001I am not of the opinion you're paying any more than you would have because the labor bill was simply separate from the material bill in the prior month. So it wasn't an oversight for us. We had intended as a district to be able to install it ourselves and found that we do not have that capacity and now are seeking labor install. That is accurate. I would not describe this as an oversight. I would describe this as us pressing pause and really examining whether or not we had the capacity to sell perform the the pricing for the labor and the materials is both coming from the Green Bush purchasing cooperative agreement, right? I just think it's because it looked like when we came and we voted for this last month, it was like, okay, we're going
002to get these units. It's going to cost us 70ome odd thousand dollars and it's all said and done because it incl basically included the self labor and now we're coming back in front of our constituents going, "Oops, we can't do that. We're now going to be spending $73,000 more dollars out of our budget to do what we said we could do." So, I just, you know, wanted to have clarification so everybody else could understand the reasoning behind why that was. And, you know, granted, it could be safety reasons. It could be we don't have the equipment to do it reasons and things like that. It's just I think our constituents are owed that reasoning. Thank you. But also as weather gets better and booking gets done, they're going to prices will go up continuously as
003well. Yeah, we have a 30 day we have 30 days on this. This is why this wasn't talked about then because we could we were told we could do it then. But you're not suggesting that like a core learning coma violation happened. No. Okay. We we are requesting approval so that we can move forward with the work as it does necessitate board approval. So I'll make a motion to approve. I'm trying to work off of my own tablet on this, so it's not as fun. I'm making a motion to approve the building controls and services for the labor to put the rooftop uh units on is $73,30. Second. A motion by Miss B Murphy and second by Mrs. agreed on the roofing unit contract. All in favor? I 70. Go back to [Music] chartwells. You're
004ready for item nine. Looking for a glass if I can look for it. Yeah. Oh, are the Tartwell people here? Tart will update. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to present a child nutrition update at tonight's board meeting. Um, I'm Sandy Curran and I'm the director of dining services for Chartwells at Levvenworth schools. I'm new to this role and have been at Levvenworth for two and a half months. I have been in food service for the past 25 years and last eight years in K12. Tonight, we're going to talk about the partnership, highlights, results, what's next, and leave some time at the end for questions. What do we do here at Levmore schools? First, we serve breakfast, lunch, and alocart meal options for students and staff every day. When you come in, when
005you came in tonight, I hope you were able to enjoy a sampling of what is offered in the cafeteria. We featured our pulled pork in the big city barbecue station at the high school. There were also sandwiches on the so deli or offered as an alternate entree at all the schools. Fresh fruit and vegetables are offered daily on the menu. Next, we prepare and cook food on site with many meals made from scratch. Our pork slow roasted, our ground beef comes in raw. Pizza's handmade, dinner rolls and sub buns are baked fresh inhouse. We ensure that all meals are compliant with USDA and NSL NSLP guidelines. We have a system called Webrition that helps us with these standards, making sure that weekly menu is compliant with the guidelines, and we'll talk about that a little
006bit later. We recruit, hire, train, and support a team of amazing cafeteria associates. We can't do what we do without a team. Hiring is an ongoing process to make sure we have the right people in place. So, we do offer versus serve. The goal of offer versus serve is to reduce food waste while allowing students to choose the foods they wanted to eat. Um, for breakfast, you can see four items will be offered for breakfast every day. And students can choose their preference, but must take at least three main food components with at least a half a cup of fruit or vegetable. At lunch, we have five components. They must take three. You can see the different components, grains, fruits, vegetables, milk, and meat meat alternative. The National School Lunch Program is a meal program
007providing nutritionally balanced meals to children at public and nonprofit schools administered federally by the USDA and locally by state agencies through agreements with school food authorities. We ensure that the meal requirements are met, that compliant meals are served so that Levvenware Schools gets their funding. Next, Casey is going to talk about our team. So, up here you'll see a picture of Sandy, their new dying director. And then we also have Taylor Hornbag. He is a director in Wagner, Oklahoma, and helped very much with the transition from Johnny to Sandy. So you may have seen him running around schools, but he is another director who is also a chef and a dietitian that does support uh Levvenworth. We also have Katherine theer. She is our regional chef. She helps with purchasing and getting everything that we
008need uh through Cisco and our and our broadline purchasers. Uh we have Meredith Ballard. She is our regional dietician. She's the one that makes uh helps us make sure that all of our meals are compliant. Everything is under the guidelines of the USDA. And then we also have Savannah Veres. She is our marketing gur guru. So all the digital signage and all the the signage that's up, she is a part of that. And then me, I am the area director for Kansas and Oklahoma. Very good. Okay. Next, we're going to talk about some of our partnership highlights. One of the most exciting events that we had this year was the culinary throwdown held on February 14th at the high school. Eight culinary students battled it out in a fun chopped competition. They were presented with
