001good evening it is Monday 10 10th of April 2023 this is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Education and this time we'll do a roll call Mr Carney here Mr Goodman here Ms Murphy here Mr Powell here Ms Reed here Ms Wells here and I'm Judy price please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge it stands one nation under God indivisible thank you please be seated Dr Ruth the mission statement yes it's to prepare every student for success in every classroom every day okay moving on to item 1.4 adoption of the agenda like to make a motion to adopt the agenda presented to us second accept the agenda Ms Murphy is second by Mr Goodman all those in favor 7-0 thank you moving on to item two city manager quarterly report Mr
002Kramer you really growing in a crowd appreciate everybody coming out to learn what's going on in the city of Leavenworth today let's turn out I've had uh Madam president board thank you for inviting me here tonight I'll be brief tonight as I hit some of the highlights of items that are going on in city of love North uh first of all today was the kickoff of ride LV that's the city's new public transit service this was many years in the making many organizations many individuals that went into making this happen an Advisory Board the state of Kansas Kansas City area transit authority uh the city of Leavenworth so just briefly this is three um vans that are an app based on-demand Transit service right now it's Monday through Friday eight to five we hope to
003extend those hours depending on ridership and usage and it's a three-year pilot program hopefully we can extend it to other cities in the county and eventually into the greater Kansas City area so um it's starting small we'll see the numbers over here the first 30 60 90 days and we'll I'll report back in my next quarterly on how the ridership is doing but we're really excited after a lot of work that ride LV is up and launched uh second thing I wanted to note just a few um items that are coming up this spring Hawthorne Splash Pad will open the middle of May and then at the end of May we'll have a community event where we invite everybody out have hot dogs and hamburgers and maybe some live music the new features will be
004out and we'll be able to really expose the community to that free amenity that the commission approved and that was installed late last year we're also refreshing the kiddie pool at woman Park if you go out there a lot of work is already complete it's been repainted uh we're redoing the features out there painting a lot of the other features really trying to give that place a little bit of a facelift here before the summer starts so I think the commission for their investment there and that should be ready when this pool season opens after not here resuming open gym that actually starts tomorrow the hold up on that was just a gem supervisor we felt like we had to have a gym supervisor down there to monitor activities so tomorrow uh four to seven
005on Tuesdays and Sundays from 1 30 to 4. and if we can get another gym supervisor maybe we can expand those hours it's a good place for kids to come members of the community to play play indoor basketball so it's down through our front Community Center on Thursday at 3 30 is the ribbon cutting for the fourth and Eisenhower project everybody may not know but that was a a real a good example of collaboration the city of Leavenworth City Lansing and kdot all partnered and funded that uh Expansion Project anything that went wrong with that was lansing's fault anything so no that was a great price y way into the city of Leavenworth and a lot of safety concerns and traffic congestion in that intersection so that's Thursday afternoon baseball and softball registration ends uh
006Saturday for that's registration our numbers look really good this year so really excited to have a good baseball and softball season for the Youth in the community a couple more things I did want to point out since I was here last cheap kitchens gave his annual crime report it was his annual report for the whole Police Department including crime crime was down 18 year over year in the city of Leavenworth and at least you think that that is an outlier that represents a five-year Trend going in the right direction so in the last five years par one and part two crime combined has decreased 44 in the city of Leavenworth I don't know I won't get into all of the reasons why but but a few training officers maturing leadership putting some very dangerous and
007bad people away if you put the right people away if you if you catch them if you follow up if you have good staff help from the County prosecutor's office from the state from other other partners you can really make a difference so really happy with that um that uh is all that I have prepared but happy to answer any questions that you have about anything that's going on in the city of Leavenworth as we prepare for the summer and our road projects and our sidewalk projects but anything you may have certainly do my best to answer this any questions from Mr Kramer my only question was with the right LV um is there any kind of waiver that can be done for children under the age of 18 because I was foreseen hoping that
008if a student misses the bus and they can't foreseeably walk to school that that could use that as a mode of transportation and it has to they have to have a parent if they're under the age of 18 . they do there are no unaccompanied minors under 18 and that's a Kansas City area transit authority Rule and this is this is operated Under the Umbrella of the Kansas City area transit authority it looked like the erosion program that we had partnered with is about done if not complete or is it pretty much done yeah the question was related to the erosion uh out at the middle school on the by the track and that was that was a great City uh School District collaboration and it is it's just the final seating um in some
009of the restoration work on there which happens this spring as it goes through so that was a great project and and it went as we planned so uh yeah just a little bit of restoration work here in the next 30 days or so thank you I'm happy to hear woman Paul getting a little attention right yeah uh the kiddie pool and then the big Starburst feature in the zero depth entry that'll be all powder coated and refreshed and uh for the year so it'll look really nice I had a woman when it opens awesome thank you got one request a little paint little paintware from from limit on Tom View Road out to 20th Street Lane lines a tough one to drive at night and just kind of had a lot of kids are walking
010around that area South Island area mainly you can't see at least old people can't like that I know what you're talking about we'll take a look appreciate it any other questions thank you thank you all so much thanks Mr Kramer great one of my favorite things item three recognitions Dr Rose yes uh our first group that we will recognize today um are our wrestlers so uh coaches if you want to come up and talk about the program that would be outstanding hello I'm Matt long head coach uh Leavenworth wrestling uh we've had 10 qualifiers this year uh four girls six boys uh unfortunately the boys had a rough tournament they uh we had no uh State uh medals uh but on the girls side we had a two-time state uh Champion Hannah Jackson and a
011first-time state champion uh Avery Johnson and uh and a very strong finish uh fixed uh from Jackie Gooden so uh uh it was a good uh Team girl for the girls uh we finished uh fifth as a team with four girls so that's pretty uh pretty awesome uh you guys want to come on up here so you can get that uh we have a pretty good group of kids uh again we had 10 qualifiers now for those two with those 10 we had an average three point average uh that's no good spot really uh they don't need to see me anyways so good uh that's the story of my life I'm short with all these tall people uh we had a really really good year I was happy with everything we had we had a
012Chiron he's going to wrestle at Benedictine he's going to continue wrestling in college uh Kennedy Miller is also going to wrestle in college at St Mary's Hannah Jackson's gonna wrestle in college at Ottawa University so uh uh Kennedy was our first one to sign and is going to college Hannah is going to be our second person to come through world second uh going on to college as since I've been a head coach and I've been a coach five years now uh [Music] all right those peaches no speeches you want to say something oh this is Xavier Davis I just want to thank the community for the support for our wrestling team I just want to say thank you you've done so much boost us our self-esteem I guess that's all I can say thank you
013awesome [Applause] so I'll go ahead and present this to you uh for outstanding sportsmanship and athletic achievement in the regional and state competition and positive representation of Leavenworth High School USD 453 throughout the winter sports season uh Grant you this certificate recognition thank you yeah I have uh personal firsthand knowledge of how hard these girls and boys work at their craft so congratulations Dad foreign all right now for our bowling team coaches you want to bring the bowlers okay all right these are a few of my ladies off of my bowling team here they came to represent this year we had a great year we lost a lot of uh a lot of our experienced Bowlers last year so moving into the season we were a little bit skeptical of what we had to do
014the challenge was these ladies were gonna have to carry the team make sure we held each other accountable try to recruit some uh some new faces and they did a fairly good job of that we're missing a couple of our of our girls team here and I really want to acknowledge them excuse me because they qualified as a team to go to state this year and that was after losing some high power Bowlers they were able to go ahead and go up there and finish Runners up at our regional that was held right here the Crown Lanes so right here I have sarong Camp I have Miss Juliet Kyle Wilson and then I have Miss Katie goings uh not not up here with us today is Paradise ride um Ruby and Miss Angelina French they're
015not here with us but they were huge and crucial part of our team this year and I couldn't be more proud of these ladies for going up and just pulling lights out of the regional tournament and doing a phenomenal job on the boys side again we lost some uh High Caliber Bowlers there he had some guys step up and we had a couple of move-ins and one young man in particular I'd like to mention is a young man named yours he he's not here he was able to bowl a 300 this year at home that was a really cool moment for his family got to celebrate that at the state tournament throwing out a ceremonial ball and being honored for that at the state tournament as well so I really really appreciate everything that the
016community does that the board does that these Bowlers do they do a great job I just I'm there I help them in English and perform any way I can I help them but at the end of the day they've got to go up there the pressure's on them and they do a great job of leading our team leading our community thank you ladies so very very much and Lord thank you very much [Applause] bowling team for outstanding sportsmanship and athletic achievement and Regional and state competition and positive representation of Glenmark high school and USC 453 throughout the winter sports season thank you [Applause] all right moving on to item four scheduled Patron input we are pleased you have joined us tonight to celebrate student and staff achievement here informational presentations and reports and observe consideration
017of policy decisions and administrative recommendations specific to Leavenworth Unified School District we set aside time in each regularly scheduled board meeting to hear from the public comments should address board policies or the procedures our 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 rights of District
018employees 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 concerns 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 is in attendance with the same interest we ask that a spokesperson be appointed to deliver the group's message as a unified board committed to desired outcomes for our school Community we ask that comments not be directed individual board members but addressed to the board as a whole thank you for taking time to address District business and policies with the board so first scheduled Patron input is from Miss nusspaul good evening everyone my name is Kristen
019nesbaum I reside at 1317 Central I have three children across numerous schools in the district fear has a new place in our schools different website the goal says one says to improve the public perception of our school district it's glaringly obvious that this is not happening another is to ensure adequate facilities and safe schools District policy section J states that any form of bullying by a staff member is subject to disciplinary action so why are we allowing a board member to break policy in school and be an accessory to bullying not only our students but our staff does that seem like it follows our goals section B of school board operations code baa says in section A members of the board shall conduct themselves in an ethical business-like and lawful Manner and shall not misuse
020their Authority as board members and shall display appropriate decorum when acted as board members session B of that same policy states the duty to act solely on behalf of the school district board member shall endure to represent the issue interests of all patrons and students this accountability to the entire District supersedes any conflicting loyalty a board member may have to other advocacy groups loyalty to other organizations or conflicts based on personal interests of any board member obviously we've all been able to deduce that there is a board member that had a problem with a child drawing an lgbtq flag they made it political with their buddies so I'm going to take a second and I'm going to speak about our lgbtq youth statistically there's 92 000 lgbtq population 13 plus in the state of Kansas
021only 3.3 percent of those are over the age of 18 so that leaves 61 364. age 13 to 17. 86 of lgbtq Youth reported that recent politics negatively impacted their well-being so I ask you why are we inviting that into our district schools ages 13 to 17 95 seriously contemplated suicide 38 attempted suicide 75 of lgbtq Youth experience discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in their schools I would like to remind everyone that our school district has been known to accept monetary donations from a certain individual that is a homosexual that's from this town but we didn't turn up our nose to her sexual orientation not once accusations of an indoctrination in our schools is a Witch Hunt that has 15 seconds remaining of some individuals regarding this board and our ability to
022protect our children bigots have no place on our board you're a danger to our youth you should be removed from your place of power fear has no place in our schools [Applause] Miss George Sarah George thank you why would a school board object to somebody anybody bringing to their attention objectionable material being presented to Children if that if somebody finds something harms the learning environment then who cares who that person is where is your concern for the real problems that Leavenworth students have are you concerned with the fact that David Brewer Elementary is a failing school with test scores far below the state average English at 22 percent where Kansas is at 36 percent math at 13 Kansas is at 32 percent science 19 Kansas 35 these students aren't even performing at grade levels here
023we have activists who are preying upon impressionable students impressionable young children trying to mold them into an ideology that has an astronomical post-high School suicidal outcome rate so where is your concern about this these activists are more committed to their agenda than the well-being of children who are future citizens of our community this false outrage is odious no student was harmed no student was named except by their parents and activist teachers here we have an entity infuriated because they have been exposed for preying on children activists are Furious that their free reign of manipulation and indoctrination rather than education has been brought out to light you are missing something you work for taxpayers you work for parents Guardians and fellow citizens not for these people that you employ you as the school board work for
024Citizens you don't work for administrators or teachers you are charged with ensuring that children are provided education not indoctrination and you are failing those in the community who are exposing the reality that our communities children are being manipulated and even sexualized by a very small vocal minority in the school system are the ones who deserve thanks for exposing the reason why our schools are failing I don't think I need to re-tell you this I would hope you should know that the level of student depression and hopelessness is astounding in our schools particularly in the high school Once Suicide is way too many and we have had more and you know this you are not addressing at all care enough to throw money and Technology at students without any real human connections ensuring their disconnection and
025depression deepens under a facade of pseudo contact these kids are failing because they don't have any actual actual connections Beyond screens why can't you do something Brave rather than cut and paste District policy from other school boards why don't you pull Tech and [Applause] thank you it's over me you're an overview level worth it is obvious to anyone who's been paying attention over the past few years that our government institutions are heavily invested in pushing racial division group identity and gender ideology includes the government education system where these ideas are being systematically embedded into curriculum the notorious library assignment came from character strong the SEO program this board approved and adopted last year for use in our schools in the name of diversity equity and inclusion SEL programs are often the vehicles used to bring
026the promotion of general of gender ideology into the classroom and steer students towards social and political activism in recent years there have been numerous examples of government schools completely disregarding long-established standards of age-appropriate subject matter given this current environment it is reasonable not crazy that there may be questions when the prominently displayed artwork of several very young students reflect sexual identity and gender ideology unfortunately there are some who misrepresent legitimate concerns over age-appropriate classroom content as attacks on kids because of their own personal politics activism and extreme animus towards certain individuals in the week since this controversy has played out I'm not alone in finding the behavior of some members of this board some employed by our district and some in this community absolutely despicable the kindness and inclusion crowd has shown themselves to be
027complete frauds hell-bent on personal vendettas with zero interest in resolving issues or finding common ground they have no objection whatsoever to racism bigotry social media rage mobbing reputation assassination threats dehumanization attacks on businesses vulgarity name calling harassment lying or turning children into Political activists so long as it's directed against people they don't like they aim to make an example of anyone who objects to sexualizing Children the gender identity religion or the leftist politics that are openly endorsed in our schools unfortunately the incessant malicious and slanderous attacks do have their desired effect of silencing anyone else who dares to object or question to that question that which is no longer allowed to be questioned in the public space but there actually are parents and members of this community who do question the unquestionable those people also
