Lawrence Public Schools Board of Education Meeting | April 12, 2021

001thank you can i just check whether everybody can hear can you hear me okay okay okay okay thank you okay yeah this is all right this gets muffled and i don't talk very loud yeah if i need to talk louder thank you let me know um okay so the first is just a real brief and i had actually shared an additional item with all of you um i think it's attached as a piece of the agenda as an administrative section which was just a report that came from kasb that has a few more bills in it as well as a lot more details than just my synopsis here but a few that were kind of highlighted that um i think were important to to reference is the bill that is going to require for 11th

002and 12th graders to take a semester of financial literacy and and there's some details in about that senate bill 55 which is talking about the transgender athletes the senate um should have an s in front of it senate bill 40 which does require school districts to hold hearings related to pandemic operations and masks the 2007 provided funding for state government but it excluded k-12 education come to that at the end um this house bill that requires or allows school boards firearm safety education it's a new one and then um there is some promise scholarship act that was included but the biggest one that technically we don't have a finance bill yet that addresses school funding for next year because the senate bill 175 was failed which which actually is a good thing based on the

003components of that particular bill but it did leave them in the regular session with school funding still unresolved um and so they're going to need to address that in the wrap-up session which doesn't start till may 3rd so we technically still do not have although there's things proposed in the governor's budget nothing has been formally approved to tell us for sure what next year looks like so we're working on the assumption that it looks like it does in current statute i won't spend a lot more time on that but that's um and i did provide some additional details to you just just to remember in more detail and it was really straight out of kasb's update on the wrap wrap up session which you can find online at ksbe so the next piece i wanted

004to walk through briefly with you is just kind of a reminder of finances and where we are you had received some head count information for 1920 enrollment in october and as we proceeded into the 2021 school year knowing fte is actually where our finances come from but the way schools started the year tend to have impacted declines of enrollment or not declines of enrollment depending upon districts so things to just remember as far as how we started our years we were 100 remote on count day and we are seeing a very large decrease due to the covet impact of this current school year and then also a reminder that head count different than fte headcount we do use for projecting staffing and position controls but it's the fte that actually tells us how much money

005we're going to have and so when we look at the fte the fte and the finance formula they're funded at different levels so that's not straight across the board and of course it's not um the same school year even as far as what we get to count and so um we count every september 20 we report it to the state in the superintendent's report and then it's audited our current year is still not audited and what they're auditing will actually apply into next school year the fte is declining there are some provisions in the formula and so we won't necessarily have to realize the full amount of what the decrease appears to be but we will have to realize something and so as we continue to to look at what else impacts funding we have

006weightings and unlike the enrollment for september 20th of 20 being next year the september 20 for these weightings is the current year and so we were down 647.9 fte which will impact funding next year but of that 647.9 in the current year we have weightings tied to those kids and so free lunch counts which is at risk funding the cte the bilingual that all impacts the current year because those are kiddos in our that didn't show up in the current year so the formula kind of is twofold part of it applies to next year part of it applies to current and so it's kind of a mix of that which which tends to be confusing and um we haven't been audited yet so therefore some of this is still we're estimating based on what we

007turned in but until it's audited we don't know for sure how the impact will be this year and then it drives the impact for next year so we're still in a not quite for sure mode and hopefully that audit will be done sometime this month and then we'll have we'll be able to re-evaluate what we're looking at and and see where we are with that when you look at just the fte you can see what enrollment has done with the district and it sort of seesaws our district is not growing it has a dip and then it goes up but then it has a dip and then you can see the huge dip that impacted us the current year and so that fte is is what's driving funding impacts how that applies to our finance

008formula that then in turn helps us determine what we're going to have for funding is is a little bit convoluted but there is a component in there that allows us to not necessarily have to recognize the entire decrease in one year and so when you look at that and you look at for example the 17-18 school year is relying on the enrollment and you can see the enrollment and the budget were able to use the same thing for 1819 it's 9 20 of 17. well that was less than the year before so there's a declining enrollment provision that says you can use the year before or basically two years before if it's higher so we did that year and then we had an increase again and we got to use the the one that we

009needed to use and then for the current year 9 2019 you'll see that it was a dip well because it was a dip we could go back to 1920 or the september 2018 and we actually are in a declining provision this year that impacts us next year as well because for 2122 it's based on the 9 20 20 an audited or i'm sorry the 9 20 19 is what we're going to use because we don't want to go here and we we but we we have to go and recognize this much of a decrease so no matter what next year we don't have to recognize all of it which is going to drive the next year but we do have to recognize the the dip that we have coming forward and then for 22 23

010i have to go clear back forward again but that's this year's enrollment or next falls enrollment 9 20 21 if we don't get all the way back up to this number even if it does increase we're going to have to recognize another decline and the decline could be averaged because we have that option of looking at two years prior prior you know or the averaging and so just making a what if assumption half of the kids come back we still are going to see a dip of enrollment so even into the 22-23 school year we're not out of this dilemma as far as not realizing the dollars that we had clear bath back here does that make sense i know it's confusing and and it confuses myself i talk myself into circles sometimes i tried

011to lay it out here so you could kind of see but it is part of what and there's a lot of unknowns in there because this is what's driving the core part but the current enrollment will be what drives those weightings and it's only dependent upon if the kids that do come back are in that at-risk group or are in cte as to whether those weightings will be impacted or not if they don't fall in one of those subgroups then it doesn't impact us in the current year so when you kind of look at the way that the the graph would look the blue line is that big enrollment change and this is how the red the orange line is kind of how the budget minimizes that but it doesn't take it all away until

012you get back to where they meet that kind of makes sense so unfortunately that's what we're having to deal with and we actually have to look out more than just the next year because it's an ongoing kind of thing that we need to plan for we can't just plan and expect it's going to go away it's something that's going to be with us a while so when you look at that again bringing kind of in that one table that kind of shares those provisions and the next table two tables kind of share this is where we plan to be in 2021 we planned on this enrollment we planned on this amount of weightings and then the total with this space state aid per pupil that reflected this about 88 million dollars that we had planned

013budgeted that's what we staffed that's where raises all that was in that bucket what turned out unaudited is that this fte in weightings is down by 307.4 so we still have the same base state a but we lost in the current year based on that 600 and some odd fte decrease 307 of it in the weightings that's where when you say the the 1 million 8 is what we have less of this year that we're working with we do have some virtual that increase that we're pulling into general fund to help upset we have a lot of budget lines that we didn't utilize in the same fashion because we didn't um have field trips so none of our field trip budget basically that's something that will be against that millionaire so there's things in the

014current year we didn't do we have a lot of vacancies that we just never filled because we were remote they weren't positions though but that doesn't make them permanent ongoing all that means is that helps us deal with the current and we have to figure out of that or something else permanent and ongoing because next year we have to realize this decrease and we don't know that the weightings will go along with it that's 168.7 fte less than where we are today and although the bay state aid goes up it doesn't go up enough to offset what we lost this year so permanent and ongoing we have to look at this million 158 or basically a million two again this is unaudited we still don't have an exact number of that going forward assuming this

015assumption here it's another 340.9 potential fte this does go up bay state aid per pupil does go up but if this becomes permanent and ongoing subtract it from this you have another 500 000 in 2223 that would be less than what we planned for to complete the current year that we're in today so those are permanent ongoing and i've gone out two school years beyond the current school year so that kind of makes sense so that's why we're really having to take a hard look at where we are and what that looks like with our enrollment and and the different things that we're looking at that kind of helped bring into perspective again some of the the hard discussions that we're having to have and so as we kathy can i ask a question is

016it all right do you want me to wait until the end or can i just however um one question i've heard quite a lot of and i think that i'm just looking for you to provide a succinct answer folks will say your budget is so much larger than the amount that they're seeing on the in the deficit how would you explain to them that it is actually challenging to come to that number um in terms of the loss does that make sense so if you have if you make a hundred thousand dollars and someone asked you to save a thousand of it why is it so challenging to come to that number for us in the district well because if you think about the last few years we have removed any contingency of i'm in

017a budget 25 000 i really only expect to spend 20. therefore the five might be something that i would have flexibility with we've removed that over the last few years because we've spent cash balances so when you look at budgets and you look at those cash balance pages out of our state document if you have a decline you are spending beyond your resources and that's what you'll see in any of our state documents and so where it seems like spend less and you'll save those or or some of that's happening this year because we just don't have sub expenses like we did we don't have field trips but that doesn't mean that's not going to come back we don't have those pockets of money we've done that over the last five years as we've spent

018down cash balances if we had not if we had those reserves already built in you would not see cash balances go down you would see cash balances stay the same or you would see our contingency go up because we would have resources left over in order to be in those spaces you don't see that in our budget documents and therefore we are spending beyond without even without even going so you can tell a librarian to spend less you can tell we can do those things permanent ongoing that's not a good solution for the effective and efficiency of our our district as well as you have increased costs costs so if utilities go up insurance some of the things that we'll talk about here in a minute cost of living just in general you have to

019figure out how to navigate those so it is difficult to find those dollars for us today different than it was five years ago when we had some of those ways to navigate okay and lost those ways over the last five years and it's true that a lot of a lot of the spaces where it might look like we have flexibility we don't so unlike the city or the county who might have a little bit more flexibility about where money goes we have a for a finance formula which we have to follow and has less flexibility in terms of how you moved just the same kind of money no matter what we don't have a mill levy that says you get these resources valuation goes up resources go up that's not how it works it's based

020strictly on enrollment and this is what you get so if you're spending a hundred thousand dollars and your pot goes to 80 and you're already committed to 100 you you don't have any where to go you have to take out of the pot to to put back in or take it out permanently and consider it gone until that pot gets increased back up that makes sense i'm not sure if i'm making a difference but well kathy i would just ask the clarifying question um is a lot of the reason for that because of the fact that our budget is what 80 to 85 fixed costs and employment it is 85 of our budget is people in some fashion or another health insurance those kinds of costs um fixed costs and insurance those things so there

021isn't a lot of flexibility um either when you look at it that way that's true so looking at the next slide it's just kind of a summary of kind of where we are this has got the million 158 that we know we're going to be short or anticipate we're going to be short it is subject to change and i have to i can't say that enough this is all still fluid it's subject to change we don't have actual enrollments we don't have audited information so we'll update you when we get those pieces but it it it will change from time to time just because of those variables we still have pending in negotiations and other areas these different things over here for reference only is just so you can see what those individual costs might

022be we don't have anything in the chart because we don't know the answer to those the information to the right is just a reference point of what that would cost if you did this scenario that doesn't mean that that's what's going to happen it's just giving you a reference point of cost there are some things that um we're pending um we know utilities ongoing there's cost there's just price increases things like that that that we have not um we're not keeping up with and so there is a need to address some utilities our property insurance increase is estimated to be 15 we will not know that until the month of june for sure and so as much as we'd like to say we know an exact number we don't so we're planning on the high

023end hopefully it's not higher but if it's less that's good it gives us some variance we do know we have a local parent-test teachers grant revenue source that we've we've lost that we need to to replace in a transfer to that program and early retirement again we're still pending as people identify as as retiring this year but we have a set budget that we kind of plan for and a certain number of staff that we plan for and there's been more retirements than what we um have had in past years and so kind of a holding space until we know a little bit closer to the end of the year whether we're going to need to budget some additional dollars related to early retirement program the post early retirement program that the district provides staff

024and so that's just kind of there to make sure we don't forget that that is a new it couldn't be a new cost to us we have have we um do we have any more clarity on the impact of the weather in february and jumps in natural gas rates related to not received bills yet so i cannot tell you what that impact is is to us yet for the current year that could be significant in so many ways and as soon as we get that information they've kind of delayed in providing some of those bills to us we'll have some options i don't know quite sure what those options will be and again as soon as we have some of that and we'll share that that that has a whole different dynamic that will happen

025the provider is late in sending the bills they're just still trying to con figure out how it all impacts them as well and if you remember we actually buy gas from a pipeline and then so we have both constellation and black hills to navigate and so they're they're working through that and and to date i don't i don't have anything to provide you as far as what that impact's going to be yet thank you well say some of our neighboring districts mainly to the east they've seen some bills and they've seen some significant increases some of our neighboring districts to the east they've seen some significant increases in some of their utilities yeah the news about shawnee missions costs i i've seen that in the news and i've also heard about some of the districts

026that participate in some of the pooled provider situations but i so that's why i was i was curious because it was too many heart palpitations right it was substantial and um really alarming um what what i had seen so far so okay thank you as soon as we have some information we'll definitely pass that along so the next piece that we look at and that we looked at in in budget committee etc is just how we staff we staff based on enrollment you remember the head count we have some thresholds we have some ratios and so we just applied those to start with just like you normally would and so that kind of scenario a is if we applied with the projected enrollment and apply them just like normal there would be about three less

027than what we had planned for in um 2021 so that would be a savings there the middle school had had a large decrease their staffing ratio is figured a little bit differently but the the change of meeting that is 7.2 decrease in staffing at our middle schools and so hr has been working with our middle school principals in order to to navigate that um that much less staff for them next year the high school there has not been a decrease in enrollment when you look at the information even through covid they stayed pretty much what they were projected to have and and not really decreased last year we did have the high schools hold and we didn't give them staff we didn't but we told them to hold and so there was about a four

