USD253 Board Meeting 2025-03-12

001to be timed by the board Clerk and speakers must sign up for in-person public comment by 1: p.m. the day of the board meeting public comment by email or remote not be accepted and that those giving public comment not approach the board or move past the podium no handouts will be allowed but such materials may be emailed in advance to the board clerk for distribution to the board and that public comment may not include reference to names of specific students and or Personnel matters which would potentially viol at an individual's privacy and that the board will not engage in discussion at that time except to gain clarification we have a public comment this evening yes okay yes we do okay do you need to state your name and address James bordo 1607 R Street set

002thank you so I'm uh before you because I've becoming concerned uh with uh the amount of rhetoric coming out of Washington and Topeka and how that affects our students I think that the primary function of the school system is to ensure that uh you prepare students for a career as well as to become productive citizens and I believe you have that in your mission statement or your goals on your website uh one of the things that you're going to need to know when you come out of school is how to tell the difference between a fact and opinion who's trying to sell you a Tesla and who's uh just trying to help you out um so I want to talk about some of the facts that you need to be making sure that your teachers

003are conveying to your students for example in the field of science there are no facts to support the assertion by congresswoman marjerie Taylor green that space lasers Jewish or any other kind were responsible for last year's horrific fires in California in the field of climatology the fact is that 2024 was the hottest year on record and not a Chinese hoax in the field of biology the fact is the government did not spend $8 million to create transgender mice it spent $8 million for studies with transgenic mice in the field of History students need to know that Ukraine did not start the war with Russia Russia invaded Ukraine and in the field of Economics students need to know that tffs are passed along by The Producers to the consumers and are not paid by the producing

004country I hope that you will make sure that your teachers are ensuring that these facts are being distinguished and taught to the students so that they can make informed decisions when they go out into the adult world thank you thank you that brings us to item 4 a the consent agenda the items on the consent agenda are considered by the Board of Education to be routine business items approval of the items may be made by a single motion second a majority vote with no separate discussion of any item listed should a member of the board desire to discuss any item at his or her 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 second motion passes

00570 no you're fine okay item 6A is Category 2 e rate bid for Network equipment licensing and UPS's okay we have Mr Paul Beatles director of Information Technology here to provide more details about this agenda item okay uh as you know eate this is the end of our fiveyear window for the funding that was allocated to us looking at the remaining dollars we had in the program we really look to spend out the rest of that money eate will pay for 80% of these items then the school district will need to pay for the 20% so when you look at the total cost of an item keep that in mind we're only paying 20% um the bid for access points we would award to two trees um when you look at that that's really based

006on Lower bid um a grid Matrix there that explains some items we've worked with the vendor in the past that's a good relationship they were able to quote all the costs for the item the two lower bids were for access points that would not be compatible in our existing infrastructure nor able to use our existing licensing that we had purchased a year ago through eate so we move those two to the side focusing on those moroi access points with two trees we this would replace approximately 289 of the 461 access points in the district which would really bring everybody up to speed with Jones and the high school who have newer access points in their facilities sort of a smaller piece um and this part of the bid didn't quite come together the way I

007would have hoped the quotes came in for either alternative items that didn't work with our existing UPS management infrastructure or um for 30 amp units so we would have had to rewire all the electrical it closets in the school district in order to utilize that equipment U the plan there would be to um either replace batteries to push these units a little longer than we anticipated or U like we have one unit that's starting to fail we'll replace it out of capital outlet and then come back next year with eate funds again and look to to replace the remaining equipment so we um did not award um we're not looking to purchase any of those bids that came through on upss because of that questions about um our e rate purchase so I know you

008probably don't even have an answer to this but because of changing technology but how is there an assumption how long the new things we're purchasing might last but I know technology changes constantly I feel pretty comfortable with our access points one of the things we're looking for were some faster speeds um some of the things that we did last year with the E access points at the high school is we moved to kind of a higher model high density which allowed us to group multiple classrooms into one AP these are um not that nice of a model they're a little step down looking for those elementaries and continue to micro sell each room so I'm comfortable that um the replacement should be good on that life cycle as we look to replace those through e-

009rate funding every five years other questions all right thank you thank you okay and this is this is an action item I move to approve the bid from two trees for Network equipment as submitted second all in favor raise your right hand motion passes 70 okay item 7A is board reports Leslie do we have a report from the tech college yes we had a meeting on Monday um we got a a report on our annual audit our budget audit and that was clean and no exceptions it was a really good audit we also the exciting part was uh the majority of our meeting was based on our our Capital campaign that's coming up for our new facility at the tech college um I encourage everyone to attend um our kickoff event on April 3rd at

010the Tech College from 10: to 11:30 that morning we'll announce our lead gift and it should be an exciting day um for what we hope will be a very successful campaign great thank you do we have a report from the rec commission yeah for the purposes of the rec commission probably the big ticket item for us is that we' completed first round interviews with applicants for the executive director position at we narrowed that down to three finalists um two of them are from out of state one of them is local um right now a date for live interviews that has been set is the 15th of April in the evening starting at 5:30 and um I'll not get into specifics but there'll be a format for the community and staff to meet folks before they

011go to the interview but one of our out of town applicants um has a tournament that he has to work at that week so we're going to try to find a date to interview him the week before so there should be two opportunities um for folks to be able to uh meet some of our candidates and so that's pretty much what we're working on great thank you Jeremy and then the rec commission steering committee yes we had a meeting last week as you might recall we chose to pause um building a new recreation center and until um we understand the economy better and after our meeting we realize that we're still not in a a place where we can make that decision and so we're going to keep meeting about every two months to make

012the assessment um I think between um the economy and then concerns about um uh the cost of equipment um it it we a little concerned about the feasibility of having an election and building a recreation center as we had planned a few months ago so we are meeting again in the middle of May great thank you item 7B is board policy Updates this is our second reading we also have a first reading but these are our second readings picking up from where we were left off at our last meeting okay we have Mrs Pam stranathan assistant superintendent of business operations and the fundraising piece was removed for the second reading yep correct so going over on the second reading I'm going to read off the corrections really quick that were made KK was where we

013added the prek to kindergarten to um 12th grade um CC added the location for the org chart which is a website in handbooks um CG fixed the um the typo on the word thee and then dfh was pulled out and we're working um currently on the um procedures for that and then the JG fgaa added location that it'll be posted into the handbooks want me to pause in between the first and the okay I can take one for the team y l and you weren't at our able to be for your for the last was anything you wanted to from that okay no and the policy committee was in conversation about what we were talking about y okay I move to approve to retire policies ID if J gfga JH KK BDA CD CG CGI

014CNA de dfac IA idaca jgf GBA and KNN and to approve new and revised policies ID i f j g f g a j h KK BDA CC CG CNA D dfac IA idaca J GF GAA J GF GBA and KNN as submitted second thank you motion passes 70 okay great so item 7 C is our first reading M um for other new policies so on this one we have three and GAE is the one that is where they came back in and it's where they're saying on the Grievances we need to remove um the purpose definition procedure Step 1 2 3 4 and the other steps to that and then it should be GAE but it should fall under complaints and what the uh they shared with us is these steps should go into

015the negotiated agreement where they are and those should be negotiated every year if we choose to do that that these are more of the steps that would fall under our negotiated agreement and into our handbooks so um so my my recommendation there would be we can either leave all the steps or we can remove the steps but we would have to go to calling it complaints and it still has under the complaint section which is very small now it still has all the the time frame there to that so it's it's kind of up to the board on what they want to do with that thoughts questions I like this revision I'm I'm okay with just the one paragraph I think it's still very clear and it's not going it's not really going anywhere it's

016just moving yeah I think it would be a matter of us in IBB this year just making sure that people understand that a complaint and a grievance for policy sake are the same thing you know it's not going away you're not losing any rights um but we can communicate that with our teams and I think it'll be I think it's good okay good okay all right going to the next one which is the next two that we have is in and KO I have a guest speaker tonight and that will be Jared right there all right good evening uh these two policies Ing and KO uh have come about because of request for a service animal in our schools um when we ran this information by The District's uh School District's attorney um she felt

017like we needed to make some modifications to board policy ing which is plants and animals in our schools so you can see in the in the information um the suggested changes that she has ultimately we just want want to let everyone know that um we are complying with laws related to Americans with Disabilities Act and reasonable accommodations if someone needs those because of a disability that they may have um it also introduces the notion of policy KO which is outlined as well and specifies what service animals would look like in our schools um in ing uh it also talks about service animals and what they are not service animals do not include animals provided by the school to for instructional purposes therapy or Comfort animals or emotional support animals so we just wanted to delineate

018what the difference between a service animal and uh what some of those other uh animals might be in our schools so then for the purposes of defining service animals you'll see policy KO um as as they have suggested it and it just outlines a multitude of things that uh would we would go through in order to uh meet with the either the student student and the parent if it were a student request uh who may have a disability or an employee who may have a disability and the other two packets that you'll see included on this agenda item are simply the steps and the forms we would use to go through the conversations with those individuals so that we were ensuring that everything was in place um regarding uh places for the animal to use

