Lawrence Public Schools Board of Education Meeting | July 24, 2023

001foreign we need approval of the agenda I move we approve the agenda for the July 24 2023 board meeting this is Eric all second Jones yes buyers yes Kimball yes could do Blackwood Gordon Ross Yes motion passes 5-0 oh I'm sorry Erica yes okay okay so we will start with special recognition and Erica do you oh I see recognition oh Dr Lewis is going to start I'm sorry I messed that up okay Dr Lewis all right well good evening thank you for president Jones board members members of the public since July 10th was past president Shanna Kimball's last meeting as board president I want to take a moment this evening to where's my clicker okay here it is a moment this evening to honor Shannon for her leadership during the 2022 2023 school year I

002think the Lawrence Rotary Club said it well two weeks ago when they were naming Shannon it's non-reltering of the year they said she models service above self Shannon gives 100 percent to her volunteer service to the community she reads studies researches reaches out to others in consultation for input visit schools speaks to community groups and puts puts much thought and deliberation into her board service Shannon was first elected to the board in 2011 hence the photo of April 5th she's probably going to kill me about that photo but that was the night at the Douglas County Courthouse when she was first elected and she was there talking to some constituents then and so this past year was her third time as president having also served as board president 2014-15 and 1718. she has worked with

00318 present and pass board members and four superintendents the Board District and Community have benefited benefited from Shannon's background in educational law her 12 years of board experience and her personal involvement in public education policy and advocacy at the local state and National levels Santa has led the board's development of annual legislative priorities she closely follows the work of the Kansas legislature and keeps the board and the community informed of legislation affecting Public Schools Shannon has testified numerous times with regard to some of these bills that are being proposed and so we appreciate her advocacy definitely in Topeka and I think Shannon has served just about on every board committee is that right except negotiations in French I think I've been on all of them negotiations in France she's definitely been a valuable asset to

004the policy committee as well as the facilities planning committee Shaw has been also has been instrumental in enhancing board member training the development of the district's first ever comprehensive strategic plan in 20 years and the planning and passage of the district's two largest Bond issues in 2013 and 2017 which funded improvements to every school building and as you know major changes had to be made this past year to create cost efficiencies in District Operations and to produce savings to fund the board's Financial priorities under Shannon's leadership the board engaged our community in a thorough study and made difficult but necessary decisions with high quality staff and our scholars in mind the board's action and the work of our negotiation team have paved the way for sustainable future for the district as it is our tradition

005we would like to show our appreciation to Shannon our outgoing board president with a piece of student artwork Shannon I'll let you open that while I talk about the student Artist as well as the piece that you will see of it first well and when she opens this this is a piece of student artwork that's that was made by Jocelyn Cowie a member of Lawrence High School's graduating class of 2023. uh joycelyn is a student what was an art student of Emily marcolatus I hope I got that right Jocelyn shared that this necklace is made oh I already said what it was all right there we go oh it's a necklace look at that and so um Jocelyn made this and she said that this necklace is made of nickel and sterling silver and includes

006a rose quartz bezel setting in the center she based it on Garden archways resembling Pagoda outgrowing outgrown with vines and flowers joycelyn took several drawing classes during her High School career but um and then and she also happened to take this jury class rather during covet so she did took this class during covert when there was not a lot of Hands-On activities during remote learning and so she was so intrigued by her jury classes that she continued to make jury as part of her senior portfolio class Jocelyn also participated in volleyball and softball and served as president of Lawrence High's enter tribal Club she will be attending High School Indians Nations University this fall where she will also play volleyball her career plans are to enter the medical field she also hopes to continue metal

007smithing and other forms of jewelry making in the future and so I hope you enjoy that from Joyce Lynn but most importantly Shannon we thank you so much for your outstanding board leadership during these tough times but most importantly during the other times as well and we really appreciate your leadership that you provided this board as well as this district and community thank you Dr Lewis [Applause] for joycelyn for sharing this absolutely beautiful piece of jewelry I will wear it um proudly and think of think of your beautiful work often so I appreciate it thank you okay okay we now are going to move on to um one of my favorite days of the year and I'm going to let Erica take over from here and share a little bit about what our next special

008recognition wonderful thank you so much Cully so I'm excited to introduce this year's lmh Health executive Leadership Academy cohort and they're going to make their way up to the podium so for those of you who are not familiar with this program the lmh health Leadership Academy is a mentorship program that's a partnership between lmh health and the school district and where the students are partnered with the executives for the summer and they learn leadership skills they're able to get paid to explore to see what all Health Care has to offer and also at the end of their leadership program they all get a scholarship to whatever institution they're going to continue their education with and so this year students are going to come and share with you some of their experiences from this summer and

009introduce themselves so first up will be Autumn Beach and the clickers right there I believe yep hello everyone I'm Autumn Beach and sorry okay hello everyone I'm Autumn Beach and I'm a rising senior at the club Autumn can you speak into the microphone yeah okay hello everyone I'm Autumn Beach and I'm a rising senior at the College and Career Center my mentor is Rebecca Smith I've learned a lot from the Academy I honestly did a lot like I expected a lot of shadowing but I thought it was mainly from the clinical side before I came here I didn't realize or think about the different departments it takes to manage a hospital I mean when you think about it it does make sense but it wasn't really much of a thought before after being in the

010academy for the summer showing shadowing executive CEOs people in marketing and all the different parts of the hospital I realized how it takes more to a hospital than just like the Frontline nurses and hot like doctors I learned a lot about leadership respect and equity the academy has also helped me improve my public speaking my leadership skills and helped me on my path to figure out my career goals but the best of all the academy brought me closer was some great students that made the experience overall so much better and I've learned a lot from just being around them as well and working as a team why did I apply a couple years ago my grandma's Health declined significantly she had to be rushed to the hospital she was sent to a nursing home because

011of the condition that she was in and it was really hard on all of us but the nursing home was not giving her the love and care that she needed or deserved this not only pushed us to get her out of there and get her back home but it pushed me to take care of others nobody should ever be neglected I used to spend a lot of time helping my mom take care of my grandma and then went on to take a CNA class I got my CNA certified and wanted to continue being a healthcare environment and going further and figuring out what I want to do as a future and as a career here's some pictures of my experiences at the Academy um sorry I wanted to highlight the one in the top left

012corner because I really like going to just foods and building boxes and helping make food for some people and we learned a lot about teamwork um and that's the second middle photo I wanted to add that one because there's a lot of teamwork going on as well um and my My Capstone project is on gun violence and its impact on Health Care thank you Autumn and so I did feel [Applause] nice job I did fail to mention that the students also do a Capstone project that they come up with on their own they do their own research and so they're going to share that at their celebration on Thursday good evening everyone my name is Alex frinker and My Capstone topic is moral injury and nursing um I am I will be a junior at

013Lawrence High School this year um my mentor is Russ Johnson this president and CEO CEO of lmh he is a very fun person to be around he has Trinkets and toys lining his office window he has a superhero cape and mask hanging on the back of his door and he juggles coasters during meetings and he can get a laugh from anyone when I started this Academy I was certain I was going to be a nurse and I'm even more certain of it to this very day but this Academy gave me opportunities to figure out what department I want to be a part of and it opened doors for me to Branch out a bit and see what else Healthcare has to offer after some shadowing I now have interest in biomedical engineering as well as

014nursing and labor and delivery and I wouldn't have even thought of labor and delivery or biomedical engineering if not for this Academy when I applied for this internship I applied for the first-hand experience and to improve my professional and personal communication skills I hope that I would learn more about how a hospital works together and keeps on moving through every obstacle that the world through its way I have learned so much from this Academy and I will carry it with me throughout my life I have learned how leadership is not a word it is a person or people and without good leaders an organization cannot run I have learned that communication is a huge necessity without it nobody would know what to do where to go or how to perform that task and I believe

015it is one of the most important characteristics of leadership I learned the difference between equality equity and Justice how they can work hand in hand with each other but they are not the same and I learned about Civility and respect in the workplace and how it can look different to everyone foreign hello everyone my name is Steven Dewan and I'm going to be a senior at free state this next this coming week my mentor for the Academy was Jared Abel and the most important thing I learned from my interactions with him is uh he taught he taught me about the relationship building skills and the communication skills you need to be a functional part of an organization that I had a lot of firsthand experience on the way that he used his skills to interact

016with other people and also he walked me through like the ways that he kind of observed the way that other people interacted with him and uh as far as my career aspirations I think my number one uh career so far would be in cardiology that's completely open for me uh as I'm not very far in yet so yeah and uh I applied for the leadership academy so that I could kind of Branch out and see all the different career options and that was a great idea apparently because I got to see a ton of career options a lot of them I didn't know about before there's things like therapy that I hadn't really considered and I and I was able to consider because of this program and I also learned a lot about leadership which

017is kind of the main focus of the program uh and that's those are skills that I get to carry on later in life my Academy experience so I have four pictures up there and those are my top five experiences so at number five was our visit to Ortho Kansas we were able to able to Shadow a lot of different jobs from x-raying to the front desk workers the elements rooftop garden they just had a renovation up there and they have a beautiful beautiful piece of artwork up there and everyone just has fun uh when when wave interactions up there uh number three was the Visiting Nurses Association um we we had some very friendly workers that talked to us about their Journeys and their jobs uh one thing I noticed was that nobody seemed to

018seem to have had like a direct path from what they thought they were going to be to what they did actually become they all had these these crazy uh Journeys to get to where they were and at number two I had Jared's contract negotiations those are always very interesting to me because it was very amusing and also very informative in terms of the way that they interacted in terms of how they acted during the negotiations and after the negotiations so that was pretty cool and unsurprisingly my favorite memory was Dr Thompson's organ show so we got to touch a heart a brain a lot of different organs so that was really cool yeah thank you [Applause] forgot to mention my uh topic was the development of artificial intelligence and its effect on the healthcare industry

019thank you all right this is good all right good hello I'm julisa Garcia and firstly I want to thank everyone for giving me your attention for just a few minutes now let's discuss me so I'm julisa Garcia as I said before I'm a senior at free state my mentor is Cheryl D'Amico and as many of you know I'm an intern at the at the lmh leadership academy which implies that I'm interested in a medical profession and if you assume that you are correct I do hope to study pathology in the future this microphone all right this is better I initially applied to Leadership Academy to be professionals and other students who shared my interests in the medical field and to continue educating myself during the summer not the summer is finished it's clear that I've

