Lawrence Public Schools Board of Education Meeting | September 23, 2024

001e e e I'm going to call to order the September 23rd board meeting welcome is there an approval of the agenda I move the Board of Education to approve the agenda for the September 23rd 2024 meeting second Gordon Ross Yes Jones yes yes fires kadu Blackwood Castello yes Franklin yes the motion passes 70 okay we're going to move on to special recognitions and I believe Prairie Park is here this evening um with principal Townsen and a whole crew of other Prairie Park folks hi welcome hi Hi how are you so my name is Jason towns and I'm the principal at pre Park Elementary um and I'll introduce these folks here in a minute what I want to start with is um these can be nerve-wracking for principles because you're sitting there like what do we

002want to do to impress the board right and we're sitting there and I was telling Julie boy like what what cutesy thing do we have and I'm going through this and not only is it hard but it's hard we've been in school for about a month and um I actually emailed these fine folks and I was talking to our instructional coach and and what we were going to recognize turned into who we were going to recognize and and I think that's important because um last may we presented on clubs if you remember Lorie Greenfield presented on the marathon club and stuff and that's really really cool it is it's great for schools um but these folks right here they are either new to pray park or new to the position they have at pre Park

003and I'm talk about that for a little bit because the business we're really in is teaching and learning and and sometimes I think we get caught up in in in great stuff like Marathon Club and and all this and we forget like the things that people do in their classroom and this became super clear um I was at the Walnut Valley festival if you all know what that is it's a music festival down in Winfield Bluegrass all that good stuff this past week and you meet all kinds of people and I met people I met people that used to work at prey Park years ago and I was like okay that's cool um almost everybody that I met they were like what do you do and I said well I'm a principal of an elementary

004school and their response was how do you do that how do you still do that in today's society and and these people they do work in their classrooms every single day and I think we need to make sure we recognize the teaching and learning that happens um I'm going to ramble we have a second a second grade teacher named Lisa pal and last year our second grade team was presenting on their data and they were presenting to our staff about here's our fast bir scores here's what we did we made some growth and the data looked great it was awesome I loved it and somebody said something about well how do you do that and she goes well it's just easy and I interrupted and I said well no it's not easy because not only

005do you have to be a master of your content you have to know your standards you have to connect it to assessment and then you got to figure out how to instruct on that you also have to know how to manage 20 some bodies at one time and you got stuff coming at you from the district you got stuff coming at you from your building admin you got stuff coming at you from your parents and you have to balance all of this that's not an easy job and um so the F the stuff these folks do every day is not an easy job to to the folks outside they see the end product and it looks very very easy it's not um so I kind of want to introduce um these folks and I'll let

006them say a few words and I'm going to speak on them so Sabrina long is not new to her position but I asked her to come along so Sabrina will you pop up here for a second um Sabrina is here because I I have never gotten to PR uh publicly recognize how much I appreciate this person she is our instructional coach at pre Park and at at at elementary schools we do not have assistant principles and the one she does a lot of things for all these fine folks all the people in our building but the one thing she does for me is she encourages me to make the hard decisions I can I can do things and I can handle things with parents and I can handle things with staff and I know that

007when push comes to shove and I walk back in that office she's going to tell me she I did a good thing and she's going to give me that encouragement so from a principal standpoint that is priceless I can do hard things in our building because I have somebody standing behind me and not everybody gets to see that so um you want to say something nope [Applause] she says more words than that when when we're all oh and I got to explain the shirts that is me and her on that shirt and and I had the same shirt on today um last year for my birthday she you know the old Sears JC Penney photo shoots she got me a photo shoot for my birthday and and we wear those and I H I have

008pictures of us looking off into the distance like those old old Sears photos and I just thought it was the funniest thing and I did not want her to wear this tonight but anyway um but anyway s is our instructional coach uh one in a million for sure um I want I want to introduce somebody that's not here tonight which is odd she was gonna be here she couldn't be here her name is Kota Conklin she is our brand new ASD Teacher over at prey Park um she's worth a million bucks um she has come in with just the most positive attitude she signed up to do um extended school year with some of our students who are in special ed um and then just stepped right into prey Park and she's taken hit the

009ground running and I wish she was here so you could see her face but um big asset and and Laura Basham who's not here tonight actually found her and um that was a huge relief to me and us at prey Park so um that was Koda Conklin um Carmen Susi and Kimberly Sturman come on Ford so come on Ford yep Kimberly is teaching second grade this year and Carmen is teaching first grade and I want to tell you I'm not going to tell you everything that's special um about them because there is but what I want to tell you is on the very last day of school last year we were looking at our title funds and we're like uhoh we have to do something and they were title teachers last year and I went

010to them on the very last day of school and I had to figure out what are we going to do and and I can tell you with some I would go to them on the last day of school and say Here's my plan and I'd get push back and fighting these two ladies they embraced it they jumped in they said if this is what our building needs this is what our building needs and and that attitude and I tell people all the time I can train skill but I cannot train personality and attitude and this is an attitude these two Kimberly and Carmen have attitudes that you cannot just find everywhere and and so that's what I wanted to recognize about them tonight because they jumped feet first into a gened position coming straight out

011of title and their faces when I went to them um was pretty Priceless but you don't have a choice you can say something all I'm going to say is I got 20,000 steps today so I'm really tired oh Kimberly doesn't like talking yes um but I'm I'm pretty proud that they're they're new to a position and they jumped in they're learning um they're learning right along their teams and and they've added quite a bit of value to their team um Brandy come on up here Brandy Hayes is another gym she is not new to Lawrence but she is new to prie park she came over from Quail Run um and the one thing I'll tell you about her is our fifth grade teachers have been craving and a teammate um we have been through quite

012a bit of influx we hired a teammate that teammate left um before the school year started um we've had different people that we've put in but I know that our two fifth grade teachers that we currently have at pray Park um they feel blessed because Brandy has come and they have a team that they can work and and that team Beyond Sabrina and Sabrina and I talk about this quite a bit we can help but their greatest learning comes from working as a team with other fifth grade teachers that's where they're going to learn the most and I know that our two fifth grade teachers are just thrilled to have Brandy around um she's doing a great job for our kids and I'm I'm glad to have her at pre Park thanks I'll just give

013a shout out to my teammates Amber Sidwell and Stacy alvers um I really love working with them they're awesome I feel really privileged to be at Prairie Park this year um it was a good move and uh I'm just glad to be part of the team so yeah [Applause] yeah Nicholas come on up this is Nicholas Alexander he's a fourth grade teacher currently his first year of teaching in public education and so um I think there's probably times where his eyes were like boom um but we are thrilled to have Nicholas you got to go to his room sometime it's permanently there now it just stays Y and so Nicholas makes me laugh we need that as Administration um I was just telling Julie Bole back here there was one day he came up and

014we were in the Teachers Lounge later oh yeah go for it or you want to do it you can do it oh you yeah go ahead go ahead so let me tell you about our school our school is great and let me tell you about the story I had I was at the Walnut film or uh blueg Grass Festival and this person came up to me and they said God school is great and I said yeah except for when it's not yeah he just he has that sort of that Ted talkie kind of so when he was doing this everybody was looking at me thinking what is his reaction going to be I busted out laughing I thought it was the funniest thing and he had it nailed perfect but that's just kind of the

015thing he brings to our school like we could be having a terrible day and he's in there being funny lifting everybody up and that's that that's just him that's his personality that's is you know bread and butter but um Nicholas has been a great addition so now you can say some other stuff that's not me uh I love it thank you John palmgren uh you've been a really good that's our co- teer next to me uh uh in the classroom next to me the other fourth grade teacher phenomenal every all the support staff have been wonderful I love it help me but also I love [Laughter] it yep and and the last one here um non-conventional kind of a Lawrence staple come on up number one Sher tamarius been been around Lawrence for a while

016so why I wanted to recognize Sherry is uh you know our applicant pool for teachers wasn't overflowing and I found her and and actually her grandson actually helped me out with this um did his exact phrase was he came up to me at BGC and he said she's wanting to know how long she she's going to be here and and I said said I don't know and he goes I'll tell you what you do you tell her a week and then at the end of the week tell her you need her another week and then another week Sherry has has retired and and is living in her her best life but she knew that pre Park needed a staff member and she jumped in and she came back and she's been helping us out until

017we can until we can find some solutions but um been a great addition we rely on folks like this um she's just been tremendous and and I'm I'm glad we got to start the year with her so this is Sher tamarus go thank you I could stand here and talk all day I have lots of stories I could tell you I am honored to be at Prairie Park and consider it a home uh not just because Alexander was there for kindergarten through fifth grade but because the staff is amazing they just embrace everybody that comes into the building and you just feel the love the minute you walk in and I don't think I'd want to be any place else right now so it it's a great place it really is I hope you can

018come out and see it sometime so thank you Jason so I'll leave this with with one last note and I think this is important these are folks um you know we've talked about attitude they choose to do what they do they don't have to do what they do they could all go find other things they have chose to be part of the educational community and um for that I could not be more proud We need we need good people in our educational system and and our new folks are cream of the crop so um I'll let you ask any questions of them if you want I just um want to extend gratitude for stepping up into second and first grade is that right and your willingness to come back and help when we needed and

019coming into the fourth grade and um apparently being really creative with the photo shoots and all of the other um it's uh and coming you know from Quail into into pray Park and making those changes and just being willing to flow with things as As you move into your positions I um am grateful for the work that you do for our students and for the work that you all do and and we'll certainly be coming out to visit you all um heard the invitation and we'll take it so thank you so much for everything that you do anybody else thank you thanks a lot [Applause] okay we're going to move on to the report of the superintendent of the schools Dr Swift thank you madam president and members of the board it's my uh honor

020to get to share with you the superintendent's report for September 23rd um we are just so thankful to the laurren schools Foundation Community Education uh Foundation staff and board for their wonderful Community Education breakfast uh last Friday on the 13th it was my great honor to recognize Cameron Hardy and Aubrey magnusen of Lawrence High and DEA Preston and Ryan wear of Free State High School such impressive young people our high school bands and spirit squads Firebird Orchestra members and Harrison Le leer uh a Freestate freshman violinist represented our schools just beautifully uh during their performances I'm also grateful to John L white of Lawrence High class of 1996 for returning home from Georgia to speak at this event her uh story was inspiring uh to all of us and I appreciate her taking the time