019the rest room how frequent breaks need to be if there were transitions within the day that took them to different parts of the build buildings or for assemblies we would want to talk through that and how that animal might handle big crowds or different locations um it also specifies in some of the guidelines um that the person must carry uh Insurance liability insurance so that any uh injuries that might take place or damage to property uh would be the responsibility of the owners um so the first three pages of each of those packets really just outlines the steps we would follow um the conversations we would have on each of these topics to make make sure all of these things are in place whether it be an employee or a student and a parent that

020we're meeting with so be glad to answer any questions you might have about uh this this particular item if you if there are any thank you for the clarification on the therapy uh because I I thought I recalled one of our elementary schools like two years ago didn't they really weren't they trying to fund raise for a therapy dog does anyone remember that and that has been allowed in our district because uh it is for instructional purposes we're trying to allow students to use that as a coping mechanism but it just doesn't allow anyone and everyone to bring any type of animal into our schools we're truly using that for instructional purposes so a therapy do dog would be covered in a completely different policy that that's how we've handled it before perfect I appreciate

021the clarification go ahead um so I was reading I'm on page eight um could you describe the situation maybe if you know where a student or employee would have a miniature horse uh it would be very rare um most often we're going to encounter service dogs that's what I I saw the a miniature horse is actually in the legislation and in the law um that it it can uh suffice as a service animal in addition to a service dog um that that we would most likely encounter great question um I um I know that service animals go through for extensive training um before they would they go into service um and I think one of my and I also aware that schools are just a different environment with so many kids and so could you

022help me better understand um like how we would work with students to help them understand the difference between a cute little puppy and a service animal great question and that's uh defined in here and I know there's a lot here um but we would have an integration meeting um where the dog would come to school we'd actually have an integration meeting before for that just to let students know hey here this here's what's going on we also have a letter to go home to parents um to other employees who may potentially have allergies to to an animal like that in that case we would have to look at what other accommodations or modifications we could make to a schedule if it was an individual student for an individual block uh it might be that the

023dog needs to go somewhere to take a break during that block uh so there are a lot of things we would look at along those lines but we would have that conversation you know about okay what training have they had what are they trained to detect or to do to help you with your disability um but in those guidelines let me see if I can find it on which page it is I think it's one of the last ones um yeah one of the one of the topics would be uh what what the dog is it's a working dog that students are not to approach it they're not to pet it and they're not to have interactions with it um it's not to say that you know at some point a student might might do

024that but that would be the expectation with the with the animal being there is that we would have an integration meeting um with them then there would be a period where the dog would come in for just that you know trying to get ease them into things um the training required yes it is extensive but it doesn't require any type of a certification to sign off on the forms um but but we do require them to have the training and and as ask what uh what it is that they're supposed to be detecting or assisting with to help that staff member or student along I don't know if that helps answer your question but that was great thank you um and I think my other question is um and I see um you know you

025talked about and I see also in the policy about accommodations that we'd possibly have to make um for the students um could this be something that could trigger a a parent to say I I need my kid in another class and would we honor those requests it very well could you know if a student for instance had been bit uh at an early age or or was just afraid we would definitely have to talk through what that looks like and you know hopefully we could catch them at a good break like the beginning of a year and we can do some some advanced notice that would allow us to make that switch and it's not in the middle of the year but but I think we definitely we we have to look at just how

026we can meet the needs of of all parties involved there that would be a tricky one but we would certainly talk through it questions okay great thank Youk you that's it okay and this is the first reading that's yeah I'm okay passing it now if everyone else is or do you guys want to wait for another reading okay okay okay great thank you okay so we are going to seven d now which is our program highlight from the high school theater Department all right we really appreciate Miss Ballard Miss Amanda Ballard theater teacher and students coming um and talking about the theater program and all the benefits um I'd first like to introduce myself my name is Amanda Ballard and I actually have brought with me tonight you are approving her oh sorry do you

027need the mic sorry let me SC um I'm Amanda Ballard I've been at empor high for 23 years um I was the head theater director from 2003 till about 2011 I stepped down to get my Master's and then went down the hallway to the academic wing um but I am back now that Casey Hastings has gone to the hospital um so I am back in that role as head theater director but I brought with me tonight some awesome students and um Miss Ashley Hill you she is my student teacher this semester and you were actually approving her tonight to be employed next year so um I'm very happy that she is here with me tonight um but I have two students I'm going to let them introduce themselves and do their presentation and all that

028stuff and if you have questions they'll be happy to answer so hi hi my name is Trey henrix I am a senior and I'm the current president of the theater my name is Kaylee Wiman I am currently a sophomore and I am our promotions chair at the theater in the high school um and March is theater in our school's month so yeah so we it's advocacy month we a bunch of different high schools go to the capital and talk about how important theater is in our schools and so we have some facts that participation in theater as well as being in the audience is very much linked to higher levels of Civic engagement and social tolerance and theater activities can improve reading comprehension Shakespeare shows we learn about them in school and in English it's

029just a big part of education and everyone knows that if you're involved in more activities you're more likely to go to school theater is also included in that and can help out with a lot of high school dropout rates um we also do a lot of things with our community whether it be community service or just Outreach like we've done the Miss amazing pageant which is an organization to help out um women with disabilities and um it helps them like build on their strengths and stuff and yeah it's a great yeah uh and then we do the trick-or treat so kids can eat which is when we go door too asking for non- perishable food items um to give to the Spartan stop and donate to kids in need and then we have the kids

030camp uh which is for kids like first through fifth grade and it will help them get experience in theater and uh learn to do it in the future and then we also do things like this Duco trunker treat promdress rentals um and we have some traveling shows like this year we're taking red versus the wolf which is a red A Little Red Riding Hood story and um and surrounding schools have also come SE SE come and scen some of our shows like Legally Blonde and it had a really good feedback yeah one of our shows that we did this year was 26 Pebbles which told the touching story of the town of Sandy Hook's recovery it shared a message of Hope and a community working together to grow back from a tragedy a lot of

031tragedies have happened and it was a very important message to share with the community and all of us learned a lot and I feel like we helped share a good message with the community too our musical this year was Legally Blonde and we had an audience of over 800 community members and the people we impacted Legally Blonde was well received by the community and it was an exciting experience and it was like a message of feminism and stuff it was it was really impactful and um our musical this year had over a hundred students and staff members participating and it was in the top three highest grossing musicals we've ever had at EHS our most recent play was murders in the air it was an interactive murder mystery comedy with a different ending every night

032and interactive theater enhances the actor's creativity can boost confidence and it helps with empathy and just going to see them is a good way to learn about audience interactions and just interactions with people in general and some upcoming events we have on March 28th is the EHS EHS talent show at 7 pm we have the senior directed one a on April 11th on April 29th we have the advanced theater touring show and we hopefully will be nominated for some Jester Awards on May 4th and we will go and compete there May 9th is theater Awards night and May 16th we will be participating in Village Art day um so this January 9th through 11th um we went to Kansas thespian Festival some activities we went to workshops like dancing singing improv makeup set combat like

033all the elements of theater and we watched some one acts thesp are something that we do at ktf where you can take a song an acting monologue you can go as a Duo me and Trey competed this year there we had 14 students compete and received high scores of superiors five excellence and two goods those seven superiors will get to go to international thespian festival and compete and represent our state we also got to see some M mainstage shows which were like the highest scoring Musical shows put on by high schools and we this year we saw lay Miz six in Hades Town international thespian Festival as mentioned is we have 14 students going to represent our troop and our town and we will be going and seeing and competing against several other high schools

034all around and getting to interact with other high school students um no you okay some numbers and facts according to ticket Peak um in their article entitled High School Musical budgets and other numbers 58% of schools have a budget of over $10,000 just for the musical also according to tusk.com theater departments have a shell have to sell out as much as $5,000 in royalties alone to put it on some of their more popular musicals the average cost to produce a High School Musical is between $115,000 and $25,000 students and staff spend countless hours rehearsing and preparing for production we sometimes spend hours 10 or later staying at school just to put on a show and we all enjoy it very much and it is just such a good time spending time with our family um

035adding on to that students rehearse Monday through Thursday from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. until Tech week and um we also have some Saturday work calls that are usually from 8:00 a.m. to 2 PM to put in some extra time to help get this set together and stuff a theater student spends around 30 hours a week after school working on their theater when we are involved in a show uh during Tech week students and staff uh rehearse from 3:30 to 9:00 p.m. with dinner provided by sponsors and boosters all of this is done while students obtain a passing grade and maintain eligibility uh we hope to continue to receive support for all the Fine Arts at Emporia High School theater because it is very important and yeah thank you thank you uh do you guys have

