ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Students in USD 480 will see their personal device access greatly reduced during school hours starting this coming school year due to a new Kansas bill.

Superintendent Dane Richardson discussed the new bill during his report at the most recent USD 480 school board meeting Monday evening.

“As the board knows, there is new legislation in the state,  Senate Substitute for Substitute for House Bill 2299 (Sub for HB 2299), banning the use of cell phones and personal electronic devices during the school day,” Richardson said. “Gov. Kelly signed the bill back in March, and it requires Kansas public schools and accredited private schools to prohibit the use of personal electronic devices during the school day on school premises. That includes, but is not limited to, cell phones, tablets, computers, watches, wireless headphones or earbuds, text messaging devices, and personal digital assistants. Students’ personal devices must be turned off and securely stored during the school day. The bill also includes exceptions if a device is needed for the implementation of a student’s individualized education program or 504 plan, or if approved by a physician as a medical necessity. Students may still contact a parent or guardian via school phone if necessary. This also prohibits employees from using social media to communicate with students for official school purposes, or from requiring the use of social media for any assignment or extracurricular activity. This bill has been in the works for a while, and this coming school year will be the first year we’ll have it in place and implement it throughout the district.”

The board then moved rather quickly through the agenda’s new business, beginning with unanimously approving July 13 as the organizational meeting date for 2026-27 school year and the purchase of purchase of ELA student books for Seymour Rogers Middle School in the amount of $34,046.67. The board also unanimously approved Teacher Tuition Agreements for Luis Martinez, Tiffani Burrows and Alaina Hernandez and Teacher Tuition Amendments for Luis Rios, Erika Ramos and Diana Chavira.

The board continued moving through its new business by unanimously approving a three-year contract proposed by Hay Rice & Associates for annual audit services covering fiscal years 2026 through 2028 and the Workers Compensation insurance for the 2026-27 school year in the amount of $157,179 from KASB. The board also unanimously approved a bid from Archangel in the amount of $478,764 for the purchase of 900 Chromebooks and a bid from Rasix Computer Center for HP Color Ink in the amount of $12,607 for printer ink.

Later on in the meeting, the board discussed restructuring some positions throughout the district.

“The proposal includes changing the job title from District Coordinator of Secondary Interims and District Coordinator of Elementary Interims to District Instructional Mentor, changing one of the two Interventionist positions at Cottonwood Elementary School to the position of Learning Specialist, and changing and moving the Assistant Activities Coordinator position under District Office and renaming the position to Assistant District Communications Coordinator,” Richardson said. “Currently, in Ashley’s [Kappelmann] area, the structure with our interims is heavy on the paperwork. Something we’re working on is, with our HRS, we are at Level 2, which means we need more effective teaching in every classroom. If you look at our root cause analysis, we know we need better Tier 1 instruction, so what we’re wanting to do is in those areas that have heavy paperwork, we want to make those more mentor-heavy for our interim teachers where they’re actually in the classroom working on lesson planning, observation, learning more about presentation, and tying the data back to the assessments. With the learning specialist, we’re going to be piloting that and moving more toward working with the teachers at the building level. And the goal of the mentors is to help coach the mentees be better at teaching.”

“My question is, where is the mentorship program that fits into this?” board member Luz Riggs asked. “Because we do have an internship program where teachers get paid extra to mentor X amount of teachers. I want us to be good stewards of this money and not have it go toward positions that aren’t necessary.”

“There’s still going to be a mentorship program, but this will be a person ... this will be what they do,” Richardson said.

After several more minutes of discussion, the board ultimately voted 4-1, with Riggs being the lone ‘no’ vote.

For the final item of the meeting’s new business, the board voted 4-1 (with Riggs voting no) to create a new position named District Teacher Pathway Coordinator.