021to share with us our schools are truly fortunate uh to benefit from such tremendous Community Support uh Foundation executive director Dena Johnston announced a record $100,000 raised uh from sponsorships and ticket sales and Truity Credit Union a master leap partner and donating uh $40,000 to the foundation to continue support of our student and staff needs so what a great pride Point uh for Lawrence Public Schools and for the Lawrence Community was uh delighted to hear last week and to celebrate congratulations to our Lawrence Public Schools eight National Merit semifinalists they are Amaya gab Malcolm Carmen Richard Lee Noah PTZ Earl Elena Russo anwin Williams and L Z of free state and Elise rathell of Lawrence High these students have exceptional academic ability they are recognized among less than 1% of us High School seniors so

022congrats to them one of the highlights of the week last week was a great opportunity uh to be out with our elementary teachers my arm wasn't long enough for a selfie so and uh Andrew helped us there uh but several hundred of our best and brightest uh you just saw prayer Park team and this is the entire early childhood and Elementary team it was a great day of professional development uh as uh teachers and their teams came together they were such an impressive site and it was really a great feeling to have them all together in one room uh and I had the honor of welcoming them to be in the day I want to thank uh our team members Leah wisdom Denise Johnson JC Robertson uh Christen Ryan and all of the presenters and

023every single early childood and Elementary staff member and teacher who collaborated on this meaningful and Powerful day I want to uh thank our families because we understand that it is uh a a sacrifice for our families to give us that time in order to develop our staff but I promise it will be powerful growth and development as our teachers return to their classrooms uh ready to go I really appreciated Andrew bevan's development of this uh video that we shared uh at the opening of the day it's just about two and a half minutes I promise it's worth every second [Music] the hardest things that um my teachers help me with is most of the time Ela I'm not that good at Ela since I'm from a different country it's kind of hard sometimes I mess

024up with my words we work we read she'll call on people to help us they teach us that our mistakes can help us grow I want an educator that will like teach me and explain the assignment and what I'm supposed to do and be there for me when I need help I like an educator who's going to help me with my work and someone who I can like trust if I'm not doing so well in school that I can like go to teachers can encourage Us by helping us learn what we need to learn and not moving on if we still need to work on something teachers build trust by helping the students and telling the students about themselves obviously every student learns very differently and at different pieces if there was a graph or

025something then it would be easier for me than just listening so then I can understand it better this can makes the homework fun like you can call her even when there's some stuff that I'm bored about like math or like science that is like really fun and like funny like words that are funny one time she um forgot the schedule like she forgot the day and like the whole entire class laughed because she forgot and she's like a teacher like teach don't forget things yeah that's very true I've heard that many times when a teacher is encouraging you it helps it gets you hyped up and ready to work would you say that students remember the moments that teachers encourage them yes I want to be an artist when I grow up in kindergarten I

026got to go go put my art in art show she would like give us the question again and then she'll tell us to keep on trying and do your best the best way for teachers to like adapt to that is just focus more on stup make sure that the content fit with all the students that the students who are struggling the students who are doing above and beyond to make sure that no one SLB all [Music] right so you can see that theme of being the educator your students need you to be uh was uh all the way through the day including that precious video from our students it was such a delight to join our Lawrence Virtual School Community out in the park recently uh we had such a great turnout of the Virtual

027School Elementary staff students and family it was so great to see the parents visiting with each other and uh to also get to engage with them um I heard some really powerful stories from Individual parents about the difference the profound and positive difference that having a quality uh virtual opportunity makes for their families and uh two of the families had traveled quite a distance from different locations and it was really wonderful uh one of them had traveled that distance just so that their daughter could meet her best friend in fourth grade in her class uh and the other one uh also uh to connect with parents and with students um we had on our mind uh these past several days uh really this priority of safety uh in the Lawrence Public Schools uh I want

028to just reiterate that safety is our absolute top priority it even comes ahead of our critical mission of teaching and learning and that is our priority every day um we know just from reading the headlines and seeing the news uh that uh uh schools across the country including including here in Lawrence Public Schools are dealing with an uptick in threats of violence and rumors about the threats of violence I want to give a shout out to Lawrence Police Chief Rich lockart who joined me this morning over at Free State High School and we were able to put together a brief video uh for high school and middle school students and then also an introduction uh specifically for parents around really just talking to each other about the importance of um I loved uh Chief Lockhart's

029phrase uh reporting not reposting and so we really want to emphasize uh with our students we're asking for help from parents and Community uh that you reach out to an adult right at school um and our police chief said go ahead if you want and dial 911 that's the quickest way to get through and Report not repost and so we want everyone to feel safe at school and I appreciate the support of everyone in the community on that priority uh we continue uh to talk about our fall Community engagement and board members you have just a sample of the postcard that I'll be handing out as I'm moving around town uh regarding our fall Community engagement uh we really are working uh to to uh connect uh with members from across the community so whether

030folks uh choose to attend a publicly posted meeting or whether folks are part of a community organization and you'd like to work with us to host uh one of the meetings and board members I've included a a list in your superintendent report which is a draft we'll be adding uh organizations to that list but those are folks that were thinking of uh I'll also be uh working with the elt and with our principals and teachers just to make sure that we have all of the groups in town that we want to get invitations out to uh so the timeline really is pretty simple this engagement will involve uh staff meetings at every school um now I won't be able to be at every one of those but we will be facilitating those also student meetings

031at Lawrence High uh free state and the virtual uh School uh we'll also be hosting some uh public meetings as well uh that will be posted on the website and then many organizational connections throughout the fall and I've included a list uh that's our starter list in your outline uh board members so um really excited to be out and be a part and be connected with the community as you can see on the back of your card the questions are the ones you would expect first of all uh from your experience what are our strengths uh that you want to be sure to protect and hold on to as we move forward secondly where are our areas of opportunity or challenge um and then thirdly what do you see as the top one or two

032or three priorities for the superintendent and for moving forward in Lawrence Public Schools so I thank everyone who's going to be a part of our work coming up and that is uh the preview um I did want to touch just a minute before we wrap on our next steps with cell phones you know uh board members in community the presence of cell phones in classrooms and schools is a frequent topic on television in the head lines both around Kansas and across the country I want to preview our next steps in Lawrence Public Schools and share this evening that we will be working on Thursday we have a great opportunity to be with our principles at all levels we'll be working with our principals with our staff with student groups um and with parents and families

033over the coming weeks we will be clarifying our expectations around cell phone in our schools the overarching priority is clear and that is to remove distractions in order to focus on our critical Mission which is teaching and learning that classroom is a place we could see in looking at our Prairie part te tonight it's a place that teachers prepare for and that students deserve an uninterrupted quality teaching and learning environment and so our priority is clear and that is to protect teaching and learning and prioritize it so you will hear more about our next steps over the coming weeks as we invite all of our stakeholders to join in this conversation and we will then be looking toward a January implementation I know that a lot of students and parents and families have already taken

034steps uh to reduce their exposure I talk to parents every day who are already having conversations we'll be having one as a school community and we'll be sharing uh board members I'll be sharing it every board meeting just an update of how our conversation is going and our anticipated next steps in implementation I wanted to just quickly uh share that um we're so delighted with so many of um the stories that are around us exciting news to share all the time and James do you think if I click that I'll be able to go to the website you think um and it's on that celebrations just want to show everyone we're bombarded with media and I want to show everyone where you can go and if you click more at the bottom you can see

035that are good stories if you feel like uh we're not you're not getting to see I'll be sharing this in the superintendent's update so that folks can go directly to uh just the best news around Lawrence and that is the news of our Lawrence Public Schools in addition for Real Time updates I invite you to join me at LPS super Swift on X formerly known as Twitter that is where snow day announcements will be made first I will point out um secondly uh at Lawrence Public Schools on Facebook and then also at usd497 on Instagram and YouTube uh again we live in a community that is uh like everyone bombarded with many references and places to get information we'd love for you to get your best information directly from us and our team works on

036that all the time and so uh members it is my honor to share the superintendent's report I'm happy to take questions thank you okay thank you than you Dr Swift thankk you so we'll move on to report of president of the board uh I have a a couple updates uh we are moving our October 14th meeting to October 15th which is Tuesday we inadvertently scheduled our board meeting on indigenous people's day I apologize for that we're amending it ahead of time um and we'll be moving to the 15th which is a day it we've confirmed it right everybody just to okay all seven of us will be there so that'll be that'll be a good thing too um I want to extend my gratitude to the Lawrence schools foundation and just say thank you for

037your work in the community and in particular over the last um couple of weeks I know there have been a couple of um larger events and I'm sure Ann can point to them as our uh board representative there she and I got to sit at the table during the community breakfast with the class of 1971 or 70 something yeah and it included um several teachers folks that graduated from uh Lawrence high school and then went on to be Educators in our district and it was it was really um fun and um and a lot of ways inspiring to get to be around them um so thank you to the Lawrence schools Foundation I have a technical matter uh we have on the consent agenda for the policy committee uh GAC which is our our nepotism

038policy in conversation an and Shannon and I realized it needs a small um tweaking that we're working on kasb wh about and so when it comes up for second read there'll be a small shift but we'll make sure everybody sees that and we'll explain it it's a technical change not anything substantive so but we'll highlight it so I wanted to make you all aware of that and then finally I just wanted to um also from the board president reiterate a few things about devices um so that everyone is clear uh it is inevitable or foregone conclusion that there will be some shifts to the cell phone policy we're tweaking it in a way that we hope protects instruction time for educators but I do want to highlight for the community so there's no confusion our

039elementary and middle schools already currently do not allow um cell phones during instruction time and are High School teachers can also require them not to be out during times when they are instructing so because we know this is where we're going the expectation of the board is that the current policy will be supported our educators will feel supported in enforcing those policies and so if there is a management so less of a governance issue we would want um teachers to speak directly with their building principles about that so that we can ensure that they're getting the support they need as we make this transition my other ask is to parents and caregivers that you have the ability to also help us in this endeavor to monitor the cell phone usage of your and other device

040usage of your students I know for my own family this was particularly challenging thing to do and did require some hard parenting choices including um not allowing my child to bring their phone to school I want to recognize that that was a privilege that I had um and that I recognize for some families especially children that might have special education needs or that are in circumstances where their families have safety considerations those cell phones are an important tool and we want to make sure that they have access to them so we're trying to find a good balance here as we develop this policy um so thank you all for participating in um when I say you all I do mean the building administrators and our Educators and our students and the um District administrators and

041drafting a policy that will be something that that can be um implemented in a way that protects our students and to that end to make sure that the board understands our why behind this particular issue I have invited um Kylie Luckett to come and talk to us about the mental health considerations so in addition to the Kylie is here thank you Kylie for agreeing to do that so in addition to the updates from Dr Swift we'll be getting a report um from Kylie about why we're doing this just as a reminder to all of us and to help build consensus as a community around why we're doing this and why it matters so um I'm now GNA move on uh are there any questions about any of those items before I do okay thank you