036any questions what questions do we have um great presentation um I had no idea how much it cost to put on Productions and I've been very impressed by the level of community donations you've all received this year we we P we approve them every meeting and there's a lot of community support for what you've done um so mine is just a curious question I loved that you went to the thesbian festival and you went to different workshops tell me what you learn in a combat Workshop because that's very fascinating uh combat we most learned how to do it safely because obviously you never make like physical contact you always um like act it out and make it appear like you're hitting someone even though you don't so um we learned like the techniques to do

037it safely and not actually harm anybody okay great job yeah thanks for being here thank you yes oh and your social media posts are great this month I've been seeing you every day so good job Ace is in charge of that good job right that brings us to item 8A the Strategic plan quarterly report all right I'll bring my friends up here and we have seats so we're ready to roll um there's a lot of slides but there's a lot of questions for the slid so just um that just remember that so the first one was actually a year ago in March and then the subsequent ones have been in July October and December we're going to change our um order a little bit we're going to do social emotional learning first then math and

038then Ela and then move on to the other areas we've also added the dashboard and talking about enrollment the reason that we put social emotional first is that it really is a foundation for students starting to learn I have the honor of talking about social emotional learning and we are very excited and proud of all of our students and staff with the CK adoption that we have had in the years previous but especially this year seven of our nine buildings are um have been nominated for CK National showcase we'll find out um who if any of us get to move on kind of to that that National showcase piece but we are very excited about all of it uh and so that is something to um be proud of and and one of the successes

039with our effective Services piece and implementing CK districtwide we also are have been looking at our data across the board uh from last year we are looking at last year and into this year so if you go to page 19 of the full document you will see on table 26 you can see the 23 24 school year and then you can see the start of the 24 uh 25 school year as well and we kept the time frames the same so you can see that monthly increment just so then you can look at that and you can see that in August August 15th um to 9:14 September 14th of last year and then to this year just that drastic change and the main dra the main area is at the elementary level but you can

040also see other areas of success too at the secondary buildings and if you focus in on just this year you can see that we have remained steady we have we do have some fluctuations in certain grad but or certain levels but really looking at the success from this year to last year is is huge and we are going to continue that work so that is a huge success for all of our staff and students with the work that we've put in uh with that behavior and discipline piece we also are looking at the supports that have been provided and the addition of our district Behavior support specialist has been amazing Jennifer Casey's work with all of our levels has been uh just something that uh we knew that it was needed but then to have

041her in place and to have her working with our staff and our students has been just amazing uh we are also looking at um our student support Specialists and counselors the work that they are doing with our tier 2 and tier three students in the area of behavior has also been uh wonderful and then the support that Mrs Casey is able to provide them uh and then we do have those regular meetings uh with especially the elementary SSS when we look at challenges uh we are committed to looking at what thatal piece looks like districtwide and so there are times in the year where we are seeing those fluctuations and so really digging into the why behind that and Mrs Casey with her data driven mind it's amazing uh she is really good at really

042looking at that and and we are going to continue to dig into that and just to to think of ways and to um ask St members ways that we can address some of those things we are looking also at um just different things that we can put in place for that tier one instruction and we're going to be looking at that for especially our counselors and ssss of we do have second step and we do have CK are there any additional gaps that we need um to fill and if so what does that look like we will continue to use Mrs Casey for that District support specialist role and just Foster that even more she has had successful attendance with the sessions that she has uh provided and she will have uh just that ongoing

043support her trainings are done for the year but really what that support needs to look like for the remainder of the year she'll keep pushing into different buildings and helping with those trainings uh I know she's on um to help support in April at our PLT day at some of our buildings we also just know that we need to continue that professional development for our seal pieces not only for our counselors and ssss but classroom teachers as well and administrators so looking at what we need to put in place there next steps I already talked about the professional development uh and really looking at what we need to do districtwide for that classroom management and behavior and not only targeting the our teachers but all staff so what are those things we need to put

044in place for teachers AIDS and our Paras what does that need to look like uh and then continuing with our CK Focus we really want to make sure that we continue that work and um with the change in leadership we just want to make sure that we focus on on what that needs to look like moving forward and we've done a lot of work on consistently logging into power school and we need to continue that and we we really when when we dig into the data it is evident that the staff and the teachers and the people that are really putting those things into Power School are doing the work and um if they get a little behind you know they'll they might send me a chat and say I'm working on it and and

045I know that they're going to get it in there eventually um so so we are just excited and happy for that push to just have them consistently logging into Power School questions on theal and behavior side I had one question it was on that page 19 at table 26 yep and I was curious maybe it's a a question you wouldn't know the answer to but for the 23 24 school year it seems like the biggest and most significant change was prek through 5 comparative to now so like 8:15 to 9:14 of 2324 year 297 incidents same time this year 79 next month between September and October 238 same time here now 90 and so next one is similar it's like 2115 to 103 do you have anything we attribute to that change um I'm curious

046if we can Divine that's a significant swing the main thing we have been looking at is or well two two areas one is the logging so we we found out that some some buildings were logging almost too much what they were putting in were were some of the minors so we really looked at what is the difference between a major behavior and a minor behavior the minor behaviors we still want to know about those but putting them all into power school isn't necessary having those on a document that is at the building level that part is is important but the the you know tapping of the pencil and the the certain things that are maybe annoying or you know those those those behaviors that we need to work on but that's maybe not necessary to

047happen to power school that's one the other area is really looking at um that professional development and the the um push for capturing kids hearts and what that looks like across the district so that's what we are looking at right now but we definitely like I said with with Mrs Casey's data driven we're really going to be digging into that a little bit more and we'll find out for the end of the school year really looking at at last year to this year in in a whole Year's span uh what that looks like across the two years difference yep okay hey this is um I'm going to talk a little bit about math so I'm going to be if I go to you're on the math okay so I'm going to be on be looking

048at tables 14 on page eight is kind of where we're going to be and those tables remember there's two different ways to look at them you look at them across by grade so we're looking at that's more of a curriculum how well we're doing teaching and there's also a cohort way if you go diagonally and follow the colors so I'll point out a few things a few strengths um so the first one will be on uh table 14 page8 it talks a little bit about the grade levels and that's going across and you can see at that we look at a maath and the percentage of kids at low risk and um post-se secondary ready we we improved from Winter 23 to Winter 25 in grades four or one four 58 nine and 10 so

049that's good really happy about that that's some really good growth then the next bullet talks about that same data that same table but it goes as a cohort so you kind of see how our cohort groups are doing over time so you can see it grade three 4 9 10 showed growth from Winter of 23 to Winter of 25 and there's more data in there you can look at winter 24 to 25 but um since we have all three we're just I just decided to go from witer 23 to 25 then we talked a little about subgroups um our El subgroup and that would be table 15 on page nine same setup different subgroup of kids but you you see there we made some good growth in that group um in grades 3 6 n

050and 10 and remember that that grade level from Winter 23 to Winter 25 probably contains different kids in that subgroup because as kids score proficient on the Kela they're excl they're removed from that subgroup so that subgroup is isn't a consistent group like maybe our all kids group would be so I just wanted to highlight that we've been over that several times but just want to bring that up to remind you and then the last piece of strength would be our um talk a little bit about student disabilities and their cohort to show how those kids are progressing and you can see they they made some gr growth in grades three eight nine and 10 so and again that's table 16 on page nine so we go to the next one so then we have

051some challenges and if you'll notice we didn't show growth in all grades so that's kind of that first challenge I'm wanting to realize or figure out how to get consistent growth across all grade levels so so instead of just including five or six we have all the grades on there I think that's important to continue to work on that um secondary levels continue to face challenges of meeting Benchmark expectations um making sure like for the state assessment making sure they have geometry that's important we have a lot of kids who aren quite getting there so but but we're working to improve that um then we just have that wide range of skills in our classes and that again that's been up there last couple times it just I think it's getting a little better but

052we still need to continue to work on that some next steps um through vertical alignment and things like that we continue to refine our curriculum guides and and and really work on what we need to be teaching um continue in to engage principles in our data talks that's still pretty big with us we talked about those with you a few meetings ago um observe for Success will be going into his third year for next year so really wanting to draw on that and really really use it to monitor our data I'm sorry to monitor our instruction then also including that instruction data and observation data into our data talks um we talk a lot about academic data within our data talks but starting to bring and that observation data in there to try to make

053a connection between the data and what we're seeing instructionally so those are kind of my pieces do you have any questions for me I have a question thank you so much for the presentation you always make the data look so clear so I really appreciate you um so my question is on um one of the challenges the third bullet which is the um different levels within a single classroom and I know that that's something I've heard we've talked about you know M probably every year um and and I just wonder you know that doesn't seem like a challenge that's ever going to really go away and so I guess my question is like are we by sort of maintaining all the different levels in one classroom aside from kids like in the high school who

054might be like in honors or AP are we really setting everyone up for success by having all the same levels in the classroom and also what do other districts do um to um to sort of handle this as well as far as other districts I don't know I can speak for that um I can speak that I know at the high school we have we have a lot of level classes they have different classes they can take the um elementaries I may need help from Miss Stanley on this but the elementaries they do a good job with their small groups and their their um um small group Flex time I guess is what they do they try to group kids and get them get handled there um I know the Middle School we've been talking

