001call the February 11th, 2026 board meeting to order. Uh we have seven board members present and item 2A is adoption of the agenda. >> I would move for approval of the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. That brings us to item 3A, recognition of the 2026 Horizon Award winner. The board would like to recognize Miss Alyssa McHugh, fourth grade teacher at Walnut Elementary for being selected as a 2026 Kansas Horizon Award recipient. The Kansas Horizon Award, sponsored by the Kansas State Department of Education, honors outstanding firstear teachers who demonstrate excellence in the classroom and stand out as exceptional educators. Miss McHugh will be recognized at the lunchon during Kansas exemplary educators network conference in Topeka on February 20th, 2026. So many recognitions.
002The board would like to recognize Mrs. Sarah Ba Emporia High School vocal TEACHER and Mrs. is Alex Vashel's fifth grade teacher at Village Elementary for being nominated as Emporia Public Schools 2027 Kansas Teacher of the Year Koy representatives. The Kansas Teacher of the Year Award recognizes outstanding teachers in elementary and secondary classrooms across the state and builds a network of exemplary educators who lead efforts to improve schools, student performance, and the teaching profession. Both Mrs. Bae and Mrs. Vashultz will complete the application process in hopes of being selected as the 2027 Kansas teacher of the year with nominees honored and announc and regional finalist announced in April 2026. Congratulations ladies. The board would also like to recognize Mrs. Kathleen Gilland, math teacher at Emporia High School, for being selected as a 2026 Kansas Master Teacher,
003an honor announced earlier today. Established in 1954 by Emporia State University, the Kansas State or the Kansas Master Teacher Award recognizes seven educators each year who exemplify excellence and the highest standards of professional practice. Mrs. Skelein, excuse me, selection reflects her deep dedication to students, her passion for teaching, and the meaningful impact she has in our classrooms. The 2026 Kansas Master Teachers will be honored on Master Teacher Day, April 1st, no fool, in 2026 at Emporia State University. And last but not least, the board would like to recognize Mrs. MEREDITH NAP. MUSIC TEACHER AT Walnut Elementary for being selected by the North Central Kansas Music Educators Association as the outstanding elementary music educator of the year for 2025 2026 school year. As a district honore, her information will be forwarded to the state level for
004publication in the Kansas music review and consideration for Kansas outstanding music educator of the year with the state announcement expected later this month. This recognition reflects Mrs. Nap's dedication to her students and the exceptional music education she provides at Walnut Elementary. Congratulations. >> That's all I'm saying tonight. >> Well, that's a great way to start a meeting. And again, congratulations to all our nominees. That's going to bring us to item 3E, public comments. Casey, do we have any public comments? >> Yes, if Angie Shriber would come forward. >> Okay. Good evening. My name is Angie Shriber and I'm from here in Emporia and I have two purposes for coming to the board this evening. The first is to thank Barb Fowler, a board member for attending literacy day at the capitol with me. We met
005and talked with a lot of people on literacy, including Janine Phillips from Fundamental Learning Center, David Hurford from Pittsburgh State University, Jane Hayes from Read Redefined, and Cindy Lane, the director of literacy for the blueprint for literacy. In the trailer bill for literacy in the House, the ask is for $ 8.6 million to continue literacy, which is to focus on third grade reading attainment through the science of reading with evidence-based reading instruction. So, thank you, Barb, for going to the Capitol with me. We did have an enjoyable day. We even did lunch. Um, the second goes along with strong reading instruction. We become strong writers. And I would like to present to the board to hopefully place in the Emporia High School library two books that were written by my daughter Gretchen Shriber. Um, these
006books are also autographed by her. um they were published in the last two years. Um I would like to give a shout out to her high school senior English teacher, Miss Ashley Thomas. She encouraged Gretchen to write even though Gretchen thought she was a horrible writer. As most of you know, my daughter went on to the University of Minnesota and then to the University of Southern California. And she now has the job that everybody would love to have. She reads for a living. Uh she's the book curator for Reese Witherspoon's um book club. So, I hope you will accept these books and place them into the library. And I would like to present them to Mrs. Fowler because she also encouraged my daughter during a very hard year when she was having surgery. She was
007my eighth, she was Gretchen's eighth grade social studies teacher. So, thank you. I hope you accept them. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Uh, next is the consent agenda. Item four. Items on the consent agenda are those for which the board has received information in advance and have been thoroughly reviewed. Approval of the items may be made in a single motion, excuse me. Second, and a majority vote with no separate discussion uh of any item listed. Should a member of the board desire to discuss any item at the request, it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. What are the wishes of the board? >> I move to accept the consent agenda as published. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. >> Motion passes 70. Okay,
008that's going to bring us to item 6A, district facility rental usage rate approval. >> Yeah, I think this is uh maybe the third goound for this one. And that that's what I like about the way we work together. We we uh bring things to you. You ask good questions. We make revisions um and we ended up we end up with a better product. So, our assistant superintendent for business operations, Mr. Josh Schwarz, will um present this information and answer any questions you might have. Thanks for having this back on the agenda, Ian. Um, third couple weeks ago, we looked at a couple changes with the with the agreement and some of the feed structure pieces to that. I think on the on the board docs, there would be a clean document and one that would