009a mystery basket included um biscuit mix, ground pork, cheddar cheese, eggs, and a mystery ingredients of the Valentine hearts. Yes, the chalky ones. And so they had to make delicious dishes. Um each team had a chef mentor from the culinary school at the Pioneer Career Center and had 30 minutes. Um Chartwells gave each participant a chef coat, hat, apron, and were presented with their own knife kit after the judging. All the chefs did a wonderful job and created some amazing dishes. Another fun event we held in April at the high school was the student choice event. Um what do you want for lunch? That's the question that students are being asked through student choice. student through students choice. Students can now taste and vote on new restaurant inspired items to add to the menu. So
010there's a tasting event followed by a voting period. We sampled two concepts, big city barbecue and bok choy. Bok choy is an exciting sensory experience of Asian flavors inspired by celebrity chef Jeff Tila. Um we featured pot stickers and the barbecue we featured um wings and sauces. So, the winner was um the big city barbecue and this concept will be featured this Thursday in the cafeteria with wings, variety of barbecue sauces like you've seen tonight. Um coleslaw, cornbread muffins, and baked beads. Student loves students love the samples and had a fun um voting in the process. My kids's going to be so mad she wanted those pot stickers. Yes. Yes, we will. Um we also had a lot of fun student engagement days at other schools. Um you can see one of these was the
011national school breakfast week celebrating the importance of nutritious school breakfast in fueling students for success. So we en encourage students to eat breakfast for a healthy start to their day. Some of the pictures are students eating breakfast and some of the winners of the breakfast prize bags. Students were randomly selected based on eating breakfast every day. Um, other fun events can be seen on our newsletter in March and I have copies up front and you can take one as you leave. Um, this month in April we have celebrated March Madness Final Championship tournament game with slam dunk taco tachos. Opening baseball season with game day game hot dogs. National carrot day with carrot fries very similar to regular fries and the students especially um brewer they really like them there and national grilled cheese day.
012So on the next picture you can see we received a beef grant in this picture and Bri, she's the lead at um Brewer is pictured just after cooking off 50 pounds of raw ground beef. The beef is used in the student favorites nachos tacos and sloppy joe's at Richard Warren. Students say their favorite lunch is taco Tuesdays. And so also at Richard Warren is the lead um in the picture and it's Taylor. And Taylor just completed her hypo training. It's an hourly hypo program that offers our high-performing hourly associates the tools and knowledge needed to grow into their next position. Um, we are thankful for the school partnership and community engagement opportunities that we've had throughout the past year. In March, we served the foundation lunch at the high school. The cookies that you had
013tonight were part of that um of the buffet were part of the cookies that we served at that lunchon and and they're always a crowd favorite. Um, we catered chili for the Richard Bourne's chili cookoff, provided food for staff picnic, as well as numerous other catering events that chef and director Johnny prepared. Um, we've already talked about the culinary throwdown, but we were also proud to serve on the fax advisory board. The next one is um, pairing scratch cooking with batch cooking. These are all um fun pictures that we've taken from the schools representing the extras bars, the Sona Mexican station, and the Tomato the pizza station. So, food service by the numbers. Um on an average, we serve 930 breakfast per day. So far this school year, we've served 161,183 breakfast. um lunches an
014average of 2010 this school year is 356,824. You um can see the figures on the beef grant and you can see um we have 26 Chartwells employees and 18 district employees. So um we serve up happy and healthy and here's a few of our valued team members. We'll be celebrating them and the entire team on school lunch hero day in May. Okay. So, what's next for us? Um, number one is a new fall menu will be released. Um, we're collecting information about the favorites and just like student choice, love it or lose it. Um, we have several new recipes that will be featured. New fun days in global eats and mood boosts and discovery kitchen will be built into the menu and you can see that in the following slides. We have some new alle
015cart offerings at the high school. Um we're going to be opening up a new coffee bar um iced coffees and cappuccinos and then after some electrical work gets done we'll have hot brew coffee at the high school. um new smart snack compliant beverages and snacks will be offered. That features our vanilla and our yogurt parfets and um smoothies, some of them that you sampled tonight. Um the last thing is building a strong team. We have a team of good leads and we want to grow on supporting them and in their roles and to hire good team members to help them. We're um planning some fall lead training to share knowledge, train, encourage feedback, and set goals. We're also doing an August reset training for all the staff to make sure they understand expectations, culinary training
016with regional guest chefs, and accountability. Um, we're encouraging strong relationships with leads and good relationships with schools, partnering in monthly meetings with principles, quarterly meetings with students, and focus groups. So, one of the things that we got feedback from the most recent survey is that students in Levvenworth want to know more about food. They want more education when it comes to food. And so we have some pretty awesome programs at Chartwells that we are going to be rolling out for next school year. First one is global eats. This is cuisine from around the world. So this is primarily targeted to elementary students and we have had chef guests um make and curate some menus that are um part of the um the part of their their culture. So, we've got um multiple different ones that
