001to adopt the agenda, please. >> I move to adopt the agenda as presented. >> Second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. That takes us to not only the program highlight, but I'm sure the highlight of the evening with our student empowerment through stream CKH in le leg legal leaders. Come on down. All right. Well, I just want to first thank the board of education for having us join you tonight. I have some pretty awesome uh students up here joining us. This is our village elementary school eagle leaders. So kind of like our student council group. So I will go ahead and let them step up and introduce themselves. Hello. Thank you for inviting us to speak to you about the great things happening
002in our school. I'm going to introduce everyone here with me today. Please wave when I say your name. Camila, Marley, Kinley, Blake, and any other Eagle leaders in the audience. Please give a wave. And I am Lucille. Our presentation this evening is designed in the Excel format from Capturing Kids Hearts that all of our teachers use to teach us every day. We are going to start by asking you a few simple yes or no questions. If you agree, hold up your green eagle. If you disagree, hold up your red eagle. I feel empowered when I have enough background information to make confident decisions. I feel empowered when decisions seem predetermined before board discussion happens. I feel empowered when my suggestions are overlooked or dismissed without consideration. I feel empowered when I can ask questions without
003feeling judged. I feel good when I feel empowered. Would one of you be willing to share a good thing about how our school district is empowering students? >> I think that when our students come to meetings like this and present to us and tell us about the amazing things they're doing every day, that that is a great way to empower our students. >> Thank you for sharing. We agree that students all over USD253 are being empowered each and every day, especially at Village. Today, we are highlighting just a few ways that village students are being empowered. This year on our world changers stream day, we learned about inventions that have changed the world, including rockets, forensic science techniques, airbags, and even vacuums. During school, we learned the science behind how all of these things work.
004And on parent night, we were able to teach our parents by leading them through all the experiments. It was so fun to show our parents what we learned. And my personal favorite was seeing all the adults get vacuum sealed. For the past two years, we have had a village parade on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. While we have helped make the float in the past, this year they are turning us loose to plan from scratch. Third, fourth, and fifth graders are researching countries where village students were born, given a budget to order supplies, and designing the floats for our parade. Kindergarten, first, and second graders get to vote on their favorite designs that we will end up making, and we are planning fun activities for them to do with us on that day. All of us
005here today are eager leaders, which means we were selected by our peers and teachers to represent our school. A few ways we are empowered as leaders is by welcoming students and staff to our building each day, speaking to the whole school at our capturing kids hearts assemblies, managing the school recycling, presenting information to our class, and reporting back to our group. As representatives of our school, we are planning and completing service projects each month that correlate to our capturing kids hearts character traits. For empathy, we finished a project that our whole school started on on our Earth Hour stream day. Using Walmart sacks, we handwo some waterproof mats that will be donated to a homeless shelter. For self-direct, we have started collecting book donations and preparing a cabinet to create village's very own free little
006library. This will provide a place for people to donate books that they have outgrown and get new books to enjoy free of charge. This is all on people's honor system so they can self-direct themselves to only take what they need and give what they do not need anymore. We also hope that it will empower students to find books that they enjoy and encourage more reading. We have some great ideas for the upcoming months and can't wait to continue coming up with ways to serve our school and community. One of our jobs as eagle leaders has been to empower our classmates by giving them a voice in what goes on at Village. Each of us led our class in a discussion about the things that we love about village and the things that we need to
007improve or do more of in our school. We created a master list to find the common trends. Our next step is to present our school's building leadership team BLT. We want to tell them the things that village students love about our school and also bring them some realistic ideas for improvement. With approval from BLT, we hope to begin some things immediately, but we'll then likely need to reach out to our PTO families or community to help make some of the bigger ideas happen. We will pass the torch to our next group of Eagle Leaders, and the goal is that by the end of the year, we will implement all of our student suggestions. As elected officials, the board is empowered to make decisions that affect all USD 253 students. Thank you for being the voice
008of all of us. Would all village eagle leaders join us in the front of the room? While they are coming up, do you have any questions? What questions do we have this evening? I'm interested to know who's building your little free library for you. Are are you building that yourselves or is somebody's parents helping you? So, um we technically got it off we got it off of someone and we're just we're we're the ones that are decorating it. >> Well, I have a question. I love your float idea and that you've been let loose to create the design that you want. So, how what is your budget for your floats? Uh, our budget is $75. Any other questions this evening for this great group of leaders? Okay, if that's all, thank you very much. Wonderful