055about with them about trying to have some more leveled classes so we can meet kids where they are are and provide them the support they need that's an ongoing conversation with them um as far as it getting better I would hope as we as our instruction improves districtwide that that Gap is going to close and we're going to start to see our more consistent growth in that bullet one start to achieve more all kids starting to achieve at a higher level because right now um I didn't list all the grades as Improvement I think that's something we really need to work on and that will kind of get to your point of once we get our classes to where there's not such a wide range of abilities and kids are are more I guess closely

056packed then we'll hopefully start to improve all of those challenges yeah thanks for asking that Jamie because that that's the one you know when I was reviewing that that's the one that always sticks out of me too because I don't have I don't have the answer obviously um and I know we're we're working on it um I just think that that is definitely a challenge and also I think doing some even the secondary level starting to do some small group work um individual time letting kids who who have it progress like kids who need more work we have time to work with a teacher um our classes their block classes are pretty long they're what 6 60 to 70 minutes there I think we could find some time in there possibly do some additional a

057small group time but again that's something we need to work on I think as a district constructionally and I think Jamie also it's this is this point I think speaks to the importance of a formative assessment and concept stantly knowing where our students are at I think a challenge with this is we might say that a student is really struggling on content in one particular unit but then the next unit comes along and they are excelling at that and so knowing your students well and doing formative assessment can be really important to kind of gauge that thank you sorry now I have a frog in my throat um one of the pieces we're looking at to is we have atrisk money that we need to spend and so our goal is to add strategist at

058all levels um with that at risk funds now it takes having teachers in those positions but that is something that we are committing at risk funds toward next year so as long as that that funding is there we want to fill those positions because that would actually help all of the buildings be able to differentiate more to levelize more to meet kids where they're at so that is a focus that we are looking at next year not just when you're looking at academic needs but also supporting those ell Learners better so is um I have a question about with our new curriculum and I'm also on the AI subcommittee so I'm hoping that there's a way to leverage those online resources and maybe even AI to help especially maybe even at the secondary level when

059the concepts maybe get a little more difficult that there's examples that there's kind of a way to gauge where students are and those different levels and then provide the level appropriate work for them so they can up their skills can you talk about about how that's going yeah so with the hmh resource whether it's the ELA that's K12 or the high school math they do have a an assessment built within that can do that it is not something that we have leveraged just yet because we have fast bridge and so it it's that it's that fine line between doing too many assessments and doing the just right assessment it is something that we could look at for math um at the at the high school level because we are not mandated to do that fast

060bridg at math um Dr carel and I have had a lot of conversations I know there's been some with the the the high school and the secondary um principles as well of rather than using maybe the hmh using the mini tests that that you can build within the state assessment but it's trying to maintain that fine line so we we could look at leveraging that um with the hmh with the elementary that Amira that platform that we're using um for intervention we are already talking about how can we leverage that more we've had some difficulty with the technology working with that and Paul has just done an amazing job working with some individual teachers to make sure that we've got the right devices the right headphones to work so feeling like that we can move

061forward with that a little bit better next year so it's all it's just leveraging those pieces that we have we're going into year three with the ELA year four with the math so let's maximize those pieces yeah y kind of going off on a tangent here but you mentioned about how we want to fill our strategist position what type of person are we looking to fill a strategist are and I guess my are we looking at one that has experience in the classroom and then moving the strategist or or well that would be ideal we really want you know teachers that have that experience that are strong teachers working with our nous kids that's really what we want one of the barriers that we're running into because we we've been saying higher higher higher especially

062at the elementary if we have too many teachers that's great because we can fill a strategist role but our veteran teachers are very very nervous about saying yes I'll be a strategist next year because they are worried about what happened a couple of years ago when we had to take strategist and put them back in the classroom at the end of July and so they don't want to make that commitment to going into that role not knowing if that might change so that is a challenge that we are seeing the other piece to that is you know about a month ago we had enough teachers that we were looking at in elementary we were going to be able to do that now we are we are filling our classrooms and we don't have those extra

063teachers so ideally it would be veteran teachers ideally it would be people that have that experience um because another factor to that is if we put a brand new teacher in that role they cannot at the elementary level they cannot move to a professional license they have to be a generalist type of teacher they have to be in the classroom so they would be stuck at an initial license that's not necessarily bad they're still certified and with um the programs that we use they're very they are are I wouldn't say totally scripted but they're right there in front of you a veteran teacher has a little bit experience behind them to kind of enhance those resources versus a newer teacher um but yeah ideally we went the veterans ideally every one of our principls has

064gone to that that really experienced strong teacher and said hey could you please and they're just hesitant at the secondary we're not limited with that license piece but again it just comes to having the right license they still have to be if you're looking in ela they have to be an English teacher if if you're looking at math they have to be a math teacher so it's that limitation of limit of teachers and and and I say that knowing that we we know there are teachers out there that may be looking for positions that we haven't hired just yet we also want to have the right fit we really that's really important to us does that help I'm just going to stay up here because the next slide is mine all right we are going

065to move into our Ela D data um with Ela our first two bullets we wanted to highlight our a couple of our subgroups because if you remember when we looked at State assessment that kept coming up our students with disabilities our students our ESL Learners and um in our El with our elll group population you can see that at Fifth Sixth sth and eth our second gr groups we showed some some good growth with our elll Co cohorts the same happened with our students with disabilities in third fourth fifth and 7eventh now like Dr Cela mentioned when those kids start succeeding they start dropping out as being in that group and so that it does affect the data but it is something to celebrate that we're seeing growth in those areas um and you can

066see that on table two in page two and table three on page three um another piece of data that we added to this report this time is on table 10 page five and that is looking at our students and um just looking at as a whole how many kids made Positive Growth at their level and you can see that we had about 65% that that did make positive gains we also wanted to look at um kids who made typical or aggressive growth so that um that's one of those really difficult things because you have kids that are really high what does that look like so that standard for kids is different depending on where you're Landing so if I'm a kid in the 95th percentile my typical or aggressive looks a little bit different but

067but it does include all those groups and we have over 50% of our kids showing typical or aggressive growth something that we've noticed about all of our data in all of the years is that with fastbridge our fall to winter doesn't tend to show as much growth as our fall to spring so we're kind of anxious to see what fall to Spring looks like and we're not sure whether that's a benchmark thing or it's December and everybody's ready for a break not really quite sure but that does seem to be a pattern in each of our years when we look at challenges um a challenge continues to be identifying resources that are on that evidence-based list and I'm going to give you a really good good example last year there was a resource on the

068list um that was approved and there was no indication that it was going to come off so our buildings purchased that resource they put it in place this year it's not on the list so I'm I'm reaching out to KSD to hope that that was a typo because if school districts are now investing funds into resources that the next year they may not be ready to be able to use that is a that is not a good thing I wouldn't say that's a great use of of our funding so we need some more guidance on how do we know that this is resource we're going to be able to use year after year so that's a little bit concerning um and when we look at the math I'm going to pigy back to math that's

069a really big issue with math because now most of the resources that are approving for math are online resources then they may be free and I'm I'm going to tell you when you research the free resources they are not necessarily as strong as those that you purchase so it has become very difficult to find those those for interventions we've also noticed as a challenge that that second year of implementation for our Ela resource is not showing um quite the growth that we had in that first year I would say that's probably the same thing with our math and we know there's that implementation dip we know that but we were so excited last year when we didn't have that so it's a little disappointing to see this year so in in terms of of our

070next steps we're going to continue to dig deep in that data and effectively Target those student areas of need and within with the buildings within us as a district um really emphasizing that consistent use of the ELA resource across all of our buildings um we know that we've had to adapt that resource because every publisher puts way too much in there for you to use because they're trying to cover 50 states our days are not long enough and the year is not long enough so we have to make adjustments when need to go back and make sure we didn't adjust things that we didn't leave out things that we need and we've included the things that are must do so we're we're continuing to look on that at that and then using that observe for

071success as Dr Kula mentioned really focusing in on that next year we're revamping the district tool to make sure we're including CK and scop the buildings are really looking at their tools because that that tool is really to that's a check on RPD is are is the amount of time we're spending in professional development being reflected in the classroom how do we know that all of these things that we're saying these action steps are making a difference if it's not happening in the classroom or is we have to use that walk through data to determine that and to see what are our next steps with professional development what questions do you have when it comes to ELA um I really love to see the growth so good job um and I just have a comment

072about the atrisk funding maybe a little question and it's so frustrating to have this conf here this year you know so long like well over a year now um was this something that the the legislature um they passed a a bill about how to spend yes this is a state legislation decision um and what they they gave the direction to this um KSD that they had to review resources they gave them um specific uh category that they had to look for and one of those being um evidence or research by outside so it can't be the research from the company it had to be I believe five different sources that researched it and that really caused a lot of them to be eliminated um we do have the ability to request to have something added

