001good evening it is Monday 6 March 2023 this is a regularly scheduled meeting of the board of education for USD 453 this time we'll do roll call Mr Carney here Mr Goodman here Ms Murphy here Mr Powell here Ms Wells here and for Ms Reed she is on Zoom however Mr Potter is sitting in her place because she is sending Communications to him if for some reason we lose Communications Mr Potter will leave the board desks and I am Judy price this time please stand pledge allegiance of the United States all right Dr oath District mission statement yes it's to prepare every student for success in every classroom every day all right thank you item 1.4 adoption of the agenda I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda as it's been presented to
002us second foreign we have a motion by Ms Murphy a second by Mr Goodman to accept the agenda as presented all of those in favor and Ms Reed nothing to report yet six one six one because she's the absences hello no all right item two consideration of the 2021-2022 financial audit report as miss Lynn appreciate a few moments of your agenda tonight to convey to you the results of the audit I believe you have two documents related to the audit one is the financial statement the other one is titled report to the Board of Education in that document are the results of the audit and I want to spend just a few moments to go through those results with you first our responsibility after you hire us to perform the audit is to perform that
003audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards those standards require that we plan plan and perform the audit with the objective of forming an opinion about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement so we design our audit with that objective in mind we were able to issue unmodified opinion on the financial statement which which is the highest form of opinion that can be given to a set of financial statements these financial statements are on the regulatory basis uh the regulatory basis is a basis of accounting which is other than generally accepted accounting principles but the state of Kansas does allow you to adopt that in adopted instead of the generally accepted accounting principles which you do at your first meeting of the year I believe right after the first of July we also
004perform the audit in accordance with government auditing standards which is issued by the Comptroller General of the United States the provisions of the single audit act uniform guidance and omb's compliance supplement all of those are because the district spent approximately nine and a half million dollars of federal money during the year and those standards require us to do some compliance testing and internal control testing of those Federal expenditures the results of those that testing which is internal control and compliance testing of Select programs that you spent money under was that we had no internal control deficiencies to report and no compliance findings that we needed to to report on so again good good conclusions from that test work um the last thing that we perform the audit under is can the Kansas Municipal audit and
005accounting guide uh that guide requires us to perform some test work related to statutory compliance and also some test work on activity funds which are decentralized at the schools and so we performed that test work and again did not identify any findings that we needed to report in that area the the opinion that we issue at the end of the audit which is attached to the financial statements in the other document has the conclusion summarized in in that opinion that's attached this year that opinion takes a new form that it has taken in other years and what I want to do is to point out just a couple of things from that um that new the new wording that we have in that the first thing that we did is we moved the opinion uh
006to the very first paragraph it had previously been farther down in the uh the word the second thing is that there are some bulleted points in this on the second page which do a very good job of highlighting some things that we do during the audit process and I want to take just just a little bit of time to just read through those because I think they are important things for you as a board to understand about the things that we do during the audit process yeah and I'm just going to read them very briefly to you in performing an audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards we exercise professional judgment and maintain professional skepticism throughout the audit we identify and assess the risks of material misstatement to the financial
007statement whether due to fraud or error and design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks we obtain an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances we evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by management as well as evaluate the overall presentation of the financial statements and we conclude whether in our judgment there are any conditions or events that would raise doubt about whether the district could continue to operate for a reasonable period of time which we always use one the one year period to be the period of time that we assess so all of those things we've always done as a part of our audit but it's but we've bulleted them now in
008the opinion and I think it's important for you to understand that those are all things that are as a part of the audit process in addition to the testing of the numbers and the things that we do related to the disclosures and the financial statement pieces of information that are in the financial statements if there were any items in any of those those areas accounting policies estimates you know any of those things that we that I mentioned there that were of concern or weren't consistently applied or were things that we saw that we believed would be important for you as a board to be aware of we would bring those to your attention and we would let you know what those concerns of ours were we did not have anything that we identified during the
009audit that were of concern in any of those areas so nothing that we need to point out to you in any of those those areas we would bring to your attention if we had any audit adjustments that we identified during the audit process and we did not have any of those also if we had any uh difficulties dealing with management or if we had disagreements about any matters related to the audit related to accounting matters auditing matters anything like that we would make sure to let you know about that we had quite the opposite as I'm sure you would expect we we were able to get through the audit process very smoothly because of Miss Maddox and her team very prepared for us provided information for us in a timely manner and we were able
010to receive everything we need we needed and we got through the audit very efficiently so we do appreciate all the hard work um that that the team went through for us and and we appreciate that a couple other things that I want to point out in this report to the Board of Education there is on page two um just an acknowledgment here it's uh type in the section that's called departure from the auditor standard report there is just an acknowledgment here that because of the regulatory basis that that you are using rather than generally accepted accounting principle principles we do have some paragraphs in the opinion that talk about that and so we pointed out in this letter too we do consider that to be an adverse opinion related to generally accepted accounting principles but
011it is unmodified for regulatory so it sounds a little it sounds a little odd when you hear it that way but it is it is the it is normal when you have that that regulatory basis and so we do point that out here to um to make you aware of that the last item is the letter that is on District letterhead that is at the back of this packet these are things that are represented to US during the audit process about the financial statements and about various things related to the audit all of the things that are in this letter are just important pieces related to the financial statements that we believe you as a board should be knowledgeable about as you read through the financial statements so we encourage you to read through this
012letter we hope that it helps you understand the financials as you read through those and helps you with your fiduciary responsibility towards Financial Accounting matters so we encourage you to read through that letter ask us any questions that you might have when you read through that and and to just take some time it's a long letter there's a lot of information in there but but please ask us any questions if you do have any related to that so so the conclusions from the audit are all very positive with an unmodified opinion and no no findings that needed to be reported so I would open for any questions that anyone might have thank you for your work thing okay thanks thank you thank you thank you Take a Bow Man yeah yes thank you do you
013need emotions so the Madam president I move that we accept the audit report as presented for the year 2022 second okay we have a motion to accept the 2021 2022 fiscal year audit report by Mr Powell and a second by Ms Murphy all of those in favor yes is EA yay all right 7-0 thank you great moving on to item three 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 of policy decisions and administrative recommendations specific to the Leavenworth Unified School District we set aside Time Each at 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
014investigate 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 excuse me 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 they which violate the Privacy rights of District employees or students will be asked to terminate their remarks if speakers have concerns specific to an individual student or staff member please make an appointment with the superintendent those concerns will be documented and shared with the board each Patron is reminded they