042Janice okay you want to Lori did you want to wait or did you want to go want to go okay so um we're going to move on to public comment and do I have a board colleague that's willing to oh y'all it's um gr Gordon Ross's birthday today uh and um my colleague Shannon kimpel's birthday yesterday we have already sang Happy Birthday to gr so um you missed it Shannon but we won't we won't leave you hanging so expect that that will be coming uh you're both great board colle thank you for everything you do I hope you had great birthday weekends okay so now we need someone to read public comment the USD 497 Board of Education welcomes public comments and thanks you for taking time to talk to us about our policies and

043procedures we set aside this time during our regular meetings to hear from the public patrons who wish to participate in public comment must fill out the public comment registration form so the District staff or the board can follow up with you as necessary this is your time to share your opinions however public comment is not the appropriate form for making complaints about specific staff or students if your comments relate to complaints concerning students or staff such complaints must be addressed to District staff as provided under board policy KNN and GAE the board president or presiding officer of the meeting May direct that a public comment requests be redirected to staff to comply with board policy and or to protect the privacy of individual staff or students if you need assistance in sharing a complaint or

044concern with District staff please let the board Clerk or other District staff know topics discussed in public comment shall be gered to the business of the board comments are acts that are threatening to staff the board or others in attendance including the use of language or behavior that is disruptive of the board meeting will not be permitted during public comment in addition because students may be in attendance or watching online members of the public will refrain from using foul or abusive language the district assumes no responsibility and or ability for the information shared during public comment the views expressed are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Lawrence Public Schools the board president or presiding officer will invite comments on topics not included on the meeting agenda at

045the beginning of each meeting comments relating to agenda items are welcome after the board has had the opportunity to discuss the topic please Li limit your comments to 3 minutes and we are welcoming glori Greenfield who is also a Prairie Park educator welcome thank you Lori Greenfield she her pronouns yes I'm an educator at Prairie Park I wear have many hats in this community um but currently I'm coming before you as an individual uh so I want to make sure you understand that you know my position tonight is me myself I uh and not a reflection on uh any of the other hats that I wear current at this moment in time it might change later in the program so uh Dr Swift I would like to start with thank you for talking about the

046safety within our community um I I do feel that um Community uh is the key piece um we it said that we you know raise our kids in a within a village within a a community and it takes the whole Community I tell my students every day that um my number one job is to keep them safe and that I feel like is my number one job but I was hired to educate them um so it's twofold I need to keep them safe but yet I am hired to get them ready for the next grade and and ready for life really so um you know things to think about um and I I appreciate um some of the posts that have been made uh within our community um that it takes Beyond um the parents

047beyond the teachers but all of us within the community um to help keep our kids safe along with that this is the beginning of um band uh band books week um and if anyone is familiar across our nation with uh in the past many years we've had a lot of band books um we need to stand together to Champion um for those the right to read what you want to read um and that go within um um within our communities it also plays a part in the safety um for our children our children yes need to be protected to some degree but also allowed to read um what they would like to read so I also challenge you all to maybe pick up a book that you might not be apt to read um and

048challenge yourself to push um Beyond um your personal biases that might be lying in front of you or something has prevented you from picking up that book so with that in mind um we also need to remember in in our community um throughout uh the importance of voting and the importance of voting is um you know key uh both with our state school board um our local elections our state elections and our national elections so keeping in mind um you know that our number one job is to educate our kids and to keep them safe our elections will help with that too so thank you very much thank you we appreciate you thank you lot we're going to move on to board commentary um and I I think uh it's your birthday we'll start with

049you oh I'm sorry I I didn't have another um I didn't get another sheet but if you filled it out it just didn't get to me but are you yeah of course please come welcome do you have the um have you filled out the okay do you oh no I'll gra I just want to um I'll get that okay great C would you mind can I talk to just for so it is okay Cool's hello thank you all for your time my name is Cynthia Courtney I am um a veterinarian as well as a parent to two students now at Prairie Park um I wanted to just mention a couple things here today uh one is that I wanted to share that um I feel as a community member and as a parent who has

050been interested in restorative practices that the school has been committed to over the past couple years um that with Dr Johnson's transition away from our school district those Equity advisory reports that have been giv us great information on the implementation of those or potential changes and whether or not are potentially having the outcomes that we hoped for have been sorely missing since she's transitioned away and just expressing an interest in in having those available for public viewing again we were lucky to have some pretty consistent reports to look at over time over the past couple years um and and maybe not having those as consistently over the past a couple quarters has has been missing um and then marginally related to the superintendent search as you guys move forward just expressing an interest from the

051community and continuing to look for an interest in restorative practices and experience with implementing a high fidelity implementation of restorative practices going forward would be highly appreciated speaking a little bit to miss Greenfield's comments in particular getting the community more involved with that implementation I think is is really important and not something that as a parent I've seen as heavily um in the implementation of restorative practices in our community thus far um and then just margely on the uh superintendent search as well I was very excited to see that our schools were sharing with us some of the progress that had been made in the interim superintendent search but there wasn't a lot of information as community members and how we could participate in that search so I was interested to see on the agenda

052that you guys were considering options where community members might be able to be involved and certainly as as a community member I would be excited to see more information coming out about that and and ways that we can provide some feedback as well so thank you for your time okay uh we'll start with gr thank you it's your goal to see how many times you can say it in a single meeting it's your birthday there we Go's birthday I love you all I really do um so last Wednesday uh I was able on the 11th went to a facility planning meeting um so just a couple items from that uh in the month of August uh the district was able to hold uh 641 events across our facilities outside of normal school hours um we've

053submitted uh a application to evergy for some energy efficient incentives related to um uh swapping out energy efficient light bulbs at New York schwagler and sunflower to apply to kind of offset the cost for those so that was so that was really cool uh we got an update on um some vehicle purchase priorities some new fno positions asphalt and concrete projects including the LHS south parking lot uh HVAC um work and then some preliminary discussions on where our next uh solar project might be U now that Prairie Park has up been running um from the IT department we got an update on a project where we're running fiber lines uh to all the athletic fields um and so the main purpose behind do doing that is to provide internet internet connectivity out to the Athletics

054fields for to be able to provide things like um to help with uh taking gate so that uh we can do a point of sale and things like that out at the fields and and some other uh in enhancements and that's going well and then lastly on the consent agenda uh for items on the consent agenda we got an update on the pinky classroom conversion to the life skill Suites bakery equipment at pinky uh the high school uh High School Coral risers have arrived the new risers and then we we hired a new print shop coordinator uh Friday on the 13th I went to the foundation breakfast which is always a fantastic event I love that event very much um my daughter was very sad that she couldn't find me because she had heard from

055her older brother that I will sneak them orange juice when they're there in the band and she couldn't find me she's very sad uh Monday the 16th I went and read in Ashley Smith's classroom at Quail Run in the morning for Hispanic Heritage Month that was a lot of fun and then um Thursday last Thursday I got to introduce Dr Swift to cross town rivalry at LHS and freest state soccer congratulate congratulations to Free State Varsity soccer for winning that match for the seventh year in a row it's a very painful thing to say but it is nonetheless still true um on the consent agenda tonight we have uh $87,700 for bakery equipment for the community connections program at Pinkney uh $355,500 capital outlay and then $ 53,8 76 for the annual boiler preventative maintenance

056service agreement okay well really don't have much but I did want to say happy birthday GI thanks Bob when's your birthday uh I don't know it's the only secret right um um actually like I said don't really have that much I did attend the Lawrence Foundation breakfast and it was enjoyable the food was good and the presentation was wonderful um other than that I'll pass it on to Shannon great thank you uh just want to say thank you again to the pray Park Educators and principal Townsen for um being here and sharing your celebrations with us this evening um and also thank you to pray Parks Miss Greenfield for your comments on safety um I just wanted to follow up and say I'm really proud um of our community in our school district um we

057have historically been very supportive of the freedom of our students to read and of our staff to teach throughout my time on the board um in the past 13 years we have not had um the kind of challenges to that academic freedom in our district that we have seen in other places and that is a credit to um to our community and to our Educators uh for helping Advocate and protect for that so thank you um I've been traveling around the state on a legislative listening tour as part of my professional work so I missed the uh facilities meeting on the 11th with gr thank you for giving such a great update and on your birthday no l I appreciate that um I was also able to attend the staff mixer I got back in

058time to go to the staff mixer on the 11th um and it was really great to greet teachers and staff and um have some wonderful conversations about the start of our school year um Community Education breakfast uh we had amazing support from our community this year and I'm just very grateful and want to say thank you to all of the people who attended and all of the sponsors and people who have donated to make that such a success um the foundation supports so many important things that we do in our district and including third grade art third grade Arts day and other um teacher Innovation grants and things like that that um it I just really appreciate uh their partnership um Friday the 20th I was able to support our theater programs um in our

059middle schools I attended the junior play West Middle School junior players sixth grade play switcher moo it was delightful they were so much fun um they have a great uh a great theater program at West middle school and um a shout out to uh Mr Williams and Mr rashar and Mrs Misha learner for all the hard work they do with those kiddos um and then finally uh for my board colleagues uh KB convention uh registration is still open if you're able to attend but you haven't registered yet it's not too late um I I wanted especially highlight I think I've mentioned this before but just as a reminder we're doing a special advocacy session I'm helping teach a special advocacy session on Friday of that weekend um and we have a national author coming in

060um Jennifer birkar who just released her new book the education Wars she will be part of our session on Friday of convention weekend so if you are able to come down a little early the other thing is going on that day that is super cool and I went last year and there were some students from usd497 uh that participated um Todd potite had his art students from Lawrence High there um and I know we had some kids from uh one of our middle schools and it's escaping me now I apologize for not remembering which one uh but we're doing a student showcase again and we're going to have I think uh students from 48 different schools from across the state particip and they will be there Friday afternoon um so um that's something that if

061you come early and um and are able to attend it's it was fantastic last year and it's going to be even bigger this year so uh thank you that's all I have okay happy birthday drar have and Shannon thank you so much I just think the world of the both of you and I um would like to than I was able to attend the Lawrence yeah schools Foundation breakfast and it was it was wonderful to be back in community and be part of the record breaking of donations and participation and I was happy to see a um just be a part of that and the sacred work that we all get to do to ensure that our children get Quality quality educations while the social supports that they need to finish school and um lead