073we did try to do that last year one of it and we submitted and then it came back with well we need three years of data and part of that is uh we looked at the data for our students last year because you have to go into every individual tier log which kids received that that that specific intervention um how did their growth look and so we submitted one year there's a lot of kids a lot of different resources that we use they asked us for three years um the amount of time the instructional coaches used I I I mean hours days to do it for one resource and to ask them to go back to two to three years it was not a good use of their time um so when they say the

074process is easy it is not um I know some districts have been able to get that um I don't know how other than um I have my own conclusions with that um so it's it's a very difficult process and is very frustrating because we know we know we have some good things that are going and we've had we've had growth with those and maybe some of the data changes that you've seen with that slight decrease might be because we're not being able to use some of those resources that we could in the past y thank you on a similar note just to clarify even though the resource was on the list in the year that we purchased it even though it's already been bought we can't continue to use it correct so if I can

075use it so let's say I'm a classroom teacher and my salary is not coming out of at risk funds then I can use that resource so basically we could put maybe tier or three students with the classroom teacher not with the strategy just whose salary is now being paid out of at risk funds or if a portion of the classroom teacher salar is like that intervention time they have to use an approved resource now there are approved practices so maybe there's a a way we can use the resource and fit it into the practice that might be a a stretch but it may be we have to have resources to be able to use y okay we also wanted to share with you our um Kissa action plan for this year now the process for

076Kissa is significantly different than it was in the past our action plans used to be Pages upon pages and and shared all of the action steps that we we take the new action plan is very focused and very condensed um so basically you get to select one or two so um we've focused on one the other piece that has changed is when you develop an action plan typic Al it's for a school year August to may we found out I believe maybe in December that our action plan would actually begin on February 7th which was the day after our Kisa cohort meeting so now our plan goes from February to February our plan has not been approved by the state though because it doesn't get approved till April so what you see is what we

077have submitted to the state for approval um we have selected quality instruction is that are fundamental you have to choose one or two we selected one we were advised by the state to choose something that we were already implementing this year since our year started in February versus in August um so we chose quality instruction and our structures are professional learning and educator evaluation you can see the reasoning behind it all of that data is related to our second language Learners because that was one of those groups who wanted to Target because one of our actions is implementing scop this year we've done a huge um a huge amount of hours and financial investment in that and there's research behind that so in our action steps you'll see um implementing scop in all of our

078schools that is the action step for professional learning and the Observer success tool is the action step for educator evaluation um now we're just waiting for it to be approved we will have a um six month month touch touching Bas so they come in our person comes in and they touch base with us that technically would be in August so we lose June and July in terms of implementation we have selected to meet with them in June since your um teaching and learning leadership is a lot of us are changing so um we have we are we will be meeting in June with our person and as it happens Dr Scott Paul will be with be here that day um so he'll be getting to join that meeting um then our one-ear um visit will

079be next February January February and then we will start the process all over again what questions do you have about that and I do want to say this by no means is the only thing we are doing to address student learning of course it's just a very condensed process so I it this looks like a really great plan of course I wouldn't expect anything less what if it doesn't get approved in April then what do you have to do if it was something you were supposed to start in February well that's a very interesting question do not seem very logical to me that's a very interesting question um they've not given us that direction we we submitted it right away we were already planning ahead you weren't really supposed to be planning before that February

0806th meeting that if our action plan was going to start February 7th we were planning ahead so um we had submitted it I believe last week um Dr Harter received an an email from the state saying we needed to tweak some pieces so we tweaked our pieces and it has been resubmitted um so they've been pretty good about sending our feedback as long as we said we react to their feedback and put in there what they say I I I feel like it will be approved but I'll let you know in April if it's not and what we need to do I I just have to say like kudos to you for still standing there and smiling you're trying to educate kids all of you are trying to educate kids as best as you can

081and and handling a bureaucracy that is tricky sometimes so thank you thank you it's a bit tricky I am kind of intrigued by that that first bullet there where it talks about the consistent increase in the number of non-english speakers limited English speakers are there are those new families new people coming into our community yet yes yes it seemed like for I mean we know over the years there's been Peaks and then it's kind of I say lessened over time but but we're seeing it yet I would say this started about two to three years ago um we we we've gotten new second language Learners every year but not at that non-eng not at the number of non-english speakers that we've gotten in the last few that has risen exponentially um which I think is

082reflective also in the data um they are from completely new to our country um that some of the kids I know the high school's gotten students that haven't even been in school so you're now you're trying to close that language Gap and that academic Gap um so we that is an influx that we've seen that has not been there I mean I've been here 29 years and my first year at Walnut we had a halftime aid for ESL we barely had any students and then we started getting a lot more but the the number of non-english speaking was not the level it is now thank you okay so this is a new piece and you won't you won't find this piece in your in the book The Big Book piece we didn't put it in

083there it's just in the presentation but this is your dashboard that kind of gives you an overview of how we've done the last three years since we started jic plan in 2022 and just it it's kind of meant to to give you a quick look quick overview of how we're doing so you can kind of look across there and see we're doing fairly well the graduation rate is pretty steady we were we're we were up then we were down and we're now we're heading back up again um you can see that our state Assessments in math and Ela we are showing some growth there with the kids at level three and four and then at fastbridge those percentages of overall kids scoring at those top two levels low risk with secondary Readiness are showing some

084growth from from 2022 to 2025 so we're we're showing a lot of growth overall across all all these different categories um The Chronic aism is going down which is good still higher than what it was but it's trending in the right direction um a couple things I want to point out about this about this data and moving forward into 2025 and Beyond um we have new state assessments this year in ela math and science which means we're going to have new standards new new cut scores new levels new levels of proficiency and those are going to be done there those are going to be teachers and KSD and administrators educators are going to be working on those in in uh in June so we won't have new cuts and till um we'll probably know sometime

085in January um August what they are but we won't actually have data till maybe September on how we actually did so but that's going to affect our goals because we really can't compare the new cuts to the old Cuts so we're going to kind have a new Baseline in year four of this year the same thing is happening with fastbridge fastbridge is also going to be rored um for the start of the 25 26 school year U we've been hoping that that would happen because the Norms that we have are pretty old and and we all know that a lot more students and schools in Kansas are using fast Bridge because the state kicks in on it so the number of students and number of schools using fast bridge is up a lot compared to

086when the Norms were produced the first time so I think it's going to be valuable to have new Norms it might give us a little bit indication of where we actually are compared to everybody else in the state and the nation so I did want to point that out because we'll have to draw a little line there or something to remind oursel that things changed um the graduation rate there's also been some talk about changing the way that's being going to be calculated for accreditation we talk to her a little bit about that so I'm not sure exactly what that'll do I we're going to have we have to keep that number because that's the federal requirements but there there's also going to be another one for accreditation so we'll have to talk about where

087that fits in things like that but um you also see there the CK is new um that's a level there about CK that's exciting to put that on there to have some see some growth through that so that's our dashboard I it looks to me like I need to change a few of the color like make some of the black text into white text so it kind of pops out a little bit kind of hard to see but we can fix those things do you have any questions on our dashboard or any comments yeah we've had we had several in different options this is the one that we kind of landed on I think I I think I end up being pretty nice yeah I really like how this turned out thank you thank you

088welcome okay another piece of data that we're going to look at is uh birth rates and how that that corresponds to our student enrollment um so on this first graph you can see that these are the birth rates from 2012 to 2023 emporia's birth rate has been steadily declining over the years in 2012 Emporia had 358 births and in 2023 it declined to 272 um which is a difference of 86 a notable decline was from 2018 to 2020 where we had a larger decline um but in 2021 to 2023 you can see um we're still going down but it's starting to Plateau or um become a slower decline um with the decline in birth rate you can probably guess that our population has also declining um in 2012 the population was 24,95 and by 2023

089it had declined to 24,1 reflecting a change of 853 residents um this chart or this table shows Emporia enrollment for this year um this year we had 27 preschool students enrolled in Jones um we had 248 kindergarten students enrolled just throughout our district um our grade 13 which are students at the Flint Hills Learning Center and Emporia High School um they are considered adults ungraded students and we had 231 of them so again you can see how the birth rate is affecting our enrollment okay any questions about that okay thank you Lisa I have a question but this is just for later um if you all I'm really curious because I know we take such great pride in like our smaller classroom size and so I would love to see just in general what our

090like teacher to student ratio is at some point because I I think it's something to brag about so okay but I I don't need it now but later okay thank you thanks hold up I have that data for you by school and I can get that I'll I'll try to put it in the Friday note it probably be after spring break I think we missed this week right after after spring break's great no no rush I was curious so we actually have our so we have a range of I mean so we have those set if you would like to share in general what we look at I don't have them in front of me but I mean we for our for our Edge units we look at 20 to what 20 to1 for Edge