028ish fte less last year than maybe what the ratio would calculate out to we're having them hold again so there's no plus or minus with them they believe they can do that so we're navigating it so they are impacted they're just um not what you're seeing is fairly neutral because they really kind of took the hit last year on that so kathy with the staffing changes do most of the most of those will come through can you talk about how we realize those losses will i don't know that samri is here but my understanding is they've talked about how they do their team teaching they do some of those different kinds of things and so they've navigated it with within those structures and the principals are fully believed that they can make those happen based

029on the schools um and those individual conversations with the buildings okay and through rihanna i might be able to add some more i don't have the detail of those conversations so was your question specifically about secondary middle middle middle school they're able to really like the are you asking about the loss that they'll see this year um they lost students so that when they look at that it just may mean that the teams are cross teaming like where they may have had two sixth grade teams they may just have one it may be that a teacher may be teaching math that sixth then seventh grade so they may be vertical teaming so it um addresses it just depends on the course and what it looks like but they have a little more flexibility because they

030teach specific content areas or it may mean that last year i taught ela only and this year i may be teaching three sections of ela and three sections of social studies so it depending on the school that's impacted it looks different um based off of the number of students at those grade levels okay and most of those losses we won't be losing um folks won't get a contract not renewed we're looking at people retirements in terms of the loss of staff yeah so through attrition and retirement all of the middle school um staffs they already know if um if they're down they're working on the final schedule but yeah okay thank you and samara is with us online should the board have a question directly for her okay thank you so then there's some other

031things as we um kind of went through some of the departments just budgets initially there were some reductions that were just changes of process or some renewals of contracts that won't be renewed and so there is um some change in the finance office and that we're pulling some standalone software into our b plus accounting so we're unable to reduce a budget there there's been a vacancy in this position all year so it will continue into next year there's some contracted consulting services that's that's within the board of education budget that that looks like something that that can be reduced we're not renewing this k-12 let's talk and the survey component we're in year three of the three-year contract we'll have it through the end of september it's my understanding from dr lewis and zach that

032we've found an internal way to do it within our own systems that will accomplish the same thing and allow us to get out of that particular contract we are still evaluating other areas that can can potentially have savings there's a lot of vacancies that we had this year so the question is very purposefully how do we fill those for next year what are those needs and are is there some savings in not filling some of those particularly with some of them following students and our enrollment being down in all likelihood some of those might not need to come back based on just a decline in enrollment and so those are continued um things that we're still working through and and we'll continue to bring back a laundry list of but this still remains about 742

033000 short so there was a number of things that we did through the budget committee part of our initial review was looking at rsp looking at utilization of buildings looking at enrollment trends the decline to covet utilization of facilities we looked at cost of facilities you know every building has certain things staffed at a building and what those costs are tied to each building part of those utilization reports would indicate that kennedy unfortunately turned was the lowest as far as enrollment and rsp's projections as as you'll see in in a report later as well that they continued to decline it was not something that looked like it was going to continue to grow or be one of those seesaws so that was looked at um through the rsp presentation there was some information about you

034know that uh utilization range should be um 85 to 95 percent and it was within that um presentation that they provided so one of the things we also then looked at was his his projections in rsp what our actual enrollment was for those utilization percentages and then also what 85 percent would look like and what 95 percent would look like so as we thought about what what are options that we can look at funding etc you know how does that also impact um there and so some of the things that we walked through some were were new this year some were carry over from last year even in conversations but we we looked at existing thresholds which which you saw as on the list looked at multi-aging blended classrooms across all schools and we looked

035at that some last year we also looked at it again this year um you know when we looked at the multi-age for example um you know you combine enrollment across your grades and shared thresholds divided by the threshold you can get everybody up to a higher class size but you're also creating second third grade and you know different blended kinds of opportunities has a 14 fte savings and 905 000 but was not something that had a lot of popularity as far as trying to go that that route we did look at a primary kennedy and an intermediate new york and some of the savings that might relate to that um based on that there was about a five fte but no other position so when you think about every school getting certain positions you know

036it didn't necessarily change the enrollment of those two buildings but it it took away some and kind of created a multi-agent of fashion because you blended two grades at two buildings out of primary and two buildings at an intermediate um so we did look at that we also looked at the early childhood center of kennedy it's um you know what kennedy is in early childhood they have a brand new playground at kennedy does it make sense to look at at that scenario in a fashion that would really enhance the early childhood at kennedy and is there a way then to fill some of those other schools so that was a scenario that was brought forward and we kind of looked at it in two ways looking at it with the multi-aging across schools which had

037a prior or look adding without which is kind of where we we ended up and what got moved to to boundary committee and so oops i want to go back to that and yeah so that's kind of what got moved to boundary committee um one of the utilization you know the initial proposal that did go was just looking at new york and freight park and then the boundary committee wanted to look at it in a second fashion so i'm going to go ahead and go into what that proposal evolved to um the budget committee voted that it made sense to possibly move to boundary for more information so that we could determine what a boundary might look like to configure that and it's with really two options the boundary committee called it option one and

038option two the budget committee on the list it's a little bit uh different reference basically the first proposal was north of 19th and south of 19th that did very much fill your two schools of new york and prey park so that the boundary committee thought you know is there other options that's where cordley got brought into the mix and you can see what those boundary options were for what we called option two and they actually looked at 2a which was also thinking about moving the cluster side of cordley moving the cluster site from perry park and kennedy out of hillcrest and into cordley kind of had a neutral effect budget wise and it's always something that can be added on later and so we'll focus kind of core on the primary k5 group and and

039we can exploit the esl if that's something that we want to add on or wait until a later year and so these were the two scenarios that were reviewed and just briefly walking through those we looked at who's residing in kennedy there's 229 residing but there's only 172 that are attending the kennedy enrollment area majority of you can see the other schools that they're going to but the majority large number is is esl and those are all going to hillcrest because that's the cluster site that that particular school is going to so then looking at the 172 and the different places that those students would would then go to we navigated through that boundary committee and budget committee and so when you look at the first group of 19 in that glendale maple harper area

040it's new york applying current ratios or current thresholds to schools you'll see that there's really no changes to the sections you can see the impact of what those class sizes will be title one new york is a title one school that would remain a title in school so that would be that first group um on this on these charts the colored boxes at the end tk2345 what are those numbers so those are the current thresholds that particular school okay 24 26 and 29 as a title one school those are those thresholds okay thank you yep so the next section was the kids moving to cordley and there's about 75 we looked at this using thresholds if they become title one and if they don't we're still determining title one and i can talk a little

041bit about title one later as a whole but there's um right now we have to we have to rely on actual numbers for us to apply for our lcp so using projections this is um we're looking at it in both scenarios so we can plan that way so basically it would require one additional section if they became a title school and those thresholds were the lower if they don't become a title school the thresholds are 25 27 and 30 which is what they currently have so no sections needed if it if it remains a non-title school which is what they are now if they do become a title one school then one section would be needed you can see it happens at third grade quarterly was built out to be three sections so there's up

042to five classrooms available at cordley the next one would be prairie park and we kind of did the same thing so you can see there really is no change whether they're title one or not as far as sections and how that looks the walk through with that indicated they do have the capacity to go up to five without changing existing special education programs and so four would be the total required for that particular scenario whether it's title or not based on just how those sections and you can see what those those class sizes look like with this can you clarify that they have the when you said they have the capacity to go up to five five sections of each they have the there's five available spaces for classrooms this would require four so there'd

043still be a classroom that they did not okay realize and they said that in a funny way so i apologize i think does the um does any of this have any impact on the high density at-risk dollars that it could because ultimately it will just determine on the percent of free reduce that's in that particular building once the kids move and again this is based on projections of who comes back and that's based on who's in those seats on september 20. and that's also assuming they decide to extend the sunset that's all part of that bill that didn't then it's all wrapped up so then just this slide just shares what our current transportation policy is it provides we provide transportation to students two and a half miles or more from home if if it's

044below two and a half if there's space available um it was determined within that option too that there would not be students that are more than two and a half miles from home so based on current busing practices there would be no students transported if the esl was considered esl the cluster school becomes home school so we would have to reevaluate how they fit into those same criteria and then their best accordingly so as we navigate and i just want to make sure i get through the pieces and then we can so are we i we had requested some numbers related to potentially um having a transition year with transportation do we have those numbers i believe dr lewis is going to share those a little bit tonight later okay great thank you yep um

045so this initial look and again all this information is subject to change based on actual attendance in the fall these are based on average costs of a position because we don't know who's moving and what that transition will look like a reminder of average cost it includes everything salary fica medicare unemployment workers comp health dental vision and 403 b so it's that entire package that's considered an average cost the net decrease is the 6 fte for teachers because kennedy would have needed 11 in 21 22 based on what our planning would have been so four less for prairie park one over to cordley would leave um six of those 11 that would be and then um every building having a principal administrative assistance a guidance and all the buildings already have those staffed that would

046be where that that is coming from and then kathy park increases a secretary because of their enrollment change and bumps them from a one and a half position control of secretary to to 2.0 there are just a couple of caveats that i don't know that we have enough information yet tonight and i'll defer to um kevin um and some of that is the the nursing there's still some evaluation with early childhood that is occurring and looking holistically at nursing across the board and so there could be a slight change in that particular component and library they're still trying to determine that piece as well early childhood actually already pays for a library media assistant so that one would potentially be the savings and the library media specialist would be the consideration but again looking holistically

047across all of our buildings and how that fits together um is something that i think is still still pending so there could be some variation to this but estimated based on what we know this would be the um potential of savings okay and for the for the clarity we're looking at what the the cost saving is for the the kennedy k-5 component the early childhood education component where it has its own separate the uh budget has its own leadership it was not a shared principle not just for folks to here this is just an elementary k-5 and and every building basically has these same positions and when you have one you go from 14 to 13 then some of these positions also go down from 14 to 13 because you don't have that other building

048okay and i appreciate the um anticipation of the question related to nursing and the evaluation of whether or not that would still be staffed at the early childhood education center at some capacity correct we'll hear back from that uh correct and i think kevin's still working through some of those details and and we should have that a little more clarity with the fine-tuning depending upon the decision tonight as to um more specificity on some of these numbers hoa is that the health office assistant assistant correct correct and in a lot of places that's a little bit in each building but then the secretary actually fills in that role a lot and it used to fill it in 100 in this district until we were sort of blended that that nursing model so just looking at

049those six teachers too we would anticipate that the that those six teachers would be absorbed through our normal retirement openings i understood that that six of the kennedy staff would would would be lost we would anticipate that if they if they wanted to remain if all those staff wanted to remain in the district they could my understanding yes that there are enough vacancies that they've been able to through attrition and samri's on the phone if if you want more clarification but i think in all of these position areas there's retirement or an opportunity to go um to a like staffing position from what they would be leaving at kennedy and where that placement is depends but i do know prey park quarterly new york they all have vacancies as well so it might be a

050natural transition in that regard as well so i think they're working through those particulars but feel pretty confident that they can make that happen so the other slide then here to share is just what about the other buildings when you you bring kennedy in and now you have 13 right and is there a change in any of that initial three savings if we apply current thresholds and so really if you look at all of our buildings now with um if you if you provide that option of kennedy and you moved everybody around there's nine change from what our target would be we know six of those would be what we just talked about in the proposal so there's still a savings of three kind of when we applied all the thresholds and we went across

051the board there was three so what that says is some of those those savings were outside of the schools that we're talking about because six is still happening and three is still happening so um of the nine total six as being the repurposed piece and three are still just those other buildings that were outside of that so we still in this scenario assuming thresholds stay the same and this actually looks at it assuming um both at a title one level that that may not actually pan out but we don't know that yet and so we're looking at how that just because there may or may not be title services at those buildings doesn't mean that the needs of those students won't be met through other forms of instructional support looking at title looking at at-risk

052looking at esser funds making sure that the needs of those kids are identified as they come out of kennedy what school they do go into and then how we're going to best support them with those various pools of dollars that we're going to look at holistically with with all of that transition so the needs of those students will be met in a fashion just we're planning on making sure that that happens and some of the title funding would follow regardless of whether or not the school met the threshold for title funding as a as an entire building correct say that again some of the title funding would follow the student regardless of whether the building made the threshold for title funding title one is based on building perspective it's not based on students specifically so

053title one is based on ses it's based on an actual ses count we have until september 30 to file our application so we really when the kids are in the seats and we know who those kids are is when we can identify for sure what those percentages are that would apply to which buildings and then there is a a variety of of the ways title one looks at that if a building is 40 percent or more they can become a school-wide which means those title funds can be used across students 35 to 40 is typically targeted only and that would be then following or being targeted to the identified kids so just because my kids moved to a school that wasn't titled doesn't make the building title nor but that doesn't mean they won't receive

054services specific to what they were getting before i think i misstated that what i meant is that it's highly likely we'll have targeted buildings based on the number of children we're moving to these buildings correct like even that's actually what i was talking about was the distinction between the targeted and and the full it could be but it depends one on how far the money can go okay and it depends on where those schools actually end up not where we're estimating okay and it needs and for folks to know like we won't get more target i mean we won't get more title money the same kids they're just in a different location so it will not generate more money for us right um and the first year out so both quarterly and prairie park being