009job. You have something else? >> Thank you again for empowering us to share some of the things we are doing in our school. It is now time to end the presentation with our launch. Every equal leader meeting ends the same way with our chant that encourages us to do our best in everything we do. We invite everyone here on board or in the audience to join us. Repeat after me. >> Repeat after me. >> Good, better, best. >> Never let it rest. Till your good is your better. >> Till your good is your better. >> And your better is your best. >> Take a bow. Wonderful job, Eagle Leaders. Thank you so much. >> Great job, Eagle Leaders. I do want to make sure that I uh name one more person who is instrumental in
010making sure that our eagle leaders um are taken care of. Uh Chelsea Evans is our Eagle Leader coordinator who works with these students every week. So, a big thank you to her and great job everybody and thank you parents for joining us as well. >> That was amazing. Thank you so much. Okay, thanks again friends. See you later. Item 3B, presentation of the proclamation for American Education Week. Yes. Is Connie here? >> Oh, there she is. I was looking all over for you, Connie. Whereas public schools are the backbone of our democracy, providing young people with the tools they need to maintain our nation's precious values of freedom, ci civility, and equality. And whereas education support professionals are integral to the education process. And whereas education support professionals provide a safe and healthy learning environment
011for students. And whereas education support professionals work tireless tirelessly to serve our children and communities with care and professionalism. Now therefore, Archetteras serving as president of the Emporia Board of Education with the assistance of Leslie Silly, vice president of the Emporia Board of Education do hereby proclaim November 19th as National Education Support Professionals Day and recognize and acknowledge the importance of education support professionals in our public schools. Thank you, Connie, and thank you, Jamie. That takes us to 3C, recognition of the third annual Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. The Emporia Board of Education would like to recognize Kansas's third annual Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day on November 14th, 2025. We encourage everyone to participate by joining students across the country who are continuing the movement to end racism and unify our communities. This
012year is the 72nd anniversary of Brown versus Board of Education. Let's show Ruby why she should celebrate this monumental event in Kansas. In 2025, legislative efforts to make the day a permanent state holiday in Kansas failed, but Emporia and many other schools and communities will still recognize regardless of proclamation status. Oh yeah. Uh 3D public comments. Casey, do we have any public comment this evening? >> We do not. >> Okay. As a reminder, public comments will be allowed with a duration of three minutes uh per speaker and speakers must sign up for in-person public comment by 1 p.m. the day of the board meeting, and they can do that on our website. Okay, that takes us to the consent agenda. The items listed on the consent agenda are those for which the board has received
013information in advance and have been thoroughly reviewed. Approval of the items may be made by a single motion, second and majority vote with no separate discussion of any item listed. Should a member of the board desire to discuss any item at their request, it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. What are the wishes of the board? >> I move to approve the consent agenda as submitted. >> I second. >> Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please cast your vote. Motion passes. 5. Wonderful. And if for anyone following along, you'll have to scroll really far down the list to see all the amazing donations we received this evening. So, thank you to our very supportive community. 6A spring 2025 CAP and FastBridge data dive. >> Yeah, we have uh
014Miss Leadeds and Dr. Carula here back again. Uh they came and shared a little bit of data um couple of weeks ago, I think, or maybe it was a month ago and uh we didn't schedule we didn't have a full full-blown work session on our on our board schedule uh this this year or at this point. So, we've asked them to come back and dig a little bit deeper and facilitate uh this item with you. We So, we'll all be miked up talking about instruction rather than going out and doing it around the tables this evening. >> If you can go to the slideshow protocol. There you go. Um this have to adjust back for kids. Um, this is a u an example of what our data discussions are looking like this year when we
015meet with our administrators and our instructional coaches. Um it provides us with guiding questions so that we can look at our data um move through the protocol following the questions um and kind of really get us into the equity mindset of are we meeting everybody's needs where they need to be and making the gains we need to make. Um it's not intended as a checklist um but rather just a framework for helping us guide our conversations. So, what we're going to do tonight is kind of take you through kind of an abbreviated piece of uh our process. I'm going to step aside and let Dr. Cargula kind of talk you through our next steps. Okay, so this is going to be fun. We've got this we spent we've done sever we've done I think four