015have 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 pointed 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 at individual board members but addressed to the board as a whole thank you for taking time to address the business the district business and policies with the board and this evening our first Patron input is Courtney Picard good evening my name is Courtney Rickard 116 Harvard Road Fort Leavenworth Kansas um David Brewer students parent some of you may know me as the David Brewer PTO president your kids cheer coach FRG leader or former Girl Scout leader but today I'm here as
016a concerned and completely disgusted mother of a student attending 11 North School a student that would be the first to offer you help if she saw you in distress even though even knowing about things that have been said and done a sweet girl who would gladly extend a hug or kind word if she sensed you were feeling down a religious girl who chose to get baptized this summer despite her parents being non-believers her courageousness and fierce spirit is something the cowards I am referring to today should be envious of especially for someone who goes into a school solely to locate ammunition for their negative political agenda you would hope and assume after being banned from taking pictures for political gain on Fort Leavenworth this type of behavior would cease after volunteering at the school I
017quickly discovered outstanding political leaders volunteering alongside me including former board president and our current mayor I wondered why certain people never came but now I'm elated that their visits are a rarity then mature behavior of a certain board member is unprofessional to say the least and quite frankly I'm embarrassed who represents us being a board member is supposed to be a partisan physician they're invincible and they know they will never be any repercussions how do we stop this political leaders should not be allowed to take pictures of students artwork artwork they are so proud of it's truly despicable and if my daughter knew she would be devastated with how it was displayed in a negative manner I feel horrified for any student who has to matriculate in USD 453 with our current representative and board
018member in any leadership positions I'm proud of the artwork she made for the young michaelas of the world who have two moms and young Jordan struggling with their gender identity or sexuality her inclusive message could quite literally save lives and is strongly encouraged in our home the loss of a beloved administrator due to attacks from elected officials has left David Brewer in turmoil with behaviors On The Rise and staff turnover at an alarming rate at the end of the day we need to ask ourselves how are we going to stop politicians and board members with negative agendas from going into our schools and from using our students work for their political gain what will be done to protect our children from these predators the representative must be banned from all district grounds he could have
019put the students and staff at risk the Board of Education wants a parent's voices it I demand board members resignation as it is her job to protect our children she's supposed to be serving and for allowing this to happen I grew up in the South raised around the same closed-minded depend opinions displayed we can do better we can change we deserve better and most importantly the students of 453 deserve better thank you Jamie McGee hello I'm Jamie McGee I live at 1005 North 12th Street I have a child that attends David Brewer as well um I'm here today because I saw the horrendous post made by a legislator that was rallied by a specific member of the school board I'm a working tax paying citizen in this school district and I'm angered by the political
020and religious agenda that has brought me here tonight people like representative like that representative certain members of this board think their bigotry affords them the right to censor anyone who doesn't think the way they do but parents and community members like myself will not stand idly by as they try to enforce homophobic misinformed and discriminatory rhetoric hateful words like deep problems because of a student's homework on a rainbow flag places hateful roots in people's minds and hearts politically charged views like this can incite violence and places Targets on innocent people's backs unstable people can see this and may act in unspeakable ways shame on you for putting this family and our students in possible Danger I'm greatly disappointed in certain members of this school board as school board members you should lead by example your
021main priority should be the safety of our children and to improve their academic achievements not attacking students and their teachers not inciting political arguments online your job as school board members should be that of neutrality and Community Support censorship deprives students and teachers the knowledge and confidence to create critical thinking skills and it stifles the important conversations that we must have about our marginalized communities censorship censorship sets a dangerous precedent it breeds intolerance and it has no place here at Davis River the students in the school deserve to learn empathy compassion and understanding we are all now aware that some of you have mislead plans for our children's education and we clearly hear the message that you're sending to our students and to your constituents any superintendent that also wants to represent the school district
022must represent us all equally thank you Randy Bond [Music] good evening my name is Brandi Bond I live at 1315 High Street in Leavenworth I have been a parent in the district for 18 years my youngest son currently attends Leavenworth high school and I have been in a point an employee in the district for the past seven years at the end of January a board member and local politician toured my building David Brewer they came into the library where myself and Deanna brown rice worked and took pictures of the book display we had about people who had persevered in their lives the display tied into our character trait that month perseverance both of these individuals posted about their visit to their respective school board and state representative Facebook pages they posted a picture of the
023book display but to promote their own political agenda they cropped the top of the display and focused on the books in the display books about Cesar Chavez Misty Copeland Ada Lovelace Temple Grandin Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Claudette Colvin to name a few the common Arlo politician made on his Facebook page under this picture was quote still some work to do at David Brewer I think end quote my response to him is you're correct we have more work to do there are more books we need to purchase that show people persevering like our students who come from a myriad of diverse families and with unique experiences while in the library they also took photos of student work that was hanging on the wall the assignment was for third and fourth graders to draw what you would
024want your library to look like seeing what these third and fourth grade students Drew truly made me proud to be a Pioneer these students showed what our character educate that our character education is paying off they drew pictures about being kind about inclusion for all students regardless of their race their different abilities or how they identify in case you haven't seen it on Facebook our local politician posted the picture he took of this artwork in his monthly newsletter and accused my building my work family of indoctrinating students this local politician is attacking our schools what's even more disappointing is one of our very own board members is joining this attack someone who took an oath they are trying to tear down what we have worked so hard to create a safe inclusive space for all
025of our students just exactly what my third and fourth graders so bravely and proudly Drew our schools are not a place for these two individuals to twist things around to suit their political agenda these individuals coming into our buildings pose a risk to our students as a parent of a high school student I am nervous that they could Target my son next because his work may not align with their agenda as school board members it is your responsibility to protect our students and staff you took an oath if you are not going to uphold your oath then you need to step down stop using our district to promote your political agenda thank you thank you Mackenzie Allen foreign good evening my name is Mac Allen and I live on 29 hunt loop I am a
026student at level North High School a study published by PubMed stated that 86 of transgender students have considered committing suicide 56 of these students did attempt to commit suicide this means that transgender students are 7.6 times more likely to turn to Suicide than their peers due to the current political climate in the state of Kansas as well as nationally more transgender students are can are considering suicide than ever before these are students in our district these could be your children if this school board truly cares about our students we must work together to help transgender students feel comfortable and confident in the classroom environment today I will be addressing the school board's current policy concerning transgender JROTC Cadets wear an appearance of the uniform the current Cadet command regulation states that this decision is up
027to the local school district so it is up to you the current school board regulation states that the the uniform must comply with the gender marker in power school this forces Cadets like me to wear a uniform that does not align with my gender identity according to Administration the changing of the general marker in PowerSchool you would have to change your sex on your birth certificate this costs upwards of one hundred dollars and can take months to complete to be completely honest most transgender students do not have months lgbtq students are protected class of citizens under federal law and this policy could be subjected to unnecessary civil rights litigation not only is this policy discriminatory to the under advantaged students of our district due to price like price for changing birth certificate this can also
