001jayhawk gymnastics and multiple kids programs through the city at rock chalk park based on this explosion of opportunity in our hometown it is more evident that gymnastics is not waning in interest or popularity but it is booming so what does this mean for our students it means that now more than ever cutting a program of our magnitude and that gives these up-and-coming athletes an opportunity to compete with their classmates and to represent their schools our lawrence they need us and we already have everything needed to continue running our program i think we all can agree that gymnastics is amazing coach our gymnast and one word are exceptional thank you thank you coach next up is john cross [Applause] next up is john cross hello my name is john cross and my daughter ann is a
002freshman at free state high school and is on the gymnastics team i wanted to share my thoughts about the importance of this program for my daughter and all the other young women in the program but first of all we were extremely disheartened by the news of the recommendation to the school board to cancel the program my daughter loves being on the free state team and competed on the varsity level as a freshman i know the school board and the district in general values equity and inclusion there is no other program an athlete in in sports that i'm aware of that exemplifies that more than this team and what coach cat has built this is a no-cut team where every athlete of every competency level competes in the meets there are no bench warmers other benefits
003of this program i have personally seen include the following number one gymnasts have a better sense of personal control and self-esteem self-esteem is very important for gymnasts and athletes during performance believe it or not gaining personal control and self-esteem is a common trait among gymnasts they feel more self-aware and confident about their performance so participating in gymnastics can improve our daughter's sense of self by training their mind to not be critical and over perform during training another impressive benefit of gymnastics is improved confidence and judgment being a good judge to your own performance skills is a good way to train harder and build muscle this trait also makes our daughters less nervous around other people's criticism and judgment number two transfer of skills to other sports several of the gymnasts are multi-sport athletes the skills
004from the gymnastics program can give them a leg up on the competition for other sports such as track swimming cheerleading dance and more cheerleading is mainly about performing tumbling combinations and pulling off difficult stunts that require intense strength by being on the gymnastics team in high school our daughters will be prepared for these skills and have a better chance of snagging a spot on other sports in school number three discipline gymnastics requires excellent listening skills and the ability to follow the rules of the sport there are specific boundaries our daughters must follow in order to succeed and stay safe it may be tempting to try a new flip without practicing at first but gymnasts learned that self-control and listening to the coach will lead to more fun and more new flips during gymnastics practice our
005daughters learn to control their impulses and focus on the skills they can build and and the fun that they can have in the future number four setting and achieving goals gymnastics requires a lot of patience to see progression if our daughters want to see improvement in their physicality it's going to take months of stretching and exercise to see results if they want to learn how to do a backflip it may take weeks or months of technique of technic of technical training to nail it gymnastic isn't just a sport that anyone can master in several days mr cross yes get it that's your time thank you so much for sharing your comments we really appreciate it [Applause] cheney finkel day hi so my name is cheney finkeldai and i'm a senior at free state i've been
006on the gymnastics team for all four years and i've been the captain for three years and i just want to talk about what the gymnastics team has meant for me so coming from club gymnastics which i've been doing since i was like eight years old it's a sport that's very intense very costly you practice like 15 to 20 hours a week and by the time i got to high school i was just completely burnt out as most of our athletes are and ready for the experience of high school gymnastics and having this experience allowed me to be more involved in things throughout the school i'm a cheerleading co-captain i'm due pole vault with track and field i'm on the student athlete leadership team i'm in student council i'm in charge of a few clubs and
007if i didn't have the opportunity for high school gymnastics i would have kept doing club gymnastics i wouldn't have been able to be involved in all the things i do i wouldn't have been able to take the academic rigor that i did wouldn't have been able to be national merit semi-finalist wouldn't have been able to be the athlete i am today or the person that i am today i wouldn't have been able to meet um some of my closest friends the gymnastics program and i know that all these things carry on to most of my other friends and athletes in the sport we have softball players soccer players swim and dive athletes cheerleaders track athletes we have people in almost all of the sports and gymnastics really carries over into all of those other sports
008and helps you with all the things that he mentioned with discipline with self-confidence and i think that without this gymnastics program here none of these students would have had the opportunity to become involved in their school to become the people that they are and the athletes that they are thank you [Applause] thank you cheney next we have jessa case hi this is definitely my first time standing up here i am jessa case and this is my first year employed as a special education para and job coach for lawrence public schools i came here today with my fellow paras and union members over there to talk a little bit about wage and job concerns first i have been frustrated and exhausted a lot recently and i've heard a lot of similar stories from my colleagues to