016of these so far this just this quarter. Um this is our second round. So, we've used this twice. So, we're going to model this for you tonight. So, if you open if you go to your um presentation, there should be a protocol in there that looks similar to this. Is there a Casey? If you go to that, is there is there one that just has a pro? Yeah, that one right there. So, that's the one that I'm going to be using, which is just like what you have on the presentation, but it'll kind of allow you to walk back and forth. And now, I'm going to acknowledge there is a lot of data here. Um it's by grade. You have all you have state assessments, you have CA fast bridge. So, I guess at this
017point, my recommendation would you would be to pick one grade and spend time on that tonight. And the things that we do um tonight, you can go back home and look at more data and things like that. So, like I said, just pick I mean each of you can pick a different grade if you want to. We're going to do a lot. We're going to do a turn and talk. So, a little bit of partner and then we're going to do some share out on each step. And if you go to the next page, that's the protocol which is same as in the presentation. is just on our this is the same document that we give our principles instructional coaches when we do the pro do the when we do the day discussions we use
018the same protocol with them or one very similar to it. Okay, so let's get started. So go ahead and um pick your grade level. So if you notice your tabs um are labeled by the grades. Try to do that so you can see them and if you have a whole bunch of them up there you can see which grade you're on. So pick one um and go in. And the first step we're going to do is we're just going to spend a little time, two to three minutes, just looking at the data you have. You should have four each grade should have four sheets. You should have a uh state assessment one I believe. And then you should have for for ELA. Then you should have a math. I'm sorry. Then you have a reading,
019sorry, a uh fast bridge a reading. Then you have math state assessment. And then you have math fast brbridge. So you may want to this is going to go kind of quick. So you may want to pick a grade, pick a subject to kind of focus on and kind of get feedback on that on that area. So we're going to start off with you picking where you want to start and spend two to three minutes just looking at your data, getting familiar with it, and then we will get started. Before we do that, I want to remind you about e English language learners. Remember that subgroup um is is one that when students become proficient, they're taken out of that subgroup. So to see a lot and lots of improvement in that area will be
020difficult because once they're proficient, they're moved out of that subgroup. So I want to acknowledge that. So if you look at that and they look pretty consistent from year to year, that's why they're the kids that that qualify. So go ahead and spend two to three minutes and and look at some data, then we will get started. Yeah. So, if you want to find a partner, I think you're just going to have to go to one way. Jamie, Dr. McGee are gonna work together. So, like I said, take about two to three minutes and look at find some data and just get a an overview of it and then we'll start working through the protocol. What? >> You only got 30 minutes. Um, we're looking at >> well a reading, but I think it's I
021don't know that it matters like the one that says like 13 fall 25 and 12 spring. >> Okay, so with this report we're using this tool. I should have explained it to you. I'm sorry. Um, in order to get these to line up correctly, the number in front is the term. So like fall 25 was the 13th term we've given fastbridge. So that's kind of what that means. And the reason that's there is like I said because the system I'm using doesn't allow me to sort other than by numerically and that's why that number exists. >> So if so then if we're looking at sixth grade is 12 when these same students were in fifth grade. >> Um 12. So >> 12 is spring. >> Yes. They they would been in fifth grade. Yes. >>
022So it's not like I'm looking at sixth grade. So it's not the sixth graders. No, >> from last spring. It is truly when they were in fifth grade to sixth grade. >> Okay. So, no, it's not cohort. It is sixth grade to sixth grade. >> This is all sixth grade. Yes. I'm sorry. I misunderstood your question. It's six. These are all sixth grade data. So, we're basically looking at a program study, not a cohort study. How do the sixth graders each year perform in these programs? Okay, so there's two to three minutes. Are we ready to start taking a look at the protocol? Okay, so hopefully you've picked a grade level and you picked maybe an assessment to take a look at. So when you look at this data um think to yourself for a
023couple for a minute or so um what does the data tell you and also what does the data not tell you? So look at it from both sides. So think to yourself and then we'll do a shorter partner and we'll talk about a little bit So something else you can consider as you're looking through this is also then which students seem to be achieving and which students seem to be not achieving. You can also look at that too because we're concerned about both sides. Yeah, we can do that. So, it sounds like you're having a pretty good conversation. So, a couple things I'm hearing is when you think about these assessments, we need to remember that the state assessments, they measure grade level standards. what the kids need to know based on what the standards
024define. The fast bridge assessment is a basically a skillsbased test and it's not necessarily a grade levels test. It's built on a continuum. So the more you know the further the further you get. So we're looking at these in terms of the way these charts are set up are very similar. They're both bar type charts. They have four categories. They have a a on the left they have high risk versus one. on the right they have a four versus postsecary ready. So they can't they don't necessarily directly correlate but they'd be an indicator of um success. And the fast bridge assessment is the screener their students take every year three times usually in the fall, winter and spring and the state assessment is a test that they take in the spring over just standards at
