April 14, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

Okay,

we're live.

Okay, awesome. So welcome everybody. Adequate notice has been given and we're gonna start our meeting. We're gonna start a meeting as always just with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thanks, everybody. So just as we start this meeting, I just want to give a quick frame. This is kind of an interesting meeting that's a little bit different than others in that... We have an oath of office. We adjourn the meeting, Cena die and Sean takes it over for a while. And then we have our officers and then we come back and do some business, have some action items. and then we actually are gonna adjourn into executive session. So it's a little bit the flow, and we won't have a superintendent's report nor will we have public comment at this meeting. So just give everybody a little bit of the frame. It's a different type of meeting. It's kind of a one of a kind in terms of the ones that we have during the year. So we're gonna move immediately into item 2.01, which is an uncontested election. And So congratulations, Amy. Congratulations, Jason. It was uncontested election. So I'll just read here that as permitted under Missouri State Section 115.124, the School District of Clayton did not need to hold an election on April 6th, 2021. The district published the required notice under Section 115.127.2. five RSMO. The number of candidates filed equaled the number of open positions. So incumbents, of course, Amy and Jason, Amy Rubin and Jason Wilson filed for the open positions and will continue on with their next terms 2021 to 2024 after taking the oath of office. So again, congrats, Amy. Congrats, Jason. I will say, so we're going to adjourn the board SENA meeting die, I think is how you pronounce that. But before that, I just want to give the board a quick frame two before we do that, which is just as a reminder, we're going to do, Sean's going to take over the meeting. He's going to administer the oath of office to Amy and to Jason. Then we're going to go, he's going to do the election of officers, the president, and the vice president, kind of per our policy. So just as a reminder too, Sean sent out a memo. I reached out to each of you in terms of how it'll work, right? Well, Sean will ask for a motion for the officers. If there's a second, we'll move forward just like we would with the discussion and then we'll have a vote. So just a reminder. It shouldn't be news to anybody, but just as a reminder of the process, okay? All right, so... I guess, Gary, will you read the motion for 2.02 to adjourn the board SENA die?

I will 2.02. I move that the board of education adjourn SENA die. Second.

Second. All right. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, passes unanimously, 7-0. So this is a point, Sean, where we hand it over to you.

Hey, good evening, everyone. I want to say congratulations to Jason and Amy for continuing your service as Board of Education members. And we're going to start by the oath of office. And so item 2.03 is the oath of office for Amy Rubin. So Amy, what I'd ask you to do is to make sure that you're in the screen with your right hand up And I'd ask that you please repeat after me, okay? So I, Amy Rubin.

I, Amy Ruben.

Do solemnly affirm that I am at least 24 years of age.

Do solemnly affirmed that I am at at least 24 years age.

That I am a citizen of the United States and a resident taxpayer of the School District of Clayton.

That I am citizen of the United State and a resident taxpayer

in St. Louis County, in the state of Missouri,

and that I

will support the constitutions of the United States and the state of Missouri. And

that I will abide by and uphold the School District of Clayton Board Member Code of Ethics. and that I will abide by and uphold the School District of Clayton Board Member Code of Ethics.

And will faithfully conduct myself in office.

And will faith fully conduct myself in office

Congratulations, Amy. Thank you. Welcome to the board again.

Thank you.

All right, now Jason we're going to shift to you. If you could, there you are. So I, Jason Wilson. I, Jason Wilson Do solemnly affirm that I am at least 24 years of age. Do solemnly affirm I am at least twenty four years of age. That I am a citizen of the United States and a resident taxpayer of the school district of Clayton. That I am in citizen of the United states and

a

resident tax payer of the Clayton school district. In St. Louis County and in the state of Missouri. In the state of Missouri And that I will support the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Missouri. And that I will abide by and uphold the School District of Clayton Board Member Code of Ethics. And will faithfully conduct myself in office. Congratulations, Jason. Welcome to the board again. Really appreciate both of you and your service to the School District of Clayton. Thank you. So while I am the temporary chair of the board right now, I just wanted to say a few things before we get into the election. And what I want to say first is that this is an amazing group of individuals. And your individuality in terms of Your backgrounds, your experiences, your stories and perspectives are what makes you a strong board. And we have to remember that. Those differences make you strong. I also know that all of you, because I've worked with all of you, have a similar feature too. You always do what's in the best interest of our students. And that's going to be absolutely necessary as a board member. And you do it for everyone. each of the students and each of the staff and the community members. And we have to keep that in the forefront, but it's your differences that make you strong. It's the divergent thinking that you bring to the table that makes you strong. It is the kinds of questions that you ask that make you strong, so I encourage you as we move into the future to capitalize on those differences in order to develop collective leadership and capacity and lean into those disagreements, those differences of opinions and that discourse because that is actually what makes you strong. It helps you process and make decisions stronger that we make for our students. You have the collective capacity for change, meaningful change. Not one voice at this group can make a change. It has to be that collective change. and you can impart much change if you continue to work effectively with one another. And we're gonna do some work with later today. But I encourage you that no matter what your role is on the board, you have an impact with your voice. And the district is facing many transitions this upcoming year. And part of that's my responsibility in that we have a new superintendent coming in. We have our strategic plan that we're implementing. We are still in the middle of COVID And I implore you to your strength, to remember that your strength is those are those differences. And that you need to lead with that collective efficacy and that collective capacity to make change that is going to ultimately impact our students. So I want to say thank you. And I ask that you'd remember that as we move into the future. And so, um, and now we're going to shift to the election of officers and I'm going to start by asking to see whether or not there are any nominations for president of the board.

