them back in District so that we could lay eyes on those students at all times I visit that program frequently um we have a wonderful director there her name is Christina Harper and then Dr Richardson and her staff also are available and see that program often and so that that is what I can speak to in that that piece okay um I know that at Milestone they had um cameras in the classroom is that something that sesy offers as well or um no because we have a district policy that does not allow cameras in the classrooms okay and that's really for
153the protection and the rights of the students and I believe Milestones was able to do that because often times it was only one child and one student in an area at a time so I think that's the difference thank you okay have a a second you call please Mr Gary yes M Miller yes Miss Williams yes Mr reer yes M Garcia yes Mr Foster yes Miss Lanning yes 70 action item J HTC expansion order y Jill hansi there she is good evening thank you for allowing us just a a few minutes of your time this evening as part of the HCC Expansion Project we have um or we are requesting a change order this change order is for allowing for electrical um to be ran to all of the machines when we began this project
154we were not sure where all of the equipment was going to be located within the facility since then the plants have solidified and so uh we are requesting a change order um to MD electric and so I have several people here that can answer more specific questions regarding this one thing I did want to say is that the funds for this will be used in conjunction with House Bill 2 where the district received uh funds for career and teched improvements within the district so there is not funds that we will be District based and also even with this change order it still is under the original cost that we had allocated for this project so if there are specific questions MD electric here herner is here Terry Clark is here so we've got the whole
155gang so in I had asked um so we got a spreadsheet that had the cost per unit the number of units um and the anticipated um reimbursement rate right oh that's a different one oh that's the next one nope I'll save it for that okay Terry when's this going to be done you have some work you need to be doing for me sir right now I don't know the exact date but the uh the completion date is about miday I believe mid to late May so we're we're shooting for that uh it's key that uh that we get this change order approved because the electricians here are chomping at the bit they're going to be right up against it trying to get all the work done but they're at this point they're confident they can
156do it other questions did you have a question K yes had a question yman were standing Terry and I'm sorry we put you through this I mean thank you very much for sticking with it this guy is making it happen for us and that Hillard expansion the biggest thing we've done in a long time we appreciate how you've kept us all in touch about it all along the way and I wish some way we could finish our agenda so when we have gentlemen like this building that's about 750 an hour right not have him sitting back there and we go ahead and get him on first just for a savings and I know I cut your price probably in half of what your nor one billing done well I'll just say can I mean I
157have yes i' I've been here since the beginning but uh you know it's it's been real informative to me I I don't go to a lot of school board meetings so uh I just appreciate what all of you do it's it it is definitely uh a job that most people don't want to get into the middle of and so I appreciate each one of your efforts sounds like you're going to be here again then thank you we can get you front row I promise any any other questions okay is there a motion in a second I'll make that motion thank you David is there a second second thank you Kim would you call the vote please miss Lanning yes Mr Foster yes Miss Garcia yes Mr reer yes Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr
158Gary yes and the motion passes 709k Miss jel all right so the second item that I have to present is to ask for approval of the enhancement Grant items the enhancement Grant is a state funded Grant uh we apply for it annually it supports all of the career and tech ed uh programs within the district not just at Hillyard so you find some for Central and lafette as well and this is a grant that is when it is fully funded by the state is they give 75% reimbursement equipment items have to be over $1,000 unit cost and so it is for the more expensive items that we use to keep up toate on industry standards so that our students are learning in the best possible way so I would ask for your acceptance and ask
159if you have any questions okay I'm ready okay okay I'll do my best no so uh in the spreadsheet that we got uh it didn't have totals on it so I just want to make sure that uh we have we talk about the totals okay um the total cost uh was going to be $218,900 with an anticipated reimbursement of 1641 18250 with that anticipated cost to the district of 54,7 750 is that right you said it was right earlier that is correct so uh when I had asked we don't know that we're going to get the 164 correct it may go up it may go down it will not go up but it may go down it will only go down and then what's the plan if that happens if it goes down then we