025their grade level. So we need to understand that what we're looking at too >> and those so the state assessment scores were spring of 25 which was pre new um cut scores >> that was our first well that >> oh no that one is >> spring 25 is the first year for the new cut scores. >> Okay. It is the new cut scores. >> Yeah. >> Okay. that and that's why you don't see any additional scores underneath it because there are coherence tables where we can look back at 24 but to but to directly compare them. We really start with our baseline this year moving forward and how we're going to improve. That's why you just see one year of that. Now you see a year and a you see one this year and then
026you see last year for fast bridges. you can see a comparison. And we didn't go back too far on that because that would have been five pieces of data, which again, it's good to look a little further, but tonight we just felt like just having three or just having three terms would probably be the best thing to look at tonight. >> Um Ryan, thanks for reminding us about the cut scores. And I'm wondering if just sort of on as you look at these scores um you know when we look at the different levels do you feel like you saw like a noticeable difference in like the number of students in like level four versus level one? >> I don't know that our data changed too much. I think we saw some change across some grade
027levels. >> A little bit of change. Not a whole bunch. Um so I think we got some work to do and that's something we'll talk about at the end of this as kind of our next steps. We mentioned those a little bit to you last time we met, >> but we part of this protocol is talking about what we're going to do next to kind of improve these things. We'll talk about that at the end. >> So, what what are you seeing about this data? So, when you think about um this protocol um what are you seeing? Are there groups of kids who are achieving? Are there groups of kids who are underachieving? And then to transition to the next place, what are some of your beliefs about why some kids are achieving versus some
028kids who are not achieving? So think about that a little bit and then we'll maybe share out some of your thoughts and we're kind of moving if you if you're following the protocol, we're moving down into the blue box and we'll do a share out after in a few minutes on this one. >> Ryan, I had a question. Um, so looking at fall data versus spring data is I don't remember the right terms, but is it gauged to where they would be in expected to be in the fall versus where they would expect to be in the spring or so so they're both benchmarked? We have benchmarks. So you there there is a natural improve or you should the benchmarks are higher in the spring than they were in the fall. >> Okay. >> So
029if our kids are progressing the way they should, we should move them across. Now if they're line if their improvement rate is more steep, they're they're they're moving faster, then we should see a steeper line, more kids moving up. If our improvement line overall is not very steep or it's it's less steep, um we should see that we'll probably see that um not not as many kids move up to the next level. So, it's really based on grade level expectations on where they should be each term, different benchmarks >> and for that time of the year, school year. >> And remember, this is the the fast bridge is a nationally norm test. So we're comparing ourselves to the nation on that one. We're using n national norms benchmarks. >> Okay. >> What we hope is
030that we don't see a regression from spring to fall. We have some of our scores in some of our buildings at certain grade levels and certain subjects and subgroups the same which means they were reading over the summer and they were doing some things like that. Okay. So, let's stop a little bit. Let's do a little bit of share out. You guys have been talking quite a bit to your partner. So, what are some things you're seeing in the data? Anything standing out to you that you want to mention? >> I'm I'm looking at sixth grade. I see that we um our kids are doing really well on fastbridge on um some things comparatively to seat assessments. I recognize that they're very different tests. Um but that that's strange to me that it doesn't reflect
031better in the state assessment. >> Yeah. And the fast bridge again that's more of a just a screener and we do take it three times so the kids do get a little bit more used to it. Um the state assessments is taken one time. However, one of our next steps is to start using the kite mini test which we talk about more which is the same type of tests and we'll talk about that more at the end. to really get kids more familiar with the style of test style of question. >> I'd be really interested to see where we end up after a year or even two on taking those many tests over and over. >> Yeah. Which that's something we're trying to work on. We need to build a capacity of our principles or
032instructional coaches in those areas so that then they can work with their teachers. That's kind of the stage we're in right now. So, what else you seeing in the in the data? Anything else you want to share? Um, there's a couple of things. Um, you know, I I see that like white I'm looking at fourth grade, so it looks like white students are outperforming um peer their Hispanic peers. Um, and so I'm just like thinking about like and I also look at like um how students on free and reduced lunches perform also and and so I'm just thinking what more supports can we give and I know that you all are giving so many already. So I'm just thinking like we royal we not not you at all but >> well I think one big