028pay taxes and send their kids to Public Schools they also vote and wish to have their voices heard they also love and want to protect all children to include protecting their innocence and their childhoods they too do not want someone else's religion or 15 seconds remaining they don't start vicious media campaigns they don't set about to destroy people's lives and they aren't selling T-shirts but they absolutely do understand as standards are degraded boundaries are violated their children are sexually your times on your mind that this district has deserve me your time is up the unforgivable time is over me your time is up that's cute Mr Borman I have a my concern is that lgbtq and transgender agenda of indoctrinating minors and children is in effect in the Leavenworth school system and elsewhere I have
029a problem with that that stop if they're teachers principles members of the board that are fine with this what you do in your own Hut or on the hill whatever it is where you live within those confines as an adult that's your business when it comes to the school that becomes a little different matter that becomes our business and it's on our dime there's no indoctrinating of our children and minors to transgenderism and lgbtq for these agendas that needs to come to a street in the hall you could almost construe it as I don't know endangering a minor something leading the child delinquency I don't know those are things to be checked out as far as the pornography pornography in the libraries that needs to go to wow am I making a joke good good
030shoulder please the pornographic material needs to be removed okay if you want to look at dirty pictures and uh dirty material you go to the Outhouse you go do it no no place for it in the school okay we gotta take care of our children and those of us we have a vested interest in this we're just not dolans that showed up and everybody does whatever they want and ignore us we're not going to be ignored it's gonna go as a man it's part of my responsibility and duty to act as a man and defend the women and children that I care about and the culture and civilization that I'm a part of that's not negotiable that's how it is there's a draft and oh by the way you're singling out one board member why
031is that why not all board members no just one so it's mischaracterizing as far as a draft proposal to have permission for a board member to go to a school that all that is is in my opinion a way of 15 seconds specific School Board member to not be able to go to a school and that needs to stop too Viva Cristo Rey Viva [Applause] Brian Herod is is the batteries out in this microphone just I don't it's not fair for the speakers to have the microphone go in and out [Music] foreign Michelle Johnson good evening Michelle Johnson Leavenworth Kansas I have several grandchildren and extended family members that attend USC 453 it is not okay for me to enter Leavenworth schools and Snap photos of whatever I want I called I asked why was
032it okay for these two people to enter David Brewer and take photos this board member used her power to bring negativity fear and threats to our community and to make students feel unsafe the artwork that was created by a child displayed inclusion and acceptance that was taught at home if a child draws an obese person does that mean that our schools are indoctrinating our students to eat unhealthy if a child draws a stick figure there were a lot of them on that well that day are we teaching our children to not eat at all perhaps if the board member that took the photo that day would have reached out to the parents and explained the agenda a discussion could have taken place to prevent the topic at hand in elementary school we're taught about communication
033was the board member ill during that class like the last board meeting the representative that visited the school that day has stated we want parents to have a voice about what students are learning what they did not know that day that the picture was published this student has parents grandparents family and friends we're using our voice they don't get to pick what we use our voice for it has been called a fit that we're throwing in fact it's our voices that we are using the board member brought the negativity to this artwork we will continue to spread the positive message that it portrays perhaps if the school board member and her pal that entered the school that day attended a school where compassion communication and kindness were taught about the basics that they speak about
034teaching our children these two would not be trying to downgrade Educators and students they would be more focused on bullying that starts in our district as early as kindergarten they would be focused on reducing teen suicide in our district they could work on funding to support our overworked staff test scores have also been brought up because of this beautiful artwork for over 30 years I did my research the school board member was in school then I think test scores have been declining Nationwide the U.S is currently in an education crisis due to the lack of in-person classroom education 15 seconds remaining when raising children we hopefully teach them about honesty and consequences of lying there are ways to prove the board member lied video footage phone records tracing when the board member gave her statement
035to a local niece Ms Johnson your time is up [Applause] Mr card foreign [Music] my name is Courtney card I reside in Fort Leavenworth my daughter attends David Brewer when speaking at the board meeting last month I was angry I've had ample time to process these injustices and my anger has subsided and now what remains is disappointment love is a human experience not a political statement from day one this has not been about politics for me it's been about defending my child stolen and misused artwork I would be just as outraged if a liberal board member stole a child's picture of God to use negatively initially I truly expected a morsel of remorse from our board member and representative maybe even apology but we just got socks this form I signed at the start of
036the school year gives permission for students um for her students my students artwork to be shared within the district USD 453 websites newsletters Etc nowhere in that form does it State her artwork could be photographed by a board member and distributed to a state representative she's in a campaign newsletter so lies continue regarding involvement when Witnesses saw the board member taking the picture and recently while I was volunteering at the school I ever heard a teacher stating she received an email asking if the school keeps a litter box for students who identify as furries all because a student was read the book Library Lion and then proceeded to draw a lion later that artwork was wrongly depicted by who leading to rumors what is this teaching our kids lies are okay starting rumors that's okay
037children are killing themselves because of inclusive artwork they're doing it because you're creating an unnecessary divide leading to bullying harassment and in the most gut-wrenching situation suicide we know it's disappointing your priorities are focused on woke art this Duo is suddenly driving down teacher morale I've had dozens dozens a former USD 453 Educators reach out to me thanking me for what I'm fighting for because the actions of the board member and representative literally made them sell their homes and moved to other districts they're driving our staff away my daughter doesn't even have a music teacher this year you aren't listening to them when the librarian was questioned about the assignments it was made clear that there was no ulterior motive radical religious extremists have no place on our school board I respect and appreciate all
038board members Republican Democratic whatever your beliefs are what I don't um respect is lying and betraying the parents and the students of districts board member policies have been broken and how can probably policies be broken and there's still no repercussions would requesting a policy change even matter regardless I would like to request an amendment of the wording 15 seconds remaining conduct board members and or their visitors shall not be permitted to take photographs of student work for purposes other than those permitted for official USD 453 distribution thank you so much [Applause] thank you [Music] if you cannot behave you can leave the room keep yours keep your words to yourself don't need to say anything Ms McIntyre uh thank you my name is Lucy McIntyre um I came here to speak on one issue but
039my heart is compelling me to now speak up to um my wife and I are residents of Leavenworth we have nine adopted children six of which are in the Leavenworth School District um two of my daughters have had the pleasure of playing basketball for the former head coach of the Leavenworth girls high school basketball program uh he runs the Blazers club team I reached out to him about a year ago after being disappointed in a team that my daughters were on the coaches were very knowledgeable but they were not invested in the youth they were not invested in developing their potential and seeing them gain confidence it was all about winning so when I met with the former head coach of the Leavenworth High School I was very pleased with his commitment to this community
040and to developing youth um so I'm here to advocate for you guys to reconsider his recent firing he has a long-term plan to invest in the youth in our community he has built a Blazers organization that has teams for third and fourth graders sixth seventh and eighth graders and he is developing them not only as basketball players but as young women and he's giving them an option other than maybe some less positive behaviors that I know we see in our community sometime from our youth um now that I say that I believe our public schools have a duty which is why I think coaches are so important um but our public schools have a duty to not just educate our youth but to make them feel safe and included and what I've heard today has
041kind of rattled me I knew about the situation but I didn't expect this kind of turnout at this meeting um as a member of the queer community with nine kids who may identify in some way shape or form uh that is currently being ostracized being used as a political pawn it breaks my heart this has no business in our schools the schools have a responsibility to create a safe space and to and to not contribute to poor Mental Health um I'm sorry I was not prepared to speak on this but basically all I have to say is please support our trans youth please support our lgbtq youth I see you you matter 10 seconds remaining in this community that value you and we need to eliminate this hate thank you [Applause] Mr Claire good evening
042my name is Jason Claire I live in Leavenworth City and I have one daughter who's a freshman at Leavenworth High School this year I am also a board member for the Leavenworth JROTC Foundation our mission is to provide you see Cadets while they are traveling to and from events throughout the country as many of you who have may have heard Foundation just concluded a fundraiser raffle on April 6th in total we were able total of 22 700 in contributions which went to the uh the organization the raffle awarded three prizes two of which were cash our third place winner received 352.17 our second place winner received 695.90 our grand prize winner was to receive a 2020 Ford Escape provided by zek Ford of Leavenworth however we needed to sell 1200 tickets unfortunately we only sold
043the 908 falling short by just 292 tickets however in the event that we did not meet the minimum threshold the car would be substituted with a 50 50 cash slip that cash prize was nine thousand four hundred and ninety five dollars and 88 cents so I'd like to give my congratulations as well as a fellow board members congratulations to the winners and give a big thank you to everybody in the community who participated in and sponsored the raffle we anticipated holding a bigger and better raffle for the 2023-2024 school year if you'd like to become a more involved in the Junior ROTC program or our foundation please feel free to attend our monthly meetings we typically meet on the fourth Thursday of the month at 6 PM in the JROTC classroom at Leavenworth High you
044may also follow our Facebook page at LV JROTC Foundation and next year we're going to give away a car thank you [Applause] Chase Spears [Music] thank you good evening I live locally and among other things I'm a father and an educator I speak here tonight in support of the board member who has faced such libel as of late she ran on the mantle change agent on this board a manner of which she's been treated since demonstrates just how very much that change is needed activists seemingly with approval of some members of the sport and even actors within the this taxpayer-funded school administration have brought on an immediate immediate circus in an attempt to shame her in response to the proper shining of light on how this District operates it seems this is that this administration's
045intuitive reflex is to hide off your skate and attempt to interfere with the taxpayer Public's right to know how their schools operate rather than preparing future citizens to know and love beauty and virtue some of you have instead demonstrated A derangement syndrome that is beneath the most basic dignity that we should show one another C.S Lewis rightly describes such people when he said we make men without chests and expect from them virtue and Enterprise we laugh at honor and are shocked to find traders in our midst rather than acting in accordance with democratic tradition some seek to undo an election by demanding that one and only one board member resigned an elected seat all because they don't like her it's the grown-up equivalent of the politics of hurt feelings that we should have all outgrown
046during the elementary school years for those who share these concerns we will not Bend to the knee we will not quit we will not silently fade away as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on this topic quote we cannot give an inch to the leftist mobs that threatened to cancel the right to free speech because they do not agree with what some people say their Victory would unmoor our democracy from the freedom that allows discussion and debate over how to move forward as a nation progressives have known for over a century that education is not limited to Reading Writing and arithmetic it is truly about the transmission of culture and values from one generation to the next education once passed down the World Views that built the wonders of the world the great Cathedrals
047representative governance since the age of Dewey however American education is instead focused on producing malleable citizens who are viewed more for the economic and political roles than their innate god-given values citizens who are easily led by new cycles and emotion rather than by reason and fact it has become obsessed with what Dr Albert Mohler rightly defines the synthetic rights which are obsessively individualistic and are an entirely new phenomenon to human History Society does so at the expense of actual constitutional and natural rights people like many of us here tonight represent a growing movement to repair the system 15 seconds remaining we were born for this moment and will stand for what is moral what is virtuous what is right I call on you to put it into the circus Embrace accountability and reform this institution
048thank you yeah Miss James Miss James good evening my name is Michelle James and I am a dear friend of can I say Vanessa Reed oh okay sorry I'm a dear friend of a board member I would like to take a few minutes time to speak on the character of this board member the daughter of a preacher and his amazing wife she was raised with morals values and taught to treat others with dignity and respect board member has lived her life to be an example of the love of Christ to all those she comes in contact with while in my 20s I spent eight years living in a homosexual lifestyle our friendship never changed she continued to love me as I was she always nudged me to look at the big picture in life to
049reevaluate time and time again what my true feelings were where I was at in life and the choices I made were always up to me ultimately I did choose to leave that lifestyle I'm married have children and my friendship continues to grow I remember when she told me she was going to run for the school board how excited she was she walked the neighborhoods going door to door finding out what was needed what changes people wanted to have made this is exactly what she along with others have done her desire has always been to do what is best for the children school as I remember it was always about learning to spell read write arithmetic and history never do I recall the pressure of pushing acceptance of a specific lifestyle in any form in school
050we should be kind in accepting to all people treating them with love and respect there is a huge agenda on not bullying others for any reason yet which is a hundred percent correct I have seen and witnessed this Behavior coming out of grown adults shame on us this should not be we teach our children to do the right things and then we do exactly the opposite she did reach out to the mother who did not who declined to speak with her we must be do better at dealing with these issues in our lives confronting respectfully the person that you may have an issue with and not stirring up a horrific pot of anger and Venom and creating a very toxic environment her intention has never been and never will be to exploit anyone she has
051stepped up to do things that are hard to do and yet she continues as I decided to speak on behalf of my friend Isaiah 54 17 came to mind no weapon formed against me shall prosper thank you for letting me share [Applause] thank you Mr Schmidt transparency over a year ago the school board said transparency was essential and signed a committee to set his subject to make recommendations I've seen little coming out of that transparency is useless however if it's not accompanied by accountability the board must demand transparency in order to make wise decisions and then hold the superintendent and school accountable for execution and results in my opinion the district has only the veneer of transparency and certainly a serious lack of accountability let me post two scenarios repeatedly the board makes decisions after
052the staff presents only one option to consider and the staff provides little if any objective evidence for improving student achievement I have time for only one of many examples I've seen English language arts the administration presented one new curriculum that mandated reading only portions of Publications there was not a single requirement for students to read even a single book when a board member questioned the wisdom of that uh something that has been proven hope uh helpful for centuries only the one option was presented to the board and then the board including the member who posed the question voted yes and it was approved I witnessed many one option only recommendations with sketchy purely subjective and fuzzy evidence for their value with the board willingly voting yes you are meekly taking recommendations with sloppy analysis from
053the staff and approving each funds secondly board members publicly malign and misrepresent other board members in very personal terms particularly when they uncover potentially troubling issues the latest example is from the couple spoken about tonight of the February visit of a board member along with a state representative at the March meeting after public comments that hysterically criticized board member number one board member number two in Open Session castigated member number one saying she should resign since she missed half of the board meetings that was untrue number one has missed only two meetings in her term and on that particular evening she was a home at home with a case of strep throat where member two's fabrication was countered with the facts but she neither corrected her misstatements nor apologized for it during the meeting news