020done that but I hold it on so much more as well before applying I wanted to learn more about other career options that are that are generally unknown to the public as it's important to keep your options open that's something I've learned another thing I've learned about respect specifically is that to be respectful you must consider everyone's ideas and comments because without so people will not feel respected and in turn and people not respect you similarly an important attribute for a leader is to be curious a leader should be a lifelong learner because leaders must also be understanding of the people around them and be open to those same people's ideas if a leader is not open and curious their team will not be able to adapt to unfamiliar situations in my relatively short time

021in the academy I've learned from people we've talked to is that you don't really know where life will take you I may say I want to study pathology now but I don't know if that'll still hold true in the future which is why it's the most important thing to do to keep your options open for my forever forever Mentor chill D'Amico I've learned that leadership is not just a position while she is a a in a high leadership position that's how it makes her an amazing leader it's the fact that she cares it's because she makes her sure that Max and I as her students understand what's happening um in a meeting or just when she's talking to uh other people in our office she debriefs with she debriefs with us so we're involved by

022letting us ask clarifying questions and discussing And discussing anything I've experienced so much in these two months I'm so grateful for the opportunity to sleep this leadership but Academy has given me in the green frame is the organ show uh with Dr Mike Thompson uh we touched a lot of organs um that was that was pretty cool uh when when the blue frame is is a statistic statistics from our meeting with Dr Lewis this meme was truly impactful when we saw the statistics for State Testing organized by subgroups such as race and gender this is a this one I have up here is for the science state test the group in red scored scored level one meaning that they have unlimited knowledge below their grade level while you may assume that these groups just don't

023try or they're not smart enough it really shows that something is wrong with our entire testing system and that and what we consider equity uh in school and to these subgroups of students my topic will be neurodiversity and equity thank you [Applause] good evening everyone my name is Naomi Porter I'm I'm going to be a junior at free state and my mentor was Rebecca Smith or is Rebecca Smith and she's the executive director of the lmh foundation and the vice president of strategic Communications I've always had an interest in healthcare specifically psychology but through the academy I've also gained an interest in Radiology I originally applied to learn more about health care and what jobs there were but through the academy I've improved my public speaking and Leadership skills as well as gotten a better

024idea of what it takes to run a hospital during this Academy I've gotten a lot of cool opportunities we volunteered at just food visited the public health department and even got to meet with Dr Lewis but my favorite by far had to be our time at Ortho Kansas it allowed us to Shadow around and the radiology department there was what got me interested in Radiology I think this Academy was beneficial to me because it allowed me to learn skills that I'll be able to use through my everyday life as well as see how a hospital is truly run and see different perspectives into leadership My Capstone project is going to be over mental health and Youth [Applause] [Music] hello everyone my name is Brandon Sykes I'll be a senior at Free State High School this

025year my mentor is Nami Stone she's the director of Therapy Services here at lmh and she has been a phenomenal Mentor this is actually her first year and um she is not she couldn't have done any better I mean she did a fantastic job she taught me what it really looks like to run a multitude of different different programs really have a really strict calendar and also as well as listening to the people that you're working with is one of the most efficient ways to ensure a good communication system and that's what really makes an organization organization shine I have interest in human biology as a major in college and hopefully in the future go into orthopedic surgery and then why originally wanted to be in this Academy in the first place I knew there

026were doctors I knew there were nurses but I also knew there was something more that kind of helped the gears turn and that's what I really wanted to dig my hands into and I think this program has done that and more for me I've been I've become more confident as a speaker overall and I've just met some really incredible people back here and they've made this they've made this experience so much more enjoyable for me um and then here I have a couple more pictures from my time I know the first day on the very left I was I saw these little balls on the ceiling like what are these for and that is kind of a symbol of my curiosity over the whole nine weeks and another picture of uh something that was a

027fun day at Bert Nash we got to learn a lot about how they deal with mental health and how really how important that is um and then one of my all-time favorite things of the whole program I got to Shadow both Dr Pro and Dr Goodyear in surgery um that was awesome and I loved every bit of it and that was definitely one of the highlights of this program um My Capstone project is over prescription drugs and how expensive they are and how it's really more of a rep of a representation of a bigger problem of medicine is expensive and people can't always pay for it so how is this available how does Douglas County help our um our less fortunate residents pay for their care thank you hello everyone and Max cross that's me

028so I am going to be a senior at the College and Career Center class of 2024. I'm very energetic I'm passionate I'm hard working and I really am all about teamwork you know a career interest of mine is now a physical therapist it didn't always be that way I used to want to be a teacher oh there's your keyboard here can you help me real quick okay rerun sorry so as I was saying I used to want to be a teacher I used to want to be a basketball coach I even used to want to be a CNA I started off as taking a CNA class my junior year I did not pass by just a few um questions but luckily I still had a backup which was the academy I applied at the Academy

029not knowing what I was getting myself into honestly I thought I was just going to be shadowing and just getting a lot of information you know but yeah so my mentor is Cheryl Domingo now if you don't know Cheryl she's also a PT as well as a senior vice president of strategic strategic strategic integration Cheryl has taught me so much but something that I will always remember is there is more ways to be a leader a risk taker and a physical therapist just saying me personally I was a leader who liked to be the first one to do something or say something but Cheryl now she's more of a quiet leader and when I say quiet I mean she might not talk a lot during the meetings but don't you dare underestimate her she has

030a lot to say and take a lot of notes and she always debriefs with me and Jalisa afterwards now I am a leader that listens but I still have charisma and I'm in I'm insightful sure she has started she has shared her story with me which I'm very grateful for because not only did I learn that she is strong Brave but I learned that she cares she will always care and always be my mentor even after this so to her I want to say thank you so why did I apply to the call the what the academy sorry well I wanted to apply because I knew I wanted to work in the medical field but I had no clue what my options were I also never had a role model if it was biracial or

031trans I wanted to learn how to become a better leader for people who are like me no what did I get out of this experience well I got exposed to a diverse amount of roles and opportunities as I can consider my next step of high school I also got to become a better leader made connections I didn't think I was going to make and I learned the difference between equity and equality and many many more oh wait um some pictures that I have up there as you can see in the left corner also in the right corner as everyone says this is our one of our favorites um the Dr Thompson organ shoe to me honestly I'm not interested in that career path but I will admit it was really cool to hold um a

032heart a actual heart and brains man um my topic that I'm going to be talking about on Thursday at our celebration is very personal to me it is about trans health thank you great job you all thank you thank you and so a couple other points I wanted to mention is like we before the academy even starts the students tonight goes shopping on what a professional wardrobe is so we have conversations about that and we go on a photo shoot you saw some of their photos that they shared in your in their PowerPoint presentation we've also the lmh we've hired a number of the Academy students over the years and so this is year five I cannot believe this is maybe this is five years now so we're going to have a reunion on Wednesday

033so number them are going to come we're going to go eat dinner um and also I want to thank all of our Community Partners a program like this cannot be done alone and so thank all of our Community Partners and a big thank you to Dr Johnson she has spent so much time with our students getting them comfortable with public speaking and just learning those those tips and tricks that you um that you teach them so thank you so much for investing your time there and so again thank you so much for coming and thank you for allowing them to come and present tonight I want to say thank you Erica I I think there's your vision and obviously the risk that lmh took you know on our on our students and this is the

034type of investment that we want our community members to have in business and organizations to have always say that the future of the workforce here in Lawrence and Douglas County is right here in our classrooms so the sooner that we could wrap our arms around them the sooner that we can expose them to what as to what's what's to be or what's to come for them I think the better for them and what you heard tonight in terms of their Capstone projects they're solving problems that are current problems and problems that are not not problems yet and so the skills that they've obtained during this Academy is going to propel them far ahead of their their peers so I'm just super happy that they get to experience this and it is five years it doesn't

035seem like that and always encourage other businesses organizations Community Partners to mirror a program just like this I talked to Russ Johnson and Erica as well they're willing to to give them the blueprint and get them started so that we can have more stories like this and I'm just super excited of these Scholars and as I that you told me about the organ show then I ask you I'll ask you again did you put the organs back perfect so again congratulations I can't wait to uh hear your Capstone project I'll extend congratulations to I'm very impressed with the topics that you've chosen and the way that you presented here at the board I get very nervous public speaking in fact I am right now so it was really nice to see you all get up

036and and Conquer that and then just to watch how you've connected the dots for your career it wants it like inspires me to start all over again so um thank you for coming and sharing your path with us and to Erica for being continually phenomenal at this and many other things so thank you for your work here um um I'll just I'll just add uh you know as Kelly said this is truly one of my favorite nights as well um the 20 plus year career in healthcare um you know watching you all present and talk about your career um the what you were exposed to and and the different opportunities that you had um one it made me incredibly jealous looking back at my own pathway but but I will I will also tell you

037um some of your topics that you chose to discuss um one um I I use and wrestle with AI today in my job and two as a graduate of KU School of Pharmacy in 2002 managing drug costs was something that we struggled with over 20 years ago so those were just just two two bookends to those two topics and also one of my favorite rotations in pharmacy school so we do 10 one month rotations over a 12-year period was at the surgical ICU at KU Med where we spent two days in the OR and while I didn't get to touch organs I got to see some really cool stuff in the or so it does transcend a lot of things just just getting getting to do cool stuff like that just congratulations and thank you

038for sharing your experiences and you all are phenomenal students I'm excited to see what you do next thank you okay so um Erica do you need five minutes no okay so we're gonna move on to the rest of the meeting and I you do not have to stay for the rest of the meeting so this would be a great time to pick up an exit if that makes um your evening better yes all right okay this is Julie Boyle with the camera first so um Dr Lewis report of the superintendent of schools awesome what president Jones first want to here we go thank all of our staff and administrators who continue to participate in summer professional learning conferences and work sessions this was also images from our character strong professional development kickoff last week this

039was a district-wide kickoff and so we're really excited and appreciative of all of our staff administrators that participate in our character strong event and thanks Dr Johnson for spearheading this and I understand we had the folks from the from character strong actually here to train our staff so super excited about what's to come from there uh there is no question that teachers make the magic happen um equally as critical are our principles and they are what I would call the thermostat people who create those conditions for our teachers to make their magic happen so we were excited today to welcome all of our building principals back today for four days of back to school professional development and the quote just says principles matter a lot and effective principles impact is stronger and broader than previous

