School Board meeting recap

​by Cole Arndorfer

On Thursday, May 18, the Grain Valley Board of Education met for their regularly scheduled meeting.

In the recognitions portion of the meeting, the board recognized five groups.

The board first recognized GVHS freshman, and FBLA state qualifier, Blake Hurley. Hurley was the first freshman to ever hold executive office for FBLA in GVHS as well as the first student to place in Mobile App Development at state, placing eighth.

Next, Ms. Julie Lever, GVHS Spanish teacher, presented Grain Valley’s first ever Seal of Biliteracy to Carson Hill. To achieve this, Hill scored well on an English exam and also took an outside exam to show his proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and understanding Spanish.

Next, Jeff Kramer presented representatives from the Early Childhood Center with an award recognizing 2023 Missouri School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Bronze Tier selection; while Nancy Rogers presented representatives from Matthews Elementary with an award to recognize their 2023 MO SW-PBS Gold Tier selection. Both Kramer and Rogers agreed that these two schools were extremely deserving of the recognition and said that they are used as examples of great schools.

The next recognition was delivered by Assistant Superintendent Dr. Amanda Allen to the district’s Leadership Seminar graduates. Those graduates are: Melanie Brockhaus, Nancy Leaser, Kourtney Michael, Alyssa Thomas, and Teri Turner. In this program, these teachers met monthly for two hours each session for two years to learn about various aspects of leadership within the district.

"It’s our intention then, from this group, to draw future summer school directors, and those seeking leadership positions within the district,” Allen explained.

The last recognition was for the three Speech and Debate students who competed in the state Speech and Debate competition. Gabby Holman and Carmen Myers were recognized for their first-place finish at state in the Policy Debate competition. Myers also placed second in International Extemporaneous Speaking. Freshman Dylan Rucinski qualified for state in the Humorous Interpretation category.

In the new business segment of the meeting, the board held action on the construction contracts for phase six at GVHS as well as the total project budget for phase six. The board approved the contracts for the Newkirk Novak construction partners with a guaranteed maximum price of $22,886,754.

As for the reports segment, the board heard from district superintendent Dr. Brad Welle. Welle explained that the bond issue was passed for $32 million, with the hard costs for phase six approved at just over $22 million, the district has the ability to complete some other projects.

Among the projects Welle named: district-wide HVAC improvements, baseball and softball complex improvements, IT network upgrades, operation department storage addition, gymnasium floor replacement at Sni-A-Bar and Prairie Branch Elementary, door and window replacements at various buildings, a band shed, and playground resurfacing at the Early Childhood Center.

“We know that we have the funds to do those projects…” Welle said.

Welle also mentioned that the district has the opportunity to switch all of the lights in the district over to LEDs, though it would come with an upfront cost that would be made back in energy savings later. The district also would like to do a full reroof at Matthews Elementary as well as purchase some extra, portable, bleachers to use at the high school athletic fields.

Also discussed at length in this section was food services debt and possible solutions to get this money back. At this time, the district has $32,000 in debt from kids/families who have a negative balance in their school lunch money account and district provided lunches to substitute teachers. Assistant Superintendent of Support Services Dr. Nick Gooch said that the district recently received a $7,700 donation from the Grain Valley Assistance Council to cover debts from the highest need families. Gooch said that this is a problem that’s being seen across the area, not just in the Grain Valley School District, and he is welcome to discussing potential solutions to this problem in the future.

Lastly, in the board policies section, the board heard final reading from three policy proposals and took action on each of them. The first was KC – Community Engagement policy. This policy calls for a community engagement plan which the board is in the process of drafting and will leave open to changes as needed through engaging the community.

​The second policy was BDDH-1 – Public Participation at Board Meetings. This policy allows the public to speak on whichever topic they choose at board meetings so long as it is within the law to do so. The last policy was JECA – Eligibility to Enroll. This policy follows new legislature regarding enrollment in schools and provides more flexibility to those wishing to enroll their students in Grain Valley Schools. All three policies were approved by the board.