160go back and look at the equipment list right okay there could be potentially that we would have to make some Cuts do some arrangements some different things that way uh so that we have the funds so will you guys so will when we approve this you're only going to go up to the that 54th okay it's a totally rational program where you have no idea how much they're going to give you back it's dealing with the government I understand are any additional questions comments they do a great job making a okay I'll take a motion I'll make that motion thank you David is there a second second thank you assar would you call the vote Please Mr M Miller yes M Williams yes Mr reer yes M Garcia yes Mr Foster yes Miss Li yes
161and the motion passes 70 action item L UVA PL contract that's me uh last year we had a district team team of five who received professional learning through University of Virginia's partnership with leaders in education with the financial support from Altec the learning was focused on expanding District leadership capacity and overall academic outcomes through Innovation and systems change our goals are centered around Competency Based learning professional learning for our building administrators and increasing collaboration amongst our Educators this plan was vetted through our academics Committee in December the cost for us could be up to 32,000 but we have also gained financial support from local organizations including the Altech foundation in this contract we are only build for services we participate in and it has been reviewed by our legal council at this time I'll answer
162any questions and I will ask for your approval Dr mcginness is this the presentation that was given um a couple months ago and it was with you and some other admin and you told us about the experience um that was in December at the academics committee meeting so yes we went through presentation kind of what that would look like and then the plan with okay good I remember who decides on Who The five district leaders are that participating um Dr Edgar really initiated this last year and then he talked to sta stter myself lar gilin and deal with and would that be the same group that's doing this year um so I had heard that there were some concerns from the public and from um other board members about this contract and so um I
163think sometimes different board members are operating off of different information and so um I just wanted to hear what those concerns were I think it was specifically Around The Darden foundation and their affiliation with Dei are there any concerns about that from any board members yeah speak clearly who are those those questions were excuse me I had my questions answered oh okay so what were the concerns just that there was a Dei statement just making sure we're doing what's best for the kids oh okay I just wanted to make sure that I was fully informed before we vo I'm curious too all right can we know what the questions are I don't know I don't know what the questions are I was just concerned about the foundation and I had my questions answered because the
164purpose there is the best for our kids it may have answered a lot of questions for all of us and us as well to know what those questions were they were answer this is the important subject we're talking about contract here again could you speak mic I don't think they can hear you what didn't you hear the I don't feel like I need to ask to say the questions here I had them I asked them I had them answered and I think it's a good plan okay I don't understand the right isolation the secrecy or just the ones no secrecy I just had my questions answered by who by Dr and do would you guys happen to remember what the questions were and the answers I just I don't I just I'm just trying to
165understand what the concerns were so I can vote educated I don't know if we really concerned about the con what the questions were to vote in a informative matter I think is it this is a um an opportunity to poke at somebody and and to what the concerns were what I'm saying is you know when people make blank statements and try to make it seem like some board members are questioning things I wanted to know who she was referring to I didn't have to know the specific questions okay well that's you it's your prerogative only all of us we operate on transparency and openness and so I wanted to know what the questions were I bet there are people in the audience also inquiring about the questions more importantly I a board member wants to
166know what the questions were and the answers as well okay she's already stated she doesn't want to answer the questions can we please move on I have zero concerns with this contract so I'll just state that it's very professional learning it's high quality it's about change leadership and I would appreciate your support is there a motion I'll make a motion is there a second I'll second okay Rick and David would you call the vote please miss Ling yes uh Mr Foster yes M Garcia yes Mr reader for lack of information no abstain Miss Williams is it no or abstain I have to know to put down because since I have no knowledge of what we're talking about I stay I can't make an educated vote on that Miss Williams yes Miss Miller yes Mr Garing
167yes and the motion passes six with one extension you use up your extension for no action item I guess this will be M yep okay um there is an attachment U within your information I'm going to kind of have academic Services team um tag team this with me so on the 4 4day week talking points uh fifth day opportunities that's one of the questions that we heard um a lot and the concerns that we have uh in that fifth day there will be Extended Learning opportunities offered to prek through 12 enrolled SJSD students um at combined sites and one one point that I would like to make is that hourly staff will not lose any work hours as they will have the opportunity to assist on those Mondays so um you know I don't know
