001e e e my students for their accomplishments this year I'm Samantha Wilkerson the Jag specialist at Free State High School for those of you that aren't familiar with Jag it is jobs for America's graduates and it's a career exploration and preparation program that targets students with barriers to graduation Jag helps students explore their personal strengths and challenges while providing job and life skills in the classroom the main goal of Jag is to help students graduate and then guide them through the transition from high school into post-secondary education or an entry-level job one unique aspect of the program is the career Association which is a student L CL club that gives students various opportunities for leadership roles as class officers students are able to attend two of our Statewide conferences and that's what we're here tonight
002to recognize is one of our students dossia star is a class officer she's her her class president for Jag our other student Gabriel Smith was not able to to attend tonight he's at wrestling practice but we are here to recognize their accomplishments at the leadership development Conference in October where they competed against students from JAG programs across the state Gabe who couldn't be here tonight competed in the employability skills event where he had a mock interview with a judge who later turned out to be our CEO and president of Jack Kansas Chuck knp Gabe didn't know that at the time he also had to provide a resume and a letter of application and he did such a good job that he won that event at the state level dossia competed in the math skills event
003where she had an hour to take a timed math test and I believe she only missed four questions sorry but she ended up winning her event as well in total there were 12 students from Kansas that qualified to attend this national student leadership Academy in Washington DC the three elected state officers a president vice president and secretary and the top three in each of the three competitions the math skills employability skills and public speaking Gabe and dossia qualified by not only placing but winning two of those three events and I was lucky enough to accompany these two individuals on their trip as they competed at the national level and in Washington DC amongst 900 some students and although nobody from Kansas placed I have no doubt that Gabe and dossia both gave their best effort
004and I'm incredibly proud of their accomplishments this year in Jag and how well they've represented our school and our community and I would like to wish doia the best of luck at wasburn University where she has accepted a softball scholarship and look forward to having Gabe next year as a senior in the Jag program he's already preparing to run for State vice president next year but I thank you for giving us the opportunity to like I said once again recognize these students for their accomplishments so thank you congratulations um okay the next um item of business is the board action following executive session do we have a motion I'd like to make the motion the employee who was the subject of the pending investigation has submitted his resignation therefore I move the Board of Education
005to accept the resignation effective at the end of the 2016 2017 school year and extend his administrative leave for the duration of the school year have second second Janice so um no we did not have any comments specifically for this um if any if anybody in the audience wanted to speak um directly to this item that didn't sign up just checking to make sure that's not the case before we take the vote okay yes yes yes yes yes yes okay um next item is the report of the president um I don't have anything this evening so I'll hand it over to Kyle give me a second here okay just a few things to talk about the Douglas County Community Foundation and LivWell Lawrence recently awarded several grants to our district including funding uh for our
006farm to school program cordley school garden Lawrence High Fit club and a second bike blast Fleet for our Elementary physical education program if you remember that group was in front of us just a few months ago um so that's a good thing in addition LivWell Lawrence presented culture of Health action Awards to Denise Johnson our health and wellness coordinator and Cornelius Bell Liberty Memorial Central Middle School's parent involvement facilitator congratulations to Denise and Cornelius and all the staff involved uh with those programs because they definitely benefit a lot of our students congratulations to Free State High FFA members Blake Wagner and Delany Stone and Mason fer for placing second Sixth and uh seventh in the East Central uh District job interview contest they completed cover letters resumés job applications and interviews Blake Wagner will advance
007to complete uh compete in the Kansas FFA state job interview contest in May congratulations also to uh the think tanks a first Lego League team of five fifth graders four from Quail Run and one from Pinkney who qualified for the first Lego League Championship that's what's especially cool about that actually is that the uh Elementary team uh worked with high school students so they were mentored by high school students and those were members of the if you remember team steam robotics group that was in front of us uh so a nice partnership there uh New York school student Leaders Club collected the most used eyeglasses earning a trophy in the recycle for Sight program sponsored by the City of Lawrence waste reduction and recycling department the Lawrence Arts Center and the Lions Club eight of
008our schools participated collecting 65 pairs of glasses to celebrate America recycles day speaking of recycling uh the City of Lawrence has invited us to attend a brief award ceremony at 4:00 tomorrow uh it's in the Lawrence Public uh Library Auditorium for the announcement of the City Star sustainability certification score we partnered with the city on this application because it indicates a city-wide look at sustainability efforts including the Energy Efficiency improvements we have made in all of our buildings our farm to school program uh our environmentally safe custodial maintenance and facilities and grounds practices among other efforts um including a lot of the work we did through our bond construction uh the information we gather for the city is actually a step in the right direction for us because it aligns with a board goal uh
009centered around sustainability and investigating the current practices that we have the district will host two informational nights for students in grades 4 through 12 and their parents to learn more about participating in the local Regional science and engineering fairs these informational nights will be held from 6:00 to 7: on December 5th and 6th here at the district office uh if you remember we've contracted with Patron insight to conduct a scientific telephone survey to collect Community input about our facilities Master planning on our secondary schools and the potential for a bond election in the future um so we if you're a Community member out there that is U receiving calls we appreciate that you take the time to talk to them um it's going to happen a lot in the next couple weeks and then we
010would have those survey information coming back to us on December mber 12th at that board meeting board lunch tomorrow reminder is at Lawrence High and it's at 12:00 noon I think there may have been some information that said it was 11:30 but it's at 12:00 tomorrow at Lawrence High so this is a joint presentation that includes Lawrence High free State College and Career Center the virtual school and Adult Ed the topic of the presentation is around the board goal centered around um the educational program we offer our high school students evaluation of courses uh graduation requirements um and then looking at um how we are preparing our students uh College and Career Readiness and also resource allocation so a lot of combined efforts with that presentation so if you can make it I'd appreciate it
011that's it thanks Kyle um next item is the um Patron commentary um audience participation so um just read um we actually rewrote the guideline so um we'll read him here for the first time tonight um usd497 Board of Education appreciates patrons taking um time to talk to us about our policies and procedures we set aside this time during every meeting to hear from the public this is your time to share your opinions but we ask that you avoid making comments of a personal nature about any District employee or student including the use of personal names um while you're not required to share your contact information we ask that you do so we can follow up with any specific concerns you might have um in such cases a board member the superintendent um or another staff
012member may be in touch with you to refer your concerns to the appropriate administrator for investigation at that time we encourage you to share as many details relative to your specific concerns as you're willing to share um and we ask that you limit your comments to five minutes if possible um and thank you for sharing your thoughts about policies and procedures with the board um so the first person that's signed up for tonight is um uh car is SMI or Smith I'm Cara Smith sorry that's okay um and I am a learning coach in woodlon and New York Elementary Schools this is my fourth year in the school district um my 14th year as an educator um and Lawrence is my seventh School District that I've worked in so I I I told you all
013that because I want you to know that I've been in education for a little bit as many of you have and um so in education every District I've gone to there's some new initiative that's going to change education dramatically right it's going to change everything that we do um and so with that some people get on board and some people wait it out to see where it's going to go and what's going to happen and probably it'll fizzle away and when I um um interviewed for this position I was so excited that they were asking me so many questions about racial Equity um and culturally relevant teaching practices and what was I going to do as a learning coach to make sure that that was happening in schools and with teachers and I was like
014wow I have to be in this District i' never ever had a district talk to me about those things before and I was sold on it and so I moved my life to Laurence and and my child goes to Lawrence Public School she's in fourth grade um and I feel like like many other things Equity is being treated as an initiative and I feel like um I'm speaking my truth um there are many people in this District that are waiting it out to see when it's just going to go away um because they're not on board and I don't know what to do about that I don't know I'm just here to tell you guys that I that I feel that um as the years have progressed especially this year I feel like equities just
015let's check that off for this month at the staff meeting um or let's make sure we said something about it um so that we can move on um I feel like our training is being pulled away from us more and more um I feel like it's unrealistic for E teams that many of the people that I've spoken with just barely realized they had white privilege and then to ask these people to then go share that with other people when they're just barely starting their journey is a little bit unrealistic I don't I don't know how to change that and I don't I don't know I don't Proclaim to know what system would be better how we could make that differently but I'm just here to tell you that it doesn't feel like it it matters
016um it it feels like Lucy cockins or reading street or another positive action lesson that I have to log at in the W drive like do you guys even know what I mean by all that so it just feels like um we're just going to do this and then it's going to go away eventually and um I'm concerned I'm concerned that that I don't even know that I want to be around Educators that are being forced to do this cuz we don't want to force force people into Equity work right cuz that's not this is a mindset this is not a initiative this is not the next reading curriculum these are people's lives that we're talking about and their livelihoods and we're asking people that just barely became conscious about their own privilege to go
017and and share this or convince other people that don't even really get it or don't want to get it or for whatever reason they're not invested in it I'm afraid I'm afraid that it's just going to go away and I just wanted to tell you guys that because that's how it feels it feels like it's just going to be gone soon it's important to me that it doesn't go away and it's important to a lot of kids in this District not just your kids of color it is so important that it doesn't go away so please don't let it thank you thank you um our next person is um Lauren Mitchell hi um my name is Lauren Mitchell I'm a parent in this District to a child and I'm also a fourth grade teacher and
018Equity leader at Kennedy Elementary so I came up here to talk to you about two things first my love and passion for what I do and second my frustrations with this District's Equity efforts my hope that as I speak these words you will be able to hear and connect with the love that I have for teaching and for the students that I get the opportunity to teach the more that I engage in equity the more I realize I don't know and the more I see the immensity of the work that happen has to be done I would like to challenge you to lean into the discomfort that you may feel or the discomfort frustration and anger that you might hear tonight so with that being said I am frustrated I am really frustrated as a
