October 13, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

I believe we have some individuals joining us today on Zoom. In every meeting, we like to start off with recognizing our own. And today we have Kim Chironi from All In Clayton Coalition who's going to be joining us and Dr. Wiens, I believe you will be introducing some of the students. And I think they are on at the, are we still waiting on a couple more? We might be waiting for, there we go. They're coming on there. And so Red Ribbon Week is one of the largest and oldest drug abuse prevention programs. And our great coalition here does a lot of activities towards the end of October. And so they are here to tell us a little bit about it. And we just want to thank them and recognize them for all that they do for us. So, Dr. Wiens, if you want to take it away. Thank

you, Dr. Patel. Tonight, we are recognizing a few students alongside Kimberly Schironi, the All-In Clayton Coalition Project Coordinator. Tonight, I'd like to welcome Tucker Abeles, Jonathan Gutierrez, and Catherine Nguyen from the All-In And they are student representatives working with Ms. Sharone this school year. Before they talk to you a little bit about the Red Ribbon events and activities they have planned in the community, I just wanted to recognize this group of students for all their hard work. We have come so far in growing the All-Inclinant Coalition's work. And we have certainly been able to expand our student involvement. And I have to say, if any of you have ever had a chance to visit an all-in Clayton Coalition meeting, our student reps are go-getters. They are very action-oriented and extremely motivated to make a positive change in our community. So I definitely encourage you to join one of their meetings if you can. And at this point, I'll go ahead and hand it over to Kim to talk a little bit about what she and her students are working on.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Dr. Wien. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for having me. As Dr. Patel said, Red Ribbon Week is happening October 23rd through October 31st. And this is really a great opportunity for our student leaders to flex their leadership muscles and to get their school community on board with the importance of substance use prevention. And also just how important it is to live a drug-free lifestyle as a teenager. And so they have some really great things planned for Y-Down during the week of the 23rd. And so we've got Catherine, Jonathan, and Tucker here with us tonight. They are three members of at Y-Down. We have about 25 members this year, which as Dr. Wien said is huge growth for us considering last year we had five student representatives. So we went from five to 25, which is just phenomenal. And these students have jumped in feet first and are really passionate about prevention and we're just really lucky to have them. So I'm going to turn it over to Catherine first. Catherine is going to share a little bit about the history of Red Ribbon Weeks and what this week represents.

Hi, my name is Katherine. So it all started when Enrique Camarena who was a Drug Enforcement Administrative Agent was in Mexico and he was working against illegal drugs coming into the United States. Sadly though, he did die in 1985. But his memory still was on. So his families and friends wore red ribbons in honor of his memory and his activism towards drugs. Schools began to pick up on it and became more widespread. So now it started becoming a national celebrated week in 1988. And schools, coalitions like us, use this week to educate and kind of educate young people to prevent drug abuse.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Catherine. And in our meeting we have created two different planning groups. This group is very competitive and so they really wanted to do some type of competition to engage their peers in learning more about the negative effects of substance use, and also talking about, you know, what are the alternatives that we can do? What are those healthy coping skills that students can turn to? So Jonathan is going to talk a little bit about the competition that our White House Coalition is planning for the week of Red Ribbon.

Sorry for taking a second. The mic was being weird. But what we have planned for All-In Coalition is some sort of trivia for students to answer. And I'm not sure, but we were talking about rewards maybe between packs and teams. We also had a plan for people to try to wear red. And the team with the most people wearing red will get some sort of reward. But we're still finalizing the details on that. And that's all.

Excellent. Thanks, Jonathan. Yeah, the trivia questions would be all related to different facts about substances, particularly the top three substances that we know students use, which are alcohol, vaping and marijuana. Because as we were talking with our students, we realized, you know, there are a lot of facts out there about substances that students might not be aware of and that might change or influence their decision whether or not to use as they're entering these teenage years. So Tucker is a representative from our communications team, and Tucker's going to talk a little bit about how this group is going to spread the word to their peers at Y-Down about the fun things we have planned for Red Ribbon Week.

Hi, I'm Tucker Ables, and I'm a sixth grader here at Y-Down. So basically we're going to make some posters, hang them up around the school, and they're going to be explaining what Red Ribbon Week is and they're going to be explaining the activities. We're also going to put them on the tables in Main Street so kids can read them when they go to lunch. And I don't know if Jonathan shared this, but every day there's going to be a question, and we're going to lay little Easter eggs in the posters as answers to the questions to help them. So if they read the posters, they may get an answer to a question. And we're going to also communicate to the package.

Excellent. Thank you all so much for sharing. As you all can see, this group is very organized, very motivated, and we're just really excited to see them put this plan into action the last week of October. So thank you all so much having us here tonight.

Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate all the work, and I know there's a lot of planning and details that go behind this. So thank you students for doing that. Have a great evening. Thanks for having me.

Thank

you. Okay, next we have one more individual that we're going to be recognizing tonight, and he should be Zooming on as well. His name is Danny Bui, and he actually started last year. Last year, Dr. Wien started an Asian affinity group, And one of the students that was part of this group is the individual that we're going to be recognizing today, and his name is Danny. And what Danny did was he took it to the next level. What he decided to do was expand the group, have more students join the Asian affinity group, And it took a lot of organization. It took a lot of leadership. And the next thing he knew, he had a lot of students joining this and he created a safe space for everybody to be a part of a community. And so I wanted to make sure we recognize Danny today. And Dr. Wiens is for you as well for starting this year. So I didn't know if you wanted to add something.

