001good evening everybody tonight's March 10th I think the first day of spring maybe and this is a regular meeting of Board of Education usd453 we have a roll call Mr Murphy here M Wells here M price here Mrs Wilson here M Overby here Mrs uh Reed here and I'm here I'd ask that everybody silence their phones while we're in session and now we have Pledge of Allegiance Pledge 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 you indivual would you like to uh give the district mission statements and just a monthly reminder to speak clearly into the microphone for everybody listening online and otherwise to the district mission statement the mission of Le War Public Schools
002is to prepare every student for success in every classroom every day no no scheduled in Patron input move on adoption of the agenda like to make a move a motion to approve the agenda as presented second we have a motion by Mr Murphy to adopt the agenda presented second by Mrs Overby all in favor I look like 7even zero and on to two who's handling this Beth you have any introduction you'd like to give sure tonight we have KLA Williams with us from BT and Co to present and review the fiscal year 24 uh financial statements and audit report with the board thanks Miss madx hello can you hear me okay okay um hello everyone my name is Kayla Williams I am an audit principal with BT and Co um so you've received two different
003handouts I understand you've had a couple days I'm sure you've read every word of them but if not I'll go over and some of those words with you um we're going to mostly focus on the report that is addressed to the board of education so it's the smaller of the two documents that you have um if you begin on page one of that report um this is where we uh describe our responsibilities in performing the audit we perform our audit in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States government auditing standards the Kansas Municipal audit and accounting guide the provisions of the single audit act uniform guidance and omb's compliance supplement those standards require us to perform procedures to obtain reasonable Assurance about whether the financial statements are free from Material M statement
004our procedures include examining on a test basis evidence supporting the amounts and the disclosures in the financial statements we also review the accounting principles used and the significant estimates made by management as well as evaluating the overall financial statement presentation the district has received a waiver from the state of Kansas to issue their financial statements in Conformity with uh the regulatory basis of accounting uh this is a basis of accounting other than generally accepted accounting principles Gap um which is allowed by the state of Kansas um so we are pleased to report that as a result of the district's audit uh we determine that the financial statements are presented fairly in all material respects in Conformity with the regulatory basis of accounting and we have issued an unmodified opinion on on that fact um and
005that is the best kind of opinion that we can issue so that is good news um there is a second opinion that we issue in the report that is an adverse opinion on those generally accepted accounting principles and that's just because of that waiver that you guys have so um in the next section of the letter uh we uh we talk about a letter that we had sent to you guys back in June June 4th to kind of communicate our audit plan and the significant risks um that we had identified we did identify one additional significant risk since that time it wasn't because of anything that changed with the district it was just something that changed with our own accounting our auditing um strategy and so there is a new uh section of the report
006that describes an estimate that you guys have related to net pension liability um and so that is just a required disclosure that talks about the Capers that you guys are a part of a net pension liability associated with that and so since that number is based on Actuarial reports it is considered a significant estimate and just something that's been added um going on to page two of the report in the section titled um audit adjustments and uncorrected oh I'm sorry I skipped an entire section there um first in the section titled accounting policies and practices uh this is where we would bring to your attention anything that we identified during the audit related to um any significant accounting policies or newly adopted accounting policies or significant or unusual transactions and we had none of those
007items to bring to your attention um we did just note that there was that significant estimate which I just described that net pension liability um then going on to the rest of page two in the section titled audit adjustments and uncorrected misstatements this is where we would bring to your attention any of those types of items and did not have any um in the next section this is where we the the departure for the auditor standard report this is where we describe um that the regulatory basis is the U method of reporting instead of Gap and so we issue that separate opinion um which I've already described um continuing on page three now in um the observations about the audit process section this is where we would bring to your attention anything any um concerns
008or disagreements that we had with man management any other difficult um or uh contentious matters that we encountered um and there were no matters um like this to bring to your attention in fact I'm happy to say that uh management was very well prepared for our audit very transparent and easy to work for throughout the entire process so very good um page four of the letter includes a section titled shared responsibilities for Independence um as Auditors we are required to maintain our independence both of mind and in appearance when providing audit Services uh we must also maintain a system of quality management over compliance with Independence rules and firm policies the district is responsible for timely informing us if there are any new Affiliates directors or officers or changes in the organization's structure or reporting
009entity that may impair this Independence um uh we have also attached to this letter a representation letter which is located right after page five um this letter is the final step in the process of the audit and it puts into writing the matters that are required by our standards to be represented To Us by management uh the sign of this letter represents Management's acceptance of the financial statement and an indication that the report is ready to be finalized uh we provide this letter to you because we believe that it will help you as a governing body to better understand your financial statements and fulfill your fiduciary responsibilities uh please feel free to read through that letter and just let me know if you have any questions but I won't go over that in a lot
010of detail the only other um thing I want to bring to your attention in the financial statements themselves is on uh page 46 so because the district does expend a certain amount of federal dollars they required to have a separate audit called a single audit and on that page called the schedule of findings and question cost we summarized information related to that single audit um including letting you know which uh major programs we specifically audited for the year um those change each year and this year it was the Child Nutrition program in Esser um on that schedule findings and question cost we let you know that we've issued an unmodified opinion again that's the good kind um on the report and there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies so all of that good news
011that I have to share um that's really all I have I just want to give a special thank you to Beth for all of your help throughout the whole process and the rest of the district office that we bug throughout the whole time so um with that I'll open it up for any questions and that's all right if there are none so thank you very much thanks M Williams okay mov right along here recognition sorry Mr conney we would request action to approve that the audit repe like to make a motion to approve the audit as it's been presented to us a motion by Mrs Murphy to approve the audit report seconded by Mrs Wilson or was it m Reed all in favor I 70 Now recognition thank you for that now on to arguably
012my favorite part of the meeting chance to recognize some of our outstanding individuals up first she's in the back row she's a frequent here at most of our meetings and she is your 2025 chamber Junior citizen of the [Applause] Year first off if you don't realize itj is academically gifted she's also a student athlete and she's involved in the community and has a job so when you do all those great things and you're part of being an awesome Pioneer you become jior citizen of of L and worth and Lancing so we'll do the official part now um the certificate of achievement is probably presented to PG PJ Wells as the junior citizen of the Year signed by Mr Kerney as president of the Board of Education and Dr Adams as superintendent schools well done [Applause]
013all right thank you Mrs price uh note that number three is GNA be pushed to April so our other tonight is the JROTC academic team looks like they're positioned in the back and presenting on their behalf major salary hey y'all May Larry uh I just want to talk a little about jrgc academic team uh we are very proud as a program the JC program of all the great things our Cadets do and throughout the year you'll see myself one of our many other instructors up here because we we we have a lot of successes and you know we we come here and we honor those kids for all the great things and we take pride in how hard we push these kids but I want to talk about these kids a little different because it's