009have had some of the edits and changes along with just a summary of what some of those changes were since the last time that we talked about this. And just off memory, I do have some notes. I think some of those would have been trying to combine some of the fee structures on one page. The eight like there were several columns of different things if all those that were zero charge were put into one. Still wanted to track what kind of category was being used just from a usage usage rate or just a usage follow um process. U we did add a couple rows in for example if it's the the it's misused and there's a warning kind of progressive you go from a warning all the way to >> you want you want you
010want to use my computer and get the document in front of you >> um that board docs has given us fits the last two meetings with regard to public view when Casey gets into it all of a sudden it won't show the attachments and so you guys I have it but Casey's trying to present it so okay Josh got it. >> All right. So, >> and do each of you have it in front of you as well where you can see what we're Okay. So, >> as I pull this up, the um I think another question that came up in that section three had to do with if there were multiple people that wanted to res rent the facility at the same exact time, how do we break that tie? So, Mr. Fischer had suggested
011we added a first, second, or third choice to the usage form. So if >> okay, >> um there were multiples that were all wanting on the same day, then there at least could be a second or third choice that would be used rather than contacting that group and trying to to just spend a lot of time wasting time on the phone when you could just have a first, second, or third. Um so we feel like that would help break those break that confusion when that would come up. as I scan through on page it's down to page um page three of the guidelines and procedures clarified what exactly 75% fit into as far as if a group was less than 75 there would be some charges versus because I think the goal was to make
012sure we had students from Emporia that was that were using the facilities to not be any charge that would leave no charge That's why that was changed. And yeah, page five of the guidelines and procedures also shows the three steps kind of a progressive if the facilities misuse. We kind of talked about that earlier. And then I think the other pieces are the building fees tables which we we didn't really change a lot since the last meeting. And then the the actual form itself um clarified if how many people would if it was going to be a larger event asking the group to let us know how many would be there and that would help us determine if a custodian needed to be there or not. Um there we didn't want to charge somebody for
013a custodian if we didn't feel like there's going to be a need. Part of that was how do we help that reduce the cost for somebody but at the same time if there was going to be a large event we want to be able to plan accordingly and believe that is all of those changes. Let me go back to the summary document the notes document just to make sure I captured everything. fees table, the form change, anticipated size. We did talk about there is a question came up last time as well. If someone does reserve the facility that's not used, how to so there is something already written in that if there isn't if it's scheduled and you don't use it, that would be grounds for not kind of follow that discipline at that point
014or at least conversation and then lose privilege if you keep doing that. Um, so that I think that answered all the questions from the last time we met. Anything else that's come up in your minds about this one since we talked about it a couple weeks ago? >> What questions do we have? >> Um I should thank you and the committee because it's really and of course Nathan um this has really come a long way since um we started almost a year ago. If you think about how long we've been talking about this, um the only like thing and this is just I'm going to be curious to see how like ch you know the process for turning in forms works out. >> Um that's not going to stop me from voting and on this.
015Um so maybe in a year I think it'll be good to hear back you know how that went to see if we need to tweak anything. Art did bring up the form at agenda review um to ask how it was going to be submitted or maybe that was you Grant I can't remember but I think it was you and uh David said well wouldn't it be great if we could come up with um the the prize-winning software for uh facility use um that districts across the nation could use and make some revenue for the district. So if anyone thinks of something send it our way. Um, but yeah, I do think that that's probably going to be the challenging part is keeping track of all of that. I know our building folks do a great
016job, but it's just a lot. >> Yeah, I I agree. if if um we could revisit this in a year just to see and uh Jamie and I were discussing this and uh possibly having feedback from the people that did use the building, put out a little survey to them, see what we can do to maybe make it better. you know what what do you struggle with and then what can we do to make it better and yeah ideally if we could have some software creator on software to help facilitate this because I don't want to put a bunch of work especially as we try to make it equal access to facilities for everybody. So um I guess one little question I did have is we have this window where you could submit um a
017request to use the building. So you'll the process will be to gather all those together and then kind of work through them and yeah assign things. Okay. >> So as that window opens those would all be collected >> and if they're not there's no use let's say there's hardly anybody that signs up at that point. Anything after that would be first come first serve though. >> Okay. >> Good. Okay. I move to approve the updated facility rental rates and revised Emporia Public Schools facility usage guidelines as submitted. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next is 6B, adopting the Kansas Homeland Security Region One Hazard Mitigation Plan. >> Dr. Mickelson is here to present this one.