028cause bullying I have personally been harassed for my gender and I have been told to harm myself because I am transgender the and wearing the incorrect uniform puts an unnecessary Target on my back as a student at the high school as a reputable Cadet in the jrtc program I believe that students deserve better in terms of accepting uniform policies this I can tell is going to be a long night for the school board and for the community but remember please remember one thing for the welfare and protection of our students we must motion to amend this policy transgender students you have 15 seconds remaining transgender students their families and teachers are all across the entire District are all counting on it thank you all right moving on to item four consent agenda for any withdrawals
029of the consent agenda and president I move to accept the agenda the consent agenda as presented second [Music] all right Emotion by Mr Powell second by Ms Murphy to accept the concerned consent agenda as presented all of those in favor okay 7-0 thank you all right item six building report Mr Bennett oh Mr nanick who's your friend okay on a stick okay I'll talk about why he's here as I go through my presentation all right thank you good evening okay uh families community members and even students thank you for all being here tonight I appreciate what you all do for our community and for our schools uh High School is a big place and I couldn't do it alone so I want to introduce my adventure team I didn't want to have them all be
030here tonight so I put their names and kind of their faces uh on the previous evening Stacy Cole Kim Knight and Theresa Carroll um are the three ladies pictured in the top picture and then the bottom Mr Koontz Brendan Olsen and myself were in that picture those pictures were from homecoming we had triple A day so as you try to have a little fun with kids too so we dressed up three of us were on the gray shirts with the black shirts to see who wore better let's have a little fun with kids too but at the bottom Katie Edwards is our public relations at the high school for secondary schools and then I have to throw a shout out to Daquan Walton who's my Administrative Assistant I included her on my team and she
031really is a rock for me does a ton of work behind the scenes and I'm sure if you've ever called the high school you've probably spoken to her at some point as well so she's a phenomenal asset for me at the high school I want to talk about some celebrations before I really kind of get into the meat of this presentation um some of these things maybe you all are aware of um maybe some of them you are not Bush cross country team in the fall the entire team qualified for State uh in our football season uh we had several games where we were within one possession of having a very very successful season and a completely different record than where we ended but had a great season nonetheless and Eddie McLaughlin uh was the
032offensive player of the year in our conference which is Quite a feat because we've got some really really good schools in our conference Sam Curtis just recently was named as the greater Kansas City football coaches association scholar athlete we have not had one of those in at least eight years um he is going to be getting a scholarship and invited to a banquet I believe next month but that's a pretty good feat um for our football program but for him as a young man as well obviously you probably know JROTC the Raider team this past fall won nationals again that's three national championships here in about five six years so they continue to do great things for sergeant cocktail and Coach Schwartz do a final job push those kids to their maximum potential every year
033we had three young ladies that were All State Choir selections Alex Crum Sydney Eakin and Deja Renault two of those are returning from last year's Allstate and made Allstate again this year uh National Segway there for Deja for those of you that follow the voice they show us our own um Leavenworth Community representative that was on The Voice and went several weeks on The Voice she represented herself very well our level of high school community and our entire Community very well our girls wrestling team just a couple weekends ago finished fifth place overall at State we had two state champions and we had one also there was a medalist as well uh Hannah Jackson and Avery Johnson were both state champions and a name that some of you know Jackie Goodman plays six he unfortunately
034had a back injury so kind of had to default in her last match but I think she probably would have been fifth but unfortunate with the injury had a default so very good success for them Hannah Jackson actually as our first female wrestler to have a 100 plus career wins so that's a big feat if you follow wrestling all um she actually started a couple of years ago when covet happened so she had a limited season didn't get to wrestle the number of matches where you would normally get so in that shortened season just still have 100 plus in her career it's phenomenal she will be wrestling signed at Auto University so she will be a college student athlete for us as well our girls bowling team here's a couple of this though entire team
035qualify for state and about a week ago we got news that Elizabeth Howell earned a one rating at the state piano Festival so there's just a few of the many great things I could probably have 10 slides honestly about all the different celebrations that we have um from the fall until now but I try to limit it down there just to give you a good variety of a lot of the great things happening at LeBron high school a little over a year ago and kind of in my vision of where do we want to go at level high school we're coming out of covert where do we want to get to and what is our Focus to get there so at Leavenworth High School this is our Focus we focus on Three A's attendance attitude
036and academics We Believe those three components right there are going to make young ladies and young men successful adults all right um you see that posted throughout the building we remind students daily that that is our focus and that's what we have to try to get better at every single day so with that we get into some of the data I'm a foreign math teacher so Dave is one of those things I love to study Trends I love to try to figure out what the data what is the data telling us how do we get better from the data or what have we done wrong to try to fix from that data um so we're going to go over several slides here of data this is from the cap assessments Kansas Assessment program so our
037state assessments every single year for our sophomores and our Juniors this is data from last school year we got it towards the end of last year in the summer our language arts department as you can see the green and the navy blue are school and District so that is grade 10 so that's going to match on every one of those and then the light blue line at the bottom is the state average I was super super proud of my language arts staff as well as my entire staff our language arts department exceeded the state Source last year so first time we've done that since pre-covered and we have finally kind of read about it and closed some of those gaps narrow those gaps and we have our kids achieving at a higher rate than where
038they're at against the state super proud of our staff of what they've done there our math department as you I don't know if you can see it or not but they are slightly behind the state average but we've made positive ground okay we're four points right now behind the state but a year prior to we were eight points behind the state and I want you to keep in mind we've done that with a short staff we've had an open math teaching position for over a year that we have not been able to feel so to have short one staff member increase class sizes and you're still approaching that state standard to me is great work grade 11 is our science course at the bottom and those are consistent with the state average so we're doing
039a great job as far as the state assessments are concerned with our building data next couple of slides is our fast bridge data what is fast bridge that is our district assessment tool so we do that in the fall we do have no winner then we do that in the spring and one of the things we like to look at is how are kids improving over time so in doing that you got to try to compare apples to apples so that's why this is the data by cohort group what I mean by cohort group we took last year's eighth grade class and then we looked at their freshman scores from this fall so we're kind of comparing for the most part that same student group obviously in a Transit Community we're going to get some
040kids that move in some kids that move out we're gonna get maybe some military kids that are here that weren't here last year so we can't compare 200 kids across the board and have the exact same 200 kids but for the vast majority we're comparing Apples to Apples here as you can see from the eighth grade to the ninth grade year plus 12 in that fall assessment those freshmen last year their sophomores this year a one percent gain sophomores that are Juniors now two percent gain and Junior's a senior three percent gain every single grade level folks is increasing we're trying to get better every single day and that's proving we're getting better every day and every year as Dr Rose said earlier we're preparing students every single day that speaks to that and what
041we're doing those classrooms every single day with our kids our language arts data so same cohort groups with our language arts data now seven percent gain two percent gain three percent gain and a one percent gain once again every single cohort group has shown an increase in how they're performing very proud of my staff very proud of the work that they're doing we'll talk about another day to measure that being our Act so there's another one that gets put out there that our kids work at the Kansas average is a 20.4 we're not quite there yet we're getting there last year our average score for the highest was 20.1 that you're proud of that you're 0.6 behind now we're 0.3 we're approaching it we've still got work ahead of us as we know that but