040previously thought effective principles have positive impacts on student achievement and attendance as well as teacher satisfaction and retention so super excited about the work that they engage in today as well as these next three days to come I want to give a update on our Middle School redesign initiative to recall our Lawrence Board of Education on February 22nd of this year directed myself and our team to create a middle school redesign committee that's comprised of sixth through eighth grade Educators and administrators our District administration has scheduled a report or an update for the board of education at September 25th board meeting and we will then return for our December 20 2023 board meeting with redesign implementation recommendations that we're looking to take place school year 425 and on the screen also it's just a reminder

041of the four Focus topics that the Middle School redesign committee was charged with in addition you can stay updated with what's going on with our Middle School redesign committee there we do have a website that has been developed to share updates with the community and the pro and the board with our progress of our Middle School redesign committee the site is listed on the left hand sidebar of our curriculum instruction and assessment web page and you can find that right up on our parents and students link so just click on the parents and student link in curriculum instruction it'll take you there where you will see all of the summary of the meetings the committee members you will see them there as well we actually won't see them you'll see their names they're listed there

042as well in addition after each meeting takes place our entire Middle School staff and our district receives an email update of what's took place at those meetings when it brought a brief Lawrence Virtual School update we will have our interim principal interviews uh this week and again that's just to name the interim principle uh we will take our time and engage the entire LVS staff Community parents in the selection of the permanent principal so we will spend a year almost interviewing or recruiting the next principle there also at the request of the board there will be a work session at an upcoming board meeting right now we're looking at um late August early October maybe but we'll bring that work session back to the to the board the district did receive 150 000 over 150

043000 through a state safe and secure School Grant and so with the district's Capital outlay match this is a match Grant we will be able to invest more than three hundred thousand dollars in security and software and equipment I also want to wish all of our Scholars who are involved in the 4-H the best of luck with their projects this week at the Douglas County Fair the board and the public are invited to celebrate the completion of the district's first ever fiber Network we will kick off this at a ceremony on August 1st from 11 to noon at the LHS Courtyard right between the main gym and the West gym we're super excited about this upgrade to our technology infrastructure and thank David vignary and his team this will yield tremendous amount of improvements to

044our technology service that we provide to our students staff and our school families and the long-term savings that the district will realize from this project is just truly remarkable so really excited about the work that has been taking place there and what we will celebrate on August 1st our back to school Douglas County is in its final stretch of collecting school supplies if you are buying supplies please consider buying something extra for this donation Drive the Lawrence schools foundation and its partners and volunteers will be loading backpacks and delivering about 1500 of those to our schools for students who need them families may let their schools know if they are in need of any school supplies and we will have them available when the students arrive speaking of school supplies our partners with the Lawrence

045Police Department and Firearm medical services will be collecting school supplies during the community back to school Fair on August 5th from 9 to 1 South Park it's back this year so we're excited about that this event will also offer kids activities bicycles safety Games helmet giveaways car seat checks first responder vehicles and lots of information about public health and safety so definitely a good event for a family to put on their calendars again that is August 5th from 9 to 1 at South Park I want to remind people what the extreme heat in the forecast please make sure that you're thinking of safety precautions particularly as it relates to staying safe wearing sunscreen and taking breaks in the shade or either inside and make sure you check in on your families and friends and neighbors

046and also your pets reminder school begins in about three and a half weeks and we will be ready so look for our back to school newsletter and this Wednesday's Lawrence Journal World and crave that's all I have thank you Dr Lewis so we'll move on to the report of the president of the Board of Education on July 18th the city commission unanimously approved ordinance 999 which makes Lawrence a sanctuary City for transgender and gender non-conforming people protecting them and all of lorenzions from anti-lgbtq legislation the school board extends gratitude to the City commissioners for codifying a firm stand against SB 180 an anti-trans law and to members of No SB 180 for their advocacy efforts I attended no SB 80s struggle against legal transphobia in Kansas panel on July 19th and had several takeaways from

047the panelists that I will that will make me a better board member as a reminder to the community in 2016 the school board adopted a transgender affirming policy that provides guidelines for District employees and substitutes I believe both Bob Byers and Shannon Kimball helped pass that those guidelines the guidelines include topics related to safety and bullying names and pronouns locker rooms gender gender segregated activities and support resources the policy committee welcomes review and recommendations to the policy that may better support lgbtq students and staff the guidelines are searchable on the district website and I'm happy to email them to anyone who requests them Advanced voting in person for USD 497's two-year term primary election is underway you can go to the county election office which is now at 711 West 23rd Street next to uh

048well it's in the Alcove there Suite one from 8 A.M to 5 PM Monday through Friday the last day to vote in the primary is August 1st two candidates will move on to the November 7th general election there is one two-year seat to fill the school board primary ballot ballot includes four candidates I'm asking the community to remember that Tierra teskey withdrew from the race but her name still appears on the ballot I recognize that the school board election is a little confusing this year so just to clarify there is a USC 497-4 term election in November 7th there are nine candidates and four seats to fill so um committee I wanted to say a few words to my board colleagues into the community about committee assignments in the context of the election approximately seven

049years ago the state legislature moved School Board elections to November instead of to the spring the purpose was to insert partisan contention into the election process so now the board makes committee assignments for half a year during the election cycle to any legislature listening imagine if I said you can serve on Appropriations for one month of the session then you need to step down and you newcomer get to step onto Appropriations after half of the information has already been shared and completed with the committee you still have to make recommendations to the board based on your service we have highly qualified board members whose skill sets are underutilized because I have to make committee assignments strategically based on the election calendar not on the academic calendar that's a disservice to the district and to the

050community that voted for them to be in office to my board colleagues committee assignments come to you our inbox I made some strategic decisions and I'm open to dialogue about that to best make sure that we're where we need to be to get us through the year under the context of what I just cited I have one request to the board um that I am going to seek some guidance on from board leadership we now have two bargaining units and in conversation with Paula um we have found that that is an onerous committee for two people we previously had three people so I would very much like the board to consider adding back in that third member and it might be that that's something that we need to vote on so I'll be talking with

051Shannon and Bob about how to bring that to the board so tentatively we have two committee members or two two folks assigned to negotiations and then hopefully we can add a third um and then I want my last thing and um just to say quickly uh you'll recall that Carol who is with us today she's joining us remotely requested for the board to take a polished position related to funding for public education she referred to it at the July 12th meeting so I did some research related to that and in collaborating with her on that effort the USD 497 2023 legislative priorities which were adopted in October of 2022 just to remind the community included support of Equitable and adequate funding for public education those legislative priorities were drafted by Shannon and approved by the

052policy committee they include requests for special education services to be fully funded at the required 92 percent of excess costs along with several other points I know that Shannon Carol and I were all in Topeka last year making direct requests to policy makers other board members may have been as well you'll recall that Paula spoke at the legislative breakfast here locally so for now I've requested that the policy committee prepare the legislative platform for the 2024 session early in the fall as we did last year but perhaps even earlier to help support Carol's request and then additionally Carol is researching related resolutions that may come before the board so um with that that's what I have and I'll move on to public comment would someone help me with reading the public commentary the USD 497

053Board of Education welcomes public comments and thank you for taking the time to talk to us about our policies and procedures 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 form so District staff or the board can follow follow up with you regarding your public comment as necessary this is your time to share your opinions however public comment is not the appropriate forum for making complaints about specific staff or students if needed the board president or presiding officer of the meeting May direct that a Patron's comment to be heard by the board in executive session in order to protect the privacy of the individuals to be discussed before participating in public comment to share a complaint

054the board requests that public commenters follow the complete procedures set out in board and District policy as appropriate if you need assistance in these processes please let the board Clerk or other District staff know the board president will invite comments invite comment on topic not included on the agenda at the beginning of each meeting comments related to agenda items are welcome after the board has had an opportunity to discuss the topic please limit your comments to three minutes the district assumes no responsibility and or liability for the information shared during public commentary the views expressed are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Lawrence Public Schools okay so just to point out to a couple of the commentators there there are comments related to restorative practices so we'll

055have the we'll have those comments after the district administrators have an opportunity to present so with that we have I'll invite Marcia Riggins to uh to the podium to speak around to the Lawrence Virtual School I'm like a bad Penny this evening I wanted to talk to you in regards to a I'm going to start with a quote by one of my um favorite people Dr Brad Johnson says we cannot say we are doing best for our students if we are not doing what's best for our teachers and when you think about that now I'm going to focus on article 17 number seven in the master agreement which states reasonable efforts will be made to limit Secondary School professional employees course preparations to no more than three different course preparations consistent with the nature of

056the subject area the size of the department the size of the classes and the special offerings of the department at this time we have two Middle School teachers one who is being assigned to teach sixth seventh and eighth grade science there's three and sixth seventh and eighth grade math another three so that's a total of six for that one teacher the other teacher is teaching sixth seventh and eighth grade language arts and sixth seventh and eighth grade social studies so last week time we were here there was a lot of discussion about words and the idea words have weight and they have meaning so let's look at the definition of reasonable and I want you to think if it's reasonable to ask a teacher to have a class with homeroom size and class size of

05763 that's the limit that was brought to you and voted on and to teach sixth seventh and eighth grade math and sixth seventh and eighth grade science reasonable is defined as having sub sound judgment fair and sensible based and good based in Good Sense able to think understand inform judgments by logical process as much as an is appropriate or fair and moderate some synonyms would be sensible rational logical Fair fair-minded just and equitable now I should point out to you that these decisions were made and articulated to them after the June resignation day and after the June 1st transfer day which now is being held against those who may want to transfer out over the virtual school because they do not feel that this is just reasonable and it's not right in addition we've had

058teachers who were told that they were going to be not at the Virtual School but in this in the district then brought back yet we have room for you now nope sorry we don't but we'll let you out of your contract and we won't hold that against you we have also had teachers who were told sorry it's past June 1st if you want to transfer out of LVS we have this date and you've you've lost it the difference between idea of electives and some teachers having more than three three class preparations is that we are talking mandatory subjects under a completely different umbrella and so when I'm teaching electives and I have nothing but utter respect for those elective teachers those are choices that are being offered but as a school district you have to

059offer math science language arts and social studies and it's not right or Fair to dump those on your teachers and set my time up but then I would also point to elective effective employees and data driven decisions because I would question the data and who drove who looked at the data that made those decisions thank you Marcia um Jody do you have comments unrelated to the discipline yeah okay please please come on up uh my name is Jody Meyer I'm the parent of a USD 497 student I'm a voice of him and a practicing attorney for over 20 years in Lawrence this is not the topic that I came here for tonight but as I was reviewing the consent agenda I felt an obligation to speak out about one of the items on the agenda

