BV Unmuted: Bond 2023 Update

Our #BVUnmuted series continues with a focus with an update on the approved 2023 Bond. Blue Valley Superintendent Dr. Tonya Merrigan is joined by Executive Director of Operations Jake Slobodnik, Director of Safety and Security Dan Carney, and Senior Coordinator of Digital Resources Liz Chopp.

#BVTogether

Transcript

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I think the beauty about our community and in the Blue Valley School District is that we can all work together. You really. Owe it. Just looking forward to just go. Back to school, just and see the pride that people have in the school district. Year after year is so much fun to watch. You can't find this anywhere else. I am so thankful we live where we live and can have our children in the Blue Valley. School systems. Hello, Blue Valley community, and welcome to another edition of our, podcast, Be We've Unmuted. Thanks for joining us today. As we discuss the progress we've made on our bond 2023 projects. My name is Doctor Tanya Merrigan, Blue Valley Superintendent, and today I have three guests with me to talk about the facilities safety and technology upgrades and projects that were approved as a part of the bond 2023. Please welcome Jake Slotnick, Executive Director of Operations, Dan Carney, director of safety and security. And Liz Chop, senior coordinator of digital Resources. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having. Me. In 2023, Blue Valley voters approved a $251 million bond referendum that invests in our facilities, safety and technology and will benefit students and staff for years to come. Before the bond vote and approval. The Community Board of Education and district staff engaged in a public process to determine the needs of the district. It was determined that this bond should focus on our facilities, our safety issues, and our technology at all of our school campuses. I'm happy to say that each of our bond 2023 projects has entered the initial planning or programing phase phases, keeping us on track for completion by 2026. Before we dive in, I think it's important that we express our gratitude to the Blue Valley community for supporting the bond 2023 projects. Without the community support, we wouldn't be able to make these vital updates to our facilities, the technology and safety. Let's start by talking about the facilities. Piece of bond 2023. Jake, can you share the status of our major construction projects like the new Wolf Springs Middle School, which, by the way, I was just there and saw this coming up. We have exciting high school auxiliary gyms and the middle school multi-purpose additions. Yeah. First the the Wolf Springs Middle School. What a cool project from initial conception to obviously, like you said, now we're seeing walls go up. This is one where we brought students in and we asked them, what should a middle school be? What should it look like? What should it feel like? What should the classroom experience be? It's been a cool process. It's been a couple of years in the making, and now we're we're looking at walls going up, and we're excited to to be able to say that we are on schedule to open that building in the fall of 2026. So, can't wait to see as that continues to progress, as time goes on for the high school auxiliary gyms, we've got one at Blue Valley West that's going up. That started in June of 24. It's in great shape. We're actually putting the finishing touches on it now, and that project is going to be done this spring break. And then at Blue Valley Southwest, we've got a gym that will start in the fall of 2025, and that'll be complete in the summer of 26. Then at all of our middle schools, we're doing multipurpose additions. Now in this bond, we focused on three. We completed Aubry Ben's already. We did that one in the summer of 2024. Harmony began construction in October of 24. That'll be complete this summer. Ready for next school year. And Pleasant Ridge is scheduled to start this coming April. Be ready for second semester of next school year. So when you said the Blue Valley West Gym is going to be done spring break, you mean like in three weeks coming up? Well, yeah, they've already got the interior painted. The floors in. They're getting ready to open it up for us. That's very exciting. That's really cool. Yeah. Another thing we did with our facilities are the updates that are being made to the current technical education spaces in our building. Why? Why is that so important? This is important because our district focuses not only on those core subjects like math and reading and science, but we have so many programs that kids are interested in and things that I wish I had. When I went to high school, I didn't know what I wanted to be after high school. I didn't know what I wanted to do. These CTE programs open up opportunities for our students to maybe dip their toe in the water of something that maybe they don't have any experience with. In the last band, we focused on our middle school level. We went in and renovated our family consumer science rooms to create a little bit more than just a home kitchen, it's more of a intro to culinary sciences, if you will. And so with this bond issue, we actually went out and we surveyed our students and we said, what are some things that you have an interest in that maybe we could offer better facilities to enhance that experience. So we're going back to the culinary program. We're focusing on all of our high schools, creating even more of an intro to a culinary experience for those students will start that this summer at Blue Valley High, Blue Valley North and Blue Valley West. And then next summer we'll come back at northwest southwest in that Blue Valley Academy. they're