042we're approaching it we're getting better our kids are a product of what we're doing every day in the classroom finally our semester one gpas as you can see as kids kind of growth mature those gpas increase right but as freshmen semester one 2.66 sophomore semester one 2.72 Juniors 2.86 seniors a 3.12 that's a pretty significant average for a senior class it's great work what I would say with all those data points you can see a lot of increases you can see a lot of great gains and in some cases we're above the state average folks we have a phenomenal staff I've got a phenomenal administrative team at the high school I've got a phenomenal staff at the high school and I will tell you that work didn't start in grade nine I'm proud of that
043data and I'm proud to present that data on behalf of everybody in K-8 as well because they were a part of that educational Journey for those kids that didn't start in grade nine they started learning those things years ago in classrooms it's a journey it's a process so all those Educators in those elementaries from the middle schools intermediates I appreciate the great work they're doing with our students to get them High School ready so we can keep taking them and pushing them hopefully a little farther as well so hats off to really our District staff and all of our administrators in the district for the work they've done foreign we talked about the focus so what's the goal right here are the three A's we're focused on why are we focusing on that where do
044we want them to go well here's the goals there's three E's you'll want every single one of our graduates to be employed enlisted or enrolled because after high school that's where they should be getting and working towards us in the Working World right and being citizens so those are our goals let's talk about progress with those goals are we post secondary prepared are we getting kids ready we talk about the data increasing but how are they ready how do we know this is our graduation rate increased three percent last year so from the 21 the 22 group we had a three percent increase in a graduation rate which is significant we had 42 seniors that graduated already at semester this year we had 13 fifth year senior graduates sometimes roadblocks get in the way that
045are sometimes uncontrolled but we don't quit on kids we allow fifth year students to come back and complete if they have the desire to come back and get earned that diploma since the end of May last year until now we've had 13 of those kids actually complete that diploma so they can go on to a trade school of community college or do something else to fulfill their future which is great we've got 118 seniors that are currently on early release for college or career experience what does that mean on early release that means they're on track for graduation and maybe they'll only have two or three classes that they have to have for the graduation requirement so they come to school on a partial Day schedule so the other half of their day maybe they
046can get a job maybe they can do internships maybe they are taking college classes but that's what that means the College and Career experience we've got 118 of them to go along with the 42 semester graduates our students enrolled in PCC that's our Pioneer career center so those are a lot of our trades where they're getting certifications hopefully working towards those things we had 73 enrolled first semester we've got 56 this semester I know that looks kind of why they drop off well go back to what I just said about the number of semester graduates and then those are on early release that are already kind of out working and doing things for college better so that's why that number drops off a little bit in the second semester we had 10 Community internships in
047the first semester in the fall we give our act workkeys assessment we had 45 or 50 students receive their ncrc certificate and that is their National career Readiness certificate is being recognized in jobs and industries 45 of those 50 kids that took that assessment earned a different level with that certificate we just had last week 204 Juniors complete the state funded Act so our junior class is I think 289 students we had 204 of them take that 30 CT last week this next one's huge we started Avid I think six years ago at Leavenworth High School we've really grown this program this Miller started that program years ago and now I'm at coach Schwartz that I've talked about earlier runs that program currently with our seniors in the AVID program we have a total right
048now 459 thousand dollars in scholarship money with those seniors that program is geared towards students that will be first-time College goers 459 thousand dollars is quite a chunk of money we're proud of that program we have a community resource Fair scheduled for March 29th so we have our first fair in the fall it was pretty large attended um this is for looking at vocational Services special education Transitional services different careers and employment opportunities for those students we've expanded this time we're inviting all of our community schools so Lansing Pleasant Ridge Fort Leavenworth not just level classical students but we're trying to do a service for everybody in the community that might need to come and get information so we're looking forward to that as well as far as getting kids post secondary prepared I think
049we're doing a pretty good job but we can always get better that's our goal so talking about sustained focus and how can we improve I go back to Three A's because that is our Focus are we where we want to be yet not what not quite because we haven't met some of those averages we haven't exceeded those average I want to be better than the state in all those categories only better than AC only better than every statistical category that we can but we're making good positive growth towards meeting that goal obviously as we look at internships Partnerships work-based learning experiences is another area for improvement as I said on the last slide we had 10 internships first semester but I think that's something that we can continue to expand on we've got to figure
050out how to make that work with staff but I think we can try to reach out and try to find more Partnerships and more internships for our students to have that work-based experience as we move forward all right so that's where this little guy comes in as I took over his building principles coming off of code but I know the culture coming out of code but everybody had a lot of unknowns about school about communities about in general right a lot of crazy times we work through so how can we improve our culture right as culture wins people who want to come be a part of something that's positive I went and bought this little guy and as as silly as it looks it's become something with our staff that puts a smile on staff
051in our spaces every week our administrative team meets and we talk about who do we believe should earn staff member of the week rights and with that staff member of the week comes a sacred trophy on the stick here little Pioneer Pete so they get to hang on to that in their classroom for the week and kind of brag to their students as to why they got selected as you can see from a lot of those pictures a lot of the smiles it puts Smiles on a lot of faces when they earned that crazy looking little doll that has evolved from a crazable adult as you see there's a lot of different things stuck on it now and and put on the thing now because it seems like every time it comes back from our
052staff member they add some element from what they do I've got a little biology cell on there I've got a novel I've got a course guide from our counselor they all kind of stick something new on there because they want to put their stamp on the dog before it travels to the next location but we truly believe is an adminative of the high school culture wins and we try to have fun with what we do and we try to honor our staff that have truly stepped up and done something more than just the normal they went out of their way to go beyond for our kids because the end of the day it's about our kids it's about our students learning and achieving there's a small sample of some pictures because pictures are worth a
053thousand words right the next series of slides you're going to see kind of why we do what we do is what I call the first one as I talked about earlier we have two state champions and there's coach long in the one image giving Hannah a big hug after she won uh and there's Avery after she just Avenged her only loss on the season and beat the defending stage year prior before she earned her state championship is that to see students achieve success that's why we do what we do to cultivate successful programs there's coach Troyer in our girls bowling team they're Regional Runners up in our entire team qualified for state and look at those miles they earned them we had a coach we had a teacher we had somebody maybe help lead them
054or help try to manage where they're going but at the end of the day they earned that and look at those smiles building relationships as I've talked earlier about the Triple A Day With the admin our staff and our students jump in there I know one of you probably recognize one of those phases as well but our staff building relationships with students in a positive manner you got a couple of kids that want to dress up as their softball coach on triplet day I had to add that one because that was kind of fun for them you got to love it when they want to dress up to be like you right expanding cultural awareness so we have a large number of students that come to us from foreign countries every year whether it be
055because of cgsc or foreign exchange programs these are international students they kind of had a Thanksgiving Shepard kind of expanding that cultural awareness because a lot of times they come to America like I don't understand what is Thanksgiving why is that why do you celebrate that what is significant about them so for them it's expanding their cultural awareness and understanding why we do certain things in our culture but also learning some of their cultures as well because we're a diverse Community we're a diverse School Mr Master took a hundred students in the fall to the ostrich Museum they were doing a unit studying kind of that history part of it so what what's more powerful actually going and seeing that museum so when you can read everything you want to read about it when you