017So, one of the cool things about this is we give out swag. They have little passports. They get to sample food from around the world and they get to see and learn about the culture that has created that food. Next, we have mood boost. And so, we'll be doing this every Monday. So, mood boost Mondays. Um what this is is teaching and this again primarily targeted towards elementary students. And so it is showing the correlation between the food that you put in your body and how it makes you feel. So these little moody characters at the bottom, we have calm, alert, happy. And then we have looked at the nutrition information and paired food for these fun activities that go along with making yourself confident. Um maybe before a big test, let's try eating some
018of this food. So it really pairs the education and how it makes your body feel. Next is Discovery Kitchen. So these will be on Wednesdays and this is more of a what goes into your food. So we take some raw ingredients. We talk to students about the raw ingredients. Smell this. Where does this come from? What do you think this feels like? Um can you compare it to something? Is it sweet? Is it sour? And we let them touch and and and use their senses. And then we let them help create. We have them help mix. We have them help build. And then at the end, they get to sample the product or the this the food that they made. And we can even send home little recipe cards so that they can help make
019it at home, show parents what they did in class that day. Um it's a it's a great education tool. And so that is one of the things that the students really wanted us to do. So we are integrating these into our menu next year in the fall. All right. So a little bit more about Discovery Kitchen. So each month is a theme and so we've had um we have all sorts of marketing and fun things that go with it. So with March it was plant power and you saw the taste the rainbow food that was out here. We had all the colors that were available to you and so we want to you know each month we take and we focus on that um that that topic and teach the students what go you know
020so next month we'll be or sorry this month April will be a waste warrior. So, one of the cool things that we you have is did you know that you can eat an entire apple, even the core? It's okay. And so, we use these kind of fun little did you knows to help the students realize that we can consume more food and not waste as much of it. So, that's part of our discovery kitchen um lineup. So beyond that, so for the higher level students, um I hope you guys were able to see some of the really awesome pictures that Sandy and Chef Jean were able to uh take whenever we were doing student choice. So this gives a say to these students that say, "What do you want on your menu? We're going to
021listen. We're going to let you try. We're going to listen and we're going to put it on there." So some of the concepts and Sandy spoke about Big City barbecue and bok choy. So, we also have Roost, which is, you know, everything chicken. We have chicken dippity sauce and all sorts of stuff. We've got made to melt, that is everything cheese, so think grilled cheese and all the stuff that goes with it. Um, we've also got Market Fresh with tons of different types of salads, um, healthy fresh food. And then um you know butcher and baker we also have it's kind of think subway so kind of mixed with that chabatada type bread you know the fancy breads with the with the deli meat. So those are all student choice concepts that we can integrate
022into the main line on top of the tomato the pizza line that you see every day or the American classic or create which is your typical you know everyday lunch line on top of so deli that we have alternate foods so there's sandwiches already out and then Sono of course which is a fan favorite of the nacho line every day right all right so next is continuous innovation what are we doing so On top of all of this stuff, we've already spoke about running a new fall menu, incorporating all these programs for the students. We are also going to pour into our team. We are going to be doing trainings and getting them certified things like Surf Safe. Um lots of things that we have to to elevate our team members to be that higher
023level. um we've got programs and then we will be pulling communication from chartwells to to make sure that everybody is on the same page you know so beyond that we'll be managing cost and driving revenue so that's something that we need to we are looking at increasing participation so one of the ways we do that we do the fundays we do the student choice we do the activities and we also reinvent the menu which is what we are striving for so we are really hoping that That does bring in some more students eating in our in our cafeterias every single day. Very good. And communication is the last thing. It's important. We want to do a better job of communicating what we're doing through social media posts, um, monthly newsletters, up-to-date websites, our Neutri Slice
024online menus, and board reports like this one. So, let's talk about it. Do you have any questions at this time? May I make a comment? Yes, please. After all the years that I've watched um Chartwells and other companies put forward where they have the educational program pieces and things and us being with a partnership with Chartwells now, I'm really excited to see this actually transpiring finally because I know it means it's going to mean a lot to what the kids do eat to fill their tummies versus what they don't eat. So, thank you for that. Thank you. Beautiful. We're very excited. We're very excited. So, where does the discovery kitchen portion come into the kids' school day? That's a great question. So, there's a couple different ways that we can run that. So, uh there's
025your kind of typical what is normally done and we set up in the cafeteria and typically the students are kind of there for 10 15 minutes. So, that way you can kind of engage a whole group of students and um kind of pass things around and talk to them. Another way that we could do it is uh maybe take two or three fourth grade classes, join them all at once, and then go into a classroom and really have kind of just, you know, 40 to 50 students right here being able to really focus in and maybe take about an hour of um time and and teach about it that way. So, there's multiple different ways that we can do this program. And then having is it one of your outside staff that would be coming