009start i work upwards 55 plus to 60 hours a week split between my full-time work as a para with two additional part-time work because i'm not able to utilize my para job as a means of a living wage i strongly feel like our wage should actually be equal to the amount of work we're doing and the work we're doing in lawrence is massive we are working with so many students and especially in a para or in a classroom with special education students we are performing multiple roles at once in one moment we might be a nurse and another we might be a physical therapist and another we are the teacher we do so much for our students and they do so much for us i love working with my students and i love working for
010lawrence public schools but i feel like our wage and the amount of respect we're given is kind of indeterminate by what we're currently getting i feel like when i come to work each day i shouldn't be exhausted from working a night shift the night before in two other part-time jobs i should be able to focus my efforts in on my para work and be able to be there for my students and be able to be there for myself thank you [Applause] is it can you hear me thank you jessa um tatiana younger howdy howdy good evening i'm tatiana younger i work as a parent in the district and as the vice president of pal cwa i'm coming up here today despite having terrible anxiety with a statement from our e-board that's because several weeks ago
011our union was asked by the district administration to select representatives to participate in budget subcommittee meetings the purpose of these budget meetings are to propose severe cuts to our schools and our programs after participating in these meetings we feel strongly that we've been given a false choice the choice is presented to us we can close schools and end programs for our students so that classified staff can finally be paid a living wage or we can accept poverty wages and our schools can stay open and we reject this false choice we believe that the best school systems prioritize the health and well-being of their workers alongside that of their students we will not allow ourselves to be pitted against students parents and our broader community because we are that community i'm a lawrence high school alumni
012class of 2017 and many of us are parents of children in this district on top of being district employees we will not allow cuts to the things that make our schools great programs like art music and student activities the things that brought me joy when i was a student and i currently bring our kids joy we are especially opposed to such cuts being we are especially opposed to such cuts being proposed before considerable cuts to our district admin and admin furlough days we have district admin here at the esc making over a hundred thousand dollars per year while our classified staff rely on public assistance sleep in their cars and work multiple jobs just to survive we also refuse to bargain our next contract in these budget meetings we will bargain through the formal bargaining
013process required by law we will not pick winners and losers out of our own co-workers by sitting in budget meetings and talking about which schools to close or which jobs to cut we ask that you please keep the commitment that you made at the end of bargaining our first contract and creatively together with our community find the money that it will take to raise all of our classified wages by 40 to ensure that our 400 lowest paid workers can finally make a living wage thank you [Applause] next we have liz strickard or cricker my apologies i'm excited to be following tatiana because we were sharing space and anxiety over there but she just inspired me so i am liz quickard i'm a social worker special educator and i'm a certified staff member but i'm here
014in full solidarity with pal cwa and their demands for a living wage and i'm also here to urge you as board members to begin asking critical questions about budget decisions that you'll be making very soon and that includes asking questions about how those decisions are framed for you and any process involved in the proposals that you will be seeing based on proposals and recommendations that are circulating and being discussed some of these questions would include what was the basis of the district's appointment process for budget subcommittees how were those appointment decisions made why weren't family students and community members who are not employed by the district included on those subcommittees particularly those from marginalized communities why would special education funding ever be on the table for cuts when we know that we are already unable
015to provide identified services to students with our current funding and staffing levels what has happened to any money from positions that have been unfilled for the last few years what is not being put on the table for cuts and why not and how are those things explicitly and directly tied or not tied to serving students directly are things like third-party software contracts and consultant fees are those on the table for cuts why are we talking about closing schools consolidating schools cutting programs like gymnastics and other programs and cutting certified and classified jobs who serve thousands of students a day in all of the important ways that we've just heard people speak to before or instead of looking at cuts to esc administration jobs and salaries why is this proposal process moving so quickly what's dictating
016that timeline what proposals such as possible school closures and consolidations are driving that timeline and were already prioritizing on the table before the subcommittee's met and why is this timeline not including input and decision making from school board members elect that this community chose particularly given the severity of the cuts that are being discussed and the devastating impact on students their families and this community overall thank you [Applause] i don't know yeah next we have melinda splenda okay good evening everybody my name is melinda lavonne [Music] i'll have a total of four kids and a bonus child go through the district um one out four to go and um i'm here because we had a meeting on sunday at the public library and you know if you recall the safer schools campaign that we ran