091units about 18 to1 but I I mean I actually know what they are by school I can tell you that I just don't have them in front of me yeah yeah we have them for Ed units but it varies by grade level so yeah all right I'm going to talk a little bit about the communication piece and how that's kind of working in some of the strengths and things that we have developed through the course of the last several months um one of the things of uh that we definitely think of as a strength is expanding that language um access uh you know one of the things that we did uh most recently was adding Spanish to all of our social media posts and so you know we've gotten some positive feedback about that and

092we hope that that's includ um increasing that um engagement and that with our community as well um also the district communication plan uh that plan now is about a year and three months uh into fruition and so be by having that plan and being able to continue continue Ely update that plan it helps us stay on target and shows how we're connecting with our our families and our staff and being able to continue doing that and that's on page 34 and that's appendix a and you can kind of go through there there's several pages and it breaks that down uh each of those communication pieces uh like I said not only with our staff and our families but you know CommunityWide as well and so by going through that you can see um you know

093we if you go back and look at the last uh communication plan that we did at our last CR report and see how that's updated and see how those Chang are affecting that and so um you know definitely a strength of what we're doing uh and of course parent Square um I think everybody's seen the effects of of having that uniform unified platform uh across the board and how that's being utilized and we'll get into that a little bit more detail uh one of the next slides that we have here uh coming up and just that increased accessibility uh you know we previously had used um you know School messenger and then we kind of had a variety of things that our teachers were using and so having that accessibility across the board um and

094just how our parents and our our families are are using that tool um and how our our staff's able to use that tool and by being able to you know smart smart smartphone first um has definitely incre increased that engagement um and just kind of circling back you know uh we talked about the Spanish translation we began that in February so that's a fairly new uh concept and then um you know just being able to engage with the families because of the platforms that we have available through that so definitely strengths to our communication plan with our families uh you know the challenges the challenges haven't changed much from when we when we when I talked to you last time about this um you know trying to continue to maintain strong consistent implementation and if

095you go to page 41 on figures A1 and A2 A3 you can kind of see some of those those numbers and those statistics for that part of it and then continuing to be able to reach all stakeholders um you know we we still have families with limited access to technology um as the Stanley was talking about you know all the you know the families that move in have limited English skills or language skills uh and so we continually fight that um barrier with language availability for that uh next steps um obviously we continue to look at ways to address the challenges um you know there's different ways that we can continue to exploit parent square and being able to use that in different ways and the more comfortable everybody gets with it and the more

096we use that um I think that will increase as well so uh definitely a positive uh but something that we can continue to work on um as well any questions on that peace I will share a co-worker of mine told me the other day how much she appreciates the the post being in both English and Spanish and her parents don't speak a lot of English and she just loves it like when she sees post from Riverside that they can because they do follow they still have a grandson there and they just love that they can they can read it too so I mean I know their phones translates it but it just was impactful to them yeah I appreciate that feedback it's nice to hear that um you know and I'll pass that on to

097our social media Specialists as well and we both work through those and um it's definitely you know when we first started that we were going to do that you know we were like you know what's delay going to be and that and we've really worked through all of those and it's it's really going smoothly so we appreciate that support uh let's see next thing we'll just continue talking about strengths uh and success just the Improvement of communication between schools and families you know as I mentioned previously you know we had teachers that were communicating but it was all over as far as what they were using and so by having this um from Jones to elementaries to secondary all of those different uh families will be able to do you know one platform for all

098their for all their students so we appreciate having that and then just the messaging system um you know the updates and the ability to do things quickly um we've had some significant weather uh situations over the last uh few few weeks and so uh my Dr Harter and i' been able to communicate with that and get those messages out literally can get the messages out in in all forms within five or six minutes of you know hey we we've got a delay or we've got a we've got a cancel today um it's a very smooth process um to be able to do that and so um when we make that decision it's it's out quick uh let's see the other things is just being able to to utilize the different tools that parent Square uses

099whether it's the post and being able to send the digest and families to get it when they want to versus the smart alert urgent alerts those kind of things and you can kind of see that on page 41 with figure A3 and then I kind of want to just point out some of the different highlights as far as the numerics and some of the statistics that show um you know over 62,000 direct messages have been sent uh since we implemented parent Square uh you know in August and so um I love with you but to me I think that's a lot of that's a lot of messages and that's a lot of communication that's happening and so that's that's amazing uh you know over 5100 posts have been shared uh and this is the next

100one too I think is really cool too the over 5,300 photos uh videos have been shared so teachers are you know taking photos posting that to their families um I know um Maria in our office who helps with our Communications um is as a as a preschool kid and so the information that she gets that she would never get to see or the photos and things like that she just really appreciates that uh the other thing I think is great too is 97% of our families prek through2 uh can be contacted email text phone that sort of thing and so I always see that that 3% I'm like okay you know what what do we need to do for that well you know as we continue to have new students uh enroll uh Foster families

101uh you know different things like that uh address changes email changes phone number changes there's always going to be this that small Gap but um I I'd be curious to go back and look and see where that was when we did School messenger uh versus where it is now because I feel like 97% is is a great is a great place to be uh 47% of our parents have downloaded the app and so we think that's great obviously we want to continue to get people to to download that um it's just more accessibility you can customize it so much easier with that um as well and then also one of the things that parent Square shows it shows that 43% of our parents are interacting uh which typically means there's two contacts for each family

102or for each student I mean and so potentially 86% of our families are interacting um now that's you kind it can be skewed a a couple of different ways but I feel really good about that uh part of the strength uh of that Tool uh you know you always have challenges it's just continuing the consistency and the cohesiveness of parent Square being is an ongoing and then continuing to reach those stakeholders you know all the different ones whether it's a technology situation a language barrier those kinds of things uh that we you know run into uh with a population that we have uh in our school district uh and finally just continue to explore um Innovative communication strategies just the methods that we use to me reach all of our families and how we continue

103to do that so um you know we'll continue adapting and expanding and learning how to use those tools and then keeping that communication plan up to date and being able to follow that as well so any questions about those um I just feel like you should be really proud of what you've done in our Communications Department I mean between like getting a new website for us creating really vibrant social media and now parents Square I mean this is incredible so great job thank you and it's it's a team effort and you know DST and all work together so I appreciate that uh and and the notification that as well so thank you very much good evening again uh speak to the next couple of items here the first one is just our efforts to recruit

104and retain uh quality staff members and the positions that we have um some strengths of and successes that we've had uh we have increased our advertising um both in The District in town and across our online platforms we've used indeed a lot more kmea the music Education Association partnered with quisha uh to create one we actually have had several applications come in because they saw a job posted there uh specifically for our band position at the high school so uh many of those have been paying off and and we we keep putting efforts in advertising more uh we continue our involvement with a lot of our Emporia State uh recruiting events I think sitting here trying to count we've had at least six if not seven specific inor State recruiting events this year whether that's

105part-time job fairs for positions like our avors or Paras or bus drivers or whatever it is they might have time for to specific teaching career uh events uh to the block parties to there's just a ton of things that we do to partn partner with them our administrative team meets with the teachers College administration often uh just to talk about ways that we can continually beef up that uh education pipeline uh our office as well as several principes have attended a lot of spring Career Fairs I actually go to pit State tomorrow and then Kate here at the end of the month uh hopefully we'll be able to to make some connections there but but there's a lot of those spring Career Fairs happening at the various universities in the spring that we do attend

106uh we also continue to offer our exit interviews uh Dr Harter and I actually met with someone yesterday uh we get some really good information from those folks when we're able to visit with them uh not only in person but they also have the opportunity to uh give information on on a Google form if they if they prefer not to meet so we do take that information on ways that we might be able to improve the things that we're doing in our district and also highlight the the strengths that we have as well we actually learned yesterday we thought this staff member was leaving the profession but we actually found out he and his spouse are moving uh out toward Dodge City and uh they both have jobs out there and education and and uh

107another area so it was great just to have that conversation uh it helps us create reports at the end of the year to know where people are going as well so those are some of the strengths as far as challenges um it we we found especially in maintenance and Technology here recently that it's difficult to get some specific applicants for some of these jobs that we have uh in maintenance specifically we're talking about uh people who have boiler experience or heating and air experience you know in technology we're looking at people who are familiar with networks and systems and and the specific platforms that we use and some of the folks that have left have also cited um that competitive pay is is a reason that they're leaving um as far as the career fairs

108even though it's great to get out there and make connections a lot of the students we're seeing don't graduate for two to three years uh many of the ones that have been hired don't have to attend uh so we're seeing ones that are either graduating a year or two I saw someone at Forte State the other day and they said 2028 um I do keep a list of all of those folks that I'll be passing on I try to keep uh reaching out and making connections uh just to see where where people are at um so those are some of the challenges next steps um just continuing our Partnerships with Emporia State University um they've got many different Pathways to teaching that they've created over the last several years in addition to the traditional programs