026in and facilitating that or is it one of our one of the students everyday people that they have contact with all the time? Both. It can be both. So um whenever we are so when we are starting this up we are going to have some support um because you know Sandy as you know is new and so we want to make sure that she feels very confident doing this. So in the very beginning we'll have some support some chefs coming in. We are looking at hopefully hopefully training our own Levvenworth team members to be able to execute these programs as well because when they have a better knowledge of what we do and how we do it, they're able to pass that down to our students. So saying that in itself, aren't they already super
027stressed for time to be able to prepare and do their normal duties and be able to serve the students? Like where, not that I don't want them to do that by any means, I think that's fantastic. where are they going to come up with the time to be able to do it? Okay, so these are not just things that happen. Okay, so what we would do, so first we would look at our available and able staff members, which ones are available to do this. Next, we would make sure that the menu of that day is in made in such a way to where if something happens, they're still able to follow through. So it's not just here's the program and this is what we're going to do. There's like we're not going to do it
028on truck day. We're not going to do you know there's days where we're going to make sure that no matter what happens, we're still able to facilitate it. And then how are our how is staffing going right now? Staffing is a struggle, but um we were able to put out an ad. Um it was a sponsored ad, so we were able to get a lot more applicants than usual. And so we Sandy has done a fantastic job of interviewing and you recently hired we just recently hired eight people with um you know at the end of the school year and so right now we are fully staffed. And I'm not sure if you saw but Jason Godwin he's a chef he's original chef as well. Um so he will be helping in the school this
029week. We are looking at opportunities for training and areas of additional support that are needed. So he'll be he'll be in the schools helping out as well. Now I went out and ate at the high school and middle school back in the fall and talk to kids and and uh it seemed like there were the same thing was the best thing they you know the burritos pizza and the nachos that seem like and a people actually start more salads. look like kids are. But, uh, the only thing that popped up out there, they were complaining. I don't know who's Do we supply the microwaves or do you guys supply the microwaves? That's a district facility because there weren't very many microwaves. We only like two in the high school kitchen. I don't even remember seeing
030any in the middle school back there. Well, I don't know if that's a big issue, but if we have to do that, get some more a district provided fixer. Now, this this is more of a district issue than it is chartwells, but I know that there's several parents complaining that the lines are still really long and by time some of the kids get their food, they're told they have two minutes to eat it because it's time to get up and leave. Are we or should we start considering um changing our meal times? Maybe broaden it slightly. I know it may take a little bit from quote instrual time, but if we had a TV in there and put on an instructional movie, maybe we can make lunch instructional while social and they getting to eat
031rather than rushing through like they're in a chow hall. Yeah, there was a lot of complaints and and they were from several buildings as well, several age groups, not just one or you know. So it I don't know. It goes from elementary. I didn't see a lot about high school, but it definitely goes up through elementary through middle. I don't know if we're doing enough of staggering or what what the problem is, but we are aware of the issues related to our efficiency. I acknowledge uh they do not rise to our standard either. And we have already begun, I would say, an internal investigation as to what changes could be made. And I applaud Sandy. I sent that to her on Tuesday and by Wednesday, she had already taken corrective action at at least two
032buildings. So, I would argue it is a district issue, but Chartwells has has said to me they want to be a partner in finding solutions. I don't believe it's appropriate for kids to only get two minutes to eat if that's true. I don't believe it's appropriate for kids to spend 12 minutes in line. I I do believe you should have efficiency in the lunchroom and we should prioritize time to eat, time to digest, etc. So, we do share the concern. Uh but I would also tell you that we are already making steps to take corrective action. Thank you. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Item number 10, the strategic plan highlight. Well, good evening and thank you uh for letting me share a couple highlights and exciting things to brag about in our
033district. Last month, we looked at how we teach phonics and our early literacy. This month, we're going to go to the other end of the spectrum and talk about some of our high school CTE programs and how they support our students after graduation. All right. So, when you think about the strategic plan, of course, this follows under the teaching and learning umbrella. And the action step that this falls completely under is creating these career and technical opportunities and experiences for our secondary students. So back in 2017, we began hearing um the phrase canons can and Dr. Watson went around the state and shared with us this vision of success no longer being justified by a 4-year university enrollment. that success can look in many ways. Um, our district embraced that as well and came up