062happy healthy productive lives um I attended the Billy Mills Middle School site council meeting last week and um let's see much of the focus was on attendance and how the the parents get provided input on how to improve the school's website as well and give um recommendations for the district website as well the next meeting will be October 8th and the meetings are at 5:30 so I encourage everybody and anybody who's able to go attend to please attend the Billy Mills Middle School site meeting um on October 8th at Billy M middle school and to that end I would also like to encourage this board and I will email everybody the report but I don't know if everybody had time to read the US Surgeon generals uh 35 advisory page report it's called the parents

063Under Pressure report and the surge General Murthy declared that pressure is an urgent public health issue for our parents and I know that we will take that into consider consideration while we look at the cell phone usage policy according to the advisory 41% of parents say that most days are so stress they cannot function nearly 50% say that most days their stress is overwhelming and given that we will take that into consideration as we continue to do this good work that we are elected to do and I thank you all and Happy Birthday again J and Shannon thank you I just want to say Happy Birthday Shannon I think that's the only birthday we have to [Laughter] recognize all right um quickly hopefully um so a lot of people spoke on the Community Education breakfast

064it was a wonderful event and it was great to see so many um of our community members out there to support the foundation and the work it does to help help students um I did attend the um schools Foundation monthly meeting last week uh they went over the results of the breakfast which Dr Swift shared raising nearly $100,000 with a goal of 75,000 um they also received $5,600 in ic can donations and the Ian fund uh was started several years ago and uh what it does is it provides uh money for Urgent needs so if a student needs a mattress or a family has no place to stay um counselors can reach out to Dena and they can get help with those things and so that um that fund is really really important um the

065generous grift from truy as well $40,000 um will help to go pay for um different um professional development it also helps to pay for our jhawk blueprint courses uh for free and reduced lunch students so those students can take those courses and get that college credit um before they graduate high school um so that's an awesome program and then there's also money um that's going to help support the steam program at Liberty Memorial um additionally Kylie Luckett came and spoke about uh the district Mental Health Services um she spoke about how they applied for a $7 million Grant along with Burt Nash to increased School based mental health um hopefully if we get it it'll help us pay for four General Ed social workers and expand our R programs which I think is very excited

066exciting they've also applied for um an additional Kansas Mental Health uh Grant as well um then last Thursday I attended Taste of Lawrence which was a wonderful event put on by the chamber it's held to honor local Educators and showcase some of the community's best food and beverage establishments uh teachers were able to get discounted tickets inv Vista had a money grab Booth um where you could see how much you could grab and then you could pledge it to a specific school and then top three schools will'll get a donation from invista I haven't seen them post the results yet um but I did get $81 which was more than my husband so and if you know him he's a big dude so um policy committee update so some of the um policy that's up

067for first read aside from um what Kelly spoke about in regards to the nepotism policy BCB K uh is an executive session its first reading uh it's a more succinct policy that outlines the procedure for the board to recess the executive session language outlining a sample motion was removed as it's provided in a related form uh ID which is instructional program uh it's new to our district but not a new kasb policy licens staff are to work cooperatively to develop instructional program and detailed uh specifications related to that and then policy jfga administration of emergency opioid antagonists um this added language around training requirements for staff with access to op op opioid antagonists um these changes are directed by State Statute I wanted to also call out that Ace Award nominations are due September 30th

068um the ace award recognizes um members of our outstanding classified staff anyone can nominate community members parents students whoever um again uh the deadline is September 30th and they will receive a $500 award um I just wanted to say that I am so excited about the grant that um we got for to establish the bakery at pink I think it's going to be wonderful and then the conversion of those two classrooms um you know I really encourage the community to get out there and go see what's happening at Pinkney that building is being used and those programs that are housed there they are so excited and grateful to have that additional space that they didn't have at East Heights it just you know they're able to have lunch together in a lunchroom they didn't have

069that before um and just the work that they do is so important and those kids I mean they just they melt your heart when I went to the graduation just seeing how excited they were um it's just it's such an amazing thing it's such a gem in our district and I really hope that more people get out and go over there to see it um and just a final um comment um related to kind of what Lori talked about um the deadline to register to vote is October 15th so please make sure that you are registered your registrations up to date and get educated on all the different races because there are a lot lot in the state school board is a very important race that's happening as well thank you I won't torture you

070my best friend sh okay um since the last uh board meeting I haven't been able to attend a lot of the community things that I was invited to I've been in transition to a new job um I was with the VA for 15 years and I've transitioned to work with the University of Kansas on the Ral transplant unit and so I've been in orientation for the last 31 days and I got another week of orientation to go so um but I'm looking forward I did inform the principls that I'm looking forward to our very first site Council meetings this coming week so I will definitely be able to give you guys a better update on then on what I've been doing in the community I hat it I missed the breakfast but I heard that

071it was extravagant and so I definitely look forward to attending next year but that's what I've been doing this new position gives me a set schedule so that I can attend to the duties that I was elected to do on the school board and so that's why I transition to a different job congratulations congratulations yolinda um I did I did want to take a moment just to um clarify a few points that I think might be helpful uh we do have um the we we did receive an equity point at uh report most recently at the end of the year we do have another one coming up it if it's not the is it the 15th I believe so yeah if it's it will be um either the next meeting or the one following it

072is on our schedule uh and it will be looking at the data we do typically at this time of the school year so I just want to make sure that was clear and then to say that the um uh Equity Council while we are in the search for a um a uh individual to fill um Dr Johnson's position I believe is being read led by uh is right we do have some do you want to talk a little bit about that if you don't mind I'm just sharing that the yeah I just want to make sure the community knows that we are in fact doing that that that's still a priority for us yeah thank you yes Kevin harell and I are co-chairing that and so we will continue to we just need to get

073on the schedule and we will continue to start meeting and as we're doing the Sur for the new position so I'm getting that out there and restorative practices are still a priority for this district and we have someone coordinating that correct absolutely yes right now we are getting ready for some training for the tier two and tier three I think those will be the first week week of October and we're working through our Kip core mou and just making sure that those those pieces are in place for thank you I just wanted to avoid any confusion on that and then to say that um Bob and Yolanda and Carol are on the um for our board Representatives on the equity Council and then we are trying to make a um opportunity in this transition for

074more intentional uh role that you three would make in terms of developing the agendas and meeting um to help lead that work as well so that is happening um even though we are still looking for someone to fill Dr Johnson's position I just want to make sure that was clear it's still a priority for this district and we are definitely doing the work thank you okay all right um okay so we will now um move on to our first executive session um is there a motion I move the Board of Education recess to Executive session for the purpose of discussing Personnel matters of non-elected Personnel in order to protect the Privacy interests of the individual to be discussed with Dr Janice Swift interim superintendent Dr Larry engelb Deputy superintendent and Kristen Ryan Executive Director of

075Human Resources invited to be present and with the board return to open session in this room at 7:13 with with action to follow second Jones yes Kimbell yes buers yes kadu Blackwood yes Costello yes Franklin yes Gordon Ross Yes the motion passes e e e wood yes Costello yes Franklin yes Gordon Ross Yes Jones yes the motion passes e e e Open session with no action to follow and we're going to move on to the consent agenda wait till we're all here I'm waiting is there a motion uh to approve the consent agenda items I move the Board of Education adopt the items listed on the consent agenda second buyers yes kadu Blackwood yes cello yes Franklin yes Gordon Ross Yes Jones yes Kimble yes the motion passes 70 okay we're going to move on

076to the search and selection of superintendent of schools and okay um so uh I wanted to take a moment to update the community and my board colleagues on the um the search procedures and the next steps for the um in the Endeavor to select a permanent superintendent so just a initial update um Bob gr and I met with Christen Ryan Emerson uh Ross and Ron May so we had um uh Union leadership there and um uh HR leadership was there Kristen Ryan was there and then the um it was um Bob gr and I because we helped coordinate the interim search so we wanted to do um a reflection on what was successful where were their challenges and what would we like to do again and the permanent search through the conversation we had and

077in keeping to our timeline that we put out in July uh we've gone through the process now of selecting our interim superintendent and now we move on to the permanent selection process we want to have a um process that really is inclusive of our students our staff and faculty community members um board members to make sure that voices are heard and that when we welcome our permanent superintendent we all agree that we have a candidate that we're excited about and that we want to lead our schools going into the future so our recommendation from the three of us in consultation with Kristen and Union leadership is that we work again as a team so we form an ad hoc committee that would just be for this period of time from September until March the goal

078is to have someone hired in March our primary role would not be to select the superintendent that's the that's the um purview of the board uh with guidance from the community it would be just to help coordinate the tasks so things like identifying um getting getting Community input on what are the characteristics we're looking for um making sure that all um all members of our um district and and those that we intersect with in the community have opportunity to meet with candidates and provide feedback so those are the next steps that will come as part of the search are there other key things that you would recognize and the other piece would be identifying the candidates so um we found that we had a great partner in KB for the interim search and they helped

079us due to what was in their estimation and I think in ours A Moment Of Crisis when it is July and you need to find a superintendent we were very lucky to find Dr Swift and partly we were able to attract her because of the help we had from kasb so a search firm is what we are suggesting and we talked about in July that would help us with the recruitment the um advertisement of the position helping us coordinate the day-to-day of the search it's a it's a huge Endeavor uh if we want to do it the way that the community is asking us to do it so what would happen next is that the HR department would put out a request for proposals uh we search firms or organizations that conduct those searches would

080submit a proposal to us we would interview them as a board look at the costs associated with the search firm um assisting us and uh then make a decision on which of those rfps we selected or still the board would have the option to not select based on um cost for example as a factor but that is the direction we're hoping to go and really wanting again to as Carol directed and a few other members have directed and certainly we heard from our Union Representatives um Josh bradin is here and he was a huge uh help uh in coordinating things like getting our candidates into our buildings and having tours from our Educators um it was it was a it was work that we really could have used assistance from a firm so are there

081other things that you all would add or Josh if you want to add anything to your welcome or Kristen if there's anything to add good okay thanks I can't think of anything that you haven't covered do I have questions from you all or concerns H this is Carol I don't have any questions or concerns but I would like to thank you for giving us that report into the public I am I think it's wise to just um use every effort that we are tasked with to find a high quality to find high quality candidates and this again this is sacred work that we get to do so I thank you for making these extra efforts so that we can all be involved thank you yeah I I think one of the things that we had

