Lee's Summit R‑VII board weighs 'Contact Us' portal to broaden committee input

The Lee's Summit R‑VII Board of Education discussed adding a website "Contact Us" feature to let community members send feedback directly to committee chairs during a work session Thursday, with trustees and administrators debating which committees should accept outside input and how to preserve volunteer privacy and process integrity.

Board President opened the item discussing options for "meaningful feedback" from community members and said a suggested approach would let website submissions go straight to committee chairs so chairs could decide when and how to share the input during committee work. Dr. Buck, citing the Citizens Advisory Committee steering committee, said volunteers preferred off‑line feedback: "They would rather have the feedback and then decide, alright, do we need to do a pulse survey or some other kind of engagement to figure out what everybody needs," Dr. Buck said.

The proposal would not make public comment mandatory at every committee meeting. Several trustees said some committees should remain closed to public input because of confidentiality or the nature of the work. "I wouldn't do it to all committees," Dr. Roque said, citing awards such as the Belcher scholarship where outside influence could improperly affect selection. Board Member Haley warned that accepting comments without a mechanism to process them would be ineffective: "If there's not a mechanism to deal with these comments ... it's gonna fundamentally change the process that the committee uses if they're gonna take feedback from outside the committee," Haley said.

Trustees and administrators discussed committee‑by‑committee approaches. They identified the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), CSIP (the Comprehensive School Improvement Plan process) and the Parents as Teachers advisory group as candidates for the contact feature because volunteers and steering committees told trustees those groups would welcome an alternate channel that did not require attending a meeting. Dr. Buck said the CAC steering committee favored a contact option to protect volunteers and enable follow‑up engagement if needed.

Several administrators described how membership is chosen across committees. Some groups are application based and aim for building and stakeholder diversity; others (for example, finance or insurance/benefits committees) are composed of defined employee groups and are not suited to broad public solicitation. Katie (district staff) said charters and agendas may already be posted online and that the district can publish membership rosters and selection criteria where appropriate to increase transparency.

Officials noted CSIP has started tracking participation more rigorously: staff are creating a baseline of unique participants in decision‑making engagements this year and aim to increase that pool across the CSIP cycle. Dr. Buck described the tracking plan as a way to show progress on recruiting new participants, and to meet a CSIP goal to grow meaningful partnerships over the next cycle.

Trustees also flagged several other committee issues: the health and wellness committee has not consistently met and may need redefinition or closer coordination with the district's well‑being office; some advisory groups rely on staff for institutional memory and should continue to include appropriate administrators; and alternates for trustees are being used more frequently to maintain continuity when members cannot attend.

The board directed staff to pursue adding a contact feature for CAC, CSIP and Parents as Teachers, to consider listing committee coordinating positions rather than individual staff names to keep rosters current, and to return with recommendations on the health and wellness committee's role and staffing.

The work session item closed with trustees agreeing to review committee charters and public‑engagement language so the district can balance volunteer protection, transparency and meaningful input.