054outlets reported similar unprofessional personally demeaning comments by two other board members a very dysfunctional practice here are three recommendations number one do not accept administrators evidence-free 15 seconds remaining do not accept a single option should be presented for your deliberations it's just one more accept and encourage fellow board members who dare to cover questionable practices Sunshine is the best disinfectant and we desperately need Mr Schmidt your time is up [Applause] Miss galleos [Music] good evening my name is Kelsey Gallegos I live in Leavenworth and I have two children attending the elementary school David Brewer I have attended and watched board meetings regularly for the last three years my kids have attended the school as many of you are aware we have gone through a transition this year at David Brewer two two two new administrators
055from different districts would be the start of the 2022 August school year by November both new principals had left the district parents still not sure as to why we have not had very consistent transparent year in that regard as far as the assignment my library is for everyone I felt the need to reach out and have an open conversation on how um the library special is ran since David Brewer is the only school that has a library as a special I was curious on how the assignments are chosen what media discussion takes place and if there was a standard curriculum for the year fair and open questions I did not and have not received an email back from the librarian the district have released a statement prior to my reaching out again not receiving a
056response felt like myself as a parent did not deserve an email even acknowledging it was read or received I gave ample time for that to happen two weeks now it felt like I was supposed to take that statement and that was that personally if any parent reaches out to a teacher or admin they should receive a response it is okay for a parent to have questions in regards to what their children are learning and assigned and be guided in the correct path of those questions being answered transparency is important I myself am an involved parent and want to make sure that when questions were concerned arise they can be answered or they can be listened to and acknowledged as I felt many parents would feel the same thank you thank you moving up excuse me
057moving on item five consent agenda anybody need to remove anything from consent agenda and president I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented second okay do you have a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented by Mr Powell and Ms Wells all of those in favor six zero excuse me six one thank you all right item seven consideration of concrete work we have Mr Dave stoker here to talk about the projects if the board would have any questions of that good evening this year uh I'm back again to talk about concrete we have three real big uh yeah it's exciting it is um we have three big projects the ramp going up to the dumpster at Maddie Hartmann yeah it needs to be replaced it's about 24 years old and it's crumbling
058uh the north side of the high school gym is starting to fail so we're going to replace it um we have some Ada ramps that are either missing or crumbling and we're going to take care of them any questions no questions thank you thank you for joining us all right so I'd like to make a motion to approve the administration bids for Baker Construction for 92 250 dollars okay we have a motion by Ms Murphy is second by Mr Goodman to accept the um the faker construction bid for concrete work all of those in favor seven zero thank you item eight consideration of food service management company Dr Roach right it's the recommendation of the committee the board appointed um Miss Murphy and Mr Carney sit on on that and we had two students and
059some Administration we listened to six proposals five outside vendors one uh proposal from staff and it is our recommendation to the board that we move forward with food service management company Chartwells they provided uh what we felt was the best opportunity to continue to improve our food service program while also offering the best return on the dollar by also offering scholarships for students along with um just wanting to be Community involved and so I truly appreciate Mr Carney and Miss Murphy participating in that they were extremely valuable and it was a unanimous decision by the the committee to put forth the Chartwells any questions for Dr Rose or for Beth on Chartwells um is this the same uh Chartwells that we've been kind of discussing over the years so the the company that came and
060did the first presentation was oppa okay and Oppa was not the selection of the committee okay but they did they did they did uh participate in the the process okay and this is this is basically going to become the the food service for for the high school and the district-wide every every all the food service that we're currently providing right now will be taking on uh by Chartwells at the beginning of next school year um what if the board approves this tonight what we'll do is start transitioning conversations with the staff to where they understand whether they want to stay as employee for us or move to Chartwells our intent is to bring some financial advisors in to speak with them to give them the best opportunity to make a decision for them that was
061the other thing that Chartwells did as well is the package that they the potential package that staff members have was pretty positive and some of the things that they were able to do within their company from purchasing and doing some of those things as a staff member was something the others weren't able to offer either so it was the other piece to that was we felt like Chartwells did a nice job taking care of any staff that would transition over and that was important to the committee that that's good though that is important Miss Murphy what stood out for you during the presentation well if I could start get to that real quick if I could start with one thing there were six great presenters and I don't have the total tally but there was
062incredible food provided straight across the board uh along with their displays when they say this was the committee's decision it's not just me or Mr Carney we had two students there from the high school that were part of the tasting and the voting process we had several of our administrators from the district office in there as well along with Dr Roth so this wasn't just hey two board members getting together sampling some food having some kind of good time this was taken very seriously and we took a lot of input from those students as well because they're the ones that do eat the food they are the ones that have been eating the food probably from pre-k on um show on to that what stood out the most about me with Chartwells one they can
063offer assistance with them our staff getting unemployment during the winter month or during the winter break and summer months um and they had a good uh matching on their 401ks it was above the other ones and I don't I didn't bring those notes with me so I'm doing this it was six percent versus maybe two or maybe three six percent speaks a whole lot right now especially with this influence inflationary process that we're all dealing with uh supply chain they seem to have a greater supply chain to help us I know open the rest of them are really good too and have some really great Partners but they just seem to have theirs hemmed up a lot better another thing that stood up with them uh though a couple also because I I had a
064list of questions I was like 20 question leading to all those people I feel kind of bad now but I was firing them off right and left one of my things was this is we talk about our uh trade schools and yes we do have trade schools with Pioneer Center and we have a culinary arts program but I wanted to see how they could enhance that and one of the questions was what can you offer our students do you have scholarships do you have additional training and uh they were right high up there on being able to offer our students or even taking our students to become interns and work higher up through the company which that speaks volumes when you have a business it's going to hold hands with your students to help them
065be successful in what they want to drive forward for another thing that they talked about was um the scholarships they offer one or two maybe three scholarships a year that these kids could go for to go to say Cordon Bleu would be an example of one of their schools they also have education available within their systems and on top of that any of our staff that wants to move over to them under their payroll capabilities has the option to integrate and get that education and go higher levels within the company too and as Grand as our district is you work for our district and food service that's pretty much unless you get a degree in something else you're just working in food service this gives pay options to hire advancement management and things like that
066which anybody would want that as well so those are just the highlights of a few things I remember I I mean if you want me to run home and get my notes it's kind of like a book like this uh my big concern over the years has been a lot of complaints about the quality of the food you were served and uh we didn't make much Headway changing doing things but if people went against the statistics if you look how many children are age 16 are obese you might want to try to support some something with real nutrition to it pigs in a blanket a cinnamon roll and chocolate milk I'm sorry folks is not nutritious and I live with a dietitian so I'm not speaking off the top my head so I think when
067you look through the I only had a chance to look through three of the manual because that's the only got three but Chartwell had the better menu options and the process and they were putting more protein like especially in the breakfast which is the most important meal of the day instead of loaded with carbohydrates so we'll be watching that closely and hopefully there'll be some education with parents too at home because I think we have a problem with that in this community been here a long time and I've seen it and uh hopefully uh Chartwell will will be a Big Boon for the diet for our kids in the school district and for grandparents on Grandparent Day [Laughter] from the beginning when we first started looking at a contract company I started receiving negative feedback
068from more than one kitchen staff in the district and then after this review was done no disrespect to Miss Murphy or Mr Carney or anybody that was involved in the review of it or recommending it I've still only received negative I've even had retirees reach out to me and say they're speaking on behalf of people who can't talk because of our culture here in the district stating that they are not for it and so I just say that to explain my vote thank you but we had we had three people come down and talk to the team they weren't very well prepared number one and I think they're going to find that it's going to be a much better deal for them once it's I definitely yeah if it passes I I hope it's good
069all right so I'd like to make a motion to approve the Chartwells as our new food service provider for the district how long is the contract it's weird it's a it's a five-year contract but it's year to year and so um every year the board has to vote on the contract uh so if it's not meeting your needs you're not locked into five years they've built they every every one of this the Food Service it's it's based on a three to five year deal but everyone based on or because it's a state mandate the board has to approve that contract every year so the intent would be to stay with Chartwells at least five years but if they don't as Mr Carney said you know if they don't fulfill what you believe as a board
070um at the end of each year you have the right to reject that contract and Dr Roth do you recall the um savings that they were saying it was going to be able to give our district because I remember that was higher than the other companies as well but I don't want to misquote the dollar amount and Bethany correct me if I'm wrong but uh it's 75 000 is what they were projecting as a as a savings so what in that knowing that that cost savings is there could we put that cost savings towards our our families and reduce the cost of our meals so you're you it's not as easy as that because you're a federally funded program in a certain amount that you have to charge for meals to to meet the requirements
071of the federal reimbursable rates so it's not that money could go in in that money that's generated stays in the Food Service program where then it can offset some of your other costs as far as operations because you would still be responsible for equipment equipment and those types of things and also any upgrades to the kitchens or any of that would be something that you could use that money for but with it being a federally funded program there are requirements that you have to charge a certain amount in order to qualify for that reimbursement second by the way thank you all right we have a motion by Mr Murphy and a second by Mr Goodman to accept Chartwells as our food service management company all of those in favor six one thank you and I
072just want to extend my thanks to Miss Murphy and to Mr Carney for being on the committee I know that was not it was my pleasure there was one dish that I became emotionally attached to oh you may have to talk to me about that one afterwards I'm curious awesome they're on my site awesome can I recommend a bioberry if not I need you sure does anyone else need a bio break five minutes five minutes okay I like to make a motion to have a bio break for five minutes return to the meeting room at 7 16. okay Miss Murphy the second by Mr Goodman for a five minute bio break return at 7 16 all of those in favor seven zero thank you thank you no worries you're fine all right moving on item
073nine board policy review folks please this meeting is back in session if you cannot be quiet please leave the room please leave the room if you cannot be quiet thank you as I said this is item 9 board policy review so I'd like to um remind my fellow board members that several these policies have been seen before but based on our discussions that we had both in public and in private and with with our lawyer this is now a first read of clean policies so there's not confusion on what we were saying as far as add this or delete that so this is the first read of the clean policies any questions is this going to be for a final vote or is this just going to be a first read first read for the
074clean policies this month final vote will be in May so if you have questions or inputs make sure you get them turned back in okay um so we can address them from there okay so we ready to roll unless you have questions or comments I do have a comments we have this first one the baa looks like there's a third time it's changed since the agenda came out on Thursday as Dean necessary by Superintendent at the presence of the board president and or vice president may be requested in the visit be scheduled at a time to accommodate all parties interested okay I went ahead which version came out first the one that's in the agenda came up first then Mr Pyle who did the first one it was it was the so the you're going
075to speak Mr Powell you speak into that or you want me to well he said he didn't do the first one the first one was taken from what Mr Kyle turned in okay um the the piece to it and then the second one was the other one it was Mr piles and then we have this one here the first one so this would be first read right but what I'm saying is we're going to read this but okay after even discussing with Mr Powell um I was a bit thrown off on this because I have board policies here and as an elected person who is over the age of 18 who is an adult and clearly can accept my job position and responsibilities I do not require a babysitter so I went ahead and pulled
076up the Vice President in the President's duty and nowhere did it say it was going to babysit another elected official couldn't find it anywhere in this day when it gets down to the dirty it ends up being micro management and micromanagement is a pretty nasty word negative term refers to a management style defined by Gartner micromanagement is a pattern of management Behavior marked by excessive supervision and control of employees in this case elected officials with work in limited dedication a tasks and decisions in another psychological uh HR persons report it is a form of bullying and a way to intimidate now I know I do not want to be intimidated making me feel like I can't visit a school without taking my mommy or my daddy uh that's not what we were elected for so
077I still couldn't understand the reasoning behind that but Mr Powell did accept the fact that once I mention this and this would be also pulling up the ausa a article about micromanaging and how it can a command so when leadership has to micromanage their own other political equals then there's a huge problem the other thing when you go through the presidents and the vice president's duties on the board you cut ribbons call meetings special meetings Foster again and I have said this before setting here Foster and facilitate communication and respect between and among board members but if you're going to bully them with micromanagement you can't do that so that would be another failure on the board with the leadership there so I don't disapprove about having something written but I don't think it's going
078to go the way that you were intending um nowhere again does it say that you have more power than your one vote that you're given as a board member that's all each of us have regardless of the title that you have on the annual basis it is one vote it takes a quorum of four to pass anything title does not supersede that part there so what I would recommend is when I pull this back up here now I've also heard that board members have been bullied by staff and sadly I do know there are some people within the school district that can bully people to include students and uh if a board member would want somebody to go with them I could understand where they would want to do that but it needs to read
079where it's not just some casual visit because we're not board members to be casual we are board members for serious issues and serious problems parents may have a complaint about being their students being bullied students might have a complaint they might need an advocate and they don't feel comfortable I get that let's get my note here from where to rewrite those actually let me just pull it up this way the individual board member School visits to ensure there is a minimal disruption to the educational problem it says four members who wish to visit schools or classrooms as an informal expression of Interest informal is no longer good enough we have formal rights to know things we have a right to say hey we have a problem this parent has expressed this the student has expressed
080us I have a formal interest based on my job as a board member uh informal could be just going just a happy visit we heard great things we want to see it got it I think those both those vermic just need to be in there and then we of course inform the superintendent that we want to arrange that visit and that it should be taken in an appropriate length of time at no point and I I you know I know rumors I understand rumors I try to stay away from it I try to not cast stones at people uh and I definitely don't like to cast dirt because the minute you pick up dirt and throw it to somebody your hands are already filthy first so I think it's really good for people to start