019white cisgendered opposite gender loving woman I am making the choice to engage because I believe that Equity work racial Justice work is the single most important job that schools must do I am frustrated because I feel this way and I don't see action how can we as a district have Equity as one of the three EAS and yet we have one one person our district Equity tosa to meet the needs of 20 traditional learning buildings on their Equity Journeys I realize that there is a district leadership team but I have never seen and I have never heard from them and I've been in this district for years I believe it is incredibly unrealistic for our district to assume that this one person can give the E teams the equity teams what they need to push
020staff on their Journeys regardless of the tremendous effort talent and capability this that this person does have and if we were to pause and think about whom those e teams are made up of I would venture to Guess that many are teachers and staff that in some cases have just or not even fully realized their own white privilege because we are a district that has mostly White staff members to expect them to facilitate and guide staff from anywhere to 50 to 100 persons is a daunting task yes I wrote a lot I am frustrated because I feel like other courses of action are being fully staffed and funded for example our ci3t team has gone to multiple PDS already this school year and this summer but Equity that's and there have been two half days
021this year or there actually there's just been one half day so far another one is in the spring but if the district is putting in the hands of the E team the responsibility to move and push and further the journeys of Staff members that is not enough it's unrealistic that an e team would be able to facilitate which in all senses of the word means train a staff when they themselves are not getting training nor are they getting guidance on how to facilitate these professional development ments that are supposed to be happening at our last Elementary PD day myself and a cooworker we led a 45 minute session on engaging staff and students with courageous conversations we were at capacity there was 50 people in that room I'm not saying this to brag or boast
022but I want you to know that I think teachers want this I think they do and the district is not providing for them and as wonderful it is that I'm able to show them what I'm doing I know that I don't know enough I am not an expert so I'm asking for renewed commitment I need a commitment from every single principal that this work is valued and that their staff is not going to be able to schedule dentist appointments and haircuts and meetings during Equity professional development if they are even having having it which I believe is not happening on a consist bases in this District it should not be at the end of a 10 a 10-minute session at the end of a staff meeting and I need you to know that having a
023principle that values this work is instrumental in moving forward and I have had this I have this and because I have this I have been able to be at trainings that this my principal has put us through on her own effort a commitment from principles that regardless the racial makeup of their school this work matters a poster or a safety pin claiming that this space is safe becomes wallpaper or another hashtag if there is no action to back it up and I have more I would like to propose a more sincere investment with peeg where are they and also looking at developing a team of equity leaders at the district level in which Equity is their sole purpose I want a concerted effort looking at race with our C3 ci3t and Avid model ci3t and
024Avid is not Equity work and those that keep saying that need to stop however perhaps looking at this model we can look at it how can we engage in more meaningful ways to address equity if it's there and we need to look at it and finally classrooms should be spaces where students are thriving and safe I want our school board and administration to take our students seriously when they speak I want you to listen they should not be places where restrictions are set upon their human existence and their whole self finally This was um this fall was Peg's National Summit on courageous conversations and in Austin Texas our district was represented by seven teachers all from one school one principal one administrator and two District staff for a total of 11 people this past summer
025our district also sent people to Austin Texas we sent a bus of 40 to 50 people made up of teachers and staff to the iPad paloa technology is wonderful and it opens doors but technology isn't killing people nor is it adding to the systemic oppression of people racism is homophobia is xenophobia is misogyny is I need you to know I need to know our community needs to know our students need to know that this work matters to all of our leadership and they expect their staff to be taking this journey with them disengaging ignoring or disregarding this work is not an option we need to do better for our children thank [Applause] you thank you um I think all board members here would agree that we're where we need to keep working at this and
026that we are all committed to to seeing this journey through um I don't have anybody else that's signed up um if not I'm going to go ahead and move into board commentary um does anybody have any anything you want to follow up with comments or um I just want to say thank to thank you to you both for speaking you've given us a lot to think about um and discuss and ask for more information on and I plan to follow up with both of you with some following for with some extra questions about what you said today so thank you for coming anybody else have any comments so recently I learned that um believe you Vanessa are in charge of consent in the district right you meet with a nurse I believe from a hospital
027and you go to the schools I'm not in charge of it but I do I have a nonprofit that provides some um Pro some um we provide some work in the um Health classrooms okay basically facilitating s all the schools are just a few how does that we help deliver um certain components of the health education standards in the Freshman Health classes so just ninth grade but at both high schools here in but at both high schools okay so what you're saying is that at least one person within the high schools that's coming in visiting to talk about consent is tonight because I know that on that school program you guys didn't mention it when you called for the vote but you guys are going to be continuing to pay this teacher throughout the year
028I noticed you left that out so that's complicit like in white supremacy so we have consent being taught by someone who's being complicit in white supremacy that's not consent to teaching so we probably need to look into that so we probably need to look into that and get real consent being taught in the schools you know that like that's it's disgusting I'm sorry I'm G have to say something and I'm not sorry but um I know the past three meetings for whatever reason I understand family emergencies Miss Adair is not there and that video is nothing but annoying as heck she keeps going in and out eating if you're not going to be present and you're going to be on that live feed if you're not going to be present don't be there disconnect it's
029so I'm not the only one that's annoying so that's all I had to say about that my name's Trinity Carpenter and once again here and I once again saw white supremacy working all its Glory like I see on a daily basis however what I do need to be acknowledged in this room that I know that there was people friends of y'all that knew about this decision before we did that's what happened you didn't have enough you didn't have enough respect to any of these parents who children came home and had a courage to tell them what the hell was going on in their classroom that the principal of the school nor y'all said you just had any idea that was happening that then came out that was reported over and over again he had already
030been suspended so forth so forth and then we're here everyone knew about it everyone talked about it before it was released and we knew we was going to come here today but what I expected was at least some heartfelt acknowledgement that the system protected the system so why the hell would we trust you to change anything in the district you just upheld the very system we're talking about I know y'all know this you just upheld in our face do you think we're not educated to recognize it because some of us are and there's a lot of us here tonight who has came and took time at our daily efforts to survive in this world that's Al so designed against us to come to this place and be like just do right by us can you
031do right by us can you do right by us when we sit in your face and every time I get blank stairs and I actually asked my friend what that meant and he said that's when you guys get uncomfortable and your boundaries go up and so y all just quit listening I actually had to ask what that meant coming from y'all because I don't understand it how can you sit when people in front of you with freaking humanity and give no reaction that their kids were being told the most ridiculous vulgar things about the race in your school district and then you said there wasn't enough evidence to prove that so you were going to allow him to resign on his own terms with his own benefit and go about his business and get paid
032while he's doing it that's what you're going to tell me because I know the dichotomy of this because I have a dear friend that graduated from my school of social welfare the master's program who one day with apathy and racism in his face chose to speak out against a white man and lost his job immediately when a white man who said he did business from the toque of the Kansas City quarter did not like that a black man could disrespect a white man so now the fact that I see that dichotomy and then y'all want to sit here with straight face and I know litigation litigation what about us you guys don't care about us and what we represent or the fact that we would have the ability for litigation ourselves you guys don't care
033about any of that like none of it we just have no power agency or even legitimacy when we come before you because that's what you telling our children that's what you telling us because right here this don't represent me none of y'all represent me and I need that to be heard and why would I have to come in here to tell you that when you guys are all paid freaking administrators and know what diversity representation and let's say multiculturalism means like are you guys not thriving to celebrate different cultures in this District are we contributing to the white agenda because if that's what's being said I need us to open very speak very openly about that if we're upholding the status quo and folling our kids out so y'all can continue to thrive and reinforce
034the system we participate in that's what need to be said not that you're sorry you thank people for giving you conversation so forth so forth because each one of you know and have to sit with the fact that what you did here today you said a precedent that white men can disrespect our children in the classroom and get away with it that's what you did and you did it with a clear message and so then I just got to sit here with the lack of power and agency I have and accept it because that's how the system works but I want all y'all to know I want all y'all to know we do matter and it took one question of a child to say what he disliked about this district and I wonder why n
035teacher ever asked him the question what are y'all teachers asking these children are do you do outcomes how is their experience in the freaking classroom cuz obviously it's not good I don't even have children on my own and interacting with the children of the city time and time again I heard the same teacher with the same comments behind it and you guys couldn't figure that out as a district nobody could figure it out that's simple and the fact that I called the principal of that school and she boldfaced lied to me on that day and said that she had never heard anything about this teacher is a mocker in itself and then the TR lack of transparency in this whole entire process let's get back to that one of y'all's friends told someone about y'all
036decision before this was ever released to not just the parents but to the public that is a problem that is a problem why was that white woman more important than us why would she say like that Caleb's out of control if he would just calm things down they going to vote for him to resign that's what we got to hear that's what we got to hear you want to know why we come in here and have to just speak boldly because you guys are not serving us and you up here pretending like you do if you served us if you looked at the outcomes that I know you have at your disposal and was intentional I heard someone up here and say she didn't have the answers for you but guess what I know y
037do you know it's real intentional it takes some funding like it's not difficult to uplift children that have disparities based on the systems they participate in it's all there and so I don't believe it at this point people just realizing they have white privilege y'all know you have white privilege you experienc your whole damn life so for you to sit up here say people just getting woke so black men had to die on a repeated basis for y'all to wake up and know that black folks had it worse than y'all that don't sit well with me and I don't think it's true I know it's not true I know it's not and so if anything have enough respect to respect us and tell us we don't care you disrupt our meetings we don't want you
038here and the best we can do is come to an agreement because that's what it was come to an agreement with this man to resign because that's what it was an agreement you don't sue us we let you go about your way you can disrespect black children that's what happened and we need to be real clear about what it is and at the end of the day decolonize the curriculum why don't you start there teach our children the history of America and why they stand in the positionality that they do today do that why the hell they thriving and struggling to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their white counterparts in the school district why you guys think you have to have more children of color to bring in more diversity like I don't get it like I