033thing we're doing in that area is our SCP implementation. We talked about that and we're in the second year of that getting all that in place and that's part of our keys of plan. So I think once we have that in place and we start to utilize it more hopefully we're going to start to see all of our students increase. I mean it isn't just for our Hispanic students or ELLLs. It's for all of our students. Um so hopefully that's a strategy that we can utilize um to to work on some of these subgroups. odd that the FastBridge doesn't do um free and reduced lunch. >> Well, and the reason it doesn't is because when we do FastBridge data um and it could uh I I put together these subgroups. I add that to that
034data. We could actually add that to it. >> We just haven't that's not done. But but that definitely can happen moving forward if we if we if we want to start looking at that data because we don't get the only scores we get back from FastBridge are just all students and then through the database we I go through and I add in all the different subgroups. So we can definitely do that moving forward. >> Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that would be helpful. Um, I was just going to say I was looking at 10th grade reading and I was really excited to see the growth that 10th graders had made on the fast bridge and I'm excited to see that reflected in their state assessments for 2026. >> Yeah, that was really good. We
035we appreciate that. Um, I know our high school's working really hard in both reading and math. Made some nice growth. >> And I I thought I was told something a few weeks ago and I just wanted to clarify this with you. So students with disabilities um might have accommodations during their school day, but they don't always receive the same accommodations during testing. Can you just explain that a little bit? >> There there's a list of universal features that they get. Like for example, um separate setting. That's a that's a universal feature that everybody can have. One thing that the state removed from us um last year was text to speech. Used to be that we could get text to speech particularly for elementary. they took that away. Now, you can still have text speech um
036for for passages provided you meet the standard that the state has um set for that. We have to actually give the kids the I believe it's the PAR assessment. Don't ask what that stands for, but the PAR assessment which gives an indication of grade level reading, what grade level they're at. Then once they do that, we can submit that to the state and they can give us approval to set the U Texas speech up for elementary. Now, the text speech is just we can't have it in reading, but in math and science, it's a universal feature. Everybody can have it. Um, there's just not a lot of accommodations. Um, like human readers, for example, that happens a lot within classes. But on the state assessment, we can't have we cannot have a student read. We
037cannot have a human reader at all. In fact, they're telling us we can read isolated words, but we can't read any words in a passage. So, I can um share the list of accommodations with you if you're interested with it. There's a document on that. We don't really have a lot of accommodations anymore since they've taken away Texas Beach Elementary. Used to have a lot more. Now that that one is removed at three, four, and five, we have a lot less. >> It just Thank you. It just seems counterproductive to me in all honesty that, you know, we recognize that we have students who need additional supports and then test day comes and it's gone. It's it's it's really kind of setting kids up not to succeed to their fullest potential. >> So, as a
038district, if we feel like a student needs text to speech in in in elementary on the reading test, we can do that. If the state disapproves it, we can still do that because we feel like as a district is best for the student. That test then just becomes invalid. So, it just it's it's one of those things we have to balance that. Well, as we go through our protocol, we're kind of getting down here a ways. Um, one thing that we really want to start talking about is our success criteria. What's it what does it look like to be successful? I was really excited to talk to you about that a little bit and kind of what your what when you think about success, what does that mean to you in terms of our is
039it assessments, in terms of our fast bridge assessments. So, what does success look like I guess is a question that how would you define that for us? What do you think? You want to talk to your shoulder partner a little bit about that? >> Um, you know, I when I think about success, you know, I think that, you know, these tests are just like one piece of this because I also, you know, my shoulder partner, I had the superintendent, so I had some extra expertise. Um, you know, I'm also interested in like how students do, you know, um, in their classes. I'm interested in like their, you know, maybe the ACT and SAT scores and how students who, you know, scored any of these levels, how does that correlate to to those test scores, but
040then also what does, you know, what does success look like for students after they graduate from high school? Because I see a lot of our graduates and a lot of them are they are all just really successful doing careers that they love in good jobs. So, there's a lot more than just this test this this testing. I think this is just one one data point and like I I said two weeks ago, we'd like to triangulate or if we can have more data points, the better. It's like you said, did they go do they go to college and succeed? Are they getting graduate uh degrees? Are they successful? Um are they getting the jobs they want? Are they passing their ACTs? You know, there's there's so many variables. This is just one moment in time.