109that they've offered uh we'll continue to actively uh recruit to fill our open uh open conditions this includes our substitutes we know that's an area that we continually hear about not having enough folks in and then just encouraging our staff members we can do all of this recruiting but but a lot of it just comes down to word Word of Mouth from our staff members talking about the great opportunities that we have here in our school district so that's a little bit about the recruiting and retention efforts I'll take any questions that you might have there you know good great you've been to so many career phases I can't even imagine your head's probably spinning trying to remember but I'm so glad you brought up the um the positions that we have a hard time

110feeling like HVAC and boiler because at our Tech College meeting on Monday had to pull up the statistic real quick but just in Kansas there we have an 82,000 skilled worker shortage just in Kansas um for every position uh that's open it's just insane um to be able to fill those so we're not you know um it's not un out of the ordinary for us to not be able to fill those jobs um but it just shows the the efforts that we make to encourage kids to find careers that are good for them aren't always four-year degrees uh and I I'm so glad we partner with the tech college and help kids um find some options too because 82,000 is a lot I mean that's what three and a half emporius yeah yeah it's a

111huge amount and the tech colleges around the state definitely fill help to fill that Niche I had a question um it seemed like a few years ago as you were going to a lot of these different colleges but the number of Education Majors had really declined are we seeing any growth in numbers for for future I from what in talking to several of the the university professors I think Dr fager even mentioned the other day that we're kind of seeing it level off Elementary I think inor state has a few more candidates in their pipeline right now secondary I don't think they're quite where they were a few years ago but I think we might be seeing hopefully less of a decline and and maybe a stabilization or an increase in those areas particularly with

112the new Pathways that uh all of the universities are creating to get people into the into the field thanks all right the next item then uh is our efforts in Safety and Security um this is just the tip of the iceberg on what I'll speak about here uh Mr tranan will also speak to a few things that are on our list um our Safety and Security met in uh in January we were scheduled to have another meeting on here in April we're kind of trying to find a final date for that we've had to switch that up due to to uh an IBB scheduling um situation there um I'm also a member of our community preparedness committee and our local emergency planning committee which is comprised of a lot of individuals from agencies Around Town

113Police Fire EMS um waste disposal I mean they're just everybody uh karch the hospital um but we meet regularly to talk about uh you know just planning for local events you know this the disc golf things that come up the Unbound gravels uh just all of the big events that could affect traffic flow or could affect numbers of people in the you know measles is a big thing down south it's something that I is on everyone's mind as we start to host many of these other big events um and and it's something that we have plans in place for um as well as planning for potential emergencies you know there's a lot of talk on the snow days and the cold weather days uh just about how folks were handling that and how it went

114um another item on here is just all of our main entrances at each of the schools and our buildings now our buzz in systems you've probably noticed that here at Mary Herbert we were the last of the group to join but it has worked very well and very efficiently Mr stranathan has worked well with our with our groups here uh to to make that process uh work smoothly um I attended as well as one of our security officers an anonymized threat webinar in January we actually have four more trainings coming up within the next month and a half that we'll be sending various groups to on on a wide variety of Safety and Security topics um so those are some of the strengths and challenges and Mr tranan will talk to you about uh challenges

115and next steps okay so challenges weather yay right weather was a big challenge this year so one of the things that um just to we've already started addressing that challenge with the buses one of the things that Michelle and I had a very linky conversation about was um we've got now a local vendor where we can get diesel one which if you know anything about the diesel fuels diesel one is for what you need to use in very cold weather and um where on Fridays now when they bus uh when the bus is gas we talked about um if we know there's impending weather is that we'll start taking those buses and and doing a 5050 in those to try to get that um the interesting thing on that conversation that came from a a

116dinner conversation with my husband when he was reminding me about Diesel and what we used to do in Colorado so Michelle and I had she said yeah we do that but we just top it off and I go yeah we've got to hit it at the 50 Mark to be able get that so that it won't gel so hopefully moving forward we won't have those issues anymore with our buses not wanting to start or starting and not starting the next day so um the other thing too is um just the snow removal a lot of that you'll see um it's on down there where our equipment um the equipment that the district has is just not able to handle this so Corey along with Michelle and I are putting together and looking at um prioritizing

117the vehicles we have the pieces of equipment that we have in the buildings that are just done um they just can't they they're they're done they just can't take that beating anymore so to continue to look at that the other thing we also have on there for challenges is that um which we're addressing like I said the challenges we've just jumped right into with um where Corey's got which I'm shared that in Friday notes is that Corey's got a guy coming out and we're doing an evaluation of all of our playgrounds so that's exciting to see what that cost is and what improvements we can do to that um also our outdoor facility um been I've been working with the middle school and the high school the track um should have been addressed pre me

118and pre Corey and um it's at that point now where it's it's to an extreme uh so we're excited to bring that option forward and to have that convers ation and to see what we can do with that to help improve that outdoor space and Technology uh We've we saw what happened this year we've had to use our um our insurance on that and so good thing we have the insurance because we've all learned quite a bit about that now in reference to the need of that and what that can do for us next steps we want to work um continue to work on our emergency operation plan for the 2526 will continue to participate in training and professional development and then also addressing the second phase of large repairs for the district any questions

119I just want to say thank you for the 5050 thing because I've had people has anybody else been asked about that I'm not a car person I'm not I didn't but my husband and some other people are I'm like I don't so I'm like why are we doing that I'm I don't know so that's good and it beats the people that are saying can't we have an indoor facility to store the buses I'm like sure any day now I you know what's really interesting about that is Michelle and I were thinking of any facilities in town that we could just go use and park them in there and there's just not but I I do think you you know on that 50/50 I wasn't even thinking of that when like I shared I was having

120that conversation because of how cold those temperatures have to be for that grade one well we were hitting those temperatures I mean we were hitting right on The Mark with those so I I really believe we'll see and the other thing too is is finding a person that we can or a vendor or that we can purchase it from because not everybody carries that grade and so we do have someone locally here that we can do that with so and we've already communicated with them and been in touch y um I have a question about the snow removal um does each of the individual schools have I'm just trying to summarize what you said so do they each have their own equipment and they're responsible for doing their own snow removal school or does it

121just come from like the the general maintenance so it's it's both so they some of them have snow plows but the little snow plows the push ones are not when it gets to a certain point those do nothing um most of it is done manually we do have three buildings that we use a local vendor that does the large Lots um so like the middle school and the high school um and Timberman they can't do the smaller Lots because of how close things are and their blade their their vehicles are too big and it would just tear up um the sidewalks and stuff but one of the things Corey and I talked about is looking at we we need smaller pieces of equipment that can manage not smaller like push but looking at some of

122the options with the you know the blades on front of ATVs instead of on front of a truck because a truck can only do so much too so it's starting and especially where Michelle and I and Corey are putting together the vehicles and starting to look at there's really never been a replacement for those you know if it completely dies and you can't do anything with it it was kind of that level of replacement so now what we're doing is putting together of list and how we can start aging out or getting rid of some of the vehicles that are no longer doing anything for us um a lot of the maintenance Vehicles were two wheel drives well we know what two wheel drives do and then you try to put a blade on there

123and and it's not going to move any snow it's not going to do anything so and hopefully we don't have any large snows like this again I think the kicker in these last few snows we had was it went snow I snow and the city couldn't even cut through a lot of that so and there's been better communication with the city too so that where we're clearing a sidewalk they're not throwing it back up on the sidewalk for us so but on that on that note and I'm kind of sad the media left but I do kind of want to voice it out there because I don't think people quite realize this um the relationship between the county and the city's responsibility for cleaning the snow um in my opinion is not the best or

124most acceptable because more or less the county will do nothing for the city of Emporia andore fend for itself um and that can be kind of frustrating when you consider that almost 90% of the County's tax base comes from you guessed at the city of Emporia so I've heard stories that there are actually County trucks that will lift their blade up driving through Emporia and then when they get to the other part of the county we'll then put the blade back down um and then you know the unusual weather doesn't help but I don't think people quite realize that maybe some of that isn't entirely the fault of the city with the resources they have and what we've already paid for elsewhere I do give kudos to Corey Corey has consistent reached out um on

125those days trying to coordinate so that you know we're we're not pushing the same snow more or less and trying to work through that because I think that's important too is you know we've got to move it somewhere also and that they're not just pushing it back you know like I you know laughed about on the sidewalk but that's also in the drive areas and blocking you know areas to get into our parking lots and stuff too so hello this is my first time up here so I feel like I I don't know everything's been said so I I guess ditto would not be appropriate here so um I'm excited to talk about how we are providing those instructional resources and PD for our staff and students so several strengths and successes to talk about

126we picked a few here you can reference the tables there um tables 31 to 33 that's on page 26 to 29 of your um of your expanded uh quarterly report so we have been able to dedicate a lot of funds to provide PD in our buildings as well as opportunities for our staff to attend conferences and trainings and workshops so that's been great for them and for us um we've also been supporting some of our district initiatives that you've already heard about uh this evening like scop and CK and we've seen the benefits of those for sure um also you can see in tables 31 and 32 on pages 26 and 28 um there's a long list of our buildings there and we we get to see what specific PD has been targeted in the

