During last Monday’s USD 506 Board of Education meeting, several new board members took their seats for the first time, as well as heard reports on Great Plains Industrial Park and student attendance data.
Three new board members were welcomed to their seats at the top of the meeting: Kris Graves, Jyssica Lahey and Jessica Rush.
The three took their oaths of office, in which they swore to support the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution of the State of Kansas, and to faithfully undertake the duties of USD 506.
After this, the board voted on a new president and vice president.
Brian Harlow was nominated and voted to be president, with Jessica Rush nominated and voted to serve as vice president, for the calendar year.
“Thank you for the opportunity for me to be your president,” outgoing president Jessie Foister said.
Rush said she was honored to be nominated.
“Wow, thank you, everybody,” Harlow said once he took the president’s seat.
During the meeting, the board heard from Great Plains Industrial Park Director Brad Reams.
“We ask Brad to come on a yearly basis, just to give us an update on what is happening at Great Plains,” Superintendent John Wyrick said. “The footprint of Great Plains is located within USD 506. It’s part of our school district, it’s part of our tax base.”
Wyrick said this is an exciting time for Great Plains, which could be potentially beneficial to USD 506.
“As new businesses come to Great Plains, that also means that we have the potential to see an increase in our valuation, which could potentially help us offset mill levees in the future,” Wyrick said.
Reams said Great Plains see themselves as a public benefit to the district, and noted that some may see progress at the site as slow.
“There is a lot that has to be done to make sure that the right decisions are being made,” Reams said. “We think of it as — we’re making a generational decision.”
Reams said the goal now is to recruit businesses from multiple industries, covering various sectors of the economy, compared to early years, which consisted mostly of environmental clean-up of the site.
“This is kind of the fun stuff, because now you’re getting more people visiting the park, more companies saying, ‘I want to sign a document with you,’” Reams said. “‘We want to look at planting roots in Labette County, Kansas.” That’s a long way from where we were in year one. I think we’ve come a long way.”
Reams said now, he can actually begin to discuss some ongoing projects, as opposed to only being able to speak of future hopes in previous years.
Reams highlighted the nondisclosure agreements, memoranda of understanding, and new agreements throughout 2025 with: Messer, an industrial gas supplier; Glide Technologies, Supply Energetics, Evergy, and others, which are still confidential.
He also highlighted improved website search engine optimization, hiring a lobbying firm, and the ongoing project to create a digital twin of the site.
Reams said a three-year deal was signed with Smart City Labs and the University of California San Diego to create a digital twin, which will allow potential park tenants to take architectural documents and overlay them onto the digital twin to envision their potential space at Great Plains Industrial Park. In-person visitors can use Virtual Reality technology to visualize their building on-site.
In other goals, Reams said that Great Plains would like to have another cement plant on site, as there was one in the past. Reams highlighted that the limestone was pure in quality.
“Our goal is to go back to that, so that when builders come to build their commercial buildings, we’ll be able to make everything go really fast for them,” Reams said.
He also noted the park has hired four new employees, has two fiber providers, and that work is being done to bring a gas line to the park.
Of Great Plains Industrial Park, Wyrick said, “They’ve been working hard for years now and it is exciting to see all their work come to fruition. We are rooting for them.”
In other business, the board heard a report concerning student attendance rates and chronic absenteeism at the grade school.
“We’re really excited that our numbers are nearly back to pre-COVID levels,” Wyric said.
He said prior to COVID, attendance rates were roughly 96-98%, which decreased during the pandemic. The current attendance rates in each school range from 94-97% in each building. He said the improvement in attendance has been due to the building administrators and the incentive programs operating at each school, which recognize attendance weekly.
The board also discussed regular policy updates as required by the Kansas Association of School Boards and a potential bellto- bell cell phone ban, which would require all public and private schools to ban students from using cell phones during school hours, and mandate that those phones be stored, turned off, and in a place inaccessible to students during the day.
The specifics of what that would require of school districts is currently unknown. Wyrick noted that this bill has strong bipartisan support.
Currently, USD 506 students are unable to use their phones during class, but some schools, such as the high school, allow students to use those devices during passing periods or during lunch.
The next USD 506 Board of Education meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m., Feb. 9, at the Curran Administrative Center.