034with a similar motto for us to use here in Levvenworth that all pioneers should be 3E ready upon graduation which means they're ready to enroll, enlist or be employed without the need for remediation in there. And so one of the things um that's a really strong point of why we support CTE education is the benefits that come with it. Not only for our workforce, not only for our community and the uh earning power of the future of a graduate, but also just for the number of experiences, the SC soft skills it teaches and the opportunities um that students have in our CTE programs. So this is one of the new icons you might have seen. Um Kansas KSD used to have like kind of a yellow sunflower was similar. This is the up-to-date one. You
035will see that we have seven major industries that our state has identified. And each of those industries are based on the national career framework from there. And then the goal is at the elementary level to provide exposure and knowledge. So kids begin to think what do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to take in middle school? what can I do in high school? And then by the time they get in high school, they've narrowed down some of their field choices to really explore deeper. Now, no one is going to tell a child, you have to go into this field or you have to go into this field. We want them to experience, but also with the rising cost of tuition, the rising cost of schooling, we want to help
036families be able to get as many credits, opportunities, resume builders, and hours ahead of them, and certifications before they graduate from high school. So, of the seven major career industries in Kansas, we have 16 career clusters. All right? And in those 16 clusters, the ones that have the blue stars are ones that Levvenworth High School has a pathway in. The only area we don't have a pathway in is agriculture. All right? But the others we do and you see those kind of listed there within that in each of those seven industries 16 clusters we have 32 individual pathways and from there LHS currently has pathways in um those that are listed there. Now some of those classes are taught on site on Levvenworth High School. Some of the classes are taught at PCC. All right.
037or other uh post-graduation um establishments, organizations. So, the goal is in a pathway that upon by the time they're junior and seniors, their hands are in it. They're getting to experience what it might mean to have a future career in one of these fields. And these are Levvenworth kids doing actual activities um that we have currently in our district. So from there, a couple of things I want you to know about a pathway creation because why can't we just have them all, right? Because I want to offer as many um options for our students as you do. But there is quite a bit of groundwork that goes into a pathway creation as well as requirements. So in every pathway you have to have three um specific levels of courses. One is that introductory level. That's
038where you gain that general knowledge. The technical level is where you gain very specific skills um to a very specific field. And then your final your application level is where you get to do it. And in that that could be in an internship type situation, a client-based project, some type of consumer project, something that's created or done that links to a potential future for one of our high school students. On the other side of that, every pathway must have its own advisory group. And in this this advisory group are people in the field of some career in that pathway that are well respected in their field. They serve as an advisory role model, mentor and opinion giver um for our high school staff in there and they kind of provide that real world perspective on
039what it really means to be in a career in that field. So, I want to absolutely give a shout out to all of our advisory committee members and say thank you for serving our students. Thank you for supporting our pathways. Thank you for being part of our pioneer family supporting us in this. And then I want to introduce you to someone. I'm going to ask her to stand real quick. Miss Doden. I will tell you she is new this year. And if you have not had a chance to meet her, I encourage you tonight. Do not let her leave this building without you getting to know her. She is absolutely on fire and has such a passion for career and technical education. She has several years experience um teaching more in the science fields, but
040since coming to Levvenworth, she has single-handedly been responsible for writing many grants that have helped us financially, providing a passion and spark um to looking at our coursework and aligning them, making sure we're up to date and everything aligned with our state mandates as they updated this fall. And then also aligning our IPS work because your IPS, your individual plans of study should align to options that you have. So students are well aware of when they're in middle school of what options they can have in high school um to meet some of those goals. So uh we're super excited. Gila is a pioneer. Like I said, please take a moment tonight. As I go through the next part, I want to be completely transparent that this next part is 100% Gila's work. I don't want
041you to think for one minute I h created this. Okay, so I just want to say that up front. One of the things she created once being here is this idea of this discovery trail guide book, which is an invaluable resource for families to be able to access when you're talking to your middle school students about, okay, so what do we want high school to look like? What courses do you think you might be interested in? I don't know, maybe something. I hear I got to take math. but in that having those conversations where you can kind of really look at okay this is what you need to take your freshman year. So I emailed you or Jake actually did um a copy of this guide book so you have a whole copy of all