056see things firsthand like I said earlier that picture's worth a thousand words versus maybe just reading about it some kids want to see it how it came to life very powerful for those kids to go see that museum on that day on that field trip once again more than a field trip Our Deck of students went to Washington DC for business trip but mixed in with that strip they went and saw the Library of Congress in Washington DC I can tell you firsthand I I've been here quite a few years I've never gotten to see that some of our kids just got to go experience something that is very historic pretty powerful of those kids it's not just a field trip when they go on these things we're going to providing opportunities like I talked
057earlier with our AVID program this is actually our stole ceremony from last uh last spring before graduation where we present them with their soils for graduation the class of 22 so thank you Miss Schwartz Miller Mrs Smith for their work with that program like I said earlier 459 thousand dollars is where we're at right now we're not done yet because that was literally 409 about two weeks ago so I got my update yesterday I was like holy moly another 50 000 scholarship awarded You Know There's No Business Like Show Business right we've got a great theater program going on uh so thank you to miss bluegay and members of our theater program how to filled that in there because they do a great job put on some great performances if you have not been out
058and seen one of our Productions highly encourage you to come out sometime and see when our kids do a phenomenal job everything we do within that theater we do in-house as well those kids do it all right we don't go buy sets and go buy costumes we build sets in-house we make costumes in-house we're not buying that stuff our kids are making it very powerful program achieving Milestones our Raiders national championship a whole lot of kids and coaches that went out and celebrated you had another National Championship with our Raiders program looking forward to this spring when they go to Daytona Beach and see what they can do but we also had 12 of our students qualify for Nationals that are part of our rifle team as well so awesome program a lot of great
059experiences for them it's not just a high school thing I talked about earlier it's a phenomenal staff in this district and we don't just do it alone at the high school all right we Network out with our other schools as well we went last week and put on a CTE fair at Warren to Showcase before they pre-enroll a lot of the programs we have at the high school so our middle school students kind of know what we have to offer and maybe something that might interest them to get enrolled in as I start looking at that post-secondary preparedness and what program or what career maybe do I want to get into down the road we don't stop there because homecoming week we sent some high school students whether some coaches and Leadership down the elementary
060schools the middle schools also to promote spirit we believe it's important to get back the community service is key we're all Pioneers in this District not just at the high school and we've got to cultivate that we've all got to be pioneers and we're in this together to take these kids from pre-k until they walk across the stage and then graduate and make them the best young men and young women they can be for whatever their future has in store for them well that I'm almost to the end of mine so I got a little goodbye slide here but homecoming parade to thank you Miss longberg who put that all together but that's always a fun time thank you for everybody that comes up and watches that it's awesome downtown community where it belongs and
061it's fun to see our kids involved in that and all the staff members involved that as well as my students here every single day making a great day or not the choice is yours for you all I challenge you with make it a great evening or not the choice is yours thank you all for giving me the opportunity to be here this evening and share some information about the high school and a lot of the great things that we have going on if you have any questions any questions for Mr bennick thank you for reconfirming everything that we try to give praise for every time we meet here thank you that was powerful work Mr Bennett keep it up thank you thank you thank you all right moving on to item seven the 2023-2024 staff
062handbooks this is a first read so if you see anything please let um Amy or we'll let Amy or myself know and we'll uh take into consideration or make whatever changes and get back out to the board when would you like what is this what is the suspense this one uh will be for a final read or approval in the April board meeting so if we could have uh something by that into that first week in April would be but before that first Friday so we could turn around and get it back out all right so first Friday in April and you said to yourself or any correct made me slow okay thank you all right moving on to item eight consideration of crucial conversations this is uh Dr Rebecca Marvel and uh Amy Joe
063Troyer um is presenting this to uh to the board um which we believe will help for retention and recruitment of staff so I'll turn it over to the two of them foreign thank you guys for your time on tonight so one thing that Amy Jo and I have been working on over the past several months is how do we help increase staff retention not only at the certified level but also our classified level um we've done numerous things to try to help one of the big things I'm most proud about with our classified level with repair professionals is that we started a pilot program for our paraprofessionals when they on board so all of our paraprofessionals receive no less than 20 to 25 hours of professional development before they step foot in the classroom hoping
064that they'll feel more comfortable when they come in and it's not just run them in saying good luck um along with that we've noticed a lot of Staff having um one wanting more information wanting more things that they can do to help work with these paraprofessionals helps work with each other um and help create a more collaborative environment and so um one thing that Amy Jo and I believe wholeheartedly in is a program called crucial conversations um it's based on just a book I'll pass that around too um and so what I've passed out to you guys tonight is just a few quotes that some of our staff have provided us so um this time so it's back several years ago I read this book when I was a principal at Third Avenue um some
065of my staff were just really struggling with how do we have those tough conversations with each other about our data about Behavior about getting along with each other about being the family those types of things and so I read this book and then I developed kind of a book study that we all participated in and we saw immense amounts of growth our family got much closer our teachers got closer with our families our teachers got closer with our students and we were able to have those tough conversations without having all the people having heartache and he was being upset about things and so Amy Joe also has some experience with that if you want to speak to that yeah this training definitely helps individuals approach subjects that can be tough can feel a little sticky
066but be able to navigate those conversations in a way that really preserves the relationship between the participants so it is purposeful it is intentional and you set out with the goal to tackle a topic or tackle a subject and leave that conversation with forward movement for everyone and the goal is to maintain relationships and so while we all can have conversations with each other it's not a natural um it's simply not natural for us to have those High intense high-space conversations that means that feels uncomfortable and more often than not people will avoid and so you never bring the thing that needs to talk to you to the carpet to deal with it because it doesn't feel comfortable and most of us don't want to feel uncomfortable so what it really does is it gives
067us the tool to be able to have those conversations in a way that that can be successful and hopefully we can build that retention rate because Staff feel like they can be more of a family and be more a part of that team and have that skill field move forward so what we put together was a proposal to come out of our sr3 funds since this is hopefully going to help with staff retention as well as help pursue data help our students as well um so what we're asking is approval for Amy Jo and myself to become trainers so we can deliver those training to anybody in USD 453 as well as being able to get the funding so that we can approve for the initial 100 licenses so we can train 100 staff right
068off the bat forward with this um of course you can always include more later on but this will get us going um and so the total price for this training would be 29 819.50 and like I said that would be for Amy John I'd be able to train anybody in USD 453 there's not recertification costs or anything like that Traders here and then we can continue to add staff to that um or hey you guys want to be trained or anything like that we can train anybody within our system okay any questions for Dr Marvel or Ms Troya no if I may go ahead I'd like to make a motion to approve I do have questions okay I didn't know if you're going to ask any so so the licensing on the the learner's licensing
069so each person that learns the material has to has a has to have a license okay um so what the company will do is provide us with materials there's a couple that um if I could quickly run over out grab um but there is uh cue cards as conversation remembrance or reminders they get the full book they also get a workbook and an additional conversation starter guide so it does provide the materials for those individuals and then they'll also have access if we do go with a hybrid to have access to some of the online resources that are available too so they would have both print and some accessibility online okay and then anybody else that wants to learn this in the future are they going to have to purchase a license as well are