082talked about in July was that when we did the interim search we were on such a shortened timeline we didn't have the luxury to involve all the people that that knew that that we knew would would want to be involved in a superintendent search and and we did our best to try to explain the difference between an interim search and a permanent search and so now that we're starting the permanent search one of the reasons um we felt like we wanted to do the RFP and look at the proposals is just to help us coordinate all of the input that we want to seek from the various stakeholders so that we can get a fuller picture of what the community is asking us to look for and I think it's also important to real understand

083that uh the search company will be in a costly it's not without its expense and they will offer us a menu of items that we hopefully can choose from in tailor fit them to our needs we don't have to take everything that they offer we can choose and develop a program that fits exactly what we want well and in regards to that it is I think also important to note that when big corporations and companies are looking for a chief executive officer they often use search forms be firms because those firms have connections to people who may not even be looking at the time that they can put a a bugger in their ear um and so yes it's not ideal to have to spend that money but they're going to bring something to the

084table that kasb couldn't do for us or that we couldn't do for ourselves and any dollars we spent on that firm would be from one-time funds that we would use to um cover the cost yeah I have just one question um when we started doing our search for the um permanent uh superintendent and we have the candidates or whatever selected when we do the public forums with the community will they get a synopsis so to speak of the different candidates and so how would those meetings be ran like but we get a poll on what the people are thinking about the different candidates or something like that so that they're more into the selection process and not just in a hearing process yeah so um that's a really good question thank you for asking that

085because um what I can say it's going to depend on who helping us coordinate it but I I'll just say what we did the last time so we did have Community meetings Bob um facilitated them and um we tried to get as many members as we could from the Committees that we all sit on and then also from other um groups in the community that we really wanted to be engaged in the process and they filled out uh a survey and then we um took that data and summarized it and looked for themes and then shared it out uh with board members a search firm will do something similar um and they'll have different processes depending on who it is go ahead shann I I was just going to share when we did our search

086in 2017 The Firm that we used facilitated those Community meetings with the finalist candidates and they had um an they gave attendees an opportunity to fill out um a reflection form and then they coated that information and shared it um we got the raw data but we also got kind of a summary of of the the um feedback that was given at those Community meetings by people who had attended so um I think you know depends on who you work with what ex what their exact process is for doing that but that's one of the menu of services that um that I've seen in the past that firms can provide and I remember with Dr Lewis because I it was it was right when I was first coming on the board that I participated in

087one of the community meetings and it was it it was kind of twofold it was asking us as community members The Firm that the board had used at the time both what you know the kind of the standard questions even that that Dr Swift is is using like like what are the strengths of the district what are the weaknesses of the district what what are the priorities of the district and and then also as as an individual we had the discussion what are you looking for in a in an individual to lead the district going forward so it was both sides of that conversation and then we were presented with all of that data and we used a lot of the data along with Dr Lewis's first listening and learning to her to lay the

088foundation for the fiveyear Strategic plan going forward so it's so it's a lot of data that goes well beyond just picking a superintendent that that we can that we can use to to really help us move forward okay thank you okay um so if there are uh no concerns and the and you all are comfortable with the um the committee representation who would be on those committees and then we of course would keep you updated there is a motion just related to allowing um Kristen Ryan or directing Kristen Ryan to um help us uh find the search firm so is there anyone that would like to make that recommended action I'll do it I move the Board of Education approve the use of a search firm and direct Human Resources executive director Kristen Ryan to

089initiate the process for the purpose of selecting a permanent superintendent for the 2025 2026 school year I second pdue Blackwood yes Costello yes Franklin yes Gordon Ross Yes Jones yes Kimble yes buers yes the motion passes 70 thank you all very much and I want to extend gratitude to the uh Union leadership and to um Kristen Ryan and and HR department for all your help in the interim search but also what I know is going to be a heavy lift moving forward it really matters to us that you are equally involved in it so thank you for agreeing okay now we're going to move on to um reports so we'll move on to 5.1 performing artart center study findings we'll invite Dr inle brick Deputy superintendent to give us the background um on that report

090and the findings okay oh I'm sorry Madame President yeah I just want to um thank Dr ingel brick for uh putting this report together and he's going to introduce our speaker okay thank you just a little over a year ago out of the facilities planning committee the concept came to us of doing a broadscale study of our Performing Arts centers across the district we uh immediately contacted uh ACI Boland and Doug sometime I need to learn the name of the company you work for uh I've known it as ACI Bolan ACI Frank Heiser Hutch and probably another combination or two um big sign above the front door they came together with us and what we requested was that we go into all of our secondary schools and look at our Performing Arts centers at the

091buildings Doug put together a team of consultants in multiple areas and he will go over those so that what we're able to bring to you tonight is a comprehensive study of the needs that we have in each of our secondary schools we began with teachers and with administrators at each school and their input the Consultants then went out into the buildings and began doing an overview and a study of those facilities we then ended with sharing the report with teachers and administrators and having several online and in-person meetings to allow them to come in critique the study change emphasis and give us additional input I will tell you I was extremely surprised at the things that came out of the study and really proud of what a number of our uh teachers said they aren't

092asking for Star Wars new generation The Cutting Edge technology they're asking for things as they said that we can teach with that students can take the skills from one level of uh our secondary program walk into a high school understand and be re reasonably comfortable with the equipment and learn more on it so they're really looking at this as a progression in teaching with that I'll introduce you to Mr Loveland Doug lelin uh from ACI Bolan architectural firm and and because I'm a little self-aware I apologize you're going to see I've got my phone up here it's because I'm going to put a timer on because I could be up here for a while and I'd rather not do that to you all you've got an evening in front of you still um thank you

093um for those of you whove not met me I'll give you just five seconds on myself and our firm uh ACI Bowland we're located in downtown Kansas City Missouri um I run our educational division of ACI Boland I'm a proud product of Lawrence Public Schools um I'm going to stand a little crooked up here because of legacy of uh two Varsity letters on the soccer team um I am a from a house torn apart um I'm a proud graduate of LHS I have a sister who is a Firebird so um I'm of that generation that that got to see both of those phenomenons both uh in town uh single high school and cross town rivalries um but our role at ACI Boland what we feel is our our purpose is is helping clients navigate The

094Journey our Focus you're going to see some some things here on the screen the one I want to point out is is families first um one one of the things we get most excited about is supporting families with our Design Services and our design talent and so you're going to hear me talk about students you're going to hear me talk about staff that is how I uh focus on families is by serving those students and those staff with facilities my role is not to teach in them my role is to arm teachers with facilities that they're going to be excellent in um I want to talk briefly about what we did and how we did it and then we've got a very high level overview of what we can came up with and I've got

095some some narrative over what some of that is so who participated in the study um teachers and building level administrators primarily were the the participants from the district side um my firm was the team lead and we provide the architectural support but I'll be the first to admit we don't have as much depth as other people in the theatrical side so we brought in a theatrical expert to give us an expert opinion on what we were seeing with regards to some of the specialty equipment in in the rooms we're not Engineers or acousticians we brought in um with the consent of the district's um normal electrical engineering firm we brought in an outside group specifically to look at Acoustics they did true acoustical engineering testing inside each of the performing art centers to to sort

096of see what um the performance from an engineering standpoint was of those houses but also to look at the AV the lighting the electrical support for the theaters that's one of the biggest questions when we go into theatrical design um so how did we March through this um we started with a survey and I know we all love a good online survey um we had six buildings the reason we started with a survey was to replace what would normally be SE six different meetings where we're taking teachers out of their workday and asking them to sit down with us and go through how do you use your facility who uses your facility what do you do in your facility so we use an online vehicle um it was a big Online vehicle for those of

097you who do a lot of surveys you're going to gasp when I say this but our average was a 26 minute engagement to get through this survey we had 48 questions it was a big survey all three Consultants contributed questions um and it was extensive we got 17 responses before you get alarmed that we only got 17 responses we got teacher and administrator engagement from each of the six buildings we were studying which was really the goal I got the impression that at least one building they just kind of sat around the computer and did it together this again was to replace long winded meetings where we go down a checklist and and ask all of this it was to try and shortcut that and make this a little lighter a lift on teachers and

098administrators um we were also doing a lot of this during first semester last school year and so mid year in the middle of what they're doing for a living trying really hard not to be a burden on what they were doing um some of those questions just so you've got a feel for it we had things like sorting questions which building do you teach at it's an important one for us as we're trying to sort which building uh a comment might be coming from um we did not ask for names I I I just don't like doing that to teachers um do student duties include accessing catwalks or other high areas it's a safety question do we need to be designing these catwalks to be student use taughts spaces or are they merely staff spaces

099does your building have a security line that allows you to secure the balance of the building when using the psse after after hours performing art centers are long day type facilities back in the day when we designed things like lawen high school we didn't think about putting those performing art centers out on the periphery of the building like you would see in a modern building built more recently so do we have the ability to secure the Performing Art Center when we're doing an after school event and we're going to have guests in from the community coming in from outside the building um and then we had questions like who's in charge of booking who's responsible for the equipment in the facility um who are the major stakeholders in the facility and we got a variety

100of answers I'll say um the building with the most stakeholders was not one of the high schools it was Liberty Memorial um because it is downtown and centrally located it's got a lot of community groups that come in and use it it becomes a conversation about how some of that loose equipment is managed and how it is run it leads to the next question which is who runs the equipment do we need to make it so easy that an outsider can walk in and understand in five minutes or read a placard and understand how to turn on the AV system so those were the kinds of questions we did before we um evaluate then we did evaluate the facilities in person um I had a staff member at each one of those evaluations I was

101not at each one personally I will say I was disappointed to miss the one at LHS cuz I had not seen the the the renovations yet um I did not miss the one at West Junior High CU you can guess which feeder system that I was in so because I just referred to it as West Junior High instead of West Middle School and I am old enough Lawrence I'll I apologize I'll sometimes refer to it as Central I'll sometimes unfortunately refer to it as South um I do my best it is sometimes hard so that's what we did with that survey instrument then we did physical evaluation and then we did a first draft report and then we held what what I think is going to be more common place for us in these sorts

102of studies which is we held two forums hybrid forums where we had an online option and an in-person option at fo simultaneously to just allow people who have something they want to point out from our first draft correct from our first draft or want sort of Amplified from the findings an opportunity to come in drop it on us and and either hang up or or leave if they need to and we had two of those sessions and I think that kind of a less of a comment period and more of an open forum is going to be a tool we're going to use moving forward it allows for a hybrid option it also allows um folks to feel a little less pressured to have a comment um I did include the the comments that we