I nominate Amy Rubin to be board president.

The

second that nomination.

Are there any other nominations? Yup. I nominate Jason Wilson before president. Okay.

Any other nominations? Okay, as we go, since Amy was the first one nominated, we will go ahead and see, and we heard that there was a second. And so I'm gonna ask if there's any discussion.

I'll just say that I think Amy has been a great vice president. She's been along with me in terms of, as we've worked together really you know, as I've been the president and I think she will make a wonderful board president in terms of support of our strategic plan, support of our new superintendent, and quite honestly, all the things you just talked about, Sean. Okay.

Any other discussion before we go for a vote? So all in favor of Amy Rubin serving as the board president, Any opposed? So by six one, Amy, you've just been named the board president.

Thank you.

Step two in this process is the vice president of the board. I wanna see if there are any nominations for vice president of the Board.

I nominate Gary Pearson as vice president.

Are there any other nominations?

I second the nomination for Gary, just because you didn't ask for a second shot.

Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Any other nominations for vice president? Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? So by a 7-0 vote, we have Gary Pearson as the vice president. So Amy, you will serve as president. Gary, you'll serve as vice president. And now, Amy, I am shifting over uh, control of the board meeting back to you as now you are the president of the board of education.

Thank you, Sean. I just want to thank everybody for their support. I look forward to the next year and I know I have some, uh, very big shoes to fill, um, coming right behind Joe Miller, but, um, I, I look forward to this and I, um, plan on doing everything in my power to make sure the kids always come first. And again, I appreciate everybody's support. With that said, we're going to move on to the election of the board secretary. Are there any nominations?

Amy, I'd like to nominate Stacey Seawalk for board secretary.

Can I get a second?

I second that.

Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Great. Congratulations, Stacey. Now we are going to move on to the election of treasurer. Can I get any nominations for the treasurer, please?

Amy, I'd nominate Kim Hurst for treasurer.

I second that.

Thank you. Any discussion?

Yeah, I think Colin did a great job. Very good job. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Let's get it.

I agree. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Great. Motion passes 7-0. You get to help me though, Jason, as I take over the reins, dude.

You got it, man. You got it.

Cam, congratulations. Thank you. So if you guys don't mind, before we move on to the next section, I'd like to just take a minute and thank Joe. And I'm really into top 10 lists. So I have here the top 10 reasons why we love Joe. And I'm gonna start with number 10, which is every decision he makes is student-centered. And number nine is he was instrumental in helping pass Prop E. Number eight is that he makes really good chocolate chip cookies and Brazilian candy. What are those called, Joe? Something bonbons?

Brigaderos.

Brigaderos, good. Number seven is he has made equity work a priority since the day he walked onto this board in 2016. Number six is that he is always willing to listen to both sides of an argument, and at times he even changes his mind. Number five is he is really good at asking in 10 million different ways how we will measure the success of something. Number Number four is that he led the board in hiring a new superintendent, which was not an easy task. Number three is that he brilliantly contributed to the adoption of the new strategic plan. Number two is that he has lent us his invaluable expertise in education and administration. And number one, Joe, is that he has led us for the past two years with dignity, compassion, and infinite patience. I'm honored to call him not only a colleague but a friend. and look forward to the future with him on our side. Thank you, Joe, for your service.

Thank you so much, Amy. It was my pleasure.

All right, so with that, I have number- Can I just say

something really quick? Yes. I also think that we should recognize all those people who have served in other roles. And so thank you, Amy, for being vice president. But I also want to say thank you to Gary for serving as secretary, and always trying to make us put this in the forefront of being aware of policy and also making sure that we are thinking about the legislation. And then Jason, I wanna recognize you for your years of service as the treasurer and being part of our most recent financial advisory meetings and always willing to question. And we really appreciate your service. And I think that, again, as I said earlier, is that this is a really strong board and you have the ability to collectively make some strong changes in the future. And I've been so proud to serve with you as your superintendent.

Thanks.

Thank you, Sean. So I have number four as a facsimile form requirement.

Yeah, typically we would be doing that at this meeting. So we will be reaching out to the four new elected officers, Sandy, Manchella and I, to get, I have to have bank signatures. So we need to change for Amy and Kim to be the new authorized signer on our bank accounts. So I will have bank forms for you to sign. And then the state requires facsimile signature forms because we do use your signatures in documents that are approved by the board. So it's, and then for the checks and all that stuff. So they do have to be notarized. And so I just wanted to let you know that we normally do it at this meeting, but we'll reach out to you to schedule an appointment for you guys to come into the business office or into the admin building in order to do that. All right.

Terrific. So number five I have is our teacher salary schedules. We're moving on to action items, the teacher salary schedules, and this is an action item. So I'm going to ask Gary to read the motion.

All right. 5.01. I move that the Board of Education approve the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 teacher salary schedules as presented.

Second.