168how many people are will take advantage of this uh but we do have hourly employees uh that will work on that day and U offer Extended Learning opportunities to our kids uh and that will be at no cost U to the uh families as long as we can cover it uh with the proper staff that we have and and uh we do not know um what the proper staff is going to the needs are going to be until we know the number of students that are going to show up on those days and so um there's all kinds of uh U you know interventions that we can offer their teachers are going to want to um use their career ladder uh to assist with the students so I just want people to know that we
169will um do our very best um to keep this at zero cost uh to the families and uh there will be opportunities uh the second thing is Community Partnerships alongside the services provided by the St Jo School District various organizations within our community may continue to offer before and after school opportunities uh right now we have that going on and that is an expense to the families and it will continue to be an expense to the families um scheduled instruction hours uh in 2324 this was a a question in 2324 our calendar was built at 1145 hours as of 226 after cancellations uh this year we will end with uh 10 172.5 and the proposed calendar for 2425 4 day proposal is 1,0 187.5 so um the proposed calendar will will exceed where we're at
170right now just kind of wanted to give you that as a comparison uh professional learning and teacher workday this was a question uh that got brought up at a teachers meeting it was a concern sta concern of NAA um and we appreciate that and staa stter has uh provided what the professional learning structure uh looks like for 2425 um in 2324 we we had four days that were District Leed learning days we had three days that were building Leed learning days and we had three days that were teacher work days in 20242 proposed 4- day week we have four days District Le learning days 5 days uh building lead learning days and 5 and 1 half days uh teacher work days special education student minutes and IEPs are already written weekly these minutes would be
171divided into 4 days instead of five and when speaking with other 4day week Schools students with IEPs have not shown regression in their IEP goals SJSD special education teachers are already compensated for case management nutrition services uh breakfast and lunch will be served to all the students and attendants uh so if they show up on Mondays and are part of the Extended Learning opportunity then they will receive breakfast and lunch that will be an expense to the district and Transportation will be provided to students um all 5 days now I do want to state that the transportation will be uh different than what it looks like on Tuesday through Friday um and that will also be driven by the number of students U that want to participate on that Monday so at this time I
172would entertain any questions that you might have you know one thing from my standpoint um I've said this all along I'll continue to say this my stance is does not change has not changed um you know I feel like we're at a Crossroads in this district and I feel like uh this is an opportunity for us uh to recruit staff and you know I think it's It's Our obligation to put the very best teachers in the classrooms and I mean I think this is what would be good for the St Joseph School District where we're at right now you know and I do appreciate everybody's opinions and um but this is what's needed in my opinion oh Dr edar yeah I would like um to give each member of the board an opportunity to ask
173questions of you and of our admin and or to make a comment or like a statement prior to the vote as long as everyone's able to be respectful of each other sounds good if anyone's interested um I Can Begin about a question um hand me that paper again really quick because I think you took mine thank you um you mentioned about the Community Partnerships there was a question earlier about a couple of board members um benefiting off of this um are there any members of the board who is a community partner able to benefit from this no the Community Partners that I'm talking about offer uh before and after school uh programming for us right now the YMCA um and that is at a cost uh to families now there is a sliding scale and
174and they can fill out paperwork to uh for that to be a cheaper option for the families and then I believe inner Ser is free right now so I'll kind of defer to uh any of the academic Services team am I missing any other opportunities that we have the two that are on site currently okay because I know that it it was alleged about Community Action Partnership are you guys able to take Tak school age kids on that off Monday so um community action partnership does not provide services sorry Community Action Partnership uh I'm the executive director of does not offer um child care for children K kindergarten and older um we are funded by the federal government we have an identified number of slots available for children 6 weeks to 5 years um there's
175been a lot of uh talk about whether or out there I think it was a financial windfall that I was supposed to receive um what I'll say is that um my staff very badly do not want me to pass this because they know how beneficial it's been for them um and they know that if uh right now we work Monday through Thursdays we have Friday off uh it's life-changing I hope it all happens for you um but we would have to move to a Tuesday through Friday additionally uh I just hired another s Jo School District employee last week uh because we're a able to recruit uh more easily uh we have currently um two open positions out of about 170 staff um we have not had the workforce issues that you all have had