039don't get it I came to the school district in 9th grade and I immediately got my GED quickly after I went to Central and everyone in Lawrence know what central represents has a long history but it's not known for the education gives to Children you want to know what's real familiar about Central is was primarily black black kids lived on the east side that's where we went South been known had black kids too so I'm going to need you to do do better to the kids that you serve and you know as you guys see before I can sit up here and talk but like I I can continue to do to sit in Justified anger Justified anger and every time I come to places that are supposed to serve me as a citizen of
040this community I would hope that one day y'all could oppress me and do right bias without it being forced reactionary or forced voluntary service for all your consist Ence it's not difficult I promise y'all voted 7 to [Music] zero and I would like to call for your immediate resignations all of you um and you I don't know what would that would take but I tell you that you voted 7 to zero to uphold something that you obviously don't care about so at the end of the day I need y'all to get the hell out because you're not serving our kids and you going kill them um I just need you to go because you don't care I need you to go because you can't infect tears I need you to understand that that's a damn
041that is a damn joke right there that iPad right you bring iPads and you patch people in but we can't talk about people's names we can't talk about what systemic racism is and we can't we can't do any dismantling because y'all don't even y'all don't even know what racism is it seems like like why the hell do I have to prove that racism is real get out get out we had an election and they voted Donald Trump to be the president and the people that I see up here are the demographics that voted him in also so let's be real honest with that too and you can shake your hand and you you can shake your head all you want that's fine yeah M cuz I I peeped the diversity training that we talked about
042last time too if we going to be honest we going to need to be all the way honest y'all don't give a damn you do not give a damn it has three meetings oh my gosh I have a license y'all if I did any of the stuff that y'all did to not protect the children I would lose my license and I would deserve to lose my license what makes you think that y'all earned a spot to be up here to represent children when you're not doing it and you won't even be the one Ved to send that's horeshit that's just what it is you don't care and you can be scared of me all day I fight for my kids I don't care right the only thing I care about is watching people tell me
043that they care and do the absolute opposite you need to stop acting like you can pass Us by like we going to go somewhere do you remember the quote that says riots are the cries of the unheard why do you think that happens because y'all are like yeah we got you no problem no problem but you don't care you do not care because when you care about something you move on it like when you hear your kids cry you don't run to the other room you run to the room where they're where they're crying correct well we ran to the room where our kids were crying and y'all took our kids and told them to get the hell outside because they're not welcome here and not even our cries are welcome at the end of
044the day you all do not serve our children you do not care you need to go and we will get because this is the people right here we got the people here that can do it so when we say we we can't get diverse teachers because there just aren't enough that's systemic racism and that's hella racist because they exist and they've been up in this Beast ever since this went down when you say we can't have we don't have people that want to be on the school board yeah I'm talking to you on School Board that's wrong because they're here and they will do the job that they're that they are signed up for that they were elected to do and they won't sit here and try to play games and brush it under the
045rug and move on and if you don't work your morality you are complicit and it does not matter at all what you say you believe or whether you say black lives matter when you really believe White Supremacy is dope and I'm just going to keep it because I don't want to get put into a position that could make that can make my friends not like me there's no trainings that's going to keep this apathy out your mouth out your face out your eyes I see this I see this every day microaggressions are real and I see that I see that right now you could give a damn about me and you could give a damn about these kids cuz you weren't the it wasn't 6 to1 because you voted against it y'all just aren't used
046to a person of color coming up and telling y'all that y'all did wrong and actually holding you accountable on public record forever because that's what it takes a recording a I wish we would have had a recording on Mr cob so we sure could have known that it was real because I sure would hate to hear about rape culture and all the stories where people say I was raped and they saywell how do we know that's true how do we know you're not lying right hits a little bit closer to home the reality is that intersectionality matters but it doesn't matter to y'all and again I'm calling for your immediate resignation because y'all don't serve us and I'm done with that well um I think that's all the public comments so um we will move
047on to the consent agenda items uh consent and G items are those that are considered routine and are adopted by one motion unless any board member or the superintendent requests that an item be removed the items removed are voted on separately I have a motion I'll move the Board of Education adopt the items listed on the consent agenda second second Janice yes yes yes yes yes yes yes okay we move on to our um first report uh 2016 graduation and state assessment data um with Terry mccuan director curriculum instruction and assessment Terry mccuan director of curriculum instruction and assessment uh we're going to uh report on the 2016 uh graduation rate uh this was just released actually this month so uh this is fairly new information for us uh a reminder of how the graduation
048rate is calculated a student comes into the four-year cohort when they are first classified as a ninth grader at that time they are given four years to graduate what is considered to be on time uh and they are given an additional uh time period of till till September 30th of the year that their cohort graduates in order to make up any deficient credits so the cord is adjusted for students moving in and for students who leave with a what is considered to be an approved exit code students who exit to homeschooling non accredited private schools GED programs or simply discontinue their education then are count negatively against the graduation rate so I'll I'm actually depicting a lot of years here so this is like eight years of data uh but I wanted to go back
049to the very beginning of when the new progam the new counting system started in 2009 and so the uh 2009 graduation rate through the current time is all calculated the same way the Blue Line the dark blue line is going to be the all category so this is all students aggregated together and then our students with disabilities would be the next line that you'll see I'm sorry low sces now students disabilities and then our English language Learners this next slide will then depict again the all category and then our Hispanic students our white students black students our native students Asian students and multi-racial students so again you notice again that the the Gap is fairly large in 2009 it it Narrows by 2015 continues about in the same realm in 2016 there was a slight
050dip in the uh overall rate but um there there are some things that can't be uh corrected for and we had a number of unresolved exits I will actually go through and calculate those unresolved exits fall and give you all a uh like a Friday communic report that kind of gives you a feel for what those unresolved exits actually came from whether they were uh actual discontinued schooling whether they were to private schools that are unaccredited Etc I also then you've often asked uh it's a percentage but a percentage of what number and so this next slide actually provide you the actual number in the cohort and again that was calculated when these students were first in 9th grade and then the number actually graduating in 2016 from that cohort next this is going to
051be really anti-climatic but the Kansas Assessment program performance results um the commissioner uh of education did this in two slot and I think I'm going to do it in three uh but it is basically if you look at how our district performed in 2016 and I have a comparison slide uh and two slides but we're we're fairly flat performance we've increased our uh level fours and our level 3es but remember we're in a post No Child Left Behind era and so there is no requisite percent to get get to any longer so this has now become a data point as opposed to a driving um piece of accountability accountability now reduces to a to a small letter A instead of a capital letter A at the federal level and so it is just one of
052many uh performance measures we will do so this is the mathematics and then this is English language arts English language arts was interested U and initially um they used a performance measure called a multi-performance multi uh task multi-disciplinary performance task but at in the end of the day they decided not to actually use the results of that multi-is disciplinary performance task in the final results because there were so many issues with it uh a lot of students were taking that particular task when the cable uh at the University of Kansas was cut and so it was difficult for kids to finish it and so they decided that they did not have valid enough results to actually use so the State Board voted to pull that measurement out and it's this is just representative of the
053U machine scored portion which is basically multiple choice and then I just did a comparison of our district at the four different levels compared to the state and the two years so you can see our 2015 results in our 2016 results what we want in an Ideal World to be happening is the level threes and fours increasing and the level ones and twos decreasing over time um we only have really two years of usable data uh this coming year the test will change slightly but should still be comparable at least statistically speaking so we and hopefully this won't be such a trailing indicator we've got these are results from last March and April and so none of these students are even in the same grades any longer so just uh that's the end of that
054questions Vanessa that richer kind of less multiple choice driven Ela component do we have any data um that like teaching staff can use that kind of shows how students did on that or on the multidisiplinary performan as individually yes but the trouble was that if a student didn't get it completely finished for any reason it automatically scored it as a level one without giving any further consideration to it and so that's why they dumped it because I I might have written five paragraphs and then ended it didn't get to go back in and submit it correctly or whatever else and then it just automatically dumps it down to a level one and that's why they got rid of it but those students who actually did complete it teachers would be able to look at how
055well they did on that okay any other questions I guess one more follow up to that so I'm assuming they're continuing that component next year with the hope that technology will not so no because in an effort to reduce the footprint of the state assessment the uh ksde um suggested and the state board approved reducing the amount of the test so it is is actually reduced by 40% so we're going going to have about 60% of the amount of the testing and one of the things that we removed in making that decision was the multidisciplinary performance task however it will be available for teachers to use as a formative assessment so any teacher could go in and give the multi-disciplinary performance task as a writing assessment at any time but it won't be counted or
056part of the state assessment okay that's disappointing to hear because I think Ela doesn't lend itself well to a multi or multiple choice format and that was one of the things I was excited about with the new assessments to hear so it is it's a it's a give and take uh in order to get the test to be efficient and the other thing that was a big request from teachers across the state and rightly so is that they need these results closer to the time that the students took the test when we do the multidisiplinary performance task it has to be hand scored so we're depending on teachers to come in in the summer and score it well that delays the results until the fall and that's what we were trying to get away from
057thank you any other questions thanks and um I forgot to have a Shannon has a couple of um retirements to retirement to recognize and I apologize for not doing this when we approved the Personnel recommendations as part of the consent agenda but I would like to um recognize Howard plard um on his retirement with 10 years of service and Devotion to our community and its schools congratulations Howard thanks Shannon okay um our next report is update of Master facility planning for secondary schools um with Tony Baron executive director facilities and operations and Kathy Johnson director Finance good evening Tony Baron executive director facilities and operations I just want to start off here by introducing gold Evan associates they were hired for um about a year ago to uh do us needs assessment for us on