018Um, something that has reached its point of needing reapproval from the board. >> So, we approve this every five years. And I am going to read from the screen because it's pretty lengthy in just the document itself. So, um, this plan identifies natural and human caused hazards that may impact the region, assess risk and vulnerability, and outlines long-term mitigation strategies designed to reduce loss of life, property damage, and disruption to essential services, including schools. Uh USCD 253 is listed as a participating jurisdiction and engaged in the FEMA prescribed planning process alongside counties, municipalities, higher education institutions, and other districts within Kansas region one. So, we're a part of the region one. Um you will see previous uh leadership name on this just because um Dr. Harter was a part of that planning process the previous
019time. Um and then Dr. McGee's name will then go on um in replace of her. So, that's the only thing that would need to be edited um that will be changed uh when this gets approved and then moved on to um the Lion County Group. >> What questions do you have? >> I don't have any people with far more knowledge about emergency. I've been learning a lot >> planning mitigation know way more about it than me. >> I'll motion unless anybody wants to. Okay. I move to approve resolution 2026-5 adopting the 2025 Kansas region 1 hazard mitigation plan and authorizing submission to the Kansas Division of Emergency Management and FEMA Region 7 for final approval. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. I'm going
020to add one thing that as a product of Emporia public schools, I was able to read that Roman numeral without hesitation >> and that's saying something. >> Uh item 7A, Emporia Public Schools climate survey. Yes, Mr. Brittton Hart is here from the Kansas Association of School Boards is going to uh present some information related to this item. Um this will be the second time that we've uh conducted this climate survey um through through the help and and partnership with the with the KB and so we have some comparison data that he can go over from 2023 to 2025. >> All right. Thank you, sir. Hey, good evening. Nice to see everybody. Former students, uh former teachers, colleagues, been good to be here tonight. So, thank you for the time. Um also good to see most
021of you at the convention. Um so hopefully clean some things he could bring back. And if we can ever help you, uh, please help or please let us know. We'd be happy to. Um, I'm going to reference most of the time that I have tonight. I'm going to reference the comparison document. So, if you have that in front of you, um, we're going to start u kind of in in just a short overview. Uh, really want to give a little bit of definition to some of the things that you'll utilize and see within that uh, presentation uh, and information that that we collected. also a little bit of a purpose of how you as a board and a district can utilize that information, some quick wins and some possible next steps and things to consider
022uh as you move forward. Um, as I talked to Dr. McGee, obviously the current challenges and changes that you have as a district is great right now. Uh, thinking about the survey, there's a lot of positives to glean from that. And so, I want you to cherish those things, but also think about how do we communicate those out. The other part of that uh if you think of a half glass full, what are some things we can continue to do better? And so those are some things I I will encourage you to kind of hone in on as well today. And so I'm going to just start with the purpose. Some of this you already know, but I think as a as a community is important. Um the increased transparency and the the ability to
023continue to build trust in our schools and our communities is really critical. We've never been at a point in our in my career that it's been so fragile. So I think working toward that is is certainly a very good goal. I think this also helps as a data point to to drive some of your decision making and make critical um decisions as you think about how does this align with our strategic plan? How do we develop uh deeper connection with our stakeholders, our teachers, our parents and our students. And maybe uh something that that on the tip of your mind as well is how does this help maybe support uh some of those budgetary allocations and resources as you think about the finite amount of resources. And so as we kind of jump in, I
024want to give you just a couple definitions uh as you think if you're familiar with uh this information uh just want to make sure that that you're aware. But favorability as you think about in the survey, you'll see that in the 2023 and the 25 survey. favorability I think of it is is that chasm. So between is it 51% or is it at 49 and so if it is has a positive favorability it's going to be over that 50% and that means the majority of the people that took the survey this is something that they feel like is going in a positive direction. Uh the other things you'll see is the the up arrow, the down arrow, the sideway arrow. Those are just ways to signify that hey we're making some positive growth. we're staying
025neutral or possibly we had a little bit of aggression in an area. And so, and then the last piece, the interpretation, as you know, probably in your uh professional lives as well, uh using AI and some of those other functions to really synthesize the information. We're utilizing many of those things right now. Uh and so that's the interpretation where that comes from. So, let's let's kick off with a little bit of the participation. And so when you think about the participation, it is down a little bit from um 2023 um about 17%. You know, we see across our platforms that uh level of engagement from surveys is a little bit down and partly because it seems like the level of surveys is up as far as the the amount of times that we're asking parents.