081remembering that as well um I'm saddened to hear that possibly the visits were denied of board members that they requested three different times and they were told no I'm being told state board members have been denied visit and I can't find anywhere in our policy where it says we can deny a state School Board member let alone a setting board member of our own district from going into a school I just I don't know why I would ever hear such a thing and I'm hoping that I heard wrong that there's no way anything like that happened um but board members are not security for other board members and board members don't need to be someplace to maybe intimidate other board members because clearly the culture is already off anyway so that's the piece that I
082would like to add that it still needs to be done it needs to be accommodating Dr Roth do you know anything that has to do with uh state board members wanting to have access to our schools Mr Reed said that um Mr Zeck wanted in Mr Zeck never reached out okay it wasn't good enough that a board member sent you an email so one of the first things Miss Reed in that is a disruption at the point in time there was a disruption to the to the building I included in my email that we were happy to come out outside of school there is no justification for your actions misread as I told you as you discussed when we discussed it on the phone that disruption is my job my visit look at all the
083tension in the room that was because of a visit that is not the truth and so and I have to I have that way I have to weigh it I have to weigh the disruption of a building we've had to investigate dirty looks from teachers we've had to investigate all these other things you should be and we will and the email that you sent me the very first email that you sent me you said I have a parent that has a great concern what was my email back to you Miss Reed I would be more than happy to investigate anything that a parent has would you please give them your would you please give me their name or have them reach out to me the next email from you was um that's okay I need
084to see the artwork anyway then the third email was I demand that me and Mr zek get in at 11 o'clock the next day those are disruptions to the building Miss Reed and I apologize if I stepped on your toe I apologize if I stepped on Mr sex toes but I had to evaluate the temperament of the building and make a decision based on that until further discussion could happen as a board as it stated tonight it takes four board members to change anything so you have to you have to work within the system it's not the system I created it's not the culture of the district I would have to say falls under you and I agree with you but it starts with the leadership down look at the board as a whole right
085now miss Reed look at it look at the community we're a divided community and it's sad because this whole district has been so good to so many people so many people in this room so many people in this room has been affected positively by this and it absolutely kills me it absolutely kills me I hear the anger on both sides I hear the anger on both sides and I'm trying to make a decision based on what's best for kids and at the time that wasn't what was best for kids the artwork had already been taking pictures of there's nothing that's changed nothing and so I would not deny your requests I gave you every example from the first email to the last email that's that was our communication and I reached out to miss price
086and Mr Powell and said we are in we are in turmoil right now and I've got to try to control it I cannot and so I apologize I apologize to you that you feel that that I that I denied you but I was trying to solve the issue for the parent from the original email and I will still solve that for the parent or at least do my best and that's all I can do and I apologize decide who you stand behind and who you don't you cannot pick one parent I'm not trying to stand behind any parent Miss Reed I'm trying to protect the teachers and the students the parents and the anger of the parents I I will deal with as they come to me but they haven't came what do you think
087I was doing by asking to go back in and look at the artwork and see the percentage of photos that were sexually I apologize for cutting off sorry so what's wrong with this policy is it says as deemed necessary by the superintendent support is over this superintendent it's that simple and that is one of the largest problems this district has had for many years is when the power structure is screwed up everything flowing down is screwed up that's all I'm going to say about that for right now okay well I didn't know about all that rest of the stuff with the conversation I just wanted to know what the board policy was for a state school board member coming in I don't recall recall misses the predecessor having any problem getting into a school um
088so now this kind of brings up a couple other questions um how do you deem what is uh disruptive I mean I may say these dates are good for me can you you know can I go in and see school XYZ now I've never had a problem before um you know and you've taken you've taken me before I've never required anything this is the first time in 21 years that this has ever happened okay so then here is my next question as a parent who has kids that have competed in various Sports who've been in multiple different school districts so we could watch them compete in these Sports uh we've been inside in many schools Blue Springs Blue Valley wherever they have publicly displayed because schools are public property publicly displayed artwork right there along
089with trophies and everything else and parents have taken pictures I watch parents post it I've seen parents take pictures on parents night what is the difference in the privacy of a student's picture being taken in a public school room classroom display area versus privacy because it's on display I know a student's face if a parent opts out they can say the district will not use your child's face for publicity for the school district so you can't be putting them on the website everywhere else but when you're going to games touring schools going to parents night we have any policy they can't take photos foreign though the way I can answer that Miss Murphy is is that you're you're correct photos should be allowed but it's how you use a kid's photo positively or negatively impacts
090the direction of a specific building a specific whatever and so you've heard again I go back you've heard both sides tonight no matter what I can tell you is there a policy that says that the students cannot be taken a publicly displayed artworks students have and schools have an opportunity to protect as we move forward do we have a policy in place currently to protect or allow a parent to opt out of having their students so artwork to opt out yeah it would be like anything else if it as she said tonight you have a policy in place that says can your students artwork be displayed on websites school websites for district things parents have the right to opt out of that that is so we did have it for the artwork not just the
091child for anything faces pictures any of that okay and it only applies to the district's use that applies to the district's use yes right it doesn't apply to if somebody wants to contact a new station and they go through the new station the new station contacted and we would not let anybody I'm just I'm just you so I mean and the new stations would go through our public relations or myself yes right but they're taking a tour School they've got their camera oh here's this classroom oh here this Library while they're filming the school that would still then be Public Access automatically because you're letting them film a story in the school but usually that would be with permission of the class or permission moving forward so if there's recognition or something like that right
092because you see how I agree 100 percent into the list I agree with you I don't disagree Dr oath do you understand public forum as far as what you stated that as long as it's positive no the thing about public forum everyone doesn't have to like everything and that's one of the largest problems this district has and no one wants to talk no one wants to look the statistics no one wants to look in the dark spaces where the truth lies as to what needs fixed in this District so that it's a healthy environment for our students so they can Excel what what they're going to school to learn 100 misread I don't disagree with you so if something public forum go oh my gosh that's not true what's true is is that um what
093was shown as a picture cut out all of the things of the story what was shown as the flag said 80 percent of everything that was taken was of that that's false narrative when it's false narrative it creates a work environment that's not it's that's hostile that that's a disruption if you're going to talk about it show the whole thing put everything out there that's true okay everything let's talk about the truth when you crop out when things are cropped out it's different let's talk about this I was denied on four occasions to go back into the building and look at the percentage of pictures for myself I also was denied and to this day I have been denied as a taxpayer as a pair in the district as a board member the media that
094was represented during this assignment where this assignment was chosen why this assignment was chosen and any verbiage used during the assignment that should be public and easy accessible information you just heard a parent in your District get up and state that even as a parent with two kiddos in that District she got zero return that is the history of this District please take responsibility absolutely I will reach out to the parent and look at why parents don't reach out they don't reach out because they get treated like I've been treated like I have I'm a parent in this District that's why I announced it on this board and I will try to do everything I can to fix this District while I'm here thank you [Applause] all right so clearly not only do we need
095to work on some verbiage here to where it's not just such a casual that we have more formal visits that we may need to desire to do to rewrite on this bottom here but we need to um make sure parents know that there is an opt out so their students artwork isn't displayed um because I really don't see any other way around that it's easier to have the opt out for the few that don't want their things displayed versus parents that you know want their things displayed um I just I feel bad for the kids so I'm asking rather than having board members accompany other board members as if they're taking um I'll just say it this reads like overreach and micromanagement and uh I'll be honest as a military spouse and I know there's
096a few people that have no experience whatsoever with the military here but this just definitely reads about like some of the Military Officers I've dealt with in 42 years and you know you don't micromanage elected officials with other elected officials that's not the job a senator wouldn't do it to a senator a congressman wouldn't do it to a congressman and at nowhere anywhere in state or our own board policies does it state that we're going to have our board members micromanaging us furthermore you have the Dynamics on trying to do something like that where offices can change annually um and they can change based on elections we have people that work so if you're wanting somebody else to be at the beck and call to escort somebody else around what are you asking for somebody
097to everyone be retired no kids in the school district and those are the only people they're going to be able to represent the district because everybody else has got to go to work and feed their family it is not productive so since we are all adults here just like our District staff and our superintendent where things can be very uncomfortable and frustrating uh we still need to be professional and that means we got to take the hits and blows sometimes where we do again I I was not there for this some of the other things that I've heard now are new to me um still don't think I have the whole story but that's okay I'm sure it'll come out somewhere um if a board member wants to request to have somebody there that's always
098always already been a given I've gone on tours with Mr Pyle I've gone on tours with Mr Carney I went on tours with Doug darling I've gone on tours with you I don't see why we need that we need to notify the president or the vice president that we need to go look at a school and it's certainly nowhere in board policy that that is the job of that office but we do we do need to amend the part of um that we would have visits both informal and formal and in a timely timely manner of getting a hold of us I mean I know normally it's easy you know can you meet with me next Wednesday I usually give a week's Advance on wanting to see something or whatever whenever I've done it uh
099what would be a reasonable time to get back to allow a board member to go in with the school whether it's during school time or before school starts or after school starts honestly it would depend on the day and and what's going on in the building but usually it's within 24 to 48 hours so three business days usually five at Max would probably work really well and we could put that in the policy we can we can accommodate that how does anybody else feel about that if the board resides over the school and it's their job to provide oversight and be consistently knowing what's going on a board member should be able to access a facility whenever they want because otherwise we have superintendents deciding when and based on their bias towards a specific board
100member or their bias towards a state representative which is quite frankly what this entire case is about they they're making poor decisions everybody every single board member deserves to be treated equally just because Miss price is President and Mr Powell is Vice President doesn't mean they're going to hold those positions forever imagine if Jack had to take me along with him if he wanted to go into a district I would never allow that because it's completely ridiculous and I would be disrespectful to Jack to presume that he needs me to go with him anywhere that's how ridiculous this is now what's ridiculous is how this all started I have another question if we're going to work policy Mr Proctor is well I won't say much more about it this whole thing becomes political you got
101mine from Proctor you probably got money I know no I did not you did I got your paperwork good for you this is supposed to be a non-partisan this is non-partisan we shouldn't have legislation they need to stay in Topeka and do their jobs to people and not be involved before Mr this has been a nationwide thing that's counterculture and all this crap about indoctrination I want to see some real proof of undocumented I think we just provided that quite well no you didn't no you didn't Mr Carnation Mr Carney what do you know a vote is an endorsement pardon me a vote is an endorsement that's the highest endorsement anyone could ever make is a vote it has been stated over and over I know I've spoken to you directly before that the Pittman's
102have the backing and support of they had three people on this board who they supported the campaigns of so it was political it was a political board long before the last year that I've been sitting here it just went your way and so you didn't pay any attention to it it agreed with your political values and so you didn't have any problem with it I'm I'm not I'm a Democrat or Republican because of this and because of the crap Mr Proctor kind of pulling this community he's shedding light where light needed to be shot about it he's the only one willing if Mr never been in all the years I've been on the board and live in this community so you're about to say Mr Pittman involved in school politics or you're mad at Mr
103Proctor if Mr Pickman was interested in protecting the students from being over sexualized I would have never spoken to him as well yes how many books have I gotten out of the library in just one year that should have never been bought thank you you read that that was that was that's a good book we can read it together by Banning books there's two sides to every story we'll go back to this we don't ban books we should always properly curate them to their age there are some things that don't belong you wouldn't put Penthouse or Playboy in the media center would you thank you and I I don't care if they can pull it up on their phone because their phones are their parents problems how do we move forward as a board to
104be productive to help our students how do we write this policy that we can agree on I'm fine with striking everything in red it's completely fine you guys make valid points about um needing board members with you I wish that we didn't have the culture that we have that would make it necessary for us a board member to not have access to school if they have a motive that's trying to destroy our public school system so how do we move forward I am absolutely fine with the the policy as it's written and just going no board member has the desire to destroy the public school system the public school system is destroying itself with the help of our legislators as I already mentioned all legislators should be in the interest of protecting children and all
105children okay all children so that's going to get addressed in the next policy that's on here with the classrooms right now we're on this one so I agree with Mrs Wells I would get rid of all of this of trying to have our babysitters attached to us conduct business as usual and add the word formal along with informal because the visits may be something a little less than just comfortable and happy and if that's what they need to say this is a formal visit rather than hey we're really happy and want to see the extra uh I don't know 157 trophies JROTC brought home from the last meet then that's what I can see that we're gonna do with adding formal because as a single board member we have no formal business right but we're
106not voting they're not going in to boss anybody but they're more formally going in to see something in particular uh be it whatever display this or cafeteria food that or whoever drop this over here well I'm I'm not sure either word would apply that it should Simply Be hey my board member can visit I'm interested in coming in and simply seeing something whether it be formal or informal okay I think there's okay can I speak about this yes please please thank you informal formal I I do agree with Miss Wells that there gives some there's some connotation to that word is saying that the individual is acting on behalf of the entire board at the direction of the board so an example would be when we had the book committee that if Mr Powell or
107Miss Wells or Miss Reed had to go to view something as part of the furtherance of that committee that would be formal and that would be under different rules under this right versus informal would be hey look um I know there's a vote coming up I need to go do my own personal research since I'm going to there to look for my S for myself it's not on behalf of the board speaking on behalf of the board if that makes sense right and even in our board policy it sits there and says no one member speaks on behalf of the board unless it's been designated at that time for the president to do it like cutting a ribbon or something like that it does sound like the the wording that's here is the correct wording
