001Um, lots of times, uh, you know, USA Kansas always talks about the school board and the superintendent kind of working as a team of eight. And I feel like we do that well. Um, we don't always initially agree on everything and we we ask questions of each other. Um, but we do it in a I'm asking a question, I'm not questioning kind of manner, which makes such makes makes a big difference. So, I think um, uh, we're working well together and I just appreciate I appreciate that very much because I do know how difficult the job can be if you have a school board that isn't working with you and together. And it becomes a detriment to the school district and you guys are definitely uh, a value ad for the school district by the
002way you work together. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, and we appreciate having you here. >> So, that's going to bring us to item 3B, public comments. Public comments will be allowed for a duration of three minutes per speaker to be time by the board clerk. Speakers must sign up in person for public comment by 1 p.m. the day of the board meeting. Do we have any public comments? >> We do. Daniel Armmitage, if you would come forward, please. Okay. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak. As I reviewed, actually, as our organization with Emporia Energy Softball reviewed the fee schedule and guidelines for using district facilities, I felt it was important to share concerns about how these decisions affect youth participation, access, and long-term outcomes for our students. Our community already faces significant barriers
003that limit involvement in extracurricular activities, especially youth sports. These barriers contribute to low participation as students move into middle school and high school. It's troubling that for a district our size, fewer than half of our students take part in school sports. This has an impact on student wellness, engagement, and even our ability to compete with schools of similar sizes. At the same time, we're discussing a new recreation center to expand community access while restricting access to the facilities we already have. Across the country, especially in larger cities, youth sports have shifted toward forprofit models. Families often pay high fees for club teams, facility rentals, and year-round training. That model may work in big metropolitan areas, but it creates significant barriers in communities our size where approximately half of our students qualify for free and reduced
004lunch. When access to facilities is tied to fees, participation becomes limited to families who can afford it. Not only students who are motivated, curious, or eager to try new things. Strong programs aren't built by spending alone. They grow when students have opportunities to develop a love for the game, to practice, to play, and to have fun. These experiences build resilience, teamwork, and confidence, skills that last far beyond sports. Right now, we often see the same small groups of kids that are participating in multiple sports while many ever many others never get the opportunity. Neighboring districts offer open access to facilities, which encourages pickup games, practice time, and peer connection. That openness, sorry, that openness participation dipens talent pools and strengthens programs and welcomes school pride over time as well. As a community, we should prioritize
005policies that expand access, not just for sports, but for arts and other extracurricular activities. When access is limited only to a small group benefits, it only benefits small groups of students. Often the ones with fewer resources get left behind. I urge the board to consider how facility policies impact participation, equity, and long-term growth. If our goal is to increase involvement, and strengthen programs for all students, then access and opportunity must remain at the center of our decisions. Our hope is that youth sports organizations and nonprofits can use district facilities without fees while working in partnership with the district to respect and care for school property. This builds trust, pride, and shared responsibility within our community. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Do we have any other Okay, great. Thank you. That's going to bring us
006to item 4A, the consent agenda. Uh items on the consent agenda are those which the board has received information in advance and have been thoroughly reviewed. Approval of the items may be made in a single motion. Second majority vote with no separate discussion of any item listed. Should a member of the board desire to discuss any item at their request that would be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. What are the wishes of the board? >> So moved. >> Second. It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. >> Motion passes 70. >> Okay. Thank you. That brings us to 6A football league change update. >> Yeah, we have uh Mr. Bo Welch, who is going to come up and uh share this item with you. This is not an action item, just
007um an update. We feel like it's something that uh is of of uh interest to our community and we want to make sure that we get this information out um and out into the public. >> All right. Hey, good good evening, guys. Um I think I'm going to start before I kind of get to that just kind of how we got here um in kind of visiting with um you know Mr. Fiser. I'm going to go back five years maybe six years when our league kind of in a way disbanded. We had all the schools our size left our league. Um at that time I think three of those schools joined the UKC. Um, we tried to join the Frontier League at that time. We were denied and kind of became the lone 5A in
008the Centennial League. Uh, since that time, you know, we've we've explored a lot of options and I mean, you everybody knows that we're we're in a tough spot. We're in a tough area. You know, there's no really good place for us to go. Um, so we have looked at many options uh, you know, really in regards to football, in regards to our whole school. uh this uh this fall um kind of came to the conclusion that our league to function in a sport must have four schools to function. If we did not participate in Centennial League football, there would still be four schools. The four 6A schools can still function. It does not affect the league at all. Started thinking that way towards that. Uh talked to Mr. Fischer about that. We presented that or
009I presented that to our athletic directors at an athletic director meeting and it was met with no resistance. Uh all the other athletic directors um the only thing they didn't like was that they would have to find one game. Scheduling is really hard. Other than that, they thought this is you guys got to do this. This is the right thing to do. It's the best thing for your kids, the best thing for your school. So then we had to present that to the principles in our league which they didn't know how that would go with their principles. Um you know think in a different way likewise same thing good move for our school all in all in the league thought it was great it's what we should do. Um, so now that we gets us
010kind of to here and our, you know, our presentation on when you look at our league, uh, Manhattan, the biggest, they almost have a thousand more kids than us and that's who we're competing against. The smallest school that we would compete against would be Junction City. They're a 4A school bigger than us or 500 kids bigger than us. Um, you know, that that's hard. Football's football is a different animal than other sports. You could play 30 kids in a football game. In a basketball game, you're going to play probably seven or eight. You know, soccer and baseball would probably be the others that are most you're going to play in a soccer game, you're maybe 13, 14. Uh baseball, you may play 12. Uh football, completely different animal. Um you look at our enrollment, you
011know, we're we're growing down. Right now, I think it says 1158. That's what we turned into this year. Right now, we're at 11:26. Uh, so some of that is is seniors graduating a semester. Um, but when you throw that in and you look at those other school numbers, you know, that makes it really hard. Manhattan had 140 kids off for football this year. You know, I think we ended the year with 58 to 60. Uh, that's a big deal. Very big deal. Um, you can go ahead and go to the next slide. If you look at competitive history, um if you look at it, our last league win versus a current league team was 2019. You know, we had a good year in 2019 football. Um we beat Junction City, we beat Washurn Rural, but
012we have not beaten a league team since then. Uh we did beat Highland Park in 2022, but they were one of the one that was their last year they left the league. and you go back and you look at Manhattan, Topeka High, um we're talking 15 years, 13 years since we have beat any of those people. Um which when you look at the enrollments, you know, it's a it's an uphill climb for sure. Go ahead and go to the next. If you look at uh numbers, um I I think the thing that concerns me, you know, we can talk about all of these numbers that are up here. Um, the biggest one to me is, you know, we had 58 kids out for football this year. We talked about you you can play 30 kids
013in a football game. Well, a struggle that we have, and it's not just us. There are so many other schools like us, you know, that aren't in a big area. And you know, in football, I think anybody that's involved it will tell you you're either thriving and you have massive numbers and your kids are playing and you gotund and some kids out or you have 50 kids out. There's not really any in between. And when you look at us, when you have 55 kids, you have to play freshman at the varsity level. Kids get hurt. It's really hard to grow a program there. Uh I like to frame it this way. Um you know, if we were to put this in a wrestling term, and we see this a lot on Friday nights, you wouldn't
014wrestle a 106lb kid versus a heavyweight. And there's a lot of Friday nights where we have a 120 lb freshman going up against a 210 lb 18-year-old senior. uh because of we have some injuries, we don't have the depth to back that up with our numbers. So, we had to we have to go to freshman, sophomores. Uh and unfortunately, those kids get hurt. And when you talk about growing a program, kids who get hurt, they don't want to play their junior, senior year. They start thinking about, you know, I I I don't want to get hurt. I want to play basketball. I want to play baseball. You know, I want to do this. Uh that really hurts the program. You know, it doesn't build much depth. uh it doesn't help our sub varsities, our JV,
015our freshman, and kind of flipping the script in our league. If you're Washurn Rural, you're Manhattan, you don't ever get a freshman game when you play us. You have to go look for another freshman game. Uh sometimes you have to look for a JV game, you know, because we have maybe some injuries and we've got too many kids moved up. we don't have the numbers to play, you know, a team that has 140 kids. So, um, that hurts us as well. I think that trickles down to middle school, that trickles down to, you know, our elementary, our wreck teams, and our, you know, our current mighty Spartans teams. Go ahead and move it to the next. Look at stability. We talked about, you know, the four teams, uh, they can continue to play in the
016league. Um, it was it told me a lot. I did I did not know when we talked to the other schools in our league how they would take this and um I'm not going to say that I was shocked by it, but um it made me feel better, you know, that they all saw it the way that we saw it, you know, that this this is the move you should make. Um you know, they didn't they had never thought about it, but once it was brought up, it was this is a no-brainer for you guys, you know, to help you build your program. We've even discussed uh we think that this could um trigger some of those schools who left our league to in the future possibly want to come back. And if that were
017to happen, we we've haven't ruled it out that, you know, we we come back and play in the league. And we've discussed if that were ever to happen, trying to make a more balanced league with football where we have divisions, a 6A division and a 5A division. We didn't we did not used to have that. Everybody always wanted that. That was a reason why teams got out. Uh but obviously after all it's kind of been said and done. People have kind of seen things from a different angle now. And if that were to ever happen, I could see them going to divisions. Don't know if it will. Uh but I know there's a lot of discussion now. Go ahead and move to the next one. Casey. I thought is that the last one? We got
018one more, don't we? Yeah. So just kind of uh wrapping up here. Um, what does this mean? You know, it gives us a lot of flexible scheduling. You know, we're not we're not looking to go out and play 2A opponents, 1A opponents. You know, we're looking to play 5A schools. Last year, uh, the KIAA, which is uh, the athletic directors kind of I call it union um, organization. We came up with a proposal. You know, there's a lot of other people talking about this of the state quisha taking over scheduling with football and league football was going to be disbanded. There was going to be no more league football. We were going to play uh all 5A schools would play all 5A schools. Quesia would run it. They would schedule your games 6A as well.