176um so uh doing this would actually harm uh in some ways Community Action kind of what I thought I mean it's also like that at the Bartlet Center I actually have school AG kids only the programs licensed under the state for x amount of slots and I've been I've been at the max for over three years and so um being open all day on the Monday I'll actually be taking a loss um because as it is now on the no school days I do not charge an extra fee for our parents um I think there was also a question from two board members about the valid validity of Rick and I voting on this measure because we have spouses in the district uh have was that considered with um legal yes and I provided the
177uh response to Miss Williams before the meeting which is that it's allowable yes there is no conflict of interest have any by any any members of the board in order to make this decision Miss Miller and Miss Garcia does not your request um actually I did not have any concerns regarding that so that is false oh okay good I had a Community member ask me that question good I need to answer good if you guys are are done covering yourselves um I would like to I think that comment is extremely inappropriate and disrespectful I was not covering myself I was answering Community questions okay do you have any more if I do I know where my mic is okay so um what I would like to comment on the four day school week you know
178is just um I commend the administration for providing some resolution to our Recruitment and Retention problem that we're having in the district I do understand that this is a well-intentioned solution and in no way do I want to express my concerns bashing this I think you guys are looking for a solution and this is one that was presented to you guys um for me this is a very shortsighted solution um I think we do have to talk about salary I know there's been some talks about salaries not being in effect for two years which is not correct if we did pass something in August it would come into effect in uh next year um also I do believe that if we don't address pay the 4day school week might just be abandoned solution and um
179we do have teacher shortages we do have par shortages we do have kitchen staff shortages and so on but we always seem to fill Administration positions and that is because it is it has a substantial pay so to say that pay is not a big factor in Recruitment and Retention would be inaccurate um I would like to look at other ways to recruit and retain our staff we have heard from Dr Krauss who presented us with 13 strategies back in October and we were starting to look at those until this came into play and this kind of took over um but there was some strategies talking about there was a teacher that spoke today that said you know she had kids that were under the age of kids that can go to school and therefore
180had to pay for child care one of the things that Dr cross was talking about was a child care option for staff who don't have schoolage children I thought that was really good um also increasing our par pay so Dr Edgar had talked about um our um classified sta staff not losing any hours but I did have a conversation with Dr Edgar earlier today and and um if the need is there for the PA professionals and the parents and the students opt into the fifth day then yes we can guarantee that they will still have those hours if they don't opt in to it like Independence has not seen that their parents or students are opted into those that fifth day programs then our parents would be essentially losing hours for this move this is
181something that is going to benefit our teachers which I want to support our teachers we also have to talk about our classified staff like we heard from the bus driver who is concerned about losing hours they also matter um I think that the teachers are the foundation of instruction and I want to express that it is very important to me to keep our teachers and to find Recruitment and pretention pretention Solutions I just um I don't know if this is this one's it and I know that the community would get behind supporting our teachers I've heard a lot of concerns that the community does not support our teachers but with a levy that was passed um when David Foster was President it was something that 67 I think perent of the community voted in favor
182of so I do think the community will support a levy to increase Teachers Pay um so again I would just like to say for the teachers for me it's not about supporting you or supporting the community it's about doing what's best for the students thank you okay is there another board member who' like to speak go ahead um I get kind of scatter rained sometimes so I wrote it down so I didn't forget anything so I apologize for acting like I'm just reading um I did want to express my gratitude to everyone who has reached out to me over the last last couple months um I would venture to say between a phone call in person uh a text message um I I would estimate around I've had conversations with probably over a 100 people
183and on both sides of Defense um and I appreciate their passion for this um a lot of them are very adamant Rick you you have to you have to do this Rick you cannot go to 4 a I mean on both sides of the aisle and I I can see the argument for both um you know I do want to apologize there also uh a lot who try to contact me over the weekend and this has been eating at me like no other and uh I had to take a weekend to just recharge and refocus and just spend some time with my family um because this has has been weighting on me like no one uh probably can believe so um I do want to thank everybody who's reached out to me um you know