041So that's why we brought you these two pieces. These are two pieces of data that we have at our our disposal immediately and those are discussions we have with our building administrators and instructional coaches is what does success look like? Because this is just one piece. So we're kind of down to the last part, the action steps. Um up to this point, do you have any additional questions? anything you're interested in before we kind of talk kind of review what we talked about last time with our future our next steps. >> I just want to add that I really do consider any any improvement a victory. If a kid moves out of high risk to the next group that that's you can't you know I know you guys know this but you just can't undervalue
042that's a victory for that kid. And um it'd be awesome if everybody was in the high performing, you know, top section, but any any improvement is always a victory. >> Thank you. >> We're in the growth business. So, >> okay. So then some of our actions that like um just remind you we're right now we're working on our state standards and we're working to utilize the PLLDS, the performance level descriptors. And if you recall, those define what teachers or students need to be able to do to get to at each level. It tells us like if we want if our want be to level three for this standard, it describes what students need to be able to do. So, we're working on that. Right now, we're working to build capacity with our principles and our
043instructional coaches. Um, we're going to start transitioning to working with our teachers this spring, getting them up to speed on the PLLDS and the kite mini tests. Um, and then we're going to start then we're going to move into our summer curriculum work which is going to revolve around those pieces and making sure our curriculum guides reflect standards and the teaching at the correct level and then also the alignment to our resource. We've been talking a lot about fidelity with our instructional coaches and our principles and reminding them that they that the fidelity needs to be to the standards and they need to use their resource to to instruct their students when it's approved. So, we're working on that. Um, I think I think um eventually we're going to be able to bring some local
044assessment data to you from the kite from the kite assessment that that'll give us an indicator of how we're doing on our um standards um various times throughout the school year kind of like the fast bridge does, but it'll be tied to state standards at the grade level. So, don't really have all that 100% planned out yet, but that's kind of where we're heading in our plan to to move forward into this summer. >> Anything else you want to share? >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Anything else for Dr. Cargula or Cheryl this evening? No. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, Cheryl. Really appreciate it. >> Appreciate your time. Uh, thank you again so much for that. Uh, 6B 2026 2027 Emporia High School course guide first reading. >> Yeah,
045we have Assistant Principal Kendra Bloomquist coming up to uh, run you through the first reading of these. >> It was so much fun last year, I decided I'd come back for another round. Okay. Um, I'm not sure I can follow Dr. Carel in all the numbers, but I'll do my best. Okay. I'm going to give you the highlights. You've had a chance to read through this, I think. So, I don't want to just go through step by step with you. The four big points that I want to point out there on the bottom of page three, we're uh we've had work study on the books for several years. And we're going to do two things here. We have a workplace experience course. And there on the top of the next page, if you scroll a
046little bit more, you see a work-based learning class. We've been looking at some of the other schools in our league. And we have two needs that offset. One of them is a need for students to have experiences in workplace settings in partnerships with our communities. That would be some CTE funding also. And it's kind of sits in a different uh track that we've been using right now. The other place we have is workbased work study or workbased workplace experience. Make sure I get the right name on it for students who need credits for graduation that have a job because I need to work. Not necessarily that I'm going to go into finance and want to have experience at Edward Jones, but I just have a job at Walmart and I need to get and put
047some extra hours in as a senior. So, this is going to let us kind of meet the needs for both those students in both those areas. We have a senior right now that's actually she's in both. She's doing a little lions workbased learning experience because she wants to go into early childhood and she also working at Skywalkers. So, she's got some work study hours going in. So, it's going to let us kind of grow that. Um, on page four there, the next big change is we're moving from communication arts to public speaking. And I think those of you that have been to college, that tie makes a lot more sense and that's why we're making that adjustment there. Um, on the middle of page five, uh, new class, just because I like to promote our