019We were completely in favor of it. Uh some of the other schools in our league were. I knew a lot of people who were. It failed by a few votes and the reasoning that it failed at the conference was uh some of it was not all the ads showed up to the conference to vote for it for one uh and two a lot of those schools who left uh or like let's just take 5A schools who are in a 5A league let's take Seaman for instance they left our league they went to the UKC if they were to vote yes for that it kind of doesn't make any sense why they left the league if they if we're now doing that um for their other sports because that was why they left the league was
020football. So that would be another reason why some people voted no. They already like their situation they're in. They don't feel like it really benefits them. They already have what they want. Um so that is why it failed by like I said a few votes. So um league football like I said it's not just an emporia discussion. It's there are a lot of other towns like us, but what we do have, we play in a smaller league. A lot of other towns play in leagues that have 10 teams. Their schedule's already set. This could give us a lot of of flexibility to um I'm not going to lie, it makes my job really hard having to go find eight games. Uh but it's a it's a challenge that I'm willing to to take on because
021I think it really benefits our our school, our kids, and and our community. I think we've got a lot of people um that are really interested. I know our football community is very interested in this. They they love this idea and um I think it's it's a long time coming to come to this and and really try to help our kids u you know in this in this sport. >> Okay. Any questions? >> So Bo, I know you're focusing on football >> and understandably. So, do you see in other sports stability there with basketball and so forth? >> I I think you know, you look, you know, I I I not going to say I get upset, but when I hear we don't have success, we're having success right now all over the place. You
022know, it's it's like when we have a down year, we you know, we we're not having success. Well, we're going to have that, you know, in in our community. We're going to have a down year, but we're going to have a bounceback year. You know, when you look at, you know, look at our so, both of our soccer teams have hosted first round playoff games in the last couple years. Basketball team's doing great right now. Our girls team is on the rise. Our baseball team won a school record 15 games last year. Um, you know, we we're having success in other sports. So, you know, when I talk to the majority of our other coaches, we're we're competing in those other sports and and doing some good things. And like I said, football is a
023completely different animal as opposed to those other sports. And you know, safety, all of that non-issues in those football is a different animal. >> Um, I love this idea and I'm so glad that you brought it and you've implemented it. I think your last bullet on this slide like sums it all up. We need our kids to be successful and feel successful and I think this move will do just that. So, thank you for doing it. >> Thank you. I would just say that I haven't heard any negative comments toward this change and I did hear Coach Goodman on the radio saying he supported it. So I I feel like it's sounds like a really good change. >> Well, I will I'll talk to, you know, we love that Coach Goodman is with us. Uh
024this is a move that we feel gives our kids confidence and gives our coaches confidence. And uh I know it's it's it's something that what I get excited about is seeing other people get excited. And to see our football community excited about this uh makes me feel really good. >> Okay. All right. >> Thank you. spell. >> That's going to bring us to item 6B, the 2026 2027 Emporia Middle School course guide, second reading. >> And Matt Balmore, the assistant principal at the middle school is here to um handle this one. >> Hello. Um like to say Brent says apologies for not being here. Um, and with that said, uh, we don't have any changes from the first reading. Um, I think it was good that we put that through and he put that through.
025So, no other changes. >> What questions, if any, do we have? >> I think I all my questions were covered in the last one. I didn't have anything major for today. Okay, this is action item. >> I move to approve the 2026 2027 Emporia Middle School course guides. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Okay. And item 7A, USD253, business operations culture and efficiency study. >> Yeah, we have Dr. Kellen Adams here with the momentum education group. Uh if you'll recall a few meetings ago, the board approved for Dr. Adams to come in and um work with a variety of folks across the district to help us to become uh more efficient, more accurate um and just kind of improve the overall operation of our
026business services. And he is here to provide um some of that initial reporting. um he's not here with any kind of action plan on what to do about it because then that's our job to take uh the feedback that we get from him and start to develop those strategic processes to improve in the areas that we see opportunity. >> I'll let you keep working. >> Hey, good evening. Thank you for having me. It's good to see you guys and it's good to be back in line county. I want to say thank you for one embarking on this journey, but two I want to applaud you for taking the opportunity to look under the hood. That is sometimes very difficult and I acknowledge what goes into that. I also want to say thanks to Dr. M
027uh as well as Mr. Schwarz and really all of the business department. They were extremely easy to work with. This is never an easy task, especially sometimes for the folks that are internally being the ones that are being looked at. But I just want to acknowledge how easy it was to be a part of this. I was here back in December. Uh, and those two days flowed very seamlessly. So, thanks to everybody that was involved. I was asked to be succinct tonight. That is sometimes a challenge for me, but I'm going to do my absolute best for you. Okay. Sound good? Nothing. All right. This young lady to my left is going to be responsible for advancing. So, I think it's important that we start with the overarching, I'm going to say contextual background of
028why we did this. I am of the opinion that the business department is the connective tissue that emanates through the entire district. As I look behind you at the two placards on the wall, the business department literally touches every single aspect of the district. When the business department is efficient, everybody benefits. And when the business department is not, everybody suffers. I will tell you that across the board, I have not had one individual that has struggled with why you were doing this. So if nothing else, it was clear and apparent apparent that there was a need to do this study. I think that has been probably the biggest takeaway for me. Second, I want to make it very clear that this is not an individual indictment. It is a system level view. I am here
029to attack or help you attack the systems level problem but not an individual and I want to make that clear. Uh and three is this should be your guide for how you really drive improvement. And to that point we'll get to it here in a little bit. There is a role that you as a governing body play but then there is a role that the administrative team plays. At the end of the day it is ultimately how you execute this that will determine the level of trust that gets built or not. Case go ahead please. Thank you. So let's look at a little bit of the methodology of the study approach from just a high level overview. Uh it consisted of individual interviews of focus groups over a course of two days. Those included both
030those within the business department but also those external yet connected to the business department. Third is it was entirely on-site for the engagement piece. There is a high level I will tell you of professionally transcribed data. I think it was exceeded 300 pages. So, I will tell you that this was high calorie content from the word go. Uh, but then there was also a good level of document overview and I think you've got the comprehensive report that included those uh in the appendices. I won't have those up tonight, but those were a critical piece for me. They helped me see, if you will, um, some of the more non-qualitative data that's out there. So I was able to hear anecdotally from a number of folks, but then I'm able to see a process on paper
031and does what we say on paper actually jive with what people say we do in practice. Right? If what we say and what we do are in concert, we have a high functioning system. It is when those two are not in concert that we are not efficient. I'm ready. Thank you. All right. So, as far as the comments andor findings themselves, I want to be clear. These reflect patterns. You will not see any individual comments that will be released to the public. That is by design. And again, I think that is one within the spirit of the scope of work that was established. But two, what I believe ultimately helps build trust moving forward. Okay. Um, they are very much in themes and I'm going to go over the five themes that were established. Uh,
032but probably more importantly than anything else, they establish these roles but also these perspectives across a system. So there were many things that were shared. I'm going to say sometimes even adnauseium because they were that consistent across the number of stakeholders. All right. So we've got a total of five that we're really looking at for purposes of these broader levels. The first of which uh doesn't probably surprise anyone. It is in the realm of communication. But I've also added role clarity here. And you'll hear a little bit more about why I believe those are in a marriage together. There was a big piece about both process as well as workflow that was a critical part especially for a department like this. Consider the number of processes that fall under the business department. Payroll is a
033primary example of a process that has to have a workflow to it. We also looked at both capacity as well as l workload. At the end of the day, I see that your high school numbers are decreasing just like my system. That will mean less money for your system. I'm hearing cost containment conversations are happening in 253. Efficiency by default will lead to are we at or over capacity and I will tell you that we're going to discuss that in a little greater detail. Okay. Systems and tools uh which are a fundamental part of doing the work and then finally organizational structure and alignment. Okay. So let's look first at communication and role clarity. I'm going to tell you again these are broader overarching themes. So I want to stress that from the onset. uh
034but you do have what I would say was a fundamental issue of both a clarity but also an ownership piece. Okay. And that to me is very clear across again a number of different stakeholders. So again, I'm speaking from a broader perspective, but when I look at a department and especially in a system of about 4,000 students approaching a thousand employees, role that clarity, but also that coherence and communication is ultra critical. There is, and this is my phrasiology, this who owns what uncertainty, right? And when we are not sure who owns what, i.e. whose lane that is in, blurred lines occur very quickly. And what happens is as you're on the other end of that, you are left to wonder who do I go to for this task? Whose email should I first start
035with? And that typically leads to frustration for the end user, whether that's the parent, the student, the employee, etc. And then third, and again, this is probably one I would say was overarching, is a look at both tone and predictability. What I always ask my superintendent peers when they first start in a district is to evaluate, do you have a bitey culture? And you might be asking, what's a bity culture? When people pick up the phone, do you feel like you got bitten when that conversation occurred? Right? And that's at the front desk here at the district office. It's at the receptions receptionist desk at a district or a building level. It is across a system. Do you have a bitey culture? And if you do, that will lead to a tone that leads people
036to not want to interact. They will avoid interactions by default because they don't want to get bit through that conversation, through that interaction. Right? What I'm here to tell you is you don't have a bitey culture, but you do have a tone issue that needs to be addressed. Okay? There is a both a predictability in which when people pick up the phone, they want to have that same level of interaction. And again, I use the phone call as an example. This is across multiple amounts of communication here, right? But the second piece is as that occurs, your employee engagement will increase. Okay? So I want you to think about your local contacts. I think you work for a bank, Miss Cely. Is that correct? Right. So you've got this end customer, but you've also got
037the folks back in the loan processing department or otherwise. if they don't feel like they will be um or they won't feel like they will be treated correctly as they go up to the front, they will by default seek ways to disengage with the front. Right? So, how do we create a culture that actually increases the employee engagement versus decreasing it? All right, process and workflow. I want to be very clear here. Your processes do function, but there is a level of unpredictability. Okay? And what do you want to get to is to where the business department is so boring because things happen on such a schedule all the time that no matter what it just becomes wrote and almost memorized, right? What we don't want is a level of unpredictability. What we don't want
038is to wonder whether or not certain things will happen as they were originally scheduled, intended, etc. Right? We want this to be the boringest department in the district by default because it is known to be that consistent. Right? Where some of this comes in is with your what I call bottlenecks but also approval clusters when certain things start to be channeled through what I called coffee straws. You have processes that will not be able to flow through the other side. Okay. And so what we look at here is whether or not too many things are flowing through one or two different people. Right? We want to spread that approval piece and spread the ability for a process to continue. Right? In that case, again, if you're on the back end of that work, you cannot
039move forward until the front end has processed, approved, whatever it is that they need to do. And then third, something I always look for in these types of studies is do you have individuals typically internally that are using workarounds? They are using some former fashion to get their work done because it's not able to get done with the current tool, the current system, the current process, etc. If you have workarounds, that is a flashing light to me that you've got either a process that needs to be refined, an approval that needs to be unlocked or some type of communication issue. Does that make sense? And I apologize. I am have leaving space for uh questions at the end. So I'm ready case. All right. I do want to make it very clear. I do not
040believe this department is overstaffed. Okay. I also really don't believe that you're grossly understaffed. to be clear that the scope of my work was not to look at uh whether or not you were truly over under staff. I believe your FTE is appropriate given the size of the district and the scope of work that's in front of them. What is not clear to me is whether or not those FTEEs have a full potential that's been unlocked. Right? So, I'm here to say publicly on this microphone, I don't think you've overstaffed, but I also don't think you've understaffed. I think you are right sized for where you are at today. However, as you run more lean, and you're going to have to become lean as cost containment continues, you're going to have and continue to run
041into a capacity issue and a redundancy issue. I want you to think about your again your local context. If one or two people are gone for an extended period of time, can the rest of the department continue to function? You should be able to do that. If one person's absence creates a major amount of work for either another couple people or a major bottleneck for another couple people, we have put too many things onto one or two individual plates. Does that make sense? This is where things like crossraining become extremely important. This is where things like roll clarity also help. But at the end of the day, what I don't want to see is you've run so lean, but you have no capacity for error, no room for absences long-term or short term. So at
042the end of the day, uh that minimal or limited margin is something I wanted to stress here. I'm ready. Thank you. So from a systems and I'm going to say overarching u structural and trust piece, right? Um I do believe you have armed this department with the appropriate tools. So I applaud you for that. Sometimes you see business departments but then they've not been armed with the appropriate tools. I think about the maintenance department and asking them to do their work but not giving them access to mowers, skid steers, skid loaders, etc. Right? You would not do that. You would not expect them to do that. The same applies with the business department. Think of the uh one of the primary tools here would be your accounting software. You've got other things at their disposal.