103did receive um in the preparation for this evening um you can review those if you've got any questions I've got a copy up here with me but um I think the other thing to point out is that um the closest I'd like to get to identifying anybody who provided thought and feedback is building I think after that um I I don't like outing people who gave up their time to come in and give us comments um so all right the last thing I want to point out um the results look a lot like a spreadsheet sometimes I'm apologetic for that in this instance I'm not those those are in my uh report um I think there was an immediate concern about costs so we were focused on providing some reasonable expectations for what some of

104the budget expenditures would be to do accomplish some of the things that we have gotten those recommendations um the other thing that I do want to make sure you understand is that I want to reiterate what Dr Engelberg just said nobody wanted bleeding edge mostly because they don't want to find out later that that's a a technological pathway that's going to break down and not be reliable most of them most of the folks that we talked to just wanted robust um durable functional and teachable um one of the topics that really did get a lot of run though was the idea that typically it looks like a pyramid and the Pinnacle of the pyramid is your high school Performing Art Center program and that the equipment tries to follow that pyramid um right now based

105on the way improvements have occurred over time we're a little bit inverted the equipment at the middle schools is actually a little especially on the AV side a little bit more modern than what is at the high schools it's just an age and a a spot we're at in the replacement cycle right now but the Consultants were a little bit startled to find out that in fact some of the equipment that the middle schools are learning on is in some ways dramatically better than the equipment that they're then using at the high school um all right so then I'm going to just bump through an overview for each building and and what I want to point out for you is um the the groupings here in color um the black would be things that would

106be thought of as architectural the red is things that would be thought of as more electronic focused generally the red is somewhere around 30 to 35% of the expense the black is every single time the predominant expense and then there's a couple of things I'm going to pick out as we go through these um that I want to make sure you sort of understand what the L Linguistics are okay um first we're at free state um free State's total budget if we did absolutely everything that we would recommend was about $1.9 million in total um the split between black and red here was about 1.2 and about 675,000 so accomplishing those things in red would be about 675,000 um I want to talk about ADA access for the first time here at free state if

107you can close your eyes and envision the the Performing Art Center at free state go from the audience to the stage you have to leave the house there is no direct access there is direct access to the or there is access to the stage if you have ambulatory difficulties but again you have to leave the house the example that is used in the building code right now is a high school graduation it just doesn't work um you can't get that student up there without some some fairly ostentatious assistance right now the way it is configured and so the recommendation would be to have a direct path from the seating area in the house to the stage um consistently across your buildings they're just of an age where you don't have that it was not how

108we interpreted the Ada at the time it was not an accommodation we thought of in that manner they all have accessibility to the stage it's just not that direct accessibility um the second thing that I'll point out here is and and this is buried in the report um both of the high schools talked about boy it would be nice if we could add an orchestra pit it's functionally just not easy to do in built high schools but those modern AV systems would make it much easier for us to use a remote pit put the student performers that are instrumentalists in another area of the building and then pipe that sound in so these are things that are accomplishable they're Buri it's sort of buried in the report but these are the kinds of feedback we're

109getting from staff um so um the other one was free states number number is pretty big because of seating about $270,000 in seating replacement I'm going to tell you right now the chair that you're sitting in right now at free state is the chair that the auditorium opened with so um all right moving on to Lawrence High uh very similar recommendations um one of our big concerns at Lawrence High when we walked in was um the theatrical consultant was a little alarmed about the rigging um the specifically the running rigging um facilities had an evaluation done and I think had a couple of repairs made it's not often that I send a note that says hey we're seeing some things I'd like you to look at now um the couple things were identified the school

110had stopped using the rigging I think we've been able to restore the functionality we immediately uh shut down the use of the rigging on the stage no curtains were to be moved nothing we brought in an engineer reviewed the structure and then we went in with with the engineer and with our staff and tested everything again that being said one of the big numbers on here is a full uh rigging and curtain replacement um the running rigging at at Lawrence High is probably got a chance to be original it's it's getting up there in age um and there's there's things that we would recommend an improvement for um I'm going to point out my second odd one which is what is adding a prum barrier net our theatrical consultant is comprehensively recommend commending if you

111have what they call a prum theater with a A 3ot or a 4ft drop off the front of the stage trying to find a way to provide some sort of a safety net where as a performer you've stepped off the edge of the stage there's a a safety mechanism before you just plunge off um that would take a little thought and a little design I'm not going to tell you right now what something like that would look like but it's one of those things that's becoming more and more common as we design High School theaters and we're teaching people how to be performers you wouldn't see it in a professional theater this is a differentiation between a professional theater and a teaching theater um moving on I'm gonna step to Billy Mills Middle School what

112was the cost for Lawrence High for Lawrence High I apologize Lawrence High 1.7 in total still about a 6040 split that black list is 981 and the red list is 735 thank you um I'm going to I'm going to go into bill Billy Mills Billy Mills gets a third color I'm just going to tell you that one's kind of fun that blue one in the middle Billy mills's floor is unlike any other floor in the district it's um it's just not as sound as some of the other floors I'm not talking about structurally like we're going to fall through it but as a performer it's it sounds a little Hollow as a performer it doesn't have that uh Battleship lenium that they've got on the other High School stages that makes them quiet floors it

113is something that came up from every single instructor we talk to that it's difficult to move around on the stage without making a noise on the floor and so one of the unique things about Billy Mills and our recommendations is to replace that stage floor and improve it for those student performers um the other one is here at the middle schools we have the same concern we had at the high schools that ADA access again we have Ada access to the St and I don't want anyone to hear that we don't but for example at Billy Mills you have to leave you have to go down down the side and come in a side entrance it has a direct stair straight up the uh left wing to the stage it's just not something that someone

114it's not something my mother could do it's not something that somebody who's non- ulatory could do so um Billy Mills that total number 708 in that recommendation list and it's about a we're getting here at the when we get to the middle schools the split is more like 7030 those architectural improvements are taking a bigger load because the AV systems that are being recommended are not as sophisticated um but speaking of Av systems The Fairly consistent um request and recommendation is to upgrade the video capabilities the recording capabilities along with what we would all think of as the sound system um the recording capabilities is an interesting one all of the teachers are reporting that they're often recording in their class rooms instead of recording on the stage and it is more common to put

115some recording capability in your performing art centers you don't really have video capabilities in them right now um I think we've all learned from covid how nice it is to have some remote broadcast ability this would be giving some remote broadcast capability to those performing art centers so that you could do a virtual event that would allow someone to to watch a performance from from home Liberty Memorial um again fairly consistent list Liberty Memorial's total overview cost was about 837 in my report um the big hitter here is um at Lawrence High School we believe that the seats can be rehabilitated and continue to have that classic seat look um Lawrence it's got a a great looking wooden seat it's actually not that comfortable I promise liary Memorial seats are further gone and it would

116be much more difficult for those and so we have a significant budget in here for seating improvements now does that mean does that mean that we can't make it look similar or that we can't still find a way to rehab it but it used to be we're going to show our age here it used to be that you could get um workers to come rehabed theatrical seats that trade has almost completely vanished the last one that we know of remaining in the midwest is really no longer taking new contracts and no you can't still do it from the prisons at Lancing which used to be a thing um so the struggle at Liberty Memorial is going to be that it may not be possible to really rehab those seats but right now what we've got

117is a budget line we're not making designed decisions we're trying to identify budgets so that you can plan ahead um and I'm sorry Liberty more 830 7 so then southwest and west our recommendation is essentially the same about 682,000 and again about that 7030 split um and these two buildings are really their performing art centers are very very similar they're very similar in size they're very similar in features um the one I want to point out here at Southwest is that top one adding a spiral stair for catwalk access right now to get onto the catalks and learn on the catwalks as a middle school student you're climbing a 20ft ladder straight up and I'm sorry that's Challen that was challenging for me when I was an 18-year-old athlete um it's an intimidating climb and

118so one of the things that we've been working through um is increasing the safety for the for getting on to those catwalks here at Southwest and at um apologies at West we'd like to find ways to sneak a uh spiral in and and make that a stare and make those that part of the teaching Auditorium feel more welcoming to younger students um like I said if you're a a 14-year-old who hasn't had a growth Burt yet that's an intimidating climb um and then at West again fairly similar list of recommendations we do have a minor reing we'd like to recommend at West um there's uh there's an item that they the the the theatrical Consultants would rather be rigged in a slightly different way from a um from a safety standpoint they don't feel like

119it's unsafe they'd have gotten a red red Hower type note from us if they'd felt like it was unsafe but they would recommend we put it together a little bit differently they'd like to recommend a little re-rig and then a lot of the same uh recommendations that exist at the others um the last thing I want to point out um if you if you take a look at the detailed um cost estimate you're going to see some big numbers underneath reconfiguring electrical to support AV and reconfiguring electrical to support theatrical and lighting yes we put bigger loads on buildings with equipment than we used to in theaters and yes we would recommend that you budget for some improvements right now what we're doing is we're just putting in a a line item for the collection

120of all the things for theatrical equipment add 30% to cover electrical improvements for all the things under AV add a line item in a budget right now to cover the electrical improvements we will need some electrical improvements it's really impossible for us to put a number on it right now okay actually that was one of the questions I had so I'm I'm gonna I'm going to reframe what you just said to make sure I understand it that's not reflected here in the spreadsheet then it is in the spreadsheet you will see a line item it is a mathematical number it is not a budget or it is a budget but it's of the and and that's what I really want you to hear from us is we did not study this in enough depth to

121want to provide design recommendations we have not designed these projects we've studied them we're making some recommendations for things you should budget for Into the Future Okay um we're not saying today that we want you to go in and make the seats in West Warhawk blue that's a design decision we'd make it down the road we would recommend you think pretty hard about doing some seating replacement here in the next five years okay okay this is what I've got I'm happy to take questions and I've hit my time Kelly I have a question um thank you Doug um first of all I just want to thank you and um Dr engelb and our facilities and operations staff for taking this on um it is something that that we talked about a lot in our facilities

122meetings and I'm I'm really pleased that we have prioritized this work for our district um and taking a look at what our needs are and that and doing it comprehensively and doing it with the extent of Staff um input that that you have I that is really really important and I and I I can see the impact that it had on on the results of the survey so thank you for doing that uh my question is um related to um the sound system upgrades particularly and I'm asking it about the high schools because that's the circumstance that I um am aware of but it might apply to the middle schools um so like on the slide about Free State High School um there's a recommendation primary sound system and infrastructure replacement and enhancements um do

123those enhancements include um um enhancements to Ada accessibility for people with hearing deficits uh for hearing yes okay that would be part of any recommendation and it was part of how they budgeted for a new system was that we would start talking about having accessible sound systems as well which for those of you don't know typically would involve having some specific uh hearing assistance devices available that can be provided to a patron um that is um tied to the sound system okay and and it so that that would be a normal and customary part of any sound system these days okay I suspected that was the case but I just wanted to make sure well and I'll point out on a seating Improvement there would be different things done to seating in an auditorium than