026So I've kind of looked through that and as I talked to Lindell just finding ways to to you know to to seek those individuals out that you want to find data. The other challenge with that as you think as a board it is difficult to to connect with all our our families and our stakeholders at this point. How do you connect with them? Do you do it uh via website? Do you do it email? Do you do it over text? Do you do it um all the things that I used to tease the kids about Facebook and and chat snap and all those things. there's so many different ways that people get information and so that is a a continued challenge that that you need to to think through and and address. Um you'll see
027a fairly stable uh number as far as you know having a good quantity of of parents and staff. Parents are considerably down as well, but staff and students are fairly neutral in that sense. If you have questions, let me know. Let's kick off uh with some quick wins here. Um there were six sections in this survey as you And I'm not going to go through all those sections. Uh those are going to be things as you get into uh maybe some deeper investigation. But I did take those six sections and I did take that comparison and I ranked those from if you will most improved to let's say not as uh I'm happy to say and again uh you know being from Emporia and living here as long as I have this is some great
028information to share with staff with community lots of good things to to say hey we're doing really well. And those are things that at times we don't always recognize as much as we should when we're looking at some of some of the other pieces. So, it's interesting to see. Obviously, you know, uh we've had a change in leadership and there's some every time you have a change in leadership, there's opportunity for for new things. And so, that's a big piece that did rank as one of the highest. Principal leadership is is on the up as well. Uh two two-way communication. Uh we teased that out a little bit earlier. It's interesting about uh you know, how we want communication and when we want it. And so I think that's a delicate balance. Obviously, there's an
029increase in that, but finding the ways to continue to connect is going to always going to be a a challenge and an ongoing thing. And rounding out the the last three, the school climate, um you're going to also see that kind of show up in some of those growth areas is how do we continue to support staff and families around discipline and bullying and and some of those things that that really some of our kids really struggle with. the instructional environment fairly stable and then parent and guardian experience has a lot of positive to it but also um you know parents are still concerned about their kids and and concerned about not just their academics but also you know maybe classroom environment and so those are some of the quick wins as you think about
030the six major sections tonight we won't dabble a lot with individual buildings uh talking with your superintendent I think that will kind of go back to some smaller groups as you think about uh individual site councils and BLTs, those kind of things. But overall data, uh, a lot of positive information that that to be honest, you should be proud of as a board and as a district. So, let's slide to, uh, some potential growth areas. And as I call these potential, some of these are are moving targets a little bit. And so, taking some deeper dives into some of these topics and and and doing a little bit deeper research. At times, we have uh, and I'm guilty of this, that we look at symptoms versus looking at root causes. And so I would encourage
031you just as you go through uh your work as a board and a district, are there some things that we can do differently and are we really treating root causes or we just identifying symptoms to fix? Symptoms are obviously a little bit easier to address and and at times are things that we gravitate toward. I picked up a few highlights as you think about this. Um I'll start from left to right, but like when you think about the first one, student behavior, um just the consistency of expectation that has increased when you look at the information, but the consistency across the board is probably fairly moderate. And so there has been some increase in expectation, but the fidelity of that is probably the major piece to that. Again, uh when we think about staffing, not
032just in Emporia, but across the state, how do we continue to support staff? How do we continue to recruit? That's going to be something again and it really comes down uh to this around the climate of those buildings, climate of the district, climate of those environments. Uh a lot of factors there and also the communication. You know, many of our staff, they want to feel like, hey, I'm making a difference. I feel valued. I feel supported. I feel like I have the resources necessary. So again, that's probably something as far as when you think about um if you guys did do you guys do the state um teacher retention survey at all? >> Okay. Um you'll see as comparison to this that that money is important as far as compensation but not the driving factor.
033So there's a lot of driving factors in there that that you can utilize and that'll be a good uh something you can marry with that facilities obviously you know if you've been here a long time there's been a lot of growth in facilities but a lot of great input from you know district and community to to support that but still looking at things around safety maintenance long range planning um those things I know you're probably in the midst of doing right now uh scheduling recent changes of the way the the week and day looks. Um, obviously I think your your community's given you a little bit of feedback on what that looks like. How do we continue to have some engagement for kids after school, but also, you know, how do we accommodate families when
034we think about that? And so looking through that structure, then round with mental health and support of students. This also marries to the the earlier comment around uh, you know, continued discipline and bullying and support for uh, not just students but but staff included and also parents. As you resources that we can support parents uh in as well. Then the last slide I want to share with you just things to think about as far as next steps. So as you continue to think about your goals and I know aligning those with some of your strategic plan, how can you continue to find ways to increase engagement? That is a critical piece of of not just school districts but our world. How do we gain some of that information? establish some clear goals over the next
