001Now is your chance to get Good evening everybody. This is the regular meeting of US 453 Board of Education. I'd like to have you all please turn your phones off if you happen to have them on or silence them during the meeting and turn the lights out. We'll do roll call first. Mrs. Morphy here. Mrs. Wells here. Mr. Price here. Mrs. Overby here. Mrs. Wilson here. M Reed here. I'm Mike Kern. Stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. District missions. Commitments. Commitments. We're ready for commitments. Oh, I'm sorry. We are board of education individual commitments. M. Murphy. I don't have it on here, so I'm pulling it
002up on my tablet. Right. You You commit to I commit to facilitating the wonders and to ask more questions. as well. I commit to not agreeing to push through ideas until they have gone through the discernment phase, earning a majority of support. Overby, I commit to sharing my wonder with more clarity and share my discernment to provide thoughtful feedback. Wilson, I commit to working on my wonders without letting it overtake my focus. Mrs. Reed, I'll work on not discounting the importance of my enabling genius as being nice. Price. I commit to sharing ideas and achieving results for positive change. And I commit to being open-minded and attentive to the ideas of others for the good of the whole and staying focused on the task at hand. Now, thank you, President Carney. Just a reminder to
003speak clearly into the microphone for those listening at home. Onto the district mission statement. The mission of Levvenworth Public Schools is to prepare every student for success in every classroom every day. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. Second. We got a motion to adopt the agenda by Mrs. Wells, second by Mrs. Murphy. All in favor? I seven 70 again. No patron input. Two. Oh, two. All right. On behalf of the board, we are pleased to have that you have joined us tonight to celebrate student and staff achievement. hearform informationational presentations and reports and observe consideration of policy decisions and administrative recommendations specific to the Levvenworth Unified School District. We set aside time at each regularly scheduled board meeting to hear from the public. Comments should address board policies with
004procedures or administrators established to carry out those policies as opposed to individual complaints to investigate and resolve. Please understand that while board members will listen to and carefully consider all your comments, board members will not immediately respond to questions either verbally or through gestures. for example, raising hands in response to questions. Nor will they engage in dialogue of answer and response during the patron input time this evening. This is not an appropriate time or place for patrons to make comments of a personal nature about any district employee or student by name. Persons making comments which violate the privacy racks, excuse me, privacy rights of district employees or students will be asked to terminate their remarks. If speakers have concerns specific to an individual student or staff member, please make an appointment with the superintendent. Those
005concerns will be documented and shared with the board. Each patron is reminded they have three minutes to speak and will be given notice when 15 seconds remain. If a group in his attendance with the same interest, we ask that a spokesperson be appointed to deliver the group's message. As unified board committed to desired outcomes for our school community, we ask that comments not be directed at individual board members, but addressed to the board as a whole. And thank you for taking time to address district business with policies with the board. Okay, first up we have I'm I'm going to try my best with this name. Uh Cat Schwinson that murder that or she here. Good evening. My name is Cat Schwinson and I'm a senior who is deeply involved in the JRTC program and I'm
006proud to be from Levvenworth High School. But a few months ago, a serious issue caught my attention. Did you know that every year Levvenworth High School financially supports the killing of cats? Yes, you heard that right, cats. Students at Levvenworth High School in an anatomy class participate in cat dissections. These cats come from the Carolina Biological Supply Company. It is important to make it known that these cats do not die of natural causes. They are bred in unregulated places and are killed by the thousands yearly. Many undercover investigations from biological supply companies have been done in which that was revealed that cats are p purchased from breeders suffer inhumane treatment before they are killed. and many reports have cited they are still moving when formaldahhide is put into their bodies. Do we at Levvenworth High
007School truly want to support this barbaric practice? I urge the school board to end its support of cat dissections for two main reasons. One, dissection teaches students that animals are just classroom tools that are to be used and discarded. Dissections teach a profound disre disrespect for life that it purports to study in biology along with fostering conflict and confusion in impressionable young people. It is a known fact that stimulating tendencies of cruelty towards animals in childhood can correlate with dangerous antisocial behavior in adulthood. Should we at Levvenworth High Schools truly be perpetuating this behavior through dissections? Dissection is also simply bad science. Studies show that students are less interested in science after being forced to dissect. Dissection is an archaic, cruel way to treat to teach biology and anatomy. Many education educators from universities and