042of them but I want to take a moment to kind of look through and kind of learn how to read it. So each of the pathways has or the trails has this landing page that starts with the vista and by definition a vista is being able to have a mental view of anticipated events. So, can you visualize what your high school career might look like? And then this guide book is a tool for families to use to have those discussions with your child about, okay, what do we want this to look like? And so, for tonight's just discussion purposes, I just pulled out one of them. Um, you have copies of all of them, but the media and technology trail. And this starts with what your options are. So you see by grade level if
043you were interested in being in this pathway here are some suggested electives and options for you to take. Now yes you still have to take English, math, social studies, science, PE health as a freshman, but then if you really think you might want to go into a technology field, you might also decide to do intro to web design media and let's find out if that's something that that interests you. Then from there you will also see um they have recommended electives that they would encourage you to explore. Continuing on with that same web design um web and digital design you see that Miss Dodden has incorporated our 3E model and added a fourth E of experiences. So, in that, if you were to be employed straight out of high school, here are some certifications and
044credentiing that this pathway would provide you. If you were to enroll, here are some prerequisites and some skills that you would have to go into either a two-year or four-year post-graduate work that would be able to benefit you. And then finally, as you know, we have a partnership and we work closely with PCC, which is a member of the Kansas City Community College campus. And those are the programs that are currently offered in there. And this is also in that handbook. So, you have a copy of these um things. And then finally, a part of it is okay, so we have these classes, but where can I get involved in school? As uh Mr. Ernesty explained how important it was for some of his wrestling students to get involved and how you saw that uh
045grade point average, that commitment, that pride come up. The same is true of our students that are interested more in the business world or technical world. And so a couple of options we have are DECA and TSA that are currently active, but you see some other options that are there as well. And that is tonight. Wanted to give you an overview of our pathways. I wanted to introduce you to Miss Doden and um open to questions or comments. I freaking love the the guide book the way that is laid out. It was so easy to follow and it made me excited. I'm definitely not having any more kids, but I loved everything about it. It was everything that we've seen in other districts. Pioneer specific and exactly what our students can experience. The only thing
046I would like to see a little bit different and maybe I'm just not seeing it in here the way that it already is, but on which page was that? So on page 15, the Loveorth Pioneers Discovery Trail specific the media and technology where it says the math English. Is there a way to make it like I know that we can within our accreditation for the kids have like the intro to web design also be an English credit because they're doing something or credits. Yeah. Embedded credits. Like is there a way that we can focus on trying to get more of those? Yeah. Because they're doing the work. They're receiving it and we're Yes. Yes. Well, and also kind of along those lines, if you do try something, it's almost like you have you have to
047make that decision to go all the way through. But if you had the embedded credits though, you could um potentially you start on a path and you're like, I don't really like that. But you because I I know with my son, there's some things that he wanted to take, but he can't fit it in there. Right. Right. and be to get, you know, the graduation requirements and um so that would be is there any is that at the state level like like well how do how do you do that? It's yes and um it is at the state level. Um you have to show alignment to the core competencies of each class. We have a couple of uh embedded credits currently. It's something we continue to explore because I agree with you, especially if you
048know you have a kid. Um, currently we have embedded credits in our mechanic Highland Diesel program for that very reason because we couldn't get them through into the upper levels of Highland Diesel because we kept getting stuck necessarily trying to get these prerequisites and core classes out. So, that is something we're exploring. There is a lot of work in that. So it will be slow go so to speak but we are definitely open to that and are looking at possibilities. [Music] Well I'm for one very happy Miss Doden is on as a CTE coordinator just I have watched a rapid invol evolution in how everything's captured in together. It's uh it's married and it and it's moving forward while before it was just kind of stammer stutter stammer stutter and a sprinkle here and a
049sprinkle there and it's it's you know may not be fully on one page with everything but boy it is a huge turnaround from what I've seen over the years. So I'm very impressed and very thankful. Very grateful she's here. What would be involved in the agriculture pathway? What are we missing? Um one a desire um because you know numbers of students um you see a lot of it could be anything from some textiles some aggra business machinery all different kinds of things can fall into that um but right now it is not one of our highly requested and so okay you make the decisions on what you can greenhouse and chicken coupe I'm gonna just let that sit Start small. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Moving
050on to number 11, policy JBCC non-resident capacity. All right, we're back doing enrollment. As far as uh you as a board this evening will approve the capacity as well as your open seats as is required by board policy JBCC that went in effect last year. So last year was our first year um with JBC and the adoption of the non-residents. So, I'm just going to walk through kind of remind you where we're at and where we're heading. So, September 20th, 2024, this past fall, you learned that we were down 213 students from the previous year. So, this is exactly uh what was shared with you back in October at our um student enrollment presentation. Here is the enrollment by building for the last seven years the trend and you'll notice over the past seven years