060which I feel is unnecessarily restricting the voice of the community I'm appearing to voice my objection to the proposed revision to board policy to specify who can file a complaint about textbooks library media centers and other instructional materials as you know the policy is currently written states that any person having a complaint about textbooks library or Media Center or other instructional materials she'll meet with the principal Etc your proposed provision changes which are on the consent agenda changes the language of any person to quote any student or parent or legal guardian of a student currently enrolled in the district such a policy would create an extremely restrictive process where voters and community members would not be able to adequately Express their concern about instructional materials I would say that if I was a parent and

061I had a student graduate and I just found out I had some concerns about materials this would not allow me to file a complaint teachers aren't allowed to file complaints former teachers aren't allowed to file complaints community members parents relatives anything else is not allowed to file complaints under this new policy change I think that as the Kansas Association of school board notes on its website local school boards are a shining example of representative government by adopting such a policy you're cutting off the ability of a significant portion of our community to have input on such an important matter to be clear I'm not saying that every person who has or makes a complaint has a legitimate one or that some person in Nevada should be able to make a complaint about what's going on

062in Lawrence Kansas but I think the board either needs to write a better policy revision perhaps limiting to those who reside in the boundaries or leave it as is I would appreciate the board explaining the problem that this solution is attempting to solve all right next we have a board commentary foreign that's okay thank you Kelly um I wanted to report on uh uh the to the board on two of our board committees that met since our last board meeting so the policy committee met on July 17th and we did a couple of things we generally reviewed the most recent set of kasb updates suggested updates from June of 2023 and mapped out a plan for the policy committee and staff to work through those proposed updates and put things on the board calendar I

063want to note for the board the the the policy change that we'll have the most impact on our board schedule has to do with the requirement that the board has to adopt a policy to implement the provisions of the inter-district transfer statute that was passed not this past legislative session but a year ago that statute requires a public hearing before the board adopts the policy and so we've mapped out a process with staff in the committee and the board that allows for that hearing to happen I believe in late October and then that gives time adequate time for a first and a second read an additional time if needed if we make make revisions based on either the public hearings or the um the first or second read of the board so um so that

064will have some impact on on our boardwork and we are working to include that in the board reports calendar for upcoming business the other thing that we did was we worked policy if it's a policy that has been um before the committee a couple of times because the changes that are on the agenda this evening to policy if are the changes that have been recommended as best practices to the district by the Kansas Association of school boards and so we took our existing policy um reviewed the proposed changes from our state Association looked at experiences of other districts and things that are being done as best practice in this area and the the revisions that are on the agenda tonight for the first read are a reflection of that work that we did in the

065committee so um just wanted to share that that's the work that we did in the policy committee it is a first read tonight so we have until we will have a second read at our next board meeting so there is time for us to receive further feedback about that in addition the facilities committee met on the 19th I'd just like to thank our facilities and operations staff this is probably their um some of the busiest time of year for them because they are trying to do all the work that has to happen um on the business operational and facility side that needs to happen when our schools are not being occupied by our students we had a lot of updates on a lot of ongoing projects updates that are important for the board all of

066the programs that formerly were located at East Heights so that's C-Tran project search our self-contained Ed and BD classrooms and also the suspension Alternative Program have now been moved to Pinckney there is discussion of having an open house to welcome the community and welcome our new school programs to that building later on this year it will be called Community connections at Pinckney it's been called Community connections at East Heights so there is updated signage that is going to be installed at Pinkney to reflect that change and it should be in place before the start of the school year was our understanding I'm looking forward to that opportunity for the open house to share with the community just how much this particular move of those programs from the East Heights Building into Pinckney is going to

067serve and support the needs of students and families from all over Lawrence that receive Services as part of those programs and I'm really excited for those students and staff moving into that space we also received an update on Native American student services programs and the work that facilities and operations are doing to move and consolidate all of the programs and resources for those students and families in that program to Broken Arrow which is being completed this month I think there are a lot of exciting possibilities for that move as well based on the space that they will have available to them to expand the reach of their programming to our native students and their families um there are lots and lots of projects going on this summer roof and building exterior repairs asphalt repairs and

068Replacements and HVAC upgrades we did hear that there have been some challenges with our HVAC work due to supply chain problems that continue to linger from the pandemic so facilities and operations updated us on how they are working with our vendors and our subcontractors to work through those issues um I also wanted to share my gratitude to Dr engelbrick and the fno staff for this particular next piece of the update Kelly mentioned a minute ago um some of the the information and advocacy work that she's been doing around SB 180 and the impact on our students and staff in our district um when the governor's veto of SB 80 was overridden gr and I and the facilities committee requested whether it would be possible for our district to look at ways that we could immediately

069make changes to our facilities that would better support our trans and other students you know lgbtq communities students and staff one of the easiest things for us to do as a district is to update signage on all of our single-use restrooms making them available to all rather than having them be identified by gender facilities and operations immediately begin working on that and I'm happy to report that for a very very very small just a few hundred dollars cost of signage and the staff time it's taken to switch those out they've completed all the six of our buildings and those last six buildings should be ready by the start of the school year um I appreciate that staff worked quickly and diligently to do something that may seem small but I think is an important statement

070about our commitment to protecting the safety and dignity of our staff and students um we also discussed the results of the safe School Grant award that Dr Lewis mentioned and we heard updates from staff on the installation of our fiber Network and also results from the request for proposals for the solar power pilot project that is going to be taking place at Prairie Park so and I think Gru had some additional information to share about that that's all I have for this evening just just to follow up on what Shannon said um the the update on solar we had a total of seven bids come in for that project we were we were really happy with that particular number district and staff are still going through those bids um to to make sure um that

071we we understand and and then and that we get the um the right vendor for that work um and so all seven um individuals have received a letter with an update and um we should know that final we should have that final decision by Wednesday um and then we'll we'll we'll go from there so but we're we're we're excited about having the the choices and to move that forward and then um Dr Lewis mentioned on the fiber the the open house on August 1st at LHS which is which is both um a a closing out end of and a start because it's really a closing out of phase one and then uh really uh setting off on phase two as we take the the um the infrastructure that that fiber Network gets us and start

072to then look at how can we take that fiber Network take the the internet that it gives us and um use it to extend our wireless um to as many people as the possible outside of our own buildings to to extend high-speed internet and internet access to students and staff while they are at home on our own devices um as uh because we will now be able to do that so that's both uh really really awesome things two other things I'd I would like to extend some condolences uh uh Mike Tennyson also known as Mike Senior owner of munchers passed away over the weekend Mike off and on my daughter worked at munchers and Mike Mike was a great guy and so I wanted to wanted to do that and then as Dr Lewis was

073talking about school supplies I was reminded of something that I had seen earlier this week for anyone this applies to clearly it applies to no one in this room um but the Lawrence Municipal Court did say that they would take 15 in school supplies in lieu of fifty dollars worth of fines so if you would wanted to contribute to school supplies that way as well we would appreciate it yes thank you so the velocity church had its 2023 serve day this past Saturday and they um 261 of us served on that day helping various Community Partners across the entire community and um we helped with three pallets build three pallets with school supplies for Lawrence students in need this weekend and also they helped with over 3 000 pounds of mulch to refresh from the

074Landscaping here at the school district so I just want to thank think velocity church for being a great Community partner Carol okay look can everybody hear me hello hello hey Carol we can hear you you're very soft can you wait just a moment and we'll turn up the volume all right thank you testing testing okay can you everybody hear me we can now very good welcome Carol all right thank you yeah I'm sorry I can't make it my asthma was so bad today I just um decided um I just stayed home because I didn't want to uh have a another night of bad asthma but um uh just real briefly I would like to thank the city commission for passing ordinance 9999 but just very recently within this past year there was a study that

075really was released by The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration so and congratulations to our students who participated in the leadership academy I was um given hope hearing our students talk about the importance of mental health is in that report it showed the the samhsa administration specifically stated that over half of transgender use they have seriously considered suicide in the last year because of the discrimination and rejection they face and in the face of these challenges research shows time and time again that when transgender youth are affirmed and supported they thrive and there's nothing more powerful in this world than the act of living openly authentically and safely and no one should have to be brave just by themselves and again I'm proud to be a part of this board and I I think

076my board colleagues them that um and we stand in solitary and recognize that our trans community continues to face in unacceptable epidemic of violence and harmful discrimination and access to health care employment and housing and in our instance that's um again when you talk about our youth that's medical negligence but trans people are and I've said this before the trans people our neighbors our family our friends and our colleagues they deserve to be live with dignity and to be treated fairly in every part of life I am proud to stand in solidarity solidarity with the transgender Community as we both as we all celebrate the approval of ordinance 999 we sent a message to this land this country that we indigenous peoples call Turtle Island and we will continue to March forward for Liberation peace

077and equality for all thank you Carol okay um we'll now move on to approval of the consent agenda is there a motion oh sorry go ahead it's okay I understand this is a first read for 2.15 um based on public comment I don't really have questions I would like to have a better understanding about why we change the language and things like that so if we can you want to how you want to handle that we can we can pull it now um or we can pull it and move it to Old business next week and have a longer conversation where maybe we've had we can prepare and have Paula here would that be okay yeah let's do it okay is that either way is fine that's fine that worked okay we can do that

078okay all right um are there any other um before we move on to approval consent any other items okay uh can I get a motion to draw me to exclude it then from the motion since we're going to pull it onto because it's a first read can we are you okay with passing the first read and then coming back next week if we're going to talk about it next week in the whole business or do you want me to pull it I mean if we're going to talk about it next week look at the final approval right yeah yeah it's fine okay I move the Board of Education adopt the items listed on the consent agenda my second buyers yes Kimball yes could do Blackwood yes yes Hill yes Jones yes motion passes six zero

079okay so we'll move on to Old business um and we'll now have a conversation restorative practice in the behavior metrics the secondary tier three Matrix and Dr Johnson executive director of inclusion engagement and belonging will present along with Dr Dewitt lead secondary principal at the College and Career Center thank you good evening to the board thank you for this opportunity to come back before you to review the process and really um the why if you will of why we had to go back through and look at our Behavior Matrix let me begin with July of 2021 that is when I came before the board with a goal 22. 2022 was when they approved it okay 2021 is when they approved the outline 2021 is when the outline was approved with a massive undertaking to put