014nothing that I did to push them uh what they did is truly speaks to the entirety of the school district uh a lot of the stuff we do whether it's you know Raiders or Marksmanship or you know that we got our coaches in the jrtc program behind them teaching them training them mentoring them getting them ready for that competition is but this competition is very unique it's stuff I don't know uh I I and I've told them look I I can't help you on on the physics or the math it's it's all stuff outside of my subject area this is stuff that the rest of the teachers and the whole school have prepared these students for so when when when we're honoring them tonight we're we're not just honoring them and their achievements and and
015the credit brings to the jrtc program we're honoring the entire school district and all those teachers that stood Behind these kids to get them the knowledge and information that they need to be able to make this achievement and this achievement I I told Dr Adams it's been the most elusive one we we've had uh this has probably been the hardest thing for us to capture uh if they go up there and they compete and they come back in last place just getting there is phenomenal uh and to put that in perspective there's over 3,500 jrtc programs across the globe and for this competition unlike a lot of the other stuff we do every school must compete with at least one team it's a standard we all have to compete so there's at least 3,500 teams
016they competed against schools are allowed to interrupt to two teams we did so the possibilities are they may have gone up to against almost 7,000 teams and out of those 7,000 or at least 3,000 plus they only let the top 32 teams go so if you do the math it's it's less than 0.009% it's the top top less than 1% of the teams that make this academic achievement and and I want to introduce them up here if you'll step up for first I got Cadet Elizabeth how goad get up there get up there the camera's on you I got Cadet matthy we have one other young Cadet who unfortunately couldn't make it tonight Cadet Ian Margo he couldn't get away from work but we also have the team captain here Cadet uh Nathan James and
017I want to say a little something about Nathan he handpicked everybody on this team he he he was he was the he was the brains behind the operation that behind the brains if that makes any sense so these Cadets have achieved uh something that no other team that I can find in our written history of doing yet so this is a first for us I'm very proud of them and like I said this this speaks to the entirety of all the teachers at the high school oh stay there major you're supposed to be over here too ma' I gotta take pictures all right lenworth United school district 4553 2025 certificate of achievement the certificate is presented to the lenworth high school J Roc for qualifying for the 2025 National Championship Joc leadership and academic bll
018and it is signed by President Mike Carney and superintendent Dr Kellen J Adams congratulations [Applause] that's picture right [Applause] that's my son and like I said the rifle team will be honored in a April okay right along to the consent agenda I guess I'm for the consent agenda um I would like to pull off item 4.7 item 4.7 consideration of Beyond textbook okay it becomes 81 it becomes what 51 I'd like to pull off 4.8 consideration of the A and rooftop units I just have a quick question anything else all right so Mr Carney I would have Beyond textbooks become 8.1 8.1 yep and the Aon becomes 8.2 good with that Beth [Music] Y what what was the air conditioning ones 82 8.2 yes sir okay I'd like to make motion to approve the consent
019agenda with those items removed second a motion by Mrs Wells to uh approve the Cons with the removed second by Mrs Murphy Murphy all in favor I 70 all right so we'll come back to those after executive session 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 interest the individuals to be discussed then we return to open session in this room at 6:32 the board will invite Dr Adams Amy Sloan and board attorney Isaac cly into the meeting second got a motion to go into executive session by Mrs price second by Mrs Murphy all in favor I 70 let's move in then e it's chilly it's cold in here yeah all righty
020sure I'd like to make a motion to accept the Staffing report as presented second who's who's seconding who won over there got a motion by Mrs Wells to approve the staff report second by Mrs Wilson all in favor I 70 moving on where are we 81 okay next item executive session for negotiations Mr President I move we go into executive session to discuss negotiations pursuant to the exception fory employer employee negotiations under the Kansas open meetings act or coma and that we return to this into Open session in this room at 718 the board will invite Dr Adams Amy Sloan Amy Joe Troyer and Beth Maddox into the meeting second oh sorry I'm such a hurry getting executive session motion by Mrs price to go in executive session for negotiation seconded by Mrs Murphy all
021favor seven happy people just new date right yep items removed from the Cass agenda everybody here yes all right we'll go to 81 with the that's the removal of what item 47 47 of the consent agenda okay come on down um I have had the opportunity to see the presentation that you did for the board also District site Council um also the presentation that was um the slides that were offered um I like this program I think that there's a lot of good in it and I like the collaborative um nature of it so you could build on it if I'm understanding correctly 100% okay but we are in um our budget situation we're in tradeoffs right because we don't have unlimited resources so my question is I believe the presentation said that this is
022fully funded through teaching and learning yes um and it's a pretty hefty price tag the 30k um so what are the trade-offs what are we eliminating what are we not doing what have we decided so that we can kind of mitigate the cost on this sure absolutely a valid question so um it's not one big purchase um usually at the end of the year um as I'm finalizing my budget I spend a lot of money on buying additional decodable sets for elementaries which we spent that last year I bought spellography for grades four through six and we have bought a whole set of those now so I don't have those expenses um new teacher Academy between the SWAT and the door prizes the supplies all that that's going to be reduced this year um some
023of that so that comes into this money as well um professional books I use um a lot of professional books that I give to admin and teaching and learning a teachers that are in cadres with me those type of things those will not be occurring next year so I will not have the expense of those professional books um and PD supplies at the end of the year I replenish all PD supplies kind of thing and um that's one of the expenses that we will just as needed replenish instead of doing a full replenish like I usually do at the end of the year so by the time you add all those up even though they're you know um in themselves the decodables you know they're about um 15 to 16,000 um when you purchase when
024you look at new teacher Academy you're talking another six to eight by the time you get all the swag and the all the things in there so it adds up to that 30,000 price tag but academically I feel like this is a better investment for our teachers and our kids for moving the needle forward on our math data okay um next question yes ma'am have like four um the cost does not include social studies so we're doing this for math only or just we ask for social studies to be removed based on feedback that I got at the board presentation when I did it in November um we absolutely can have social studies Veil um is they've been extremely generous remind me why we didn't want social studies because some of the content it was
025brought up um in the meeting that there were some concerns about what might or might not be um in it and in there we did not pilot social studies so I cannot tell you with 100% Clarity what is or isn't in there okay so at this point I worked with bale to see if we could get that for lack of better word whitelisted so people won't have access to that um but as far as they're concerned yes that you know they'd be happy for us to have social studies okay did they reduce our cost at all when we started negotiations we were at about 65 and um we've you know they've worked very generously with me um and it gotten it down to 30 okay um right um I see training costs and travel fees
026for the trainer so is this going to be sort of um like safe and civil schools where we bring in a trainer and then we do train the trainer absolutely and then um would we be anticipating this being a one-time expense and then do our training on this internally in the district from now on that's a the CEO of the company juston um and I have had several conversations about that and because the structure of how we have some support personnel in our district is exactly what so we would pay for it this year and then as new teachers and staff would come on that would be just part of their new teacher Academy much like we do now with any of our current programs from there so it's not something that at this point