051that we are declining. So this last year uh we reported 3,277 students. It's in line with the three previous out uh third-party projections that we have had done. Um, and so, uh, this is just so you could see where we're heading and we are projected to, uh, continue to decline as a school district to report to you what the educational capacity is. And so, you'll see your current enrollment by building. As I remind you, we were down 213 students. Only one building showed growth, and that was the virtual school for this year, and they were up two students. Every other building showed a decline. So this is the same number just showing you what the educational capacity could be and what it actually is. Based off of the information, we do our projection. So we
052take every student and we move them up a grade. So the 12th graders drop off and you will see that we are projected again to decline. It's important to know there are about four grades that are really hard to project. That's your at risk or excuse me your three-year-old, your four-year-old, and your kindergarten because they're not required in the state of Kansas to attend. Kindergarten is not required. Three-year-old and four-year-old. The other factor there is nth grade. Look at that significant drop that you see there. Why so large? In previous years, we had been able to count roughly 50 students from Patton Junior High. And so, we did that last year projecting that we would get those 50 students. Unfortunately, we only received 10. Not only is their enrollment down, but the few students that
053they do have are staying there. And so that number is significantly lower than we had anticipated, which increased our total number of students as far as um the enrollment drop. So that leads us to the open seats as you can see as a result and Dr. Adams is going to discuss this here in his presentation here shortly. The number of open seats is actually larger than last year. Um, we were able there were only a few grades that we were not able to accept their non-resident just because it was a a grade that already met your requirements. We have left the teacher to student ratio the same because we feel that these numbers are are in the best interest of our students as well as our staff. So, we did not increase any of them.
054And so, these are our number of open seats based off of grades and I will answer any questions you have. What will happen next? If you approve this, you just need to say that you are approving the open seats and they will be posted on our district website effective tomorrow. We'll get them posted along with our projections. So, a parent if they're interested in our district, they can see what seats we have open. Then they go into the lottery per uh policy JBC and then we would do our selection in July. Does anybody have any questions for Mrs. I'd like to make a motion if there's no questions to approve the open seating. Got a motion by Mrs. Murphy to approve the policy and seconded by Mrs. Wilson. All in favor? 70. Thanks. Okay, Chief,
055what you Thank you. We're going now to hear the superintendent report. Thank you, Amy. I'll be brief. Three topics for you tonight. The first of which is a reminder, April 28th. We'll be back here in this room. I show a 5:30 start time is listed. That will be specifically focused on next steps related to the Netti Hartnet building. And so my request is if there are specific items, questions, uh if you will, research that we can be doing in advance of that to please send those to me. That way we can attempt to be as prepared as possible for an efficient meeting on the 28th. Next meeting is May 5th. That is also a special meeting. So these are both specials. They fall outside of the regular education meeting cadence. May 5th will be 4
056o'clock p.m. also in this room. and it will be dedicated to the needs assessment. So you'll have hear from Mr. Boddensteiner first followed by each building principal and at least one member of their DLT. Same thing if there are questions or items that we can be doing in advance would certainly encourage those to be sent so we can again make efficient use of our time. Uh the final one if you could pull up the other attachment Josh should be on thank you sir is just a brief update of the topic we have talked about probably more frequently than anything else this year as zoom if you are able to sir. Thank you. Uh so current status I guess as of today there will be 43 less positions in this school district next year. That includes
057a 15% reduction in administration, a 9% reduction in certified and a 4% reduction in classified payroll in or about $2.5 million less. You will see that we are just about to hit the $500,000 mark. So we are about to close in on the total budget savings of 5 million. I would stand for any questions. Thank you. No questions. When do you want us to have the Netty Hartnet information questions to you? I'm looking to Beth to confirm. We would like to publish that Thursday, the proceeding Thursday. Okay. And so ideally, we would have it then so as to make sure because the issue with it being a special is we will not be able to amend the agenda. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Unscheduled unscheduled patron input. None. Okay. So, we go to board member
058comments. Miss Murphy. Wow. We've heard really uh exciting, hopeful uh news. We've u been shown lots of progress in departments um in in meals with our kids in the CTE program. Um positives in our numbers of finances. Um not much we can do about the numbers of lost enrollment. It's not like we can lasso them in and pull them into the building. Um I don't think they'd like that much. Uh there's a lot of great things happening. Uh congratulations to all the students that uh were awarded at the academic. I um missed that. I didn't get the memo till it was a little late. Um but that's okay. It happens. I want everybody to put their nose to the grindstone and finish strong for this year. Um, I think it's still basically a really good