080in place the first ever district-wide student handbook at the elementary middle and high school level at that time approval was given throughout that year of 2021-2022 we went through the process of looking at all the pieces that needed to be there gave regular updates at the policy committee regarding where we were with the handbooks that is work actually that was led by Kristen Ryan and Rick Henry at that particular time we came back in July of 2022 and that is when the board approved this um the student handbooks at the elementary middle and high school level what you're looking at right now and I know you've had already had a chance to look at it this is what was sent um to the board members as part of the superintendent's um weekly update on Friday

081because we want it to be completely transparent as to why we had gone through this process and the importance of how we've utilized data to make these decisions um it's I'm standing here today I am involved Dr Dewitt is standing here beside me and then we also have um Sean Hanson who is also here who is our district hearing officer I'm the goal of our secondary restorative practice and behavior Matrix is to ensure that we created a consistent language across tier three behaviors our tier one and tier um two behaviors are really covered in the reactive plans of our ci3t um you know a process so those areas are covered so we knew that just I'm looking at our data from our power school um our narratives as we would go into um hearings um

082short-term and long-term um um hearings that there had to be some consistency at that middle school and high school level this is a process that since I've been in this position this is my third year that we have come back and looked at each year to ensure that we're getting better at what we're doing the overall goal is to ensure that students are in the seats that's the only way that we ensure that we meet the needs of these students as well as the only way that we increase and improve student achievement um it's by having those students in um place I'm going to scroll up just a little bit I've gone through and um just highlighted a few areas this actual documentary report was developed based upon the request of Dr Lewis and then

083placed in the Friday update on this past Friday I am going to ask Dr Dewitt who um very similarly that that um Rick Henry and Kristen Ryan were a part of when they were directors um Dr Dewitt in his role of lead um at that particular time lead High School um principal but now he is the lead um secondary principal he is the one that led the meetings um peer-to-peer so that that we were not watching over shoulders and being a part of that conversation so I'm going to ask him to come and um go through the multiple meetings that you see listed I'm gonna try to scroll up to get them all on there there we go Dr Dewitt if you would come and talk to at this time about that sure good evening

084board uh the dates I think are fairly evident to talk with uh what Dr Johnson mentioned you know my role I've been in the district over a decade now as an administrator primarily at the secondary level so talking to Lawrence high school and then in the last five years working with students that traditionally have really struggled in our Traditional High School so this role this last year certainly working as lead secondary principal with principals and now and now middle and high school principals behaviors is is a big topic one I'm passionate about one that is a goal of ours as a district to keep these kids in school and keep them engaged and so the efforts that we tried to make through this Matrix is to meet frequently you can see the dates it's always

085a topic I prepare the agendas for the majority of these meetings and behavior is always a topic and certainly trying to find ways that we are consistent it talks in there about stories and you know you talk about narratives not always being the best data it's certainly a not quantitative but qualitative and certainly my role in working on a lot of hearings and a lot of behavior situations certainly working with administrators is we're just trying to make sure that we're doing our part as administrators to go through the process of making sure that we give students when they violate a rule and again these are tier three these are pretty severe behaviors that we are dealing with in our schools each of these are from PowerSchool actual incidents that have occurred in our schools this

086is a guideline for hire administrators can manage them in every single incident the care and concern of all students involved is number one priority but certainly we have to have a guideline in which to operate to keep our schools safe and so part of my role is to share with you that this work is ongoing all year long it obviously kicked into full gear as you get into spring because we're trying to get in the summer we're trying to prepare for this following school year but the Matrix you see before you after adding some revisions based on the meeting and feedback two weeks ago is there to create a consistent guideline so we can work with our administrators to best serve our students I want to also add that today with um one of our

087new positions that was approved tonight that is our lead student and family support facilitator one of the major roles not the only role because there's a lot of things to be done is our work that we're doing with our restorative practices so now District y we will have a partnership that we will be able to go and work into schools and ensure that we have a Common Language we're going to roll out the first ever um restorative practice implementation guide here in Lawrence Public Schools so that that elementary middle and high school have a Common Language the first time that we will roll that out would be our back to school PD that we will have for our teachers and when we do that presentation it will be myself it will be um Jennifer Georgie

088as well as at the elementary level it would be Jackie Mickel she is the lead Elementary principal and at the secondary level it was it will be um Bill DeWitt um Jennifer Georgie and myself so we are doing this work Lawrence Public Schools as I have worked with um Dr Stubblefield um I went back I said no tell me about the history I've got the papers and things that left let me let me see the journey going all the way back to 2017 and really understanding and I love at a current um restorative practice conference that was at Haskell over the summer there were pieces and things that were still you know finalizing and making sure that we have the right pieces in place our bottom line is we want to keep students in school

089that's the bottom line but there are times when there is in a fraction that is so severe that there has to be another type of conference or a consequence if you will but we always try and make every attempt to have the restorative there are times that the parties at first I I don't want to be a part of restorative Circle I don't want to be part of a re-entry but we keep going back and trying to put those things in place that is very very important in this narrative um all all the way down at the bottom you know I wanted to make sure that um that we were that we were truly all on the same page so I had an opportunity to connect with Dave Cunningham and I said Dave talk to

090me a little bit about the Journey of the work of our Behavior matrices within Lawrence Public Schools because I haven't been here but five years but I wanted to hear about the history and listening to the different pieces of language that had been a part of it going back and looking at the word offense because that was one of our topics um two weeks ago and how that had been historically utilized in Lawrence Public Schools now we have gone back because that has been that was a request we have made that change from offense to incident um however within within our policies that word offense is still going to show up the word offense as I worked with um Sean Hanson on the way home after that board meeting that's what we were doing talking

091all the way home um talking about this he's looking up on the state um to make sure that that you know that we're using language to support that so um you know one of the things that we're looking for and asking for tonight is you know the experts if you will and understand how I use that experts these are the individuals that use the behavior policy and the behavior and restorative practice matrices every single day every single day 5 10 15 times a day they're the ones that came together they said we've got to do something differently so that we have and more of an opportunity to keep students in school so I will pause so one thing that you said Dr assar Kelly okay just wait one second yeah I heard you thank you

092for coming back I wanted to say that in providing the board an opportunity to hear a little bit about the process and then I appreciate that you took some of the feedback you heard from folks and and Incorporated some changes so so thank you for doing that and giving us that opportunity and then gr yep so thank you as well for that um I I had one quick question you you had mentioned rolling that out to back to school uh rolling out the the the the the restorative practice training to back to school the implementation yeah when is that going to take place that will take place August um help me Leah right back to the 10th August 10th and get the right dates August 10th okay and then I would like to even invite

093any board member on Thursday and Friday of this week we will train the last five schools in restorative practices those elementary schools so now we've gone full circle time we finish up on um August I'm not in August on July 27th and 28th so now our focus is Shifting to tier two and tier three here in a few minutes I'll be able to share with you we were able to finalize and we say thank you so much Chris and Ryan let me say that and Morgan Hunter um we have been hounding hounding to ensure that we can get substitutes if you just you just can't say all of a sudden oh I want some substitutes I want 30 40 substitutes you have to make sure that you have days that you have things in place

094systems in place to make sure that is happening today I don't even know what time of the day it was but I had a I had um a final approval and things today so so we've been working on that for for several months it's not like we were trying to be elusive on the dates it takes time and it takes to ensure that we first of all financially can afford to pay for all those substitutes also and to ensure that we're not hindering a building from being successful we're pulling too many students out or teachers out but also making sure that we have a core group it's not every single staff member that's trained in your tier two and three but we have a core group so that's what we're doing next we're identifying those

095core members that receive that training and I just wanted to also thank uh Dr Dewitt and for his leadership in this work and uh working with the secondary principals and and helping come up with this Consolidated Matrix that we can use across all of those schools so I appreciate your time and your work so I said thank you for the work you've all done with this Matrix including the work you've done since the last board meeting I know it was not insignificant so thank you so much for that um it is really important to have a safe learning environment so our for our students so thank you for doing that I do have a question so when you were doing your research at the last board meeting there was a question on whether to use

096the word offense or incident or whatever word we want to substitute for that what did you find is a fence best practice is it commonly used is it not what did you find I appreciate you asking that question the word offense is um commonly used this is my 36th year as an educator and I've I've seen offense I honestly don't ever remember the word incident it's it's been offense um I as I talked to um Dave Cunningham because I thought it was very important to get that historical perspective Dave has said the word is offense is what I'm saying this officially on the record offense is what has been used here in Lawrence Public Schools the word incident correct me Sean could you come just for a moment please um in regard to what is

097goes to the poor the state and what is reported and this is something that he shared with me like I said driving home after that last board meeting about the award incident now so when um the state updated their documents and I'm going off the top of my head spare with me it have been 2021 which was the information that was rolled out at the state discipline conference last two years incident is what is appearing in some of the state definitions that we also we track and we log in power school so that was our immediate you know deep dive digging into what's on the state document and it is incident and not offenses I can say um in my I have some research that I do within like criminal legal system and that there

098is a shift to that word right now but I don't think it's across the literature but it there is a shift from that just from that from a different perspective from a different lens and even going back and looking at some other districts I mean the word offense is what commonly comes up whether you're on the Missouri side or the Kansas side those that's looking at that thank you now this this Matrix is set up and we're going to put it in the student handbook for parents and students to utilize right okay and let me say this we're we're really our time is kind of short now some other options to how we can get it to families two students to have a link that says um virtually you know click this link and it

099will take you to that um you know to that particular location because time you get down to the end of July it's it's a lot harder to get but we will make sure that parents and that students have this information I mean that's that's important and see part of my I think I brought up the youth the issue around the use of the word offense to me um part of my issue usually goes to as a parent when you get to talking about offenses and things like that it usually refers me back to the legal system and my idea of education is not a punishment that's not our goal our goal is to educate and that's usually what I would go I I often prefer the word behaviors because that's usually the words parents understand

100I give what we report I get I get that and we we have to report that stuff but when we create a document for parents uh I mean most I could speak for me with my son going through issues at time if you refer if you tell me his behavior I know what I'm dealing with is you tell me an offense I I really don't necessarily get that uh and that's part of my my thing is how how parents perceive it uh especially when you're when you're talking about something that a parent will be reading and applying it to their child so and that's usually where I or my issue and when I read through it I appreciate the changes I think it's a wonderful work I don't know that it's hopefully not the end