055a new school potentially the very first year you you have to be targeted you don't get to become school-wide the first year so we'll have to navigate some of that programmatically okay as well and we'll continue to provide information as we can provide you but we did have a conversation with the state to try to work out some of those helping us plan but knowing we can't give you exact information because they want actual versus projections i appreciate that um and again the application isn't due until september 30 so you know that august enrollment will will drive some of that i think there was a misperception in the for some community members that if we had more title schools we would end up with more money and that's not the case i just want to

056make that from the number of students specifically thank you and reduced yeah so this last slide then just brings into perspective a little bit of of what you saw earlier and that the 722 that is the kind of theoretical savings or estimated savings for for the proposal that you'll be talking about a little bit later um and either making a motion or how you decide to do that you know i have the three going out because it was proposal a but it actually is the same three coming back in so that really is a neutral effect and the savings of 722 against the 742 would would bring that um number that we're trying to target down to two closer to 20 000. um again we're still waiting to see if this number up here is

057going to retain that number or if it's something different and so as we learn um and can fine-tune this we will continue to bring back potentially at each board of meeting maybe giving you just a quick update of status just so you can keep in the loop of how that's happening so um i know during your regular meeting tonight there is a motion to consider moving ahead with this kennedy proposal and so there will be another um or not and and what you choose to do then will drive what additional work the budget committee will need to do or how that needs to be directed moving forward um again knowing that we have this for this year and we still have things for 22.23 and there are a number of costs that have not been

058brought into the mix yet as they're pending additional conversations in different groups so i wanted to make sure i got done in your hours so leave some time for questions that either i can answer or somebody else in the room can answer so hopefully that was not too fast and hopefully provided you with some information that helps you ahead of your decision later tonight are there questions from board members okay all right thank you kathy i appreciate it absolutely if you think of something let me know i'll try to address it for you um i i actually have one i do have one question i'm looking at my notes but i think it's more appropriate for the the um for not for kathy it's a question about how we calculate capacity is that better saved

059for um later dr lewis or would you like me to ask that question now you can answer what i what i have garnered is the the capacity is a calculation in essence per square footage kind of thing and rsp took whatever was part of our 2013 bond issue for elementary schools what they could have as classroom space and how that would look along with specialized spaces and determine backed into what would be the number of kids and so when you you take your enrollment in the rsps scenario and you divide it out you get the total capacity number and then you can use that for the 85 to 95 ranges that we did that were also part of that so with classroom spaces for example um i i believe it it brings prairie park into

060that kind of 90-ish percent but they still have a classroom available also because we didn't use all five that were considered classroom space at prey park we only needed to use four so they would not be at full capacity there is still other things that could occur when you looked at new york for example it was built out to be a two-section school and when they went through it there really was only room for probably one more classroom in that particular facility cordley has five that were available to them as they walked through and that was built out to be a three section school and so those capacities were really generated through conversations with the 2013 bond issue the class the number of kids in the classroom what that space looked like what those extra

061spaces for art et cetera look like and was determined and then that's what rsp has been using for their report to determine those um utilization um numbers for our buildings so i'll be really specific there was a question posed to me and i i brought this to dr lewis ahead of time i just want the prairie park community to hear it around how they calculated the capacity for five sections in their building or even four and how quickly they might become over capacity or the perception that they might come over over capacity so what i'm hearing is that there are spaces that are currently not being used as classroom spaces that may in the future need to be repurposed for classroom spaces and in that case you might have to look at some of how

062they deliver services now could shift is that correct i think that's an accurate summer summer yeah you know as it's kind of like your house you expand into those spaces that maybe weren't designed to be a bedroom but now it's you know just you kind of and so the same thing happens at our school buildings if if they have space you kind of evolve into it you start using it for something other than the classroom space it was designed for and then when you start reaching those capacities or the utilization changes or enrollment growth changes you have to kind of re-look at where you grew into and how to how to bring that back and into the classroom space that it was initially designed for and i think that's probably what we're experiencing with that

063but i'm open the floor to something for conversation i i wasn't personally walking through those buildings but i know several in the room weren't if there was okay so the process was oh thank you so the process was in terms of determining where that would be was not only just what we have from the 2013 bond and rsv but also we we did or the administration did a walkthrough of the building to kind of get an idea of where those spaces might be okay okay and like anything we don't probably all agree with the outcome of that um but that was the procedure and the administration is fairly confident that we would be in and i and i know this is true i just want to hear it in this at the board table that

064um are confident that we wouldn't be in a situation in a year or two years or five years even where we would be looking at a portable or asking to you know expand a building when we've just had a pretty significant investment in the in the buildings we currently have is that the assessment i think that they're comfortable with those decisions but i i think i was our crystal ball can sometimes not predict out lawrence will do and so i i would hate to to promise something that i can't guarantee because i have no idea where people will move in this town and how they will fill our our schools and a lot of times the total looks right but how they've moved across our community has been very different than expected and so if

065you look historically that's that's a very um real result of just lawrence and its transitness and so um but i do believe that administration that walked through and and the conversations felt like they can definitely make next year work and and have backup plans to think about how that would navigate if if what you just described would actually um occur and we can also look at the data that we've gotten from the company we contract with to look at the capacity of buildings and where people are going to land in in lawrence and say with some that they have had um a good record of their predictions have been realized correct i think you could and i think using their data to explore some of those other um capacity and utilization issues and and maybe

066a charge to the boundary committee to help understand other options um so we're not always looking at it when we you know in the face of finance but looking at it just as a an exercise to understand where those growth places are and where they might not be in a different lens and and so that might be something that would be a good future task to to start sooner than later as far as just understanding options i appreciate that thank you so much okay um the next meeting starts at six but we're going to take a um shannon requested 15-minute break 10 minute um so we're going to take a 10-minute break and be back at um 6 10 to uh during the or not to adjourn to start the next meeting thank you for

067all your help kathy that was really helpful i appreciate it you have to tell us the most complicated information and you always do a great job so thank you yes special recognitions do we have any retirements tonight erica we do okay so the board of education recognizes the following staff members what's since their appreciation for their years of service and devotion to this community and its goals kim burke 39 years of service michelle markle 24 years catherine miller 25 years julie miller 25 years mary bentley 15 years sandra hilt 18 years mary lee 14 years thank you for your service we will now move on to report of the superintendent of schools dr lewis thank you madam chair we are currently asking all families of returning students to please complete our annual registration process that's

068in powerschool please do this by may 1st and what this annual registration does it enables our school families to one update their contact information address phone numbers they can update their student health information uh give consent consent for field trips and surveys review and acknowledge receipt of those required annual parent notices and then opt in to our emergency text messages from the district in our schools our family's annual registration also lets district know the students that will be returning next fall and this is extremely critical now more than ever in terms of our planning for the 21 22 school year like to publicly congratulate lawrence high athletic secretary emily cates we were out there last week she received our district class act award also lawrence high journalism advisor and graphic design teacher barbara tholen who

069was named this year's lawrence master teacher it was obvious from the mini nomination letters we received for each of these members that they are definitely deserving of recognition for the positive difference that they are making in the lives of our students and staff every day last week was assistant principals week i'll tell you in our district we are fortunate to have a very group of i'm sorry a very caring group of administrators talented associate principals and assistant principals that also serve as instructional leaders in our secondary buildings many thanks to each one of them for their many contributions and and time spent at extracurricular activities last wednesday was paraeducation paraeducator appreciation day and team lps we include 238 para educators whose service to the district ranges from one year to 38 years and we know

070that our para educators provide key instructional special education job coaching gifted education english as a second language title one early childhood and therapeutic support to our students and i want to personally thank all of our peer educators for their important hard work congratulations to west middle school's future city team they qualified for nationals this is super exciting the team received the best future city project plan award we're also in the midst of our kindergarten orientation so it's kindergarten orientation time swaggler kicked off the season for our elementary schools by hosting its first orientation last week for rising kindergartens if you're listening i'm trying to see which camera is pointed at me if you're listening to us and you have a kindergartner at home that's eligible please visit our website or contact your neighborhood school for

071more information about online new student registration and kindergarten orientation as soon as i looked at the camera turned off hope i didn't break it we're excited that the lawrence college and career center and paisley tech will partner to offer our high school students the opportunity to attend the douglas county skilled trades job fair which will be on april 27th at paisley tech our high school students can get more information about the skills trades job fair through their teachers and counselors i want to provide an update on our building bridges program our burton ash case managers are currently providing community-based case management and behavioral health services to 53 of our students and in families through this program if you recall our building bridges is an extension to our already amazing partnership that we have with burt

072nash and this was made possible through the douglas county cares act funding the lawrence schools foundation has added an immediate needs list to its website in order to assist staff and school families with basic necessities if you would like to offer support by donating financial or in-kind support you can find the immediate list needs list at the lawrence schools foundation website at lawrenceschoolsfoundation.org donate cans for community urges everyone to recycle their aluminum cans in the blue can houses found in the parking lots of grocery stores and other local businesses proceeds from april 5 000 pound recycling challenge will benefit all of our elementary schools and then lastly i want to be sure to remind everyone that all of our schools will be in session on friday april the 16th it's noted on our school calendar

073as a designated inclement weather makeup day you may recall that we did use an inclement weather day on february 16th due to the bitterly cold temperatures and wind chills and that was around the time we had those rolling power outages as well and so it's time to make up that lost instructional day and so we'll see all of our students in in person and online on friday thank you thank you dr lewis so because we started a little bit late i am going to [Music] move on to patron commentary so for audience participation i'm going to read our public comment request so the usd 497 board of education welcomes patron comments and thank you for taking time to talk to us about your policies and procedures we set aside this time during our regular meetings

074to hear from the public this is your time to share your opinions however complaints about specific staff or students will be heard by the board in executive session in order to protect the privacy of the individuals we discuss while you are not required to share your contact information we ask for the information so district staff or the board can follow up with any specific concerns you may have the board president will invite comment on topics not included on the agenda at the beginning of each meeting comments relating to agenda items are welcomed after the board has had the opportunity to discuss the topics please limit comments to three minutes okay okay we have one comment this evening that is not related to the kennedy proposal uh whitney schneider are you with us i am give

075me just one second okay can you hear me i can welcome thank you uh well hello everyone i spoke at the last meeting about masks for our special needs children i've been following the chain of commands in regards to my son's extension uh mask exemption two things i'd like for everyone to keep in mind regarding my quest is that one i didn't push for this during the fall as the time was inappropriate and two i'm not asking for him to be in a classroom full of students i'm specifically asking for um my son's services with that said since last march i've essentially had to build his own private iep team and that's what i've learned this year is that if you can pay for it you can get it all of my son's private therapists

076have respected and honored his mask exemption and literally there's not been any hiccups regarding his private services um he had a short stint at a local private school that also honored his mask exemption that didn't work out because he needs well he has higher needs than they could uh provide um so seemingly everyone except our public school have been completely understanding regarding his needs everyone except the district who wrote his iep it's become increasingly aware that for us the individual in iep doesn't actually represent the individual when i expressed my concerns to his team i was asked to present a written medical exemption so sure i'll get it however every new appointment for a special needs individual takes a considerable amount of time and money which to my guess is why the same governing bodies

077you're using for gating criteria including the cdc in the state of kansas explicitly the people with disabilities specifically those with autism are exempt from mask wearing when i asked for resources to provide me for with some risk i was told to ask our doctor or neurologist therefore more appointments more delays my trust regarding my son's need this month i not alone agreeing with the meetings highlights of non-discriminatory behaviors and inclusion however you're missing an entire population um and that being districts surrounding us are accommodating students like my son i'm unsure why usd 49 chooses not to thank you thank you mr schneider i appreciate that you um are here with us again tonight and um and i want to acknowledge the challenges your family has has experienced um we do have a related issue related

078um item on the agenda if you are continue to say it might be relevant to your circumstances thank you i will okay so um now we will open up for board commentary board members shannon thank you kelly um i appreciated the summary from kathy johnson regarding the legislative update i just wanted to hit on a couple of things uh big things the education budget conference budget bill um thankfully it failed to pass in the senate last week that that bill included a number of damaging education policy proposals that had passed the house the kansas house um and that a number of those revolved around substantial expansion of voucher programs in kansas um the downside of this is that because that conference committee bill failed as kathy mentioned there's no kansas department of education budget has

079been passed this session yet and they did not extend the statewide 20 mil levy for schools so that work uh likely will have to be done during the veto session it's my understanding that they expect to see the house k-12 education budget committee leadership try to resurrect the voucher proposals and other policy proposals during the veto session um unfortunately the conference committee report for senate bill 55 which contained the hateful anti-transgender athlete provisions of senate bill 208 that we talked about at our last board meeting did pass both houses thankfully without a veto proof majority and it's on its way to the governor i would like to call on governor kelly to veto that legislation it's harmful to our transgender students and student athletes across the state it's unnecessary and discriminatory and i hope that

080she does not allow it to become law kathy also mentioned the bills requiring a financial literacy course for graduation they that also included um instituting a high stakes civics high stakes test for required for graduation on civics i would hope that the governor also vetoes these proposals but in particular because in my opinion these proposals overstep the legislature's bounds and intrude on the constitutional authority of the state board of education and also local boards in terms of setting curriculum and graduation requirements the legislative summary that kathy provided in the kasb summary on the wrap-up had good summaries about the details of those provisions i want to publicly thank our douglas county senators marcy francisco and tom holland and also our house members representatives heiberger ballard housewood and amix for their votes and their support of