048performing arts people, we have jazz band coming back. He was on there several years ago and Mr. Ward's going to bring that back in with Miss Franks. And then the other big part that I wanted to hit was our social studies department. Um, we have always been a 10th graders take US history, 11th graders take world history. I don't know for how long, but since I've been here anyways, we know that several schools do it in the opposite order. Right. Okay. Thank you. I was like, you're the expert right now, so I think that's right. Um, my understanding is that we've left it that way. We've asked for the last couple years about changing it, and we've left it that way. The instruction was that there was a tie between our ELA curriculum and our
049social studies. So those two departments were able to kind of work together, but with our new adopted text and resource, there's less of that connection that used to be there. And we have also a couple of staff members and talking with Mr. MSAS and our department chair that are going to be able to teach some history classes for college credit. So, we want to get the US history in a place where juniors could probably take that for a college credit course. And so, we're making that adjustment right now. >> Okay. >> Didn't you say that this would be really beneficial for kids who come in and out of our district that this would like more line up with what they experienced? So, they won't be so >> they won't be a different group of kids
050grade level. It'll be goofy for us next year because everybody will be in one class together, so to speak, and we'll probably split those up, juniors and sophomores. But I think we can get through it. It'll be really good, I think. And that's the the highlights there. Do you have any other questions for me? Any other questions? Okay. Well, this is a first reading, so we will wait um until our next meeting when hopefully we have our full board here. >> Thank you, Kendra. >> Board reports. Uh that's me. Um Tech College Board, we met on Monday. Uh went over our campus safety um report that we have to review every year. Um approved a couple things for the Higher Learning Commission. did some first readings of policies. Um, just a pretty standard meeting >>
051commission. No, no, Jeremy. So, no. Okay. Uh, 8A superintendent report. >> Just a couple of items. A reminder that we have our climate and culture survey out there live right now, open through November 21st. U it's a real brief anonymous survey that can provide us a lot of information to help us improve in the areas that we need to improve. And so we want to make sure that whether you're whether you're a staff member, student member, parent member of the community, um that input helps us to get better. And so just you can check out our website for the QR code that also went out as a parent square message to encourage people to fill that out. And then uh just a cost containment team quick update. We will meet again next Wednesday. Um at
052our second meeting, we u had a we were continuing to just put a lot of context to our challenges and and uh then then kind of at the end of that meeting started having people begin to brainstorm and and and leave ideas uh with us as they walked out the door. So, we'll spend just a little bit of time um reviewing some of that data next Wednesday. And then the team's really going to start digging into um you know scoring all of the ideas and all of the staffing categories and everything um based on three factors. How much value can be gained in our cost containment if we did it? And we're you know we're kind of looking at below 50,000 is low low value even though 50,000 is a lot of money. If we
053can come up with enough of those that's great. um above 50,000 to 250 is that medium level and then over 250 um is a is a high level of value um and and you can see you can start to see how these things play together. So the next way that we would evaluate them would be implementation implementation effort you know what's the feasibility of actually getting it done the level of effort time and resources required to imple implement the idea um might include complexities that you have to work through from an operational perspective staffing changes system changes things like that and then also also evaluate you know okay so you know how much money it's going to save you've had a conversation about okay is it feasible can we can we do it what's the
054time frame that we can do it? And then you start talking about well what's the stakeholder disruption? What's the risk if you do it? Some things bring out more more uh disruption and and emotions and feelings than others. And that's kind of where you talk about about those things. And so if it's going to be a high stakeholder disruption, it better be a high value on the front end dollar-wise. You so the they'll all start to play together in decision- making with regard to recommendations. And you know, inevitably, uh, as we start to move through this phase, I mean, there we're literally going to be talking about jobs and positions and programs that people in the room are are a part of. And so, we just need to be sensitive to that and be sure