070we going to have to have another vote on purchasing more licenses so the individual licenses right now right now it's 233 dollars per license so let's say move it through next year was demanding size he wants to get his building leadership team certified in that then he would purchase those additional licenses whether it's a disability budget you can learn whoever decides to purchase those and we can certify those individuals as well okay who's who's getting these licenses conversations on a daily basis um and then looking at a lot of our special ed staff because not only our specialists at having those conversations with about data where our specialized staff are awesome supervising para professional and how those conversations so we're trying to give them some additional skills so they can support those classified staff okay
071these are those materials I was speaking about so just briefly view book your actual book and then two parts that's a takeaway for each individual yes um the two people that go for the learning are every um every key the 233 dollars gets you all of those correct yes okay every learner walks away from the training with these items okay I mean you're basically trained the trainers yes that's right so we'll have 100 of those sitting in the Shelf ready to train right correct and as soon as Amy Jo and I so once you guys and then once once they're licensed so you two would be licensed for life is that how that works so uh there's no recertification or anything of that nature correct and none for the the Learners as well correct we
072are the trainers and they are the owners they have the material our other pieces you get the training and you're out like we intend to send out frequent reminders and just have been that resource of hey you know you need to have a conversation you want to practice it with one of us first to be able to get some tips we're there to help support so it's not to say hey forget about it we want that continual reminder of the staff and the challenge materials so that would be something um because conceivably you would want to do this on on a annual basis or a semi-annual basis uh what we hope to bring back from these 100 learner licenses is our success story to you um so what this investment has brought forward for our
073team the individuals as Dr Marvel had shared just some of what they've shared as positive outcomes from that to be able to continue this if it's successful we believe it will be but so just just to clarify because I think I heard a little question there once you train these hundred they are then trainers too so if you have 20 in each building yeah they're just going to know how to utilize it okay what I'm doing you know and just try to bolster that within but they are not actual trainers Okay so depending on the demand that could be a lot of training for two trainers um is there a plan put in motion to where you can get additional trainers absolutely okay no you're going to be trainers even though there's no update because
074these are just really tools if Stephen Curry's got all kinds of of resources um are you still tapped into their Network because they come up with things that are uh you know proven in the field every year I mean that's why he's so successful absolutely add us to their list and so any updates materials handouts okay they added a school kind of Lane to it so we get access to School specifically if they have a hospital specific General so as they add more information and more things within their research they would show about approximately how long does the training take to beat the trainer so typically it's about a two-day um it's an hour hybrid of in person and then we are required to do what pretty much amounts to like a Capstone type uh
075demonstration of our ability to um successfully train and that once that's completed that's when we would be certified as trainers okay thank you because we're trying to make sure that we're giving our teachers and administrators academic credit if you will or that they can use as they build their professional resume will this go on their record so this would um be validated as a professional development um event and that would be something that they could add to their professional development transcript or licensure renewal and they also get here's another skill that I have and then what is the Avenue for staff to say hey I want to participate in this or do they have to wait to be selected uh right now we are looking at a Pilot so if you would approve um we
076would look to start within our Special Education team kind of piggybacking off of the success of our para onboarding pilot to provide some additional training for our teachers who are supervising our paraprofessionals and as well as our instructional team so our consultants in special education who are providing a lot of one-on-one coaching working with our teaching teams and our administrators but we would love to be able to open it up to more staff yes so we would certainly welcome individuals to reach out to us if they have that specific interest if we don't reach out to them first have you considered including our counselors since they deal with all the students every year it's almost like he was yeah I know mistakes conversations we believe that's every staff member um but there certainly are individuals
077who have those with more frequency more frequently throughout the day with more people so certainly our counselors social workers and some of our special education staff are individuals that we keyed into right away at home you can use at Walmart and they're extremely beneficial questions I'd like to make a motion to approve the purchase of um critical conversations to for the training and to train 100 people basically is what it is for the amount of 29 819.50 and it's going to be paid out of our sr3 funds so it's not hitting our other s all right we have motion by Ms Murphy a second by Ms Wells to accept the um the approval to go out with the consideration of crucial conversations training to be paid out of sr3 funds all of those in favor
078ITA yay all right 7-0 thank you all right moving on to item nine clarification and misinformation and I'm going to read a prepared statement regarding recent and ongoing Communications about Leavenworth USD 453 by certain elected officials the Leavenworth Community deserves the truth yes the district is currently conducting the process to hire a new superintendent Community input was sought via survey and in-person focus groups which helped form the board excuse me inform the board in establishing criteria for candidate screening and selection the board conducted interviews 27 and 28 February and one into March 2023 was with prospective qualified candidates Dr Roth announced his plans to retire from Leavenworth USD 453 effective one January 2024. however his announcement was for a long planned retirement and is not in reaction to anything else Dr Roth is well regarded
079by a majority of the board and was offered an extended contract additionally Dr Rose will continue to serve the district through December 23 once the new superintendent joins The District in July of 2023. neither of those actions indicate the board is actively trying to dismiss or Force his exit Quite Contrary thank you item number 10 superintendent report this is Mrs price I'm sorry Mrs Reed thanks you for the clarification all right foreign a couple of things um one where we are at on the Strategic plan um so one of the things Jake and I were finalizing a final like slide deck of what all of the information that was gathered through all the in all the entities that provided information we will get that out to you as a board we are also going to
080convene our cabinet and some principles to start narrowing that down and really trying to dissect that to get you an understanding of what we see in that data then once we get that what our intent or our intent is is to get with Miss price get a work session going to where we could start that next phase with the school board because I think you as a as a group or an entity are the most important one of the most important starts to where we're at with that and so our plan is to start with the school board go back to the staff go back to the patrons include students just like we did but in a more narrowed Focus to really make sure what we are seeing or showing is what you the board
081that you as the board the community the staff all see as well so we can continually narrow that down and have that ready just as an FYI the this would be our second strategic plan process since I've been here we did something similar the first time and that was that strategic plan itself has ran its course and has been super successful in my opinion and actually as we went out to the different groups they were surprised how much of the the first strategic plan was accomplished and how it was accomplished secondly the foundation has their breakfast on Wednesday at 7 A.M at the high school gym sadly enough that will be my last breakfast with them so uh Katie has carved out a short brief message for me to do um and I'm going to
082reiterate a lot of what James said tonight because uh one of the things that that Foundation is made up of uh are people that support public education people that have given uh time effort and dollars to our staff to add programs uh successful programs for our students to support as we move forward with different things the foundation has been crucial and they've been good partners in my nine years here and I look forward to passing that information on to your next superintendent as well because Partnerships are what create success and I'm a firm believer in that the thing I want to reiterate in that it's not all the time that we agree on everything but if we agree on what's best for students what's best for staff usually turns out what's best for the community
083and I hope to be able to display that uh on Wednesday in a very short period of time but some of the things that James talked about tonight was extremely powerful I'm going to give you a number because I know some of you are interested in um uh one of the things James talked about was our partnership with uh Pioneer career center which is the two things that I'm probably the most proud of in my tenure here outside of building relationships with a great staff as a Pioneer Career Center at our Early Childhood Center because I think those are two backbones of successes that we have had as a district over the last nine years one of the things that was a true compelling thing not only the enrollment that James mentioned tonight but since