017before about a decade ago we might have to revamp that apparently although in that process the district came to the community said we're broke we're listening we understand you don't want to close schools great it'll cost this much are you willing to do that right and we passed the school bond but we haven't had that and so our concerns that we talked about on sunday from the folks that that came to the public library the concerns included the lack of transparency that we've had in this budget process there's concerns about the really tight timeline right especially over the holidays and stuff where things get lost in the mix and we feel like things have been really really secretive and one of the biggest uh concerns were we're broke 3.3 million right that's an even bigger
018number than i heard the other day of two um but our administrators who are already living some fairly privileged lives compared to the majority of the people that actually work in the district have given themselves huge pay increases over the last seven years y'all have given yourself raises more than what a para makes every year that is offensive for anybody to say hey i might need to get rid of this program we might need to close this school when the leadership has not taken the time to look in the mirror look at those pay increases at the admin level first before you start asking us to give up things dr lewis talked about the spirit of public service and i hope that we start to rediscover that spirit of public service this is not a
019for-profit corporation and we cannot treat administrative pay like it is we want to see more leadership on the budget process i'm really excited about the 20th and i and i really hope people can give public comment then too so that parents can can participate because we were excluded from the small budget committees we would like again public comment on the 20th is that is that planned i know you can't answer right now but we hope we hope to participate in the in the process a lot a lot more we also are excited about having a new budget person and hope that they have forensic budgeting skills i'll stop at the three minutes thank you [Applause] do we have online justin okay are we ready justin are you there yeah i'm there okay go ahead hi
020uh my name is dr justin spiece i have a phd in lifespan human development from kansas state university i have a master's in marriage and family therapy from kansas state university and i have a undergraduate degree in addiction counseling from washburn i've worked as a child therapist here in lawrence in the past with children who have been sexually abused i've taught at the university level teaching all kinds of developmental classes child child development classes and i've also been sitting up at a protest here outside of the the usd 497 uh district office building here on mcdonald and second street and my message all along has been that these mass on kids is child abuse mandating children to work or mandating children to wear masks in schools is child abuse and i've been dismissed i've been
021mocked i've been ridiculed i've been called different names i haven't been taken seriously me or my my my crew that's with me recently i had a teacher here in lawrence talk about how explain to me how she's already noticed that her students reading abilities have declined and it's because of many reasons but the main one is the not being able to see people's mouths see their lips moving and i just i just ask you know how dr anthony lewis school board how could you not see that coming that seems very very basic you don't need a phd in human development you don't need your doctorate whatever it is in education dr anthony lewis to know that children have to have that to read that is child abuse we are depriving you are depriving children of
022the most basic things of reading uh and and that's just that's just one one thing there's multiple levels of this and and and therefore i i wonder why why aren't the parents more upset where are the parents at we're allowing these people up here on this on this panel to to abuse our children and these children aren't even at risk of death from from coven parents in the community people in the community of lawrence i've started a new group it's called centuries of liberty it's centuries with an s you don't know what a century is i encourage you to look that up check us out on facebook centuries of liberty to get an understanding of what my group is about don't join us on facebook join us on the corner mcdonald and second stream we
023are there every single day we've been there since july every single day protesting these ridiculous mass mandates that are turning into going to turn into backs mandates here soon we're there every day roughly three to three pm to six pm every night that's rush hour thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people see our message so come join us thank you justin [Music] we have one more on online right oh okay come on up oh david okay yes i apologize i got here a little late wasn't able to sign up my name is david uniqueus i do not have a child in the school system any longer my daughter went through grade school pinkney west middle middle school and then free state high graduate amazing school schooling for her and we love
024the district very much love our schools here very much i just um from a budget perspective i know our conversation here is about you know cuts and losses of revenue um i i'd like to see the district work potentially i don't know what the lobbying process is with the um with the other school districts in the state but the the state of kansas has the money we're talking about three million dollars the state of kansas has two billion dollars in the bank right now from last year they're about to have three billion dollars overage in this year they will have 3.77 billion next year in three years they will have enough overage to run the state for a year without collecting a single penny the money is here the money is in the state and