055that we're, you know, it's not a it's not a place for folks just to um say we shouldn't be doing this, but it's also an opportunity to advocate for why we are doing it and why we should continue to do it. And so all of all of that needs to occur as a part of the process. U but it's certainly not an option for us to do nothing. You know, our declining enrollment and and the resulting declining revenue requires us to to uh dig in and make some hard choices. Um, but I think that we're creating a process that will lead to recommendations from the team back to the superintendent's leadership team and ultimately uh recommendations from myself to the board of education that will, you know, help us to be fiscally fiscally responsible, sustainable,
056and uh try to impact uh people as little as possible. But we certainly won't be able to do it without any people impact. You know, that's all I have. I happy to answer any questions about that. Again, that meeting is next Wednesday. Anything before he moves on to 8B. Okay. Go ahead. >> Okay. 8B, uh, USD 253 business operations culture and efficiency study. Um it's it's it's no secret to many of us that we've had some challenges with regard to just making sure that we are processing things uh timely, accurately. Um you know, we just we we are at a point where we think that another set of eyes, someone who uh you know, we we've found a person who serves as a superintendent in the state, but also serves um as the primary educator
057of finance across the state as well. In fact, I'm signed up for a couple of his courses over the course of of this this school year because coming from Missouri, I just want to continue to educate myself on the way we do things here in Kansas and I pride it in being an expert in finance there and I want to eventually be able to pride in being an expert here. But for right now, we believe that um the right the right approach, the right next step as we've you know and Josh has done a great job of working digging in in the business office and and beginning to um improve processes and and and you know make sure that we are doing things in an accurate way um and and following best practice. But I
058think the next the next good step is to involve um Dr. Adams, uh, Kellen Adams, um, and contract with him to come in. He's going to spend some time interviewing folks in the office, other others that interact with the with the with the business department and just, um, help us to come up with a good solid set of recommendations moving forward that we can then begin to monitor and implement and and report progress on. And uh I believe that you know 6 months to a year from now we we will have found this $4,250 that we're going to spend a very valuable exercise that we will have gone through. You know it takes a little bit of swallowing your own pride right to ask someone to come in and help you. But everyone's done a
059great job of that and we're all in a great mindset and we know that we we are not tackling this problem as fast as we want to and so we're asking for a little help and we would ask that the board uh approve this item so that we can begin that work. >> Any questions? >> I have one quick question. We've already talked about um this proposal um but one thing that just came to mind um I know that we adopted a new program Skyward like six months ago. Will this sort of also help us will that be part of this assessment or is it just you know processes outside of Skyward and I'm just curious >> cumulative was kind of like an upgrade of Skyward. we had Skyward then we're we upgraded and there
060have been challenges across the state with lots of business offices and you know and it hasn't been necessarily the most userfriendly transition but uh Dr. Adams is is familiar with Skyward and so I'm sure he can be a good resource there too. >> But yeah, I I knew that we adopted it like six months ago and it's it's these kind of programs are huge. So I just wanted to see if that would be part of this. >> Y >> anybody else? I'm really glad you mentioned um the cost, you know, 4250, but when you think about how much we could be saving in efficiencies within, you know, just a few months, I think it's definitely worth it. I would entertain a motion on this one, please. >> I would move to approve the USD 253
061business operations culture and efficiency study contract as submitted. >> A second. >> Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. motion passes 5-0. Thank you. That takes us to our future board calendar dates. Uh this weekend is the uh Kansas Association of School Boards annual convention and most of us will be there this weekend. Um, Wednesday, December 10th is our only meeting in December. And, uh, Wednesday, January 14th will be our first meeting of the new year. Oh, and don't forget on the 10th, we also have a reception to say goodbye to our good friend Jen. So, okay. I would take a motion to adjourn the meeting, please. >> So, moved. >> Second. You have a motion in a second. Please cast your votes. >> That's okay. >> I know.
062I thought Grant was gonna do it. >> There it goes. Motion passes. 5-0. Thank you everyone. And have a nice evening.