059year and there's a lot of hope and good things and uh, we have a lot of things to look forward to before graduation. Uh, but also please stay safe out there. Try not to ride your scooters in the middle of the road, head on to traffic. That doesn't bode well either. Um, but just be safe and and study strong. And thank you to all the teachers. I know some things are really frustrating. uh right now and I do hope we can find a way to make some of that better, but it's going to take us a lot of brainstorming to figure out what a lot of the causes really are to get to the bottom of it, but we are working on it. Thank you, Wolf. Um I was a bad pioneer this week. I
060did not attend the play. I heard excellent reviews about the play as well as the art show. Thank you for having the panel in here, whoever was responsible for that. It's great to be able to see some of their work in person, not just online, and pictures that have been shared. I appreciate all of the opportunities that the community has to come and celebrate our students. Um, spring sports is in full swing. Um, swing, go watch a baseball game, softball game. Um, come and watch soccer. Um, it is always a great day to be a pioneer and I do think that we as a board directly impact the desire for people to come to our district and enroll to us and it's important that we sing the successes and try to make sure that we
061are making USD 453 the best place to come and teach and the best place to enroll your kids and open enrollment should not hurt us. It should only impact us greatly to have people want to come and be a part of our JOTC program and all of the other amazing CTE programs that we have and are building as well as our amazing staff that can impact students all over not just here in Levvenworth. We cannot grow boundary wise because our we're land locked and river locked. So we have to show them what a great place we are. So that's all I got. Oh, I do have one more caveat. I needed to say this whenever um Chartwells was here. My question is I had noticed in their presentation they were talking about opening a coffee
062bar. How does how will that potentially impact Ansstein's work with the students with the Pioneer Perk over there? Um we we need to be mindful of that because a lot of work goes into that and we don't want to be competing with our food service with our program and is my understanding from from Chartwells they do not intend to serve as a competition to Mrs. Anstein. Okay. And I would hope that they are in talks with each other as well. Okay. Like separate hours or something? I'm sorry. Like separate hours? Separate hours or separate days? Yep. I believe Mrs. Anstein has the shared commitment to work with them. So I am not aware of any competitive environment. Okay, good. And that's all I have. I apologize. Miss Reed, I just wanted to highlight um nothing
063against our uh you know state board member for education, but um I'm not very impressed by KSB and maybe KSD or so Brandy Watson. I'm not really sure, but um there's been some things put out from the federal level. February 14th, there was a dear colleague letter and then um as always pursues lawsuits and things like that, but the US Department of Education had um a press release on April 3rd regarding um a requirement for K through2 school districts to certify compliance with Title Six. And um I I hope to see more from the state level as far as what that means for us as a school district. And so um I would just encourage our fellow board members to look into it. That's it for me. Um just thank everybody who came out tonight
064and um track season started. We are now track families. So um come out and support them as well. And then testing is also going on. So just make sure your kids are getting their rest and eating good and ready to go each morning. And we thank y'all for being pioneers. There's no me. Always keep me last. Um I want to say congratulations again to our rifle team, our bowling team, and the wrestling team. Um I did u attend the art extravaganza and it was um fabulous. Um got to listen to jazz band and um check out the beautiful art and um I also attended the Alice in Wonderland play which was phenomenal. So thoroughly enjoyed that. Um we are entering the very very very very busy season. Um, and I just want to encourage everybody
065not to get complacent, run through the tape, um, and remind everyone that all of us, each and every one of us has a role to play in building a culture of steadfastness and competence and confidence and success. So, um, remember tomorrow needs you. So, uh, so stick stick with it. And lastly, um, I'd like to say to those who celebrate, have a blessed Holy Week. Thank you. Mr. Price. All righty. As always, the best thing we can do as board members is recognize all of our super students and our um staff that make them super students. So, all of our recognitions for our sports teams. And then I really want to show a shout out to all of our um arts programs from music and band and and the theater and the hands-on fine arts.
066Always amazing, blowing me away. They're just incredibly talented students and I want to thank all of our teachers for encouraging them to be their best. Um thanks to the Quest kids because once again we have snacks and they're amazing. Um thanks for thinking of us. And then a reminder to my fellow board members, make sure you see Miss Maddox before you leave to sign the two resolutions. I don't want to chase you down. And it's always a great day to be a pioneer. Thank you. Uh about this, I've never heard of this organization you're talking about, but I just want to go back in time when we had to sue the legislature to get equitable funding, and KSB was a big part of that. and they they they're there to lobby for the school district.
067They're not there to to pad their pockets, I don't think. But I I just don't know when they got started, who's who's funding them or anything like that. Probably I don't know. But I just think it's you have to think about what we had to go through and we still haven't gotten the funding where it's supposed to be. So keep that in mind, too. We have to have somebody lobbying there. And I don't think each school district is going to send a lobbyist down to Topeka. All I got mean. [Music]