025it's not just districts like ours that are having problems rural districts are having problems we don't know ultimately what the enrollment is going to be as this all sorts out if we project now we will lose assets both human and capital that will be difficult to be replaced and i believe that we should be focusing our efforts or at least some efforts on working with other districts around the state to get the the money that's needed to help uh sort of make whole a lot of people who've been asked to sacrifice over the last couple of years even republicans are talking about you know derek schmidt running for governor is saying that you know the capers system has to be you know shortfalls need to be made up well the public school system has had
026shortfalls as well and there's so much money in the state right now and projected to be that to say hey give us a bump of one or two percent bump on the student number for a couple of years while we sort this out we'll develop a plan to say if it if it really is the new normal in a couple years we'll go ahead and we'll have a plan in place to make that cut but to do that right now do it in a rush i was on the school closing some of you remember me from the school closing thing a decade ago doing in a rush is a very bad idea so that's all i have thank you [Applause] one second all right next is thank you all for your comments first of all
027next order of business is the approval of the consent agenda um my apologies yes board commentary do you have anyone that wants to speak i do board members i have a couple okay um so over the last two weeks i've had an opportunity to attend a couple meetings um went to facilities just basically follow follow up and wrap up on some various projects across the district lhs and some other minor projects we talked about some of the infrastructure changes that we want to make to networking and some other things with capital funds and so that was that was interesting um good good information later that day went to an lea negotiations meeting um which are always always good and productive and you know watching the the ibb process unfold correctly and and we talked about
028budget options we talked about salary walk through some various scenarios um one-year options two-year options um working working together with the the the union and administrative uh representation and so good good collaborative meeting as we as we move forward with that um this last week went to boundary um where we mainly talked about um what tools the district has to to look at boundaries um what tools that we have to kind of look at the numbers uh either you know on the on the fly dr conrad came and kind of kind of worked through that and then we kind of talked through some of the history behind decisions we've made in the past and different um different scenarios that we've had and and and how we got there and then this uh last week on
029friday i went to lhs to be to be president at the sit-in of lhs for the gymnastics program just to be there i know free state participated as well and i was really proud of those kids lawrence high has a really long history of students organizing themselves to come together when they feel injustice and i was it was good it was good to be there to see that to just to kind of be on the outside and to witness that so i was happy to be there for that thank you gr he wants to go next i'll go next okay okay uh first thing i wanted to do is to thank melissa for her service on the board she stepped forward to serve on our board at a time where we had some big decisions
030to make and i appreciate her service over the last four years i also want to give my heartfelt thanks to gr serving with you has been a real honor and i am grateful that i've had that opportunity to serve with you on the board you have been a fantastic board member you serve with integrity you are always putting the right things first you use a great deal of common sense you come at issues from a very straightforward perspective and it's i learned something from you and your approach to doing this work all the time you've been an integral part of our work on the facilities committee and i couldn't be more proud of the work that we've done in that arena for on our buildings and particularly the lawrence high project you have left an
031outstanding legacy in many ways and i will miss serving with you so thank you um i wanted to just mention the policy board policy committee we were supposed to meet last thursday due to illness and some scheduling issues we had to um cancel that meeting we are trying to work on finalizing another date uh before the end of december for our december meeting so that'll be we'll get that out there when we have that finalized um i had quite a lot of thoughts about a number of the things that have been swirling in our email and out in the media the last couple of weeks um so i'm gonna i'm gonna share some things and i wanna say first of all this is not directed at the discussion about gymnastics so just know that i'm
032not talking about you when i when i say these things um you know the board is going to have to make some pretty hard decisions in the next two to two and a half months if you watched kathy johnson's budget presentation a couple weeks ago we have a structural budget deficit in the current fiscal fiscal year of 1.7 million dollars we have to find 1.7 million dollars not to spend between now and the end of june and because of the way that the state is going to make us count enrollment which we just found out for sure how they were going to make us do that we are going to have to remove 3.3 million dollars of planned spending from our budget ongoing so permanent cuts starting july 1. so we have a timeline to
033do to make those decisions as a board and as a district that has to back up from that july 1 date in addition to that kathy shared with us that that 3.3 million dollar structural deficit makes no account whatsoever for any compensation increases to staff and we've heard loud and clear from our community and from our staff and i think i don't think there's anyone on the board who doesn't believe that addressing staff compensation is important to the future of this district that being said kathy also shared with us that for every one percent increase that we want to give in compensation to teachers in paris we have to make about 825 000 in cuts in our operations permanent and ongoing those are the realities of the numbers that we are dealing with as a