124the last time you did seating in an auditorium which may have been the middle schools um things that are missing just just on a seating standpoint things that are missing is not enough of the aisle seats have an arm that swings up to allow a patron who's not as ambulatory to ease their way into the row um the Ada seating is all concentrated at the bottom it's not distributed the way we would hope it would be um so some of those tweaks are are things that are in the detail and the Nuance of the report um Liberty Memorial's got an interesting problem they can't put the soundboard in the house where a sound person would want to be to hear how the house is performing as the show is going on because to put it

125in the house they're putting it in the Ada seats oh okay so they've got a little bit of a chicken or an egg problem um and so there's just some of those subtleties that are are are buried in the Nuance of 130 page report I have another question Kelly okay but other other board members no I I thank you for this report this is Carol uh I um I think you I want to thank you on behalf of this board and the community as we think about our fine arts department and all the supports that the social supports that they provide so think I I'm just my mind is blown thinking about how we can better serve our our students our community I I hate to but I was a performer in a couple of

126those houses right and I went to I went to many moons ago I went to then Central Junior High School so yeah I'm I'm uh I performed for Sally hirs in Sally H out atorium but most of mine was Lawrence ey so thank you okay um and this might be a question for you Doug and it might also be a question for Dr Engel brick so um not in the slides but in the written report um uh there is a spreadsheet at the end and I I was hoping you would um maybe say a few words about how the board should should think about um you that the total number um and then how it's broken out over a possible four-year implementation um uh or eight year actually 8-year implementation so twoyear time frames um

127you know uh we'll see if it pulls up we're getting a blue bar right now but I know what you're talking about okay which page uh it's the actually the last two pages of the written report um well if you go to the study finals page 15 and yeah but not the I didn't go past that with the comments I was just looking at the main part of the report thanks mine doesn't show the page numbers so like I don't think that's the last one there y so I guess I'm just I'm curious um Dr engleberg as to um how do you think that this um this kind of recommendation fits into planning for our Capital plan or are we um are we going to need to have some conversations about you what what that

128looks like in terms of how we would support meeting needs I wish I could say that uh within our budget we could Finance this right now and begin the work but even uh as it is on uh the report spread over eight years we would not have those funds available we need to develop another mechanism for funding these improvements I I would suggest that with a athletic report coming up knowing some of the needs we have at our uh facilities there and a general report that we're bringing back together to say this is where we are on our roofs on our HVAC systems on our boilers on our asphalt and concrete and building exteriors that we start bringing these all together and into a Common Language each discipline uh enjoys sending their information in another

129format so one of the things we're working on right now is bringing all of that information into a common format so that we can look at it and it makes sense you don't have to mentally translate I have a feeling we're going to be quite surprised at what that total comes up we have some just as large numbers in our particularly our outdoor athletic facilities that we have to look at at so one way to think about this would be that this is kind of part one of a of a multi-art um a set of presentations to the board about what some of our facilities and capital needs are and then we will need to have a conversation about what that means yeah okay what I'd like to do this year is do this presentation

130have have a presentation on the athletic facilities then presentations on the other items that you've heard a lot about over the past three years then bring that all together and say this is what we're really looking at infrastructure wise we're going to have to look at our electrical structures infrastructures across the district um separate of all of this also an excellent example is we lost power at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School last Saturday because of the storm we had we believe a lightning strike there on one of our rooftop units we lost electricity it took three of us most of the day to figure out and determine how we could get the rest of the power on we had a problem that the switch gear was so old the first two people there really didn't

131know how to reset the switch gear they knew how to reset it in a normal circumstance but they kept trying and it didn't work it didn't work and finally they were told there's a reset button under a piece of plastic shielding on the front panel of the switch gear you're going to have to open that up reset it there and then you can reset the switch gear so it's a fairly old piece of switch gear and we need to look at those not that we have to replace them but that we know exactly what we have and develop a timeline even for the replacement of some of those units I appreciate that context thank you okay um I just have a couple questions I can imagine a Community member listening particularly to the issues related

132to our um our Performing Arts um buildings when we consider the last the last bond issue that we had and you know the improvements that were made to to the buildings can you talk about um why so soon after a a remodel we would still be looking at the these issues and what that's like for a school district in terms of an ongoing assessment of needs one of the things most school districts find after they've done a bond issue and a renovation is that the buildings look absolutely beautiful they've been redesigned they look brand new it's wonderful but that's the visible side of the wall what we're beginning to talk about now is the infrastructure the things behind the wall and those are not always touched are not always available to work on are not

133always built within the price many times those things just have to wait and that's where we're at we're we're lucky that we're at a place that our buildings are in excellent condition in the overall structure you walk into one of our buildings they're beautiful they've all been re renovated within the last 10 or 11 years they've been maintained now we need to get behind the wall the places that people never see why are roofs an ongoing problem for most school districts no one sees the roof from the ground what we do see are the leaks when they come through and at that point that leak may be coming through several Generations of ceilings so it's fair to say that when you have the number of buildings we do there's going to be ongoing um assessments

134of how do we improve them what are the infrastructure needs and we do our best to organize and prioritize which things we address first and then what comes second is that yes okay um so one thing that we didn't talk about and I can I can think of a lot of reasons why we would not have in this case but if we wanted to consider um one thing I would ask you to consider when we look at the when you get to the point of being able to give us a comprehensive this is where the needs are at is our considerations for what are the things we need to do within the infrastructure to respond to climate change in our um District to make sure that we're well prepared for what's happening to buildings as

135a result of um you know patterns of weather we're seeing shift so don't know where that would fit I wouldn't have expected it in this space although maybe we should be looking at it continually and ongoing but it would be something when you get to the end of the year and are looking at what are our needs that I think would be important so for example when you talk about asphalts I've seen lots of reports now about needing shade and these are places where we need to plant trees um things like that so that would be considered a consideration for infrastructure I would think as well so I just wanted to mention that I heard a news report and I believe it was on the national news a couple mornings ago talking about the weight

136of electric vehicles and much of our infrastructure and our road systems have they were not constructed with the thought of the extra weight a public bus traditional public bus would weigh about 20,000 pounds an electric bus our Engineers tell me would weigh close to 50,000 PBS cars probably aren't going to make a big difference to our parking lots and our drives and all but the larger equipment will I I I'll I'll say this um the single biggest challenge from the Consultants chair in this instance I can I can build a list I can build a long list I can build a list that vastly exceeds your resources at the time the challenge for me is to help identify the priorities M you're always going to have a list bigger than the bucket that you have

137available to bail it out and so the prioritization is going to be the place where I could really use feedback on how that prioritization gets developed so that we get things in the right column I have to say that this is a really good start so that we understand the scope of the problem I don't know that any of us sitting here understood um the scope of the work we needed to do this to me is is more than a good start it's really going to help us be able to organize our um Capital planning so I I really appreciate the work and I'd like to thank you for the report and the information um my question is I'm kind of figur if it's more of a question or more of a statement I think

138I'm better at statements but um because what I'm what I hear you say is this is our beginning and it's beginning of a long process because what it what you're saying is we've looked at our performing art centers we all know we need to look at our athletic facilities we need to look at other infrastructure inside of buildings and outside um and I I'm wondering how are you looking at planning that uh do you have an idea of where you're going next and next and when we're going to get to a point where we we know the questions to ask or about what do we do we hope to have the athletic study uh to you in November late November we're currently working on the uh last two years updating those on our roofs HVAC

139boilers asphalt and concrete building exteriors and I feel like I'm leaving someone out uh so I will apolog iiz for that but we're bringing all of that together at that point we can give you a fairly good idea now that would again be a beginning idea but it would give us the fundamental basis I think to do what you're asking for and that is to build out not just a five-year or a 10year picture but really look at what do we need to do for five in the next five years in the next 10 years the next 25 years and also right along with that looking at how can those items be financed and be paid for please keep in mind the HVAC systems we put in with the first bond in 13 2013 those

140systems are a heat pump system and we're going to be coming up to their end of life we're already starting to see some failure in some of the components so we're going to have to start building in in the next 5 to 7 years the ability for us to start replacing those systems we have to make decisions now which directions do we want to go for those Replacements but if we do a good job on this we will be doing multi-year not just five years but as I said 20 25 years so the district really knows where we need to be yeah any additional questions or comments thank you both very much uh we are going to take a five minute break and we'll come back at 8:30 e e e members to return to

141the table this must be you KU you okay yeah just waiting for Yolanda and Carol give it just a minute while we're waiting I'll recognize the KU journalist students here with us tonight doing that very important first semester assignment welcome we'll all hang around for you to ask us questions afterwards yeah Rock Chalk and all of that some of us have a birthday yeah he has a birthday if you didn't recognize it by now okay I work I work with the lady at lady Medical Center who used to wear a lot of Braes like this solid and noisy go like this and you can my shake I have my trimmer sometimes I have to take them out because I start making too much noise for when my shake gets really bad that stuff somebody in

142I collect these like Bob collects watches ask she was that bite yeah see I know a little bit yeah I'm not surprised okay she was okay give it just another minute and while we're doing that and Shannon and I will pull up the legislative priorities can you can but you'll need our Direction okay yeah okay so um this is the uh time of the year where we prep our legislative priorities as a board um we uh base these priorities on a couple of key issues I'm going to let an talk about why we do it and how we might use it surprisingly it'll be brief um so these uh priorties will clearly outline the board and District's position and interest on state legislation initiatives they provide the authority to our local legislators to represent our

143Collective position on items within the document uh We've shared these with the unions our elt has reviewed and these were determined to be the issues that we wanted our legislators to focus on and they align with our vision for our schools as outlined in our strategic plan thank you Ann so the key priority areas um if you look the document document is four four pages long we have highlighted on the first page key priorities but you'll notice as you go through the document that there are um extensive um qualifiers or um additional explanation that would allow Dr Swift or board members to um represent that this is the board's position should those issues come up at the state house so the key uh priorities we've identified are fully funding special educ ation as required by

144the current state law we made some progress last year but we are still underfunded in that area we ask to increase B base state aid per pupil to a level that closes the 25% educator pay Gap and allows districts to pay competitive wages to support staff this would help us specifically around some of our goals with classified staff and a living wage and also making our um District's base wage more competitive we wanted to we request that the our legislators reject all proposals to spend public tax dollars on private educations including vouchers we'll ask for return the community that care and other student surveys and health and safety screening tools to opt out rather than opt in so that the district can have more complete and accurate data to direct Health Wellness and student safety