Second. Great. Is there any discussion?

Yeah, I'll open the floor on this one. So Sean and I don't know if it's Mary Jo or whom, but so the the question i've got i've kind of got a lot of questions on this so i you know i feel like we probably don't have a fair amount of discussion on this item and so i'll try to cover what we can here without bogging us down too far in the details um one thing that i One thing that came up routinely during Prop E, I think like everybody on the board, I spent a pretty healthy number of hours over the course of a couple of months campaigning for Prop E and pushing for it to pass and helping educate voters in Clayton as to why it's important. And a common refrain, if you will, that continually came up over and over again is, why are we so expensive? Why does it take, you know, $18,000 a kid in Clayton if Ledoux can do it and Kirkwood can do it for less, right? And, you know, we often talk about within our own group and in the public and in our documentation is Clayton is a high-performing district. And so it's not fair to compare Clayton to another district that doesn't perform quite as well. And there's always this question around, well, okay, well, what is a high- performing district? So if I unpeel that onion a little bit more, we get down to kind of the question around Well, at the end of the day, it's the teachers and the teachers are critical. There's no question there. I know we cite the study from Goldhaver in 2002. It says teacher quality appears to have a larger impact on student achievement than any other school related factor. And I don't think anybody at all doubts that. And I don' think anybody doubts the value that our teachers in Clayton bring to the kids. I know personally as a parent, we've had phenomenal, phenomenal teachers for both of our boys. But when I think back to what the community asks whenever I would go around and talk to them about Prop E or even when I was campaigning for the Board of Education around why does Clayton never say no? Why do we need this much money when our other districts don't? It kind of made me dig into this a little bit more. So just to give you a little bit of frame of reference for where I'm coming from, I kind of looked at let's break this into our peer group, right? So when I look at our MAP scores on the APR from pre-COVID, I look at the English, math and science kind of spread across the realm. Clayton is always number one, but immediately behind it. And in the case of English, actually, Ledoux ties us. But otherwise, Ledoux is number two and not by a big margin. And then number three is always Kirkwood. Right. Fourth place kind of bounces between Lindbergh and Brentwood. And then science, it ties between Brentwood and Lindbergh. But if I look at just Clayton, Ledoux and Kirkwood is the example to maintain our peer group. And then I pull that in and I look at a third party review like Niche because Niche seems to be a hot topic since we had a little botch this year. Clayton is number two. Right. So we didn't make it into the school district rankings because of that geocoding error. But if you open the Clayton reference within Niche, you'll see that we actually, among the grading criteria, we fall in between Kirkwood and Ledoux. So... Ladue kind of ties us or comes in a very close second in performance ratings. Ladue beats us across the board in the niche ratings, not only on district but also in high school and middle school. And then when I look at the elementary on the niche ratings, Ladue's got five of the 10 slots and two of our elementary schools make the top 10. I think Parkway might round out the others. But so kind of digging in a little bit deeper, okay, well, if Ladue and Kirkwood are definitely our peer districts relative to the industry, where are we at from a spend perspective? And when I look at them, it's a little bit difficult. Obviously, salary expense is tough because on some of our reports or some district reports, we aggregate benefits across both certified and uncertified. Some districts break it out. So I kind of lumped it all together, which actually should provide a bigger buffer for our larger districts. Cause when we look at support staff, if you've got 15 buildings versus five buildings, obviously you have a lot more support staff, right? If you have a busing district, you've got a lot more support stuff. So when I look at all of that and I think I'm actually kind of giving the edge to those other districts you know, I see some pretty stark budget differences. You know, Clayton sits at roughly 45 and a half million dollars in salary and benefits and Ladue sits at 49 and a half, Kirkwood sits at 60.7. If I rationalize that with the student population, Ladue sits at about a 65% more students than we do, but they only have an eight, almost 9% bump in the salary and benefits schedule, which equates to a dollar per student of about a third or actually a little bit better than a third. Kirkwood is even bigger, right? Kirkwood's close to what, 6,000 students, I think, 5,000 students. Their budget for total staff is a third more than ours, but their cost per student is almost half of ours. So when I look at the request for the salary schedule, I see a lot of great comments around our teachers are great, we've gotta be competitive, et cetera, et cetera. But what I'm not seeing is where does the other dollars go, right? Why is Ladue able to beat us or be at number two for a third less money compared to what we do? So where is it in the presentation that I'm missing that kind of highlights the value-driven activity that justifies the money that we spend on salary relative to our quote-unquote peer districts?

I know that

was a long question.