101I hope it's the beginning as we move through it my other my question was how are parents involved in this process well the parents are generally if an administrator is doing their job is one of the first immediate contacts to engage in the problem-solving solution I mean it is a community with every incident and so as we said this is this serves as a guideline um you know it recognizes that you know when there's a situation there's probably going to be a consequence but there's also a job by the school and really the families to repair that and get the student back to school at some point and so you know I I can only speak for myself and of course the conversations we have with administrators is that you need to communicate with parents

102you need to involve them in the discussion you need to involve them in the situation they need to know in terms of what is going on and so they they would probably like to have a lot more say in what necessarily happens but certainly that comes down to where the students at what role they took in it and how we get past it and get them back engaged in school Carol do you did you want to jump in I just want to make sure I didn't thank you thank you for asking uh hi Kelly this is Carol um yeah I'm as board members some of us have day jobs that intersect with their jobs as school board members but part of my job is I work with behavioral health court and I did not learn

103until today that the um the building peace project is working in partnership with Kip core and so I mean I was surprised that I didn't know this but I would like to see uh learn more about the building peace initiative group and I first came into contact with them when I met them at the public apology for the vandalism incident that happened at University of Kansas but I would think that um it would be great to learn more about the good work that they're doing and I I do have to wonder if we can have a greater partnership with the people the good people at the building peace initiative if they need more space at the schools or what have you but again I just learned about them today and their involvement with Kip core

104and Kip Corp from my understanding is that when cases are they they are referred to the district attorney's office and they in turn the building piece initiative and so as a parent it's it sounds like it could be something scary when your student or child or your loved one is referred to the district attorney's office so I would again like to hear more about the involvement of the building piece initiative thank you um so much Carol um I responded back to um Lyle today who's smiling at me right now um about this um because I am very interested in learning uh more about um I have already been um you know they've reached out to me so being able to learn more about a possible um partnership um and and doing this work together when

105I very first came to Lawrence Public Schools I had a chance to serve um with Lyle um on this work that at the D.A at that time was focusing on and putting together the city-wide restorative practice initiative and um so we got a chance to to work together in that regard so I'm really excited about this new um non-for-profit that is here in the Lawrence community and it's um for me it's it's it's good because I've already had a chance to work with this individual and know the caliber that comes with his work are there additional questions yeah go ahead um thank you for uh bringing this back to us again um I wanted to ask a couple clarifying questions based on feedback I received from members of the community after our discussion a couple

106of weeks ago um so um one of the things I appreciated With The Changes is that while you you responded to the concerns about language you also did not um step back from the possibility of allowing serious consequences for serious behaviors and I think that's very important because one of the one of the concerns I heard more than once in the last couple weeks is from staff and staff safety in dealing with these incidents in our buildings but also from parents who are concerned about [Music] um you know disruptions to learning not just for the students who are in directly involved in the incidents but to students who Witness these incidents in our buildings um the question that I that came up that I wanted to ask so we we use risk we we have

107restored as restorative practices as an option for a number of different kinds of incidents at different levels first time second time um notably and thankfully we do not have that listed under forcible sexual misconduct but it is listed under non-violent sexual misconduct and so I'm um because I got questions about this I wanted to um maybe just have you respond to how how what the thinking is around that as a category in including that in that type of behavior um and also to clarify maybe it would help to clarify that restorative practices are a student who is the victim can always refuse to participate correct okay right yeah restorative practices are very nuanced so I'm not sure how long we want this board meeting to be but that's you know well I'm sorry if I

108asked a question I didn't I didn't intend to do that this is exactly what we do but with any incident the ultimate goal of restorative work is to repair whatever harm is caused not every victim wants that of course ready for it but it doesn't mean you stop doing the work and so as we've said in here again tier three some of these are pretty severe actions and they have some pretty severe consequences but that doesn't necessarily mean you throw them away in society there's still work that we have to do as a district okay and that's where that restorative work comes in looks different in different circumstances but we have an obligation to figure out what is going on and ultimately the ultimate goal is to is to restore whatever harm whether that happens

109or not can't can't force that can't make somebody accept you know an apology can't Force somebody to believe that whatever consequence is delivered is fair or just but that doesn't mean you stop doing the work okay so if you had a situation where you might be working with an offender around some of that work but you may not be because the victim or the victim's family does not wish to participate they they could choose not to do that okay I think that's really important to Claire just to clarify for people who are not familiar with these processes so I appreciate that um explanation and even less even less severe incident like that you may not have participation or desire from the victim or the family to fully engage and that is honored and um but

110there's also been situations where where a student has come back and said you know maybe I'm ready now but in the immediacy no I'll just say like having done this work in a different life but in a similar building one one thing that that does have so let's say that the person a person doesn't want to engage in the in the repair to the community that doesn't mean that you don't offer the individual the opportunity to repair the community in other ways or spaces so that that's kind of the nuanced piece of it and I think for at least it's my observation when you are implementing restorative practices into an institution it's under it's coming up with or establishing what that looks like that could be most challenging for communities or building communities and to

111to find something that's meaningful for the kids so they're feeling like they're doing the repair and that individuals involved might feel that um that restoration that we're talking about but um it's quite common to provide an opportunity that might not be directly I think that's helpful context for um for our constituents who are who've been paying attention to the conversation I think that's important for them to hear so I really appreciate those clarifications thank you very much that's all I had um is there any more board commentary we do have a couple public comments about this before we vote so um Lyle Seeker couldn't have had a better lead-in thank you my name is Lyle Seeger I'm program director of building peace Inc we are a non-profit conflict resolution mediation Center and since Suzanne Valdez

112became the attorney we have been working with the District Attorney's office to provide restorative justice to uh started out with primarily adults and since March with the hiring of a new assistant D.A we've been doing juvenile diversions and the conversation that has been taking place that we've been reading about in the paper it's very uh felt it was important for us to be able to come and share at least what we're doing with these students that have committed harm and what opportunities they are being given I'm here also with Nancy Kelly one of our staff members Nancy uh had done restorative practices at Topeka Public Schools uh works now with Topeka Center for peace and Justice as well as with building peace we receive um referrals from the DA's office for cases that they have

113determined uh are appropriate for restorative justice the vast majority of these cases we've been getting since March when we were first got our case started out in the schools either on the bus or in a classroom setting and then got referred to the DA's office what we do is we take that case and work in conjunction with the judicial Youth Services Youth Services will come and they are the actually our funding source uh because they have Grant monies that will allow us to be paid for our services we have been the ones who have initiated the contact oftentimes the very first contact with both uh persons who have done harm as well as with the victims that this is an option that has been made available to them our very first Contact is always with

114the person who did harm with their parents make sure that they're aware of the process and then we have an initial gathering with that family at which time Youth Services comes and they get them signed up into the program to work with us and then we start the process of finding out what happened with the incident with the harm that was done we get them to agree to be a part of the process it's always voluntary for them to participate and then we contact the person who got harmed in their family inviting them into a similar conversation and tell them what the process would be ideally we try to bring the families of the person who harmed and the person who got harmed together uh to give power to the person who had been harmed

115to be able to have some kind of say into what happens and what they need to make things right am I going over yes but I appreciate that you came and yeah so we're we're in the process of working Dr Johnson and I will be working together to try to make this a lot more and I'll tighten it down next time Dr Johnson but uh yeah we are in process and really working to try to make this Equitable for all persons and so glad that you all are participating in this process thank you for coming tonight I appreciate you thank you sorry for the overage uh Jody foreign if I need to say my name again um Jody Meyer again I'm a parent here um I'd also I also would just like to note that

116you know in my legal career I've spent a significant portion of it representing Indigent at-risk populations and minority people I spent a lot of years representing juvenile offenders in the juvenile offender system so I can appreciate the things that Lyle's doing Lyle and I actually have known each other a little bit I can appreciate the need to do this but my concern is that none of our discipline has particularly any teeth in addition to my legal work I've also been a substitute teacher for the last two years in Lawrence Public Schools and I am very concerned about the discipline problems that we have in all levels of our schools and if anybody is intellectually honest about that they will admit that we have some serious problems that are going on quite frankly we need more

117serious consequences for behavior problems rather than less I don't think the current policies are working now I don't think you can restorative justice your way out of what is happening it's concerning to me that we're arguing semantics over the word offense and that's not getting us anywhere teachers are frustrated with their inability to effectuate any real consequences for student Behavior um yet another reason why teachers don't want to teach here it's why families leave is they don't think that we take these things seriously including bullying students committing tier three offenses or disrupting classrooms and disturbing the education of all the other students okay at the end of the day while you're looking out for kids committing two or three offenses you have to look out for all the other kids who are being impacted by

118these behaviors the tier three offenses are extremely serious and most of them are in fact crimes I suggest that before any of you vote against the adoption these consequences that you substitute teach in our schools or talk to any number of teachers who deal with this on a daily basis if you are inclined to vote against these rules I'm asking you to explain what should happen to a student who commits theft sexual misconduct batters another student is violent towards staff bullies and harasses students Etc what is the solution of not this thank you Jody okay so now we've had opportunity to hear public comment uh is there a motion I move that the Board of Education approved the restorative practice and behavior Matrix for secondary tier three for the 2023-2024 school year I second Kimball

119yes could do Blackwood yes Gordon Ross Yes Hill yes Jones yes buyers yes motion passes 6-0 okay so we're gonna move on to the 2023-2024 professional development plan and uh Patrick Kelly Chief academic officer Leah wisdom director of instruction and professional development it's nice to see you Leah we haven't seen you for a minute um and is that it Patrick yes okay welcome good evening board members Patrick Kelly Chief academic officer I'm really just going to kick this one off and let really smart people talk to you through this um uh in the end of June we presented to you a draft of our District's needs assessment and some goals um we have also you also got at that time all of our buildings goals drafted at that point you'll get a final copy of

120that in August before you make budget decisions but we thought it might be helpful to sort of show you once we look at our needs assessment and once we determine what our goals are what is the action plan to accomplish those goals um so tonight we're going to provide a fairly broad overview I will tell you we have staff members who are very passionate about some of these areas and they could tell you a whole lot if you want us to dig in further on anything specifically we can certainly come back and talk about a specific topic but what we're really going to do is give you an overview of our professional development plan the schedule for the year and how we think that will impact the district goals and the building goals that are

121set forth so I'm going to turn it over to Leah who's going to walk us through this so Leah I entirely apologize for pausing I just had a request for a break can we do you mind if we before you jump in if we do okay thank you I was just welcoming you and now I'm like can you stop so please excuse me so we just need to take a five minute break so from 7 50 to 7 55. if we all want to come back thank you Leah you ready for real call to order okay maybe but um I'm new to this so we'll just go with you can start the gavel yeah I think I have one actually there you go should I can start now yes you're at the gallery we're waiting