043I am of the opinion you've given them those. The issue now is alignment with both training but also with some of those back-end pieces. You've got to have multiple people that can be gone step away and the system and the process can continue to flow. I do think you have a knowledge concentration issue and again I call it that institutional memory or that institutional capacity. What we want is that our processes, our procedures and our institutional knowledge live on paper and not inside of the brains of human beings. Okay? Because when those people separate from the district, if those have not been properly transferred, all that institutional knowledge walks out the door on the day of that separation. Right? So a challenge for you is how do we spread that knowledge to systems and across
044processes. And then finally, I do believe again back to this predictability piece, it will affect the confidence of the district vicariously through the business department. Okay? Your business department as some of the other departments that are represented here and how they perform reflect upon the district. I say this all the time to superintendents. As the superintendent looks good, so does the school board. As the superintendent looks bad, so does the schoolboard. The same occurs with a business department. When the business department functions well, the school board and the district look good. If a business department or any other department for that matter are struggling, it will predict, if you will, a lower level of confidence for stakeholders. All right. So first I I want to stress probably most important these challenges are systemic. Okay, they
045are not limited to one individual and I really want to stress that if nothing else tonight these are across a system and I am here to help you attack a system level issue. Two is this reliance on both the workarounds uh and some of the other things that we've mentioned they are actually increasing your risk and I want to be very clear about that and very transparent about that. I am here hopefully if nothing else to help you accomplish efficiency but at the same time when we accomplish efficiency we should hopefully minimize the risk exposure for the district. those risks do increase as workarounds and some of the other bottlenecks begin to occur. Right? And again, back to that C-word, I think there is an opportunity for clarity here and combined with, if you will,
046um this idea of coherence. Clarity and coherence, I think will both yield some good impact. All right, so let's dive in to implications for you first as a governing body. I'm going to stress it and you're going to hear it probably more often than you want to, but I believe that efficiency is inseparable. I really do from risk management. And at the end of the day, we should I believe as the administrative team, uh as the outside consultant, whoever it is supporting the board, help you minimize risk whenever possible. And so as you become more efficient, whether it's this department or otherwise, by default, your risk is lowered. And I think that is so critical for you as a governing body of arguably one of the largest employers in the county. Two is as we
047work through this, and I want to be clear, this will not get better in one single day, week or month, right? We have to go slow to go fast. Your capacity is a big part of this. So capacity will absolutely matter as you introduce these changes. And third is I believe firmly that your role is to set the expectations what I call the guard rails and the guideposts and to help guard the sustainability. It is administration's role to execute. At the end of the day I think that is where the team of eight operates best. All right. So if you can can you zoom this one in for me please? Thank you. I have created what I want to stress is very much not set in stone. At the end of the day, I go
048home, I turn into a support role. It is really Mr. Schwarz, Dr. M and company that get to execute this. You know that. But in my humble opinion, you need to take a long-term approach to this. And I've really divided this into three tranches. You'll see here a 0 to six, a 6 to 18, and an 18 plus. You've got to build a firm foundation. And some of that really comes with some of that role clarity, right? You'll see there. That's the one I probably would stress. The other thing I want to um offer here is that the majority of this is low cost. You are not going to be bringing in or adding to staff, right? rather this is through some of the processes some of the systems and really ultimately at the end
049of the day some of the expectations uh being clarified in that six to 18 months the one I'm going to really stress here for you is alignment to system access and role specific training that to me is the critical piece that stood out folks having the right level of access to the things that they need to be able to do at the end of the day if I am asked to do this job, I need to have the tools and the access in order to be able to execute that. Right? So, these are targeted adjustments. And then, in my opinion, you move into this kind of long-term strategic piece. And this is to me is where you're at the governance level. Um, you begin to uh align this to priorities, right? I'm going to go
050back to what's behind you, right? Culture and communication is the one that stands out to me. This to me will speak highly to whether or not you have an efficient but at the end of the day a trusted culture. Your business department again is the connective tissue across the whole district. If they have a high level of predictability that will lead to a high level of trust which will then lead to a high level of collaboration across the district. At the end of the day, their performance is indicative of one of or if not the only perception that sometimes the district has. There are some departments that just don't interact with stakeholders nearly to the level that they do. They touch probably more departments and more stakeholders than anybody else. So, they can be your
051trust champions. All right. I want to clarify before I open it up for questions what this is and what it is not. at the end of the day and let's zoom back out. Yep. Thank you, Case. This is a road mapap. I will stress Dr. M, Mr. Schwarz, they may have a much different approach and I fully acknowledge they have the nuance of what's going on here. They know what will get done in 253. So, I will stress roadmap, but certainly editable at this point, right? Uh, and two is this is system focused. I know I have said that a time or two tonight, but I really want to stress that it is focused on the system across the entire department and it is helping you at a time in which you have a number
052of challenges facing the district prioritize. At the end of the day, this has to be something that gets done and I'm going to talk about that here in a second, but it has to be done in a way that is structured and layered and otherwise leads to long-term success. You've got to attack this in certain manner uh that certain things will precede others by a design. If you go too fast on this, it is possible this can do more harm than good. So I will stress go slow to go fast. I really think that is a critical piece here. I want to make it clear this is not a staffing reduction plan. At no point would I uh see a need or a reason to make that recommendation. I believe this department is right sized.
053Two is I don't view it as an operational directive from the board. I do think the board holds the superintendent accountable to ensuring that this work moves forward. But at the end of the day, this part, this work is really for the administrative team to create those structures and process. Your role as the governing body is to see to it that it gets done. And I want to stress it's not an individual judgment or otherwise. All right, let's land this plane. I want to stress you have very, very strong people. Your number one asset is your human capital. And I firmly believe you've got some very good people working here. What needs to be unlocked now is their potential. Things need to be removed out of their way. There are certain barriers to them re
054rising to their full potential. But I want to stress you have good people. Now it's a matter of getting good processes behind those people. Right? You've got an opportunity here and it lies in this both alignment piece but also in the clarity and pacing. And this to me uh the alignment piece I think we all probably are in agreement with where I struggle sometimes is seeing where we try to go too fast on getting this work done because we we just we want to get all these improvements made right we have this efficiency study completed let's get it all done and we go too fast so I would stress establishing an appropriate pace is really critical for this piece right I do think you've got some administrative next steps but again I would yield to
055the folks doing the work at the end of the day. But I'm going to tell you and I'm going to end with this. How this gets executed determines how well trust gets either built or broken. So the next time a big decision that the district is faced with, they're going to hearken back to how well did you handle these findings and how well did you take those and put those into action. Thank you again for having me. Thank you for what you do for the kids at 253. And I would certainly stand for any questions. >> Go ahead. >> I would just like to say thank you for breaking this down simple basic terms and showing us how important that business. I think we presented this to clarify importance of business office. Thank you. Welcome
056to the board, Miss Feller. >> I have a question about um workarounds. I'm glad you brought that up and that was pretty common throughout the thing. Um you mentioned I work at a bank. If I have a system, because it doesn't sound like it's a system problem, more of a training problem or clarity, I'm not 100% sure, but if I have a system that was working and now isn't working, and my vendor gives me a workaround, I'm usually not very happy with my vendor and I usually tell them that's not acceptable. Fix it. Uh, it worked yesterday >> and you know, how are we going to move forward? Um because like you said, workarounds do cause so much risk. You're opening yourself up to all kinds of mistakes and risk. So are our workarounds linked
057to processes and not systems or what's what's going on with workarounds? >> I'm going to say both. I'm going to say some of them are truly process or systembased and those to me are rooted in maybe you've got a new software as an example. You've got to get to the heart of what is not working and hold that vendor accountable in your case, right? Um, at the end of the day, some of it is truly there was no intent to block this person from their access. It's just we have yet to figure out how to unblock this person from their access. The second one that emanated for me was that role clarity. Who does what and who does what when is something a department like this should have absolute role clarity on. Right? When it
058is unclear whose lane this job is in whatever this task is, that is where lines get blurred and we may have two people with unnecessary access. Or we may have two people both of whom need access and neither one of them has it. Does that answer your question? Yeah. I also I'm hearing you about going slow, but when I see some of the things like I get the formalizing the cross trainining um but realigning workloads with roles and things like that. Um I don't think you would have made this recommendation if it weren't sustainable. But that's my worry is that is where we're at right now sustainable for six to seven whole months. Um when you take into consideration how important the things in that six to 18month range are. I'm not saying we would
059knock all those out by any means and the first six, but >> should we be aiming for nine on two of them? You know, like >> Yeah, I get what you're saying. >> Yeah, >> because people are watching, right? So you just had me come and present these findings. the ready to go tomorrow. You could start putting things into motion tomorrow morning at 8:00, right? The reason I stress the go slow to go fast is this is a lot of this is challenging for this department because at the same time of asking them to continue to function. It almost feels like an indictment on them at times. Right? What you don't want to do is damage every relationship in the process. Right? There is a foundational piece of trust that has to become embedded in
060every conversation. Right? I also acknowledge that you're going through other things like cost containment. You're still trying to educate 4,000 kids and you're still trying to do all the other normal district work. Right? So, this is one more thing that gets added to the plates of several people. Right? Is there value in showing some immediate action? Yes. And this is where I stress to folks that are on the execution side, find the lowhanging fruit and chop as much of that off as you can immediately. That shows folks, hey, we're taking this serious and we're planning to put this thing into motion. >> I I think to sort of, you know, thanks Leslie for asking that question and for your response because I think there's like there's this tension of, you know, remembering and and Dr.
061Mickey, he always reminds us that this is about like processes and procedures and not people. Totally agree. So I I want to just name that. But so we've got this tension of, you know, uplifting and supporting the business office, but man, we have a lot of stakeholders who also have like shared with us their experiences, which probably led us to this point that we're at right now. So like how do we like find that balance of going you know so we can be successful but also making sure our stakeholders um their needs are being met too because those are equally as important and so how you can't put one in front of the other but you got to kind of move them forward at the same time. So how do we do that? >> Love
062that. Um this sounds cliche I promise it's not meant to be but I want you to be super tough on processes and I want you to be gentle on people. I'm serious. Attack every process and be super tough on it, but ensure that you are gentle on people in the process. If you balance that, you can make that work happen. Right? It is when we flip that and we so often do that, you are going to lose people in the process. And so you might feel inefficient now and now all of a sudden you got three FTEEs open. Guess what? We're now even more inefficient. Right? So that to me is the biggest balance. Miss Rever is how do I attack a process but not the person in that or that's a part of that.