No, no, I appreciate the question. I think the thing that I would start by is that when we're looking at how do we measure success? And so yes, you can compare districts in terms of standardized test scores. You can look at niche ratings, you can look at those kinds of things, but that's not the only measure that we use to measure success. We measure success in terms of what the experience is for our students. And part of the reason why that we have, we spend more per student is because we have more FTE in comparison to some of the other districts. And some of that means that we have more interventionists. We have different programming that is different than those other schools. An example as one of our hallmarks is our conference English program. I would say that our students and our parents really appreciate that we have a program that is so specialized for students, but that takes and requires more FTE than maybe another school. There are other programs that we have that we add, you know, we add additional supports in terms of interns, we add additional support in terms of interventionists. And I think that we just have to think about that. We have to go beyond the measure of just the standardized test scores in order to measure our success. We have to think about the individual student stories that parents have when their students aren't reading at what we say expected, but we have the resources to put them in with a certified reading specialist. And so, yes, I totally hear what you're saying, but I think that there are different things that we provide in the district in terms of our arts programs, thinking about the number of staff that we have for that. It is different and the reason why is because in comparison we may have more FTE compared to other districts. But the salaries like I don't think is, the salaries are not that, there's not such a disparity in terms of what we pay our teachers. We have more teachers in comparison but the salaries themselves are not, they are very comparable. I think when you're talking about Ladue it's less than 1%. difference. If we put all of our teachers on the salary schedule for Ladue, I think it's 0.76 is the difference. And so, so

Sean, let's, let's dig into that just a little bit. So you're right. It is 0.76% difference or actually before we do before, I don't want to get too far down. You covered a couple of good points, but first thing to remember too, is, you know, the, the, the dollars that we're spending here are, are not necessarily my dollars or your dollars or Clayton School District's dollars. These come out of the pocketbooks of our taxpayers, and two-thirds of our taxpayers don't have kids in the school. So while the outcomes are great, when we look at it from where the funding comes from, I think we have a fiduciary obligation to the taxpayer of Clayton to be able to articulate you know, clearly and, and pretty, you know, with, with clear data points that, uh, I'll just pick on conference English, for example, conference English yields X result in the real world versus Ladoo. Cause, cause if we just use Ladoo as a sticking point, right? What we are saying is for $4,000 more per kid, um, they are coming out into the world better than their peer and Ladoo. And we need to be able to articulate with data behind that. Right. So, and I'm, and I understand that it's FTE driven because we're talking about salary expense now. So going into the salary piece, you're right that we are 0.76% on aggregate. If we were to pick up all of our teachers and, and move them into Ledoux's schedule based on 2020, 2021, right? Because they've not released their schedule for 22, 23, 24. That's three quarters of a point. I look at it more in the competitive piece because that's where kind of Tony led the memo around was the competitive piece, right? Well, we don't necessarily have to pay masters 15, 10 or 12% more to be competitive. I look at it from a culture perspective and you and I talked about this briefly a little bit directly outside of the board purview. You know, what's more important to me is that we've got a culture within Clayton that the teachers want to be at. Right. I never want to feel like we have a teacher that is not happy and would like to leave. But because they make 11 percent more than they would if they went to Kirkwood, they stay right. I think it's important that you be competitive in your peer industry, in your peer group. And you stay for the culture, right? You want to have an environment where you're embraced and you're challenged and you pop out of bed in the morning. You don't want to create an environment where you stay because you don't want to take a 10% pay cut. And we do have that with Kirkwood. So I think when we do the peer measurement piece, it's a difficult conversation to articulate to the shareholders of our school, which are our taxpayers. I just think that this needs to be presented, at least for me, and I know there's seven of us. So for me, I would rather see this be presented as not as a, here's what we need to be competitive, but rather as, here's where we need to be to be competitive, but also this is why it costs more to educate a child in Clayton than it does in Ladue and Kirkwood. And we're putting out more well-rounded, you know, more ready for the world, et cetera, et cetera. And here's the data behind that. And that I feel like is missing in the request.

Okay. Amy, can I jump in?

Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, sure. I was going to go around and just honor everybody's time. But Joe, let's go ahead and yeah, jump in and shoot.

Okay. All right. So, so I certainly respect what you said, David. And I think that maybe we need to present it in a different way. I guess what I would might push back a little bit and say that the two thirds of folks who live in Clayton, who don't have kids in the district. What I heard and what I've heard when I was out there canvassing too is they're very interested in property values too, right? And, you know, including my own parents who've lived in Clayton for 50 plus years and who don't have in the district anymore, right? I've been out of the district for a little while. And so my sister and two brothers. And so I think that that's also important when you think about what, you know, what do they get. And I guess I would argue that I would go back to what we're doing in terms of paying teachers, you know, yes, we pay them very well. We pay them at, you know, we have over the years kind of competed with sometimes being the very best, sometimes being one of the best. And I think that's a good thing in terms of the quality of the district, in terms of, to your point, I think the teachers are the biggest factor in student success. And of course it's not perfect and we're not perfect, but I think that, I mean, I guess I support paying our teachers really, really well because I think overall, you know, We're doing very well. And I think that that's important to continue.

Joe, let's not accidentally draw a causal correlation between questioning and explaining to our taxpayers why we pay so much more with not supporting teachers, right? I think I absolutely support teachers. I busted my tail for Prop E. But we also have a responsibility to the community to be cautious with the dollars so that we don't get a no vote on the next one. And I think if we perform as well as we'll do, I'm pretty sure our property values will be okay, right?

So guys, I just, I want to get to the other board members too, not to cut anybody off, but I'm going to, Stacey, do you have anything that you want to add?