027we have as an ongoing expense and does that work as subsequent years is it a subscription it is a subscription um on it is that that 5,000 yes sell our so you're anticipating we do the initial buy the thing then we do our own training and we're paying like 5,000 for the Pres or prescription subscription subsequently I cannot say that the recurring fee will only be 5,000 I do not know that in all honesty what I can say is that we're not paying for training pieces of it on there because there's a couple of things to consider if you will notice it only goes up to 8th grade I mean it was offered to high school as I put in my notes at this point High School scoring online with the state assessment scores and
028so at this point we're kind of seeing if we can work at building up those um grades coming up on there so but I don't I don't feel confident in saying it will be X number of dollars but yes this year that is the subscription price okay um I will say like I said you know the first price tag was 65 they've been very generous in working with it so I'm sure whatever it is you know would be as a recurring crost they would be willing to work with us because they they've been great throughout this whole process okay I think that's all my question all right thank you do you have any other subscriptions that you have right now that you're looking at not renewing um we have and those have been captured in
029the money saved um in there and we have several that we're not renewing I didn't know if there were maybe a couple couple more you might have had your eyes on since that budgetary we have we've pretty much cut it pretty lean right um for us the ones that we know for sure we're 100% renewing um Edgenuity for example because that's our credit recovery program at the high school uh bride thinker has some renewals because with that help supports um our Swiss program and our Third Avenue um on their parir deck which is a low dollar amount is one that we're keeping for Interac with our Google Slides you know in there but no we've cut our department and subscriptions pretty thin um any eyes on any grants um ironically um yes Mr bodensteiner and
030I currently are working on two grants and that um are due that we're thinking about applying for and then one um larger one a doo one that would benefit our high school if um we decide to move forward with it so would one of these two grants help def free the cost of this or it's just to something totally different something totally different all right thank you uhuh sure anything else oh that was all my question thank you thank you do we need to vote on that now or go we got to way to the other one this one's separate h it's it's own separate okay so I need a motion then like to make a motion to approve the teaching and learning um I'm looking for the name of this be Beyond textbooks for
031$30,000 um I'll second got a motion by m Murphy to approve the contract with Beyond textbook second by who the second M over oh M Overby all in favor hi 61 okay thank you moving right along so now we have the Aon air conditioning units who wants to talk about that who who brought that up I did I'll John y I'll have John come up to the podium for direct questions he's the one that's overseen this excuse me overseen this process to date so my question is um did we not get any other bids besides one yeah this is uh we we got an agreement with them to get discount pricing when we border and bulk um it's Aon that's what we've been using across the camp campus or campus the district Mrs Murphy it's
032uh pricing from the Green Bush purchasing Coop The Coop okay thank you that's because this was kind of lean normally we'll have something that will say where there's been multiple bids or and that wasn't really articulated thank you sorry I could speak to that so we wanted to stay with the manufacturer Aon and as a result there was not multiple companies in the traditional RFP process that you sometimes typically see with a bid t otherwise Green Bush uh purchasing Cooperative does offer Aon so as a result we went directly to them versus the traditional RFP process thank you any other questions any more questions okay motion I thank you thanks so don't we need a motion for that kindly request a motion I'm asking am I gonna make a motion um it's just we keep
033talking about budget budget budget and then sorry thank you for bringing that up I do want to make it clear this does come out of capital outlay this would not come out of our operational funds and is our Capital at like going to be able to hear yes ma'am I still haven't heard a motion I don't really know how to say it I'll make a motion to approve the um a on rooftop units for what is one um 3,826 okay anybody second I'll second we got a motion by Mr Obby to approve the Aon commitment through Green Bush right for 130 I didn't hear the number $1 13800 okay second by Mrs Wells all in favor I looks like s0 moving right along here let's see strategic plan highlight all right this comes I would
034say directly um as a result of feedback from the board shifting more specifically to one specific area of our strategic plan and that is teaching and learning um so I would applaud all of you for getting us back to what I believe should be become our primary focus which is tnl Mrs Batson take it away um thank you for this opportunity um tonight to kind of share a little bit about something I'm extremely passionate about and that's um the changes in the approaches we've made in teaching literacy in our district as you know um teaching and learning is a huge bucket in our strategic plan it is for a lack of better word the meats and potatoes of what we do here every day so with that tonight's information kind of hits a highlight of
035those first two action steps that are in our strategic plan on how do we create the curriculum as well as how do we have an emphasis on core instruction so when you think about literacy why is it so important and in this especially as a prior math teacher I get ask all the time like isn't math important too absolutely but in this the reality is literacy is not just a 11worth problem it is a national problem and there's some statistics from the American reading Association and as you can see um from there we have sadly uh quite a bit of our adult population in our nation at a fourth grader uh level or an illiterate level um in that we also have um where it does affect more into the classroom and the core instruction
036is 60% of office referrals Nationwide this is not 11 more statistic Nationwide come from Reading blocks either in small group or whole group um instruction time reading is something that uh many of our students and AD adults in our nation struggles with so when we look closer to home and we look at our literacy data I want to give you more of a long term than just you know fall to fall or you know year to year in this it's not something that's new that we've struggled with in there but it is a huge um emphasis that we have to improve so from there when you look at that data I want you to note that we did change assessments okay when we first started tracking this and really looking at the data for how
037we were teaching literacy we were using I ready about halfway through um through State um grants and contracts and what they wanted to do is we did switch to fastbridge so we're still comparing apples to oranges but not necessarily Apples to Apples because there are some differences in some of the test Not only was there a shift in the assessments there was a shift in how it was taught uh thought to be best practice ractice in literacy okay back in 20189 Era we had a lot of emphasis on balanced literacy balanced literacy looked at the Big Five in literacy and a lot of emphasis on your comprehension and fluency as a student now we fall under a more structured literacy approach and that structured literacy is very much an emphasis on Phonics phological awareness and
038teaching kids how to read so if they can be solid decoders by the time they in third grade then they can be fluent and comprehensive readers by the time they graduate from high school and why was there that shift is a term called the science of reading if you have watched the news listened to several things this is a term that is very much used and basically the science of reading is just a body of evidence that uh shows how students learn to read and what are some of the best practices um when teaching students to read so we made a decision based on our data when we looked at it to really Target that skill of phonological awareness phonics and vocabulary that that is something that we would Target K12 so a lot of
039time energy and resources have been spent on really targeting those areas so when you think about it here are some of the steps that we've taken as a district um in the last few few years and we're going to go into greater detail with each of these but when you look at them please know that these decisions were made purposely and intentionally with moving our data in the area of phonics so one of the first things we did not have a phonics resource up until a few years ago we had phonic type um information within our basil um reading program but there was not a phonic specific where that caused a problem is we didn't have alignment each grade level was different and it wasn't based on introducing the letters and the Sounds in a
040in a very scientific sequential manner science of reading shared with us you have to do this in a certain order so kids can learn how to blend and how to decode so one of the first things we did was adopt a resource we did that several years ago from phonics to reading it's in all our K3 classrooms so we have this better resource but now what one of the things we heard loud and clear and I'll say I'm definitely one of these said I I don't really I wasn't really taught how to teach phonics I really wasn't taught the brain science behind how a student reads I was taught comprehension strategies I was taught how to use my finger to follow and track I was taught all of these things but not necessarily how to