081our public school students and their advocacy around all of these issues particularly in this last week it's been a lot going on since our last board meeting i'll make it short just wanted to briefly mention we had a policy committee meeting we did discuss the board's feedback about the board organization manual we'll be coming back to the board with that for another discussion soon but we didn't have updates ready for today facilities we heard good updates from our staff on construction at lhs also at west middle school and summer projects unfortunately the the at the time we had our meeting at the beginning of the month the air evaluation air quality evaluation report was not yet available i anticipate that we'll be getting that hopefully sometime this month and we'll be able to discuss recommendations

082around that in the future this week was the national school board association's virtual convention um on thursday friday and saturday last this last week i had the opportunity to attend that and some really great learning sessions and i hope to follow up with some information to share with board members from some of the sessions that i was able to attend so that's all i have thank you um shannon that just is a follow up uh we i have planned on writing a letter to the governor related to the bills that we have discussed as a collective group hoping that there is a veto for so that's something i can work with you on and certainly run it by board members through elise be happy to help thank you thank you okay other board members all

083right um dr lewis yeah um before you vote on the uh consent agenda item i do want to bring uh to the attention of the board and the public um there's a consent agenda item that consists of the rules and procedures as it relates to senate bill 40. as you know on march 18th senate bill 40 i'm sorry the kansas legislator passed um senate bill 40 or you also hear it as sb 40 which pretty much gives local school districts school boards rather the ultimate authority as it relates to making decisions concerning attendance concerning educational models whether it's remote hybrid and also safety interventions that um are used to come back the spread of of covet 19 in their individuals districts as you know governor kelly did approve that bill and it became law uh

084once it was published in the uh kansas register uh i think on march 25th and so um this law will be in effect until the state disaster um emergency comes to an end and that's slated to be may 28th of of this year and so and with that concern we're asking the board to adopt our emergency rule um procedures pursuant to sb40 uh that will allow us to conduct those hearings in an efficient manner uh in addition um you're giving the superintendent the authority to um designate a designee or designees to conduct those hearings okay are there any questions about that before we move on to consent okay so we need an approval of the consent agenda is there a motion does shannon i move the board of education adopt the items listed on the

085consent agenda it's jrl second yes yes johnson yes okay so we'll start with new business and we have tonight if you'll all um bear with me our first senate bill hearing related to masks so dr lewis do you want to start with the responsibilities for the school district or will we start with our yes we will start with mr scott huff is here with us if you don't mind stepping to the microphone there we received our first request for our senate bill 40 hearing and at this time we'll ask mr huff to huffman i'm sorry to address the board yeah first of all i'd like to thank you dr lewis i respect you highly in your credentials i've watched you closely dealing with our kids at many sporting events past couple of years and i

086see a man who cares about those kids you have a sincere compassion and a love for all kids of any race color size denomination it doesn't matter and i can tell they love you and so i really appreciate you responding to my email thursday night and giving me an opportunity to have this hearing so thank you thank you very much and board i appreciate you giving me a couple minutes your time first i'd like to read a little excerpt from an article just to give you a little background as to why i'm standing here giving you this a grievance of what happened april 2nd and i'll give you a little more background on what happened there the question on whether to wear a face mask during the covid 19 pandemic remains very emotional and contentious

087and i think you can all agree that it has been very highly politicized this question about the utility of face coverings which we're all wearing here has really taken on uh quite a quite a a life of its own i think and is very controversial i don't know if dr marcelino is here this evening but uh i hope he recognizes that the evidence is not has not been there to support mass use for asymptomatic people to stop the spread of covid i've been in pharmaceuticals for over 21 years i have a degree from the university of kansas i make my money by interpreting scientific data for highly educated doctors the evidence has not been there the world health organization has also published a report saying asymptomatic people do not spread sars cop2 this includes peer-reviewed

088evidence that these do not support the use and leads heavily towards masks having no significant impact on stopping the spread of the covet virus it's not unreasonable at this time to conclude that the surgical and cloth masks as they currently have been used have absolutely no impact on the controlling of the transmission of the sars cop2 virus and in fact current evidence for many clinical trials and i'm happy to provide that to the doctor or whoever wants to see it can actually be shown to be harmful having said all of that and having read numerous numerous clinical trials including the one in our annals of internal medicine and another one that looked at 10 million people i arrived at lawrence high school on friday october 2nd i'm sorry april 2nd to watch my son my

089fifth high school graduate coming through free state high school just pole vault i went to an outdoor stadium and a long time friend of mine jack hood who's the head coach at lawrence high school he knows me i was in the olympics in 96 i participated as an olympian for the united states he turned me away and said you have to have a mask on another employee also stopped me and i said the mask mandate in the universe in kansas ended two days ago and they said well we're following douglas county health procedures and they would not allow me entrance into an outdoor facility i'm contesting this particular action this is i'm reading from the the form that i sent you dr lewis i'm contesting these actions due to an overreach of any transparent publicly

090available published policy specifically forbidding entry to an outdoor venue without masking i would like to see where that policy is because i cannot find one the douglas county healthcare recommendations are linked on your website but they specifically have an exemption for those who can social distance outdoors i have seen nothing other than suggestions from keisha regarding masking outdoors and so i have two concerns the actions that i would like to ask you to take respectfully is number one i would like to receive a public apology for overreach by coach jack hood who's a friend of mine i love the guy for overreach of policies whether published or not i don't know secondly and most importantly public acknowledgement for the february 9th sorry february 19th douglas county health orders stating mask exceptions outdoors when social distancing

091is possible that is all i have to ask of you and you tell me how to proceed thank you um this is our first time having one of these hearings so i will we board members can ask questions if you have any questions otherwise we'll open it up to dr lewis to explain the district's position and recommendation questions okay uh not hearing any dr lewis yes uh thank you mr huffman for for being here um we require mass as you know obviously in all of our buildings on all district staff even outdoor events and i don't know if you watch some previous vort board meetings or just um heard about uh early on in the in the fall in the in the winter when we were adamantly trying to provide our um scholar athletes an

092opportunity to come compete and so we assembled a covet committee together and even prior to that when we were trying to get kids back in school um we i say we in douglas county assembled um a rehashed i guess a reformed unified command which consists of city and county officials all of our usd superintendents but in addition to that thomas marcelino is on that committee um well yeah that committee dr jennifer scripture who's the scriptioner i always mess her name up i apologize dr schrempsher who's the infectious disease physician ku's medical pandemic advisory team were advising us as as well and at the onset i've i've stated you know i may have a dr in front of my name but i'm certainly not a medical doctor nor do i play one on on tv and

093so i have to lean heavily on those individuals and the experts and obviously what the cdc has shared with us as it relates to us locally it is expectation of the board of us that we follow mass mandates both inside buildings and outside at sporting events in addition we follow kacia's guidelines which is the kansas high school athletic association guidelines which states that all individuals spectators parents support staff coaches uh are required to to wear a mask and if you allow me i'll read specifically from the track and field um casey guidelines it says all participants including but not limited to athletes coaches officials spectators support staff and all others attending participating in school activities shall wear face covering in the manner it is intended to be worn for the purposes of covet 19 risk

094mitigation while at the while at the event venue and for the duration of the event the only exception is provided for athletes during the time that they are competing and for officials doing active play even when i go watch my son play baseball outside obviously i'm in a mask uh in order to um be permitted um and so i was all about to say we as far as i'm concerned we have to follow follow science and i have to follow the guidelines that the experts are are giving me again to keep all of our staff our scholar athletes as well as our spectators safe right board members we are required to make a to draw a recommendation from the board in front of you on your agenda are three possible options are there any board

095members who would like to make a motion based on hearing mr huckman and dr lewis's presentation i'll make one thank you i moved the board of education to uphold the district's mass requirements on all school district properties a second yes yes yes yes yes thank you thank you mr hookman for coming appreciate your participating thank you very much for having me again i really appreciate that yes and we'll follow up with you on some documentation in terms of um obviously the result here and the next steps that you can choose all right thank you thank you okay so we have a next on the agenda a report for a proposal for ech community center at an early childhood education community center at kennedy and boundary change for k through five students to cordley new york

096and prairie park uh here to present is um is it kathy no it's me dr lewis sorry doctor i didn't mean kathy didn't want to come back up she said while you're doing i'll just jump in for the patrons at home that are providing comment i just want you to know that we haven't forgotten you and then after we hear dr lewis's presentation we'll make space for you to share with us your experience and and feedback to the board okay good evening everyone again i wanted to provide uh an update to the board in terms of our our proposal you've heard at our work session some numbers that kathy so eloquently shared with the with the boarding community and so i'll try not to rehash some of the information that um she shared uh essentially

097this is what we're uh proposing and this is what we want to discuss during this this next few minutes here one we know that the district as kathy indicated has experienced a sharp decline in enrollment and obviously enrollment is tied to the funding and so that results in a a loss of funding kennedy's k-5 enrollment has dropped below 200. and if you look at the projections um they're slated to go even lower and i'll talk a little bit about that in just a just a moment and as you mentioned the estimated permanent and ongoing loss of funding into next fiscal year is 1.2 million dollars so if approved the kennedy k-5 students will transition to neighbor neighboring schools courtly new york and prairie park and staffing will follow students and i do want to take

098a moment to acknowledge acknowledge loss here although we are not closing the doors to the building we are closing grades k-5 i spoke to a parent in the kennedy kennedy area who just bought a home in the kennedy area for the purposes of their children going to kennedy i also um understand that kennedy has a an amazing turnaround principle uh miss chelita middleton and a dedicated staff who have worked to prove people wrong about what data what some research says about students from high ses areas in terms of equating high ses to low performing as i shared with the entire community at convocation two years ago kennedy had the highest gains of all of our elementary schools and so i do acknowledge that loss and acknowledge the hard work that that staff has put in

099over there i'd also shared with the kennedy with kennedy conversations that um the quote that you can't control the wins you can only adjust your your sales and so for the for the past several years even prior to becoming those wins have been um budget and finance in kansas school finance and this has been a tremendous huge gust of win uh with with covet 19. and so we're having to make some very difficult decisions um in terms of allocating or maximizing our staffing allocations and so those estimated budget savings are tied to what kathy presented in the amount of thousand dollars and i will say this the district is committed to a successful transition which i'll talk about here in a little bit to provide each student with the highest quality of education possible as

100you know we did have two kennedy conversations one on march the 30th and one on april the 7th and we had over 115 attendees attending those some of them and this is non-duplicated because we had some that attended both both sessions both sessions shortly after we launched a thought exchange where we posed the question what is top of mind as you consider the proposal to develop an early childhood community center and transition kennedy k-5 students to prairie park new york and courtly we had over 126 participants contributing 142 thoughts and 26 over 2 600 ratings so that was comprised of about 35 percent were kennedy staff um 33 were kennedy parents and guardians we had 15 there were community members and the rest were other lps staff so they were to submit a thought and

101then go in and rate thoughts and so they were asked to read and rate additional thoughts and these are the top three thoughts uh on your screen here with the top thought being a big community concern is that students who live within walking distance to kennedy will not be eligible for busing uh to their new school and i hope the district will consider reducing the 2.5 mile requirement to accommodate those students commute to and and from school and then you have other uh thoughts listed there um as well as catholic illustrated our k5 enrollment projections and and this is again this is kennedy's j they're just their k-5 uh enrollment projection you can see during the 17-18 year we were above 200 at 2 32. still above 218-19 school year and then we took a

102dip to 187 last year in 185 this year if you look at projections they're projected to be around 167 24 25 school year as well as 23 24 school year if you recall our our art we had an rsp presentation back in october of 2020 and what he shared was current and future projected building capacities and as kathy mentioned the recommendation is around 85 to 95 and the purpose of this recommendation is that it enables the district to maximize staffing allocations for providing consistent consistency in the delivery of services to students instead of sharing staff across elementary schools so um if you see that capacity goes down 23 24 school year and and beyond to 41 capacity so if we do repurpose kennedy where will the students go kathy shared this also but for those

103that may not have heard that those students and i shared this information at the kennedy conversations as well those students that are residing south of 15th east of harper and north of 23rd will attend prairie park those scholars residing south of 19th north of 23rd and west of harper will attend courtly and those that are residing within the glenn drive maple lane 19th and harper sections will attend new york and so it's roughly around maybe 20 students that will attend new york and around 70 each for prairie park um in courtly i do understand the concerns for student safety it came out loud and clear on our thought exchange there were questions asked at our kennedy conversations i think board members you've been receiving emails around student safety and transportation we do have children that

104cross 23rd street massachusetts street iowa street and 6th street and so we think about student safety anytime changes like this are made we always involve the city and they look at these areas they're the traffic experts so they have traffic experts and obviously partnering with safe routes to school and they look at these errors to ensure that there are safe routes for our scholars to to cross and our city provides crossing guards and sometimes signalization those flashing lights that tell you to slow down in in in certain areas when when necessary um and so again you think about the students that already crossed and these are swaggler students corley sunset and hillcrest students that are crossing massachusetts 23rd 6th street and iowa street and we are fortunate to partner with a safe routes to school