Yes. I, well, David, I totally appreciate that you are analyzing the budget and questioning it, which we should. So I do appreciate that. I have to admit, I'm really uncomfortable discussing this as it pertains to teacher salary schedules in the middle of this pandemic. I am like over this past year, we know our teachers have been heroes and have worked harder Maybe only second to our health care workers through this for our kids. So I just the timing of this is makes me very uncomfortable. And it's not like we are in financial crisis where we are looking to cut money from our budget. We can afford to pay our teachers this. They deserve this. And frankly, because of this pandemic, I wish we could give them even more, to be totally honest with you. So when I look at the salary schedule, I think like, I mean, what other profession would you work for 12 years and a doctorate degree and not even make $80,000? So the big picture to me is teachers still don't get paid enough for the work they do. And they certainly aren't getting paid enough for the pandemic. So I'm, again, as I appreciate you trying to analyze this, but I just think I want to be cautious that the message it's sending to our teachers right now, that it isn't one of not supporting them. Because I do believe that you do, David, and I think we all do. And like Sean said, I do think we are number one because of many reasons, not just niches. rankings or map scores. And I think maybe you're right, that it is hard to articulate or find measurements for some of that, but I think there are many reasons behind it. And I would also say I'm proud to be in a district that pays teachers the most. I really am. And I think that it helps us attract great teachers and even more importantly, helps us retain great teachers. And I do think that although the salary might be a reason for them to come or to stay. I do think we have a culture here that makes teachers want to stay with us. I really truly do. I think we have the highest retention rate of teachers or somebody correct me if I'm wrong, one of the highest at least retention rates. And I would, I really do believe in my heart that that is because of the culture here and not just because of the pay. But I really do want to put in perspective what teachers are paid in general. And because we are not, you know, in financial trouble as a district, I'm uncomfortable talking about this at this time in a pandemic as it relates to salary schedules. I mean, I know that I am biased having been a teacher but I will just tell you guys the reason I quit teaching is because I had a newborn baby that my salary could not cover the daycare for. So I feel for these teachers when we talk about salary, it's personal to me. I value them and I'm proud that we can pay them this much. And like I said, in the middle of this pandemic, when I feel like last spring, everybody was shouting for the rooftops that teachers should be paid a million dollars because all of a sudden parents learned how hard their jobs were. And now here we are a year later. And I, I'm just uncomfortable debating the topic as it relates to their salaries. So I just don't want to send the message that we don't support or appreciate their work because we're analyzing the schedule. So. That's all.

Thank you, Stacey. Jason, do you got anything?

Yeah, I do. So David, that's a great question. Long but great. Joe hit on something that I thought was very important, which was in this. So I ran the same question in my household with my wife, trying to figure these things out too. And the one thing we came back to was property values. Property value is absolutely important when it comes to, if you look at schools around the country as to why some schools do better, why some schools get ranked number one. So, and if you run down the, the running of the flagpole and go a little deeper in on that, you'll find a whole lot of stuff that that property values and the cost of why these schools cost a lot while we pay teachers more in this space. You'll find a lot of information out but property values seem to be what I kept coming back to as the number one reason why it costs more to educate kids in certain districts. So And also, David, not to, you know, Stacy, not to push back on you, but I'm going to have to a little bit. I don't take from David's question that he's questioning the importance of paying teachers and not even paying more. I think what he's just asking is how do we articulate why it costs more to educate children in Clayton versus... the peer district like Kirkwood and Clayton and Ladue. And that's a great, it's a fair question, but a lot of it comes back to the idea of property value, who you can prevent from living in your neighborhood, what kids can go to school in this community. There's a lot of things that you can do when your property values are high. And then you can charge more and pay more because that's kind of the way it works. Yeah. That's all I have to say.

Thanks, Jason. Gary?

So I appreciate the conversation and all the points. I guess when I'm thinking about this, I don't have as much command of all the numbers and things like that. But I think about when I ran for the board for the first time, I came up with a really catchy slogan of three things that were important to me. It was student success, financial stability, and teacher excellence or something. I'm not sure that's even right. My campaign manager would be really disappointed if I'm not getting that right. Those are the big picture fundamental things. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about what that meant and how we achieve those things and, and what we needed to do to try to keep an eye on those, those three things. And I don't really remember having a lot of conversations about where the salary scale was on, you know, compared to different districts. Like that was something that, to be honest, I don't think I fully understood until I think this is my third time through this, this cycle. I think I'm starting to understand it. I'm, I'm not sure I fully understood it before now. But what I do know is I think if we keep the big picture in mind, I want to pay our teachers as well as we can. I do think, and again, I'll own that bias as well. I mean, my wife, when our kids were born, was on a public education teacher salary too. And so we had to make some decisions about um, what was, was worth doing in terms of staying in that on that salary or staying home with kids. And those aren't easy decisions to make, but, um, on, on some of these salary schedules, a lot of people, when like us, we were, we were fortunate to be able to make a decision that she would stay home with those kids. So I'm certainly biased by that. Um, I want to pay them as well as we can in order to have yes, teacher excellence and student success and financial stability. So I think for me, the big picture question is, does making, you know, adopting this salary schedule, are we financially stable? Are we making a big jump that makes us unstable? Or is this within what we told the voters we needed to do when we asked them to pass Prop E? And again, I don't have as great a command of all the numbers as some folks say. in this virtual room, but as I look at it, I think the answer to that is yes. We're acting within sort of the range of financial stability and promoting teacher excellence and promoting student success. So for me, that's why I would support this.