058the current secondary schools the condition kind of the MEP and items like that and also how we can progressively progressively look forward on how we can uh build or renovate for a 21st Century Learning environment and so they've been working with us pretty closely for the past I'd say Obviously 11 months and getting the needs assessment done so what I want to do here is turn it over to John Wilkins let him introduce his staff and and let him start his report when he gets done we'll we'll hear from Kathy and and George K bomb on some of the M Le Levy and the financial part of it so well good evening um thank you um we um I have with me today uh Jordan Albright uh Kelly Dreer and David Reed uh from G
059Evans and uh Luke Deets in the back row is here with Mallen Gordon who's been an integral uh part of of our team uh do you know where we turn this on okay so um we've visited a couple times through work session so some of this may be a little bit redundant but we thought it was important uh to just kind of walk through comprehensively uh kind of the conclusion of of our process today um as you know we've met with uh the individual schools at all six of the secondary schools um either with uh either directly with the principes and their assistant principles or with a committee uh that they've put together um and we've also met periodically with uh the bond steering committee uh which Marcel and Shannon and Kyle and Tony have
060been on to help guide us uh through this process um so what what I wanted to do is kind of briefly just kind of set up uh some of kind of the overarching goals that uh that we've been working through and then I was going to have David uh kind of walk through uh some of the benchmarking and just the needs at each of the schools and then I'll have Kelly kind of walk through through um what the what the proposed um ideas are for each of them um but as Tony said uh for for all the secondary schools uh we're looking at creating these 21st Century Learning environments um and some of the schools are already designed and built to accommodate that better than others and so it really was kind of a a
061school by school assessment of how we could uh improve those those situations um and we looked at how we could accommodate student privacy um in the locker rooms um uh for for all students um as well as kind of looking at uh deferred maintenance items uh strategic mechanical electrical Plumbing um and systems upgrades those things um that are a burden on your capital outlay and um uh incorp ated those into that uh for the high schools uh we took a harder look at how to uh create a safe and secure campus only because at the middle schools that was kind of part of the last uh last bond issue so um looked harder uh at both the high schools uh for that um and as we were looking at the the learning environments uh it
062really kind of kicked in a whole discussion about creating uh the appropriate professional space uh for faculty in order to accommodate that engagement and collaboration um and then lastly just kind of thinking about uh the growth not only the growth that uh has kind of occurred when we moved ninth graders up to to each of the high schools but just thinking out five six years from now um and making sure that we were accommodating it uh from that standpoint um so with that I'll have uh I'll have David kind run us through yeah good evening so again it sounds like a lot of you have been through a lot of this so I'll go quickly you can certainly stop with any questions um uh the team definitely did a lot of due diligence looked at
063area schools and spent a lot of time talking to the principles and staff to understand what works um to highlight some of the key takeaways I think the um kind of the secondary learning spaces that we saw both enclosed and and open uh throughout the schools uh was highly valued in the schools we talked to uh there was uh proximity issues between those spaces and classrooms that we've tried to improve upon uh both private and and open spaces so we'll show you how we've kind of translated that to a next um evolution in some of our plans um certainly saw a lot of different permutations of it it's certainly in support of the 21st century initiatives it's definitely uh moving in a direction to take what um was developed with the elementaries and development of
064learning pockets and translate that to the uh middle and high school levels so that that concept is still carrying true and as the students come up through the grade levels there's going to be a natural continuity the outdoor spaces again when properly secured and provisioned with um you know study and and dining space are well utilized uh there's some great opportunities for us to bring our schools up to similar level to benefit from all that outdoor space that's not otherwise well utilized on lot situations and there were um Flex classrooms or Flex rooms of this nature uh in two of the schools that um housed up to 120 students we're going to take this idea and again kind of extrapolate it a little bit further um they found Great Value in these for hosting testing
065and not tying up other learning spaces um um a lot of times it's tying up library space to do the testing so this allows uh schools to keep more of their learning spaces open uh they used for faculty they're used for events they be used for study hall and again we're we're going to kind of translate this idea of these large Flex rooms again a step further such that it really B benefits more the student learning uh and not just these special event kind of situations we spent a lot of time um talking about libraries and and kind of reviewing what what the various um newer schools in the areas had and again a lot of them tended to be uh surprisingly traditional in their nature and kind of self-contained so we really had a
066lot of discussions about how to not only serve those current Library needs as they're evolving for but make the library even more accessible to more students throughout more of the day so you'll see some variations on how we're uh kind of leveraging those ideas did see a number of schools that are really bringing more uh support spaces into their libraries the media Studios the study spaces uh it's definitely more of a place to house um special learning spaces that need some governance from a from a librarian uh so there's there's certainly some good models going on out there then we uh definitely took the time to uh talk to the students uh at Lawrence High and really find out more about a day in their life and what they really value so we didn't accidentally
067erase that from the school as we renovate it but also what's uh what's needed and and what um helps them succeed in in their life so we looked at classroom standards and this is really a measurement of square feet per student which is kind of the the best practice metric with which we look at learning spaces uh rather than sheer square footage uh and what you'll see here is Free State uh was doing pretty well at majority of classrooms being equal or greater than 24 squ feet per student uh Lawrence High was obviously lowest on that metric so um there's a lot more impact to existing classrooms on that campus to bring them up to the 24 foot per student standard so as we began to look at the translation of some of those uh
068ideas um I think the big spaces and opportunities that were affecting the the plans on um the middle and high schools has to do with the development of more of these um kind of breakout in secondary learning spaces um learning Pockets if we're to kind of continue with the same language and then what can we do with the kind of the 21st century Library the future of the the high school library to really leverage it as a as an asset and a resource uh obviously some of the campuses uh are getting more attention to right siiz classrooms and some of them like West Middle are getting more attention on HVAC systems to properly condition the spaces we're going to be taking a look at uh locker rooms and restaurants throughout all the campuses to address
069um goals for uh student privacy um and and just you know a little more careful consideration to those issues that I think we're all really highly aware of today there are um some kind of access issues that I think everyone's kind of got a Keen Eye on and we would definitely want to make safer this part of making the outdoor spaces more accessible and making the schools uh themselves far safer so Lawrence High again is the one that's going to benefit I think from the most kind of right right now insecure points of Entry that you see in the diagram that'll be remedied through the renovation uh here again you see kind of Notions of U what the kind of development of these learning pockets might look like uh throughout the space and we'll have
070some more examples of libraries the um the flex rooms that we spoke about um are really going to be kind of strategically uh located within the campuses um you we make sure that they're accessible for community events we want to make sure they're accessible by adjacent classrooms so there's some flexibility for those rooms to serve as breakout space in their own right more like the giant learning pocket we look at the library as a giant learning pocket the flex room as a giant learning pocket so you got different scales of these support spaces um throughout and then uh terms of classrooms not only is uh Lawrence High getting two additional classrooms but um we're getting their uh existing classrooms brought up to those standards and then we're um adding seven new classroom spaces at Free
071State High School uh good evening I'd like to uh just go through what we come up with uh for solutions to those various needs and uh we'll run through the middle schools first and then go through the high schools uh starting with um West uh some of the issues there are lack of student collaboration space um and in-class breakout opportunities uh an outdated library and uh the lack of storage within uh the science Wing uh to accommodate that uh uh we didn't need to build any new square footage but we're able to actually right siize some of the existing oversized classrooms uh you can see that in the uh lower part of the page and to the and to the right of those classrooms were uh oversized creating breakout opportunities adjacent to those and then
072we open the library uh to the public circulation spaces you'll see that as being a common theme on all of the schools so starting to create um a very open flexible uh media space uh that allows for project and product based learning opportunities as well as inclass breakout opportunities um the sixth grade Locker Commons um is kind of this oversized room with um Few Lockers in it that we see as being converted into a series of learning pockets that's that larger space in the middle uh so the media space again removing some of those walls creating uh multiple opportunities for uh breakout and project and product brace learning uh a variety of different uh study zones from quiet zones uh to more social study spaces and uh also creating uh help desk uh Genius Bar
073type uh scenarios in each of these schools so you can see that located in in West for Liberty Memorial uh Central uh this is uh Centennial this is uh again the same theme of creating some larger learning pockets and then for the media uh starting to open that space up to the rest of the [Music] school so cycling through the floors this is level three creating a a larger space there uh there was an opportunity to create a larger group student breakout uh space on that floor so looking closer uh one thing that we wanted to do at Liberty memor Memorial Central or Centennial in particular was uh to uh Central was to um uh uh basically preserve the historic uh nature of that school and uh so we see that we can uh preserve
074the entryways to the media center uh and still create some uh penetrations through uh that wall so that you have some um uh connectivity to the public spaces of the building uh we also connected two of the rooms uh to create a larger Commons a larger open Commons so you again you can see creating multiple uh zones for study from quiet Zone to uh group uh collaborative spaces to areas that could be used for um uh project and product based learning for the high schools you want to mention South and Southwest uh sure South and Southwest um obviously not skipping over those schools but uh recognizing that they um already have integrated being new schools have already uh have some of those opportunities for um secondary learning spaces outside of the classroom uh for those
075schools it's more in the form of the Pod uh the the budget that you'll see at the end and the base um base um uh has included some allowances to um continue to develop some of those areas into um even stronger uh breakout spaces uh and then also to begin to open up those media spaces to the public spaces of the building just like we're doing to the other two middle schools uh so we don't go through those in detail but uh we have covered those in that manner uh so again plan for the high schools if we start uh with uh Free State uh there were a number of issues here one is just uh the underutilized and and non-private showers uh and not enough lockers within that space uh they have a lack
076of square footage within some of the Athletics program um um there are some way finding and inefficiency way finding issues and inefficiencies within the special services area in the center of the building there uh certainly some insufficient uh classroom capacity uh that we uh you'll see that we accommodate uh through um an addition to the school uh and then again outdated uh Media Center uh so solutions to those um is going in and individual showers uh and changing stalls uh new multi-purpose space uh that you can see adjacent to the existing auxiliary gym uh the uh reconfiguration of special services so basically special services in at both free state and uh Lawrence High School reconfigured such that uh classrooms are much more flexible uh so that the capacity of those classrooms um can vary from
