The Board of Education for Jefferson City Public Schools swore in its new members Monday night, though the core leadership of the board remained the same.
Ken Enloe and Lindsey Rowden were elected by the community last week to take the seats of one-term incumbents Michael Couty and Pam Murray. After the transition took place at Monday's meeting, the board elected its president, vice-president, treasurer and secretary. The people in those positions remain President Steve Bruce, Vice President Rich AuBuchon, Treasurer Lorelei Schwartz and Secretary Stephanie Sappenfield.
Sappenfield is not herself a voting board member.
The board voted Enloe to be the delegate to the Missouri School Boards' Association, and Rowden was voted to be the alternate to that position.
Business ahead of the newly organized board was light, with just a few summer infrastructure projects and educational services contracts approved.
Information about the structural package including concrete and steel work at the site of Capital City High School was not yet ready from construction manager Nabholz Construction for the board to review, but the board will likely meet to discuss that information later in the week.
There was no mention during the meeting or in the open forum for the public of the district's lawsuit news that broke in the preceding days and weeks - a $400,000 settlement in one suit and the recent filing of a $300,000 suit in federal court.
Bruce and Superintendent Larry Linthacum said discussion in the board's closed session pertained to personnel matters.
The board heard a few other updates Monday night before Enloe and Rowden were sworn in.
The board heard the results of school safety surveys - one for faculty and staff and a second for students' families that were open at the same time last month - from JCPS' Director of Quality Improvement Brenda Hatfield.
Based on the scored and open-ended responses to survey questions, most staff and families think the district is in good standing when it comes to school safety. Eighty percent of staff said they are familiar with the school emergency plan. Seventy-nine percent of families who responded to their survey said their students feel safe at school, and 73 percent of those families believe their children are safe at school.
Hatfield said the district considered a rating of above 70 percent to be good, and anything below that to be worthy of more immediate attention.
"Faculty and staff said mental health resources, student behaviors (and) discipline and bullying," she said of what concerns the district's employees prioritized about school safety.
"Top family priorities - and these are in the order that they told us they wanted them in - bullying, mental health resources, drugs (on the high school level), student behaviors. So, it looks like there is a clear message from both our families as well as our teachers on what our priorities should be," she noted of the consistent responses inside and outside of school buildings.
"Overall, I think folks feel safe," Linthacum said, but added there's still work the district needs to do.
Bruce called the need for more mental health resources for students "the biggest single challenge we have to face" - trying to find a balance between supporting students who require intensive services and keeping classrooms free of disruptions.
Chief of Learning Brian Shindorf described as another update the ongoing development of a framework to guide implementing efforts to improve the reading achievement of the district's students.
Linthacum also mentioned in a recap of recent developments of the district working toward its diversity goals that future diversity training dates for staff have been scheduled for June 6 and Aug. 3.