03512 to 18 months to really address some of the things that are in here that will help drive and support the vision that you have and where you're going. Um, and be curious to kind of see what are some of those plans as you kind of uh scaffold down to the buildings and how does the building help really impact the larger. So, if you think about it this way, you're looking at the lag measures tonight and that each end of building would be some of those lead outcomes and so how do you build upon those to impact that? Then probably the most important thing uh that you do outside of hiring a superintendent is having clear goals and that's set by a strategic plan. And so making sure you have clear goals and you have
036a focus. At times we struggle right with having too many goals. And so how do you narrow that down to really be good at a couple things and do it really well. And so answer questions or if you need other information as we go forward be happy to provide that. But that's our report for tonight. I just wanted to say I'm really glad that you and Lindell have already talked about increasing participation. It was extremely disappointing that only 21 community members managed to get involved in this. Thank you. >> When when there's a range on any of these results, sometimes it's like, you know, 60 to 75. What What's the Why is Why is there that big range instead of one? Yep, good question. So, if you slide over to the actual survey data, where
037that comes from is that when we pull that data and let's say if you you use instruction to start with, they pull out certain character or certain questions that are grouped together. So, for example, if you're talking specifically about academics, there may be two or three questions around academics. So, the low one would be let's say if there's three questions in that range, say 43% to says, "Hey, one question was at the bottom end of that, one question was at the top." So, you can kind of see the range of if you think of it this way are probably like the themes that are built within. Um, so for example, hate to keep kicking you back and forth, but if you stick with instruction, you have academic preparation, student enthusiasm, curriculum, monitoring student progress, and
038struggling students. We pull out themes and so those are the five themes and there's like three or four questions per theme. And so when you think see the range, the lowest question was at 48% on academic prep and the highest question in that theme was 63. >> And so then we take look at the median and say was the median from 23 higher or lower compared to what it was from 25. And so then that's where you get the up or the down. >> So yeah, good question. you're an analytical guy. >> Um I had a question just to make sure um if that information is out there and if I misread it and that's not something that was a part of this, let us know. But um were there any comment boxes where users
039were able to write their own free form sort of sentences and stuff because I'm not seeing that in the four documents we have, which is fine, but is that possible that we could get access to those comments, you know, so that so that they're deidentified and we don't know who wrote them but can still read them. Sometimes they just give us a little more insight. >> Yep. There's a consensus or or summary of those on the back, but we can get you the raw data as well. Yep. Yep. So, typically what we do, Mr. Dorsy, is we take, you know, those 1,200 comments and instead of giving the board 30 pages of those, we synthesize that. And so, certainly that is your data to have. But at this point, you just have a summary. >>
040Thank you very much. Appreciate. Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. Good seat. >> Okay, that's going to bring us to item 7B, the superintendent report. >> Yeah, a few items uh this evening. Um last Thursday, uh February 5th, several of us went to Salina to participate in the required Kansas Education Systems Accreditation School Improvement Day. I listed everybody that went there. I won't I won't take the time to call them out now, but we uh we were there with Salina and Hayes as other peer school districts. Sounds like we're going to get maybe Hutchson added to our group for next year. We found that out today. So, the more the marrier, you know, the more people you get to collaborate with and kind of see what they're doing, share what you're doing, get feedback from
041each other. And that's what occurred a lot at this particular meeting. every every team would come up and talk about, you know, what structures and fundamentals they chose to work on over the course of the last 12 months. And we're kind of it's the cycle is weird because, you know, our cycle will start again here in another month or two and then it rotates around so it doesn't follow a school year. But as you shared what you were were doing, you know, the other groups were able to ask questions pro, you know, um just provide feedback a you know, challenge you a little bit. Did you do this? did you do that? Um and and then we got to take our turn kind of challenging them. Um right now a lot of our a lot
042of our um school improvement fundamentals instructors we're selecting have a lot to do with the fidelity of of instruction and working on SCOP and things things that are going to improve our effectiveness in the classroom. Um, we're going to move that over the course of the next year to um working on getting better at our at our tier one instruction. And you know, how do you do that? Well, you can do that through formative assessments along the way using some of the the many tests that KSD provides you items for. We can we can create work with our teachers to kind of pace our pace our curriculum and and develop and you know implementation of our curriculum so that we can do common assessments across the district to compare data from school to school room
043to room and not to do that to say you're doing terrible. It's to hey someone's having a lot of success over here at a particular set of standards that they're going to be assessed on at the state level on their on their assessments. um let's let's get let's get everybody together and talk about you know what what what's causing that that success. So looking forward to this next year in that school improvement work. Um also got a chance to participate for the first time earlier this week in the district family advisory council. Why was it the first time that I participated? I've either not paid enough attention or hadn't been told yet that there was a district family advisory council. And so as soon as I learned about it, I told Dr. Cargula that sounded
044like something the superintendent should be at and uh he graciously allowed me to attend. And so um got to uh he he and and Dr. McNamar facilitated that meeting. Uh this is your second or third meeting of that group this year. Third meeting of that group this year. They'll meet one more time, I think. And uh this time around they kind of started out by sparking the group's uh conversation with some questions about uh you know how would we know how do we know when our graduates are successful after high school? You know more than just their tests and things like that. You know how do we how do we tell that they're successful after high school? And then what evidence should we be looking for that would indicate that success? We had a lot