041teach phonics in the best way so we invested a lot of time money and people into uh professional development we took teachers to conferences we used Green Bush we attended Ames literacy leadership we have staff that went through letters we have um before even the state contract we paid for one of our teachers to become a letters trainer um I will go ahead and tell you we have three additional people that this summer will become letters trainers as well we spent a lot of time not only working with teachers but admin did they know what good phonics instruction should look like when they walk into a classroom so now that we have a good resource we know more about how to teach phonics now what and one of the things that came through loud and
042clear was I need help with uh planning and time um it takes a lot of time so we reallocated uh Crystal Taylor who was a building based instructional facilitator we invested once again a lot of time and money and energy and having her become very uh skilled and trained in what phonic instruction should look like from there she created a dashboard for our K3 um teachers to use and I'll show you an example of that we began having literacy specific and phonic specific staff meetings and also in every admin meeting um we have a data point that comes from this and a lot of times Crystal will model the actual routine or a sample lesson um where um I get the joy of playing a student and in that where Crystal models what you should
043see in a phonic routine so we have this dashboard and I will say I see this in my walkthrough data being used daily across our K3 so here's an example and when you log in this is what you would see you will see it's not only your pacing guides but she puts additional information on there each one of these blue lines is a link to either a document a res Source a video something that is meant to help teachers so as a third grade teacher if I clicked on my pacing guide if I clicked on my lessons I would come to this screen and in this this is just an example once again every one of those blue lines is a lesson plan and a presentation for teachers to use now here's what I definitely
044want to um say teaching is a combination of the science and the art so each individual teacher brings their own art I fully expect them to bring their personality their strengths their connections all that into their instruction this presentation is just a base for them to start with and use it does the science part of it so if I click on one of those links I'm going to be taken to a slideshow and a lesson plan and here are some examples of the slides you'll see on the left those are straight out of are from phonics to reading in fact in the very bottom corner of that lower left you'll see what page you could find it on in your manual the green highlights to teachers either routines or behaviors that they should point out
045as a gentle reminder and then you'll see on the right some examples for example the one on top are what are called kids lips cards because one of the things science of reading uh showed us is that we did not spend enough time really teaching the construction and the formation of where your lips your teeth and your tongue go when making certain sounds and so um lips cards or an example so we can when we're learning the long o sound how we form our lips um to do that and then at the bottom as you know in English we don't always follow our own rules of phonics um so the word other there is what would be considered a heart word a sight word and sometimes uh we can find patterns of spellings that we
046use secret stories on and you'll see some examples of the th the and there's a little story that teachers go into especially in the primary grades to teach that sound because the th is going to be in a lot of site words but it's not a skill that's introduced in kindergarten so this Secret Story helps us know what sound that th makes or the r um in the i e r all right um on it so we've got a resource we've got some training we have our lesson plans now what so one of the things we implemented um were coaching cycles and not only coaching cycles for teachers we have coaching cycles for admin we have coaching cycles for me to learn how to um teach phonics because once again middle school math teacher this
047is a a definitely a new topic for me in this it's a mandatory for all new to 11 and War staff but optional for any teacher um in that and those are kind of the steps you'll see but in there it's a way for someone to watch crystal teach they get to give her feedback on how she taught and then um they plan together and she goes and watches it's nonevaluative it's meant to be a support and overall feedback especially with our novice teachers has been a very strongly affirmative on um they felt like this has been a great way to kind of help support them then all right so we've got these great resources we've got this knowledge we have these lesson plans I have someone that's going to be in the trenches with
048me when I get stuck but I still struggling when I look at my fast bridge data on knowing how to group kids into small groups so we introduced last year holistically we piled it before then what's called a QPS or a quick phonic screener it's a one-on-one assessment that really breaks down which skill that students are missing this has been a line to not only our phonics pacing guide but our grade levels and so as a teacher I know in October of this year in April of this year we know what QPS skill a child that's on grade level should be at so teachers then can assess kids and in there know that their small group skills are based on a more minute data point than you would get from fastbridge fastbridge is an excellent
049Benchmark screener however in there it's not something you're going to want to do every week it's not something you're going to want to do every two weeks from that this is those decodables one of the things we found out okay so now I know my kids need this are controls vals so in that I don't have any resources Laura to really use with that so that's where those decodables came in that we purchased and from there uh we've had individual lesson plans created with those as well so what is our data show on it so when we look at QPS data overall and these are students who are on grade level and like I said we've only been doing it a year at this level so you will see K through three we have seen
050growth in all grade levels in there what does that mean that means we're getting more third graders on grade level ready to become that comprehensive INF fluent reader instead of uh still struggling with the decoding piece of it so we've seen some growth in there where well where this trend will go next I don't know and we'll have to follow it just like I did with the other data but that's kind of where we are initially um so once again this is that exact same slide that I showed you at the beginning that shows our data you see where we adopted the resource in there and even though it may not be a huge going from 47 to 43 um and your high risk is a is moving that needle in there and this is
051winner to winner Benchmark so we know the best way to move kids forwards is we all work together you know parents are the child's first teacher their longest teacher and their best teacher so in that what can we do as families the number one thing you can do as a caregiver family loved one is just spend time reading together whether that's a bedtime routine whether that's a novel you're reading together whatever it is and as little as 10 to 15 minutes a day shows significant increase in achievement scores from there um one of the benefits in that is it not only increases the vocabulary of students it builds their confidence and their attendance because as we saw in one of the first slides from the statistics if we have 60% of discipline referrals in the
052nation trying to get out of reading because they don't like it they struggle they feel stupid whatever the reason is the more we increase this than that decrease of those office referrals now how can we F how can we work together um on that is if spending that 10 to 15 minutes it allows you as a parent to start to hear like hey there may be something there that I have a question about that's a great time to call your child school it's a great great time to reach out to your child's teacher and then or reach out to us here at the school district so another way is being involved in our family engagement events um recently David Brewer's third and fourth grade teams did an amazing um one where they looked at the
053state assessment and some of the academic skills with that where they had the students and families practice it was very well attended this is an example from our kindergarten using literacy in there this is one we do every year at Dylan another way um with that is our family engagement that we do with prek in it why highlight those once again we made an intentional decision to really concentrate at the primary grades so we can get more kids on grade level by third grade first grade one of the things we introduced is H for a lack of better word this uh parent um resource and um take-home activities there's a letter that goes with it and then these four activities you'll notice that QR code that's up in the top Corner that QR code is