105and they examine those barriers to neighborhood walkability and also help identify the safest routes possible for our scholars and kel you did mention as it was a question was proposed at one of our kennedy conversations so we did look at the cost of reducing the mileage from say 2.5 to 2 miles and also from 2.5 miles to 1.5 miles for kennedy scholars i will say this i would i would recommend that if we do do that that we look holistically at some of our other schools and not just kennedy and isolation so that cost from reducing it just from 2.5 to 2 miles would be around 116 000 and 1.5 miles 135 000 again those are just estimates we did check the number of students that we have that are above two miles i believe

106it's around five students that are above two miles and that's going to kennedy i'm sorry going to prairie park kennedy prairie park um and so we will we'll need to examine um again those other schools that where students live more than um 2.55 miles i will say this also um in talking to principal middleton um had an excellent idea in terms of one she knows her families and so she brought up the option of that may assist families with before school care and currently before school care is not offered at um prairie park and so if because it is an early school if before carry is offered at prairie park then parents will have an opportunity to drop their kids off at seven so they need to get to to work and so we think

107about uh the schools that will we'll be receiving kennedy scholars we want to ensure and want to be intentional about their successful transition um and so these transition activities can happen as early as um may toward the end of the end of april and happen throughout the month months of may we're fortunate to have webex where students can have an opportunity students and staff can have opportunity to meet additional future classmates and staff field trips if you want to take small groups of students over to receiving schools to actually physically see the space um and darcy is working with these principals and i will be working with these principals on on this open houses excuse me where families could come in and this is a this is an addition to your traditional uh back to

108school nights in open houses these will just be just for our um these receiving schools that we'll be receiving our kennedy scholars um and with the data we have when we think about that accountability piece with the data that we have aims web our dca's srss data students who may have began the gei process we have data teachers are meeting in data teams and plc is about student student growth we have our pulse on on every single student and that won't change we will not expect anything less for our students that will be transitioning to to kennedy whether um educators are talking about best practices and strategies in terms of working with with students if i'm a receiving school and i'm getting gr and i know gr doesn't like anyone to get in his face

109we'll provide that information on so we will make sure we're providing that continued student-centered decision um and and supports for our students from an academic standpoint uh behavioral social and um emotional and so we think about the early childhood community center um proposal before you jump on because this is kind of the transition from would it be okay to see any questions okay board members are there any questions from the initial part of the presentation um i have a question the um if if the um the receiving schools if we know that there may be increases in the number of um uh behavioral issues they might have to be managing just given what's been reported to the board around challenges for each of those schools to to support students and i know they're all doing

110really amazing work and you've mentioned some of the ways in which they've been um uh our teachers are and our social workers are doing exceptional work and our counselors are doing exceptional work and behaving them are in um not behaving them in in uh interventions and and and uh seeing protecting their social emotional health what i can see the continued um resources that we currently have is there any intention in the transition years while receiving schools are getting to know children to provide additional supports beyond what we already are doing in one of the community meetings you talked about potentially allocating resources in that way or the district could do more to support students or teachers who might be yes so we will make sure that we're doing everything to support all of our all

111of our scholars but specifically when we look at kennedy students going to new york corley um or prairie park um we will make sure that um all schools have what they need in terms of resources support um we have extra funds that we definitely can can tap into for for that additional layer of support but one of the things that i shared with with staff and i've always said is that at the beginning of every school year and this is something that has to to continue is that um staff phil spend those first few weeks of school just really getting to know students you know because they have new students every every year but again to your point yes we will provide additional supports to to those schools okay i have a question um and

112i didn't think to ask this during kathy's presentation but um are there any right now positions at corley that are shared staff that would become full-time fte if the enrollment cordley is increased samrie are you on with the addition of about 70 students um you're talking about specialists right yeah i was just trying to remember if there are any of the shared stuff positions i don't anticipate there would be a prairie park because it was the same size but i was wondering about cordley carly currently does henry is on sammy are you going to answer it you're on mute sammery oh we can't hear you there so i did spend a little time with sammy and denise today and we were looking at and evaluating special staff again it just really depends on the final

113number there is a possible scenario around that just depending on the number of sections and where it ends up falling right now driven by the number of sections so it does have some shared staff positions right now yeah so all of the our smallers courtly new york kennedy woodlawn broken arrow all currently have their specials they split up um in some form or fashion where you see where they are more likely to have a full time is when you have a solid three section or majority of a three section school but yes that's helpful thank you mr sabolfield can you talk about the um the training that kennedy staff receives specifically the the approach that they use in terms of their so they've been kennedy and poor in new york both in the last two

114years have started to train their staff around responsive classroom we did have some conversations with a couple other elementaries courtley has been one and actually scott reached out to darcy and myself and then in talking about um transition m to kennedy students to prairie park that is something that we have talked about that based off all three of those schools we may have an opportunity to bring a trainer here to train teachers or to look at what it looks like to train a certain number each year which that's what kennedy did they did certain groups these years but we have started to have preliminary conversations around that even prior to this specifically for courtly in new york had started last year because there was another elementary principle that also inquired about it so it's it's

115um it could be part of the plan that that um responsive classrooms be a component of the supports that prairie park um might receive or in addition to cordley and new york yeah new york already is on the in the process prairie park and quarterly that could be that we've already started talking about the um in addition to the transition but just because it's good practice we had already started to look at some schools and how to get them trained okay great thank you so much i appreciate that based on preliminary numbers it's about eight kennedy teachers that would potentially go to uh prairie park it's is it six hammering because it was eight total i think two to courtly six to prairie park or okay okay and the idea would be that they would

116be able to help support that um the training around those uh that particular approach um they would uh have already possibly been trained but they yes and as you bring on others they would and the principal would get additional training did we just lose people okay it just went away um but yes yes okay thank you and then dr lewis with the going back to the transportation and the costs that were associated with with bringing um the one the model that you described in terms of um bussing students from certain distances when we moved from when we were building or rehabbing east side schools which we recently did with the 2013 bond um my daughter was in cordley and there was a a way in which the students could all meet at one particular spot

117and then be bussed to east heights is that when you were calculating out the cost of transportation what was the model of transportation that that folks were looking at that got us to that dollar amount would that make any difference at all i'm just trying to understand it was just looking at those students that were that that fell within that um two two and a half mile or more establishing routes to their corners or their their homes okay so we didn't look at a model where a child would be at where children would meet at a central location get on the bus and and go over no we didn't look at that model but um what we can do in addition if there's any students with with special needs that um live in the vicinity

118and don't know in some other schools if there's an already established route with some students we can potentially add them to that right okay and the um the the collaboration with the city around um uh how how have we began those conversations with them already around how we would make that cross um safer or will that happen um after the board gives direction i think um samri had asked ron to begin those conversations okay and we do have a really strong relationship with him about that all right thank you yeah and i meet with with craig i'm the city manager and county administrator monthly yes thank you okay so we mentioned an early childhood community center i will i don't want to spend too much time on the research i think we all would agree

119and understand the benefits of early childhood what you're seeing on the screen was a study that that was done and it was a meta-analysis and it basically found that children who attended high-quality early childhood programs were less likely to be placed in special education less likely to be retained integrated and more likely to graduate from high school than their peers who didn't attend such programs and what we know about that that transition successful transition are mostly strongly influenced by children's home environment the preschool program they are attending and that continuity between preschool and kindergarten we also know that high quality and high quality preschool experiences benefit children's cognitive and their social development and their success in school and beyond but still even in our district we have many kindergarten scholars that are entering the classroom

120without the benefit of a quality preschool experience and so this early childhood community center will help fill that gap um in local services to families and their young children in in one location uh at kennedy and i also say this if we want to see our enrollment increase this this can be our pipeline uh when when families and parents experience parents as teachers when they experience tiny k uh when they experience um early childhood special education that's uh offered at kennedy in our other early childhood classrooms they're more likely to stay in our district and so this really becomes our natural pipeline to increase our enrollment there are we've all heard about the social determinants of health there are many ways of defining those social determinants of health what the douglas county health equity report

121looked at was the cdc and the healthy people 2020 and aligns those social determinants in these five areas that are listed on your screen i'll point out number two as a social determinant to health is education early childhood development in in literacy we know that kennedy serves the largest percentage of our economically disadvantaged students and so investing early on in early childhood education in one of our most disadvantaged neighborhoods is is a research-based strategy to improve not only the academics but the health outcomes of some of our most vulnerable residents so the most recent addition to the douglas county community health plan is the anti-poverty plan which was approved by the douglas county human services coalition in january so this facilitated the development of a set of goals and objectives to foster an equitable douglas

122county an equitable douglas county economy by implementing system-based solutions to reduce local poverty so that's that was one of the goals to reduce uh local poverty and discrimination and to expand access to opportunities whenever we look at gaps or anything it's all about access to opportunities so so that these residents can not only participate um but also prosper and and reach their full potential so their work included the anti-poverty community survey and in that survey it included the recommendations to invest in jobs affordable high quality child care and education for all this will help school families in poverty obtain the child care that they need to work and improve future economic mobility so as you can see on this slide here access to child care was seen as the one of the top five barriers

123to employment here in douglas county according to this survey and we believe that our school district plays a a huge integral role in lowering these barriers and so as as residents have identified those additional barriers to employment while these barriers are identified by individuals it kind of helps explain the um some of the system issues that are prevalent in in douglas county that that help contribute to poverty and so after completing that survey um in meeting with various focus groups the um douglas county anti-poverty plan identified a number of strategies to create policy um system and environmental changes that resulted in an environment in which the percentage of children they look specifically at bipolar children black indigenous and people of color living in poverty they wanted to make sure that it does not increase and

124so two of those strategies are listed here on the screen and one is to launch a a pilot to provide high quality and affordable child care and education from birth uh to kindergarten for our bipoc children and families and then another strategy on the screening issue develop coordinated early care and education system to maximize child care the child care industry resource acquisition and efficiencies and so those recommendations align with research indicating that high quality center-based education early education programs should be widely implemented in future interventions directed at infants and young children that's also a um a huge area that of need uh infants in in toddlers and so in lawrence public schools if we believe we partner with the city partnering with the county and other area early childhood providers and others if we come

125together and address some of these educational equities especially in early childhood focusing on creating an early childhood center over at at kennedy so we know that access to affordable quality child care is also essential to working parents to to enter and particularly coming on the backs of this uh pandemic to re-enter and then to stay in in the workforce yet extremely hard to come by and so obviously this covert 19 pandemic has definitely exacerbated this this challenge of and obviously it's becoming increasingly more challenging to find affordable quality child care we know that child care is a two generation workforce issue critical to the workforce of today according to the u.s chamber comer 74 of working parents say that their job was affected by child care breakdowns last year and we know those first years

126of life are extremely critical for children to build a strong foundation a strong foundation in which their future learning uh is built yet that that supply is definitely not does not meet that demand here locally there are less than 200 slots available for the 1200 children born in douglas county each year i shared this with the kennedy conversation although there is that that struggle of of closing the doors to k5 what excites and energizes me is when we think about what's what's possible um and before we talk about what's possible let's again highlight what's already taken place over at the early childhood center with our parents teachers although they're not how's there right now parents are teachers tiny k early childhood special education who does some great work in terms of making sure that our

127early learners receive the supports that they need to be successful in kindergarten and then also our other early childhood classrooms and really looking at this to transform from just being a k-12 school district to a b-12 school district um the earlier we can get them the the better but then the long-lasting impacts from uh the impact on our early learners and their families the impact on that we'll have on poverty uh economic development workforce those social determinants of health i could talk about this you know for a while but i've invited some friends to share their their perspectives um as it relates to being some potential partners we have with us this evening kim polson from children's center um jill jolliker from douglas county there she is douglas county marie treikel did i get it

128right from child care where anna jenny positive bright start and hugh carter with the chamber kim we want to start with you thank you very much for the opportunity to be here tonight to talk with you again my name is kim polson i'm the executive director of the community children's center we're a local non-profit and our primary purpose is creating community connections to build resilient children and families our primary focus is douglas county and our early childhood community as is the case with difficult budget decisions much time and energy is spent assessing what will be lost and at what cost to the community that is a necessary and often painful part of the process but i'd like to take a few moments to explore what could be gained on the other side of this process

129in the form of an early childhood community center in 2019 a statewide early childhood needs assessment was conducted by the university of kansas center for public partnership and research in collaboration with the kansas state department of education children and families health and environment and the kansas children's cabinet and trust fund i'd like to bring your attention to three key findings tonight which i feel are pertinent to the opportunity that is before our community key findings of this needs assessment included there is an inequitable access to quality high quality affordable early child care programs and services there is a lack of continuity which means children often experience gaps in high quality early childhood programs due to lack of availability or care transitions such as moving from infant toddler to preschool and finally that there's a disconnected

130early childhood system that creates significant navigational challenges families are left to connect the dots for themselves and they often miss opportunities for timely interventions and support for their children and their family now the result of this needs assessment is a strategic plan for early childhood in the state called all in for kansas kids 2020-2024 the vision of that plan is that young children and their families will have a solid foundation of support from a tile from the time a child is born to ensure that their basic needs are met and there is equitable access to high quality affordable child care and education now fulfilling that vision for lawrence and douglas county includes the needs for physical space to provide these services but it extends far beyond the brick and mortar it requires cross-sector collaboration and