077year to year that that particular program uh the capacity of one uh class may change uh radically from year to year so they need a lot of flexibility and then the current configurations are not able to accommodate that um it also allows for each of those classrooms to have direct adjacency to a functions space uh and so uh We've reconfigured those classrooms uh the flex classroom that David was talking about earlier you can see that as the that blue square in the middle uh so that space again used for testing uh all faculty meetings that type of thing but uh We've also uh centrally located that around some classrooms and created a high degree of transparency to the adjacent classroom so that you can create uh a learning Commons um and and uh or a
078learning uh sorry Innovation Center that Innovation Center allowing for uh some of the activities that are happening with in the classroom to uh break out into this larger Flex space again for Project based learning opportunities uh at the media center uh again we created some more transparency to uh the public circulation within the building and uh we moved that wall U Back um uh off of the main Corridor so that you are creating a larger learning pocket directly off of the corridor so that learning pocket's large enough to create several different learning opportunities for uh inclass breakout uh and then last uh it's hard to see the dividing line between new and existing but uh there is a net gain of seven classrooms uh within the school second floor uh again some of uh uh
079the continuation of that addition to create that seven additional classrooms and then uh breakout packet uh Pockets uh along the corridors so here's a blowup of that Innovation Center and the transparency to that flex [Music] room again this is just adding some functionality uh when compared to some of the benchmarks that we had visited and then this is the media center again breaking down the more opaque barrier between there and the public circulation spaces uh and moving that barrier um further into the library so that uh you have a larger learning pocket uh that kind of becomes this uh gray area between the media center and uh inclass uh breakout use uh so that those all those functions um U begin to utilize the same resources again the idea with all these new media centers
080to create just kind of a wealth of different learning opportunities uh to serve uh the various needs uh and the idea is that the media center isn't just um a silo anymore that it becomes kind of a a part of your um U daily activity is to engage the space on some level whether it's just social or whether it's a part of your formal curriculum uh within the locker areas uh you can see a blow up of those replace gang showers and individual stalls uh the new multipurpose uh Athletics room and then the dash line uh to the left of the screen uh uh is where we're proposing a future multi-purpose activity uh space that would also be uh served as a um storm shelter for that school in the future this is the special
081services reconfiguration again giving uh uh some transparency and direct access from the classrooms directly to that functions room uh and then some movable barriers between the two classrooms allowing for the size of those classrooms to vary from year to year as needed uh it also places the laundry restroom shower uh in such a location that you don't have to move through rooms to get to those rooms which is a problem at all of our schools right now uh at the the schools that we're modifying if we look at uh Lawrence High School I'll just go through these uh issues fairly quickly but um classrooms of insuff ient size you saw that kind of across the board I think it was like close to 30% of the classrooms um are actually meeting that density of uh
08224 square foot per person or better uh so that's just to accommodate new learning models an outdated Library um insufficient space for special services so we create a similar diagram to what we did to uh Free State uh poor WF finding in general uh there's certainly the security issues that at the school uh where students are um at every period moving between the main school and the anex or the main school and the West um West gym and Auditorium uh the layout of the uh Annex is um very uh inefficient in addition to creating uh classrooms where you have to move one uh through one or more classrooms just to get to your classroom so uh there's certainly disturbances um in classrooms just in moving from uh from room room um inefficient locker room and
083wayf finding uh issues uh within Athletics uh a weight room that's too small uh the administration offices currently uh don't have adjacencies that would be desirable uh and a lack of storage uh within some of the Performing Arts uh areas are uh starting to crowd those particular rooms and so simply getting some of that excess storage out those rooms was desirable uh so I'll just walk through our Solutions uh starting with uh some of the site changes um uh you'll see that we've started to uh uh connect the various uh buildings together and then doing so we've created a new science Courtyard adjacent to the uh science classrooms the science classrooms were renovated not that long ago so you'll see a blow up of that soon uh so that's kind of an area of the
084building that we are lightly renovating but not doing uh some major Renovations too uh We've removed the vehicular connection to Louisiana Street So currently that uh is a major point of contention with uh student traffic um intersecting that vehicular traffic way uh a new learning courty yard that's uh enclosed by the West gym in the main building uh We've relocated the storage building um to be uh more adjacent to the West gym and then um also to accommodate a relocated fire lanane uh you see it says architectural Gates there that's both on the North and South sides of that courtyard so that's what allows for this uh campus to be completely secured during uh normal hours of operation um complete front uh entry canopy so there's a canopy that was started in the last Bond
085uh that would be completed as a part of this Bond uh and that becomes just a uh space uh directly adjacent to the front door for uh various activities uh and expanding the bus lane which right now the the bus lane is insufficient so they're having to uh use the bus lane um to the uh south of there adjacent to the annex to serve the main building um so blowing up on the plan again we've enclosed the campus uh reconfigured the annex layout uh relocated the weight room relocated and expanded the locker rooms uh r inovated the natatorium and expanded seating and pool deck uh so the uh uh Natatorium currently is uh lacking uh proper conditioning uh there's parts of the uh deck that um are needing repairs and um expansion of that is
086necessary to accommodate some of the meats that they have so that's included within this um an open Innovation common so similar to what we're doing at all the other secondary schools is opening up that Commons to the school um because we're doing the amount of renovation to the school that we are it was an opportunity to centrally locate uh the media and to make that really a new heart to the school so it's kind of all that um Blue ghosted Area uh in the middle of the plan there uh We've Consolidated the administration Services which again were uh in two different parts of the building and then we've moved uh the majority of the instrument storage and performing art storage needs to the old black blackbox Theater which was not used um which was freeing
087up space um gaining back a lot of space for the Performing uh Arts areas that were uh previously cramped uh new special services core and uh we right siiz those classrooms um by joining the various areas of the building we've created a much simpler wave finding diagram and you can see that we've uh connected the various buildings so that's just showing the primary circulation RS uh those red Dash lines are showing the gates as well uh second floor is very similar so we are creating breakout opportunities uh adjacent the classrooms uh what we're not showing is really a diagram here that um shows new versus uh renovated but the majority uh the majority of this plan is um renovated um to to right size all of those classs rooms so this is just a blowup
088of the classrooms one thing that we've done is we've um expanded the corridor from a 11 feet to 16 ft so we've W widen that Corridor um mainly to create a continuous uh breakout area uh recognizing that uh ideally those opportunities occur directly adjacent to the classrooms and widening that Corridor was because we removed lockers right or is it so it's it's a couple of things uh one we recognized that there uh was not a need for as many lockers as they currently have in fact some of the schools that we benchmarked had moved to zero lockers like Lancing for example um so we've removed H half the lockers um and and the rest and we've located those in other parts of the building as opposed to the main circulation routes uh the other thing
089that we did is we've added an um a some new construction on the east side of the building that's done two things that's allowed us to push those classrooms out U but it's also addressed all of the uh envelope issues on the east side uh so that we have better thermal performance and you can see that as that that dashed line that's running so that's that from there to the east is a is addition this is that open uh media Commons and then again in the middle we've uh put that larger Flex space that we talked about uh before uh we see that being a fairly transparent space uh that has some connectivity to some of the adjacent learning areas uh in this case it's the production area in that uh maker space uh and
090then of course uh just like before this is uh serving a multitude of different learning opportunities uh this is looking at uh science uh as I mentioned science is a lightly renovated space uh in in this particular uh scope of work given that it had recent Renovations uh but we did remove one uh part of one room so that uh we could gain access uh a strong uh connection between the science wing and a new science Courtyard that's created uh and then some of the additional classroom space to make up what was lost as what form the connection to the NX uh this is just showing the relocation of storage to the old black box uh which is the uh box in that uh upper left hand corner of the screen and then we've created
091new practice rooms within that same blackbox area uh relocating them from the former or from the orchestra room uh that picture to the right is a picture of the uh kind of temporary um practice rooms that are currently in that space so we'd be removing those uh and then this is the administration area so the yellow area on the bottom of the page is the existing admin uh and then we've relocated that blue area which is assistant principles uh and um other administrated offices uh We've also given that Suite a direct adjacency to the special services which is that purple Zone and then for the Athletics uh We've cleaned up the circulation and um created Locker uh uh new Locker spaces uh for both men's and women's there's also a new um cardio location in
092the bottom left hand corner and then the um West gym we've removed bleachers from the gym floor and raised those to uh the overlooking second floor created an elevator that connects to that second floor uh and again expanded the pool deck uh and seating for the for the natatorium this is the uh cafeteria So currently the serving um uh uh doesn't serve the current population so they are in need of a second serving line to serve the complete current population as well as their projected growth uh should they go to a closed campus in the future uh so there is a small addition which is that area outlined in red uh which allows for a second serving area to be added to that area if you may recall that the cafeteria area was renovated as
093part of the last Bond so we did not touch that area uh and then this is just a blow up of one concept for the courtyard again a connection from the main building um to that um uh to the West JY area uh we're showing this as a just a covered walkway again relying on on those architectural gates to create a closed campus uh and then there would be various uh learning opportunities on the exterior so tiered seating Amphitheater type seating uh for exterior classrooms and then uh exterior seating that bleeds out from the commons um so before we jump into cost um are there any kind of questions on any of that scope that um you want us to go back through okay yeah sort of um minutia but Kyle you mentioned parking lots
094or some one point did is that addressed and maybe I just wasn't listening um enough to hear that and then um uh I guess I have a little concern about Courtyards just because I know LHS has kind of ended up with Courtyards here and there and some of them are taken care of and some are not I like the tiered seating um um I know the pond has always kind of been a burden and an issue um but special um and there's a couple that I'm not really sure they were designed as Courtyards but just sort of ended up being boxed in spaces where nothing grows but um it looks like those seem to be addressed it kind of or or the courtyards are more um uh designed um with I guess low maintenance growing
095things and permanent seating so it's not it doesn't we don't end up with the same thing well so with regards to the courtyards I think currently there are two kind of smaller Courtyards over at Lawrence High um and they're they're not really kind of big enough for taking a class out there and kind of teaching and and um um and and they're not they're not utilized and one of them is used by kind of the architecture student students a little bit um or has been um but uh so we're eliminating one of those and then um are we eliminating both no we're eliminating one and then the Latin cour that becomes theard so so the Latin Courtyard now would be off the um the media the central media area um and and we envision that