054one of our instructional facilitators or teaching and learning staff members does a video on how to do this so if I'm a parent and I'm like I don't even know what those mean because I didn't know what those slashes meant when I first started working in literacy and from there this is one of our team members going over how to do this so if a parent or caregiver can feel confident in what they're doing conferences are coming up so one of the things that all of our elementary um families should receive is a sheet that looks somewhat like this started as the every child can react in third grade but from there we felt like it was really great information for families so we have it for all of your Elementary grades for reading and
055math this will let you know not only where your personal child scores as compared to what is expected but on the back it gives some hints and tips of things that you can do at home if you would like to um get more involved in this the best thing to do of course is talk to your child's teacher and get to know some more about their uh where they are in class what activities they're doing and then as a greater Community because we're all in this together how can we help shift those literacy statistics that we saw that are bigger than just lenworth Kansas but one of the things you can do is reach out out to Educators talk to them come volunteer we've got a lot of kids that would love to listen to
056you read we have a bunch of kids who would like to do letter sounds and letter names with you and in that whether you become active in a school's PTO or site Council to stay informed on kind of what we're doing to combat this literacy issue in our community um but come help be a part of that solution and then finally an idea is uh give books as gifts when you're purchasing a gift for someone throw a book in there with it because the number one thing when kids ask you know well why don't you ever read I I me books so helping them find a book they love um is great so with that I know that was a lot of information on how we approach literacy in our grades but wanted to open
057it up to questions so I have some Miss Batson on the letters program itself so we've got one trainer trained and we've got inbound over the summer how many people have completed letters one today other than that trainer and how who is going to be taking that letter well letters train who's T who's required to take the letters training I mean sure so there's two aspects of it um in there we have uh we have approximately 15 staff members that are either already trained or in the process of being trained in there now there's two things that play here one a lot of people just started taking it because they wanted to become better Educators but the state has now adopted What's called the Seal of literacy and in the Seal of literacy any elementary
058teacher Elementary admin um any Elementary sped teacher Elementary School psych has to by July 1st 2028 have the Seal of literacy on their license okay there are several ways an educator can get that one of the ways is by completing letters training all Elementary staff have received a Google form um earlier last month that asked you know kind of where are you what would you like to do with this and those that have expressed interest in wanting to do it that's what we'll be using our PD days for next year is to help them get this seal of literacy requirement another option is there's a practice it's one of the 7,000 series test and we have a study group we have two of our teaching and learning team members that are taking that practice this
059um study guide and examiner manual and breaking it into study groups so if a a teacher says I really don't want to do letters but I still got to have this lenser they'll at least have a resource to help one that's not as finalized is your Regional um universities are putting together some programs and courses that will also account for the Seal of literacy that hasn't been finalized yet so I haven't shared that exactly with staff because I don't want to send uh misinformation sure but once that comes out they will have that option as well and then how long does it take to complete letters letters is a two-year okay program um unit one it's got um volume one which is units one through four is in year one and volume two which is
060units 5 through eight is in there and they also have a letters um for administrators and letter it's also a two-year program and then letters for early ton okay thank you uhuh sure what type of grade level would you be able to expect they could read like the word Acorn easily fourth okay um I had the pleasure of volunteering at Henry as a mystery reader Y and it was phenomenal and I was thankful that the kids eventually let go but I thought I was going to have to peel them off so um great kids in that I think it was Meer maybe first grade or so okay so just kind of piggybacking on your plug for people to volunteer um and hopefully a couple people have followed up I had people reach out to me
061I tried to to push that on social media um what percentage of our kids do you think have that reading experience that you were talking about where at home they're they're R to or have a reading engagement for National statistics would say it's less than 20% um there's no way for me to know we live in a very technology driven as you know Society U but that um reading together either through an app or through a physical book um statistics would say less than 20% that shocks me that you say fourth grade on on Acorn so that's interesting um well for them to see it in a text and read it independently and confidence yeah um do we do like a phonics trading night for parents um it's embedded into some of our family engagement
062we definitely could um I saw one of the it was another school in lth County um I don't think it was this year but maybe the last couple years and um we have done it in site councils um Crystal Taylor as our phonics facilitator has come and done some things with site counsil so people experience what a phonics routine would look like on it they went over the those basic sounds making sure the parents understood what they were so that the parent could help you know the child at home and um that would be interesting to me if we could get participation and something like that here in lenworth so thanks so much sure thank you I have a couple questions ma'am so on the slide deck on page 17 there was some data there
063do we know why year both years there's the first grade data of the Fall to because it's the only grade that we're seeing that tell me one more time so first grade in both 23 24 and 24 25 in the fall we're higher than we are in the winter it's opposite for every other grade except for first grade do do we know why do I know why no um and there I will tell you there is a shift um as the year goes on obviously from letter names letter sounds to being able to use those phones to make words or nonsense words nonsense words is traditionally a skill that uh kids kind of drop out in it's a really tough um skill but as far as wine no okay and you were talking about family
064engagement and it's interesting that you say only 20% my I grew up in a reading household and so that blows my mind that I mean I read before I ever got into school PJ was reading it too which shocker I didn't have anything to do with that she was just doing it um but is there any science or do we have any data behind we're ever doing all of the things visually of subtitles on things like if we can encourage families like if that would help with reading if while they're watching a video to have the subtitles going or something I don't I would have to explore a little bit on that because in all honesty I wouldn't even know where to start looking at that I would have to probably look at some um's
065dissertations or studies or something that we're on that Google Science subtitles and reading absolutely yeah and then page 25 of the slide deck so this you're saying every elementary teacher is required to provide that to their families this is something that is sent to every school yes in there and as far as I know from every administrator it is done now as soon as I say that there'll be some you know hear me say that the law and the statute requires it of third grade however we felt it was beneficial enough that we created these from k6 so my question is how timec consuming is this for our teachers like is this information just input from in where they're already Gathering the data or do they have to do this on their own they have
066a screen that shows them this data but do they have to write it on the sheet yes as well as the action steps on that that's usually something that people discuss and follow up on that you mean on the back or that one on the right yeah like so they have to put all of those in themselves I'm sorry I'm Oh you mean at school the teacher so I'm I'm saying so the front page is the data points of the child right like this is small I'm I can blow it up I can't read what this is the atome things like are those things like the child is lacking in this so it's automatically going to bullet point this this this for you to at home or am I the at home is there for
067everyone so regardless whether there's checked that's nothing teachers have to put in there that is on the template and then teachers and or parents as they're discussing it can thank you um can um check that on it now I where I have seen this happen on the at school is a lot of times in the conference we talk and we kind of fill this in together as an emphasis on there but this as you can tell thank you for the assist um this is one that this is third grade so miss hkin would fill this out for Laura Batson she'd tell you how many days absent um we do that because of chronically absenteeism that's talking point and then her fastb reading CBM all this then from there it tells you on QPS we were