034board and they're big numbers especially given that since 2008 this district has cut and cut and cut programs and staff in a variety of ways first to deal with the financial disaster of the great recession and then to whether the unconstitutional levels of funding that we have been provided by the state over the last decade we still even this year this is not the we are not at constitutional funding yet that happens next year for the 2022-23 fiscal year um you know we had years where we had block grants thanks to sam brownback where our funding actually decreased year over year because of the block grant structure um so the reality of the math and the numbers is that we're going to have to make decisions that none of us like we're going to have
035to look at cutting programs and jobs that will impact students staff and families and there's going to be simply no getting around that you don't find that kind of money laying around in a district that's been through more than a decade of dealing with less than what we needed to do the jobs that we all want to be doing so you know there's no more limping along year after year and spending down reserve funds in the hopes that the financial picture will turn around we've done that the last several years frankly we chose as a board over the last over the last decade uh to as much as possible not cut positions and programs and protect those things in the hopes that the combination of the settlement of the gannon case passage of a new
036finance formula and enrollment growth would put us in the position where we didn't have to make those decisions ever those things did not come to pass and then we had a pandemic and an enrollment drop that is going to impact our budget for at least the next three years that's state law that's not something that this board can do anything about in terms of how much money there is to work with and and the total size of the of the pot or the bucket um i just i'm saying all this because i i i i hear the frustration that's coming from the community already just the mere mention that we're going to be having these conversations um i hear the i hear the the complaints about tight timelines and transparency and the fact of the
037matter is that if you've been sitting at this table like i have for the last 10 years none of none of what's happening is a surprise i have heard all of the budget presentations i have heard all of the numbers even if you've been watching our board meetings for the last six months kathy has been telling us she's been saying this message actually more than the last six months last year she's been giving us this message we have reached our own fiscal cliff in this district we have no more reserve funds to put toward things to keep from having to make cuts for things that we really want to do so um you know i i do want to say in regard to what um what david said he's right the state does have money
038right now they are bringing in more tax dollars than they have budgeted to spend but the reality is that public school advocates in our state including myself and lots of members on this board now and over the years have been screaming in topeka for years to put more of that money put more money any money toward public schools and frankly the last election meant a huge backslide in the people that are sitting in those chairs in topeka who are willing to even listen to that message we do not have the same number of allies in the state legislature that we did four years ago when the new school finance formula was passed we will be lucky in my opinion if we make it out of this legislative session with our gannon funding intact because there
039is the prevailing opinion amongst the legislative majority the supermajority of the republican party in topeka is that we have received millions upon millions of dollars in federal money we have more money than we need um and so they would they would have no problem if they could that they could get away with it with cutting our funding we all know that that money from the cares act and other federal funds can't be spent on all the things that we're talking about we're not allowed to spend it on salaries we're not allowed to spend it on ongoing positions that we want to keep in our district so i'm just i'm begging everyone in our community as you advocate to us right now and in the next couple of months please think deeply about your advocacy understand
040that when you're saying to me and i'm speaking for myself right now when you're saying to me don't cut x or don't end y program what you're asking me to do is to not do the hard thing to you or to your family or to the people you care about but that means i'm going to have to do it to somebody else and and no matter which decision i make it's going to be wrong in somebody's eyes and that is really hard there are a lot of really hard choices to be made there and i just i want to express to the community that none of us are doing this because we want to be in this position in terms of having to make these decisions so we are trying to do the right thing
041for our students and our staff and my promise to all of you is that i will look at these decisions through a lens of what we have to do to support our core missions what's going to be the least damaging on the overall health and services of the district to our students what aligns with our goals in our strategic plan and what will set our district up for continued success despite the continuing harsh realities of the math of school finance in our state there are painful choices ahead we're going to experience grief and loss over the decisions that have to be made and i am very sorry for that it is not something that i this is not where i hoped that we would be in our district in our state five or six years