045of good conversations about what success is and that that uh success really should be defined by the student, right? as as long as they're achieving what they want to achieve in life and we prepared them to do that whatever it might be that's probably the best definition of success. Um the group also reviewed post-secary success rates as uh defined by KSDE and u we were able to share that we have outpaced our predictors for success when it comes to postsecary success based on the algorithms that KSD uses. Um, you know, a part of our strategic plan is about getting student or getting parents more involved in in in, you know, logging in and checking their their students uh progress along the way. And so, Dr. Cargula shared some information about how to get into KSD's
046kite parent portal program and where they can go to to see to see their uh their child's state assessment data, other key information. So, we had some good conversation around that. And then I very briefly shared some information about cost containment because I told them they're probably tired of hearing about it and I'm tired of talking about it and so we didn't spend too much time on that but again had some good good conversations. Speaking of cost containment, >> right? >> Yeah. The the team uh the team held its last meeting not on February 11th. That's today. February 3rd, right? I think that was our last meeting. February 3rd. And uh so just wanted to take a moment probably they're not all watching because we I don't know how many of them might tune in
047at this point but definitely want to thank them for for all of the service that they provided. This involved uh you know our teachers, SSS, instructional coaches, principals, parents from every attendance area, uh nonprofits, just community members at large, board members. three of you sat on that team and I I feel like we we held on to 90% or more of our people all the way through what almost was a full six-month process um of you know at least 14 hours of work here, not to mention the time that they put in in preparation and studying the information as we were putting it out. And so really appreciate that. Again, trying to identify $4 million worth of expenditures. proud to say that the group identified $5.1 million of potential expenditures to continue to talk about
048as we move forward. And so that's what we've been doing uh this week. We've met with middle school leadership. We've met with elementary leadership. We had to reschedule high school leadership from Monday. So we'll do that next week. And so we're just working through at the school level, you know, what what can we implement, what can we not implement. Talk to us about why that's feasible or why that's not. It was great dialogue with our with our principles today, our elementary principles, you know, um different ones stepping up and saying, you know, I could be the person that that gives in that area. Um if we could keep this, we would be we we think that that's more important than this. And we did some shuffling. So, at the end of the day, we're really
049going to end up with a product that has had a lot of input and it isn't just what we as a leadership team think we should do. And so, I appreciate that them participating in that. Um Of course, you will have that same kind of opportunity on March 4th because by the time we get to March 11th, we really hope that all of you um have a great understanding of what it is we're trying to uh move forward and continue to work on with regard to reducing our expenditures and that we can we can get your support for that. And we still follow the two guiding principles that we've have from the beginning to try to impact students as little as possible um and then reduce costs through attrition whenever possible. Um it was a
050nice surprise this morning to to uh kind of get a better feel for at least on the elementary level that we probably are going to be able to make um all of our classroom um reductions through attrition. Um so that was a you know that was good news and we we were already talking about you know how do you shuffle this person from here to there because that particular position might be going away but this one is vacant over here and they'd be qualified for that. And so just a lot of good good dialogue trying to find places for everyone to land. Can't promise we'll find places for every single individual to land, but we keep that as one of our two priorities. State legislative update. Lillian, how did that turn out earlier? How did
051that vote turn out? Didn't go our way. >> I I fear I was really trying to pay attention to this meeting. Let the record show. But I do think that they did vote to pass that. So the House did vote to pass uh participation in that voucher >> to my understanding. Yes. >> In the v in the federal voucher program, >> but don't hold me to that. >> Y Well, a lot of things are getting getting debated as we like as we come to the meeting. Things are still being debated, you know, on the House and Senate floor, although the Senate adjourned around 5:40 today, I think. Um and so, uh we were kind of following a variety of things throughout the throughout the day and throughout the evening. And um one thing that I
052can say is pretty clear is that the House and the Senate kind of agree on the fact that they're not going to send the money uh in the direction of special education funding that is needed to close that gap for for the in in excess in a covering our excess cost for special education. I found it interesting some data this this week that was being shared by actually last Friday by KASB in that if you think about the amount of base state aid that's being siphoned locally to cover the gap in coverage of excess cost in special education. We're back to like preganon levels um for base state aid. And so, um, I think a a big thing that we should all be advocating for is that special education funding. Um, even even if we
053could just get what the governor recommended, I think it was $50 million of additional, it would be it would help some. Another uh piece of legislation we were following was Senate Bill 387 requiring districts to verify 100% of free lunch applications. I'm pretty sure that I saw that that passed the Senate at about 5:15 this evening, but it wasn't it wasn't a landslide. And so there's always an opportunity on the House side and then um potentially the fact that if the governor were to veto it, they would not have they may not have the votes to override a veto. So again, this bill is the one that would require 100% us us to verify through documentation and and request of paperwork um from anyone qualifying for on the on the free lunch applications. We would