131common goals in an early childhood care and education mixed delivery system within this type of system young children and their families are at the center and the community services and supports wrap around that family to meet their needs which includes high quality early child care and education but it goes further it goes to basic needs support physical and mental health services crisis services employment support early screenings and interventions this model also includes partnership with local school districts to provide a robust coordinated transition to k-12 education we find ourselves at a unique moment in this time where there is a strong interest in this two generation approach to early childhood from the school district the non-profit and private sectors and the government not only at the city and county levels but also at the state and

132federal levels out of tonight's difficult decision we have an opportunity to create the best version of an early childhood community center one that would increase family choice and voice in securing nurturing high quality affordable early child care options for their children one that would reduce disparities and disruptions in the early childhood experience while increasing community engagement in early childhood across the board and one that would provide support and training for early childhood professionals across our county including home-based and center-based providers to increase the quality of services across the community and finally one that would create a community where early childhood care and education services align with district standards and expectations so students are academically socially and emotionally prepared when they enter a lawrence public schools kindergarten classroom as a compassionate community that wants the best

133for our children and families we have a responsibility to validate and honor the loss that will be felt by the kennedy neighborhood should the building close to k-5 services but we also have a responsibility to acknowledge that the early years are a critical period for intervention that establishes a child's foundation for school and life success we have an opportunity to put that belief into true community action that will benefit young children and their families including those in the kennedy neighborhood for this and future generations thank you for your time i'd like to turn it over to jill doliker with the county to talk about how early childhood plays into some of the other community initiatives thank you good evening thank you for having our group tonight and i'm really honored to be able to have

134a chance to present um just a few highlights of the community health plan focused on anti-poverty dr lewis did a really great job of kind of hitting the highlights as it focuses on early care but at a high level um and let me back up real quick i while i am here um rep my full-time position is the assistant county administrator for douglas county the role that i've played in the development of this plan is as a co-convener along with the united way of douglas county um with a lens of this is the the social determinants of health and what we do as a community um the county will play a role one way or the other but i i want to make sure that i'm articulating that you know this is a larger vision

135than just one organization it's not it's not just douglas county it's not just the lawrence public school district this is a community need that we've articulated in the anti-poverty plan so at a high level the goal statement of the community health plan related to anti to reducing poverty in the county is um the end the goal of the anti-poverty work group is to foster an equitable douglas county economy by implementing systems-based solutions to reduce local poverty and discrimination and expand access to opportunities so all can participate prosper and reach their full potential i think dr lewis highlighted this as well but by 2023 our overall objective is to create policy system and environmental changes that result in an environment in which the percentage of bipac children living in poverty does not increase that aspect of

136does not increase was acknowledging that there will be there are and there will be real impacts in the future of the kovit 19 pandemic on our bipod community um so we we wanted to be realistic in terms of crafting this plan um dr dr lewis also highlighted that this plan was influenced um and shaped through jen what we've felt to be genuine community engagement strategies over the course of at least two years we've been working on this plan um so we did community surveys on solutions to poverty poverty focus groups with centered populations leaning on organizations like family promise and healthy dads program through the douglas county health department and focus groups with residents with lived experience our priority focus areas in addition to children and child care um is the decriminalization of poverty um

137and jobs and then we have some developmental priorities related to transportation and creating a community-wide data dashboard that speaks to these so these social determinants of health to help us as a community monitor how we're doing and how we can track progress and set some aspirational goals um i think what you'll hear from our partners that are positioned to talk about the proposal that we think could lend nicely with this opportunity not only at kennedy but just in the moment that we're at in the community on the recognition that this is a community priority and we need to have some form of momentum um is you're you'll see um you're going to hear from some agency partners in addition to kim that are here because they think this is important to our community um they're

138represent they're not only representing their organizations but they're representing um their their voice in the community and they've dedicated countless hours of their time to developing the strategies in this plan and crafting a vision that i think could be transformational in spa in spaces including kennedy and pr and hopefully others so i think it's just an important moment and i'm gratified that the community health plan will be able to has set some aspirational goals that have inspired folks like dr lewis to think about the what we set forth in this plan but this plan is a living document and so i don't i don't i don't envision that it will um we will do everything as this plan says because when opportunities like what we're talking about tonight come up we need to adapt we

139need to respond to what the community asks for what our potential partners ask for and do it in a the most thoughtful strategy possible thank you i'm going to hand it off to marie hello i'm marie treikel provider services manager at child care ware of eastern kansas and i really appreciate the opportunity to be part of this conversation tonight we know that access to affordable high quality child care is essential for working parents to enter re-enter or even remain in that workplace and yet it is especially hard to come by for families with infants and toddlers dr lewis stated that there's less than 200 slots available for the 1200 children born in douglas county each year and when it comes to infants and toddlers ages you know zero to 23 months we're talking less than

14030. and even though those slots are available they aren't truly accessible to all the families in in lawrence either there's many barriers but two of the topmost are the level of quality that's available at those locations and also affordability so if if turning kennedy into an early childhood center's hub comes to fruition we would be happy to support any efforts to add infant and taller classrooms to the site we would assist through our consultation and technical assistance services we estimate that about 54 infant and toddler slots could be created and supported through a collaboration of services to make them affordable for families and at a level of high quality that all children and their families deserve thank you i'll turn this over to anna jenny at positive right start good evening thank you for having

141me here tonight and giving me an opportunity to weigh in on this very heavy issue i'm anna jenny from positive bright start i've been in the early childhood community here in lawrence now for 17 years and i've seen the ugly and the beauty of the early childhood system here according to an african proverb it takes a village to raise a child when a family brings a new baby home from lawrence memorial hospital they quickly realize they've entered a whole new world the world they once knew was gone the new one is complex complicated it has a world of breastfeeding support a new physician enters along with new health concerns home visitation services are available along with parenting education their work quickly resolves begins to evolve around child care and early education additional forms of financial

142support may be needed academic and social emotional learning must be provided and yes early childhood mental health services and early intervention for special needs may be necessary these services are scattered throughout the city of lawrence in separate agencies the roadmap to access these services is hard to read it does not reveal all the potholes in the road to access them the closing of kennedy school is an invitation to make to addressing early child it's an invitation to addressing the need to make early childhood needs more accessible we have the opportunity to create an early childhood community center which brings these services under one roof for the family the benefits are enormous but simple a one-stop shop for essential services they can drop their child off at child care and go down the hall to talk

143to the parent educator about an issue that is troubling them or stop in the health center to make an appointment for the child's eye exam for the service provider the benefits are great an early childhood community center opens the door for increased collaboration between 2007 and 2017 i had the privilege of being a partner the kansas preschool program this was a collaborative effort that brought together school district and community preschool classrooms we shared ideas regarding curriculum wrap-around services professional development assessments and using the data from assessments to improve classroom instruction when we bring community infant toddler care usd 497 pre-clay classrooms home visiting programs health services early childhood mental health early intervention and other key services together under one roof we can have conversations about developmentally appropriate practice and professional development that will enhance the

144quality of services that we provide as we mourn the closing of a school that has been an important fixture in the lives of so many families let us embrace the impact that community early childhood center can bring to the lives of those families from birth to kindergarten a child makes a dramatic transformation she goes from being a helpless entity who can only communicate with a cry to a self-sufficient sufficient child with complex communication and problem-solving skills let us join together to support parents and their child through this process thank you thank you for coming this is the live mic i think they both are but if you yeah let me do this here can you hear me okay yes okay good evening sherwin jones members of the board dr lewis uh hugh carter i'm the

145vice president of external affairs for the chamber of commerce largely do government relations and and special projects um i'm really pleased that during this pandemic the chamber's taking advantage of the opportunity to pivot a bit and rather than focusing strictly on your traditional business related issues we've begun to focus a little more on the overall well-being of the community uh financial and otherwise and that's allowed us to work in the areas for instance of standing up uh food services meal program when the district uh had to shut that down helping with the housing stabilization collaborative provide rent assistance and working very closely uh with other partners on the development of the anti-poverty plan and the community health plan in general so with that i i ha i don't want to repeat what others have said

146here and dr lewis had asked me to sort of focus on the economic uh benefits of this um but that's not to skip over the the equity issues and whatnot i just don't want to repeat too much here it's worth noting that early care and education was really in crisis prior to the pandemic that was identified has been identified and in fact as a chamber we've been starting to edge our way into this and try and get our hands around how can we help this situation i'm a little taller why don't i skip to this one's a little higher they don't stretch either okay um but as you've heard i mean it's a pretty acute shortage in douglas county and it has been and how do you stand that up the challenge with the fact

147that there's a shortage of slots so there are too few of them to meet the the needs of working parents but there's also for those very few slots that are out there they're too expensive to be accessed by most folks so that was already very limiting in our in our local economy of course the pandemic has really exacerbated that problem both in the fact that providers are having issues but also i think dr lewis and and jill jollikur both touched on that that goal of not increasing the amount of low-income bipoc children in poverty and i just want to reiterate that that's actually a pretty aggressive goal because during this pandemic the low income folks typically that's more of a service related service industry related job they don't have the option of remote work they're

148losing their jobs disproportionately impacted by the pandemic so we know those numbers for us just to stay flat we've got to get on this and when it comes to an economic recovery we won't have a full economic recovery without serious intervention into the early child care and education ecosystem and i would also say we will never tap our potential if we don't do that um the u.s chamber in addition to dr lewis's you know that's quite a a number 74 percent of parents that were either the job was impacted or their ability to do continuing education and and improve their skills due to child care breakdowns in the past year additionally the the u.s chamber studied four states ida idaho iowa michigan and pennsylvania unfortunately not kansas it's very very hard to do this work

149and so they'll probably get around to that but we we can learn from that in that those four states the average economic impacts of child care breakdowns per year averages a billion dollars on those four states it's in the upper hundreds of millions for idaho and iowa and the other two states bring it up to an average of a billion so it's really significant and when you hear those numbers in douglas county i bring it to another statistic in that with 200 children slots a year and 1200 needed the national participation rate in the workforce is 75 so in other words of all the people who could be working take children out of the mix take retirees out of the mix if you have a disability that can't be accommodated be out of that mix

150people trying to work 75 percent of those people that are able to work are trying kansas the rate is 69 percent so that is a significant difference and the top three reasons people drop out of the workforce who otherwise could be productive in the workforce transportation no surprise child care number two i would say that the evidence suggests that douglas county is not an exception in that that 69 is probably points right to us as well and child care may even be at the top of that list so you can kind of think about just how well we could do prior to the pandemic we were below three percent unemployment that's virtually full employment we haven't companies that could grow from a retention and expansion standpoint but they don't have the employees to know that

151there are that many people on the sidelines because we don't have the quality affordable care slots available is kind of i don't want to say it's low hanging fruit because this is the complex problems in in this industry it's going to take a really innovative mix of funding from grants state federal funds the business community i will tell you we're very early in getting the case together to get many all the stakeholders we can in the community together to pool resources because that's what it takes here we did a presentation uh this morning or this afternoon to the public incentive review committee at the city related to their economic development strategic plan and for the first time my knowledge in our history anyway we've made a significant ask on early care and education those asks

152today got it approval from the public incentive review committee they'll go to the commission now for budget hearings and you'll hear more on that but we're hopeful that that's going to be the first major stakeholder to step in we'll of course be dealing with the county like i said the business community private industry etc to bring more uh resources to the table but and it's not really it's not just kennedy this is a good way of making use of space bricks and mortar is one of the biggest obstacles it's the biggest expense for folks to try and scale this up and so anytime we can utilize existing space that's going to be hugely important but also propping up additional family in-home care at a high quality level is extremely important and some of the budget

153requests that we've made are geared toward doing that as well because essentially the ask to today of the city was about six hundred thousand dollars a year in scholarships for families a couple hundred thousand dollars to help retrofit a facility whether that's kennedy or any other facility that would need to be brought up to um to code or meet licensing requirements for early care another 200 000 to help recruit additional caregivers or prop up some additional in-home care as well so it's going to take all of those things and more but it's a good start it's early in the process and the timing for kennedy to come along could could be great but it's not kennedy these are the kind of efforts that we're just beginning and not going to give up on so thank

154you thank you i can have my screen back um folks in the back okay thank you i want to thank our partners for potential partners for being here today you know often said um upon coming to to lawrence is that a lot of our governmental entities and partners working in silos i think this is a huge opportunity for us to really come together and and do some great work if you think about it this really is our equity work you know if we think about the work that um we need to do i'll give you a minute to read the uh on your screen there this program was designed to help break the cycle of poverty providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional social health social health nutrition

155and psychological needs sounds like what we want to do at kennedy today right well actually um january 8 1964 this was a result of then president lyndon b johnson's some legislation legislation he introduced in the state of the union address to help break the cycle of poverty and here we are close to 60 years later still having these same conversations i think we've all heard this quote before so with that i think this is a huge opportunity for us um to really do something great for not only the kennedy community but the entire city any questions and the link that you have there for those that may be watching and for the board in public is a list of faqs that are on our kennedy on our on our district website thanks to julie uh