184I I I feel like I could probably climb on either side of the fence and make a pretty compelling argument why we should or why we shouldn't go to a 4 day um I have a I have a sixth grade at Spring guard and I worry about him I worry about what's going to be best for him um you know I I feel I'm really fortunate because I have close friends and mentors people who I deeply deeply respect on both sides of the issue people that I value their opinions more than they know and both of them both sides yes do it no don't do it um you know I hear it from every from every side every angle um so I understand the decision I'm going to make tonight is going to disappoint some
185people and I also know that this decision is also going to bring a lot of satisfact satisfaction to people um all I can hope is that after I make my vote at the end of the night that everybody understands that um this time that I've been on the board the last time I've been on the board there was not a decision that that I have um Fred over more than this really going back and forth and so I hope people just can respect that at the end of the day the decision I make is what I felt like in my heart of hearts is best for our teachers and students and um like I said which the vote that I make I hope people can at least respect that that it's coming from a place
186where I really felt like was best for our teachers and our and our kids thanks thank you Rick I appreciate that because that's that's my thinking that it's a hard one if somebody's going to be disappointed closer I've been in the classroom I've been spit on I've been hit with a chair I've had all those things I know the difficulty of being in that classroom so I really value our teachers but I value our children just to think that they might be out that extra day if they don't have a home where they're comfortable if they're fearful of being home if they're afraid they don't get food if they if they lose a day in learning English if they lose a day where they can be around uh Comfort be around people who care about
187them have a busy day that that's heartbreaking to me and I know you teachers see these kids and I know your hearts break for them also but it's tough to think that they'll be on the streets or they have big brother 8-year-old taking care of little brother 5-year-old because parents are working or they're not home or one parent home it it's a killer but what we're asking the community to do we're going to disrup the entire Community for and our students for our teachers and I can appreciate that but it's a disruption that's not complete so it'd be different for me if there was a a fuller plan that I could look at and say wow that answers my questions I don't need them all answered but I want to know that it's what to
188expect and if I don't it's really hard to choose um choose to to go with the 4-day plan so it just makes it difficult for our children to exist in places where they're where they lose is [Music] another Well M Williams I thank you for allowing all of us to speak I'm with Rick I respect everyone's opinion on this matter it's closer please I do agree I respect everyone's opinion on this matter um you know at the end of the day my view is going to boil down the at with students um and you know I've already voiced my concerns so I won't go on and on but you know when it's all said and done I think students particularly at students are going to be negatively impacted uh and so my concerns remain um
189okay so we invited Dr HL here uh Independent School District superintendent um they reported a 600% increase in applications that they received a 60% reduction in behaviors improvements in attendance for teachers and staff all of those things are things that we struggle with and that we uh question what strategies we can do to address them this strategy addresses all of them in the last two years we've had a 20% turnover uh each year we don't have enough Subs because we don't have enough subs and we don't have enough teachers we combine classes we cancel specials those are not learning days for our children uh and that's not at the fault of our staff we are wearing them out you have heard them over and over and over again ask for help you've heard the administration
190that apparently we to pay too much I'd argue we pay too much because we don't listen to them they say it over and over [Applause] again you cannot intervention your way out of not of lackluster tier one instruction and that's not because you're not doing a good job at tier one instruction that's because we don't have any staff you can do uly you can do the Virginia Plan you can do all of it but it doesn't matter if you don't have staff you cannot intervene as a coach if you don't have players so if the plan is that we're going to increase wages do we need to increase wages absolutely absolutely we need to increase wages it's not either or it's both and we have to do both I cannot guarantee when this fails that
191we can look at these people and say don't worry though I'm going to get you more money you know what I can guarantee you you'll have at least one vote maybe maybe seven that say let's put the prop sea waiver on in August you're right assara it's not going to take two years but you'll need to wait a year and a half a year and a half you'll need to wait if the community supports it I don't know if any of you have been on social media lately but if you see the News Press editorial where they said if you don't like the profession you should have ch chosen another profession from the Bradley bugle that's the community support that we get in this town have you seen the comments from some of the people