054have to verify 100% of those. Um at the federal level, the guidelines um require us and limit us to approve 3% or to verify 3% of those applicants. And you know, all of this all of this conversation is really just a part of a bit bigger picture of many of those in the state that that feel like we're receiving too much atrisisk funding and they're wanting to rewrite the formula in such a way that that atrisisk funding will decline. And for a district like ours, that could that could have a significant impact. And that's why as we work through cost containment, I just keep saying, you know, we have to do the hard work now to try to weather that next storm and we might not be finished. we might always have to come back
055to the table. Um, and that would be for all the wrong reasons, right? Because it wouldn't be because we have fewer students, so now maybe we need fewer staff. That's just there's less money and we might have just as many students um trying trying to serve with the same needs that existed before. And so it's just u it's that that particular piece is just a money game. Um it's it's disappointing to see that Kansas is no different than my experience on the Missouri side when it comes to uh the legislative sessions. You always hope for them to do nothing. That would be the best case scenario for for us in public education. Um the Senate cell phone cell phone bill actually cell phone ban bill actually kind of stalled because of disagreement among the senators
056on whether private schools should be involved in the ban as well. And so it it kind of brought to back to life the house's version of uh the cell phone ban. And the last that the last piece that I had was that the House had approved um a recommendation that school districts have a policy that would uh limit the use of cell phones. And so that's a win for for all of us. And uh hopefully everything will will stay that way. It doesn't get any any any worse than that. Um because again, if you if you're it all it's all in the detail, right? If you ban cell phones then okay what and and they can't have access to them. So what does that mean now? Are we having to buy the lock bags and
057and you know with us with the open lunches is that mean twice a day we're having to go through the process of locking and unlocking and and uh there's just a lot of things that I don't think are considered. Um and our schools primarily have a cell phone ban. I mean, when during during instructional time in particular and even at our high school, um you know, students can get those out at lunch and so on, but classroom wise, they're not supposed to be having their cell phones out for any reason. And maybe there's some value in teaching them some personal responsibility rather than having to take it from them and lock it away somewhere. So, we we'll keep our eyes on on that, but so far so good there. Let's see. Oh, have we heard
058about the bill that um would eliminate property taxes completely in our state in favor of uh a sir charge, not a sales tax, a sir charge on on retail transactions starting in January of 2027. I'm wondering about how they they do have some some mechanisms in while they're phasing it out, but basically it says that you would phase out property taxes uh starting with a 50% phase out in 20 in uh 28 and then tw phased out 50% the first year and then 25% the second year in 26 and then 27 be gone by 28. Um and they would replace it with a 7.6% 6% search charge on retail purchases up to $20, which I believe adds up to a $160. So then they're saying anything over $20 would just have a $160 per transaction
059fee. Imagine trying to predict our revenues and create a budget um on that kind of a scenario. Um it would get it would get pretty difficult, I think. I think I hit it all. I put a big long list of of a variety of things that were being considered as of last Friday. A few things were added to the to the list that day, but I think that's everything I have today. >> So, um, on that search charge, are they talk talking about like a 7.6% plus our current 8 and a half%? Yes. Be like a 15 or 16% sales tax >> in reality. >> Search charge. >> Search. Um I had another question just on the um the very first thing on the case of school improvement. >> Um the partners were with Salina
060and Hazens. Was that determined by the state? First of all, those are good partners. I'm surprised that they're but >> they they try they try to put us into somewhat peer groups and so I believe the state selects those. They they assign us >> in this case. I think they did a good job. I think >> we could have been huddled in with some >> districts that would not be as similar as a standalone district, >> right? >> It was interesting because they were all working on standards alignment and and we were all very similar in in the things that we were working on. >> Yeah. >> Um I want to thank you for the update especially on 387 and I appreciate that you called Senator Argabbrite. I wanted just to let you all know
061that he voted against the bill and he just spoke so eloquently about supporting families, supporting schools, and don't create um a bill that's going to take food out of the mouths of kids. And so your advocacy really paid off and I was just really proud that he was defending our schools today. >> I have a question, but I would also echo Jaime's sentiment. I did have a really positive conversation this morning with Representative Shriber about House Bill 2468 as well. Um my question though is actually pertaining maybe actually to Dr. Cargula about the district family advisory council. I was wondering if that included any students or recent graduates and if not might it be possible to have maybe some recent alumni or older students be a part of that as well. So, the group contains
062staff members and community members. Um, we've had seven meetings and our attendance this last meeting wasn't as high as it had been. So, but we don't include any students yet, but we we certainly can as we think about ways of rebranding that committee. >> Yeah. And it might be, thank you for for sharing that. It might be helpful to maybe have their own sort of committee in a way. I think that maybe the perspective of students who are a year or two out of high school, they might be able to shed some insight into um really your your question about what makes a high school graduate successful um and so on. Their perspective might be valuable. >> Thank you. We can definitely look into that as we move forward. Thank you. >> Any other questions
063or comments? Okay, that's going to bring us to item 8A, board reports. Uh FHTC. >> Yes, we met Monday. Had a riveting uh financial audit review page. Every single page 51. We've never done that here. Thank goodness. Don't ever do that to me again, please. Um we also talked about our uh high learning commission timeline. They're coming again for our mid um evaluation cycle review at the beginning of March. Grant probably remembers those fun days. Um, so we have to be prepared as board members to answer questions about the work that we do and how that aligns with our strategic plan and supporting students. Um, and we are still on the lookout for a van for that mobile dental um, unit I mentioned. They just can't snag one in time and nobody's filling their bid.