156board members questions we still have patreon commentary too but so um did you have something yeah okay go ahead please um dr lewis aside from the community children's center and positive great start thank you for all the work that you're doing um how are you partnering with the other early childhood centers like the ballard community center for example um how are you going to manage not putting that organization out of its services that they currently provide yes um the need is great and i welcome our partners to to chime in too but we're looking we're not looking to compete um with anyone we're looking to expand child care for low-income families but not only that other community resources that could potentially be in this building and it says early childhood community center and i'm really

157serious about that work community being a part of of this building where the community has access to that building i think the value add for all early childhood providers is this idea of i think kim poster maybe was able to speak to that this idea of all of our early childhood providers coming together for for example rigorous pd around the early learning standards i think there's a grant being currently being written for just that kim you want to speak to that but a way for all of our early childhood providers because we're they're all doing early early childhood but imagine if we come together and provide some rigorous pd because the fact of the matter is years down the road we may see those same students that are in all of these different early childhood

158centers in our third grade classroom in our district kim well definitely the focus is on the children and the families there is also equal focus on the providers in our early childhood they're part of the early childhood community so our goal with these relationships these collaborations is to elevate early childhood across the community not just within one building so that is includes things like shared professional development high quality trauma informed training that in-home family providers can't afford on their own may not have access to we can look at shared resource models where we can pull together the number of individuals in our early childhood community to look at things that we haven't been able to do before in terms of sharing access to resources like accounting business development business supports illegal supports all those things

159that it's really difficult to start your own business from scratch and as marie can attest to there's so many challenges that are specific to early childhood that it makes it very difficult for someone to go into this if they don't have some business savvy and so we could look at this early child community center not as a place just to care for children but a place to care for the providers as well by providing them access to supports they don't have right now that answer your question i think so thank you and we could easily pop partner with with ballot obviously working with other agencies that could maintain their building and have a ballot classroom at kennedy as well when i first got here i met with the folks at ballard um this is certainly

160not the first time that kennedy has been brought to the table in terms of a proposal for early childhood and at around that time we were thinking what are we going to do with our low enrollment buildings and i asked the folks at ballard i said there ever was an opportunity to have an early childhood center would you want to be a part of that and then they shared with me about the history of that building which was very interesting that i did not know so they really loved that that building but those conversations with other early childhood partners will continue and can continue in terms of i thought i'd expansion in on that as well in that the scholarships that we're getting are not specific to a site so um you know they go

161even further for in-home care and other more affordable programs i suppose than than typical center care but ballard's a great example they're tapped out on space so these kind of the hope is that good programs like ballard whether kennedy won't be our only space it can't be and everything that's been mentioned here as great as it is it probably can't all be done at kennedy we'll try if that's uh the direction that you all go we'll do what we can but we're gonna need more than kennedy we're gonna need them in different areas around town um and and hopefully what will happen is programs like ballard that have no space to grow but have great demand potentially could have the ability to take a room here or there in some of these spaces as well

162to help them grow their program so as opposed to competition again as best we can and this is all still possibilities but there's certainly no intent or no expectation that anybody who's currently trying to provide these services would be squeezed out it should be that there will be more people provided the resources they need to utilize the services of the existing providers and then it's going to take a lot more so yeah how with the community center will this take away any existing supports from middle and high school students for example sped or at-risk students no no no we still have the all of our middle and high school students will still receive the same supports definitely there's at-risk funds that schools are getting it'll still be used to support those students in those buildings

163so this won't take away their funds at all so dr lewis kind of building on that a little bit on what um hugh had mentioned the the expense to the district uh we don't have any money we won't be expanding our the what we contribute to uh early childhood education will maintain at the same levels of spending this year as it will next year correct that's correct so when you um talk about the model that we have been talking about in terms of expanding and developing a child an early childhood education center the community model that you've you've mentioned is there is there a um this financial structure that folks tend to utilize in that in terms of you know we've mentioned funds from the city in terms of scholarships and maybe there might be

164support from the county but overall like how does that model look you know is it not um just how do you come together as a team as opposed to this is the entrance to this program or this is brightstar here and ballard here and any of the other providers that we have in the community yeah as far as funding and we talked a little bit about this on our tour friday we went up to kansas city to view operation breakthrough and woodland early learning center it's really grants um grants and business donors you know we're i don't want to call any business out but if we were to call out barry berry plastics they could have a classroom there in in in kennedy okay and so it sounds like that that that part of the

165development what we would be voting on tonight would be the vision and that you would need some time to develop that model i mean yeah and i would ask you do don't vote on the vision um we don't have i mean we have ideas uh this is going to be a community uh what you're voting on tonight is just the um proposal to um repurpose kennedy into an early childhood okay um and then the the expansion of it into the community center um that would be led by the district or collaborative um collaboration with the who who would be yeah and we had those conversations um i don't want to be out in front leading exports i actually said i didn't because then it becomes a lawrence public schools center community center and so i

166had asked questions about who is that central person that could lead this work to convene all of our early childhood partners together for the for the for the benefit of uh supporting this early learning center so there will be someone that that that's leading this i know there are some grant dollars partic some grants that's being written um for that and or we can utilize some of our conveners here in in the county that has been about this work for quite some time uh that's in a neutral uh position so we do envision a staff member of of coordinating that but not a district staff that's correct kim mentioned this in her presentation but i just wanted to to kind of hear you repeat it because i think you mentioned it in the kennedy conversations

167as well um is this say um a good opportunity for the district to partner and and really make some progress in expanding um kind of the high quality standards throughout our preschool programs in douglas county that's something i've heard need about in the past and then do you see this as an opportunity also to share um the whole entire proposal is equity work but in terms of specifically how usd 497 has gone about approaching that work do you see this as an opportunity to share that work as well with the providers that might be brought into the space yes again you know whether it's um i don't want to call any early childhood providers out but there's many early childhood providers that are here in this in the in this area and they're doing great

168great work um we have some early learning standards that um are rigorous i would say that and so a goal would be to to come together and provide and share best practices um and to have that location where they can come in um learn strategies from this child development center learn strategies from one of the existing early childhood early childhood providers over at kennedy we're looked at as leaders in the work around equity and i think you've seen from our parents as teachers who have presented at national conferences to the work that our early childhood classrooms over at kennedy are doing as it relates to equity that could only be enhanced by all of our providers coming together at the table and and her you know competition it's not competition i would use another c

169word and that would be collaboration and that would be a huge opportunity for us to cause as i mentioned it doesn't matter which early childhood provider um or center that a three or four year old is attending we will see them again and so the more that we can uh collaborate on the early end um the better for us in terms of the long-term work that we really want to do in terms of meeting some of our goals thank you you had mentioned the before school one of the central themes that i was hearing around around the um uh early childhood early childhood education center was around child care and you mentioned that the kennedy before school program would be closing if there wouldn't be a before school program at prairie park or there will

170be i just i didn't i missed that so yeah the curling is not a before school program there and i think anna correct me from any of the early sites we don't currently have early childhood i mean early childhood early before school programs we were having a conversation because we heard from the community the concern about um getting kids to school you know in distance if we could partner with um boys and girls club can i say partner with boys and girls club or um come up with other ways to provide that option to families that they can drop their kid off at seven okay and i think we can make that happen yeah so preliminary we just talked about that because that did come up as an option we currently only offer them at

171our late start school but in this particular case it will be an opportunity for us to explore what it looks like in a early start school and um i did reach out to boys and girls club but and they believe that it's possible we just would need to wait and explore on what it means and how many students and that kind of thing okay so that seems like something that you would be building leading up to august in terms of collaborating with boys and girls club to see if we can make that happen at least in some of the building if not all yes well not all of the buildings because they don't have the capacity to do it but we could possibly because quarterly is already a late start school and they have it

172we um we would probably start with prairie park because that's where the questions were coming from and then um see what it requires before we would try to explore it at other schools okay thank you yeah um and then the final thing that i wanted to just mention because one of the things that i heard from the community members was around the location of kennedy i actually live um and i've shared with folks um six blocks from new york i'm six or seven blocks from cordley i can walk to east heights in five minutes and i'm i'm pretty sure i can um on a run hit kennedy in under 20 minutes so um the the location is a place that is really close to my it's where i've lived my entire 20 years in in

173lawrence um and it is a place where there is not early childhood education so we talk about food deserts places where we do not have um access to uh you know grocery store i don't know if they have the equivalent for early childhood education but i'm not just not to say that there isn't any but there is there is a um a not a lot we had to look elsewhere um and then certainly for people that i've served as a social worker that's been a challenge in that area and it's it's one of the reasons why i'm excited to see it develop there but um i was appreciating hearing that this isn't a one-stop spot that we see the expansion of early childhood education this may be the start of something pretty extraordinary in terms

174of our ability to then go forward and reach other spaces as well where there might be need correct yeah okay okay so i believe we have um patron commentary is there other board members that want to jump in um kelly this is a question for you and for dr lewis um if the board um passes this proposal tonight um would it be possible to come back at a future meeting in the not too distant future and just apprise the board of um kind of a plan for some of this decision-making that still needs to happen in terms of for instance the the issue you raised about okay who's going to be coordinating these conversations um what kind of agreements have to be entered into between the entities to make this happen i think those are

175really important questions and i just want to make sure that we have an accountability plan yeah on on behalf of the board so that we kind of know what we should be looking for in terms of development of these proposals um and um and going forward yeah so dr lewis and erica and i had this conversation agenda setting around accountability and um and how um the board can um and dr lewis can report to us uh how things are progressing not just in terms of the early childhood education center but how things are going for the if we approve this proposal how things are going for the um the the buildings that are uh receiving children so if for example you know there really was a capacity issue at one of our buildings or if

176for example there really is a um a significant need in terms of i mean something that we don't foresee that the board would hear about that dr lewis could come and tell us how things were going so i don't know how you envisioned doing that but we did talk about um uh it is also going to be part of our our equity policy that's coming before the board here in um i'm looking at it's coming before the board in a couple weeks our next our next next meeting i think um and that's that's a component of that policy that um we the three of us worked on so um certainly that will be part of your regular practice but do you want to talk about what that might look like for them yeah we most

177certainly can come back with the with the follow-up um report in terms of how are the kids doing um at those receiving schools not only that there is a lot of um logistical uh and legal things that we need to kind of iron out in terms of partnerships and building occupancy so yeah we definitely can circle back around with additional report okay thank you i mean it's not unprecedented we did similar work um when we started we founded the college and career center we've had to enter into partnership relationships with the number of entities around the programs there so it's i know that we've done this before but just um just not in the early childhood space so i wanted to thank you i'm glad that to hear that you all had already started talking

178about that yeah i appreciate that you brought it up um i want to open up for patron commentary uh before i do are there other board questions and we can always come back to them after patron commentary as well okay um so uh i hope you all are still here and thank you for bearing with us um i have read the speakers um there are requests to to individuals who come before the board um but just as a reminder we ask that you speak not about individuals specifically and that you um try to limit your time as much as possible but i wanna now and invite uh i have just i think i have just the last name but maybe the first name um wake no okay um so that individual is not here but

179uh lena barker i'm here but carol was just trying to speak i knew i could hear her but you guys couldn't yeah thank you i've been i've been trying to speak there in the meetings and my my mic doesn't come on can everybody hear me now we can i can okay thank you and now i can't see everybody it's just kind of a trade-off here we go but yeah thank you lena i would like to know how many students are are planned to be served at the kennedy the proposed kennedy preschool as many as we can get in there that was me the the plan is to partner with organizations because as i mentioned earlier this will be no additional cost to the district and so we will seek partners to um sponsor classrooms sponsor

180seats it really depends on the number of partners that we have in that building and keep in mind we also want to provide some additional wrap around services while the capacity of that building is i think is around 400 we want to make sure that we include and that's the next step also should this pass and his proposal is not only looking at and having conversations with early childhood providers in the area but also those families i have ideas of what i think should be in an early childhood community center but i want to involve the families what supports what services will you need that will be beneficial to you and so that so it really depends on both of those carol the number of partners that we can partner with to offer those seats

181as well as our some other wraparound and human services providers okay so the funding is not guaranteed is what i'm hearing is that yes that's correct okay and also just one more thing and i do apologize but you know i grew up in east lawrence i'm a court i'm a quarterly kid so this is something that's near and dear to my heart my my own children were where at wakarusa when it closed but um i i would like because we have hugh carter in the room and other delegates i would one i would like to um i'm wondering if it's ever been proposed in these meetings that these organizations use the strip ball at 19th and haskell for some of the non-profits that are mentioned to be that have been mentioned to be used in

182kennedy that's just something i'd like to ask them while they're here and thank you lena for taking that mute you're welcome he was coming to the mic carol um i'm not sure unfortunately other uh partners have have left i'm not aware of anything like that i'm not a i assume that's not free space at 19th and haskell though so when it comes to space that's you know we're looking at in in our ask of the city today we didn't ask for but i gave them a approximate cost of a new build as well um you know it's it's very expensive 3 million 250 000 to do something say at east hills business park that's large enough uh 10 000 square foot early care and education facility it's pretty expensive and like like mentioned earlier bricks