108because if everything that we're talking about here were informal inquiries by a board member to go in and see what's going on I've done it we've all done it um we've been able to go in and see things according I I don't know how much I like having to inform the superintendent it's a good courtesy so that all all parties involved uh for example going in and and it's it's not appropriate for us to just simply go into a school and just wander about right right um so being able to contact somebody at at the school which which I did uh with the principal to be with the principal and find out more information about whatever it is I want to find out information in is is informing the superintendent is great I don't think
109it should be something that's required to be able to go in uh however coordinating with the school school itself with the principle up and they're not available it's not really appropriate for us to just simply wander about I think it's important that we keep the superintendent in there because the superintendent is the only one that's accountable to us the principles are not right the principals are accountable to the superintendent so I think it's important that any action that we as board members take go through the superintendent okay I mean it should be something with the understanding that hey this is this is not something that that I can be denied to do it's I'm informing you that I would like to come when is a good time for me to be able to meet with
110the appropriate staff at the building that I would like to go to so list building administrator and courtesy copying the superintendent so he's aware that request has been made well I I like following a chain so I'm going to inform Dr Roth hey Dr Roth I would like to go meet with the principal at David Brewer okay so that's why that's there he would inform hey Mr Goodman would like to come down are you available when are you available and and so that we can have that scheduled so that's what that says there that's why we right which is like I said I'm I'm kind of in agreement with the wording that we have before I don't think we need the extra wording what what we have maybe has been sufficient two three days accommodation
111for planning that we spoke about um I don't know what kind emergency scenario would require somebody one of us you know and I could be speaking out of turn uh just based on my experiences and perceptions I don't understand any emergency basis that uh I would need to request to go in the school and say I'm going to go tour this school at two o'clock today because XYZ um but maybe somebody else has an experience where they might need to do that I don't know that request on my behalf that he is referring to was to so that I could be educated when I was meeting with Mr Powell and Mr Goodman regarding the artwork situation so we canceled that meeting because I was never allowed in the building thank you and there was never
112a day because like I said I'm just hearing all this right now there was never a day or a time that you could accommodate the board member to come in there that wasn't going to cause disruption not 20 minutes after the school bell went off and the majority of the students left the one thing that um was a failure on my part was the communication back with Miss Reed because at the end the one thing that she told me is that she would not have to take her phone in and she wasn't going to take more pictures that I would have more upset parents so if I failed in that situation it was because of that and I told the board long before if I'm going to fail or air I'm going to err on
113the side of kids I'm going to err outside the district and I'm going to err on the side of staff and that's how I've operated for 21 years so if I aired I aired on the caution of kids because I knew and I seen already and heard and read all the things that had already transpired from that first time to where we were at and so A disruption is a disruption and I was trying to protect that side so I should have communicated more with Miss Reed than what I did so I did fail her and I said how did these kids names get out there I had no idea Miss Murphy because it wasn't it wasn't something that this office released because the one thing I did see they were blocked they were blacked
114out so I'm curious how the kids names got out there that that that I have no idea but regardless it was out there okay so as as a first read uh I guess we can take this under advisement yep and if you've got any other further inputs put them in writing and send them back so I think uh at least on the part of some I think striking out the red bold and just going with the original document would be my preference at least I agree um so does our board attorney concur well I mean the current policy is the current policy so if this is an issue that you guys get to decide what you want to do spoken like a true attorney so I'm just here for legal advice not to give recommendations
115on policy the policy IFA that we looked at before if you remember this was one of my concerns I stated in a previous meeting is it needs to include everybody the teachers I feel like are unnecessarily singled out in this policy and also you know was proven exactly what I said which is that if the teachers are limited they're going to use the students and so I'm throwing that out there again I'm not sure I understand in the policy IFA classroom displays so we have materials displayed in around all school property including but not limited classrooms are generally considered instructional materials and must comply with word policy they may be selected by the classroom teacher but should be grade level appropriate and aligned with the subject matter being taught so in this particular assignment which
116I still have zero information on from this District so I can't exactly state fact I can State what was stated on KCTV5 news I can State what this District stated in their political bias policy I mean their statement that they put out from our PR department but obviously this teacher could say well this is a character strong uh you know aligned assignment which does include sexual material you can do a quick Google search on my library is for everyone is a rainbow assignment it immediately comes up with those type of sexual material so if this teacher selected that kind of material or if it is in some type of you know curriculum assignment that they pull from one of these companies that this board has hired like character strong then there's nothing wrong with it
117at that point I mean that's how if I'm teaching and I'm looking at this that's how I read this and so I feel like there's holes all over it we either are going to allow sexual material or were not and what Lansing just got through going through got done going through is the whole fact that it's you know the public forum part so we know that no no student is allowed to just hang up whatever they want um we've had issues with things being taken down immediately that they're put up from the high school that maybe should have been left up but when you allow one side you have to allow the other side that's part of this whole thing and I absolutely do not want to open the door which is exactly why I
118think after talking to the ksb lawyer staff regarding this this last month my understanding from why they put this decision down is because obviously it would never be okay or appropriate for one single second for anyone to put up anything that is anti these topics that we're talking about when it comes to the sexual related material and when it's a public space you open the door for both sides and so I feel like this policy still has holes in it because it targets the teachers when obviously they're not the only people that are hanging things up and I just that's my opinion of it I think it needs to include everyone not singling out teachers well no it it does do that okay it's it's under the the district facilities so are not public forums
119for display yeah it reads that and the furtherance of their duties as employees of the District employees may not post but nowhere does it mention students it leaves it focuses on staff that was my original concern with it and I I still have that concern well second paragraph says District facilities are not public forums for the display or distribution of non-secular political or religious viewpoints that was kind of the way that we worded this was that it's it's either all okay or none of its opinion and so or portray political or religious messages whether it's by students or staff now students have certain First Amendment rights that the teachers don't necessarily have their teachers are more limited but it's still it's still the school's public forum and therefore there can't be any sort of political
120uh messaging of any kind of religious messages be kind that is deemed political anyway so and Mr Carney already said this was all political so we know that's a fact right I I I do believe that this policy does get done what you okay that's my opinion that's why I stated in the last that's why we went round and round about this for about an hour yeah on on just this because then I'm not trying to go around around about it I just I still have the same control because because as it stands now I I believe it's does what it is that we want to do and that is removing the politics from the schools because uh you know if you don't if you don't want politics in our schools then stop bringing politics
121into our schools that goes for the teachers that goes for the students staff everybody we should have an apolitical School District where everybody can express their views no matter what they are and and that shouldn't be a controversial topic for anybody right okay it's not it's not teaching kids what to think it's teaching kids how to think so uh all sides should be represented if we're going to have something it's got to be pedagogically relevant and it's got to be Viewpoint neutral as long as you're presenting both sides to this Viewpoint neutral as long as you're just stating facts if you point neutral um so this is and and this is a response to things like we had outside our library the the words read woke for years that's a political statement has no place
122in our schools so that's what we're trying to solve we're trying to dial down the rhetoric that extremists on either end are bringing to our schools so that's what this policy does I like this policy it's a good policy and and it removes all temptation to put up political messages via subterfuge or or what have you and and brings more fairness and balance to the schools um how does this extend to dress codes as long as it's not being I mean disruptive of the education process um I don't know that you can wear big furly capes of of trump 2024 or rainbow Flags uh I believe that that's always been a policy of dress codes it doesn't disrupt the the learning process people can wear it including uh teachers students as long as again doesn't
123disrupt anything everybody still has their first amendment rights I just wanted to make sure because I know there's some Educators that may wear a cross there's some students that may wear a star of David you know could be right multiple things that's I mean there's there's been correct me if I'm wrong Robert uh numerous Supreme Court decisions based on all of that already uh you don't completely lose all of your first amendment rights when you work in a school district correct for the government however there are still restrictions based on the fact that you do have a capital audience uh as a as a educator and therefore there's there's certain things that we've all agreed on that are allowed and are not allowed correct and we we discussed those last time when we talked about
124this policy right and so I don't believe that there's any sort of restrictions in here about for or against now since we've already talked about this for an hour two months ago and we have this here now is there a reason why we've got to just keep it as a new read or can we go ahead and vote to approve this particular policy these are all first reads because it was a clean policy so any comments tonight but if somebody makes a motion and wants to go in motion and someone seconds it technically you can't put it up because it's a clean it's already been written we've dealt with this for a couple of months now I I feel confident that I move that we accept policy as it's written I second with the IFA
125classroom displays and also see ikd ikd-a-n-kn so only for IFA and just the IFA that's right that's what his motion the score is just for the IFA okay we haven't even looked talked about the other one yet any other questions or discussion or input on IFA okay and was it Murphy Goodman or Goodman Murphy Goodman Murphy okay okay in regards to policy IFA classroom displays revised by the revised policy with a motion by Mr Goodman and a second by Mr Ms Murphy all of those in favor next one any other questions or discussion we have the next policy if you want textbooks it's first read so first read um I haven't read it for the first read so I will take that and uh provide my feedback to uh Dr Ruth all right thank you
126anybody else I think having come before us as board members to add to the collection is micromanaging and unnecessary well we've we've had political messages up outside the library no I'm talking about on the new on the new policy oh on the news on what's what's in the new policy so there's a new that's been added since the last time I looked at it it was under collection approval under the new if it says recommended editions to the media center materials will be vetted through the appropriate building leadership and District administrative staff The District administration will provide the recommendations to the board for approval the board will be provided adequate time to review the materials and to staff recommended changes recommendations will be made available for public review in a manner similar to the curriculum
127selection process with adequate time for public comment before board approval I again I think that that is micromanaging helping out in libraries years and years ago when anytime we'd run a book fair we'd get those um the funds left over from Scholastic that comes back to the school and the the library gets to use those funds to put books back into the library that's just going to slow down that whole process they've got the money to spend let them spend it and get it into the hands of our kids um I yeah well we've I mean we've had we've had pornographic books in the schools and we have uh that had to be removed because they did have uh had money and said let's just spend it and put it in there basically naked pictures
128of women in them uh and and it slipped through the cracks and that's I'm quite confident that that's exactly what happened uh and this just adds an extra layer of oversight for books like that and here if we think back to this summer Mr Powell and I spent weeks with members of the community and part of this came from our discoveries in those meetings so you're saying that the the the committee that you two Sat On came up with this Edition I'm saying part of that led in because of that meeting some additional oversight so it's a first read everybody can think about it and sit there and decide if they want to tweak it and send in their comments and and they'll attach it to whatever but part of that is I know part
129of this is because of all the discussions and everything from that original committee meeting and that had to do with discoveries of other items that have been come objectionable and had been removed from the library that led to those Community meetings all right any further discussion thought we'll move on item 10 consideration of secondary science adoption and I want to make first before we get started I wanted to make sure everyone understood this is our first cycle of adoptions after that the committee met and this is from the updated policy so the transparency with Community it's been the books have been physically present pretty much since school started they were a parent-teacher conferences both at middle school and the high school and they've been online and available to the entire Community for feedback so it's
130been available come all of it's been there and Ryan if you will you took my whole presentation oh no I I you know I kind of want to emphasize that too it is this is the steps the for transparency that we have been taking is bringing uh to the constituency the ability to come in and look at these textbooks and and see if there's anything that that you may or may not object to uh additionally we've got all of our library books up on the internet right now that you can go browse through uh I've used it extensively to to find books so uh go ahead sorry so good evening thank you so much for uh taking some time to consider this recommendation of this pilot this package of products I will say um so
131as you know from previous presentations it's about an 11 month process it began end of April last year when we first met with our science teams to get characteristics of feedback and that's LED all the way to when you were told of what was being recommended by the teacher committee at the beginning of March so it truly is an 11 month process that our team goes through so I just wanted to start off as a refresher kind of seven major steps we go through in a in a core resource textbook adoption process so that first and foremost foremost starts with that what are what's expired nowadays with having both print and digital licenses and every recommendation you get in this and this has both uh we have to look at what is expiring what textbooks
132are being sunset by the company so we can't extend them any further and then what those needs are based on changes and standards things of that nature then we cast the widest net possible I think of that kind of like the giant funnel and then we get more specific as we go uh so that first meeting when we have a staff we ask hey what are some of the the resources out there that you we should take a look at we also look at Statewide adoptions in states that do approve textbooks Kansas does not do any vetting of textbooks so that's purely on the Local District but there are states that do so we try to use that as a review source as well as any third-party reviews that are out there uh from that
133we also get you know kind of wants the needs for our administrators teachers in this case because it's secondary science all teachers were on the committee that wasn't like a subset it was never a science teacher that would be teaching those subjects then we try to narrow that down and that's really where our team and teaching learning comes in uh to hopefully get it to a manageable list because teachers are very very busy we can't give them 15 products and have them really dive in so we try to narrow that down to what I call semi-final list uh that then they can kind of dig into and then we have recommendations for what will be piloted so that kind of gets us to where we got in August which we had a group of about
134five uh product profiles we gave in a Google site for the teams to look at they gave a rating scale that then was a final two set of uh uh products that we then piloted and we ran those pilots pilots as in the past come back to back starts with a three hour-ish in-person PD session uh or virtual in some cases they then go through the process have opportunities to ask the vendors direct questions or run those through us is easy if the vendor allows it we give them pretty much exactly what they would have if they purchased the product uh some vendors are more restrictive on that than others but that's what we aim to do from our team and then we always kind of wrap up with any last q a that sort
135of thing before they give a rubric based recommendation based on board policy and standards language things like that so we did that process back to back uh and then that of course comes to you know which would we want to move forward with and we'll get costs and negotiating discounts all those kind of things and bring recommendation to you um so with that we'll talk about some changes we made that kind of was the the preview here but these are our current classes that Warren in the high school one thing that our high school team did as part of this process was did kind of a course audit so to speak looking at forecasting over the next six to seven year textbook adoption cycle what courses are we committing to supporting because we don't want