096as kind of an extension of the maker the maker space and so there is some programmatic components to that uh from a detail standpoint I think Tony's been pretty clear with us in terms of uh from a maintenance standpoint what his expectations are out there so it's it's either it's either Hardscape or it's um um um you know vegetation that doesn't doesn't require maintenance so so I think you can I think you can do those so that they're amenities to the schools um and currently um I wouldn't necessarily say that the courtyards that there that are there now are um the parking lot question are you referring to Free State I I think so I'm not sure I mean I know looks like some of the parking lot was cut with the uh covered walkway
097or you know how are we with parking spaces now current versus plan okay so at Lauren at Lawrence at Lawrence High School we do have the ability to pick up some additional parking above and beyond what's currently there um and we didn't highlight that for you in the site plan but it but but it is there um it's a it's a nominal amount so it's not hundreds of cars but but we pick up we pick up a little bit we're not losing no and at freest State uh we've got money in there for um 100 to 150 additional the parking spaces over South of the baseball field I think that answers my questions thanks yeah I have one so um initially when we kind of talked about scope we talked about um possibly changing up
098some restroom facilities in order to make more gender neutral restroom facilities is that still part of the plan and discussion because I didn't necessarily hear that um I I heard locker room um but I didn't hear anything about restroom um um rations we've got money allocated to try to um provide more privacy in all the secondary schools for locker rooms either for locker rooms or kind of restrooms it kind of you know it just kind of depends at Lawrence High it's easier because we are um we're gutting most of the school uh what we specifically go back with in terms of a solution I think still requires more discussion with the district in terms of what uh what that means for our district uh from that standpoint great so we haven't necessarily solved that issue
099in this plan but it is definitely still in the hopper as something we're going to solve or okay yeah that's what I wanted to know that's correct thank you anybody else with questions well I guess at what Pointes this go to the site councils to look at or or whatever you know parent group there is or um uh it's a good question uh we've kind of left it up to the principles to kind of manage that uh for us at Lawrence High School we had um people from the site Council on the uh on the committee uh we haven't uh Matt hasn't actually asked us to present to the site Council but we certainly can um did we had we talked about that anymore I mean we have I mean because you guys have been
100interacting with staff and some oh yeah at least and with I thought some I know I guess at Lawrence High for sure you that parent that committee group has been involved throughout the whole process so so at free state and we've spent a lot of times since our last work session with uh with free state and we've met with uh uh several people to kind of talk through uh what they want and that particular Flex space that you saw that concept uh a lot of that was driven uh by myin he had taken some of his staff down to Texas to uh Benchmark some high schools uh that he was familiar with and um uh to kind of relate it to uh this Innovation program that he's trying to do at Freestate so uh we
101spent a lot of time with them on that and that that design kind of reflects what what that group wants uh there wasn't necessarily a community group at free state involved uh in the process so we haven't met with any anybody from the community and we haven't shared that with uh with the site Council but we've uh but all that's been kind of shared through through my uh at Lawrence High School Matt put together a steering committee that was a broad-based committee of of faculty and community members and administrators and we've met numerous times um with that group uh to talk about the issues at Lawrence High and um and the results that you see in in the summary any other questions John think you can go ahead and finish your summary okay um so
102since the last time we've uh talked to you we've um we've met with our Engineers um and they've provided um full modeling on on Lawrence high school and then looked at the impact of LED lighting on all the secondary schools uh we had Henderson Engineers uh do that uh for us uh we spent quite a bit of time with Mallen Gordon going back through the plans and kind of scrubbing the numbers and uh making sure that that what we're presenting to you not to presenting to you tonight kind of reflected um everything that you're seeing uh um in um you know in the project um and we spent a little bit more time at freest State High School um and so the costs on Free State went up a little bit um as and it
103was hard to see in those diagrams but uh we talked quite a bit about uh trying to integrate more learning Pockets throughout the entire school and not just kind of focusing it on the library and and that big Flex space and so uh so there's a little bit more renovation uh that we're proposing uh on Free State um and so uh when we put all those numbers together we're sitting you know right around 75.5 million we did move West Middle School's LED lighting above the line like we discussed in one of the work sessions um and um this does include 100% of all rough maintenance I know that note says 50% but does include 100% of all the uh the roof maintenance and repairs uh through 2020 that were in the report that uh the
104district uh put together uh below the line we have um the uh lighting upgrades at Free State High School Liberty Memorial Central Southwest and South uh at about 9.5 million um and then there are a few um kind of lower tier MEP upgrades um at Lawrence High free state in Liberty Memorial um that if you so choose uh we could move above the line and that values about 1.7 million uh and then the third thing we've kind of talked about um is that both both high schools have expressed uh a desire um and a need for a third uh gym uh at their schools um some of that just based on moving ninth grade up um and and the demand uh for those types of spaces um I think through the process both principles felt
105that it was um a lower tier need um so some of the things that are up in the base base costs were things they thought were really important to take care of today uh but they thought it was important to communicate that um either now or sometime in the future um they feel like the third gym is something that should be addressed at both um schools and uh if we did we've talked about that as being a multi-use space uh not just a dedicated uh space for uh for athletics but could be used uh throughout the school and to be constructed as a storm shelter um a storm shelter that would that would meet uh kind of the FEMA code code standards uh each of the schools currently has uh policies and procedures in place
106for safe zones with within their school but this would this would just kind of up the up the Annie a little bit um so real quick on the uh cost savings uh this is for the LED lighting so colored in Orange are the two schools where it's included in the base cost um and these scopes of work uh we're estimating would save the district $56,000 a year uh in energy costs um if you decided uh to do the work at the other four schools uh you could realize an additional $997,000 a year in savings um and so that based on the initial cost that equates to about an 8 years simple payback and then for the um for the five items that are in the priority 2 and three MEP options um they they vary
107in terms of their payback um some of them like replacing the water cooled chillers will pay back in in three years um whereas replacing the steam boilers and and so on um the payback would be just under 10 but uh but you can see all those um are in the kind of five to six year payback range so um I think if if that's something that fits within the the overall uh bond issue it's something that we would we would recommend that you um that you incorporate these these recommendations and then I think I think lastly I mean we we're still working on collateral uh to support all this that uh we have a handout of this presentation we'll give to you uh tonight um we do have uh renderings of the buildings that uh
108are in kind of a draft mode tonight and so uh so I didn't share those but but we will get those to Kyle uh to send out um um here very shortly Jan you have a question okay um thanks um I had a question for you guys and then I wanted to share some feedback that I had gotten um the question um came from a a parent that I spoke with um asking me what is the difference between the what we're talking about spending to renovate Lawrence High versus building a new high school and my memory was that it new high school was somewhere between 110 and 150 million is that what is that what you saw when you were looking at the um or what was the number that you saw when you were
109looking at the um comparable um or what was the term um Piers yes thank you the peer schools that that that you all two are to do our Benchmark I think 100 million is a good number to to relate to um if you think about just kind of the building itself and you take a 300,000 ft building and um use $250 a square foot for uh construction um that gets you to 75 million for the building um and then you've got all the uh the soft cost all the Furnishings all the technology all that stuff that um and so if you if you add 25% uh to that number that would get you you know at the low end to 100 million um and then you've got all your site costs and so it kind
110of really depends on um whether or not you've got to acquire the site and um and then you know how much parking and what what do you do with you know do you rebuild the football field and you know all those sorts of things so when you start tacking on all those things you know it it can get upwards to 150 million so um you know as a range uh you're somewhere in there uh but I don't think we sat down and tried to calculate exactly uh what that might be well I think that's helpful because the the the character of the discussion that we had was um centered around um why aren't you talking about building a new high school um because what you're talking about doing at Lawrence High is so incredibly disruptive
111for the students that are going to be there during the time that they're there and um and so I think that's a fair that's a fair concern for a parent to have who's looking at having students coming into Lawrence High in the next few years while we're talking about doing this um so I guess the the feedback I wanted to share with the board was just that that concern has been expressed and and some of the um suggestions that were made in that regard or our need to maybe do a better job in reaching out not only just to uh the community at Lawrence High School but also to the communities of the schools even down to the elementary school level that feed up into Lawrence High School um once we are um ready to
112start really making a decision about going forward with with this and and um sharing and getting feedback from those groups as well um you know I I knowing that that I was in the ballpark with the numbers makes me feel a little better about the the feedback that I gave to this parent that you know hey you know we're we're we're talking about getting a practically brand new building at the point that we're done with this for less than half the cost of it what it would cost us to recreate this somewhere else but um but but I do think that it's a fair concern for them to have what is this going to mean you know I'm going to have a student who's going to spend most of their High School career in a
113building under construction so um so something that we need to think about um in the process yeah so two quick things we have spent a little more time with Macau Gordon on kind of the phasing plans and and I think um right now the fact that we have an Annex that's not tied to Lawrence High School and we're kind of building kind of new addition um and there's this idea if we can take take the technical services area and um you know for a semester uh potentially uh something that you might want to consider but doing something uh offsite with those spaces there is a huge chunk of square footage that we can uh renovate and add on that would not disrupt the school at all and that kind of first year and then as
114we kind of transition over you know now we've created new classroom space that that we can we can use and we transition over then then that next year will be uh it'll be messy no doubt uh I think we've got some good ideas in terms of how to plan that but um in that scenario it may only be one year that's kind of a mess well that's really helpful feedback have thank you anybody else have any questions I've got one quick one and Tony I think you're going to have to help with this one um so if if we let's say we boosted you know right now 75 million if we went closer to 80 million and we put in some of those MP one or two or the LED lights from a to to
115help alleviate some of the strain on the capital fund over the next couple years what what from an operation standpoint what do you see is the more you know take some of those me it the mechanical items or the LED lights what what's do you think would be the best to tackle first that's a very good question and it leads into uh two weeks from now when I give a capital Improvement plan report to you the bottom line is the capital Improvement plan is not going to be able to afford much over the next probably four to five years um with that being said I would strongly encourage to take a strong look at both the LED lighting upgrades and the me the me Improv improvements obviously are 1.7 which uh is a is a