042ago i had a lot of hope um that the new school finance formula and other things that were happening would improve the situation but it's also my fiduciary responsibility to maintain a fiscally healthy district and a district that is healthy for the future education of our students and i i will do that in my advocacy here in topeka and also in the decisions that i'm asked to make so thank you shannon anyone else any other board members um i appreciate what you shared um shannon but i have confidence that our district will also be very innovative um when we have those discussions um just quickly a couple of meetings i attended was the woodlawn site council and the district site council so the district site council we provided feedback on the kisa accreditation goals and
043the woodlawn site council we talked about the sabres and the district common assessments that are coming up in the next couple months i talked about that process and what that looked like for students teachers and families and then just provide an opportunity to have just discussions so that's all that i have thanks erica thank you anyone else um so i'm going to just talk about a couple practical things shannon's comments and the and before i do and the comments from the community are pretty sobering so as i move into a practical conversation and things i want to update board members about i want to recognize what's hanging in the air i had a conversation this week with a community member around the jdc in the day school and i am have asked shannon and dr
044lewis and and uh erica to consider updates to the board so that we understand the services that are provided there and that we are working with the policy committee to embed uh regular monitoring as part of governance of this board so not of out of alarm but just out of due diligence i've asked for that report and what that looks like i'll leave to dr lewis and and board leadership i also attended the new york elementary site council meeting and was glad to do that um one of the things that came out of that conversation and speaking to innovation was a conversation about what new york elementary school could be in the upcoming years and is it a spot where we could see some innovation around potential montessori education and thinking a little bit about
045what shannon said and what mr unique has said how do we as a board support that innovation while grappling with the policies statutes and regulations at the state level so i look forward to additional conversation around innovation and how we are best supported by our state leaders in that regard when we will need exceptions that look or mirror those exceptions that we have been granted in some of the other innovations we've seen related to reimagining what education can be like in kansas so i hope you receive that kind of support as you move forward and then finally i wanted to make sure that i had opportunity to thank my good friend gr gordon ross for your service over the years and like shannon you have become a good friend to me it is hard to
046become a good friend to me i don't let a lot of people in and i was able to do that because of your integrity in the way that you've served and my great respect for your ability to put workers and kids first in your decision making and to make decisions that are data informed so thank you for your service and for what i think will be a very long friendship i also want to extend to my friend melissa johnson who um i got to serve as her vice president and was able to weather a pandemic because of the way that she taught me how to lead and because of the guidance she provided me she and i focused our work around equity and inclusion and i learned most from her because she's a teacher so
047i appreciate the opportunity i had to serve with melissa and like gr look forward to a long lifetime friendship with melissa and celebrating all the great markers she has in her life in particular melissa is about to earn her master's degree so congratulations to her for that she's also about to get married so congratulations to her for that and most sincerely i'll miss getting to sit with both of you but do see that i will be turning to both of you for guidance and advice as i make probably some of those decisions that um i thought would not rival the decisions we had to make last year and most assuredly um this is also going to be a tough year for board members so um thank you all very much sorry i'm here hi melissa
048are you is that melissa yeah okay so yeah all right hey melissa oh thank you for your kind words kelly i apologize i am here i was having some technical difficulties logging in glad you're here melissa did you have something carol yes hi this is carol i just want to echo what everybody said and just um honor everybody's time but i would uh really really would love you know i'm begging this community to put these advocacy effort efforts into helping us in topeka this next legislative session which is a good segue for what we're about to talk about next but just please please please i'm begging just to come and advocate with us in topeka it's um it's actually a really beneficial and you can bring your children because i know for a fact that
049when you bring your children they will listen that i am going to miss being sitting next to gr and i've gotten to know him really and melissa but i've gotten to really really know gr and i do know that he doesn't care he's on facilities but you know he he cares truly about what goes on in those buildings he cares about every person every indu and i'm trying not to cry but i'm just so honored to stop beside you and off served with utr and i'm going to miss you and melissa thank you me glitch all right thank you all for your board commentary the next order of business is the approval of the consent agenda this is shannon i move we approve the consent agenda sgrl second kimball yes could you blackwood yes gordon
050ross yes johnson yes jones yes smith hill yes motion passes 7-0 next is new business the 2022 legislative priorities and we have dr lewis down for this one hey thank you um for president hill what you have before you is our 20 uh actually 2022 legislative uh priorities that we are proposing uh again i was asked this and during our superintendent advisory council you know what um what's the purpose of these legislative priorities and they are to kind of speak to what you just heard tonight and it's why our as our advocacy as a school system um i wish people wouldn't leave because this is where i need you to really advocate um for um but it's our way of advocating as a school system as a community once the board approves it you know