136to buy a resource if then we're going to retire the course in a couple years unless something you know unexpected happens so as they went through that process and had conversation with their admin team their leadership team and their science team uh they came to the conclusion that environmental science was one course that would be retired after this this year based on Staffing primarily so that was in your initial list when we set you courses and that is the current course that's going to be retired so you're not going to see that in the recommendation and that was kind of going on concurrently by the team so a little bit kind of delving into the process more specifically like we said we did review of wants and needs in the spring then summer is really
137our exploration of the marketplace uh and that's where myself and then Michaela Heath and James Perry on our team who do an excellent job James represents the technology side McKayla represents the literacy and instructional side we kind of do some researching have introductory meetings with the vendor to get an idea of the products and try to do that narrowing down we talked about uh then like we mentioned we give that semi-final list uh to the teachers and then the the top products from that they they ranked them that's what we piloted and that's what we rolled forward with and then from there this is this cycle is a little unique and that you have so many courses at the high school they then were looking at you know did this pilot vendor make more sense
138in this one for the sort of specific courses uh within that that's kind of like a mixed mixed platform that we went with when we get to what was recommended as you can see also we did about six week pilot process within that so the new additions uh for what Miss price mentioned a little earlier so we've created an internal Google site for help with staff kind of navigate because again it can be overwhelming when you're looking at products and you haven't seen them before so we tried to narrow down into you know what's the standards alignment what's the scope and sequence what's the pacing guide those kind of things that that's what they reviewed uh that we'd already curated for them uh as well as kind of what's publicly out there by the vendor
139to narrow it down we also as you know about our public instructional materials site we expanded that a little bit uh so we have if you go to that site we have a table that has links for every single title and it takes you to kind of some of those main public documents like scope and sequence the website things like that as well as if you uh had come down here we had a Chromebook set up where you could actually go into the demo side as well so we tried to make that very transparent and organized it down to the course level into the specific title being piloted uh we also worked with Jake and the pr team of course on kind of the social media blasts uh we'll put that out on Facebook and
140Twitter a couple times Mr Jake's team as well as in those board FYI updates that you received throughout the process and then we had a display table of whatever pilot window we were in uh up here at the boardroom and then when it was para teacher conference time we took them down to Warren and the high school and had those laid out there and then had a nice flyer where they could access that and QR code where uh family members community members whoever was looking at it can access the site well as a feedback form and that feedback form we collected responses on all the way through today it's still active I'm going to turn it off after this presentation uh and we submitted any responses to the teachers before they finished their rubric for
141that cycle so about a week or so for the rubric would be due we would say here's the data that we have whether it was student and it was Anonymous student Community member parents Etc we would submit that to them to help inform their recommendations as the ones that would be using it this is the the flyer you may have seen if you're at parent-teacher conferences or you might have seen it on uh through Jake's public publication I take zero credit for how pretty that is but I thought it was really uh nicely uh looked and formatted so on one side you have the vendor information that takes you straight to our website uh that has that information and all those public links and then the other half has the feedback form and that it
142was like a probably a six or eight question feedback form that had some open-ended uh options as well as a few rating type scales again that was open to students optionally parents or just community members in general so some lawyers and we we shared this before I just added and updated from last year we really tried to think of it in three main layers when we're going through this process the out of District information and Gathering and feedback loops and that includes you know that what's in the marketplace looking at those Statewide adoptions looking at third party reviews as we can track them down we also try to reach out to districts in the area and the region that are using that vendor uh science is hard because you have so many specific titles but
143we reached out to districts that are using those vendors to find out about how's the implementation how's the standards alignment is there any material that that you've run into that's been an issue things like that our in-district information gathering and feedback loops are those presentations teachers get feedback everything from the PD that they are provided down to the alignment to standards uh and they have plenty of opportunities to ask either through us or directly to the vendor uh whichever they're more comfortable with and then on the public side kind of Blends in with what we talked about from out of District we also did a presentation at our district site Council I know building principal shared information for building stock Council as well just again to encourage that transparency and that opportunity for feedback uh
144and then all through the peach jar and all the social media and all those things like we mentioned so really tried to take a lot of the process we put in place a few years ago uh that really made anything more transparent like I said we had uh the display here up I think it was end of September for the first round of piloting and the website has had both products up the entire time so with that here's kind of what it looks like if you went to the website uh all those are hyperlinks so you can then go in and explore uh what was piloted throughout the process and from this and all those fun steps we just talked about here's kind of what we came up for recommendation and these were the highest
145recommended products for each of the courses of course so for Middle School we have hmh science Dimensions uh they currently are using an hmh product this is the updated newer version uh better better tools and those things it's based on a six-year license physical class sets that are meant to be treated as um non-consumable and then one-to-one digital licenses so they'll have those physical materials as well as the digital access if they take their Chromebooks home uh we'll have of course Implement implementation professional development and then we always try to work in follow-up Support options so that could be a half day coaching day or during a PLC time so if they get six to eight weeks in and they're stuck on some component or some area we already have that paid for we can
146bring them in to give that support or if they're good for year one but then in year two we turn over and have new science teachers we could use that for that option too so we try to have follow-up built into those contracts as well for high school a little more complicated uh so a big credit to Mr Vanek and Mr Olsen they helped really be the bridge between our team and the teachers to help facilitate this process so they took the McGraw products the Savas products the Kindle hunt and the cengage because they looked at four different vendors depending on the course and they basically had a family meeting to say okay what is going to be the best fit for us knowing that we don't want to have too many different platforms we
147want to balance those needs and wants but have the best content available so from that they came up with this uh package so to speak uh and so you have McGraw-Hill in your top section for your um integrated physical science chemistry physics and then Savas Pearson which is one company Pearson's the higher Ed's office is the K-12 has a has the biggest set there and then forensic science which is kind of a unique course that the kids really enjoy uh we we treated that one almost separately because it's kind of a specialized course um so that one that teacher went with Kendall hunt was very excited about that product so uh all in all they still all have six year licenses I'll have a combination of the physical textbooks or class sets teachers guides those
148things uh and one doing digital licenses as well as again as that implementation PD as well as follow-up option as well so all those will have those built into that process so with that that kind of gives you the whole package I really wanted to take more time today talking about the process uh because we've talked about before we I think we've had some exciting pieces to encourage that transparency uh and just leave it up for any questions you might have thank you for your presentation I was just gonna mention those two books that we talked about in person back in January I did take the time to sit down and read through every textbook that you put out in the lobby and that's helping me stand with current education there's plenty of books out
149there so you'll be busy uh so the mentals of human anatomy and physio prior had a two-page spread on mask wearing which is highly debatable and so I was not a fan of that and then also the chemistry molecular approach that book by Pearson the very first page is their Dei statement and that's also controversial and so I pointed out that I wouldn't support those two it was Anatomy classes considered porn I mean we're freeing from answering that one Mr Cartier it's of course it's been in place for years yeah there are questions for Ryan yeah just one uh because you and I also went over a couple of the titles and problems that we had one of them of course ended up being dropped but um where did or what kind of feedback do
150we get from the community to be honest I mean in terms of numbers in the feedback form it was just did you get feedback or is relatively low um like I said we put it out there and we shared anything we got but the most of the feedback in the form was the optional student pocket was the biggest biggest pocket by far foreign [Music] I'd like to make a motion to approve the recommendations from the district do we need to go through the prices on each of those both or just the total packages presented the total cost of 259 582.31 second okay we have a motion by Ms Wells a second by Ms Murphy to accept the science secondary science adoption as presented for the total of 259 582 and 31 cents all of those
151in favor six one thank you thank you thank you Ryan all right moving on to item 11 superintendent report Dr Rose just have one thing um we have a retirement and the gentleman is uh uh too humble to be recognized but I think this is uh worthy of recognition Mr Kevin moraski he's retiring after 44 years in our district he works in the maintenance department thank you [Applause] Kevin wouldn't show up for any public recognition we're there to sneak in a lunch for him Matt said just to make sure he showed up for the lunch but um Kevin is one of those guys that has a wealth of knowledge and I know Matt and his crew and his team's going to miss him greatly as will the district so 44 years dedicated he was a
152high school graduate of USD 453 and he spent his entire working career now he's going to work on Hobbies he said so um super excited for Kevin and all that he's given to our school district thank you item 12 executive session for matters affecting a student Madam president uh first of all how much time do we need um 10 minutes okay man president I'm moving going to Executive session discuss matters affecting a student pursuant to the exceptions relating to actions adversely or favorably affecting a student under the Kansas open meeting act and that we return an open session this room at uh 8 40. second the board will invite Dr Roth Amy Sloan and board attorney into the meeting all right motion by Mr Powell second man is Murphy to go into executive session for
153matters affecting a student all of those in favor 7-0 thank you please take your bio break up front and then go to the conference room [Music] okay for item 12 executive session for matters affecting a student going to be reading resolution 22-23-022 whereas pursuant to a hearing of the provisions of KSA 72-611 at SEC the hearing officer recommended that a student be suspended for an extended term or expelled from January 20 2023 through the first semester of the 2023-24 school year and whereas the student or the student's parents or legal Guardians if the student is under age 18 timely appealed the decision of the hearing officer to the board and whereas an appeal hearing before a hearing officer appointed by the board was held on March 7th 2023 and whereas the hearing officer who heard
154the appeal submitted a written opinion containing findings of fact and conclusions in this matter and recommended that the student may return to school beginning the second semester of the 2023-2024 school year whereas the board has received no additional evidence in this matter and now therefore be it resolved that the findings and conclusion of the Appellate hearing officer be adopted by the board and that the extended term suspension or expulsion of this student this matter be Affirmed so that is the first motion check okay motion by myself and a second by Ms Wells to um adopt the following resolution for 2022 excuse me 22-23-022 all of those in favor six one thank you I'll remind all board members to please stop by and sign this resolution Before you depart this evening thank you okay moving on
155item 13 executive session for consultation with attorney Madam president I move we go into executive session for consultation with our attorney pursuant to the exception for matters which would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship under the Kansas open meeting act and that we returned open session in this room at 8 52. the board will invite Dr Roth Amy Sloan and board attorney second okay we have a motion by Mr Powell it's like my Ms Murphy to go into executive session for consultation with our attorney all of those in favor 7-0 thank you all right moving on to item 14 executive session for non-elected personnel Adam presented our movie going to Executive session to discuss non-elected Personnel pursuant to the exception of the Kansas open meeting act in order to protect the Privacy interests of
156the individuals to be discussed and that we return to open session in this room at 9 11. second all right we have a motion by Mr call in a second by Mr Goodman to go in executive session for non-elected personnel all those in favor Dr Rose Amy Sloan and the board attorney great 7-Eleven or 9 11. I remember I'm gonna remember [Music] item 14 uh session for a non-elected Personnel um the administration we're making the following motions first motion I move the board approved the staffroom report as presented second you're right we have a motion by Mr Powell the second by Ms Murphy to accept the Staffing report as presented all of those in favor six one thank you second motion now you move the board to increase the paraprofessional starting alloy rate from 12
15725 12.25 cents an hour to fourteen dollars beginning August 1 2023. exclamation points on that one yeah um for our second motion Mr Powell uh second by Miss Murphy to raise the classified rate to 14 an hour all of those in favor 7-0 thank you and president I move the board to authorize a pool of 4.4 percent for classified staff raises and a pool of 2.5 percent for administrative staff raises second all right we have a motion by Mr Powell and a second by Mr Goodman to establish a pool for raises all those in favor 7-0 thank you all right moving on item 16 closing our meeting so just to highlight a couple things that are upcoming on the calendar as we hit the home stretch to graduation there's lots of recommendation recommend recognitions for
158our students so I want to highlight some of those dates to your calendar the 24th of April is the academic awards at the high school three May will be the Horizon scholar Gala at the riverfront May 4th will be our retirees celebration at the Pioneer Career Center May 12th will be the rot excuse me JROTC awards ceremony at the high school the invitation that we've received from um the younger Miss Murphy said May 10th and I verified with her that it is May 10th so May 10th sorry States here so correct that may 10. May 18th the senior honors night it'll be a virtual event and of course graduation will be on May 20th at the high school at 10 30 that morning is there anyone from the board that knows they will not be
159at graduation on I'm sure miss Murphy you won't be at graduation anyone not going to be there no all right so everyone's going to go on the stage supposed to try and catch we'll be behind you okay okay moving on excuse me [Music] executive account all right so next is the unscheduled patreon input 16-2 I have a stack here I'm not going to reread the um or an introductory blur but to remind everyone that this speaking you have three minutes and at the 15 second Mark I'll remind you that you have 15 seconds remaining so my first in the stack is Preston Reed Rico I'm sorry [Music] we should not be up here today fighting for the basic rights of students of USD 453 or anyone of that matter how different are you who sorry
160how different are you from those who supported the hatred in the years of segregation in the United States of America how different are you from supporting the hate that you prop up in this school district that you allow in this environment that is supposed to nurture that is supposed to be an environment of learning as an agent as an educator I do not have the time nor am I paid enough to entertain such stupid and puny ideas from conservatives that I am pushing in an agenda that I am pushing as an LGBT lgbtqia or trans agenda I only have one agenda to support the students in every classroom as much as I can to help little kidney or little Samantha in their math and and their reading that is what I am here to do
161this is my second time coming before this board about so-called topics about culture wars first it was about banning books and now students because they are simply human and want to support love when will Pat Proctor Vanessa Reed and the other conservatives vile homophobic sorry Mr bigoted-minded and human people members of the board stop will they stop us because they choose to Laughlin because they chose hate and not love and with that I can see the rest of my time just want to remind everyone please no names Ashley Johnson hello everyone my name is Ashley Johnson and my son is a fifth grade student at Leavenworth School District I live in living with Kansas it has been Brock's parents attention that our local state representative has partnered up with a member of this board to