183and mortar is the biggest one of the biggest hurdles to getting these up and going and the cost going into 19th and haskell wouldn't even if you had free space you're still gonna have to come up with something to probably do significant renovations so anyway the answer is is no space is a pretty key thing and that's why this is a this is a good opportunity here thank you um kevin the number of students that we serve in early childhood education am i correct that it's 600 students just in terms of even if we just did what the even if next year we were just providing the early childhood education services that we have i know they wouldn't all be in the building but is that number about right it's approximate but yes but it's

184throughout the whole city and county because we do our birth through 21 because we have tiny k so it is approximate at my understanding right now at uh at uh kennedy it's 150 about 150 okay but then all our services again we work with uh other preschools provide services outside and homes and all that and that's 150 that's in the building at any given time there is am a pm so it's over these are include parents with teachers trying to get over 500 is that right yes and then those we would be moving um like parents as teachers would be coming that centrally there and even though some of your folks are doing home visits they would also be able to have more space to collaborate in in so tiny k is currently there guys

185teachers wouldn't move there and we'd currently have families come in to receive services and we provide services out so that space is there also and i don't know that we need more if we do that space is there but it's really i mean with early childhood special education the purpose the goal is to provide it in their community settings so actually if as an early childhood center we'd be providing in those even though they're not our schools our preschools we would still provide services throughout the building okay um and it would actually have more opportunity for our students with disabilities to be in general education classrooms services okay that's great okay thank you carol are you ready for me to uh give some space for lean okay thank you lena thank you so much for

186um letting me know that and uh we're looking forward to hearing from you now well actually carol brought up what i've brought up at the last meeting he had projected the k-5 and i wanted to know what the pre-k projections were but 600 sounds quite high but basically we're just gonna be landlords and it's four months long enough because he hasn't even i mean the plans really not put through so you guys are going to potentially close the school this next year and is it going to be ready in four months and then my other question is i really think that you guys should whether it's going to be 1.5 miles or 2 miles that you guys should walk to new york and to prairie park to see if you guys really feel like it's

187safe for a kindergartener to walk that that's still quite a long walk for a kindergartner to come from all the way over here to new york or prairie park so so i'll share i did walk that and and i agree with you new york's pretty confusing and prairie park's confusing so those are my comments i appreciate that you came thank you you're welcome um uh colleen dickerson okay so kyleen is left all right so we've we've heard um from the folks that are here i also want to acknowledge that we had a community survey that we all received and read the comments on um that had quite a few signatures on it in in support of retaining the k-5 programming um i think the number was 650 when we last looked and then we have

188been reading emails particularly i want to acknowledge the emails that we read from the kennedy teachers who we've not um we got uh late yesterday and i don't know that all of us have had an opportunity to reply but we appreciate receiving all the feedback that we have from the community both in support and those that have concerns kelly uh yes namaste manning wanted to speak she raised her hand uh [Music] um so um uh if we can i i can make space for namaste if we have a way for her to log in is does she sign up on her public comment i um i can ask her to share her information maybe she signed up on another name okay how do we elise can you share how this would work yeah if you

189like her to speak it sounds like she is on so we can add her okay okay namaste i i can see you now and i think we're about ready to uh i think you have to unmute okay i apologize um it seems like i came in the wrong way um so thank you for giving me a moment so i just have a couple of comments um one i just want to comment to the fact that you know i i don't love that the school district thinks that it's a good idea to close kennedy um and warehouse you know the where low-income children along with on the same side as the homeless shelter the industry and the jail i just think that's really in poor taste and that it would be much more effective to disperse

190the child care throughout lawrence and i find it particularly problematic that the school board is not actually even going to be running these programs and that there it seems like they're then putting the current programs at kennedy at risk because they are basically evicting the students that are at the school now um to become landlords with no specific information on who the new tenants are going to be what the services are going to be provided what the numbers are the serve the children served are going to be how the children are going to get there there's just there's a lot of problems with this plan and i just want to make that make sure that you guys hear my views on that i appreciate that you gave us feedback thank you okay so additional questions

191or information or comments that folks want to make before we make a motion oh please that's okay i do i do have a few things i wanted to share um first of all i wanted to thank all of the community members um and staff who've reached out to the board i have read all the emails that you've sent um and listening to the comments tonight you know i appreciate the perspectives that have been shared i just wanted to share a couple of my thoughts about this proposal i'm going to be supportive of it and the reasons for that are pretty complicated so i wanted to wanted to share a few of them um you know we have a lot of goals that we have talked about achieving in our district over the years we want

192to make progress on uh community goals of expanding early childhood opportunities which we've heard a lot about tonight about the opportunities that this proposal would present for that for being a convener a provider of space a partner a participant in that in that work we we've had a goal for a long time of making more effective and impactful use of our district's limited resources um both facilities-wise but also funding where i wise from the state and i'll have to say more about that in a minute um and you know it's been a long standing goal of our facilities program in the district uh for the past decade that we needed to use existing infrastructure to its maximum capacity before we build new infrastructure so i know from all of the presentations tonight that you know

193especially the information shared by kathy we have some really heavy budget issues that we're going to have to deal with and we're going to have to deal with those regardless of whether we decide to participate in this partnership to expand early childhood opportunities so even if we said we're to say no to this proposal we are still going to have to grapple with those budget issues and it is going to be difficult challenging there will be loss for people in different parts of our community and our district in in dealing with those budget impacts over the next few years um i see this as an opportunity for us to turn what what will only be a negative into something that can be imp as well a positive and it's not in the years that i've

194done this work it is not very often that we have a proposal on the table where we are cutting the budget and at the same time making progress on actual goals that we have as a district and a community i really appreciated when kim paulson talked about you know some of the the three big areas that the surveys have uh noted as as problems for our early childhood system access continuity and connectivity you know i would really encourage that we have an opportunity to address all three of those things all three of those challenges for our community through this proposal in addition to moving toward a model which she also mentioned the mixed delivery system of services with wraparound community support so that is something that we have needed for a long time in our

195community and we don't have that space currently um you know why we've received a lot of questions as a as as board members about why why kennedy why not disburse this throughout the district why not uh why not go back and use east heights again and i just wanted to touch on a couple of those those comments um in the 2013 bond issue we spent significant funds to ensure that the entire kennedy building um is comprised of high quality learning spaces and that we had specialized early childhood infrastructure in that building now we have it both inside and out with the addition of the early childhood playground there so i think if we have an opportunity to use this building and those funds that we've already spent on those spaces for that purpose i think

196that makes makes the most sense out of all of the options that are out there on the table we did not make the kind of upgrades to east heights in terms of our facilities program through the 2013 bond issue at the time the building was closed and we actually didn't anticipate using it as classroom space again we were able to bridge our construction and we spent some dollars to make it an adequate learning space but it is not the same quality of learning space for young for young learners that that we have at kennedy we've been able to repurpose that building for our adult education transition programs it's we have some specialized infrastructure in that building now for that purpose and i think it's really important to recognize that we're not wasting either space in

197my opinion by moving forward with this kind of proposal um you know and as far as you know why why kennedy reply right now i really see this as really the first step in some necessary difficult realignment of our services and operations in our district you know we have to take a first step at some point to make some difficult choices about some things if we want to have the capacity to grow and make progress on our long-held goals about improving student achievement closing opportunity gaps increasing our graduation rates increasing teacher and paraprofessional pay and there's probably a host of other things that are tied into the budget that i hadn't even put on the list and i think that we will continue even if after tonight if the board approves this proposal we're going

198to be having further discussions over the next year and maybe longer about things like shifting our boundaries at all all of our remaining elementary schools further discussions about some of the proposals that kathy mentioned that the budget and planning committee has already looked at multi-grade classrooms grade level attendance centers staffing thresholds class size ratios where we have our specialized programs and classrooms and our overall program offerings because the budget outlook um not just for our district but at the state level is not good i mean it's i think we have to to grapple with the fact that our new normal um after the gannon case was decided and the new school finance formula was passed our new normal is a funding level that is equivalent approximately to 2009 and we we have been we have

199asked the world of our staff and our families over the last decade to just make it through all of the upheaval that we've had over funding in the last decade and there comes a point in time when you just can't ask people to continue to do everything and not not be able to put the resources behind what you're asking them to do so i'll just say i see this as as not the end of the conversation but the beginning of the conversation and i think that having an opportunity to do something positive out of that is um really what has uh has made me feel that this is this the right first step in that conversation so i just want to share that thank you thank you um other board members want to jump in

200and share where you're at before we make a motion this is carol i'm but you know i'm just yeah like i said i'm just really conflicted because i i grew up on the east side of lawrence and but again i'm just have these mixed feelings because the funding is not guaranteed and i i haven't heard any discussion about you know that maybe the future nobody has a crystal ball kathy johnson said that she mentioned about this something about the crystal ball but we um it was something to consider would be the property values in that area and they they're made i'm that again i don't i'm not a i'm not a real estate person but i'm worried about the the property values going down and also the safety of our students crossing the 23rd and

201it's not like 23rd at osb and ozdeal we're talking about 23rd and harper where the people are coming and going from k10 so i'm just really conflicted about this decision thank you carol other board members okay um i can say um for for me um the things that make me feel a little hopeful about this i appreciate um that dr stubblefield is collaborating with boys and girls club and we are looking at potentially increasing or providing possibility for before school care which i think is critical to families in terms of their ability to maintain their jobs if they have been relying on that as a community there uh in at kennedy so i don't want to lose that it i i feel um that it is it should be the directive of the board and

202continued directive of the board that resources be allocated for um increased social emotional um support as a children transition and because there may be just an acknowledgement of what the year has been for our educators and for our students and what a big ask this is that they have the supports to continue things like the responsive classrooms and that we are intentionally utilizing some of the assets funds to support those initiatives and others like it and then the transportation issue for me is a big deal i had hoped that the numbers would come back in a more affordable way to support helping our families transition as it relates to transportation if we are unable to do that i'm asking that the elt and other members of district leadership work creatively with the city um and

203safe routes to schools to come up with solutions that may protect children that have to walk to to whatever their receiving school is those are my key areas like carol this is a i'm just acknowledging the amount of grief this will create for the kennedy community and i'm hoping that the district is able to retain um principal uh middleton's expertise in this area and that she will continue to be a leader a leader with the students as they move from kennedy into other buildings so i just want to acknowledge her great work as well and as you reach to build the early childhood education center that you are building on the expertise of the early childhood education staff that we have already in their in our district who are really brilliant talented educators who are

204making a difference in the lives of early childhood for many many students in lawrence so i am supportive of this proposal i do have a few um my main concern is the transportation and having these young children walk across these busy intersections that causes me a lot of concern i also want to acknowledge the loss and sacrifice of the kennedy family that they would have to um endure from this proposal going through if the board decides that as a people may not know this i was a single mom for 13 years with my son and i know he talked about before school care it would be great if we can we talk about equity as a single mom i struggled with having to go to work early or child care for my child like that

205was a real struggle and being the only income that's a serious stress stressor so if we could we have we're having this conversation now figure out as a community how we can level the playing field for our single family households and offer early um early what are we calling it early before drop off um for families who need it we talk about there's a significant supply and demand situation well i don't know the numbers on how much it would cost our community or the district to do this but i mean that would be huge for a lot of families talk about economic development i mean that will be a game changer in my mind so if we can continue that conversation to help the families that are single parent families that would be huge thank

206you okay anybody else i would say to piggyback um well i don't know if that's a problem to add to what erica said you know again as a single parent for quite some time with three children i just recognized my son originally my youngest originally went in to east heights to be a mentor peer student and the benefit how much relief i felt because i was able to go to school and finish and get my degree and go to work and um so thinking about it from that aspect of being able to provide those opportunities for families to work or and or continue school you know i'm just excited about that thank you okay um uh and then finally uh dr lewis i i just want to bring back shannon's comment about the um the

207comprehensive boundary um analysis for the entirety of the district so thinking about um how we if we're really looking at here a part of this is a budgetary issue a part of this is a capacity issue that we are it is on our radar that we begin to look at um the the the promise we made in 2013 that we would um look at how we might shift boundaries um and ideally for me and one of the things that was really hanging me up about my vote tonight was that we haven't had the ability to do that and when we make this particular move my ask from the district would be that those when we move children next year that at least for a um something that looks like a generation for an early uh

208for an elementary learner so a five-year period that we're not moving them a second or a third time because we're evaluating the boundaries in a subsequent year so i'm really asking that we protect families from having to go through this again as we move into looking at potential boundary changes across the district is there anyone that would like to make a motion i'll make the motion kelly if you're ready i move the board of education and prove expanding early childhood opportunities in our community beginning in the 2021-22 school year by developing an early childhood community center at canada at kennedy and transitioning through the presented boundary changes the k-5 kennedy students to the neighboring schools of new york cordley and prairie park elementary's schools where space is available a second johnson yes kimbo yes yes

209jones yes hill yes i do blackwood no gordon ross yes motion passes six one are there closing items i'm looking at anna to confirm next month's board meeting redesign yes we'll bring the board an update on free states i know free state's redesign on families in transition update as well you have another update kathy yeah and kathy will have probably another budget update okay all right um thank you everyone and um we are going to do our best to protect kennedy families and to monitor that and to create a space that's amazing in terms of early childhood education and the benefit to our community thank you move to adjourn oh yeah second we can't wait yeah yeah all in favor anyone opposed thank you elise um