063Does that help? >> Yes. And also I'm thinking about like the other nearly thousand employees who want us to move faster. Yep. So that that's the tension. >> Absolutely. I think if nothing else you acknowledge that you've done the study which you clearly have communicated that but then I think you also acknowledge hey here's what we're doing about it. So, it's that so what, now what, right? You've told the world you were doing this study. Now, I think is an opportunity to communicate. Okay, here's what we're doing in the next 30, 60, 90 days, right? You've probably done that in a number of different other way ways in the district. That's the same opportunity here. I think at the end of the day, if people hear, hey, they're going to do something, they will at
064least get on board. It's that absence of anything any actionable uh I'm gonna say action items that people are left to wonder, okay, did that thing die as soon as that presentation was over? You're welcome. >> Okay, any any more questions? >> I'll just chime in real quick and say um you basically in in other words said exact said a phrase that I use a lot here is tough on issues, soft on people. and you basically said the same thing and I think that's what we have to continue to do is let's attack these issues and get better. Um I mean you found that we have knowledgeable people. >> We just have to uh and and I acknowledge too that there are times when we probably um need to provide them more um professional development
065in various areas and so on too. And so there are things that we can do pretty quickly. I think it's important for us to uh to communicate what we're doing as a result of this study. So much so I'm sitting here thinking that it would be important for us to in my mind turn around a pretty quick communication. I feel like we owe the folks that helped us with the study that participated and and conversed with Dr. Adams um even a little bit more level of communication kind of on what what they should expect or where we're going to be going from here. And so we'll work on on some of that because I do think it's to build that trust to have to see us actually doing something. I see this working into we
066didn't get it done this year because boom, we're here and we started tackling issues, but from a year-to-year basis, I would like to see the board work with administration to develop a list of, you know, five to seven action items in various areas across the district where uh we're we're focusing more attention there. It's telling us how we should focus our work. And to me, this this study and the resulting strategic approach that we take to it should be one of those action steps that we monitor very closely over the course of starting now and over the course of the next year. >> Um, thank you for that, Dr. McGee. I really appreciate the work that was put into this study and the findings and I'm excited for the next steps that we can take.
067Um, and I agree about being strategic and open in our communications and planning moving forward. Um, but to echo Jaime's point, what could we expect between now and the end of the school year in terms of uh as a board? What we could expect either from you or from the business office and what should we anticipate >> right out of the shoot from my perspective is just a focus on customer service. I think that that will do wonders initially just to focus on how how do we how do we want to communicate with others and and be being being as responsive as we can. um you know and again working with Josh I feel like I feel like the fact that we were doing this study has already um kind of jumpst started the need
068to improve and and and and the opportunity to improve and I and I've already seen some improvements in our business department even from from the start of the year till now and so I I think we need to sit down and and process each area of this and decide okay what can we do over the course of the next 6 months, create create some specific action plans to address those issues. And then and then again going into the going into next year, even get more formal, create those board action items, start tackling some of these longer term things. But uh you know I don't I don't have specifically what we would do starting tomorrow but uh I think if I start anywhere it's just making sure that um you know our business office starts to
069become boring. That's that's our goal. Thank you. >> Just to follow up on that question, um do you anticipate um like any kind of um sharing, you know, more information with the board as the year goes on as you try to implement these steps just just to let keep us informed if you've, you know, you've implemented, you know, the the things on the on the list or do you or not? So, >> I think you're throwing me a softball, Jamie. Um, we will definitely, you know, as we do the work, we'll keep the board informed as to what specific things are we working on, what kinds of metrics are we putting in place that would show us that we're improving those areas and then continue to communicate, you know, on a regular basis um either
070via, you know, your your regular weekly written communications and then also from time to time u bringing them into uh into this session to make sure that the public is also aware of what's being done and what progress is being made. >> Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. Adams. >> Thank you for having me. Have a wonderful evening. >> Take care. >> So much. >> That's going to bring us to item 7B, letter of intent with the Emporia Police Department. First read. >> Yep. Dr. Mickelson is here uh to present this one. >> Hello everyone. Uh this is our uh first read for this SRO agreement and we have been working on this for quite some time uh and what this might look like for our district. Uh initially we had anticipated possibly needing to
071look towards two um SRO's and and what that might might do for us as a district. I want to just kind of do some history here. Um, in the past when we had posted a position for a security guard, it took us an an extensive amount of time to to finally find Brian, which we're so happy and thankful that he's here. Um so we are coming into this with uh the possible partnership with EPD with the Emporia Police Department knowing that um there could be some some um trouble finding someone to to initially get placed and then obviously that that person would need training to become a school resource officer. So this is just the first kind of you know jump into this possible partnership. And so this is truly a letter of intent uh
072for that partnership for one SRO for the next school year. Um and then you can also see as you move down through the document there is and again this is a rough draft a very rough draft of a first initial uh tentative agreement with Emporia Police Department. they have not. We our first step is bringing this to you for an action item for the next board meeting and then it would go to to them um as an entity. They would possibly make some changes, updates, edits and it would come back to us and it back to you all again for another look. So again, this is this is just the first first look at this um and and we'll move forward. But initially, again, we're looking at possibly having one um school resource officer through
073a partnership with Emporia Police Department. Uh we are looking at one because we are we have possible um retirements coming from some of our security guards and and we want to be proactive in this. If none of them retire at the end of this year, we could have um another SRO on board. Um which might not be a bad thing for training and other purposes. Uh, but I just want to be very open and honest with you all. We're not pushing anybody out by any means. If some of our current um security guards are ready for that uh retirement phase in life, this isn't going to be in place for that. If they aren't, then this would be in addition to um questions that you have for me about this or anything that I need
074to clarify. Could you talk to the what's the for our current situation moving to this what are the benefits or why would we want to do that? >> We have been looking at this and and part of it is um possible risk for for different things. So we on a daily basis I would say daily maybe even every other day are needing to call out for Emporia Police Department. So, we have a 911 notification process in place for our district. When or if a ple the police department get called to any of our schools, um they they give us a human resources a call, either a call or text or chat. And so, every day, sometimes five time five, six times a day, we are sending notifications out. EPD is on on route to Walnut.
075EPD is in route to the high school. Typically, it's they're non-emergency situations. It could be a student issue um where we have a a a student who is having a hard time with elopement and they've left where they are supposed to be. We need to make sure that they are safe. So, we're calling EPD for that. So, this is an inst in instance where it could benefit our staff having somebody on our on site or even just at the the building or in the district that we could call rather than having to call out for someone. Um, we also are looking at if if we do um we we have um two of our security guards do um carry a weapon. Uh they are armed guards, but we have one that is not. And so
076um having that partnership with Emporia Police Department would help because they would make sure that they are fully licensed and have all their certifi certificates to be armed. Um and they would keep track of all of that along with us making sure that all of them are up to date in their trainings. Um, this also helps um, moving forward if we do keep a security guard or two on staff to make sure that our people are trained and we would partner with EPD to get all those trainings in. Um, and we wouldn't have to look out. Um, KSD is great about offering trainings. We also, Line County is wonderful about letting our guys come, but we would have that kind of, you know, partnership to where we wouldn't have to search outward. we could really
077look internal and have those trainings. Those just a few that came to mind. >> Um I have a couple of questions. So, you know, one of my biggest things is making sure that when kids are schooled, they feel like they're at school and and so like I noticed on um on line on item nine, it talks about SRO will be in standard duty or soft uniform unless otherwise agreed to. And I I think I'd have a kind of have a I do have an opinion that I mean I think the soft uniform I I I would have a hard time seeing like a fully dressed police officer though impressive. Um that could you know be intimidating to some students. So that's just a thought that I have for you know a future revision of this
078document. >> And and we like I said this is the first time you know so um myself and then uh Mr. Nichollet, we are in contact with um you know, Chief Owens and and everything and we would definitely make sure that that is something that we could put in place there. We kept that in because in the past our SRO's we have had this partnership with EPD and they have been um in in in all of their uniform, their full hard uniform. And so um but if we wanted to change that language, we could definitely do that. >> Okay. And then the other one I I was just curious about and if you could just you know for your own notes um on appendix B um questioning slashins um notifying building administrator reasonable efforts to
079notify parent/guardian unless prohibited by law or jeopardize the safety of course and a school representative will be present when feasible and I just want to make sure that we clarify like what a reasonable effort is to notify parent and guardian so that way you know, we we all know that a child has a supportive adult in the room. Um, you know, if it's, you know, not pro if it's prohibited or allowed by law and and it's safe to do so. >> Okay. >> Thanks for asking the question about the um soft uniform, Jamie, because you know, I I can see where some kids would be like, "Oh, wow. We have a police officer. I feel super safe." where other kids are through no fault of their own might have had a bad experience with police
080with their parents or you know something like that and so then it becomes a very upsetting thing for them to see in school. Um so I do think that's going to be a a tricky balance for us to find. It's nice to know that the soft uniform is an option though. >> Yeah. >> And for sure wanting parental um presence whenever possible. >> Yeah. Uh I kind of had two thoughts. um most of which my first thought has been shared already. Uh I do appreciate having added security at our buildings. I think unfortunately it is something that we do need um but also very aware of the reality of our students um engaging more with law enforcement. Uh my second question just having my cost containment hat on is can you talk a little bit
081more about the cost that might be incurred because there would be an potential increase than what we have experienced in the past. Yes, there would be. So, we would looking we would be looking at a $50,000 increase for next year uh with this um and so we are it is an increase. Um and so that is again something that we need to discuss and something that we will be discussed in this group of are we willing to increase it that much for for this line item. Has there been any discussion about a potential grant to help cover that cost or I don't know if if we're having this partnership >> if that's um or is that a common thing that we see high schools and middle schools working with their community police departments like this
082or is this >> I haven't found any um but that doesn't mean that we can't you I mean eventually look towards something of that nature. So, we definitely can put it on our our radar and continue to look. Um, we did an initial look at the very beginning of the year and and didn't find anything that was available, but again, we could just keep that and if you all see anything, please send it our way because we'd be happy to take a look at that. >> And then a follow-up question is, would this be a district employee or would this be an important police department employee? And how many hours do we get this individual? Is it like a split or? >> So we would get this individual during the school year when we are