008high schools agree that animal dissections are simply irrelevant to science education in the 21st century. In fact, students often learn more using more relevant methods like computer programs, physical models, charts, and other digital media. These alternatives can be used year after year, helping save thousands of dollars to help fund other student programs and activities. I have started a petition that which has over 50 student signatures who stand against me against this barbaric practice happening in our schools. I will be sending the petition and further information to schoolboard members. I ask you again, should we at Levworth High School be supporting this practice considering its effect on our 15 seconds. Thank you. Thank you. And next we have James Santi. Is James here? No. Okay, moving on. On two, consideration of Kansas Homeland Security Region L
009hazard mitigation plan. That's going to be Mr. Yep. Mr. Maha, if you want to make your way up here. I always try to put guests at the front end of the agenda, as you know. Um, this is actually a five-year renewal, so predates my time and a couple of you as well. But nonetheless, uh, is a countywide effort as I understand it, which includes many municipalities and does require, if we want to be a part of this, a public blessing, public vote. So, I've asked Chuck to be here tonight to give a brief overview and certainly take any questions. So, Mr. McGa, thank you for being here. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a pleasure working with Dr. Adams as we uh work through the process. Uh the process is the mitigation plan. The mitigation plan
010will eventually be signed off by the board of county commissioners, but beforehand, we have to have all the municipalities to make sure they've uh looked at the goals and the objectives that have been set out for uh for each entity. USD 453 is one of those and that's why I'm here tonight to understand that the mitigation uh process is just goal oriented. It is not something that is in concrete that you have to do. which gives us five years to work through that process and uh each entity has had an opportunity to uh state what they would like to see as a mitigation project within their own entity. Um I believe they have the document that had all of the goals for USD 453 had have provided to us as a county and this was
011is a large working group that uh we we had working through this process and understand how the mitigation project works. uh every time there's a federal declared disaster, 2% of those funds is put aside for mitigation projects that USD453 would have the opportunity to apply for. It's a 7525 split. When I say 7525, 75% comes to federal government. 25 would be for uh USD453. There's a number of ways that that could be be uh worked through, but uh then there's some goals in there that don't have a cost that the federal government would support, but it's a it's a project that USD 453 when we were working through the program felt it was necessary to try to work towards that goal at uh the cost of of the board. And a lot of it is
012just utilizing staff time and things of this nature. It's not an actual physical dollar that goes onto it uh for for budgetary purposes. Um my purpose here today is to see if the one for if the the board has any questions of myself as we work through this process. uh the the the actual document is 383 pages long and uh it's not very good reading but it's interesting reading if you're looking at mitigation projects and for the uh the general public understand that mitigation is how can we provide uh a project that will keep an incident from happening again or work through and one of the goals in there was for an example was place a generator in a school that would be fedally supported uh through that application process. Understand that the applications are
013um competitive, but I feel confident that we've always been very successful in Levvenworth County when we assist those agencies uh working through that mitigation projects. So, uh, we need to have an adoption from USD453, uh, for their portion of the plan, uh, to move forward before I present this to the board of county commissioners. All right. Before I read the resolution, are there any questions for Mr. Margaha? Okay, Mr. President, I move the adoption of the following resolution. Resolution 24/25-020 adopting the Kansas Homeland Security Region L Hazard Mitigation Plan. Whereas the Board of Education, Unified School District number 453, Levvenworth County, Kansas, recognizes the threat that natural hazards pose to the people and property within our community. And whereas undertaking hazard mitigation actions will reduce the potential for harm to people and property from future