Thanks, Gary. Kim.

Yeah, sure. Happy to go. So I have spent some time, surprise, surprise, digging into the numbers. And the first thing I want to say is I want to make sure that David is not painted as the bad guy here and not supporting teachers and not supporting the salary schedule. So he and I actually spent some time looking through it together today. And, um, you know, in terms of competitiveness, uh, I'll just speak for myself, but I don't have any issues with where our salary sits in comparison to other districts, especially, especially districts that we're often compared to. Um, and again, I don't want to speak for David. He'll speak for himself if he has a, another opportunity here, but I believe that he probably likely feels the same way. I think that what, um, he is asking for, and I think that we do owe this to our taxpayers and our residents, and frankly, it's good PR for the school, is to be able to articulate what the return on investment is, the total return on investment is for the amount of money that we're paying for students. And I believe, and I've seen it through the experience of my own kids, especially since they started in private schools here in St. Louis, that the Clayton public school experience is different from all the other public schools that we're talking about and which Clayton is compared to. And that does not come out in the data that you see from just a raw test score percentage or from a niche ranking. And I think it would behoove the district and this board to be able to, as David recommended, get a list of how it is different in terms of the number of electives, why we have more FTEs, where the support staff is. Because all of those things do exactly what I think everybody here is in violent agreement of which is support property values, you know, a strong school district. What I heard during Prop E is strong school districts supports, you know, the strength of the community and anchors the community. I don't think there's any disagreement amongst any of the board members here with respect to that fact being true. But I do think it would be good for us to be able to articulate, again, as a board and as a school district, exactly what that return on investment is. And then bigger picture, again, divorced from the salary schedule, at least for me, is to look at should we continue to be spending at that pace? And that gets woven into the bigger picture when we talk about curriculum reviews or technology reviews or large capital projects, whatever it is, just so that we know from a fiduciary standpoint, because it is our fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers, where all of those dollars are going. We spend a lot of money per student. I don't think there's any argument about that. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't spend that money, but we should be able to tell people where that money is going. So that would be the only thing that I would add.

Karen Hollweg, Right Thank you Kim. Karen Hollweg, So Gary Gary read the motion. Karen Hollweg , it's been seconded john do you want to say something.

Sean SeLegue, yeah I do think caitlin's also and i'm just want to see if caitlin hadn't i'm

sorry caitlin okay my bad. I just have a quick question. I do very much appreciate the work of our teachers and I think they contribute a lot to the positive experiences that students have in the Clayton School District. Like Ms. Hurst said, I'm also interested to see like just a bigger picture beyond teacher salary, what additional data points that we can produce to present to stakeholders in the district? And just one clarifying question I had because I guess I'm more of a lay person to this topic. It's like, how are we able to accurately get data points on how things like, for example, the English conference program translate to the future success of Clayton School District graduates?

Thanks, Caitlin. Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about that same thing and that's how That's difficult. And one of the things that we are thinking about is, and we're implementing is doing a survey of our graduates too. And thinking about like our profile, the graduate and the work that we've had, the experiences that our students had, like will that also give us some data that maybe we haven't been collecting? I would agree with everything that people have said. I think that we need to start thinking about a way that we can provide the board with the communication around like why, if someone asks, why is our per pupil expenditure higher than other districts? What are we actually getting from that? How is Clayton different from that? We can create that type of communication for the board and also think about how we promote that in the community as well. So I think that would help answer some of those questions. those questions. And so I, um, I, I appreciate it. And then I also want to say too, is David, I appreciate those, those questions because I think that those are helping us again, become stronger and thinking about how do we, how do we make sure that we are, um, spending our, spending our money in a way that's going to make sure that it's having a return on investment. And so, um, I'm not exactly sure how that's all going to, how we would measure all those things. But I think we can, our team, the central office administrators can start thinking about how we could actually present that and be happy to start creating something.

Great. Caitlin, I'm sorry. I almost forgot to call on you.

No worries.

So I guess we're going to vote on this. And I'm not going to add anything other than since we are going to vote on our teacher salary schedules, I want to thank our teachers in Clayton. And I hope they know how much they mean to us and how much we support them and how fortunate we feel to have them as part of our community. So thank you very much. So we are going to, I guess we're gonna vote. And so is everybody all in favor of approval of the teacher salary schedules? Aye. Any opposed? Great, motion passes unanimously.

Gary Valentz, Okay, you mean I just want to point out the next one, we have to recuse a board member. Gary Valentz, yeah I

need to recuse myself from this one, so I will log off and just let somebody explain when we're done.

Karen Hollweg, Right, so we are on 5.02 which is a certified staff reemployment Gary can you read the motion, please.

5.02 I move that the Board of Education approves the re-employment of the certificated staff as submitted for the 2021-2022 school year. Second. Is there

any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. unanimously. I'm sorry, was there any opposed? No, I'll text Joe. Okay, motion passes.

You got to slow your roll there, Ruben.

I know. I'm a little hasty, David. Well, I'm a little excited tonight. Okay, we are moving on now to the consent agenda. Joe's back, now we're onto the consent agenda. Gary, will you go ahead and read us the motion, please?

6.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda items 6.02 through 6.05. We need a second.