083in session. So when we are in session and then agreed upon activities and athletics that that that person would be available and willing to to be at and then when we like on um we we're getting ready to have a a PLT day or um a non- studentent day th that would be when they would be able to be um with the with the police department um over the summer. They'd be with the police department over the summer. So it would depend on, you know, I mean, they would be working all year long. You know, our our our staff that are nine months, they get those summer months off. They would be working with the police department during those times. During winter break, during spring break, things like that. So during the school year, they're
084ours. During the school day, there are hours, but then after hours, and then during those breaks, they would they would be Emporia Police Department employees. And then another question I had was the discipline aspect of this when it's our people and they're handling the discipline. I feel like we have some discretion on what you know maybe it's a outside of school but I feel like when we bring in EPD then it's this next level whether we want to go there or not, >> right? >> And how do we balance that to benefit our students? because I I think that could be kind of tricky to handle >> and I don't want to misspeak but during when they are trained during some of those trainings there are specific SRO trainings that they go through of this
085is the difference between discipline in a school setting and the difference between discipline you know out on the the streets you know kind of beat cop type things so making sure that that we are very mindful of the age group that we're working with >> and um and what that looks like >> well And my concern was more who who gets to decide what, you know, is it going to be, you know, like a fiveday suspension or something like that or is this going to be charged as a crime of something happening? >> We would we would align with our disciplined policies. Now, if it is illegal, you know, I mean, if it would, you know, I'm thinking vaping THC type of a situation, then that that would be where we would need to pull
086more on that legal side of things. Um, but we would have somebody there in inhouse. They would have to follow our expectations for the discipline. And I know we're working on a discipline matrix that would look at the districtwide that would come into play there. So with this change, >> the discipline for let's say a vape or Yes. Even if it was a THC vape >> is not going to be different. >> No. >> After this change, >> we will still follow process and policy and then the followup to that could be where EPD gets involved and and and they do that. But they we would follow the testing, you know, I mean because when and if a vape is found, it's tested for THC and and we go through all that process. This the
087student come, you know, we bring the student in, do some of the questioning kind of interviewing type situation, let parents know, you know, keep parents informed. All those things would still occur. So Art kind of I I think you kind of got to what I was thinking of, which is that, you know, if you have a police officer in the school, I just would want to be very careful about the type of language we're agreeing with the police department so that we're not in a position where we're criminalizing kids for conduct that in another school would still be dealt with, diverted, redirected. >> Um, you know, that I'm just kind of curious who calls the shots then when a kid really acts out and gets really violent. at what point does that police officer have
088an obligation to say, "No, I've got to, you know, take some sort of other action beyond what's in a school handbook." Um, so I've just I know it's not all on paper yet. We're kind of still working through it, but when that's ready, that's something I'm going to want to take a hard look at to make sure that we're um considering all eventualities. >> And I have a list of of school districts who do use the SRO model. Uh, and so, you know, I'd be more than willing I' I've already reached out to a couple of them, but more than willing to reach out to them and just ask for, you know, kind of their their partnership um, agreements and and some of the language that they use, especially in the the area of discipline
089and work with teaching and learning on that as well. >> Um, I have another question and um, I mean, since Chief Owens is here, I hate to put him on the spot, but I might invite him up to the podium. if you know if you could maybe talk about um the training that an officer might go through to get them placed in a classroom and then when we do eventually you know if we we go with this model um like what is like who is that police officer? Could it be someone who's been in your in your department for 20 years who wants to get on assignment over here or would you do you think it could be someone brand new sort of what what have you seen work in other communities? Thank Thank you
090for bringing me up here. You did a fantastic job. >> Uh I'm going to back up just for a minute and uh answer I think a couple questions and I think I'll answer yours as well. Nothing's going to change. We're going to have an officer there who's going to be trained. We we are mandated by the state every year. Every officer has to have at least a minimum of 40 hours. I can tell you in Poria PD we have a lot more than 40 hours. Uh there are school resource programs. I think she touched on this a little bit. They would have to go to that before they can be a certified school resource officer. Uh we already come out to your school more than we'd like to. Uh it's not a bad thing. I
091mean it's we've all been kids before. Uh we're not coming we're not going to come out there. This is not a program to rule a school with an iron fist. All right. We come out there right now and we have people with vapes. We have or, you know, kids with vapes and and whatnot. And we ask the school principles, hey, you know, what do you want to do? And 90% of the time, we let the school district handle it. Uh, when we have a crime, uh, we will come out and handle it. Uh, it was very well put. We, it's it would be nice to have an officer on scene at school. We we drive all over town all the time and we're very busy, believe it or not. And uh that I think this
092is a fantastic idea. Uh it was talked about uh with the previous superintendent kind of went down the toilet there for a minute and uh here we are again today and I'm glad it's here. Uh my thought initially was one one school resource officer. I think if we get I think most of you have been here since for for a long time. We had one out here long long time ago uh in the late 90s and it just kind of went away. I think a lot of egos got in the way and it's kind of ruined. I think it's a great program. I think it'd be very beneficial to our department, to the school district, and to this community uh if we have the right people. We are not going to send out some fresh
093out of KOCC rookie. We I my my my thought would be an officer with at least five years of experience, they understand how we do things at when they get through that process and uh they have a little bit more maturity, I guess, for lack of a better word. But that would be my suggestion. And uh my procedure on that would would be like that. We don't allow new officers to step up and get on our SWAT team or BFT, field training officers. Uh they have to be here for a while and learn what law enforcement is all about before we let them do any of these activ, you know, special projects or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. But I just wanted to put everyone to rest on that. I know Art, I'm
094sitting back here going, "No, no, no, no, no, no." >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so I'm glad you brought that up. No, we're that that's not the intention of this at all. I you I see school districts all over the state now, you know, going to sporting events and whatnot and uh I know some SRO's and it's a wonderful program in our schools and we have a great board. We have a great school district and I think with done properly with, you know, like I said, check the egos at the door. This isn't about EPD. It's not about USD 253. It's about what's best for our school, our children, the people that work there, and this community. And I think it would make make it a lot safer. I really do. >> Yeah. Thank you.
095Questions? >> Thank you. >> Um, I just want to say I appreciate the work that's gone into this so far. I I would like to know maybe a little more about other districts comparable to ours and uh the positives and the negatives they've seen. I I've taught at both the high school and the middle school level and sometimes when even the word police officer is mentioned, they turn into the ugliest people I've ever seen. >> Yeah. >> And and I I don't want us to trigger negative impact from our students. >> Yes, I can do that. Just to clarify, and I think you've implied it, but >> this would be the same individual throughout the year. I mean, it's not come and go. >> No, absolutely not. It'd be it'd be the same person and
096that they would just I mean, each calendar year they would continue. >> Yep. Okay. Any more tonight? >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you very much. That's going to move us to item 7C, the district facility rental usage approval second reading. >> Yeah, Mr. Schwarz is going to come up and handle this one. I do want to uh clarify and note and he would probably do this as well, but we did meet earlier this week and kind of make some revisions to some of the category um costs within there. made sure that any any kind of youth organization, youth activity, all you know, down through that category C is paying zero as far as rental fees to use the space. Um, so for for our youth groups, it's pretty much down to kind of the
097way it is now. If it's being implemented the way current procedures written is if you if there's extra custodial costs, things like that, then yeah, there's a charge. um you know, but it's it's more or less recuperating any existential costs that might come as a result of the activity and not for actually renting the fees, renting the facilities. >> I might have stole some of your thunder, but >> Well, no, you're because I echo the reason why we're trying to we want to manage our have our facilities be used, but also keep them protected and longlasting in a long-lasting state. Um, so the balance I feel like as I'm listening to this is our staff want to make sure they're held accountable to keep those facilities in good order at the same time when there's
098visitors coming in and sharing that space. So it's kind of this agreement is there to help our community have access but also in a way that we can keep these looking nice. So um, since we last met there was a facility group that met late December. A few adjustments from December till now was made. Several of those were on the fee structure. I think a lot of the numbers were the very same number for a lot of those spaces and we went through and adjusted those to better fit what we felt that space would be like. Um Dr. McGee he did also mention we did change that the column that would include students which is that column C went from I think it was a 10% charge down to zero which then um allows anybody
099who has kids into the building would not have any charge. Um, I think the other piece was if there were individuals or groups that were misusing facilities, then there would be consequences, a warning, kind of a three-stage system of a warning of of making sure you're taking care of things and then, you know, a potential gap and using it all the way to not being asked to come back and reuse it to use a facility. I will chime in, Josh, because I felt like that was a a theme throughout that committee meeting was that once we kind of heard from Dayan and Bo and Matt about things that happen in their buildings, um, like especially leaving doors propped open is a huge safety concern. And um so the the whole committee really felt like if
100you've repeatedly been asked to not prop doors and you're still continuing to do that, there does need to be some kind of consequence for that. We would do that to our students, right? So we should hold our adults accountable. Same for if you make a mess >> like Boy Scouts, right? Leave no trace, Girl Scouts, leave it cleaner than you found it. Um pretty basic stuff. So yeah. um trying to really those are the the main changes um at this point ready for questions if there's any questions. >> Um I have two questions. So the first one is just to make sure I was understanding our current system correctly about the the payments for personnel because that's part of the new fee structure also. But it was not clear to me on the the current
101structure everyone was paying like the $25 for personnel. So that's the same. And has that been like consistent this year and in past years? To your knowledge? >> To my knowledge it is. I the charge would be there if there is something scheduled where we don't have somebody on staff though. >> Okay. Yes. >> So that's that part is so that there is no change on that side of things. >> Okay. And then my second question is about the categories. Sorry I have so many tabs. Okay. Um I guess maybe I am confused on C and category C and category E. Um in terms of individual youth athletic teams and leagues that is listed on E. However, it is also sort of part of C. And could you explain like I know like is it
102individual athletic teams for youth if 75% or more that pushes it from E to C? I think the E, wasn't that what we said based on Bose's feedback was like if you're hosting a tournament, like if it's a for-profit event as opposed to just a practice, then then you fall in E because it's become a a money maker for you. I thought that was how maybe they ended up there, but I could be wrong. >> I think the other piece is related to how what percent of students from Emporia are on those teams. If we have an outside group that wants to come in and use the facility that doesn't have any emporious students on that team, then there would be that they would fall in category E. >> Okay. Yes. Okay. That that's not
103clear. So, I'm glad you raised that. >> Yeah. So, I think that makes sense and that's what I thought and then I was like reading down farther onto E. I think maybe there could be some clarity there because we've all been looking at this for a while, over a month now at least, and are still confused. to maybe just for the for the whole for the people that are using it. >> Yep. >> I I have a question um going back to just actually the start. I I have a lot of questions, but we'll start with page one. So, um I love this idea that we have this these um these blocks where you can you can request usage for this range of months, but you have to put your request in by February 1st.