08419 2019 2020 you've had a 143 individuals that attain certificates in our in our programs whether it be CNA electrical HVAC those types of things that's changing lives of students as giving opportunities for communities that's providing a tax base for our economy that's powerful I think uh when in When Miss Bourne gave her a presentation on the Early Childhood Center you see the effects of that um as we get to start sharing some more information um we are changing foundational progress with what we're doing I say we I get to say we but it's truly the staff that's done that it's been your support of those types of programs it's been your support uh to move those forward and so uh um I'm excited to see the data I'm excited to see is that trust
085me after I'm gone I'm going to continue to look at that because I think that that's a true foundation of change we talked about continuing to do the same things over and over you get the same results we've changed what we're doing over and over we've changed the Early Childhood Center you change the demographics of each of our elementaries you've created an intermediate Center you've created a middle school with space and time and F with collaboration spaces and you've created an atmosphere at the high school where culture could be developed you did that as a board a progressive board that had students first and so those are the types of things I want to try to get across in less than five minutes at the foundation breakfast I know it's going to be hard but
086Katie said she'd kick me off the stage if I went longer than that so I wanted you as a board to kind of get a preview of what my intent is because I think the foundation needs to understand the things that they've supported have come to Future to life and it's been something that's been extremely positive and if you're really bored tomorrow night I'm also presenting to the city council or the city commission tomorrow night so I'm excited to represent the district as my quarterly reports for the city are starting to dwindle down I do cherish those because I think the partnership with the city and what Mr Kramer and the commission have done for our community has been very good so without further Ado I exceeded my time all right thanks Dr I'd like
087to make a comment I was on the I was the chair of the of the vocational training Committee in 2001. and we went through four superintendents before Dr Rose got here and it was through his his hard work and diligence that we got that career center which was a powerful thing for the community I hope everybody has appreciated that uh there's a lot of kids that that's I mean I focused back at that time in 2001 you know some people thought everybody was going to go to college well they're not obviously and this program is great for Community great for the kids thank you Mr Kern moving on to item 11 executive session for matters affecting a student I think we need 10 minutes 10 minutes okay can we have a bio break please yes
088so we'll do a five minute bio break up front and ten after so 15 total so 11 17. 15. no 15 rupees 26. and present in a movie going to Executive session to discuss non-elected Personnel pursuant to the exception under the Kansas open meeting Act person oh man this one that's why you're expecting a student going to Executive session discuss matters affecting a student pursuant to the exceptional rank actions adversely or favorably affecting a student under the Kansas open meeting act and that will return into open session in this room at 7 26. the board will invite Dr Roth Amy Sloan and board attorney Robert Hangul second all right we have a motion by Mr Powell a second by Ms Wells to go into executive session for matters affecting a student all of those in
089favor all right we'll go 6-1 abstinence all right biobright first okay bear with me I have some legalese to read final action after an appeal hearing before a hearing officer and a student extended term suspension or expulsion action president I move the adoption of the following resolution so resolution 22-23-021 whereas pursuant to a hearing under the provisions of KSA 72-6114 at SEC the hearing officer recommended that a student be suspended for an extended term or expelled from February 2nd 2023 through December 20th 2023 with the stipulation that the student be able to return early on a probationary status 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
090officer appointed by the board was held on Tuesday February 21st 2023 and whereas the hearing officer who heard the appeal submitted a written opinion containing findings of fact and conclusions in this matter and recommended allow the student to return on October 17 2023 on a probationary status whereas the board has received no additional evidence in this matter 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 the student in this matter be Affirmed that's the motion a second second all right we had the motion by myself and a second by Ms Murphy all of those in favor nay because she can hear the audio okay six one all right how long do we need for the
091non-elected business please okay so let's go with 7 40 on that one Madam president I move we go into executive session to discuss non-elected Personnel pursuant to the exception under Kansas open meeting act in order to protect the Privacy interests of the individual to be discussed and then we'll return to open session in this room at 7 40. the board will invite Dr Roth uh Robert hingala and who's representing Amy me Dr Rose Dr Rose and Dr Rose and Robert angel I'll yield to Mr Goodman okay just because I'm louder all right we have a motion by Mr Powell secondly Mr Goodman to go into executive session for non-elected personnel all those in favor six one all right we'll return at 7 40. yeah we need to remind everybody no I I will not let
092anybody forget oh okay moving on um let's see executive session for non-elected personnel Madam president I move that we accept staff from reporters presented second Daniel okay we have a motion by Mr Palace Second Amendment as well as to accept the Staffing report as presented all of those in favor nay [Music] okay thank you it's a big one sorry so I'd like to announce that the board has selected and offered a contract to Dr Kellum Adams to be the next superintendent for USD 453 for the 2020 for the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 school years second okay motion by Price second by Wells for Dr Kellen Adams is the next superintendent all of those in favor Mrs Rita's in nay five two thank you all right moving on closing a meeting so 14 1 upcoming meeting
093dates just to remind everyone uh this week is a lot of not school but if your children go see your teachers talk to them on the Parent-Teacher conferences on the 8th and the 9th uh snow school on the excuse me no school for spring break next week 13 through the 27th or 17th is all crazy I mean the 29th is a half day of school so March is pretty short moving fast towards graduation and I know it will come sooner than we know the next non-working holiday on the seventh no school for April 7th and the next board meeting will be 10 April all right item 14-2 unscheduled Patron input just a reminder to all of you that there's a three-minute limit and I will give you a heads up when you have 15 seconds
094remaining so first one sorry Krista Nussbaum okay moving on PJ Wells good evening members of the board Dr Roth my name is PJ Wells I live at 606 Pawnee Street in Leavenworth High School I would like to speak on behalf of students at Leavenworth High may not be directly affected by the current issue at hand but still have strong opinions on it as the student of Leavenworth for many years I know this District helps you didn't mean and my peers with great opportunities to succeed and thrive in more recent times this opportunity has been limited to some of my peers being in a school built on supporting the education of all of their students I find it unfair that certain representation through readings and teachings are being limited and attacked we cannot stand on a
095basis of making every student feel safe and accepted in their school if they aren't presented through the media they have access to I myself am not directly affected by this limitation but the heavy negative consequences are seen throughout my class if I'm able to see the effects just within the few classes I have we have to take into consideration the magnitude this impact has on everyone not just at the high school but throughout the whole District cutting off the representation of my peers deserves strips some of the basic motivation school is supposed to provide is simply disgusting and unfair I would like everyone in this room to understand how decisions and comments that are made directly affect the students that set decisions are being made for instead comments are being made against thank you for
096your time okay thank you Miss Miller Sharon Miller good evening Michelle Miller I'm the high school librarian lnea Association president I just wanted to say that the Librarians in the library as a whole all buildings are supportive of the community especially when you're there to work with us and not politicize what we do I think it's important too that the community knows the libraries operate under the same sort of standards that all teachers do we have state standards and National standards that we have to follow that include what we buy and what we teach when we have lessons in the library the libraries in our buildings are often homes to our students they're Where We Gather for meals uh they're where we're gathered to cry Where We Gather to celebrate and we want to ensure
097uh to our students that that's not going to change and we also want to you know say to our students we're going to continue to fight to make sure that you have representation in all the media in all its forms um on the lnea side it's been a long year it's been a rough year um at the high school and in other buildings spring break is looking really really good um so we want to wish you guys a good spring break a restful break restful break to all of the staff students be safe enjoy they get a few days longer than we do but anyway thank you guys have a great break and uh we'll see you in April [Music] all right thank you all right board member comments Jake all preface and if Miss