Second, somebody? Second. Second. Great. Okay, is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Okay, great. So we are now, we're on to item number seven, which is our board orientation and onboarding. And Joe has graciously agreed to do a short presentation for us. He had the opportunity recently, I think a few weeks ago, to present to the MSBA and to board presidents across the state regarding best practices and onboarding new board members. And so he's gonna lead us in a discussion on board member protocol, how to be a good board member, And with that, I'm just gonna let him take it from here.

Okay, awesome. So thank you all. I appreciate the opportunity to go over this. As Amy said, this is a presentation and I just, Literally one that I gave to the MSBA that I didn't change it from March 30th. So I'll whip through it pretty quick for you guys. So really the frame of this, it was thinking about onboarding new board members, but it's really just also how to be a good board member. And so the frame is really starting with two things. One is what's best for students. And the second is how to be a learner. And when I say how to be a learn, it's not just how to learn about the budget and how to learn about protocols and procedures, but it's also how to be self-aware as a board member. Because one of the greatest challenges that board members have is they have great intent, but their impact sometimes is different than their intent. And so this kind of addresses that. So I don't know that I really need to talk about this. This was obviously for a group that's not Clayton, so we can skip the about Clayton and just get to, you know, I mean, what's interesting is I think that, and maybe you all don't know this, but, you know, our expectations before you get elected, and I'm really just going to talk about expectations before you get You know, the new board meeting that we're having, the one like tonight and then after. You know, the fact that we all have students in Clayton schools is unique. That's something that's unique for Clayton. It's not that way in a lot of other districts. I think it's actually great. I guess I'm biased, right? Because I'm a sitting board member with students in, but I just want to just kind of note that. You know, I do think... you know, the governance core, the book that we read is really important in terms of kind of, as a matter of fact, it really gives a guide on how to be a good board member. And I think one of the most important things about that is really thinking through kind of what they call is the team of eight. And that's working with a superintendent, right? That the board, it's a board of seven in Missouri. It's, you know, seven elected board members working with not doing things to right? Not doing things for, not digging in to, but thinking about the governance and letting the administration obviously do the superintendent, in our case, Sean, do his work and soon to be Nisha do her work with their team. You know, I do think it's important, this idea that, you know, what we do is meet with existing and past board members. I think that that bring, you know, and the knocking on doors, right? Attending board meetings just to understand, serving on committees, meeting with administrators. That's all important stuff, right? And I know you all, I will say, I think we've gotten a little looser in Clayton about that, right? It used to be that we, you had to check everything on this list. I don't know that everybody checks everything on the list before they run, but much of the things. And I think that's important. So maybe if you go to the next slide, Shawn. Thank you. So today, right, our reorganization meeting, right? So I think it's important to note that every year is a new board. So this is a new board, right? We are all the same faces as we're on our last board meeting, but it's a new board. And that's important to recognize, right? And actually, even if we didn't have new officers, we do have new officers, right? And that really brings me to, you know, I think one of the great things about Clayton is kind of that idea of shared leadership. And it's not perfect, but we tend to rotate our officers every two years. We just had an example of that. We had folks who served for two years and now we have different folks in different positions. And it doesn't always work this way, but I think that's something that's really a best practice when you think about that it's a group of seven of us together, not one individually. So it's not about somebody's ego. Right. It's about working together in that idea of shared leadership. And then this idea that we each time we personalize, right, our professional development and our team building. And that's what we're doing tonight. Right. Well, after this, we're actually going to go into executive session and continue. But I think that's important, too. And what I will say, just before I move to the next slide, is this. I think that part of the reason why MSBA asked me to do something, they asked me and the president of the Kansas City Board, public board, kind of a mix up the president there, which is more rural, is because I think they've actually heard about some of the stuff we've done. They like us working with the governance core. They like our protocols. They like some of the stuff that they're hearing about. So, I mean, I think it's to you all's credit, right? To the credit of this board. So if we move to the next slide, which is okay. So after you're sworn in, right? And pass this meeting and You know, Sean sent out the board protocols, right? And those protocols were something that the board worked on, right? Everything from the roles and responsibilities of board and concerns from the community and, you know, the interactions, the, you know, kind of how you prepare for a board meeting, no surprises, executive sessions, right? It's a pretty speaking with one voice, engaging the community, even advocating for your own child, right? I mean, kind of a comprehensive list. And we're not necessarily going to go over those protocols at this meeting, but we will, right, at future meetings because it's important, right? It's really our guide. It's our template and guide of how we work together as a board and how we also individually operate as board members. So, I mean, those protocols, you know, I looked at them again, and I will say that – and I've actually sent them on to MSBA at their request as a – It just kind of a template for them to consider because you know they like right and then so next is the role of the board versus the staff right, so this is something that I think our board has done pretty well on. Not every board does well, but I think our board is done pretty well, which is that idea that we're at governance level. that we don't get into the details, that we don't micromanage. It doesn't mean we don't ask tough questions. So I think a great example today, right? David asked some really good and important questions, right? That's great. That's important. That is the role of a board member. But that doesn't mean we're diving into the details and trying to do the staff's work, right? I think that, you know, we kind of using mentors, right? with existing board members, right? We, you know, COVID might've gotten the best of us a little bit. So sorry, David, and sorry, Kim, you know, I'm not sure we did the greatest job when you guys were brand new, but I do think that's an important practice, right? Especially as we're allowed to, you know, to work together in person, right? Which we'll be able to do again soon. This idea that, you know, it's not that we can't meet with administrators, right? We just need to understand our role. And I think part of, you know, we give, you know, board members the opportunity to meet with all the administrators and the principals, even as they're running, but our candidates, but then, you know, obviously to understand, you know, I think most of us, if not all of us have done some school tours with Sean, although, well, maybe I'm gonna pause that and say maybe not because of COVID. Maybe, I don't know if David and Kim have gotten to do that yet because of COVID. And then, you know, I think this is what's interesting about Robert's Rules of Order, right? We're a small organization, right? We are not the Congress. Right. Thankfully, we're not talking about filibusters. And if we're not talking, you know, this procedural ideas that are going to come up. Right. You know, hold up a motion, play games. So, yes, we follow Robert's rules of order as a general template, but we don't have to follow all of it. Right. It's not to be. We don't want it to slow us down. to make a non-efficient bureaucratic system. And there's even a Robert's Rules of Order for small organizations, and relatively speaking, we're considered small. So when I say Robert's Rules here, it's a general guideline, right? We have a motion, we second it, we have discussion rights, things like that. Again, not some of the fancier in depth stuff that you would see in the Congress or other places. And then finally the board effectiveness survey. I think what's interesting about the board effectiveness survey is and we've done a number of board effectiveness surveys, right? I like the one that we all just did and we are gonna have a discussion about this but I think that it's not only important that we as board members do the board effectiveness survey it's important that we get kind of a 360 like feedback. Again, this goes back to the intent versus impact, right? And so it's great that our administrative team, right? Our top leadership team has also done, right? How do they perceive the effectiveness of the board, right? They're not board members, but they experience, right? They experience the board and that's important to get that feedback too. So we can understand again, sometimes if our intent matches what we want the impact to be. And so I went through that pretty quick. That is the end. Does anybody have any quick questions? I just wanted to give that for you guys because I thought that again speaks as much to how do we be a good board member, not just a new board member.