162promote and push their political and religious ideologies into our schools it is important that I preface what I'm about to say by disclosing that I do not side with democrat or republican I just support right from wrong and Common Sense similar to the code of conduct this board is supposed to abide by after the last board meeting and witnessing State our State Rep and one board member not only refuse to take ownership of their actions but lie about their involvement I felt responsible as a parent to step forward to shed some light as to how my son has learned about the lgbtq plus community so how does my son know what gay is spoiler alert it's not school I told him I am 29 and my son is just now uh my son is now
163nine years old both of us have grown up with the LBT lb lgbtq plus Community just being as normal as a traditional couple we sometimes watch TV shows that showcase a gay couple we see women hold hands when we go shopping it's on social media it's on billboards and it's even within our own family while my son has subconsciously known about lgbtq couples it wasn't until this year when we drove past the house with a pride flag that the conversation happened my Curious child asked what country that flag was for that's when I explained to him that I didn't rep it didn't represent a country that years ago people would exclude and Bully others just because they fell in love with another person who was the same gender as them so they had to come
164together as a group to support one another and fight for basic human rights with their allies I believe most parents could agree that our kids learn a lot of things outside of school and even when they enter school we cannot control what information other kids learn and choose to share with ours uh one day my son learned about Santa Claus uh school and my first thought was not to accuse the teachers of disclosing that information to him speaking of teachers if we have a problem retaining our Educators then members of this board should stop accusing our educators of uh indoctrination just to help your buddy push his political agenda that he piggybacked off of other state politicians neither one of you thought your actions of your actions consequences including any hate or possible danger that
165you'll be creating towards an innocent librarian or a child and the librarian and child don't have the same the same um luxury of having police officers escort them around so lastly if the first thing that comes to your mind when 15 seconds or my 10 year old niece draws a pride flag is that her artwork is sexually suggested then you're a pedophile thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you Mac Allen [Music] hello my name is Mac Allen I live on Fort Leavenworth and I currently attend Leavenworth High School tonight many people I am I've decided to speak tonight to tell you what I am not I'm not a religion I'm not a mob I'm not deranged not a political figure not a child sexualizer not pornographic material not a pawn in a political game I'm not
166something to be fixed or barred from school life I am a child nothing could have prepared me for what would be said at this meeting the use of my friend's Life as a testament to bigotry suicide should never be used to spread such hate as we've seen today 13 bills 13 anti-terrains and anti-lgbt bills have been introduced in the state of Kansas some of these bills have been passed by a republican super majority it is morally wrong to allow political figures into our schools my schools parents should parents should be involved in their children's learning politicians should not there have been talks about micromanagement within the board and what board members can and cannot do as a student I am not bullying you children's privacy is at risk when unapproved visits happen by board members
167and or other individuals a specific board member did attempt to contact me and make an informal meeting should adults be allowed to contact school counselors to set up informal meetings with children overall I please be respectful when I'm speaking thank you overall I will not be a race we will not be erased and I will not stand for the hatred and bigotry shown by members of this board and the Leavenworth community students should not be subjected to fascism by this school board Rainbows are not sexual material thanks [Applause] Brandy Bond good evening my name is Brandi Bond I live in Leavenworth Kansas and I work at David Brewer Elementary School in regards to future board member visits no one is saying that board members can't come in we are saying that apparently there needs to
168be stronger guidelines to these visits board members coming in should not be disruptive and manipulate their visit to fit their political narrative if there are photos that visiting board members want to take then it should be taken by someone from our PR team within the district for use by the district within the guidelines of the permission slip signed by parents every year during enrollment as pointed out this evening anything displayed should cover all sides just exactly as the library assignment did this assignment showed all students are welcome in the library in regards to purchasing of Library materials I hope that the board works hand in hand with the District Library staff to create purchasing guidelines our Librarians have the training and degrees when it comes to collection development and they would welcome conversations with you
169to be part of that process thank you Dr Roth for supporting our staff and our students and protecting us thank you Brian Stevens hi uh Brian Stevens I live here in Leavenworth Kansas um first I I have to say like and I talked to you beforehand um you know this is the you of our district right here whether you agree with that student's position or not it was well put together it was well researched it was well safe right oh he's asking for is to participate in jrtc and wear a uniform that's associated with who he is as a person that's not too much to ask that's a student that wants to be connected to our community and we're standing in the way because of what a religious belief because you you don't agree is
170that where we want to be as a as a society you know we we talked about the uh in the previous speaker talked about the uh board members showing up at the school I conduct Health Care inspections for a living we do unannounced and we do announce we never go in without a plan if you want to go into a school have a plan if you find something objectionable bring it in for public inspection we heard all summer about these books that were banned from the from the library but there was no public inspection I don't remember any of that being brought here and talked about the decision making process what was objectionable what was used to define what was objectionable we don't have we don't have a plan so is it just words I
171mean I came to this board and uh said hey we have a we have a street issue by my school by Henry Leavenworth by my home right you all remember that used to be a Hot Topic right now it's now it's nothing but we we work together as a community on solutions that actually work and there are some board members that even saw that it wasn't just words for me I was out there Counting Cars and seeing what I could do to help the situation too but I asked some of the people that have stood up here have you been inside one of the schools here have you have you talked to any teachers I know there are teachers in here because I've talked to them and I think somebody I think you already left
172if they're part of some woke agenda I I they've got more time than they're letting on because the teachers and the Educators that I know in this District that I graduated from that my kids my kid graduated from and I have a freshman in 15 seconds remaining I know those teachers come to work and we should appreciate their behaviors not without evidence accuse them of being some part of some narrative thank you Derek Robinette thank you for giving me a few minutes to get up here and address the board uh first off uh you know we talked about some uh dude tonight about protecting kids um and I think that goes uh along with protecting them despite what their parents or their kids may want or prefer or think is appropriate so I got a
173question for you is what your uh exposing the kids to having a positive moral or ethical influence or not another comment I'd like to make is uh truth is not objective contrary to what uh some in our community or Society uh May believe or think today this board is charged with oversight and of the schools and its employees so I think unfettered access you know should be allowed with 48-hour notice or whatever kind of like you had had discussion primary purpose of Education of our schools is to not focus on on social or culture or platform you know it's not to serve as a platform for culture of social issues should be focused on Reading Writing arithmetic U.S government social studies all of those things that's going to set that kid up for Success okay
174provide them with the knowledge necessary to be productive members of society jobs pay taxes Community involvement things like that to me parents have the responsibility of discussing social and cultural is issues that's been discussed here today not the school um and not on school time and I don't want my taxpayers being used for that so introducing any sexually explicit material is not education to me but perverse okay additionally I'd like to recommend the board required notification prior to the display of offensive material prior to posting it or using it in the classroom and it doesn't seem like that process that's in place now is is successful I'd also make a comment uh the process should not include just one individual as a decision maker when you have controversial stuff like that because you're going to
175have one person that's on one side of it and another person on another side so if you have some sort of checks and balances there I think that's a better than just leading up to one person right because that puts a lot of responsibility on the teacher and everything else lastly Dr Roth you stated uh you would always err on the side of the school and the students and um Mr Robinette your time is up uh what is uh culturally popular my bad sorry Eric Price my name is Eric Price I'm a resident of Leavenworth City and I have a junior in Leavenworth High School it is sad that we have a local politician making political hay at the expense of our students aided and abetted by a member of this board our families our
176students our staff we're getting kind of tired of it don't get me wrong folks in this community can live with differences of opinion differences in moral Frameworks and differences in political stances we've been doing that as a community for nearly 200 years but it is not political disagreement that is driving for some to call for the resignation of this board member it is distrust it is certainly possible that this board member believes the things that she says and she thinks she's doing something good and it is fair for her to hold her personal moral beliefs regarding queerness and other issues that means that she may take issue with be that as it may she's either grossly uninformed or complicit in the political Shenanigans of our local representative she is certainly uninformed if she thinks that
177CRT and grooming and indoctrination is happening in our schools because it is not if she is listening to our State Rep then she isn't even getting the facts facts that are readily available to her as a board member and as a parent in the district those facts are not necessarily available to Mr Proctor whose understanding of what goes in our schools is limited to Manufactured outrage and talking points from the Heritage Foundation and the Kansas policy Institute it seems far more likely that she is simply complicit after escorting that politician through one of our schools this board member made no effort to correct the mischaracterization made of the library display she could have easily refuted Proctor's statements his lies right here in this building or through the media and she did not in using her
178official position on the board to bring her political mentor to the school in a pathetic attempt to gather dirt on our staff and faculty at the expense of our students she is putting politics over the needs and interests of our schools and Families the threats received by our schools and students since make clear that she is failing to live up to her obligation to all of the families in USD 453 regardless of their politics or sexuality it is interesting that someone who opposes teaching some portions of American History because it might make non-minority kids feel bad about themselves has no problem 15 seconds remaining and facilitating political prosecution that makes gay and trans kids feel about about themselves you're not here to judge our kids you're not here to Target our kids or to facilitate
179targeting by other people thank you [Applause] foreign PJ Wells good evening members of the board Dr Rhodes and community members my name is PJ Wells and I'm a sophomore at Leavenworth High School I would like to take a moment to give a student perspective on current issues at hand as someone in the high school who is older and able to give a voice to those not able to represent themselves at this meeting tonight or those who do not feel comfortable enough to stick in front of their representative board while I appreciate the support given to me and some of my peers I find it absolutely disgusting that my school and district has become a field for community members and those in power positions within the district to voice and support the political and religious beliefs
180it's discussing that there's only support or attacks when an issue affects a Community member and not the student it completely confuses me why so many community members who don't have any involvement within our schools get so involved when their own views are challenged my school district is a place for for the promotion of Education in support of all students within the schools not leaving room for attacking any student there's no reason any student from any background should be attacked by community members I'm not here to support any group that may be present I'm just here to show the student effective attacking those that may not have a background you support is not okay in an all-inclusive space that has a single goal of promoting Student Success and well-being thank you for your time and good
181evening Jeff Pittman I only get three minutes three minutes well first off my name is Senator Jeff Pittman I'm Senator here in Leavenworth Fort Leavenworth I want to thank each and one of you for public service obviously it's a difficult job I think each and every one of you and our community members expressing your different viewpoints I do stand against somebody being targeted student being targeted in our schools I did hear before somebody had accused me of supporting something called over sexualization so I'm here today say there's nothing further from the truth I don't even know what that means really in fact my colleagues like Senator holster and I fought hard for years passing a bill that extends our current very limiting statute of limitations on the very limited uh sexual assault bill that we
182have out there or laws that we have out there it was being blocked by the majority to protect protect a certain religious organizations priests and we were able to uh extend that out and help those kids that had been assaulted in the past and had been denied Justice secondly I've supported through and through public education for our kids no matter their zip code no matter their gender their gender identity no matter their financial backgrounds or their ethnicity every kid deserves to reach their god-given potential and who are we to stand in the way of that thirdly what I'm hearing here is a lot of divisiveness we are a diverse community and yet we have teachers here doing their very best and yet they feel that they're under attack across the state including in this District
183we have kids I just attended a suicide vigil the other night and they're doing that across the state at an alarming rate we need to make sure that we aren't just reacting to the rhetoric of a very vocal View and not addressing the issues at hand we have kids that are launching into the global Workforce with it and they need to understand the diversity that they're they're walking into and I know that we all here think that we are working on the behalf of the students best interests at heart but I caution you not to just be reactive we have a tendency to lash back at change to lash back at things that are different than we know or what we grew up with I understand that but we need to be cautious of broadbands
184of overreacting with policies that don't take into account the intricacies of that of the issue that we're dealing with I'll finally say this we can work together we can have Grace with one another we can apologize when we might have offended and didn't mean to we can recognize differences and we can choose solutions to move forward with solutions that can include everyone and we can push it back against divisiveness I'll just ask that we all remember that we are a great Community 15 seconds remaining we are a great community and we are worth it thank you [Applause] Josh winter hi my name is Josh winter I have five students in the Leavenworth School District from first grader up to a senior and I just want to say I'm really thankful for the Leavenworth School District
185you know I've had kids in David Brewer and Henry Leavenworth and intermediate the middle school and the high school and every received really good service from all the staff there I'm really thankful for kindergarten teachers the first grade teachers you know that we have that we have had so so let me get that out of the way I always love to to talk about how thankful I am for the the teachers that have taught my kids um you know in regards to the current situation like you know the whole thing's really regrettable I just want to say um I haven't seen anything that you know in my opinion calls for a resignation of anybody I support just to try and stay appropriately generic I support all of you know you school board members that serve
186my family to represent your constituents you know to the best of your ability to the best of your conscience and you know I appreciate the time you guys put in this is the first meeting I've came to just seeing what goes on I can't believe um people have time for this you know and that you take time out of your otherwise busy lives to to serve my family I'm really thankful for that and I'm thankful for all of you guys that are here doing what you believe is best for the kids what I would like to see from the school board that you know represents my children is that you know work together in a civil manner I get really frustrated when I'm interrupted and frustrated for each of you as I've seen you know
187probably be interrupted by others tonight I'd like to see you know my school board interact in a little more civil way and continue to come to more meetings that's what I'd like to see and thank you all for your service to the community my family [Applause] storm Savage good evening everyone good evening members of the board community my name is Storm Savage we've been in this community for almost two decades had children that have gone not only from elementary on the fort to the community and now even within the state so I have seen this community and where it has been where it is and where we hope it's going to and what I'd like to ask especially the board is to please keep in mind what is the purpose of education and we're talking
188public education elementary middle school high school we can debate College forever you know but along with taxpayer dollars Community participation and especially oversight it is to be a productive and contributing member of the society otherwise our society fails on all grounds how important is that with the basics that I hope all can agree with is reading and writing arithmetic without that how does a student become not only a contributor to society but to be able to get a job to be able to go ahead and help others but more importantly along with that is ethics morality and values these values these morals these ethics that contribute to that Society are given by and dictated by God for these virtues these incredible required virtues they're not open to debate they're that important not only to us