014hazard occurrences. And whereas the US Congress passed disaster mitigation act of 2000 emphasizing the need for predesaster mitigation of potential hazards. Whereas the disaster mitigation act made available hazard mitigation grants to state and local governments. Whereas an adopted hazard mitigation plan is required as a condition of future funding for mitigation projects under multiple federal emergency management agency pre and post- disaster mitigation grant programs. And whereas the board of education of USD453, Levvenworth County, Kansas, fully participate in the FEMA prescribed mitigation planning process to prepare this multi-hazard mitigation plan. Whereas the Kansas Division of Emergency Management and FEMA Region 7 officials have reviewed the Kansas Homeland Security Region L hazard mitigation plan and approved it contingent upon this official adoption of the participating governing body. Whereas the government, excuse me, whereas the board of education of
015USD453, Levvenworth County, Kansas, desires to comply with the requirements of the disaster mitigation act and to augment its emergency planning efforts by formally adopting the Kansas Homeland Security Region L Hazard Mitigation Plan. Whereas adoption by the governing body for the board of education of USD453, Levvenworth County, Kansas, demonstrates the jurisdiction goals and objectives outlined in this plan. Whereas the adoption of this legitimizes the plan and authorizes responsible agencies to carry out the responsibilities under the plan. Now therefore, be it resolved that the board of education of USD453, Levvenworth County of Kansas, adopts the Kansas Homeland Security Region L Hazard Mitigation Plan as an official plan, and be it further resolved, the Board of Education of USD453, Levvenworth County, Kansas, will submit this adoption resolution to the Kansas Division of Emergency Management and FEMA Region 7
016officials to enable the plan's final approval adopted by the Board of Education on this 14th day of April, 2025. That was the motion. Question. We need a vote, do we? Yes. Second. Thank you. We would request a vote, please. Yes. Can I have an alibi question before we vote? You mind got a minute? So, I read through this whole thing and so are we concerned that we get federal funding, right? You you get it. I guess this you folks would get it direct. Is that safe to get these days? That's what I'm concerned about. I can't speak on the Okay. All right. I don't want to put you on spot, but I just saw that and I said, "Well, that's really nice, but we don't get any monies." I know how you put for the
017school districts, but Okay, that's I'm sorry. Well, I I have a little bit of an alibi for that, too. say 7525 split, federal government's going to pick up the cost of 75%. Well, we're going to pick up the cost of 25%. But is that something that could change? I mean, the the way the stat we see inflation, we see everything else. 25% could have been 25,000 a year ago. It could be $250,000 now. So, I'm just kind of curious what that 75 25% looks like. Yeah. It's going to depend on the project. Understand that if you got $100,000 project, 75,000 of it's going to come from that 25,000. So, it's whatever the base of that project's going to be. Okay. As far as the 7525 that is cut in stone currently in the Stafford Act,
018and I believe that that's in the uh the resolution that you guys have. It was, but I know things change consistently. I do understand. Thank you. Okay. We'll get back to the vote to accept the resolution. You already said motion second. Okay. All in favor? I like 70. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for being here, Mr. McGa. Recognition. All right, President Carney, on to my personal favorite for the evening and hence the reason why I believe several people in the room. We've got a couple great groups to honor tonight. And I've got two members ready to go on those certificates. So up first is First Sergeant George Sutton presenting the JOTC rifle team. First sergeant, if you would please make your way up to the podium. That was scary. Um
019in October we started off with uh our team started off with doing rifle team competition and each region we had over 100 teams and helpful these guys right here. We was able first time qualify four teams to go Ohio the first time in program's history and I want to recognize all my guys stand up please including you Blaze and Miss Bay stand up too. You too Miss B. [Applause] M city geek my right team command come up please. Um we got to Ohio this year with with a little bus travel. Got stuck for a couple bus rides. Our our team was able to qualify four teams and we took seventh in our region, 25th and 39th and 50th in our region. So we took four slots out of 50 teams and right now we're ranked
02039th in the nation. So this my team commander right here, captain. So she did a lot of the work. I appreciate her. So you want to speak real quick? Um, I mean, first basically said everything, but um, yeah, rifle team, we're kind of an underdog in the JRTC program. We don't get all of the big glory sometimes, but we're there and we're very glad to be here and we put in so much work and um, we're really proud to be noticed tonight. So, thank you. [Applause] All right. From the Levvenworth USD453 2005 certificate of appreciation. The certificate is proudly presented to the JOTC rifle team for positively representing Levvenworth High School in regional and national championship and is signed by Mike Carney, the president of the board and Kellen Adams, the superintendent of schools. [Applause]