145initiatives it has been a burden on the district not to be able to collect that data we ask or demand that broadly Embrace academic freedom and the teaching of critical thinking skills in public schools by rejecting calls to limit what teachers can teach what materials they can use to teach and the methods that professional Educators can use to support students earlier this evening we had a public educator highlight the importance of not Banning books we are asking as a key priority that we repeal discriminatory statutes such as sb180 that Target and discriminate against students and staff and that they compromise their safety and individual integrities so particularly sb180 targeted lgbtqia communities and our trans youth in particular we support a long-term sustained commitment to state funding for Capers this is an important initiative not only

146for this board but also for our Union and then finally we ask as other states have done and that we believe the federal government should be engaged in as well as state level that we provide Universal meals free to all students sometimes when um a student is in the space of getting um eligibility hitting eligibility requirements for free or reduced lunch there is a period in which they can't demonstrate that and that can be challenging for our students but to be clear every student that shows up to get a meal and our district does in fact get that meal so I will now hand it over to Shannon who is going to highlight some specific issues based on her expertise both professionally but also on her many many years of service on this board so

147thank you Kelly um our priorities uh cover all of the the the biggest issues that we have been seeing um you know year over-year in our legislature and the things that are areas of greatest need for our school district as well um for example special education funding um Yes we made some progress last session uh the legislature uh appropriated an additional 77 million dollar to the special education funding formula last year um but in data that uh was recently shared with um about our district um last year our district covered 53% of our special education services out of General funds or supplemental funds that means that all of the money re we received from the state of Kansas for special education services specifically all of the money that weed from um the um federal government

148for under idea only paid for 47% of what it cost our district to provide those absolutely necessary services to our students um as as if you've been listening to us Advocate around special education over the last few years you know that this that there is a state law in Kansas that says that that percent um they are supposed to be covering 92% % of the excess cost of educating those students we are nowhere near that and we won't be anywhere near that even with the new funding um so while we are very grateful uh for that additional funding and for that additional commitment uh there is still a very long way to go on that issue um you know uh the base State a per pupil uh one of the things that to keep in

149mind um the general School Finance formula sunset in 2027 and so there is going to be a conversation that will begin this fall uh there's a task force that was um that will be appointed under a law that was passed this last session um to start looking at the school Finance formula so I think it's very important that our priorities um call out that the problem is not the formula the problem is the amount of money that's been put that's been appropriated to fund the formula um and I think that we are doing that a by effectively pointing out that one of the reasons um that we continue to say we are struggling is that the money that has been appropriated does not allow us to pay our Educators and our support staff um anywhere

150close to a market rate for people with their training and um experience and credentials so um we can't uh we we are still working very hard to get to a living wage for our classified staff but we we all have seen how um how that the it's been difficult to close that Gap and and the number that we need to reach keeps increasing because the cost of everything continues to increase so I think that it's very important that we have highlighted um those items as well as um these other items that are on this first page um that really speak to the values that we have as a district and as a community uh they very much align with um with the conversations that are happening at the state level um I I think the

151the the bullet point about Universal free meals is very interesting that is one that has been um a topic of conversation everywhere I've been recently there is a lot of interest from schools and board members and District leaders all over the state in um in achieving that and I don't know if that's um that's necessarily going to be achieved it doesn't hurt to ask our state legislators but I think it's also important to think about these legislative priorities as potentially being um items that we can Advocate on with our member of Congress um with our I guess in Lawrence members of Congress we are in two two different congressional districts uh because the farm bill is set to be reauthorized that's nobody knows when that's actually going to happen but that is where that conversation

152could happen and there there are there was a great hearing actually recently um just this last week I believe in uh the senate committee on universal meals and if you want to um know more about that I can provide some more information so a great testimony about the importance of um you know children who are not hungry if we are really serious about um our students learning and being successful that is something that we are going to have to we are going to have to address so um and then I think the final thing I wanted to touch on um the issue around Capers so um that is especially important uh it's important for all of our staff but it's especially important for staff who are new coming into the district or for the staff

153who've been who who are new to the profession as of I think around 2013 um the changes that were made in the mid 200 tens to 20 two Capers that created tier three in Capers um have turned it into um a retirement system that is absolutely not competitive even with any of our surrounding states so that is something that um that it's there there will need to be a big Financial commitment on the part of the legislature to fix that but it's something that we really are going to have to push to make that conversation happen because I heard I've heard stories many stories recently of people who've been in education for a long time saying that they are having a hard time with full-throated support for for young Educators coming in to work in

154Kansas not in not in Lawrence but just in Kansas because the retirement is not um it's not what they could get if they go to oklah they go to Oklahoma or Missouri or um you know any number of surrounding states so um you these are um well aligned with all of all of the issues that um we're talking about not just here in our community but all over so uh is there anything that I missed that you wanted me to touch on Kelly I don't think so but or we would do you have I just uh kind of to dovetail off some of that I just wanted to say so um I also went to one of the listen and learn sessions um about KB legislative priorities um in Johnson County where the Johnson County

155Schools were there as well and they are talking about the same issues that we are talking about we are not different or special um the you know the competitive salary yes we have farther to go but in general we do not pay our teachers across the board in any state what they truly deserve to be paid um along with all of our staff um yes there are programs out there that can provide Universal free meals however we do not qualify for those so it's not for a lack of us wanting to or trying to um I know Julie Henry has done a lot of work looking into this and it just hasn't it's not something that we qualify for unfortunately so these are why we have some of these priorities um there because it's it's

156not something we don't want to do but it's something we need help to be able to do and it's again something that districts around the state are talking about so before we open it up to the board for discussion of any edits you would like us to make or anything you would like us to add last year the um for Ann and Yolanda last year there were a couple things that the board asked us to go back and fix or make sure that we added so this is essentially the first read and then we would adopt it um on October 15th uh before we do that we wanted to have the Lea come up and share their um legislative priorities we're hoping to work closely with um The District's Union to um partner where we

157can uh to help um add voice to our shared priorities and then we want to make sure that we didn't miss anything from you also welcome hi Lori Greenfield she her pronounce uh Lea our Lawrence Education Association vice president I also serve uh on the k&a Kansas National Education associations um kpac uh steering committee which um uh involves five people from each of the um congressional districts um along with that um I am the current um chair of our resolutions k&a resolutions um commission so our kna um legislative priorities are derived by from are developed by our um core values and our Rel um resolutions our belief statements and I'll just remind you of of our core values are equal opportunity for all a just Society democracy professionalism partnership and Collective action so we have

158um developed our priorities into six areas um many of them um correspond with what you have developed here so I appreciate the partnership um that you've asked us to to be in so um our six areas are support for educators um strengthening Capers bright future for all canons and that goes into the racial and social justice or equal um Equitable Society the school funding piece which um maintaining the um funding levels along with fully funding sped um Taxation and Educators as leaders and in this one in particular is um making sure that Educators have a voice and are on the appropriate uh committees and policymaking um at the uh legislative level um Educators need to be the voice um behind the policy um to help move us forward so um I find that um all

159of your legislative priorities fall Within the k&a um P priorities Lea does not have its own priorities but we fall under the k&a priorities um there is also a an Nea document um that's quite lengthy um that we adopt each summer at our uh Nea uh ra and so um I will correspond that um with your document too but and those documents you can share with us right yes absolutely so if if those went to um Janis then they can get sent out to the full board just to make sure that we have them and I do think there'll be opportunities for us to partner hopefully a bit more intentionally this year on some of these items um okay and so can I just say um I appreciate the collaboration that I've had with Shannon

160in particular when I've went uh to the capital um to um do some of the advocacy work um last year year I had the opportunity to go several days uh in uh being on the steering committee uh to um specifically with the sped funding um and some of the um specific um bad legislation I should say that was taking place and so I appreciate our board being able to be a partner not all School boards across Kansas can um we can say that about um and I have appreci this um partnership so thank you thank you uh thanks for coming I know it was so folks know that um she knows enough about this that she got a um there was a mix up of confusion and came up at the last minute to be

161able to provide this information to us so I appreciate your time tonight thank you so much okay are there questions about the legislative priorities are things that you would like us to tweak or change this is Carol I would just like to thank you for having words or terms in here such as tribal sovereignty or urging educational institutions or others to retire the use of Native Americans as mascots so thank you again yeah I think you wrote it we got it yeah I know but thank you thank you app I kind of I was worried that it was would not be in there but thank you and I in behalf of uh people I don't there's a just a few core groups of us that are out there and we are here and we are

162strongly we are and we are I would like to think we're gaining a strength and where we're gaining momentum for treaty enforcement and um uh September 30th I would like to also add that September 30th is the national day of recognition for the orange shirt orange shirt day for Indian boarding schools and if anybody gets a chance I would urge anybody or this board to read the Deb Hollands from the department of interiors that the um initiative the second report was published in this past July and if anybody gets a chance to read the boarding score report I urge them but one of the findings and recommendations in that report is to require public schools to have indigenous curriculum and or teach indigenous languages thank you Carol do you think that that is something we

163should look at adding I know they're working at it at the state level do you want us to try to work that piece back in I I just for a Time sake I think tribal sovereignty would be would suffice in here okay I really appreciate your guidance on this you have been a leader in a lot of different spaces on the board but particularly this has helped keep us um focused and and it's um something I really appreciate in terms of your leadership so thank you thank you um other things anybody wants to see changed I just have one it's more of a grammatical one I think just for flow of reading okay on your bullet point the very last one under key priorities yep provide Universal meals free I think it would flow better

164if it was provide Universal free meals okay that's just me I can do that anything else right okay I appreciate uh everyone listening to that discussion or participating in the discussion we're going to move on to uh motion for executive session I move the Board of Education recess to Executive session for the purpose of discussing Personnel matters of non-elected Personnel in order to protect the Privacy interests of the individual to be discussed with Dr Janice Swift interim superintendent Dr Larry engelb Deputy superintendent and Christen Ryan Executive Director of Human Resources invited to be present and with the board to return Open session in the this room at 9917 with no action to follow is that right no 90 907 um Let me let me say that last part again with the board to return to

165open session in this room at 907 with no action to follow second Costello yes Franklin yes Gordon Ross Yes Jones Kimble yes buyers yes kadu Blackwood yes as a seven zero e e e obsession with no action to follow and we will move oh well let meit give me a minute yeah Dr Swift do you have any announcements we're all good thank you so we will move to adjourn is there a motion I move wej second all those in favor anyone opposed thank you all see