189but they are issued by our sustainer and Our Redeemer our creator and to deny this is to deny the real truth and that truth does not come hiding in the dark that truth is in the light and it's Jesus Christ that not only means acceptance but that also means following what is given by God and how we should act what it dictates and especially the morality and ethics and the first failure starts with sexualization and sexuality and if it is not at an age-appropriate level not my life but it's given by God then we're and that's where this board is charged with ensuring that those virtues are maintained the education is given and that the rules are obeyed to Conformity as I said we can argue 15 seconds remaining and that's what I ask and
190please require and I'm required to compelled to ask Mr Savage your time is up to remember and maintain thank you so much for your time foreign [Applause] moving on to item 16 3 is board member comments Miss Reed okay here we go um so I want to respond to some things and I I was shocked by some and greatly saddened by some of the um follow-up comments here at the end I'm going to start with Mr Pittman I have known Mr Pittman for several years um I believe to have a great working relationship with Mr Pittman in fact I just worked with him this last week in into his benefit with my own party but if he doesn't know whatever sexualization of our students means I will make sure to help him understand that I
191once again repeat that no child was targeted and I had bipartisan support when I ran for school board and it is not my fault that certain people that don't believe with our schools having standards like protecting girls Sports May therefore distance themselves and come in disagreement with me that's all I have to say on that Mr Price kpi and Heritage Foundation awesome resources um however I took issue with the fact that he said we had bad intentions when we visited that's a flat out lie this was not Mr Procter and I's first visit um the intentions of our visit can be seen in donations and this is not the first time we visited a school if we had bad intentions then that would come from everything we did which is not the case there was
192simply that we were smacked in the face with sadness on our way out the door to the student Mac I am glad I am here tonight to hear you in person I am going to apologize to your face that I wasn't here last month that I was home sick with strep our first Contact as you know was from you emailing me through the district office facilitating that and I just wanted to clear that up I felt that message was a little bit confusing in your statements and I once again would have to agree with Brian Stevens who I did meet for coffee when I was campaigning because if anybody knows me at all they know I love meeting with both sides of the issues of everything with anybody and I think everybody should do that
193and so Mr Stevens and I agree on the fact that Mac is in my opinion amazing young individual and I think you have great things in your picture I think that's it on those kind of things so I'm going to get into my prepared a bit okay thank you to The District staff members and Leavenworth families who have worked on building positive relationships with me for over the last 16 months in January representative Proctor and I had a great visit to David Brewer however there are individuals in this district and some fellow board members who have proven their own professionalism they will go to extremes to silence people who do not fully agree with them on issues including the over sexualization of students as young as six at David Brewer these individuals have proven that
194they want to hide their agenda from the public including the taxpayers who pay for public schools a board member should not have to ask for permission to visit a school any policy regarding board members visiting schools should Grant board members access to any part of the district at their individual discretion period as board members we must be able to focus on what's important are the students Workforce ready can they go to college without having to take any remedial coursework are they excelling above Kansas State Standards to be competitive at every grade level in the nation thank you to all those who prayed for me and have stood by me during this time of Senseless attacks our community deserves better our great staff deserve better but most importantly our children deserve better I campaigned and was
195elected to improve this failing District by bringing me to change I am extremely thankful for the progress I have achieved during my time on this board and I thank God for every monthly success thank you to everyone that came out tonight in support of what is truly best for the students Mr Goodman uh I'd like to thank Community for coming out um I wish we could get participation of this magnitude maybe not for the same issues uh that we do tonight um I I do want to address some of the uh accusations that there's no indoctrination being done in our schools uh there is Across the Nation numerous news articles of children being forced to stand up in class and labeling them as oppressors for being white male and Christian uh there's a Manhattan School
196teaching white students as young as six they were born racist should feel guilty benefiting from right privilege while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers they are literally segregating children and indoctrinated them in these schools Manhattan I've got the article if you want to see it um I'm going to tell you my own personal uh my children were taught the 1619 project which as some of you know is indoctrination it is a false retelling of history and Hues nothing close to the truth it is not part of our curriculum yet it was taught to my children and I had to go in and deprogram them from the errors that are in this project so I don't want to hear anything about there's no CRT in our schools this happened and there's no denying it
197you know you can shake your heads all you want guys but it happened it happened to my child and and what so it's wrong is what it is it's a false retelling of History it's trying to paint our country as a racist country it was not founded on racism and so this is what we're here for guys this is why we put these policies in place if you keep stuff like that from happening now I want the truth taught in our schools not indoctrination not political leanings coming from far away places so that's why we're here right now that's why you all are here because we're having a big tiffle in the country about politics and I don't want it in our schools I don't want it brought to our schools I don't want white
198kids in our schools I don't want black kids in our schools I don't want Hispanic kids in our schools I want Americans one people okay is that so much to ask that we put aside some petty differences and come together and find common ground Unity is our strength coming together not dividing us along intersectional lines and then pitting those intersections against each other that's all I have right thank you Ms Murphy so we get preached a lot about culture on this board and in this District there was somebody targeted because of a comment about blue eyes to have a preference for blue eyes is no more racist or anything else than having a preference for vanilla ice cream or chocolate and as somebody who is of color who has various religions in my home I'm
199appalled that everybody wanted to Target over that aspect when I asked for a sprinkling of humility and yes I asked for a sprinkling of humility I was given a tirade about how it's fine for white men to have humility but not women or people of color of which I am a woman and I am of color and I've left that alone long enough so we all can do better all of us so while we're doing better I'm going to remind people for the classroom the hallway students administrators teachers that this district is opposed to bullying bullying is aggressive behavior verbal assaults provocative language intended to force you to do something you may not want to do or guilt you because you've done something including shaming sarcasm criticizing name-calling I've heard of plethora of name-calling in
200this room a plethora people putting down other people's religion people putting down other people just because just because that's wrong on all your standpoints demanding raging and threatening into some classrooms this has become a um frequent pattern of behavior and it's only by a few but that's all it takes maybe you remember the old analogy it only takes one rotten apple but it will rot the rest of that Barrel so start looking at yourselves before you come and start pointing your fingers because our kids see this every day and we don't know what all our kids see at home every day and there are many of us who have had our own battles and struggles but then when you sat there and do this in the classroom on top of everything else you don't know
201what you could cause a catalyst for anyone not your co-worker not just your child anyone and we have got to do a better job on bereavement it was a little delayed this time and my heart goes out to the family I cannot even imagine having to deal with loss like that as anyone should never have to deal with the loss of a child so stop pointing your fingers and remember if you do Point your fingers while you're pointing like this you got all these right here back at yourself so stop breathe take a moment and think because it's not just about your feelings the facts are there are more than just yours or mine and setting the example in the high standard means of doing that education and not setting they're trying to bring your
202political viewpoints or anything else into the classroom just because you may not agree with another particular person who doesn't even set on this board I hear so many times this person did this this person did this this person's not on this board yeah you need to take that up with the legislator you need to take that up with elections you need to take it up with them they are not on this board and by the way I'm not defending anything that happened one way or another the point is they're not on this board so to rant at this board constantly for somebody not at the board is really kind of non-productive we have great things in this District and I'm going to say one of the best things besides our Educators and the staff is
203the fact that we do have students and I am getting very saddened every day that I have groups of parents showing up at my job telling me they wish they had never brought their student into Leavenworth that they had kept them at Lansing or wherever they were before we're not bleeding students just for the reasons that you think they are you may think you're on the righteous side over here on the left or the righteous side over here at the right it is evenly divided where people are leaving for both reasons so why not just stop the commentary now and focus on educating the children with the needs that they have to get to where they need to go when they graduate and until the adults in the room start doing that these kids are
204going to continue to suffer on a daily basis now take a deep breath and say I'm thankful that I've been here for almost 22 years I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon I'm thankful that my child has gotten to go to this District the four years that she has I'm thankful she had the experiences she had on the fort I'm thankful that my granddaughter gets to go to Lawson and says it's the best place that she's ever been it's the best school she's ever been to I want to hear words like that coming from every child I don't want to keep having kids coming to tell me I can't wait to graduate and get out of here you don't know how bad it is and those discussions will go with Dr Rose but I think
205a lot of people need to reflect on some things that have happened and consider doing things better thank you that's right Mr Kearney I'm gonna stand up because I really appreciate what John said but the conclusion you named off the Hispanics and everything else he left out gay and I think part of this group a big part of this group is here because of that type of an issue I have a son who gay there is gay and he's he's a smart kid he's very intelligent and he doesn't invest to not talk about people and he's working on that the office to do things to help this planet survive so should he be admonished because he's gay I think some people might be he should be but that's that's just ignorance so uh I don't
206know I don't know it really stabbed me that people can't understand if you had if you had a gay child would you disown it because you're thriving and it was tough when my son came out oh Mr Macho Man my whole life it kind of took me about the product but I still love you you graduated from high school there and very successful but he does not want to be in Kansas because of the stupid-ass law they're trying to path about kids yeah that's that's the reason I bash Proctor the Mainstay of the devils I read my case I hereby include gay kids in my amended speech including any intersectional kids that need to be included in my statement as well I hereby include gay kids and any other kids I don't want okay Division
207I want Unity I started the first gay club I think that's all and uh it's remarkable how many kids were in there so they're human beings just like all of it we're all human beings Nobody's Perfect as Wells so um I want to say that my heart goes out to all of our students staff family and community members that continue to feel the loss of our students from this Earth for various reasons I am grateful to the administration at the high school for offering grief counseling when it's necessary I think adding the grief support group is a great idea we should have done it a long time ago um grief is hard and it's going to come and do we know how long we're going to continue to offer services that are necessary kids need
208to do is sleep with their counselors but as far as extra counselors coming in we don't have those unless it's needed in the numbers up to this point have that as far as students seeing counselors all right now school is a place to learn the basics I get that Reading Writing and arithmetic we've heard it over and over and over and over it's our duty to make sure that each student has an equitable opportunity to learn that looks different for every single student four years ago our district was making great strides into making those individualized education plans digging down to find out what each student needs that is being ripped away and it's going fast yeah we need to be able to teach the whole child the child can't learn if they're not ready to
209learn so you can keep throwing raisins at them but if they don't like raisins they're not going to eat it you got to figure out what part of the trail mix they get into is it the M Ms is it the Cheerios that's what our teachers are great at we have to allow our talented teachers the ability to make a valuable connections so that they know how and what each certain student needs to learn feel the systems changing to ensure that our students fail we're trying to prove some points and our kids in the future of our community is at stake and it sucks we have to stop let our teachers teach let them Inspire let them help us as parents build the future of critical thinkers that's all I'm going to say about that
210I do want to say thanks to the generous gift donations that we've had this month I thought Miss Murphy was going to do that special thank you to the alumni class of 1964. I don't I don't remember I'm sure there's probably been other classes 64 you guys have my heart now thank you for making sure that you um I'm not sure who's who sponsored that or if it was just left over from your alumni fund but it's noticed it's it's appreciated and it will go to Great use for our staff um I do have to regret I'm not able to be at the retiree um celebration this year I look forward to that I am grateful to our staff for the years that they dedicate to us not only our classroom teachers but our maintenance
211staff our cafeteria workers everybody that is choosing to leave the district I really hope that it is because you're just ready to leave and not because you feel like you have to leave because of the state of the district um I won't be there it doesn't mean that I don't love and appreciate every single one of you so thank you very much um that's all I have tonight Mr Paul I don't think anybody would argue that it hasn't been a challenging time for our district for the past six months between student losses and trying to deal with that and other things but I also because there was a lot of dialogue I hope everybody appreciates that there's probably no other country in the world that you can have a dialogue with so disparate in some
212cases differences of opinion so I hope we appreciate that if nothing else what you said didn't take away tonight is the opportunity to explore alternative options with the people that you live with every day so I I say that and then to say that I appreciate everybody's comments here whatever your perspective was I mean it's an amazing thing that I think our students should know that this is democracy and it's it's best the things we're shooting for might be very divisive but it still is like I said the only place in the planet that I know that we can have this kind of a conversation and I want to I want to go back to what started this this board with and that is a our bowling team and our other team because it's about
213the students and I hope that in all this discussion what the discussion was important that at the end of our discussions and the end of where we stood it's what is best for all of our students and I think that's important so we need to leave on the note that we've got some great students out there and we're doing some good things in this district with those students and those two teams are great examples um and I'll just leave it at that I ask everyone to take a deep breath and let it out let out your animosity whatever it may be a civil human being that's all we ask we ask it of our kids every day behave be good chair do the same model of what you want you want a better community be
214the good human be that good community don't rile up folks just to be riling them up and I'll get off my soapbox now recognitions I know we brought that up earlier and I brought that up tonight that's one of my favorite things that happens when we come to board meetings this is that countdown to graduation where all kinds of recognitions are happening academic scholarships signings student athletes ROTC signings whatever may may be every day we've got teachers Perez admin they come in every day to do their best to make your kids the best versions of themselves what else can we ask it's a hard job I love every single one of our teachers our admin our staff because of what you do for our kids to make them as good as they are as good
215as they can be as good as they want to be so think about that for yourselves how good do you want to be I hope you'll all be good humans take everything as what's appropriate keep it in context remember why are we here I know I tell people across the state and across well now the nation or you go to a state conference National Conference they ask me how many kids have I got I got five personally but I'm really here for the 3600 plus that are in this district and they matter every single one of them and we wouldn't be here without them so I ask you all to be better versions of yourselves be a good human and be a good pioneer and it's 10 10. foreign