021Yep. Pictures are non-negotiable. Pictures are required. [Music] bowling. I'll introduce bowling real fast. [Music] [Applause] All right. Thank you, rifle team. And again, congratulations. Uh the second group that was on the agenda tonight was the LHS Pioneer Bowling team who qualified for state. Unfortunately, our kids and our coaches are all very busy and so they were not able to be here this evening. Uh but still certainly want to give them the applause that is due. And then we'll work with Mr. Potter to see if we can get them here maybe at another meeting as I do want to give them their time under the sun as well. So your third and final group is the LHS Pioneer Wrestling, both boys and girls. Head coach, math teacher by day, coach at night. Bill Ernesty. [Applause] First
022of all, I just want to say thank you for bringing these uh wonderful men and young women uh and acknowledge what they have accomplished. Uh we started out the year. And we always start out with a slogan that we're going to go with and and our slogan was we are Levvenworth. Uh we see it too much in the halls with people that aren't involved in stuff that they're not proud to be from Levvenworth High School. And we wanted to change that whole atmosphere. So everything that we printed up this year, any type of uniform that we had on, we wanted to represent our community. We wanted to show that we're proud to be from Levvenworth. We're we're proud to be a part and I was very impressed as the year went on when you see
023their accomplishments that I gave you on the little place mat. People started to recognize Levvenworth and that was something that we wanted to do for the community. That's what we wanted to do for our high school. Uh we got brought in because we qualified for the state tournament. But I like to talk about things that have absolutely nothing to do with wrestling. We have student athletes on our wrestling team. Our ladies know that students being a student comes first. Our guys know that being a students come first. Uh our team GPA whenever you put them in collectively is right at a 35 GPA, boys and girls. And that's something that I I feel is exciting. But more importantly, there's two athletes that we have on our team, and I won't ever single them out, but
024they had below a point something GPA as freshman. They weren't involved in school. They didn't really like school and then they got involved and all of a sudden schooling became important to them. And we're celebrating their 3.0 GPA and their 4.0 GPA this semester, respectively. And that's something that we're extremely proud [Applause] of. The next thing that I want to talk about is how we became a family. Um, you can't accomp accomplish impossible things like these teams have accomplished without being a family. You work hard together. You do everything together. Whenever you lose, uh, your heart's just broke and your family's there for you. And for us to qualify 11 girls for this state tournament, that's unheard of. It's people whenever you bring in the big numbers that we brought in here today, you have
025to this isn't normal. 11 girls qualifying for the state tournament, they had to fight. Not all of them had winning records. They had to put together the perfect tournaments to get to go. And I would say that whole family aspect is what got all 11 girls there. If you look at the guys team, the way they pushed each other, the way they were there to pick each other up, the guys that qualified for state were hurting so bad for the guys that didn't qualify for state because they were trying to keep up with the girls team because they're like, "God, they got 11. We got to keep up with this." But when push came to shove, we were a family. I want you to imagine having a baseball player go out for baseball this year
026and they they didn't have a glove. We bought them a glove and said, "Go try out for baseball. ask a football player to go out and you're going to go off football this year, son. It's your first year. It's high school, but you go ahead and try it. Well, that's what these wrestlers, some of them accomplished. We have some of these wrestlers who are borderline at the cusp of placing at the state tournament. They've wrestled one or two years and they're catching kids that have wrestled since they were eight years old. I couldn't be more proud of this group. I can't wait to see where this group is going to go. But it's all the things that they do. I I was pleased to see that we had them stand up that they were part
027of the first celebration with the rifle team. I want them to be a part. I want we are Levvenworth for us to stand tall, all of us, and have our chest sticking out and be proud of our school. And that's something I think our wrestling program did this year in the high school. That's something they did on the community. I I was just I could not be more proud. And that's why I wanted to make sure I could come and talk about it. When I call out their names, I I would like them to stand. I'm going to call out their name and grade just to kind of put things in perspective for you. I'm going to call out the guys team first. Gunner Hamilton, ninth [Applause] grade. And just to keep from the board
028meeting to last forever, we're going to just go ahead and read all the names for the guys. We'll all clap for them and then we'll read all the names for the girls. Jaden Da Ripple, ninth grade. Sam Vasquez, 10th grade. Cam Turner, 10th grade. Bla1 Overby, 11th grade. Ares Woods, our Lone Senior. Patrick McKini, 10th grade. Grayson Klene, 11th grade. Let's give the guys team Now, gentlemen, please continue to stand because we are Levvenworth and we're going to stand out of respect to the ladies. Kaylee Norris, 10th grade. Giana Milner, 10th grade. McKenzie Waters, 11th grade. Keratina Vega, ninth grade. Raniah Marian, 10th grade. Lizzie Lopez, 10th grade. Charlotte Jackson, ninth grade. Ava Babage, 10th grade. Kaylee Infinger, 10th grade. Nola Williams, senior 12th grade. Sariah Nelson, 11th grade. Head coach Bod, apologize for not