104Let's say for the first block. So my question is if I want to use the space um for the fall block and I have to put my request in by between February 1st and May 1st, does that mean on May 1st technically or May 2nd like all of the requests will be compiled and then they'll we'll ensure equitable access between all of the groups and all of the facilities or does it mean if I submit my form at 12:01 a.m. on February 1st, I'm in. So, I I think that is something that I've heard that it has felt a little bit inequitable in the past that um it it's who you know and how you say it and when you do it. And so, it's left a lot of people out in the cold. So,
105I just want to I would prefer a process where they all get collected and then distributed at the same time to ensure that that equal access as opposed to first come first request first serve because some people just don't know sometimes. >> So, more of a a lottery. Okay, here's a window that's open. It's a somewhat of a lottery or seeing what things would fit. >> Yeah. Maybe not a lottery because that's more random. But let's say that my baseball team wants to practice in, you know, in the Jones Center Monday through Sunday, you know, um, every night at 700 p.m. And so I don't I shouldn't put my request first and then get it because what if Jeremy comes along and he actually just wants it Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m., you know,
106so how do we make sure the most people can use it instead of just a few? So that's I so went that clarified how how that would look. >> Okay. >> And I would also be careful there because when you're at the point of I agree with what you're saying, but we need a process. Guy got me thinking about processes earlier. You have to have a process otherwise it can still become who you know and who's favored and who's not when you have a you know a clutch of these applications then you have to balance out which one to pick. So just keeping that in mind too so it doesn't you know cause the same issue. Yeah. I was just going to say, you know, we've we've gotten a number of emails from community members
107and uh I just want to acknowledge that I see participation in activities as a key to students achievement. So, you know, I I do want to limit barriers as much as possible so we do get increased engagement. And like people have said, we're we're still a pretty good size school, but we're not seeing the turnout of our kids in these activities. And so any barriers that this presents, whether it's lack of clarity or um even even if even if it's clear to you, but maybe not clear to somebody else, if we could simplify it somehow, um you know, if if A, B, and C are not being charged, can we just have one instead of three? Yeah. So, I would really like to see this simplified down and and then brought back to us and
108and that, you know, with these changes that we heard, which I think are some good changes, >> that might give us a little time to to get some more feedback from the community now that they've seen these changes and like, okay, I'm I'm okay with this change. And then I still have this concern about the scheduling piece, which I know is not going to change overnight. The other thing is I would it just highlights how much our buildings are used all the time. So, um I just want to create awareness for our buildings are being used like every night and and and it's going to be hard to say, oh, this team gets Jones at this time and then we have if we had a lot of teams, what are we going to people are
109going to be left out >> and it's going to be easy to feel that way. So, um, you know, we we have a lack of gym space and and just space for activities and and we're talking about sports, but there's a lot of, you know, things that could go on in those spaces. So, uh, I do want to encourage people to help maintain our space, take care of it. Um, we we've just finished our bond, so we have some really nice spaces and and it's so important that we take care of it. So um and then you know just being as flexible as we can and and that's the other thing that's a little you know we're trusting that this is going to be done with a hightouch customer service to make sure everybody's as
110happy as we can make everybody but also um being flexible because we do hear stories well this building's not as friendly as giving this space out and I understand that especially if you got a nice new space at the middle school and you want take care of it as much as you can. >> You want to maybe try to limit the use a little bit so it's just not beat down right away. So, um, but those those attention to that detail I think is very important. >> I um I I guess I'm kind of new to this discussion and I I love that I love that community groups and use can use our facilities. I think I think it's essential. At the same time I'm wondering is there something is there a piece included so
111that if our teams our students in school activities need the place I mean how do we know we can schedule ahead and then you know we have a horrific winter and our kids need to be doing evening practices inside or whatever. I um believe the policy is written or this process is written where the our school teams would take priority over over any other scheduled. >> Okay. So that is even if the other teams have been given other groups have been given the go-ahhead to use it on a specific night. believe someone if I defer to Nathan's in the audience still >> I mean I think in that situation we I mean if if we need the space because we've had some sort of a cancellation or whatever we're rescheduling for our student activities we
112would just communicate as friendly as possible to whomever has that space um reserved just to let them know you know based based on our procedures and processes you know our our our our activities come first and they would just they would not have the space that the particular time our our activities would take precedent. >> Thank you. >> And I think what would be important is to make sure that type of information is on the um the basic forms they're filling out when they're requesting the space, right? Give people proper notice that yeah, we're going to try to give you advanced notice, but then the blizzard happens and we didn't plan for the weather, right? Uh we have to set expectations otherwise people will then get upset about it. I wanted to just add to,
113you know, what Art said was I think and and Dayan would agree because we've been on this committee from the beginning. every single person on that committee, the the intention this whole time has just been consistency for how you rent facilities and how we charge fees and that we would never ever because I mean like Amanda Gutierz is on there, you know, and like people who are involved with you sports in so many ways and the intent was never ever to limit participation or discourage people from using the facilities. It was really just always just to have an actual consistent policy that was being enforced across the district. >> So just to clarify uh with the revision that you all recently made today or yesterday kids if there are USD 253 kids they will not
114be charged for facilities. Correct. >> Full stop. >> Correct. >> Okay. That's really important to me. So I'm I'm glad to just wanted to really just get that get that said. So and then the other one and I think this goes to art. The other question I have it goes to what Art was saying is that um you know we need equitable and efficient use of district facilities. And so how do we like implement this from like the district level to make sure there's equal access between the buildings that this is all enforced at the same time? Because I mean I look at the people who are going to be administering this and it's you know our um it's our building secretaries. I've worked closely with um Shill at the high school and she has
115always been a dream to work with to to use those facilities. So I've really appreciate how she's managed. It's the only facility I've ever used after hours. Just want to say that. Um but then I also look at some of these fees like $5 and I'm like our staff's time is pretty valuable to be writing invoices for $5. So, I I don't know. It that's where I'm just kind of give a posit I posit some of these fees because um what do they say? Is the juice worth worth the squeeze? And that just feels like that might be one of them. Is is the juice worth the squeeze when it's just for so little? Because I don't think any of us want to make money off of this. We just want to recover some of
116the expenses. I also haven't I don't and not that we need to be super clear on it, but that was another thing is I'm not sure how the billing, you know, is it a billing process? Is it going to funnel through the business office, which we already know is being taxed quite a bit right now? Um, so how does that how would that work? Do our building secretaries know across the district about this yet? Um, have we got their input? Just some of those are my concerns on that. >> Yeah. From an implementation standpoint, um the current year that we're in, we were leaving the same process in place. So the reservations for the summer, for example, that window of time between um December 1st, I believe, until February or March would have been for
117the summer. So our picture was to start this in the summer and in the meantime kind of keep things status quo until we get till next year which gave us also time to work through some of these questions and um process kind of things. So currently there's a form that would be filled out. The building secretaries would collect the fees and then send those to district office. Um and then um yeah so really each building's in charge of making sure those collections are taking place on that end. And and I I do feel like it's kind of a it'd be a tough task to try to manage all these requests and I I think it'd be worthwhile to see if there's some sort of software that has a calendar and can you know has a
118form that people can fill out so we get the same information from everybody and >> I don't know if we already have something like that but >> with an online payment system. >> Yes, exactly. We do not at this time. But um another part from a training standpoint, this has come up in our district leadership team with principles just to here's this policy. Um where are we at currently? What does implementation look like? How do we do this consistently? Those kind of questions. So I feel like we would continue to revisit this until and part of this is just sharing between buildings calibrating to make sure everyone's doing it the same way just through conversation even. Um Leslie, what you said about like talking to you know the building secretaries who have to implement this
119and what it would look like made me also think you know um Mr. Welch has formed or has had meetings with um a lot of the youth coaches um and trying to like build that relationship so we can all get kids more involved in in our in our activities and athletics and I wonder if maybe we could get feedback from them on this as well. I mean they're this the they are the stakeholders who will be impacted by this. But maybe he could take it to that group and and get some feedback as well. I I know um what jumped out at me and just listening to your questions and comments, you know, one of the things we've tried to accomplish here is to avoid any particular group just putting a blanket reservation on a
120space and it's just to infinity, right? And so we're trying to work on access. Um, I would be interested in talking with the folks that are actually um processing this now to to think about what would it look like if we just collected everything for a period of time for that next block. And then there was a process to go through and try to make sure everyone, you know, was accommodated. You'd you're going to have some conflicts. So then you have to start talking to people about hey and and you could you could keep track of when things come in so that when you have a conflict you know you might have to go to okay first first come because they wanted the same space at the same time and we don't have any way
121to get around it. But I think that's that's kind of some of the work that I would like to see us do is is how how could we collect them and then work out a process to be fair to where everyone gets a space. it might not have been their first choice, but that every every every kid has a place to practice or whatever it might be that is happening. >> And I I don't want to prolong the discussion, but uh Leslie mentioned the issue with propping the doors. So, our facilities are secure. So, to be able to get in, you have to have the little fob or whatever. And so if you got parents dropping off kids for practice and the doors locked, you know, what's a reasonable way that we can get kids
122and parents and who are coming for the next 15 20 minutes to get into that building and so it it is a challenge. So I think we have to think about that if we want to change that behavior. >> Yeah. >> We have to >> Yeah. understand a door holder like kindergarten. >> Oh >> yeah. Somebody gets to be the door. You're prop on the door. Yeah. >> Oh no. I love >> we have a little you bring your little brother sisters. Now I >> I love the chore chart in kindergarten. That was the best. You know, um one idea that as I was sort of reading through this was, you know, making sure our buildings are cleaned up, that they safe, that no one's propping the doors open and leaving them is like what
123if we looked at more of a deposit system? So, let's say a baseball team or I'll say not baseball, we'll say basketball team wanted to use our facilities and we just could charge them a deposit and then if everything goes well, they get their deposit back and if it doesn't go well, we get to keep the deposit which is you know what it's for. So, just trying to think of ways to be more flexible to hold everyone accountable to keep our buildings clean, safe, secure, um but you know making sure there's skin in the game. So, so currently there is a a $100 deposit and felt like that is creating a barrier for people using the facility. Um, also places a dollar amount or a check in a envelope for a secretary to keep track
124of which from a process in which is why we shifted to like the three strike piece. If you're not going to take care of things, we'll just you just you won't be able to use it rather than trying to keep track of money that was deposited those kind of things. So, it that one we've worked through a bit. I feel like it's we got quite a few complaints just from our internal staff just on this isn't making sense kind of thing. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um, I would just like to say like I really appreciate hearing everyone's comments and our questions that at least for me that none of this was ever about restricting access or that we I'm I'm hearing from all of us that we do value the sports and activities