068discussing that so in third grade by August they should be at scale 11 by may they should be 13 plus so as a parent if I'm reading this and I know my kid is scoring in the winter at a six I know I'm really below if I know him I was at a 13 in the fall and 13 and winter I know we're on track um from there and then when miss hkin and I would talk um she would fill in some maybe some suggestions that we talked about on what we're working on at school and then if there's something specific that she would really recommend for my child she might Circle it highlight it something on that okay I I'm just concerned with we have them doing things in class dojo we have them
069doing things in power school we have them doing all of these repetitive things where the child's doing one assignment But the teacher is grading it into these processes multiple times like does that mean make sense of because it still irks me to death about the high school with Google classroom and powerol they don't talk showing you have five missing assignments you've done them they've been graded but they're just not talking to power school yet so I don't know when you're grounded so I'm gonna let yall solve that at home obviously not my kid what I would say on this is like the data collection is done for the most part with the exception of the oneon-one cbms and the primary grades it's it's on the screen and they can write it as far as this
070piece of it that's really um I think powerful part of a parent teacher conference where you and I are talking about your child and what are some next steps in there uh from that as far as the technology and the grading in the power school that is something I will defer to Mr cord um for a future discussion um on that but would that frustrate me absolutely I just I I want our teachers to be able to have the engagement time instead of all the backhand side having to do the paperwork so I appreciate it thank you that's all I have okay I have a question yes ma'am so we had that literacy grant for a couple of years and then it went away yep because grants don't go forever right have you noticed a
071change that possibly some of the dip could be we're not making contact with those kids earlier on like we were able to do with that literacy Grant because kindergart we were doing right we we were doing the books for basically cradle all the way up I would say that I would be very hesitant to link any type of correlation or causation um to that I would say um and the reason why is a lot of families that brought their kids to our birth to five literacy events were homeschooled families or families that weren't necessarily lenworth um School families and of course we you know helped any kid that was there in the library or when we did the Kinder music activities or whatever um in that I will say that a lot of the things
072we implemented during that Grant are still going strong today um the resources are still being used I will also say like I said with the shift from balanced literacy to structured literacy when the research and evidence showed us we needed to change from where we started we made that switch as well um on it but I would not have any data or any way to probably correlate that okay um are we to be able to help get books in kids hands are we still able or have we been putting out that because like Dolly Parton does the little Grant yes and Kansas is now approved yeah um to remind parents that they can get those those books once a month from there um we can redo that we did um absolutely do a big social
073media Anda be before they five right because if they're five if they're one day before five you don't get it right uh but that is something we can post again um we created a flyer through our PR department with all that information um on there so that is something we can do again possibly not to make more work for the district but because people do utilize their phones and their tablets and things like that is there maybe a way that we could do some kind of tab on our website for early preparedness and have a link to get those books from Dolly part and Imagination I'm sure we could and so far that you know there's no advertisement or other issues they run into right I mean you can check with legal on that but
074I mean it's not like you're G to pay money it's not like they're going to get business for it they're giving families a child a book every month right okay thank you we can explore child qualifies too thank you so Laura I have a question I should have asked this offline it was asked to me my one of my kids now works for the public library um they have programs that they're wanting to discuss with the school district who do they who is their contact person you can contact Miss Miller or Miss Bond or myself any of us okay thank you that was very interesting and very helpful thank you all right if there are the one thing I would do a plug for we are happy to share anything we're doing um if there
075is a spe specific topic or um anything you would like more information on on how we presented at the district what our approaches what our instructional model is if you'll let me know I'll be happy to put that together just s to you thank you can can I ask one more thing absolutely talking about literacy we used to have make a big deal about the Dr Sue reading about and we used to get invited as board members to come and read I haven't been invited or at least I haven't paid attention to being invited I know that's what Miss Reed was saying she did was the re um um was in the shared reading I know I went and read several of us did um to Henry um on that and that's the only one
076I know so far usually a lot of times it'll come back up in the first week in May okay is when you'll see that again but I will be happy to sign each and every one of you up to go read and please let me know if you would like a book I'll be happy to hand that to you as well little Henry um we um I do participate in the PTO and site Council and um one of the things our PTO did during read Across America week was it um purchas enough books I think they did it through the book so they might have used Scholastic dollars towards that and then the c c up some money but we passed out um one free book to every student at the school on Friday um
077as part of fre Across America week and those kids were just elated that they were able to you know and they like oh I get to take this home I get to keep it you know I'm reading chapter books you know I can't quite read at my grade level so we kind of made some adjustments to find book that they were interested in that they could read and yeah so one of the things that I have to applaud our teaching staff for is many of them write grants that will um send books home to students so it is um it is something and it's not uncommon for teachers when they're going through their Library you know in their classroom or whatever to um offer books up to Kits so we're very blessed in that area
078and um I'll be happy to the public library and I work together multiple times so it must just be someone that hasn't you know that I don't know quite yet um but I'll be happy um to meet with them or get them in contact with one of our school librarians so uh we're working hard and I when I say we I really mean teachers so I don't want to take any credit um for their Blood Sweat and Tears so to speak on the meat and potatoes of what we're doing and I'm really proud of the shifts we've made in our district and know our data there's not one person in this District that will say our data is where we want it to be but our data is moving and so um thank you for
079this opportunity I'm to kind of share what we're doing thank you thank you thank you okay takes us to number 10 NY haret Education Center thank you Mr Carney this comes at request of several of you from last month and moves us along in our timeline of potential next decisions facing nedy hartnet so Mr cord if you would please just a brief cursory overview that there is legislation now that impacts any potential closure of the building so if you would thank you uh and this comes after the 2024 legislative session it effectively creates a stop Gap whereby the state of Kansas can specifically have a 45-day window if they would like to entertain um seizure of that building I don't know if that would be the case here in lenworth or not but just so
080you're aware that that does now affect any of these implications moving forward a brief history of sales from the last two decades thank you in 2010 you sold North Broadway for just under 100K and Mony Elementary for just over 21,000 and then in 201 b day at 27,000 and change I was not able to find any record of any other buildings caveat here West Junior High which is now the Pioneer career center will very soon become the property of Kansas City Kansas Community College but has not yet sold Andor closed so you might be asking what are the options for Netty hartnet I've got four that I've listed here that I believe are potentially um all on the table first of which is you do nothing you would simply maintain possession of the building but
081do not occupy I do believe this could obviously be a short-term solution it would not realize the full Savings of course as you would still need to ensure it until such time that you were no longer occupying you would obviously be able to bring utilities down to a minimum but you would still want to obviously keep it uh so the pipes don't burst and so forth second of which is you could sell it I do believe that this could involve a number of different options I know that there are some of you that are interested in parceling out uh potentially the south side of that I think that is a possibility here uh but the net result if you will is no new investment from the district I think that's the key takeaway here third