051obviously gives gives feedback and we will present this to our local elected officials they will come here and hold a session for usc 497 in addition our board president all of us are advocates everyone wants the board finalizes this will have copies of this and can advocate for these priorities the chamber i appreciate the chamber for hosting a legislative party breakfast where we will also have an opportunity along with other community members uh to share our priorities for this upcoming session and just a little background in terms of how we arrived at these priorities um and this is something that the board adopts annually and we update those last year was focused heavily on our response to covet uh while you will see a statement in there uh that relates to the recovery of covet
052there are a lot of new um and continuing priorities that we are continually advocating for like funding which was mentioned earlier earlier tonight these parties were crafted with our executive leadership team the superintendent advisory council gave some feedback on those and we're here to present those to the board and the public tonight we took a look at the usa kansas which is the kansas school administration association legislative legislative priorities uh the kansas association of school boards uh legislative parties um knea thanks lindsey for sending me those we took a look at those as well and i hope you'll see a couple of those in in there in addition since i am the on the governor's council for racial and equity justice we did include some of those that will that are set to be released
053in the december report of that so this is how we arrived at these priorities and so at this point i would entertain any questions or or the board would have any comments on these legislative priorities this is carol i would just ask that the district um make up a template for parents to follow if they are you know a novice at um advocacy work maybe that might help in efforts okay and these are you see about maybe three or four pages obviously this is draft the board can definitely wander this down if you would like but what i hear is what it seems like you're saying is you know what are those um because certainly we don't want parents to verbalize all of this but maybe what are those top two or three parties that
054from a parent's perspective that they can advocate for any other feedback or comments for dr lewis i i just so i really appreciate the um priorities that were put forward i think they're consistent with what we're seeing from other advocates in other spaces so i was grateful to see that i am thinking a little bit about again back to um the balance between the reality that shanna shannon painted and topeka and i agree with her having been up there it's not pretty um but then also the reality of um or the suggestion put forward by mr unique is around the collaborative work we can do in her from an inner district perspective and one of the spaces in which i've been most encouraged in the last year was at the of all places the convention
055um for the uh school board associations and just seeing the collaboration and the conversation between our colleagues and um eric has probably tended more than i have but even the the collaboration we've met and the camaraderie at the coffees that are held for us in the morning with colleagues from across the state and in the region specifically so while we are focusing today on the legislative priorities that we will put forward for our local elected officials to consider and to advocate for they have always done due diligence i do think there is something pretty powerful about looking at being more strategic about how we collaborate with folks across the state and so i appreciate that suggestion and i think there are action steps that we can take that follow that and i will say that
056from my perspective as a board member i do think that's a skill set that's actually several of us have on this board and i would like to ask my board colleagues to join me in in looking at who can we partner with in which we can perhaps get more leverage than douglas county typically has in topeka one place kelly to start i mean i know it would be good to be able to expand our reach outside of our douglas county delegation because typically our douglas county delegation is very support has always been very supportive of the the asks that we have made of them in topeka but one thing that we don't do in douglas county that i'm seeing done in johnson county and also now in shawnee county is that the dist all the
057districts in those counties are getting together and coordinating a a joint legislative platform and obviously we're not going to do that this this year in this moment with this but that might be something at least we could spend some time talking with our other districts in douglas county about this and seeing if they would want to join us in our advocacy around these things this year but then going forward um because i think sometimes there's uh there's impact in those numbers it's not just lawrence it's it's the rural districts in our in our county also agree that these things are important and i think that might might speak to some legislators um in a way that um that would be helpful so that's one thing um another um another piece of feedback i had and
058i actually had this question it was raised in some of the superintendent advisory council feedback that we got but mr yanikis's comments um also made me think of this which is the suggestion from one of the advisory council members that we reorder the sections if you remember that one they i mean they suggested an order but one of the most important things was that they suggested putting the section on tax policy and funding first and um i think at a minimum if we put that first and then actually their suggestion was what's already on the first page would be second and third and then i think the rest of it [Music] could go ahead and flow but i i would be open to having you reorder it in in that way or in the way