098Reed is going to send you anything I'll come back around Mr Goodman Ms Murphy uh great job at the high school of course again as Mr Vanek said it's still a reflection of all our other schools um my granddaughter moved back home with her mom and enrolled into the early childhood education center and I had a message from her she's four she had a message to give you all this is the bestest school ever this is a child who cried every day in Florida because she had to go to another Pre-K there every day she gets up jumping out of bed when can I eat my breakfast when can I eat my lunch and get to my afternoon class so she is enjoying every single moment of everything she does at that Early Childhood Center
099so again kudos to Stephanie born and all the staff there with that and of course you know kudos to all of us on the board on helping build it uh we always said things if we build them they will come um Beth great job you and your team another amazing year with that report really truly appreciate it um and I just want to go ahead and make a quick comment we have four outstanding candidates that came forward to us with our interviews the one thing the public does not have privy to are those interviews and there are some things about there were great things about all the candidates but there were some things about one connect candidate I preferred a little bit more uh it wasn't anything personal it definitely wasn't anything political it had
100more to do about experience than it did anything else none of us see the world through the same lens we're not cookie cutters so we're not going to think a likely phone so please understand that as well and it's the board that's still elected the new superintendent so there's not going to be decision because one or two voted against it speaking for myself there's not I will work with him just like I worked with Dr Roth all these years and spring break starts Wednesday hey be safe please thank you okay thank you Ms Murphy Mr Kearney well I'm sure those people in the community think that at the end of the day people just jump out of here and go home and uh look look forward to the next day sometime but I just wanted
101to come in uh Beth Maddox and and uh what's your name Brenda Brenda Shoemaker for uh helping out with the interview process last week it was a lot of long hours and a lot of work extra work and uh they just went above and beyond so I'll take you out to dinner sometime y'all wait stop first I'd just like to say that I'm very pleased to have Dr Adams come in um as a parent in this district for many years we have had less than quality people in that position Dr Roth has set a high bar a lot of people don't remember prior to Dr Roth um I Dr Adams is right there guys um I appreciate anybody that reached out with their comments um I apologize to people that didn't realize that the decision
102was not being talked about tonight that the decision had already been made and an offer was done so if for some reason we did this again please send your comments as soon as you have comments don't hold them um I'm yeah I'm very pleased that the Dr Adams agreed to to take on our journey and I hope that we very quickly become a more unified board and a solid ship going forward um I think the a fresh set of eyes that haven't been looking at the same issues for the last nine years and dealt through a pandemic is is going to be a good Rejuvenation not only for our staff but for our families and um for us board members as well that being said um I'm very disappointed that not all of us were
103here tonight and not all of us participated in a manner that seemed um open to the public I hope that if anybody is not wanting to continue in the public to have questions asked of them and to address our patrons that they step down from the board I understand there are illnesses but an illness every couple months doesn't seem acceptable and I'm done okay thank you Mr Potter any comment all right I'll take that as a pass Mr Bell yeah one thing I want to talk about the selection process or the superintendent because I think it's something that needs to be clarified so it doesn't get misconstrued in the future [Music] the board had to have a consensus that doesn't mean you voted for it just meant this was the grouping of one and two
104Etc of potential candidates in a rank order of our preferences you have to have that before you can go tell somebody we want you to jerk your life around and want to go back to your board and say hey I'm out of here uh that's a serious decision on the part of that individual so there was no secret vote there was no behind the behind the doors machinations that went on this is a normal part of the process we could have arrived here tonight and everybody on this board made a completely different decision and guess what we just start over in the process a selection again and as painful as that would be so I just want to set the record straight there's no secret voting secret machinations it's really a normal part of the
105process and the final vote was tonight not four days ago um and so just just to make that clear second thing is I think that we've we got a great candidate there were four just really amazing superintendents and when we talked to ksab as they went out to to look into try to pick people those weren't the only four and what is amazing and it goes to you all in this District is that um we had superintendents really wanting to compete for this and uh we got four really good candidates there are some school districts out there that they're lucky if they get two candidates I want you to think about that we had four incredible ones but there were a total of 12. 17 applications 17 applications that's because of where they believe our
106school district has come from but more importantly where the thing is going to go and it's going to be because of you all and the staff you know Educators that we have and I just think it's an amazing witness to where we are right now we're at the cusp of going out and doing even greater things and to Brenda and to Beth all four of them to the first and to others Jake and others that escorted them around every one of them wanted to stop us as board members and go wow you know there was a lightning tour or wore out but do you have an amazing District but more importantly you had we had great representation that talked them through that process and made it a professional uh reception so they went away knowing
107that this was a good school district in the the those of you who participated in making this uh work and for us to be able to select a superintendent you did a great job you really did so thank you um and I'm going to throw out there that if you didn't go to the play this week can't see you missed a really good one uh and that our uh our theater troops uh did exceptionally well that's it all right from Mrs price thank you to everyone that came this evening I did reach out to the mother but she was unwilling to have one of those critical conversations with me as a staff expressed is necessary it is necessary to have a healthy Community I've only missed two meetings in more than 20 which is not
108every other month thank you right okay so the last week um as mentioned we had 17 applications and they yielded down the top four candidates and it was not an easy job to figure out who was best fit for what where we want to go with the district I'm pleased that Dr Adams agreed to come to Leavenworth and so we've got great a bright future ahead but for last week I want to by name thank you to Mr Potter to miss Sloan to Ms Maddox and the Shoemaker because between the four of you you guys got everything coordinated so it went super well super smooth and to all of the administrators all the teachers that are candidates went out and visited thank you because even in the notices back from those who were not selected
109they were impressed with our district and were sad that they were not going to be continuing with us so anytime I had someone that says they're sad they can't stay with us that's an awesome awesome thing for all of you to say oh good stuff um I also want to say thank you to all the community members staff everybody that came out for the community meet and greets for the candidates gave us a really good feel of how they would work with our district and I appreciate all of you asking all the questions and providing all the input my phone blew up for four days in fact I'm still getting notes now um but I really appreciate the input because that means a lot and it means something to you and it means something to
110us so thank you again for being involved um yes Friday night I wanted to do a big shout out to the theater for the complete Shakespeare Abridged revised again did I get the title right it's pretty long this person was in there somewhere somewhere but they were absolutely fantastic and if you missed it shame on you you had two chances I'm sorry you struck out anyway please support our theater program they are amazing kids and they did such a wonderful job it was just awesome moving along another way to support our kids out there spring Sports just started so they're out in practicing the schedules are coming out for games I know I'm looking forward to some softball and baseball games that's my sport um just come out and support our Pioneers it really means
111a lot even if it's not your kid they're all our Pioneers okay they're all our kids it's one of the things I love telling board members across the state when I see them how many kids have you got and they'll say oh I've got two I've got three and I'm like uh I got 3 600 plus so try again I got you all the I love you all um spring break is right ahead please please please please please be safe enjoy it but come back we don't want to lose any more Pioneers it's hard it's very hard we want you all back safe okay really I want you all back safe um and my last thing all board members come over here I need your John Hancock on the resolution and with that in mind
112ah it's before 8 o'clock thank you 7 4 57.