very excited for those. I was just in one of those rooms and one of the high schools, and they were telling me about all the upgrades coming. They're going to be amazing. Yeah. You know, in budget 2020, one of the big projects was that we took out all the mobiles at Blue Valley High School that was so successful that in this bond we have in there the removal of all of our elementary mobile classrooms. So how is that coming? It's coming. Great. So we started right away, went to sites like Morris Elementary, Timber Creek Elementary, Blue Valley North had a mobile that we got rid of. There's a couple, though that we are actually building, building additions on to. So Lee Wood Elementary School, Cedar Hills Elementary, those have active construction projects right now. They started around Thanksgiving, and they'll be wrapped up in summer of 25. And then we'll be able to remove those mobiles following the completion of those projects. Yeah, that that's exciting. To see those mobiles going away, quite honestly. Amazing. And to see the classroom additions. And I got to go present on this project at one of our schools to all the kids, and they're so excited. They go, they look out their classroom window or at their fence off the playground and watch it be built. So it's a pretty cool learning experience for them as well. That is exciting. Yeah. Thanks, Jake. Yeah, let's move on to the safety enhancements, being made as a part of the bond 2023. Dan, can you tell our listeners what upgrades to our safety systems, including infrastructure and security, that are being implemented? the, I guess the, initial things that were started were, kind of a general upgrade to all the cameras in the, in the district. There's I think that the number of cameras has been, greatly increased. But in addition to that, the cameras have been upgraded to cameras that have better resolution. They're much more versatile. They can sync with card access. They just have a lot of flexibility to them. And, those we started with the exterior cameras and, every school building, has was finished as of last month with exterior cameras and interior cameras. All the high schools are complete. about two out of nine on middle schools right now. And, planning on this summer cabling for all the remaining middle and elementary schools. It's it's a giant job with miles of cabling to make all this happen, but, it's it's moving right along. The other the other thing that's pretty important in my estimation, are intercoms and, we found that, you know, the inner cars have aged over the years quite a bit. I know that, the IT people would tell me that sometimes they had to go on, Amazon or somewhere looking for, parts and pieces for these because they're old. Yeah, they're so old. that project to replace all the intercoms is, is also in progress with about 28% done right now. With those, and then the access control system, which has now been 100% converted over to, is the Gallagher system? people might wonder, why would you replace that? The job is just to open the door with your with your, badge, which it which it did before, but obviously it continues to do that. But the problem was that old system, It was a hackable system. Unfortunately, because it just hadn't, you know, gotten it. Yeah, I'd been updated. So, this system is non hackable then also in addition to that, we've been able to map and install in all the high schools system that allows us to know when doors are left open, that is complete and that works with the new system. And we're starting on the middle schools now. Those are those are kind of the three major projects. There are two more, that it's kind of interesting, the portable radio system expansion, the timing of it is what's interesting is we were planning on, expanding the portable radios, which we have somewhere near a thousand of them out there right now. So, you know, they see the teacher on the playground with a portable radio, for various things that happen in the school. But, after the bond was passed, along comes crisis alert, which, which we didn't know about when we planned for increasing the the number of radios out there and crisis alert this new system with the card where any staff member can push a button and summon help immediately by just pushing a button on a card. Sort of made us rethink, that the funds that were going to go to the portable radios, now that we have this instant, ability to communicate. So, that along with, another bond item which was ed replacements, we learned that, from the company, they had extended the warranty out longer. So we have to basically parts of funding there that potentially could be reallocated to something if we felt there was a higher priority. And and that's something which we're working on now and I'm working with Jake on is, expanding our intruder resistant glass, throughout the district. So I won't go into any detail about it other than just to say that, I think we're all kind of in agreement that that that now has sort of superseded these other, plans. So hopefully we'll be able to just reallocate and and push that project down the road, which will make our schools a lot safer. Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Yeah. And, Liz, I'm going to talk to you about some of the technology upgrades and refreshes that are being made across the district as part of bond 2023. We've been able to update student and classroom technology, including upgrading, Chromebooks for our elementary students teacher devices, and continuing to provide sixth and ninth graders with new devices. Liz is someone who has been an integral part of this refresh, and has been directly engaged with our teachers during this process. Can you tell our listeners how important it is that our students have devices that create equitable learning experiences for all? Absolutely. The technology upgrades that were made possible through this most recent bond have been a total game changer. They've removed barriers, streamlined instruction, and created more equitable learning opportunities. We found that when teachers have the right tools, they're able to deliver these engaging and interactive lessons, personalizing instruction and supporting our diverse learners. And then when students have this up to date hardware paired with canvas and other digital tools, accessing this, learning these learning materials has become much easier for all. Like students can have speech to text or, translation tools that are built in. How do these technology improvements impact teaching and learning on a day to day basis? There is an immediate impact on teaching and learning every single day. For example, with the new Chromebooks for our elementary students, they are now able to collaborate on projects, access digital resources with a single sign on experience, receive personalized support through these tools and communication efforts. There's definitely a learning curve with all new technology. But Chromebooks are actually incredibly intuitive and they're very easy to manage. They're secure and reliable as a bonus, which I think teachers have really appreciated, is that they update automatically, which prevents any loss of instructional time. Yeah. So you are in classrooms probably on a fairly regular basis working with teachers. What are you hearing and seeing about our how students can better engage and learn thanks to these technology upgrades? I am in a lot of classrooms and I have seen growth in a lot of areas, but with, efficient feedback provided, collaboration and also student choice. I think those are the biggest three areas. As far as the feedback goes, it really enhances differentiation. Like with I-ready, the K-8 math curriculum. There are comprehension checks after every single lesson, and the data from those comp checks drives instruction as soon as the very next day. So that's pretty incredible and very efficient. As far as collaboration goes, teachers can incorporate multiple forms of communication and collaboration into their classroom routines. For instance, students have been collaborating on whiteboards in Canva or mind maps in lucid, and that's at all levels K through 12. And then finally, choice. We all know that students appreciate having the ability to have some choice throughout their, their learning. And then just the variety of digital creation opportunities and presentation options, to showcase that learning has been really important to our students. the refresh is not about new devices. It's about empowering teachers and students, to create this innovative learning experience and also to reach all learners in all needs. Yeah, I think that that's a key point is that, teachers have, these devices. It doesn't mean they use them 24/7 in their classrooms. But they're there when they need them. And the students all have the same one. So before we wrap up, we've talked a lot about our ongoing projects and the progress that's been made. So, Jake, how do we ensure that these investments in our facilities, safety and technology are sustainable and provide long term benefits for our students and staff? Well, before we start any project, we have to ask ourselves, how do we create environments which support what we're doing today educationally for our teachers, for our learners? But how do we also create environments that foster growth and change, and can adapt to the ever changing needs of our students and staff? And to do that, there's so much work that happens before we ever put pen to paper. We meet with our staff, with our coaches, with our administrators, we meet with our students, we ask questions. We we talk about what do you do today? What do you wish you could do? What's something that we could do better that guides all of our decisions in in the facility improvements that we make. And hopefully by asking those questions, we are creating facilities and environments that will last not just five, ten, 20, 30 years, 50 years down the road. They're flexible. They they allow our technology. Friends, to be able to implement the tools that they need that Liz was just talking about. They're safe and secure, like Dan was talking about. All those pieces go into every project and and help to make sure that we're creating environments that will last the test of time. Yeah. And all three of your departments that you guys work with, our facilities team, our security team, our technology team, are getting ready for their really busy season. And you're busy all year round. But summer is crazy because that's the time where we really touch all the buildings and try and get as many of those projects done. And so, a huge thanks to all three of your departments for the work that you do. As you've heard today, the bond 2023 projects are making a real impact. They're enhancing our schools, improving safety, and upgrading technology to better support students and staff. These investments are more than just construction and upgrades. They're about creating the best possible learning environments for our students now and for many years to come. A big thank you to Jake and Dan and Liz for joining me today and sharing their insights and to our community. For your ongoing support of these important projects. If you'd like to stay updated on the bond 2023 progress, you can visit our website at Blue Valley K-12. Org Backslash Bond for the latest news and updates. Thank you for joining in today and listening to another cast of Be Unmuted. Have a great day baby.