029being here tonight, but head coach Bod coaches a lot of things. and head coach Bod's being the head coach of baseball tonight. But I just have to say I couldn't be more proud and I can't wait to see what this this group of people bring to Levvenworth and to our community. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Thank you. Those were some wonderful for a very Levvenworth USD453 uh certificate of achievement 2025. This certificate is proudly proudly presented to boys and girls wrestling for excellence displayed during competition at the 2025 Kansas State Wrestling Championship signed Mr. Mike Carney, board of education president and Dr. Kellen J. Adams, superintendent of schools. Congratulations. [Applause] Do girls first. All right, I'll be first. [Music] Guys, guys. All right. First one, two [Applause] I want to say thank you again to
030the parents for coming out this evening. We truly appreciate you making time for this special recognition. Also, thank you to First Sergeant Sutton as well as Coach Ernesty. We hope you all have a great evening. Thank you. Feel free to stay for the meeting though. Take some of that food home. Have a good night. [Music] I hate that. Saw the chairs. Yeah, it's dangerous, sir. I think they're stopping in the food line. Okay, we're ready to go. Let's move on to item four, consent agenda. I'm sure everybody's read through them and studied them. If we have any we want to pull, let's go ahead and I'm not going to read all these. I would like to pull 4.6. 4.6. I would like to pull 4.8. 4.8. Are you getting them? Any others? [Music] Okay. I'd
031like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda with those changes of 4.6 and 4.8. I'll second. got a motion to to uh approve the two items taken off the agenda and M. Wells, second by M. Yep. So, just so I'm tracking, we would make KSB KSB legal fund 81. Yes. We would make the consideration of the installation of rooftop units 82. Yes. Okay. All in favor? I look like seven. Okay. We want to discuss the first. Correct. Item five, executive session. 30 minutes. 30. Okay. Mr. President, I move we go into executive session to discuss non-elected personnel pursuant to the exception under the Kansas Open Meetings Act or coma in order to protect the privacy interests of the individuals to be discussed and that we return to open session in this room at
0327:03. Second. First, the board will invite Dr. Adams, Amy Sloan, and Isaac Kimberly into the meeting. A motion by Mrs. Price to go in executive session. Second by Mrs. Murphy. All in favor? I. 70. Let's [Music] roll. Okay. Motion by M to raise the ministry by what was the total? 85. 85 second by Miss Murphy. All in favor? I zero. Okay. And we have a resolution. [Music] Motion for final action of the board of education in regard to the termination of a teachers contract where no hearing was held. Resolution 24/25-021. Whereas on the 27th day of February, 2025, the board of education of USD453, Levvenworth County, Kansas, by resolution duly adopted took action to notify Jerome Risco Valier of the board's intent that his contract as a teacher for this district be terminated on the
03327th day of February, 2025. And whereas pursuant to the resolution, the clerk of the board of education gave written notice to Jerome Vrisco that it was intent of the board of education to terminate his contract of employment on the 27th day of February, 2025, that he was employed on the 6th day of August, 2018, and that he was entitled to a hearing before a hearing officer if he so requested in writing to the clerk of the board of education within 15 days after delivery of the notice. And whereas no request for a hearing was received from Jerome Risco by the clerk of the board of the education within 15 days after delivery of the notice to Jerome Risco. Whereas after extensive consideration and thorough discussion of the matter, the board has determined that the matter
034should be resolved as here and after indicated. Now therefore be it resolved by the board of education of USD453 Levvenworth County, Kansas, that the current teaching contract of Jerome Riskova be terminated on the 27th day of February, 2025. That the clerk of the board of education give Jerome Briscoay a signed copy of this resolution in person or by United States mail adopted by the board of education at USD453 Levvenworth County, Kansas this 14th day of April 2025. Anybody understand the resolution? Second. The resolution been read by second by Merke. All in favor? I zero. All right, Mr. President, I move we go into executive session to discuss negotiations pursuant to the exception for employer employee negotiations under the Kansas Open Meetings Act or coma and that we return to open session in this room in
03520 minutes at 7:58. Board will invite Dr. Adams, Amy Sloan, Amy Joe Troyer, and Beth Maddox to the meeting. The first few minutes will be a bio break. 158. I second. I did the other so price over me. Mrs. Over. Yes, I'm giving you the second. Yes. All in favor? I 70. [Music]