082is you could develop the building there are obviously a number of different needs that could go into that uh and including any and all of that with that that's parceling out as well uh but it would keep the ownership here I think the key takeaway there is it would be a substantial and I want to emphasize substantial uh investment to get that back to where it needs to be and then fourth is raising the building and I will emphasize that I think that has both environmental financial and certainly political ramifications if you want to explore that happy to discuss next steps and at this time I would open it up for conversation I have this listed as discussion only tonight under the offices that I figured you would likely have additional research for our team
083and otherwise do we think we need a study session to explore whatever we want to do possibly possibly what are the options to develop the building I mean what other uses do we have for it are there other uses for our building especially it's going to be expensive and with what we've been facing right now expensive isn't something we want to discuss trying to spend um I had expressed some interest in parceling it I don't know um I mean that would need some further discussion because I really don't know how exactly you would do that but the upside I could see is uh if you kept that part of it you wouldn't have to if you sold part of it and parceled it you could potentially maybe down the road um build something like a
084house for our Quest program or something like that I know that um there's been a concept and a and sort of a plan that um is ruminating out out there but that's something that um you know I don't know how I don't know how feasible that is or even if that's a good idea but it's something that um I would like to maybe explore a little bit my um thing I wanted to explore was the selling of the building um just because if we are I mean I know it holds a lot of history um but unless we're turning into Museum that's going to cost us a lot of money to keep just so we can hold it so yeah I would have liked to see the board move this to an action item because
085um I think it's going to be the best move for the district to sell the building at this point and the quicker that we're able to potentially accomplish that the quicker hopefully our our drain and it stops I agree with Vanessa Reed look at that we we still need to keep in mind that this these students to to say here if we make an action item to sell it we still have students occupying that building basically till the end of May so it's not like you're G to be sticking a four Cale sign up in the yard for on day one well we have 45 days we have to let this stage to right also with any cell you have stipulations built in just like yeah that the insurance costs on that building alone or
086yeah astronomical all right um for our team to kind of maybe take the funnel from the wide to the narrow is there any interest in exploring number four no no okay because if if there's not I want to strike that right now it cost you a million dollar okay um I do think number I do think number one should stay on the table because it may be a deal where we aren't able to sell it right away so just for clarity number one may become a short-term solution everybody understand that do you want to actively explore number three because if not I don't want to put wheels in motion that don't need to be put in I would say no okay hang on a second let's talk about number three I I mentioned passing that
087we can find somebody that wants to develop the building into something and then we could do like the city and and give it away as long as we get some return on the on that good return we don't have to any any money into it I don't think it's worth our time for that one what do you mean getting getting money for nothing I be a partner with them he's saying doing like what we did with the Pioneer Center somebody else we them refurbish it but they taught our kids for free so that was a huge return on letting them occupy that building and redeveloping it so that's what contract that's what I'm saying you make a contract with somebody somebody wants it to do something with it like if they want to do Apartments
088that'd be great and just say okay we'll take a percentage off of your income on the the apartment so this is this is where it gets in where you looking at three possibilities that I would say if we're going to keep those three on the table is we need to explore with a study session exactly how detailed those options really are in risk versus benefit we would probably need examples besides the Pioneer Center you know on the Redevelopment because that was basically a school going into a school other interests in the study session yes I'd be interested all right yeah I think we need to talk about it more okay U do we want to try to schedule that tonight or do you want Mr Potter to send out a survey can we have Mr
089Potter s out a I think he would love to do that actually what I call graduation Festival season all right um so I'm gonna ask for maybe 30 to 45 days because there's some research on the parcel for example that's a conversation with Planning and Zoning to understand what exactly would even be possible on that tracked I'm happy to have the conversation I just can't give an answer tonight and those kind of conversations may take a couple weeks to flush out so let's look for something in maybe the latter part of March early April not six through 11 I have to work nights reset in a commissary okay um so we'll identify a couple options for you and include those in the Friday review sound good but my takeaway is number four is off the
090table and we want to actively explore number two and possibly number three and we're going to come back for a work session specifically devoted to this any other research I could put into motion other than the Planning and Zoning conversation on the parcel as well as I'm gonna say potential investors uh options if you will uh for a partnership anything else that I can kind of get started what's the likelihood of us getting the old west back because I don't see much happen with with the college put new College yep I would say you're looking at no less than five years based upon what I understand for their time frame I just think you might want to be thinking about that if we do have to take it back sure anything else all right look
091for a survey to answer on availability in the review thank you is this your superintendent report as well um we can roll right into that if you'd like I'll be brief on the final piece here um and this is really just intended to be nothing more than a status update on our topic of the day month and year I've had several asking where are we today with regard to the budget maybe zoom in once or twice for me thank you um so if it's in purple it's new I won't bother to go over every line item but the two moving um lines if you will are with regard to certified and classified staff um so you will see there the update there is 25 almost 26 FTE on certified and just under 11 on the
092classified so as of today your total is just over 700,000 to close and our grand total of five million and really we have not entered what I would call Peak separation season that that traditionally happens once we return from spring break our teachers in the crowd know this that's when their friends go home decide whether or not they're going to separate and typically we see that that amp up uh in the fourth quarter of the year I would stand for any questions any question no questions upcoming mean dates I guess there's some significant there any by do getting pointed out how many people ever been to one of the district art shows you you got to attend those it was really great it's like a lot of things in the district Mr Carney won on
093the academic Awards night March 31 there was a request 6:30 pm start time March 31 yeah that's what it said y 6:30 yep so apologies we didn't have this start time listed I think everybody can read anything else for their own yeah I'm sorry just one more clarification I apologize just make sure we've all gotten the message here we do have some changes to our original schedule so for purposes of Simplicity that will impact this week but also you'll see April 21st so April 21st was originally going to be no school for students you'll see that school is now in session is there another one no uh not on these lists okay happy to go over any of if you want that was probably the biggest change okay UNS schedule one person Mrs Miller okay
094I think I've seen you before well I feel like it's been a couple of months so anyway I want to keep it short um regarding some of the questions and comments you guys had about the the library um about three years ago Mrs Batson and I worked together to purchase a program called bean stack and it's essentially a program that um sets up platforms and um different reading challenges and one of the primary reasons that we bought it was they sponsor a program with most of the public libraries in Kansas uh 1,000 books before kindergarten and if we could get our Littles enrolled in that prior to them coming to us we could keep track of the data that they you know had logged in beanstack what ended up happening in the interim is covid