192in this room about how lazy our staff already are that they have Summers off that that should be fine so I'm not going to hang my hat on a levy getting approved by this District I'm going to do what I can do and vote the way for to support our teachers next our tax base isn't enough for a significant enough increase you could pay these people $10,000 more dollars I'm speaking we could pay $10,000 more dollars it's not enough for what they're going through we've taken a passion-based position and made it unbearable thank God they still have enough passion that they're not walking out my last [Applause] comment my last comments are for Kenny reer only this whole thing you can keep looking down that's fine buar your head in the sand this whole thing
193hinges on you this whole thing hinges on you I do not care about the Bradley I don't care about the threats from the me hoffers Brad logger or Herzog they do not pay my bills our kids and our staff are telling you what they need to be successful and just like they said Steph Steph Simmons said if you don't approve it and then you you don't get to you forfeit your right to be able to say Dr Edgar why can't we hire staff Dr Edgar why are people leaving Dr Edgar why aren't our Desy scores the way they need don't ask don't ask because you don't care Kenny your mom was a teacher your mother was a teacher I know you know the importance of this profession it has changed it has changed from 50
194years ago it's changed from 20 years ago they need help and they are literally begging for it we cannot say we are doing best for our students if we're not doing what's best for our teachers I know you want to be reelected I know that but that's not what we're here to do we're not here to wear Blazers and run around and get our pictures taken you're here to help the staff so I understand you want to get reelected if you need a spine to hide behind you can hide behind mine but if you vote no Take that bracelet off I yield the floor [Applause] Kimmy would you like to speak you didn't convince me of anything of course I didn't other than your rude loud mouth person it's okay whitne me it's okay it's
195okay so I uh I'm going to go with who pays the bills are you done is that all okay okay well I guess it's my [Music] turn every member excuse excuse me every member's already spoken and so after I speak um I'm going to call for a motion um as everybody knows that this was um it's it's been an extremely difficult process for all of us um because despite or in spite of everything um I truly believe that all of us care about kids in our own way um and um I have been contacted and told that if I approve this I'm not going to be reelected but what people do not understand is I get that I am a candidate okay but when I enter into the boardroom I'm the president of the school
196board I'm a board member and our Norms if you look at the agenda at the top every meeting it says to put the needs of the students and the teachers first it doesn't mention anything about me getting reelected it doesn't mention anything about anybody else it says to put the needs of the students and the teachers first and then it also says to make our decisions as a team and I know that it's kind of a dysfunctional team at times okay but we are still a team based upon the facts and it's not about the personal opinions agendas or or the opinion of the public and so um it is extremely hard and I have had to look at this from all angles um I have asked the um advice of other school districts of
197other professionals I have asked teachers and I've been listening to lots of people talk about at risk kids single moms what are they going to do there's I doubt not a lot of other individuals in this room who think about the at risis kids and the single moms more than I do and so um every move I make on this board um I keep those needs in mind and then listening to our teachers literally beg us to help and then listening to others will be like I value you but you'll be all right I value you but you have to wait and our teachers are on fire y'all our teachers are on fire and it's just like continue to burn a little bit longer and I cannot allow you guys to continue to burn even
198at the expense of my election thank [Applause] you now at this moment I would entertain a motion I make the motion to adopt a 4 day week for the 24 25 or for the 20 whatever Year we're in 24 are there any other specifics in that motion do there need to be um okay maybe about the plan I just I my motion is that we implement the 4-day week and then we give the staff the authority to do that for the upcoming year I'm confident that we will come back with much more planning I'm also confident well there's still hope okay um there's a motion on the floor is there a second I will second and that's a motion by Whitney and myself okay would you call the vote Please Mr Garing yes [Applause] m
199Miss Miller no Miss Williams yes Mr reader thank you for getting re no Miss Garcia no Mr Foster no Miss Lan yes take that bracelet off and the motion fails make me 4 to three we get the final vote the motion fails 4 to three and I didn't even stut when I said that resp informational items a Dr seist uh yes our uh insurance broker uh contract is up this year uh we'll be putting the RFP out uh for insurance broker consultant contract um we'll bring that back to you in April for appr at that time okay the second are there any questions okay information item 10B attendance okay the SJSD is still outpacing last year's attendance performance to the point by by 2% however we did fall 1.7 from December to January um ending