125that our students are participating in and we just want what's going to be an efficient process to manage this whole system because it's a lot of buildings and a lot of people and moving parts and it has never been about our students and access to the facilities. >> So, I motion we table this vote until uh potentially the next meeting. >> I second the table. >> Does that work for a tableling or do we even motion to table? >> Do we Yeah. >> Okay. >> I I didn't get the answer. Do Do we need to vote on this or we don't? >> Okay. So, >> can we just say a future meeting date and not the next meeting? Could would you accept that amendment to your motion? >> Did you? >> Yes. >> Because just
126with some of the questions we asked and some of the feedback, there might need to be more time. >> Yeah. Casey, do you need to fix the for their amendment? >> I amended um instead of the next meeting and just a future meeting. So that that way the team has more time to compile the data, get the feedback. Should be good now. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. I don't know if that works or not. >> Oh, maybe I need to close and reopen. Do you want me to do that? >> Or we can do a hand vote. >> Okay, that's fine. >> All in favor? Motion passes 70. >> All right. Thank you. And thank you for the work on that. And I'm sorry it's not >> Yeah. >>
127Okay. Uh the next item is going to be ADA board reports. We had our January meeting for the tech college on Monday. Uh we opened with a um recap of our great colleges to work for survey. This was our fourth year completing that survey and um the tech college had a I think a 73% SP response rate is pretty darn um good. uh some identified some challenges, some good things uh to work toward and um approved an RFP for a mobile dental unit. I thought that meant they were going to going to do like dental work in the van, but it's more going to places to provide dental hygiene, which is still really great for a community our size. Um just a Yeah, good meeting. >> All right. All right. I think I'm next for
128the rec commission. Um we didn't have a whole lot to probably report on for this meeting um for December. Um we are um looking at a partnership um to install trying to say this white right there solar charging benches with Wi-Fi. Now there's a grant for it um where we would be responsible direct commission would be responsible for the cost of the Wi-Fi. Um but then we would have a place outside that people could sit and they could use Wi-Fi for. And you know uh we had some more questions about that. We're working out the language, but it's a good opportunity. It's funded for a finite amount of time and and frankly, people are coming to public spaces and using the Wi-Fi anyways. You know, give them a place to sit. Um, so we were
129looking at that. Um, doing some research too on our credit card processing fees. Um, not exactly the same thing as cost containment, but the rec commission a while back had looked at um how much we were paying collectively when you know we have a credit card swipe or an online transaction because you get charged something for that transaction and it's one of those hidden costs, right? you don't actually you get big eyes when you actually total it up and look at it. So, we've been looking at some different um vendors and that's still in process. And then of course our um never- ending adventure with the pool. Um we had uh commissioned a potential study. Well, we didn't commission it yet, I don't think. We had um gotten a quote for it and we're still
130having some discussion about what to do with those structural problems with that pool um and whether that's worth the expense or not considering what we already know. Um, it's, you know, you guys have heard me talk about the pool a lot. It's kind of a big issue for us. Um, as some of you know, there was a lawsuit filed, um, I think, um, sometime last month, actually. Um, nothing substantially has happened on that yet, so there's nothing to report about it. It's still just in a very early stage. Uh, that's it for the rec commission. >> Can I add something quickly? Um I was invited to attend the governor's state of the state address last night and la she announced that she is supporting a statewide reduced price copay for reduced price um reduced price
131meals copay and it just made me proud because we've led the way as a school district and so again I hope that we'll be able to see this throughout the state. So I just wanted to praise us for being awesome. >> Thank you. Uh item 8B, resolution 2026-1, establishing regular board of education meeting time and place for 2026. >> Do you want me to speak to this? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, please. >> Okay. Um, you know, we we've talked in the past about um the potential of working our way toward one regular board meeting a month in the future. And um what I've tried to propose here for the board's consideration is a a hybrid version of that idea. And again, you know, from from the perspective of those who are working in the district
132and and processing items and preparing for board meetings, it get it becomes a challenge for us and you in particular um to, you know, every every week you either have a board meeting or you're agenda reviewing for a board meeting. And so you breathe a sigh of of relief on those months that have five weeks because that's when you can take vacation. And so, uh, it's it it becomes a little bit of a challenge that way. And then just just processing the items. Um, you you you start to feel like you're just chasing chasing board meetings from time to time. Um, I have been in in districts where we've been able to accomplish our business in one month. I think that we can be in one meeting a month. I think we could be that
133efficient here. And it it's an opportunity. I'd like to take the opportunity, if you were to choose to go this direction, to be able to have more extensive in-depth work sessions quarterly on key topics. And so, um, you know, what would happen if you were to adopt this hybrid calendar that's uh, you know, a part of your a part of your resolution would be things would operate as as as they always have through May of this year. And then in June, our second regular board meeting would become a full day work session and retreat that the board would uh and and I would want to involve our superintendent's leadership team in that retreat and just really dig into to some issues in including by then we'd be digging into you know where are we on
134some of our of our business operations as far as action plans there. um July we would remove the second meeting and only have one meeting in July. In August our first meeting we would we would have have our all the regular meetings would would end up being on the second the second Wednesday. So the first Wednesday of that month um we would have a work session specifically associated with finance and budget. So rather than trying to handle that as a part of a board meeting or for a quick add-on to the front end of a board meeting and making a real long night, um really dig in to uh to our finances and budget um in August prior to all of the approvals that have to occur. Um September we would remove a meeting. So
135you'd only you would only meet once in September. In October, our second your your second meeting would become um a regular annual um student student success student achievement um work session. Again, something more in depth. You know, two and a half to three hours of just focusing on how you know how are we doing and what are what are we doing to get better and and and you know, looking through our metrics there, not just state testing. Um November and December, we already only have one meeting, so no change there. um you're not approving it at this time because this would only go through December, but you know, if you if you were to roll around and look at if we continued this moving forward, um kind of the the impact it would have um
136the one thing that doesn't show up here that I did reference in the in the speaking points um in the item is that there's another work session that we would have um in February um that isn't shown on this particular map on this particular um document and that would be uh what's the federal strategic plan monitoring and so we that's where we would dig into what are those board action steps that we've agreed upon what what what are the things that we're working on within our strategic plan and really dig in for an extended period on uh how we're doing there and are there any revisions that we need to be making moving forward to to address the needs of the district. So, kind of moving to four more more extensive conversations about critical areas
137in the school district, but you know, again, eliminating a few regular business meetings of the board over the course of that time. I won't be offended if you don't go this direction. It's not personal to me. I just feel like uh in the long run it would uh make us more efficient and then also give us um more time without scheduling more meetings to dig into some key issues over the course of the year. I >> I think when we initially talked about this there was a concern that we would need to adjust some policies for this to work. Have we >> Yeah. And I don't think you I don't think you you have to formally adjust a policy, but we would want to go in and just clarify some language to to show that
138I mean there are some activities that occur from from meeting to meeting like like um you know a lot a lot of times on the classified side of employees you need to hire people you know and you don't want to wait for another full month to start those individuals. And so we would want to clarify some language and policy that that would state that, you know, we're able to start those individuals on a pro probationary status with them being formally hired. There there's already some of that language in in in our procedures, but because we're meeting every other week, it's it's rare that we would we would actually implement it, but uh I think that can be clarified some as long as the board is okay with that, you know. So if we needed to
139hire a custodian, you know, 3 days after a meeting and it's going to be another, you know, 3 and a half, four weeks before we meet again, we would start the custodian. They would understand that it's a probationary status and their hiring becomes official when the board acts. >> Yeah. Um I would also kind of in the same vein just think about like reimbursements for employees especially and making sure that we're seeing those, you know, every single month to make sure that those get paid out. >> We we We if we're if we're asking you to do this, then we need to become efficient and effective on our end as well. And so, you know, we can't let a board meeting pass where a bill should have been paid. And it's no big deal because
140we're going to pay it in two weeks. It is a big deal if you're going to pay it in a month. >> And so, we have to be on top of things as well from our from our perspective. >> Yeah. I I mean I will support this because I said to you um when you started talking about it, I said, "Well, I let's keep our normal schedule the first part of the year and then try something different in the second half of the year." So, I'm willing to try something different the second half of the year. Um my only question is November 11th is Veterans Day and would we actually have a board meeting on a holiday? I mean, I'm okay with it, but you know, but I know that our schools are probably closed
141so That would be the second >> that's just the standard second Wednesday. >> Yeah, but if but we're probably closed as a district. We're open on >> Oh, yeah. You're right. It's just a student day. >> Okay. Then I'm fine with it. >> Um >> I just wanted to flag it. >> Go ahead, Jamie. >> Um I'm also kind of like on the fence. I would say I'm not opposed to this idea. Um, I like the idea of having these work sessions where we can really dig in and focus on specific topics. I do hesitate and please know, Dr. McGee, I've been thinking about this all night. I don't mean to be snarky. I just am very um attuned to the fact that we have sat here for nearly two hours and have yet to
142really address anything to do with students and their outcomes and their success. That this has been basically a businessonly meeting. And I worry that in the future, maybe not necessarily this year, but should this calendar roll into next fall and into 2027, that we will lose sight of having opportunities to talk about how the work we do really affects students. And those of you that I've been on the board with for a while now know that I do get frustrated when meetings go by that we haven't addressed what is happening with the most important people in that we serve, and those are our students. So, I think that's my my concern. um primarily has to do with that. Um and I I certainly don't want the community to view this as the board is doing
143less work. I think we're just consolidating the same amount of work into less days, but I am aware of the potential optics for this decision as well. >> Yeah. And we wouldn't we we wouldn't I mean Casey and aren't working behind the scenes to say what can we not do in the future that we do from from month to month now. It's just a matter of consolidating things. Um, and I I agree with your frustration on not getting to uh I I wish I had more time to deal with student issues and student achievement issues right now, too. It just kind of is where where um our time is being spent right now. Um it's being being pulled away from that. The right people are focusing and doing doing that work. uh we will we
144will have uh coming up in February we'll come back to the needs assessment piece and start and that definitely will start you know bring back in you know what how are we doing on our metrics there and what is what did our needs assessment show us you'll recall that I wanted to kind of really really start to to um rework not rework but just uh deepen our strategic plan based on you know needs assessment and other things that we we are learning about ourselves that's kind of fallen behind the schedule because of cost containment. Um, but I I hear you and I'm sensitive to the fact that we need to be focused on students as well. Um, but know that we will still be trying to address as all all of the topics that the
145board would have traditionally addressed over the course of a year. >> Of course. Of course. And please don't take my comments as I'm not I am supportive of this and I do know that you have been putting a lot of work into this. So, I do appreciate that and I know that you have not done this without, you know, you've been very intentional um with your motivations behind this. I know you put a lot of thought into it. >> Yep. I don't I don't take any offense to any of it. I I the whole reason I mean it's like tonight we knew I I had a pretty good feeling that we were going to table facility usage but I wanted it on the agenda because we need to have the conversations because from our perspective
146those of us that are trying to uh serve in our leadership capacities um you know we have to have these conversations and and and get this feedback from the board in order to do our work >> a board that follows the rules. The only place we ever get to have these discussions is right here. Yes. >> We don't get to send emails to each other. We don't get to have exact sections. whatever we want to and just talk about stuff. So yeah, I mean it was the right move to leave it on there. We had to talk about it and it was a good discussion like this one. So if anyone I think the biggest thing for me is it's just not what we're used to. But that's okay. So does anyone have anything else