127buildings to meet those individual student needs and those building goals so that's a nice little uh table to look at also so um another success We are continuing to identify those resources um and positions that we can fund with our at risk monies that is an ongoing conversation I think that is is a bullet point in every one of our DST meetings and DLT meetings you know we just continue to dig and dig and dig and see what we can do with those atrisk dollars um at this time we are able to have full-time instructional coaches in all of our elementary schools uh for the 25 26 school year so that is very exciting for us so challenges and you may have heard some of these already we're kind of echoing some of the uh

128similar um challenges so those allowable expenses you know that list of allowable expenses for atrisk funds is very small right now so we're we're really digging in and trying to see a evaluate our own resources and try to figure out what we can use um with those atrisk um students uh the the Staffing challenge it continues I know we've talked um in the past about how uh our retention of Staff has been better um we we keep telling our staff to recruit recruit recruit um because when we recruit more certified staff St we're able to fill those core positions which can enable us to increase our number of uh uh strategists yes so um another challenge I I feel like it's kind of a recent challenge but we've been working very hard on it is

129the Seal of literacy that ksde has has has put out to us that we have that group of Educators that are listed there prek through six special ed teachers instructional strategist school syes elementary principles they are going to be required to demonstrate at that they have had that instruction in this the science of reading so they will demonstrate that through a seal of literacy that will appear on their license so starting in July 2028 if you don't have that seal of literacy something is going to happen when you go to renew your license we don't know what that is yet they're they're keeping that Under Wraps but we're we're I don't know if we're excited to find out or what but something is going to happen um so next steps we're going to continue to

130utilize our assessment data and that great data that we're getting from our walkth through tool to identify those PD needs um also continue recruiting so we can fill those core positions and get more strategists and then again with the atrisk money identifying not only the at risk needs that we can we can fund with that money but also those intervention resources that are going to be aligned with the KSD um evidence-based programs and practices so those are things we continue continue to look at so what questions might you have about our PD we've had some great PD that has led to a lot of successes for us so I had a question on the seale of literacy how extensive is the effort to get to that point so we have a couple options and Dr

131mikkelson and Judy Stanley have worked on those so you can certainly come up there's a couple options that we have presented to usd2 by3 staff members who are affected by this you are an expert so I will let you talk about it so right now we have three options for yep so the first option would be letters and letters is a two-year program that you go through uh and and there are touch points and there are also assessments that you have to receive a certain score for so for that two full years the other one is keys to literacy and it is a another program it's a year-long program but we'll also get that seal of literacy added the third option is taking a practice to so taking an assessment uh you don't technically need

132to do anything extra but we are are going to um starting the 25 26 school year offer some sessions after school for any staff member who would rather just take the practice um to just like kind of study sessions um from people that have been letters trained and they can get a little bit of learning and then take that practice assessment um all of those the the the first two especially would be paid by us right now um through the co-op and through um through Emporia uh while we have funds to do that and then uh for the practice they the educator actually has to uh pay for that themselves and then somehow KSD will let us know how that somehow will be um we will get that uh teacher reimbursed um at some point

133so that's what we know now uh but like everything else some things change so um I was like based on currently known facts that is where we're at I did want to add that cost of time is the a big piece when the first first two groups that went through letters KSD paid for that and we were able to offer a stipend for the time that they were doing because we had Esra funds to do that we do not have Esra funds anymore and if we so we we can't necessarily pay for that time commitment that they have and it is a lot um the keys to literacy is only a year but it's still outside time that they have to commit um we are saying we will pay for the the keys to literacy

134the registration piece it to take that burden off of the teachers unlike what you would do for college credit but that's only as long as we have the funding there and we have teachers that are joining letters again but I think that's the big piece is we're no longer able to compensate them for that time if we do so it will take so much of our professional development line we won't be able to do those other things that are needed um KSD is not giving us more money to do this it is a burden for the the teachers and we're trying to ease on that ease up on that burden but um just letting you know that's really the challenge of it it's it's that time commitment and not being able to compensate them for

135that thank you so much I knew they could do it they did awesome on that yes yeah thank you so much okay well um we've been focusing on the growth and you see there's been a lot of work and so appreciate our team it takes many many many hours lots of going through data analysis of data to pull all of this together um so as we're talking about the measures back in uh March 9th 2022 those measures that we had we were coming out of the pandemic they were pretty ambitious I appreciate Jamie bringing this to our attention because we kept that bar High um but we also need to make it realistic we didn't realize what the pandemic would be um you know all the Fallout from that chronic absenteeism as an example we're

136seeing that improve but that was a big Fallout from the pandemic so our thought is that um input from Lillian and Jamie is that really want those ready for next year even having the Baseline for the uh State assessments and fastb changing their Norms what we would like to do is DST would work with DLT just like we did in the past review all the data that we have since we've started the um our strategic plan and then what would be more acceptable more appropriate measures that are still ambitious yet more attainable we also thinking about new leadership that's coming in new new Administration we want make want to make sure that they are also having input so we would bring them in um to give that input because they're will be the ones that

137will be taking that on so on pages 31 to 33 you can see that those are the measures that we have and so it shows State assessment fast Bridge graduation rate Etc throughout the whole strategic plan so um before I go on any questions on that or any any other input that you would like for us to consider I I just love how you said still ambitious right because we're not being de Feist we're being realistic and ambitious and and I yeah we're not lowering our standards absolutely not we're just changing always ambitious right yes okay if you think of other input that you would like to share please um please share them with me um I would if we go to the next slide and so I did today so if you remember we

138applied for the School star uh School designation back in November uh 13th the board passed the resolution to start that and then January 17th uh we app we applied we submitted our application all the schools had put together um all the activities had done this um this year with photos descriptions and so we were approved yesterday at the Kansas State Board of Education meeting so uh there are three other districts that are approved along with us and so that's very exciting um so as we were beginning to work on the quarterly report I think it also kind of made us think a little bit about our step recognition and was just thinking about um all the years that we have put together and so as we're leaving kind of thinking about gosh we've committed a

139total of with our DST 238 professional years to education so thinking about um our K12 so or maybe somebody that went to preschool our Bachelor masters education specialist doctorate for an average of 23 and 3/4 of a year and then we also looked at um oh I'm sorry I jumped too many those were 190 as Learners so those were Learners 230 professional years and that was an average of 29.75 so those are the T those are the years that we spent whether it was a par a teacher an administrator whatever role that we played um those are a lot of years and so I mean we're not that we're old because we're not old but we just wanted to celebrate that and we're really excited about our new administ ation coming in because they're also

140bringing in a lot of really great years um so we appreciate all of the work that um I appreciate all of the work that they have done all the work that our principles and our teachers and staff members when we think about all the years that they have too I mean we have a lot of really great years and foundation in our school district that we should be really really proud and so we are looking forward to continue to help the district move forward and we are ending on our mission statement of we engage we Empower and we Inspire so thank you very much thank I just H I just have to say you call it years but I think all of us would call it wisdom you bring a lot of wisdom all of

141you thank you all so much as always for all your hard work I know putting the report together takes a lot of time and effort um and we truly appreciate the report of course and then everything that you all do every day to support our students and teachers thank you okay we're ready for item n 9A executive session consult and attorney Miss L felter I do have something to add so Mike Norris would like to inv invite another attorney who works for his fir firm Sarah wood okay so if we could add her name yes okay I will enter move to enter executive session for 15 minutes for the exception for matters which would be deem privileged in the attorney client relationship under the Kansas open meeting act and that we return to open Open

142session in this room at 8:05 p.m. superintendent Dr Alis Harter and attorneys Tammy samoi and Mike Morris and Sarah wood are invited to join the board for this session motion passes e e e I motion to return to regular session all in favor please raise your right hand motion passes 60 I move we enter executive session for 10 minutes to discuss negotiation information pursuant to the exception for employer employee negotiations under the Kansas open meetings act and that we return to open session in this room at 85 15 or calling at 8:15 p.m. superintendent Dr Allison Harter assistant superintendent of business operations Pam janathan assistant superintendent of teaching and learning and student services Judy Stanley and Director of Human Resources Jared Giffin are invited to join the board for this session no action is anticipated

143second motion e e e all in favor motion passes 70 okay Lind are you good if we move okay okay uh so that brings us to our future board calendar date it's on March 26th at 6:00 p.m. we will have a special board meeting here at Mary Herbert education center and then March 31st through April April 3rd kind of to be determined for superintendent interviews which will be held here at Mary Herbert education center and then our regular board meeting for April Wednesday April 9th at 6:m Wednesday April 23rd at 5:30 we'll have study session and board meeting here at Mary Herbert education center and then Wednesday April 30th 5:00 p.m. staff recognition at White Auditorium I would entertain a motion to adjourn motion passes 70