095and uh a change in the librarian role at the public library I'm happy to report I just found out today that they did reup their contract with beanstack so I'm hoping that's going to be a project for us that we can sync with the public library maybe before Kindergarten Roundup or you know preschool Roundup to get those Littles involved in that program so that we can keep that data when they come to us and hopefully keep those reading scores going in the right direction so yeah uh have a good spring break it was great to get the snow makeup schedule worked out we're happy uh to have that done in conferences this week so thanks everybody and see you in April thank you okay board member comments Mrs Murphy uh I want to start to
096um say congratulations to miss Wells for her outstanding honors I know you're one proud mama um and then I wanted to say I did attend the rotary Irish stew dinner today they celebrate for St Patrick's it's a fundraiser for them um I know they're like well why do you want to talk about the rotary kind of like the rotary and no I'm not a uh the rotary kind of like the Lions they do things for our kiddos where the Lions check their eyesight and vision checks the rotary uh has been giving our kiddos dictionaries at third grade and I even sat at a table where there was at least one if not two students who are probably in high school or just graduated that say Hey I still have my dictionary so it's a very
097important group when it gets to helping our kiddos so I suggest still kind of supporting them because they are doing good things for our kids in the community ah budget great news I'm passing the audit and I do appreciate all your hard work Beth thank you very much along with you and everyone else and I want to thank everybody that went out to uh Henry to read I saw some of those postings and heard some conversations from my granddaughter as well so I know she was really excited and then uh our Education Foundation had their uh Jazz fundraiser this weekend I didn't get to go but I did get to see some of it online a lot of these entertainers at least the ones I saw was all student Le and they did a phenomenal
098job um singing and whatever other Jazz performances they were doing and that group Education Foundation does a lot of things for all of our teachers to help them get some of their wish lists and other things so again please go and help them and thank you to all our donors because I saw we had another one or two that weren't on there before so thank you for those donations um to jrc program and then there was another one that stuck out I just can't remember it and thank you to our uh the jrc program on the academic success as well that it that is one um High bar to have to reach and and you made it there so thank you very much for all your hard work and I yield Wells uh couple different
099things from me tonight um I just wanted to give some reasoning as to not voting for The Beyond textbook I typically in the past I've always voted for anything that um Administration puts before us because I feel like they've done the hard work into presenting to us what they feel that our students need um I am trying to be more physically responsible instead of just rubber stamping everything and I I felt that this specific was was more want than need um it was a curriculum addition instead of just curriculum and I I feel like our staff could use it and they could also not use it and it was a higher ticket item than I wanted to put down but now it is going forward and being add added I'm hopeful that it will be
100used and um help our students um I'm still a band mom for another couple months so I'm going to plug the band for a little bit uh March 25th is our uh final concert of the year at 7 o'clock at the high school in conjunction with that concert um we are doing a fundraiser um some equipment has been damaged and needs to be replaced um we are doing a super simple Savers fundraiser bring bags of clothing bedding pillows soft good items to drop off at the South entrance by the flag pole there will be a trailer there drop off anything you guys want um help out the band doesn't cost you anything and you get to clear your house out um also in conjunction with that on uh April 6th people are spring cleaning and
101might want a new mattress and April 6th from 10:00 to 5:00 at the high school in the gymnasium there will be a mattress fundraiser that benefits all of our Arts programs at the high school band uh choir and theater so uh if you're in need of a mattress check them out um please it is extremely helpful um to our students and tell anybody else that might need a mattress to go um I'm going to be a little sentimental for a second my kid got recognized tonight um this is not me it's nothing that I have done this is our teachers in our district every she has been here in our district for since fourth grade preschool all the way up I have no exceptional skills as a parent it is our teachers um you guys
102every single one of you whether you've had her in a classroom or not have empowered her to be her absolute best I am eternally grateful to all of you thank you so much re let's see I am a member of rotary piggybacking off of Miss Murphy sometimes I see our superintendent there and um I do appreciate what you were talking about that that they do for the students and I'm glad you heard some positive feedback tonight at their fundraiser um I would just um like to talk about the Henry lenworth situation um so I just want to thank all of the parents and community members um that went on social media and I want to thank every single person that reached out to me um my daughter is seven and so it might hit you
103know home a little bit more for me um but we always want for our kids to be safe and um I would just ask that um this board you know hold staff members to be accountable to making sure that we do things differently moving forward um that the procedural changes um that have been discussed are followed through with all the buildings um and staff members both existing and new um to hopefully change um some of the way things are handled in the future so I would just ask that be done thank you Mr Wilson um I just wanted to state that assessments are happening for some of our kiddos so we send our best luck to you guys um do your best and then come out to the student showcases to see how your kids
104are learning and enjoy your kiddos for spring break me um I want to thank the folks at Henry lenworth for the invitation um to the read Across America I was able to um go and read um to a second grade class and a third grade class and thoroughly enjoyed that and the classes were so polite and so engaged it was just really impressive so um thank you so much for the invitation um thank you to Mrs Batson for your presentation I would love to see more more more more of that kind of stuff because um that is as she said the meat and potatoes that's why we're here and some of our um our academic performance is not where we would like it to be and that is a team effort and the more that
105we can um get everybody on board and everybody's got a part to play in that and this is a long-term uh project I mean I think that we've done a lot of things to set the stage that we should start seeing some improvements um and so I really appreciate that and I'd love to hear more more more um tomorrow is the end of the third quarter so we go on spring break and then we come back and it gets to be really really busy um but remember why we're here so um we've got those State assessments and finals coming up and um and again it's a team effort everybody's got a part to play so let's uh do our best and um parent teacher conferences on Thursday um parents please make an effort to come
106to those because those connections are really really important um spring break break next week so enjoy the sunshine rest and relax and rejuvenate and come back ready to finish strong first off thanks to the quest folks for the snacks you guys are amazing and thank you for thinking of us um many folks have talked about the parent teacher conferences and and they are important so please support your child support your teachers be there um recognize their hard work and what they're doing for your kids and what your kids are doing in their classrooms it's awesome it is spring break time so please be smart be safe we want you all to come back for that final Sprint to the end and it is going to be ba a very crazy busy time but it's also
107a great time to realize of all the awesome things our kids are doing um scholarships signing up for you know Sports and all the other things that are happening it's just a great time of year um I think Karen mentioned that educa it's a team sport it really is education really is a team sport it takes families it takes teachers it takes community and I totally Endor everybody go hit the library they've got some awesome programs for the whole family start or just go bean stack is a lot of fun um but that's it I just be good people come back be safe and go Pioneers thank you well I don't want to get into a big argument with Mrs well but no no I'm just kidding uh the thing about that program it's it's
108it involves it should involve everybody in the district and even people in the community but if you look at the success around the country with that program I think $30,000 is a drop in the bucket to what what the value of it so we got we have to to wait because it's not going to happen overnight we were told that up front and we got to know that by now with some of the other program that come down the road but but I I think that thing has been so successful and 30,00 I thought they did $30,000 damage that back there when you dropped your camera and stuff that that's what $330,000 is but to get the kids educated in in a in a successful manner $30,000 to me is nothing so with that