059that that comments are suggested um for kind of the biggest impact of the biggest issue which is going to be our funding and um you know the special ed funding is one that doesn't get a lot of discussion but it's so important i can't i've made myself hoarse talking with both state and our congressional delegation about the fact that if they would just fund special education at the full amount that they have committed to fund it but which they have never funded it it would relieve so much pressure from spending out of our general fund that we could then recommit to doing other things with that money but instead we are having to fill in a huge gaps between the money that were provided for the required and needed services for those students and what
060they are giving us that's specifically dedicated to that so i like that that section on funding um highlights that as as the second thing after after the fully funding the finance formula and i think that's worth some greater emphasis okay yeah it's almost like we need to get some t-shirts with 92 on it 92 percent for this for the sped funding um i do have a meeting with the douglas county superintendents on thursday morning and i was you know i knew this was on the agenda so it's something i want to take to them as well and reordering the sections uh that's that's in that's we can do that are there like regular check-ins for legislative priorities like midway through the year do we typically we don't do we didn't do that last year um
061has that ever been a practice no we we've never done that but i would be open to that i think in part because actually most years nothing gets done on anything until like the last three days of the session right so yeah unfortunately you can kind of follow all the bills and you can follow them through um the turnaround date when things are supposed to switch houses but so much of the legislation related to public schools ends up getting put into exempt committees and so turnaround doesn't actually mean a whole lot for a lot of those bills and then there's the practice of gut and go which and between the gut and goes the conference committees at the very end things that you think either died or didn't die back here it turned before turnaround
062suddenly there they are again because they've been repackaged in a way that allows them to do that under the rules so it's really it's hard but i i don't i think it's a good suggestion for us as a board to kind of have that touch base so that we we all are having a conversation about what's going on i think it's important just for our own growth and learning well i haven't speak for myself for my own growth and learning about those legislative priorities and see if we've accomplished a majority of them or 90 or 80 90 of them that way i think it would be helpful the next year and for us to have it like that meaning more meaningful conversation about those priorities all right any other comments or feedback for dr lewis
063for the 2022 legislative priorities a couple of things i just wanted to point out for for the for the public to know that this is in here just a couple of things i want to kind of pull out and we heard this during our conversations with the kennedy community around transportation and so we have included in here in our parties urging the legislation to study state transportation aid to include students living less than that two and a half miles from their assigned school in addition you know this is something that has has come up several times it's on the governor's commission as well the elimination of native american mascots imagery and names on educational institutions and sport teams and with the continued conversations around critical race theory we believe that the district's curriculum should be
064established by the local board of education and not by statute again considering the staff shortages urging the legislative to legislator legislation legislature sorry to support school districts and exploring new and innovative ways to recruit and address staff shortages there's one more and then just encouraging the government policies of legislation requiring bias and equity analysis to their decisions okay thank you dr liz if there's no other comments or feedback do we have a motion i move the board of education approved the 2022 legislative priorities as outlined second can i ask a question about the motion does that allow gr would that motion allow for administration to reorder the sections i think so because it it just approves the priorities not the numbers but it doesn't set the the order of them as i think that's the
065public sector fine i just wanted to make sure that was the intent of your money in that motion and as stated approves the individual priorities but it can allow them to reshuffle themselves okay all right i you know i just gotta say um i don't you know i don't think i'd ever have i don't think i would have ever been sitting here at this day i know i know okay okay i'm just so excited okay good okay kadu blackwood yes according ross yes johnson yes jones yes smith hill yes kimball yes motion passes 7-0 no this is carol can i i never thought i'm gonna cry i never thought i would see this during my lifetime anything about mascots i think um in all my research i've done this research for years but i don't
066think i've ever seen this brought up in any school board in kansas so thank you thank you for your comments carol dr lewis any closing announcements just to the public be on the lookout for hopefully a special call meeting for december 20th and that will the the purpose of that will be a workshop a work session so we'll have that engagement and we'll share some of the items that our subcommittee's discussed okay all right thank you next motion to adjourn does anyone want to adjourn motion to a journal exactly is that a second i couldn't hear it okay perfect all right all those in favor say aye aye aye i'll suppose say no all right motion carried thank you officer