147before we motion to approve? >> Go ahead. >> I'm okay to try it. Um I don't see any harm in it. I mean, I do appreciate that we have more work sessions because some of the most productive times I think we've had together have been when we've had, you know, the sit down here, we get lunch or dinner or something and we really hash out something as a group. Um, and so I think that actually kind of balances it out a little bit. Um, I although I am, you know, wondering if we're punishing ourselves and we're going to end up having like four or five hour meetings. Um, but you know, if so, we signed up for it. Um, so I will move to approve resolution 2026-1 establishing regular board of education meeting time in
148place for 26 as submitted. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. Item 8 C, resolution 2026-2, extend term of board officers. >> I move to approve resolution 2026-2 to extend the term of board officers as submitted. moved and seconded. Any discussion hearing? None. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thanks for that. >> Item 8 8 D, board representation to committees for 2026. >> I'm going to let Casey jump in here as needed to uh help facilitate this one. Okay, you guys have given me a little bit of feedback on who may be interested and there's some notes in there for you guys on board docs. Um, but we're going to go through these one at a time and you just decide who
149you want to appoint to these and then we'll approve them as the revised copy and I'll update it on board docs once that's finished. Um, the Flint Hills Technical College Board will continue with Leslie. She's good until 20 of 29. Um, the Rec Commission, we have Jeremy Dorsy, Dayan Fischer, and Josh Schwarz. They are good for um 2029 and Jeremy's 2028 I believe. So we don't need to do anything on that one. The next one up is JDAC. It's the Joint Economic Development Advisory Council. Grant Ri has been on this board. Nobody said they were interested. Um so it's open for whoever would like it. It's a 7 a.m. on a Wednesday board meeting day. Just so you know. >> You want to redo it again, Grant? >> I can do it. the the board
150itself. Um we had a meeting early this morning. Um they're they're kind of realigning or trying to determine what their purpose is if they want to re I don't know how what the right word is for it but um I am willing to do it but I if somebody else is hankering to do it that's okay too. >> And this is another discussion that Dr. McGee and I had today. Is it necessary to have someone on this board? Um, it it's not a forced thing. You could just opt to not have anyone on there. It's up to you guys. Dr. McGee, he does go. >> Grant Grant may Grant may love those 7 a.m. meetings on on board meeting day, but I I I you know, I will share unfortunately um they haven't been super
151productive in the first six months that I've been attending. uh we just finally had a good dialogue on you know should we even exist and and it was kind of an agreed that it should exist uh but talking about how it overlaps with RDA or doesn't um I don't want to see JDA go away because um as we noted this morning myself and the CEO of the hospital um are the two in JDAC that aren't participating in RDA haven't been a asked to participate in RDA. So, so I think it still has some relevance for us, but uh Grant would have to tell you whether he thinks that it's important for him to to sit around that table or not. It's not super productive. >> I I would be willing, but >> Well, Grant, I
152don't think I see you that you've put your name as interested in anything else. Is there a different committee you would be interested in? >> Not for J. Like if you didn't want to be on Jac, if you if you could swap out with someone, I guess >> it's okay to leave me on there. >> Okay. It sounds like >> I'm happy to do it if you want out, but I'm happy for you to do it. >> Okay. Um, intraspace bargaining, the IBB, we usually have a representative and an alternate. Jamie was the uh representative this year and Leslie was the alternate. They both said they are willing to stay. Does anybody else want to uh or is anybody else interested? Nope. Okay, moving on. KB convention delegate Lillian has been that for two years,
153right, Lillian? >> No, >> for four years. >> Four years. Time flies when you're having fun. >> So, if someone else wants it, it's a pretty easy lift. Happy to pass it on. >> It looks like you are it again. All righty. Uh, board policy review committee. This is also a fun one. And Lillian is down for it. Is anybody else interested? Nobody's jumping. Okay, Lillian will keep it. Um, wellness committee. Um, Dr. Jennifer Thomas was on that board and I think she's going to continue with the wellness company but in a different capacity. Um, Barbara has mentioned that she's interested. Unless anybody else has any interest, we'll assign her her first committee. Okay. Um the last one is insurance committee. This one used to have one representative. We added two I think it was
154last year and we have Art and Jeremy year before two years now. >> Jeremy and I >> That's right. Okay. And do you guys want to stay? >> Yeah, I'm fine with that. >> Okay. Everybody good with the revisions that we have? No revisions except for the one adding Barbara. Okay. I'll get that changed. Um, there is a motion in there, please. >> I move to approve the annual appointments as revised. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Uh item 9A is superintendent report. >> I'll try to be brief. Um but I do want to recognize some some folks in the district. Uh congratulations to Alyssa McHugh. She's a fourth grade teacher at Walnut Elementary. Uh she was selected as
155a 2026 Kansas Horizon Award recipient. So she's in her second year. So she was nominated for this in her first year. the award is given in your second year if you actually receive it. She's one of only 32 educators statewide to receive the uh Horizon award. And so very proud of her. We uh a lot of us went out to Walnut Elementary the other day and and Commissioner Dr. Randy Watson um called on on uh Jamie Dacon, the principal's cell phone, and we handed it over to Alyssa and she had no idea what was happening and uh he shared that news with her. um in front of her students and they were very excited as well. Got some pictures of her with her students. So proud proud of her. Um, I I will just reference
156one more time, we've talked about this before, but I got a chance to actually go see A Piece of my heart down in Witchah on Saturday that our theater students uh put on, and I can say that it brought me to tears at time both for the subject matter, which I really appreciate um Amanda Ballard and her willingness to take on tough subject matter and this and this district for allowing her to do it because in some places things like like this might get controversial and political. and I appreciate that that you allow her to do that. Um, but it was just also some tears of just pure pride in being a part of the school district that was out there doing it. It's not a lot of of uh, you know, hoopla and show
157type of production. It's true acting and and I was just amazed at the emotions that the the kids were able to u exhibit within themselves as they acted out uh these various roles of uh primarily these these females working you know in in in Vietnam through in their nursing capacities and so on. And so just very proud of them and wanted to let you know about that. Um we referenced Dr. Thomas staying involved in wellness. She actually uh wrote a grant for us and the uh Emporia Community Foundation uh approved that grant to have a vitality workshop that's going to happen this Saturday uh January 17th from 9 to 3. I'll be here participating in that as well. Um we they were hoping to get 75 people to sign up and like they met their
158capacity of 120 really quick and accepted 15 more. I'm sorry to say I was one of the 15 because it filled up so fast I didn't get registered and when I went in to register it wouldn't let me and so uh I they they gave me a special exception which I appreciate. So there are 135 folks signed up for this and uh I I think it's going to be you know it'll probably end up you know if we can if we can find funding for it on an annual basis it's something we should do more often and we were we were this all came about from you know the board's approval of us going to that partially self-funded health insurance and just the importance of us being wise consumers when it comes to our health
159and uh and and so that kind of sparked the interest in this and and we're looking forward to that Just quickly, cost containment meet team met again earlier this month. Uh the rooms are just continuing to uh you know decide what to move forward, what not to move forward as far as the feedback to the to the leadership team and uh they're they're doing the hard work right now. They they'll come back in next week and start to uh prioritize things on uh you know, they're going to get to that point where they're going to be in those this or that conversations. I call that the 67 conversation, right? That's what the kids call it now. And so I I get to you I get to use it, right? But they're at that they're at
160that point where they're going to have to be having some of those kinds of conversations and reaching some consensus in their room as to what what they can live with moving forward and what they just can't live with moving forward. Um and then eventually on that last meeting in in uh February, we'll uh come together in this room as a whole group and uh get their final consensus on feedback. The goal then will be to take that feedback and uh I'm hoping to be able to present kind of a preliminary, you know, draft of just the feedback because a lot of a lot of you haven't been, you know, there's three of you participating directly, but it's like everybody else is like, hm, you know, do I am I getting enough information? Do I have
161the full picture? And so I what even before we're ready to make a a formal recommendation for you to consider on directing us yes move forward with these items I I just want to give you a good recap of what what's kind of happened and and uh what what things are on the list that we're considering um moving forward. So hoping to do that at the second uh February meeting and then come back in March with some approvals. we can't really wait past March because we've got to start thinking about HR and the job that they might have ahead of them as well with regard to staffing. Um the note about legislative session um obviously began this week. Uh we were getting some notifications about cell phone ban bills. We talked about the fact that
162that would be coming up. So uh there are some hearings there. There were supposed to be hearings on the Senate bill and the House bill this this week, but the House bill one got cancelled. There is a Senate bill hearing uh for Senate Bill 302. The committee will hear that um tomorrow. And um I put some information in there about those bills and how they differ. And you know, some of our some of our concerns. I mean, one, we'd like to be making our own decisions here within the district when it comes to what we're going to do with cell phones. But then in these bills, there are some logistical challenges with regard to how you're going to secure phones through the day to where students don't have access. And then I in particular think
163about our open open campus lunch and you know you're going to have to deal possibly deal with cell phones more than once a day with with because I don't think that you could keep a kid's cell phone while they drive off you know to go to lunch. You you I think once they're off campus you'd have to but maybe we can't give it back to them. I don't know how this bill is specifically going to come out. So, we do have some concerns about the logistics and then uh the the other uh this the Senate concurrent resolution on property tax values that could you know have a long-term impact on revenues for entities like school districts and uh you know I think that the the maybe the un unpersceived consequence of capping property values could
164could ultimately cause entities to have to increase their mill levies. to, you know, counter the losses in revenue because of the, you know, you you have projections into the future on what kinds of mill levies you need to pay back bond and interest, for example. And then if all of a sudden your values aren't doing what you based your trends on, you may have to adjust the levies to make up for it. So, there are some unintended consequences sometimes that just need to be thought through. And uh so, we'll keep track of that. and and uh you know I will chime in and advocate with our our uh senators and representatives u when necessary. I did I did um communicate with our state board representative on uh on a on a on a AB therapy
165issue that had to deal had to deal with uh some special education IDA issues this week that uh they were considering. Um, she did vote in the direction that I hoped that she would, but it didn't go in the direction that we'd hoped that it would. But I did I did appreciate that exchange and and I feel like develop developed a a relationship over the course of that that that will help us moving forward. Um, think that's it for me. >> All right. Thank you for that update. Uh, that's going to move us to item 10A, executive session personnel. I move we go into executive session for I'm going to give us all a fivem minute bathroom break. 20 minutes to discuss personnel matters of non-elected personnel in order to protect the privacy interest of
166the individual to be discussed and to return to this room at 8:31 p.m. Superintendent Dr. David McGee, Director of Human Resources Dr. Erica Mickelson, and KASB Attorney Lorie Cop are invited to join the session. Action is anticipated. >> Second. It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes. 70. Mic check. Mic check. One, two. >> Test. Test. It's working. >> They're on. >> He said they are on. >> Okay. I move that the board of education terminate the employment of Gary Croucher effective January 15, 2026 based on violations of board policy in the terms and conditions of employment as presented and discussed in executive session and authorize a superintendent to take all necessary actions to implement this decision. Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. >> Motion passes 70.
167>> Okay, that's going to bring us to future board calendar dates. Item 11A. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, January 28th. Uh it'll be a special meeting that we have at the high school where we meet with StuCo and that'll begin at 5:00 with our normal meeting to begin at 700 p.m. in the school library. Uh following that and we will have our February 11th meeting and our February 25th meeting. And I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. Second. Okay. >> Please cast your votes. Motion passes 7 0