064So, if anybody knows of a transport van, the tech college is looking for one. the Emporia Rec Commission met on January 20th and I don't have a whole lot of of substantive stuff to report. Um, but I did want to share that we had gotten some information about WCK extra um and so just to kind of give you guys an idea um you know these are the averages of students use of WKE extra per month per school. So Timberman um averaged about 45 students a month. Logan averaged about 21 students a month. William Allen White about 31 students. Riverside 22. Uh so that that and Logan were pretty low. Village Elementary 67 and Walnut Elementary 45 students a month just to kind of give you an idea of the usage. Um and we were also
065able to run a profit analysis of that and I believe we're actually up about $11,000. So the wreck wasn't actually in the hole in that uh partnership. And I just want to give them a shout out again because we were kind of in some dire straits with the Boys and Girls Club just because of services not being able to be there. and the wreck really stood up and I mean honestly I've never heard anyone really say anything bad about wreck extra. I mean and people complain to us a lot. Um but um they're phenomenal people over there. Um we're fixing I think it was a projector on the golf simulator. So if that was something that was uh crimping your swing uh that should be fixed here pretty soon. Um, and then I think that
066there was some um, planning around the dege complex um, that probably uh, the executive director may be more apt to uh, be able to discuss than I can in this setting. But um, it's good stuff. Good stuff at the wreck. I just want to mention with the recre I think that's a super success story because I mean for them to take it back over on extremely short notice and then have as much success and people are happy with it. >> Yeah, I'll make sure they know. I tell them that all the time. I mean, they really turned it around with very little uh notice to get that up and moving. So, it was kind of herculean and I'm really proud of that people over there >> in very negative direction possibly, but it did it.
067And so we're very proud of that. >> Okay, that's going to bring us to item 9A, executive session student. I move to enter executive session for 15 minutes to discuss confidential student information pursuant to the exception relating to actions adversely or favor favorably affecting a student under Kansas Open Meetings Act and to return to this room at 7:10 p.m. Superintendent Dr. David McGee, Director of Assessments and Accountability Dr. Ryan Carula and attorney Chase Pumpford are invited to join the section session action as anticipated. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes. 7 0 I move to return to regular session. Motion passes 70. I motion to enter executive session for 10 minutes to discuss confidential student information pursuant to the exception relating to actions adversely or favorably affecting a
068student under coma and to return to this room at 7:22 p.m. Superintendent Dr. Dr. David McGee, Director of Assessments and Accountability, Dr. Ryan Carula, and attorney Chase Pumpford are invited to join the session. Action is anticipated. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. >> I'll take a hand vote, please. Motion passes. 70. I motion to return to regular session. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. motion passes 70. I move to enter into executive session for 10 minutes to discuss confidential student information pursuant to the exception relating to actions adversely or favorably affecting a student under coma and to return to this room at 7:35 p.m. Superintendent Dr. David McGee, Director of Assessments and Accountability Dr. Ryan Carella, and attorney Chase Hunford are invited to
069join the session. Action is anticipated. All in favor? Motion passes. 7. I moved. Oh, sure. Oh, okay. I move to return to regular session for it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Grant. Motion passes. 70. I'm going to make a motion. I move that the board of education adopts resolution 2026-6 to affirm the extended term suspension as recommended by the hearing officer and affirmed by the appellent hearing officer. Second. It's >> been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 52. >> Okay, thank you. That brings us to item H, executive session, superintendent valuation. I move to enter executive session for 15 minutes to discuss the superintendent evaluation pursuant to the non-elected personnel exception under coma and we'll return to open session in this room at 7:55 p.m. No action is anticipated.
070>> Second that moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. I move to return to regular session. >> Return to regular. >> It's been moved to second. Motion passes 70. Thank you. And that brings us item 10A, future board calendar dates. Our next meeting will be February 25th. And then on Wednesday, March 4th, we will have a board work session here at May Mary Herbert starting at 5:30 and then our Wednesday, March 11th meeting. And I would entertain a motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Please cast your vote. Jamie. Yeah.