200at 79.0 this the first time we have dip below 80% uh grades k127 and 10 declined the most um during January with grade eight declining the least uh elementary schools fell the most sharply 1.79 middle schools 1.46 and high schools 1.55 um just a couple things from you can County uh 10 parents and Guardians are now in uh diversionary program via the prosecutor's office 26 parents or Guardians have been submitted for review and prosecution and some of these parents have three or more students uh the student number is 49 for these 26 uh parents and Guardians at this time I've entertaining any questions you might have in regards to attendance thank you Dr edar okay a long range plan uh we talked about this uh in detail at the facilities meeting last uh Thursday uh
201the long range plan was developed through the lens of overarching objectives that support the district's mission of preparing students for Success uh the long range plan is three-prong uh retain and recruit of high quality staff student performance and facilities for learning um there was a lot of people that were involved in this superintendent cabinets committees Community input from Vision forward principles students um I'm going to speak briefly about two of the targeted areas and then a little more in depth regarding the facilities um so the re retaining and hiring of high quality staff obviously the current initiative 4 day week uh we believe was the most impactful um and then page seven of the uh long range plan highlights the work from the two committees increased salary schedule requires a levy increase other initiatives that
202are there but um you know those um are initiatives that Miss Garcia spoke to earlier in regards to Dr crra the 13 items they are very important uh but they're not going to make change uh student performance our top priorities to improve student performance uh with within the long range plan the CIP and the academic Services Improvement plan goals have been included and then uh supporting the facilities for learning um on page 26 the wi for two schools we talked about that uh that we feel administratively that we are a two school system Innovative learning environment new opportunities for our students uh R retain and recruit high quality staff and better workplace for teachers um the why the current facilities right sizing the district uh Staffing is obviously an issue which was talked a lot
203about tonight and then the future desired State progression based on Community Support not a lot of details um but I really think that at the middle school level um we have to decide if we want 6 through eight if we want 7 to8 and it's all about the size I mean if you go 6 to8 then obviously the Elementary uh can be a little bit bit smaller elementary schools if you go 78 or vice versa I'm sorry so at this time I would entertain any questions and one thing that I would say is that this is a working document and I do appreciate all the feedback that we have received uh thus far um and we will take that into consideration uh the next time for this to be discussed uh will be at the
204next facilities meeting I'm not sure uh March 11th 4:30 thank you Dr Edgar are there any questions I just want to say uh I appreciate you and your leadership team who helped to put this together I think it's a good starting point to work from and uh to go from there so thank you I would agree thank you for all your work okay information item D okay Lindberg Elementary plan who's speaking to that it says you oh it does okay I'll speak to it um we have uh worked administratively uh to come up with a plan to relieve some pressure off of Lindberg Elementary uh we'll be moving uh 55 students from Lindberg um to Eugene Field for the 2425 school year um and there was a question raised uh from a board member about
205you know will these um students be affected by the right sizing of the district will they have to move two times in one year we can identify those students and that's something that we'll talk about administratively and we'll get an answer um as to what the plan is but we feel like this is a a start um this is very similar to what we did last year at hosia uh we relieved I believe 46 um moved 46 students from uh hosia to hide to relieve a little bit of pressure and it has worked worked out great I have data on that too so Lindberg their Optimum capacity is at 492 their current enrollment is 514 Eugene Field their Optimum capacity is 376 their current enrollment is 274 any questions in regards to that yep the
206lber optimum capacity is 492 their enrollment is 514 Eugene Field 376 Optimum 274 thank you okay if there's no other questions future meetings and events March 5th 415 academics committee March 11th 4:30 facilities committee March 11th 5:30 policy if needed March 12 4:15 finance committee March 18th is a regular uh Board of Education uh meeting please note that that is a week earlier than normal because of spring break March 22nd through the 27th the district is closed and we do have a need for executive session um the J to Executive sessions States the reason why it's closed meeting pursuant by law pursuant 610 021 Clos meetings and Clos records for hiring firing or promoting a particular employees and 13 individually identifiable Personnel records performance ratings I'll take a motion to adjourn to Executive section I'll
207make that is there a second I'll second Mr Garing yes M Miller yes Miss Williams yes Mr reer Miss Garcia Mr Foster Miss L meeting