122I'm gonna have all this power oh my God good evening um Leah wisdom director of instruction and professional learning our team is excited to be here and as Patrick said we're working really hard to not dive into all the nuances and instead just really answer for you tonight what is our professional learning plan for this year and why did we select those priorities and how do we think we're going to achieve that so that is our goal um this is sort of a little graphic here showing you how we get to a space where we all create goals and that's what drives our professional learning so as you know we have our strategic plan our teaching and learning team looked at that this year to create 23-24 goals for the district at our summer Institute

123as Patrick mentioned earlier too our leadership teams then created building goals from there we would expect in our schools that the the goals that our professional learning communities have and grade level teams would be connected to those building goals and then again informing each individual teacher and the goals that they want to have for their professional learning so it's important for us to think about how those align and weave together if you will these are our three District goals you've seen them before we have one in Reading two in mathematics and one for post secondary Effectiveness so in order to achieve those goals tonight what we want to walk you through is what our plan is what is it that we need to know and be able to do in order to achieve these goals

124and what do we need to provide for our staff and ourselves weaving it all together so we've got our goals how are we going to achieve those goals we have an implementation plan you've heard about it all the time you've heard about it many times it's our comprehensive integrated three-tiered model of prevention it's how we support all students across academics social skills and behavior across all those domains and then what do we need to know and be able to do in order to implement that plan and that's what we are going to talk about tonight our PD our professional learning slash action plan wrong way we showed this to you last year we had one for 22.23 this is a comprehensive if you will look you're seeing the broad scope of all the opportunities that

125we have throughout the year for staff to engage in professional learning um if you want to chew on this you can he's hyperlinked in your presentation and you'll see places where you can cover and look at what our priorities are for different District PD days but that is for you but what that what this plan really tells us is when are our district professional learning days when are our building professional learning days what days are our professional learning communities meeting those are those Wednesdays for middle or I'm sorry for pre-k through middle we this year worked really hard to ensure that everybody has the same professional Learning Community days so that we don't interrupt those we don't pull staff out but the principals and staff can expect to all be present and be able to

126participate in that professional learning community we have collaboration sometimes not dictated on this form but staff may attend workshops and conferences and then one of our most valuable resources is are the support of our instructional learning coach group and the Partnerships that they have with teachers so I'm going to start with that as part of our action plan we have you know an incredible team of instructional coaches that work across and throughout all of our buildings and across the content areas one of the requirements that we have from the state is that we provide mentorship two years of mentorship for our new staff that come into our district that is required for them to move from an initial teaching license to a professional teaching license and our instructional coaches provide that service for all new

127staff that is a huge chunk of what they do however they also support those building and District PD days that we saw on the calendar but one of the most important pieces of what they do is their job embedded professional learning and maybe last year I think we did a presentation where I talked a lot about this there's a lot of evidence to support that if if we're coming in we're teaching teachers something at like a building PD or a district PD if we can follow that by providing coaching and feedback and opportunities to practice that we're more our teachers are more inclined to be able to try something new or Implement something new in their classroom in terms of professional learning so our coaches work hard to develop that skill um that is data

128driven so they work with staff on what's happening in our classroom right now what's what's something based on the data that we want to identify to work on let's learn about it and then let's try it out and see what happens so that teacher um partnership is oftentimes individualized and sometimes those instructional coaches also work across a whole PLC so they work with a team also linked at the bottom of this slide is our instructional framework slash Playbook I will not click on it but you are more than welcome you've seen that before as well that is a space where we have done a lot of the work for our staff in terms of what instructional practices have the highest effect on engaging students in their content on keeping them um you know in in

129a space of inquiry and asking questions those are all collected in the instructional framework and it is a resource that our coaches use as well as share with teachers so that they can dig into those strategies if they want we are working hard to be really intentional about connecting to our framework here just our system of supports and as you know implementing a multi-tiered system of support helps us to ensure that we are providing our students with Equitable access across the full range of academic resources social resources and behavioral needs so as we thought about to support our goals we thought about those three goals you looked at earlier our 23 24 professional development plan is really tightly focused on tier one that green the tier one instruction best first instruction right giving as much

130as we can giving access to our students um where they need it in their first in the first time that they get instruction some students absolutely will need additional supports and additional supports but part of this philosophy is sort of here if you think about that triangle at the green at tier one all of our students are receiving high quality classroom instruction and supports right and if you look below that there's all the ways with which we're figuring out what that is if students are needing tier two supports they are still all students are still continuing to receive tier one high quality instruction and supports so receiving tier 2 supports does not proclude me you know from getting really good instruction down below we still want to be thinking about how those kids are coming

131into the classroom and what are the ways that we can give them access to the content and the instruction while they're there the same is true at tier three we may have students who have have some tier two supports and now are needing some tier three supports those students are all still continuing to receive along with everyone else high quality tier one instruction and support even when we're thinking about students that we may suspect of having a disability those students will continue to receive that high quality tier one instruction so this is why that's one of our main priorities in our professional learning and our little arrow there is just a reminder Dr Johnson and myself and um Kylie and others are really working hard to think about how are we modeling integration right so

132even when I'm teaching mathematics I may not teach a character strong lesson but there are skill sets there that can help develop social skills for students and support their behavioral needs so we are modeling that in RPD with intentionality for teachers right it's just a great way to do a thing you could turn around and do that in your classroom tomorrow if you wanted so those high impact instructional practices this is what that looks like in its Simplicity for pre-k through Elementary our priority is identified sharing modeling and teaching identified high impact instructional practices specifically those that we are going to use to support structured literacy and math literacy as you think about those goals that we have it makes sense for us to drive the high impact instructional practices to those areas for secondary

133again we'll be utilizing those identified high impact instructional practices to support student engagement and access to content as well as ci3t implementation across all of the domains so you may remember or know that we've had several schools participating in a ci3t implementation over the last couple years and gotten really deep into their implementation and in a minute we'll show you some data on why we're we're not moving away from elementary but really focusing with middle and high on that tier one piece and moving through moving through the tiers of support in a way that's transparent and works for the kids so our data for elementary don't do this one okay okay Denise Johnson is going to talk us through that the data that we used and the goals or the way the action plan for

134elementary absolutely good evening um Denise Johnson Elementary curriculum and I everything that Leah talked about tonight we used all of that information and data to create our district goals and this particular chart that you see here is about eagerness excitement that elementary students have so we use this data and if referring to this particular chart here you will see that 48 percent of elementary students were excited and wanting to participate in their lessons we wanted to use that piece along with the next chart here about the two assessments that we are giving in elementary Reading with an early reading and an a reading and within this particular document 57 of our K1 students are scoring at risk or so or excuse me some risk or high-risk on this early reading and then 38 percent in

135the second through 12th grade students scoring at high risk or some risk on the a reading so we use this information from both of those two slides that I just shared with you in order to formulate our action plans so what you see here is what we're going to be doing in elementary so we used all of those the data pieces from those previous slides to develop the district goal as well as partnering with our buildings for their professional learning and as you can see the structured literacy and math literacy is embedded throughout the school year for our district and at the building level and there's just a number of different trainings and professional learning that will be happening this year on the screen um so I'm going to show actually you'll see some similar

136slides for the data that we use to support how we um came up with our priorities for secondary but I also wanted to add and we've talked about this in another report but we have data from our epic survey and our Panorama survey from our teachers that um States pretty clearly that professional learning isn't working for them in this District um and there are different reasons for that and the different different levels of Engagement but that is really important piece of data for us as we're reflecting on how are we making these choices it can't just be you know what we saw in a um in a survey but it has to be coupled with what is the date what data supports why we would push forward with this and then how do we connect

137that to the goals so that it's more relevant to our staff so for secondary again this slide same slide but we used this data around just how excited are our students to be participating in lessons and that's an important thing when we think about secondary and the goal of increasing student engagement through the use of the high impact practices that came from this along with these other two pieces these are a couple pieces of data that we pull from our um it's our ci3t data it's one as a survey um and then at the top this is like teacher self-reporting how they believe they're implementing their ci3t plan and to the right is when we have observers come in and they observe for the exact same thing so um this is actually true oftentimes across

138the board but sometimes we see maybe staff feeling like they're implementing at a higher level than actually seen or that it can happen conversely but you can see here that that's that's what's happening we have a goal of 80 percent and if you look at elementary which is the um blue and the yellow they're pretty close whereas our secondary is still still not quite there so we know that's a place we want to continue to support them in that implementation so that was some data that we used and then I am going to hand it over to Sean to talk about this more academic supporting data and then what the plan is well then on the slide here um just as you saw earlier with the elementary with our early math and the a math

139just drilling down into those on track some risk and then high risk students but truly that that chart on the right that second part of that math goal at the secondary level really drilling down into those cohorts and that's that color code image you're going across so as we're tracking students as they're making or as they're progressing through our buildings where they lie so drilling down to this data truly focusing on like Leah mentioned in that in the pyramid with our tier one instruction and as we take this information and we transition into our high impact strategies what we're going to be focusing on this school year drilling down tier one instruction that academic portion of ci3t as we're resetting recalibrating what all students must have as we continue to look on that tier one

140going into tier two that focus and some of this groundwork and it wasn't mentioned earlier started our summer Institute with our administrators over a month ago Dr Lewis mentioned it again today with our administrators coming back for the first time with our PD session that started this afternoon on where their building goals are lined how we're going to push in to not just on our district and building PD days throughout the year but how we can Embrace at the secondary level those collaboration opportunities some of his team plans our plc's at the high school and really push in to impact our instructional practices that all students are receiving in tier one instruction foreign lastly what I'm going to share with you is just how does building professional development play into all of this and so

141if you think back to the slide where we had the alignment of the goals at the beginning um our buildings and their leadership teams took that time to create their building goals that are directly aligned to District goals and the Strategic plan so as our building principles are working with our leadership teams and considering what they need to be doing another focus of ours this year has to to be as fluid as we can so that our staff are seeing the connectivity of when I go here it really shouldn't be a big difference between District professional development and building professional development it's really just capacity the opportunity to interact across schools you know things like that so again align to district and building goals when um those folks are developing and planning their building professional