Karen Hollweg, So that was, I think that was great are you are you will you be able to circulate that presentation to us.

Sean SeLegue, Absolutely.

Karen

Hollweg, Great Sean you could just send it to everybody because actually Sean was running I wasn't running the computer Sean was so he hasn't. Sean SeLeague,

will be shirts in the Friday memo this week.

Great. And just so everybody knows, we will come back. I know that Sean circulated the on our Clayton's onboarding guide with the, uh, board protocols embedded within it. And we are going to come back to that and discuss it. We're not going to do it tonight, but we will, um, we will at some point in the near future, come back to that. Have a more in-depth discussion on the board protocols as they pertain to this, um, the school board. So I think we are, I don't know if anybody has any updates for it's not, I don't see it on the agenda, but typically if anybody's had any committee meetings, we do some updates. Does anybody have anything tonight? Update wise? Yes, Stacy.

Okay, a few things. First of all, I just want to thank publicly Tony and Sean and whatever other administrators put on the communications lab yesterday that we have with the teachers. First of all it was so great to meet in person with all of you but also with all the teachers and I always love the opportunity to meet with our teachers and talk about what we're doing in our schools and collaborate. And so thank you for putting that on and thank you for the beautiful weather. It was great. And I would actually love, I've actually mentioned this to a few others of you yesterday that I would love to do that with students one day too. So it was great. Thank you. Two other things, I wanted to just tell everyone since the district had a big part in Adzick Field that it has been a huge success this spring with sports. We have had very few rain outs and I know that all the other schools are appreciative of that too. So it's been great and all of our spring sports are welcoming spectators now as long as you're masked and distanced. So I would encourage all of you to come out and support our athletes. And the only other thing is I did have a pack ed steering committee meeting. We, I don't remember if I mentioned this last time, but I had, we had met, we met Shalonda Williams who's the Brown School practicum student working with Robin and Cameron, and she's graduating next month, but I know they've appreciated having her here, and Let's see, what else? Oh, special school district next year I guess is changing a little bit that each district will have its own special ed director. So we have D'Andrea Player and instead of sharing our directors, each district will have their own which I think will be really great for us and for all districts. And on April 24th, Pack Ed's hosting a parent social where Dr. Doherty and Dr. Patel will be attending which will be great for those parents to get to meet both of them and talk about the transition. And that's it for me. Thanks, Stacey.

Anybody else? Great. Then I think, Gary, we are going to adjourn into private session and we're going to need a roll call vote.

So do you want me to just adjourn to executive session or adjourn and then reopen? Okay. So I move that pursuant to 610.0213 and 13 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, the Board of Education meet in closed session for discussion related to personnel matters.

Second. Okay.

All right, Joe.

Yes.

Jason.

Yes.

Gary, yes. David? Yes. Kim?

Yes.

Stacey?

Yes.

And Amy?

Yep. Great. So we are going to, we are adjourned and we are going to sign off of this meeting and there should be a link to our executive session meeting and the Google calendar.

Can we take a five-minute break in between? Yes, we can. Let's meet back at 8.16 or