116good chunk of change but in comparison to the rest of the uh to the rest of the scope of getting upwards of 80 million it would be in my opinion it would be ideal to go ahead and add it on to the uh to the Bond as far as the LED if we're serious about sustainability and and freeing up general fund dollars I I feel that LED lighting is a good way to do that the 8year payback that they showed I think is is reasonable uh we're looking at roughly $100,000 to save a year the thing that they don't have in their numbers either are the uh the many times that we have to go out and change ballast change bulbs all those costs I'm not sure if they're calculated in that number I think
117it's strictly energy from a maintenance standpoint um you think about the number of bulbs that we're removing by doing six schools uh with LED lighting that that's that's that's a number that's hard for us to calculate but a very high potential Savings in in our human resource power uh and and costs out the general fund so uh um selfishly moreel I say we put it all in um if I were to add one over the other I would I would ask for LED lighting and then um if we feel like we could afford to do the uh MEP improvements um definitely would consider that also um any other questions okay thanks guys I do I don't I'm not sure it's necessarily for you but I more for Kyle so and and maybe it's coming um
118are we talking at all about timeline if are we still considering April for when the bond would go to voters it seems that's a fairly short Runway um I think previous Bond we had more time um to plan kind of community engagement kinds of activities um and so when are we going to I guess talk about that is that and now so part do um this is going to be we're going to talk about the the uh Finance piece of things as far as M Levy and then um I kind of prefer that actually um not sure you'll be able to see um so they'll talk about um the finance piece of things um and then also the timeline um if you compare it to last time actually the board um approved um moving to
119a bond issue in mid December I think we had a special meeting actually and and that was an April 4th I believe election at that point in time in um yeah yeah and then um what we're talking about here though is um um a January decision first January meeting with a potential um early may vote so but um transitioning here to Kathy and Dave good evening Kathy Johnson Director of Finance um Dave's going to first visit with you a little bit about kind of different levels of issues and the related mevy to that is going to kind of introduce what a May calendar would look or an election May election would look like calendar-wise and then I have a few slides to share when he gets done about some data comparison of other districts and
120kind of where we fit into the the surrounding school districts and kind of our assessed valuation debt to per pupil and some of those kind of things so you can kind of just get a picture of of that and where we are in relation to others and ourselves um depending upon what we do so I'll turn it over to Dave to start um thank you Kathy um Again David arbery with George K bomman company it's um pleasure to be here tonight the um up on the screen right now you should see a report that hopefully looks familiar to at least some of you um and this is um a schedule that attempts to to show uh what the M Levy impact would be on a bond issue of of varying different principle or par amounts
121here and the the first couple of uh lines that you see on that table in the middle of the page seem like kind of odd numbers but the first number is um 437 43,700 th000 um that represents the amount amount of bonds that the school district could issue next year uh and still keep its Mill Levy in the bond and interest fund at its current level of about 9.68 Ms um and and the reason you can add on that much next year without a M Levy increase is because uh your existing bond payments drop off over the next couple of years so you have some capacity um just because of those payment decreases to to add on new debt and not affect your M Levy um that next number the $$ 63.6 million what that
122represents is how much you could um issue in bonds next year and keep your M Levy at the same level that it was at prior to your 2013 election um and the mil Levy at that time was about a mill higher roughly a mill higher than it is now um backing up again to that $4 43.7 million that that number is actually coincidentally um about the same number uh about the same amount of bonds that you could issue um uh you that you could hold an election on uh without having to first go to the state to receive approval to hold your election um if um a school district is going to be issuing debt um in an amount that causes their total debt to exceed 14% of your assessed valuation um you're required to
123go to to the state board and receive approval before the election um and that the amount of debt you could issue uh on top of your existing debt and still stay below that 14% level is about $44 million so that first number there kind of represents a couple of things um your no M Levy increase number as well as the amount that if you issue less than that you won't have to go to the state the rest of the par amounts there you see on that table you know 70 million and million dollar increments up to 80 million and then jump to 85 and 90 million um those um are just provided to give you an example of how much your M Levy would need to increase um in order to accommodate those size Bond
124issues uh and when I say increase um I I don't mean if you look there in that first line item for instance 70 million you your M would not have to increase by 10.9 77 Ms um it would need to go from 9.6 Ms to 10.97 7 Ms in order to accommodate a $70 million bond issue um and just to as some perspective one mill uh on a home with an assessed an appraised valuation of $100,000 equals $1150 a year or two Mills on that $100,000 home would be $23 per year um that $100,000 of assessed valuation I'm just throwing that out there because that's a nice round number that you could apply to houses of different sizes um a few assumptions that we used in developing these projections that I think are worth pointing
125out uh I assume that the interest rate on the future Bond issues would be about three and a half% um when I first prepared these numbers about a month or so ago maybe even a little longer than that um that 3 and a half% % was was well above what the prevailing rate for municipal bonds was um unfortunately over the last few weeks rates have jumped up and sort of all of the contingency that I had had in that number is gone now so if you were to issue bonds right now they'd probably be at about a three and a half% rate um the other thing I wanted to mention here is that what we're doing with these payments on these new bonds is we're we're wrapping them around the school district's existing payments um
126so as your existing payments drop off the payments on the new bonds increase so that overall the payments on the district's debt are Level that's the way we structured this issue similar to The Way We structured the the last bond issue that the school district did um so that's sort of an overview of the the M Levy projections and you can kind of use that as you're looking at or trying to determine the amount um of a bond election that you might be considering um to to get an idea of what your M Levy would would need to do so um any questions about the M levies the projections um if not I'll turn over just to the calendar real quickly um yeah if you want to put that on there um this is a
127schedule that shows kind of the events that would need to to occur leading up to uh a May election and as far as the board goes there's really um two um meetings or two additional meetings that you would need to have and which action would need to occur um the first meeting that we've got scheduled here is December 12th and and at that date um you'd have to uh well what we've got planned is that you would review the results of the survey uh and that you'd also need to determine whether or not you want to hold a mail ballot election or a walk-in election now um since I've prepared this calendar maybe you've already had some of those discussions about how you want to handle the election but um at December 12th that's sort
128of what you would need to be considered doing um after that during the month of December um the the resolution that would call the election would be drafted up and you'd have some discussions with the county clerk uh and then on your January 9th meeting as was mentioned previously uh at that meeting um you would need to consider an election resolution a resolution officially calling uh an election uh if that was passed then after that um assuming that you'd be issuing more than that $44 million um you'd need to complete and file an application with the state you'd need to have a couple Publications that would occur uh and all that would lead up to then um having an ction on on May 2nd um this schedule um is is given the steps that you
129have to go through in the different deadlines and Publications um it it's pretty firm pretty set in stone there's not a whole lot of room that you have to move here maybe you could move some of these things a week or two but probably not much more than that and still still hit your May election date that's it so I'm going to share with you just a couple of slides of kind of comparative data so you can kind of see where where you fit with um some districts so I'm pull that up so one of the things we did got to switch over here for you don't I um at the last bond issue is um with the finance advisor advisory Council we picked 21 other school districts to look at in varying sizes locations
130and demographics and tried to look at an array of the big ones and like local ones around us to to give ourselves a comparison for benchmarking and so um the source of the bener marking information is coming from ksde some of the static reports that they have on the website they have a comparative data analysis tool that can be used and then there's a lot of other documents out on the the state site such as the state budget documents budget at a glance those kinds of things um Personnel reports s66 and the 18e so any of those kinds of documents are kind of good documents that we can pull consistent data from other school districts as well as our own and and do a comparison that's more apples to apples than than maybe calling them
131and saying give us you know this information kind of thing um so the first one we look at is just that enrollment graph and Lawrence is the seventh largest um District in the state and so that's what this graph kind of depicts and then you can see the other districts Garden City Salina some of the other ones um that are local around us and then kind of what we're comparing ourselves to the next one is just a look at those same districts and where Lawrence fits into the mix of all of those same districts on free and reduced percentages um in their district and the next one is just a snapshot of what Lawrence schools them themselves um look like with their percent of free and percent of reduced being the blue and you can
132see our ride range from Kennedy clear to Langston Hughes at the other end so again it's just sort of a snapshot it's kind of the same data that we looked at um for the 2013 issue kind of gives you a look at our demographics and our demographics compared to those other schools um and then we also looked a little bit at and this is the most recent data that's out there is 1415 for a comparison purpose so we looked at all expenditures um per pupil across all funds and this is where um Lawrence fits in there with their per pupil um cost for all funds and then looking without bond and interest and capital outlay so you can see Lawrence is kind of in the middle or actually kind of in the at the lower
133end of of some of that um and the state average is this this one over here so you can kind of look um where the state average is and then Lawrence is also below that the next one is looking at our assessed valuation at those same districts so you'll see that shiny Mission has the highest assess valuation Blue Valley uh which T Lea some of that has to do with um the square footage of the district or the industry potentially in that community and then you'll see our neighbor udora and some of those that have a much lower assessed valuation this when you look at the per pupil and M Levy you'll see that they then kind of shift to the other side um so as we look at the per pupil valuation this would
134be the valuation per student again we're kind of at that far left because we have a large enrollment large we kind of fit there again you'll see um Kansas City Kansas doesn't have a high assess valuation they have a large amount of population which puts them at a very low assessed valuation Kathy these aren't all um these are those 12 or however many that 21 21 that the um Finance advisory Council decided were good comparable okay thank you I just wanted to confirm that yeah um and so you'll see you know where Kansas City fall Kansas City Kansas Falls you'll also note that some of this valuation per pupil is also where your state aid comes from so those without a lot of state aid are over here on the left and those that get
135more state aid you're going to see on the right as well and in other aspects of the finance formula so the Lawrence Bond and interest Mill Levy right now fits right there in the middle we're not a whole lot different than we were in 2013 where I talked about the assessed valuation being really low and look at where udor is really high assessed valuation they had some very large bond issue not all that long ago and to be able to fund it takes a lot of Mills because they don't have a high assessed valuation so those districts that have the higher assess valuation you're going to see that that mil Levy has now shifted more to the right side and again Lawrence is sort of in the middle of that demographic um the next one