142development they're addressing that question what do we need to know and be able to do in order to achieve our goals these goals and building professional learning is highly supported by instructional learning coaches in terms of just how do we get that delivered and a lot of that planning takes place side by side the professional learning that happens at the building level those individuals at the end of summer Institute they have all turned in their their plans to us so you're seeing our plan tonight but every building has a plan as well and um what's really great about that is we can look at their plans and use that to build and inform the district professional learning opportunities that we have throughout the year and probably most importantly at the building levels that those principles

143are working really collaboratively with our building leadership teams their their ci3t leadership teams and their Equity leadership teams to plan what's happening and deliver what's happening right so that it's not in isolation and that folks are hearing from each other with the boots on the ground people so that is how that connects and I'm excited Dr Johnson is going to come up I keep mentioning the integrated lesson planning and I'm sure as you think about like we've had a social skills curriculum for quite some time but excited about having one that is across the board and as we think about restorative and all those pieces really we're really just being thoughtful and mindful about how do we support that work within content because that's what's going to mean a lot to kids as they go

144out into the world right they're they're implementing those skills not just in the isolation of one place but in the context of many many things so Dr Johnson is going to talk to us about some of that professional development excellent thank you you've had an opportunity today to really hear the academic piece as it relates to reading and Mathematics so we're going to switch gears right now we're going to look at the behavior and the social emotional piece as it supports our focus and our goal on post-secondary Effectiveness this is a survey that was administered to staff members about 16 months ago and you can see one of the top five areas was focusing on social emotional learning staff members said we need a curriculum we need a resource to be able to support students

145within our classrooms within our schools so we were very responsive to that we put together a pilot that took place the entire year and I appreciate the vote in April I'm a unanimous vote for our character strong that truly supports once again our school climate survey is once again teachers were asked just this last spring what are professional development topics um that we need to focus on to better support students social emotional growth you can see all those all those words um that are under on the screen the words that are in Boulder print that are in larger areas that just indicate the number of times that it showed up on the survey trauma being right there in the middle mental health professional development so our teachers have asked for different resources to be able

146to help support students so we have been very responsive in um hearing what teachers have said now I want to remind you that character strong is a new resource but it is not a new process for years Lawrence Public Schools has had positive action and connect with kids these are curriculums that were utilized sporadically I'm just going to say that in these past few years but now we're to the point where we have a resource that um really will support where we are moving towards to help support our students you saw the the pictures from Dr Lewis's report we had a phenomenal summer learning conference I appreciate the board's vote in saying that yes we want we support what is being done there we were able to bring these consultants in to have first-hand knowledge

147and to share that information with our our principals as well as our our faculty members tomorrow we have the co-creator of um character strong he will not be it here in person but he will be virtually coming to train administrators okay so you have this curriculum so what it what's your role and what I love is that they have playbooks and in these playbooks we talk about what the district's role is what the principal's role will involve what's included for the teachers and what's included for our counselors so it will truly be comprehensive in the work that we are doing the character's strong curriculum is going to help us support help support the direction that we are focusing on on our post-secondary success goal the next area is our restorative practices I said this earlier

148tonight but I feel like I need to say it again our number one goal is to keep students in the classrooms students cannot learn or um engage in in the in classroom environment if they are not in the seats so as you and you've seen this data before this is from um last quarter Dr Janet Craig here um shared this information I'm just sharing it with you again as a reminder this is our overall Focus what you see on the screen right now is just on where we are headed I've shared this throughout the entire year our focus on um our final round of elementary schools will take place at the end of this week and then you will see tier two and tier 3 training that is a major Focus I said that back

149in October and I'm still saying it today it is a major focus of the work that we are doing you see the dates on the screen let me say them out loud for the sake of everyone September 19th and 20th 2023 um Kip core when they first came to us they said we would you know the week of September 20 or September 18th are the dates that we would like um that we we've reserved for Lawrence Public Schools we would like to do half day four half days it's very difficult to get a substitute just for a half day so we finalize um those dates working with HR working with Morgan Hunter September 19th and 20th um you're welcome to come and join and um join us online and then we have also added two

150additional days so we can continue to bring more people on board we have October 24th and 25th so this is our work and that we're doing in our restorative practices once again I'm very excited about being able to have a role a new position that's going to be that will be part of the focus um and this person is coming with just a wealth of of experience um we're excited we're going in at the end of August we're training students at that middle level and high school level on what does it mean to be a part of circles and and have students be engaged in leading those circles so I won't talk anymore about I won't keep going deeper but it's exciting to see the work the next part um once again is restorative practices

151you've seen this before this is what was shared at the end of June I believe and once again as we look at our Behavior events by race and ethnicity the last area will be our Equity teams our Equity teams are major leaders in the work that we are doing to ensure post-secondary success so when we talk about post-secondary success it's not just one subgroup it is all students and then individual subgroups so that we will continue with our work as it relates to what is the day to show about how we are educating all students but then it also looks at how are we educating those students out in levels one and two our next round of Kisa that we're currently in right now focuses on and asks us a question what are we doing

152to move students out of levels one and two um a couple weeks ago maybe a month ago I've lost track of time here we came to you and we shared just the preliminary results of schools that have made you know progress anywhere from 2 to 25 anywhere from two to thirty percent so once all of that data and everything is finalized and confirmed we'll be able to come back and share with you those schools that are doing that doing that work I'm telling you we have schools that are doing phenomenal work that are making huge um successes um huge results there are schools that are making moderate and they're still there's some schools that need some work that needs to be done but that's all right I know that they're moving in the right direction

153so we will continue to walk beside them to close the access opportunity and achievement Gap so those are the areas that we're focusing as on as it relates to post-secondary success and now I'm gonna do do the last I don't know who's coming next of Leah's coming back but once again here is our subgroup data I was so excited to see one of our um and these you've already seen these slides um we just put them all on one um slide for you so excited to see that Jalisa from our um lmh Academy you know when you share things with students they catch on and it became real to her like wait a minute this is representing who I am and when you have a student that can immediately hear that data and then go

154back and internalize it and put it as part of the product part of the project we're doing the right things we're moving in the right direction so now I'll have Laura come up and share Laurie okay good evening I am Laura Basham uh director of student services and I do most of my work in special education and also in early childhood uh this is this evening I'm going to close us out as we're talking about professional development when Leah talked about and presented the comprehensive plan and we had our framework and we talked about the days that we have with our staff we have another significant portion of our staff our classified staff we have approximately 575 classified staff that hold various roles some of them are in classrooms direct support to students some of

155them are in direct supports to students in our schools making sure our schools are safe that they're maintained that thinking about our HOAs that are clinics are staffed and so we have a various just a wide range of classified staff as we look at the information that is here this information was taken it was A needs assessment that was taken I believe primarily from our more instructional classified staff so our paraprofessionals that are about 200 or so are within special education and then some of our non-instructional maybe some of our esol title staff as well so as you can see here we do have some of our staff that are feeling like our professional development opportunities are right on point they are making the mark and and hitting their their needs and then we also

156have some stuff some people that we are not connecting with so we have some improvements to do there I will say that as we think about our professional development for our classified staff as it is appropriate for our classified staff to be included with our certified staff thinking about our Equity work thinking about restorative practices um the the all of the things that are feasible for our classified staff to be involved and we absolutely make sure that they are involved in that professional development we do have other staff say our food service workers that they need specific targeted maybe on knife skills or food safety that we make sure that we're getting that professional development to them as well as we plan for the various needs for the roles we are working and continue to

157work with pal CWA to make sure that their voice is represented and that we are planning um opportunities for for everyone there and then we do have two days that have been built into the calendar so we our classified staff do have their two full days of PD that we provide and a big uh plus has been choice for our staff when our classified staff do have choice and a little say in what they are attending and so we make sure that we do that when at all possible and then we also have many asynchronous options that our staff can utilize on Wednesdays when during our early release time or if there is an opportunity that that they are able to click on a link go through an asynchronous opportunity that is relevant for them

158in their specific roles one of the biggest kind of bang for your buck opportunities for PD is really that job embedded PDF especially when we're thinking about our para Educators working in special education we have students that have highly unique abilities and working hand in hand and tandem right there with our case managers and our special education staff really is important and and that's the the really the biggest and most impactful PD that happens so we've got our on-site two days we have asynchronous opportunities as well as that job embedded PD for our professional development for classified staff and with that so as you can tell a lot of work has been put into coming up with the PD plan for all of our staff that is focused on raising the academic achievement erasing the

159post-secondary effectiveness of our students and when we say post-secondary effective I just want to reinforce that includes those social emotional skills that are built in there so a lot of work has been put into this it is very challenging to come up with a professional demand that means such a wide variety of staff who are serving a wide variety of kids so we're happy to entertain any questions that you have for us there's no action tonight but we're happy to take any questions you might have um I would like to compliment you on the work that you're doing in this area it is very good to see the pieces aligning across all the different things that you do in teaching and learning the the um the academic goals in this treaty plan our professional development

160plan and the question that I wanted to ask in that vein is or give you an opportunity to talk about perhaps is is how the board's curriculum approvals [Music] um support and impact this so we have we've had several the last few board meetings where we're approving uh Pilots for a new math curriculum at different levels where we're purchasing consumables where we're purchasing manipulatives from math can you just um sure I'm going to summarize a little bit about how that piece aligns with all of this work yeah so you'll see on here this was the survey that Dr Johnson referred to so we look at that data and you'll see their content specific for math foreign language Etc and that actually is the highest percent of need that was expressed by staff that can be

161very specific to a Content area so we may need something specific for social studies or we may need an intervention you all approved an Ela intervention tool and that's the good work of our buildings and our principles identifying what resources are we needing where where can we look at the data and the data tells us we're not making progress with those kids that are maybe at a one or a two and is there another resource we need to use when you saw Leah's large calendar of that we're plugging that kind of professional development into that calendar to get very specific with those teachers who use it not all teachers are going to use it so so it's but it's broken down on those specific days thank you yeah I had one and now it's gone

162there yeah Carol I don't have any questions but I um I really appreciate all the work and effort that you put into this so thank you thank you all especially during these several months so thank you will provide updates throughout the year of how this work is going we now move into implementation and then hopefully as we look at data as we go through the year we'll see results from from these interventions and the support to build our capacities thank you very much Dr Lewis you know just a reminder of our next board meeting August 14th board will hear a budget update and we haven't confirmed this yet but we are looking to seek permission from the board to potentially take legal action on social media platforms we'll bring that to the board at a

163future update once we confirm it [Music] so moved second it in favor aye any opposed