Joco Today

The Olathe Board of Education met Jan. 12 for its regular meeting. The agenda included a school spotlight and two presentations. 

Recognitions

• January is School Board Recognition Month and a great time to thank the seven individuals who dedicate countless hours to the district.
• Atmos Energy was recognized as a 15-year community partner with the district.
• The Olathe West High School girls’ cross-country team won the state 6A championship.
• Anjali Hocker-Singh of Olathe North High School won the girls’ cross-country 6A state individual title.
• Mahi Kohli of California Trail Middle School placed second in the STEM category of the Broadcom MASTERS competition.

School Spotlight

Olathe North High School Principal Jason Herman highlighted his school in a presentation to the board. He proudly talked of the many types of positive relationships happening at Olathe North: staff and students, staff and community/parents, and staff with colleagues. Olathe North sets high expectations for student achievement, and it shows in the two perfect ACT scores, seven National Merit finalists, and many other awards received this year. Olathe North offers a wide range of programs, from 21st Century Academies and career and technical education opportunities, to individual plans of study. He summed up Olathe North with its mission statement: While celebrating diversity, our mission is to develop adaptive, responsible citizens through relationships, rigor, relevance and resilience.

Financing Capital Projects

Deputy Superintendent John Hutchison and Dustin Avey, managing director of Piper Sandler, presented information on the district’s plan to finance capital projects. The three keys to the district’s finance plan are long-term capital needs, levy sensitivity, and timing the market(s). For more information, refer to 4.02 Plan of Finance Review on BoardDocs.

CrisisAlert Update

Dr. Jim McMullen, assistant superintendent, and Brent Kiger, executive director of safety services, reviewed implementation of the CrisisAlert employee badges. The hard plastic badges allow district employees to immediately request assistance from any Olathe district property or initiate a lockdown response in the event of a critical incident in a district building. The CrisisAlert badge program went live on the first day of school and every district employee and substitute now has a badge. More than 5,500 locating beacons are placed across the district. In the first semester, there were 3,396 staff uses of the badges, 79% of them being for behavior issues and 3% for medical concerns.

In other business, the board:

• Approved a consent agenda including meeting minutes, financial and accounts payable reports, human resources report, board policy updates, new world language course curriculum, student trip, resolution to establish regular meeting dates at its organizational meeting in July, and resolution to elect the board president and vice president at its organizational meeting in July.
• Approved the bid for pool surface renovations at Indian Trail and Oregon Trail middle schools. (Bond 2022)
• Approved the annual on-call painting contracts. (capital outlay)
• Approved the renewal of the annual agreement to provide maintenance and support for district server hardware and storage arrays. (capital outlay)
• Approved the purchase of VMWare’s virtual server machine software. (capital outlay)
• Approved the renewal of annual support for BusinessPlus. (capital outlay)
• Approved the purchase of EndPoint security asset licenses. (capital outlay)
• Approved the renewal of annual support and maintenance of Cisco FLEX enterprise agreement. (capital outlay)
• Accepted the bid for a compressor rack upgrade at the Food Production Center. (Bond 2022)
• Accepted the architectural-engineering proposal for the auditorium renovations at eight middle schools. (Bond 2022)
• Accepted the special inspection and testing services proposal for the new Santa Fe Trail Middle School project. (Bond 2022)
• Received information on future action items including student trips; design consultant and provider of furniture, fixtures and equipment; turf installation and replacement project; data center upgrades for the Technology Support Center; new student and staff devices as part of a districtwide replacement cycle; and date and time for the special end-of-year board meeting.
• Received the Head Start director’s monthly written report.
• Received an update on Bond 2022 projects.
• Held an executive session for the board to consult with its attorney.
• Held an executive session to discuss matters relating to student discipline.

Original source can be found here.