136is um the overall M Levy so you can kind of see where where overall we fit and again we're kind of right in the middle that kind of make sense um this was a graph that uh George K bomb had prepared and this was um again that's kind of school district mevy but this is where we were in the middle and this is where we would be if we moved to an 85.2 million issue which increases our mevy so we really don't move anywhere except for next door to where we are today and we never really changed much in um moving on that Dynamic you'll see that our debt to assess valuation is very low compared to all of these school districts um which will also indicate that we are one of the few school
137districts that have not gone to the state to go above that 14% debt ceiling that is on school districts so we are very rare in that regard not a lot of districts um a lot of them have gone and so you'll see that with this if you did do the 85 to and that was just sort of picked as a as a middle point you're going to move but you're going to move just kind of in the middle and you're still really at a lower end you're going to see again udora very small District very large bond issue low assessed valuation their debt to assess valuation is very high right now Spring Hill Lancing I I would also add here that you'll notice on the right hand side a number of the school districts have
138asteris by them those are school districts that have either recently held an election or are planning to hold one and and the new um if if they approve it or if they've recently approved like Kansas City Kansas did an election that new debt has not been added to those so my guess is a lot of those with asteris on it if they do have a successful election they'll be shifting over to the left also and the last one of this would be a debt per pupil and again we're we're down here towards the the far right um the El that 85.2 kind of level would move you kind of here and depending upon what that new issue is if it's not the 85 you know it's going to be somewhere in between if you went
139above it it might move it above the school next door but it may keep you just kind of like the the mil ly did just right next door to yourself um so those were sort of just some comparable data graphs to kind of show you you know Lawrence has has maintained a really good position with their debt to um ratio our our paybacks have always been on a 20e um I don't know how many districts anymore do maybe a 30 but some have done that to spread it out um Lawrence has traditionally not um so those are just some some other pieces of information to add to your collection of stuff to to think about as you decide how you want to move ahead with um something so any questions on in any of these
140kinds of things I was just curious if um maybe you said this already so I apologize if you did has the finan advisory Council seen these charts they did we reviewed this with them um this last board meeting and they saw some of those the same information and and um agreed we look like we're in a good position yeah I think that it's important data to have it takes a little bit to understand it but I think that um these are going to help us respond to questions from community members um who may have concerns about a price tag that seems high if you look at how we play out and what want to offer for our students I think that it helps tell a larger picture that's important um okay thanks any other questions
141no thanks um I would I think I think I am right now I'm kind of leaning towards at least considering putting all of the MEP and the LEDs above the line which I think would put us near 86 somewhere 868 okay I do have question um for Kyle um so the the the survey that that's going to be going out are we putting in different amounts and kind of getting the gauge for that of of the support for that and what what's the range of those amounts so um Patron insight and and what they advise on this based on their experiences to um focus on the dollar amount that would be impact to the to the taxpayer um instead of focusing on um the amount of the total issue so um uh I think the
142the ranges we talked about was um uh $55 a year increase in your taxes versus a $45 increase versus a $35 annual um and so um they said that common language um registered with people more than a dollar amount okay so but yes there's there's multiple ranges that we're giving and um that 55 is is really pushing it towards our top number so we'll have a good idea hopefully based on that feedback um top number including all of the yeah I think if you were to yeah get up there above 90 million um that $55 a year because if you were just based on what Dave said to you there you know two Mills on a u he said a $300,000 home is uh 23 a year I think most often here in Lawrence we
143probably would talk about $200,000 home so you're talking about $46 a year if you looked at the numbers that we talked about I think um $85 million 85.2 million issuance is a 2.3 mil increase so you can kind of get do the math and you end up in around $50 so that's not even get to 55 so yeah makes sense yeah so we should have some good feedback I I would like to say I agree with you Marcel um in adding the lighting and the me seems like the paybacks pretty quick and we're going to have to spend the money anyway so I know you're more of an expert in this than probably a lot of people but are we able to like I get quantifying it on dollar savings I think that's important but
144I think it's also important on carbon footprint savings like how is this going to make our district kind of um take a Next Step that that like does our part in kind of slowing the global climate change you know what I mean I do think that there is another piece of that that is important to understand and know do you have any idea how we could quantify that um yeah I mean we could quantify it it could be done and I think that would be something that we do as part of the marketing I mean that's something those are numbers that we could put together um to come up with a something to to talk about I think also the operations and I mean that may not ring with with a lot of lay people
145but I think the operations maintenance savings is a is really a big deal and in many in in terms of how it impacts them day-to-day it's more it's a bigger impact than the than the Energy savings right I think all of those pieces are important to kind of grasp and quantify um but I do think yeah the decrease in carbon um is important too yep um Tony if you could answer is it possible um for us to like even pull like a time period like say a in a week how many hours your staff is spending going out to do the kind of Maintenance items that you were talking about um or or in a month or you know the sort of like a short period to where we would be able to say okay
146this is how much time we're spending on this now that we won't be spending and we could be right um saving good question so we can reference back to August of 2013 when we started our work order system I started a month earlier and we jumped right into it we've continued to refine that process we we we could probably do a more accurate 12 month depiction but we can go back to August for the simple fact of the guys have learned how to use it in the way that we changeing light bulbs we have a certain classification that will show that type of those type of events so um I can reference that electrical um work order and probably could get some numbers for you yeah and I'm not some rough data data I think
147helpful um in terms of making it more concrete yeah you definitely look into the see what we can reference and and see how many hours I can definitely tell you how many hours we've spent and we associate all costs with that also so yes thank you Vanessa you my memory is like totally failing me but like I I know we can't as a district use District materials or time or you know time here promoting a bond but how is it that we you know like the guest for Lawrence campaign that we um that board members participated in I think two of us last time around how how do we initially get that started do you remember Julie community group right right it's a community-led group and then usually two board members hop on there so
148we just need to wait for the community to do it and then they'll let us know and we'll app point two people on there we work to identify some Community leaders to be the um chairpersons of that group and then we had um what you might call uh I call them worker bees but the committee uh chairs that came from our um facility studies groups that were doing some of the committies in that community group okay how soon does that process started we we worked on a three-month process with that great thank you I knew you'd have a better memory than me anything else right um last item is approval of school Finance recommendations in 2017 legislative priorities with Kathy Johnson director Finance so um the board enclosure is just bringing back to you sort
149of in a final format um the school Finance kind of formula framework and some legislative priorities and so unless there's some additional edits or things that you'd like us to tweak the framework information there's kind of two motions to approve that but the framework information is something that we would need to send to the governor before the 30th of of November and then we would send a a copy um to kasb um and any place else that you you would like us to forward that um we tried to wrap around kind of the bullet outline format and and Julie did her wonderful master job of trying to make it a little more of a narrative and maybe a little easier to follow read um as well as then we took the legislative um priorities and
150instead of trying to re put in all the finance stuff kind of referred to that document and used it as sort of a supplement to the priorities and then tried to incorporate um the other information in that so open to any additional edits to it and then whatever you all are good with as far as the version we'll we'll move ahead with with doing what we need to anybody have any comments I do okay um so um I had a couple of questions um on the school Finance framework um in that first paragraph it's the second sentence where we talk about believing that Educational Opportunity should be a function of the taxable wealth of the state um every time I've read this that sentence always makes me stop because I'm like wait do they mean
151to say it should be a function of taxable wealth or it should not be a function of taxable wealth so is what you're trying to say is that it should be a function of the taxable wealth of the state as a whole as AO as opposed to individual individual districts okay so I would recommend then um putting in as a whole at the end of that sentence um just for me and maybe it didn't trip anybody else up but every time I've read it I always stop on that sentence and go all right that didn't um what were they trying to get at um then in the the paragraph on educational risk factors um we referenced the rose standards we reference Kon can we reference the new accreditation we don't reference the learning standards and
152I was wondering what the reason was for leaving out k um probably none other than just didn't that's um Chris right and so I guess the my next question on that is since they are currently working on redoing English and math in their seven-year cycle um and they're I imagine they're going to be thinking about if they're going to keep that name or calling them something else plus we also have the new generation science standards uh Next Generation Next Generation okay okay it's all okay so um I suggest that we mention the learning standards and then in that sentence where it says some students will require greater support and instruction to meet and then it says the row in parentheses standards um taking out that and just saying to meet these standards if we've kind
153of already defined all of the all the different um expectations that the that the State Board of Education has um for what we're doing um and then this is my own personal thing and if other board members um object um that's okay but I would suggest I and I have it all marked up but serial commas are something that get that I am a big believer in because I think it makes it easier to read especially when you have a lot of sentences like we do with multiple this and this and this so um unless there's somebody else on the board who is a big non-believer in serial commas I would provide that in writing if you want just give us a copy of what you want us to come make edits to that'd be
154great no objections okay um okay um yeah that's all I had thank you thank you anybody else I just want to say I really love how the fair and competitive wage information was incorporated I think I was kind of wondering when we left you with that directive how you were going to do it in a way that was cohesive and I think it was done very beautifully so thank you or Julie depending on who a village was a village yeah I thought it was pretty comprehensive and done very well so and I like the structure of having the finance piece be a separate Standalone document that's referenced in the legislative priorities because it is um the I think that and tax policy are going to be the biggest things that they're working on um that
155for us this year so um I like that structure um I'll make a motion yeah anybody unless anybody else okay okay um I move the Board of Education approve the submission of Lawrence USD 497 input on school Finance formula framework to the governor Kansas legislature and the Kansas Association of school boards have a second second do we have a ro Voice v okay all in favor I I and then I'll make the second motion I move the Board of Education approve the 2017 legislative priorities as outlined have second I'll second that too all right all in favor all right thanks Kathy thank you I'm a roll so move I'll second that too all in favor right medum adjourned