Yes. Thank you very much, Dr. Patel. Tonight, it really is an honor to honor Danny in recognition of just his initiative in bringing the Asian Student Association to life at CHS. Last semester, in light of a lot of the anti-Asian hate crimes that we were seeing covered in mainstream media, I felt like it was very important for us to create a safe space for our Asian American students to process what they were seeing and hearing and reading on social media. And so I created this space virtually for students to come join us. And Danny was one of those students. And at the beginning of this school year, Danny reached out to me and said, Hey, Dr. Wiens, I think that we can take this to the next level. And I really want to do it. Can you help me? So I went over to CHS and met Danny and a couple of his classmates at lunch, talked through the next steps, and he set it all into motion, found a teacher sponsor and everything. And in just a second, I'll give him an opportunity to kind of share his reflection on this experience so far. But I also wanted to make sure that I thanked Mr. De La Paz, who is the teacher sponsor, who is helping Danny and his classmates move this organization forward. And Mr. De La Paz, I know you couldn't be here tonight, but if you are listening, I just wanted to say salamat po. All right, Danny, it's all you.

Hello? Hello? Can y'all hear me?

Yes,

we can.

Perfect. I just want to say thank you so much for this recognition. It means very much to me because it shows that my Asian Student Association is being heard, and that's why I wanted from this little club I made, basically. It's very nice having this community now because I remember growing up in Clayton, there wasn't that many Asians. But now that Clayton is growing as a school district, there's more and more Asian students coming in together. And now that we have this club, it feels more safe. I feel more heard. It's very nice.

Yeah, Danny, I just want to tell you on behalf of the board that we're so proud of you for putting this together. And it's a really important club at the high school and we were just thrilled that you had the courage to get it together and we appreciate your time and all your efforts.

Thank you.

And thank you, Danny, for being a great role model. Were you going to say something?

I prepped up a paragraph for this. I don't know if I'm supposed to read it or I was just supposed to send it in.

You may read it.

Okay. So, Alex, thank you for recognizing the Asian Student Association. This club was created as a means of bringing together the growing Asian student community in Clayton. I took inspiration from the Vietnamese youth group I grew up in and want to provide a similar environment to the students in Clayton. Growing up in Clayton, I didn't have as many role models as I wish I did. Except for those in the youth group, I always felt more secured about my identity as a Vietnamese American there than anywhere else in life. I remember going to Glenridge and being forced into English language learning, even though I could fluently speak English. I remember always being fast friends with the Asian students growing up there too, but also how everyone was split up between classes. To see the Asian community in Clayton grow is a very nice thing to me because it allows me to have more people like me to interact with. It also allows me to be a role model for the Asian students too. I am 100% comfortable with my identity as a Vietnamese American and I'm very outspoken about it. Likewise, I would like other students to embrace their culture because growing up it wasn't the thing to do. We had to assimilate or we were marked as weird for our food and culture. I'm doing my best to get all the Asian students and clients to join so that they can also have that community to fall back to. I want to create a safe space for the students especially after the increase in age and hate crimes. This group was created through word of mouth, and I see the underclassmen enjoying it and going out of their way to be active. The Asian community in St. Louis is very tight-knit in the most bizarre ways, but having that connection is cool as well as nice. I've never had any doubts about the club because I knew that the other Asian students also want that community, but I was surprised about the turnout and participation. While I do have some form of lesson plan for the club, it's the members that play the role in the activities that we do. For example, the last club we had, I wanted to just bring some food as a form of motivation, but when I announced that to the group, it was the other students that wanted to bring food as well. To want to share their own food and culture and just be comfortable enough to bring it to school speaks volumes about how committed the members are. I remember a bunch of them bringing their homemade sesame balls, tar candies, ube pastries, dalgona, and also other Asian snacks. It felt like the club was less of an obligation and more of a community gathering. To see students take time out of their busy schedule just to attend the Asian Student Association means the world to me. I'd like to thank the Asian Student Association as a whole for going to the meetings and interacting and the interactions outside of the club. My wishes for the club is that it can be a driving force in Clayton and that it will continue past me. Finally, I would like to thank Mr. De La Paz for being the teacher that sponsored the club. He was the first Asian American teacher I've ever had and he's always made me feel welcome both as a student and as an Asian American.

Thank you again, Danny. We really appreciate your leadership and you just taking the initiative and drive. Have a wonderful rest of your evening, unless you're going to want to hang out with us the rest of the evening.

I have homework. Thank you, though. No

problem. I was waiting for that answer. Take care. You

guys as well.

Goodbye.

Okay, so I think we are on to superintendent communications.

okay thank you so as we look into next week we are actually about to end our first quarter believe it or not we have parent teacher conferences coming up next week and so i thought we would just go over a few items here one of the things that we have really been focusing on first quarter obviously is making sure that our students are learning and growing at the pace that they need to be including focusing on our learn at home students and monitoring them One of the assessments that we have given to our students is the standardized reading assessments, and we did that for grades one through 10. And part of that was also looking to see if any of the students fell below the threshold that we had set. And if they did, we were administering additional testing, especially grades one through three, to look for characteristics of dyslexia per state law. So we want to make sure we're monitoring our Clayton students as readers and monitoring our Clayton student as mathematicians. In the mathematician area, we're looking at the NWA math, and we administered that from grades two through nine or eight, depending on when they took algebra. And we're going to continue to look at all that data, analyze it, and present it to you later on either in November and then also in January. And part of that also is just to give an understanding of what we've really tried to focus on in this empowered learning. You know, what does that mean? What does that look like in the classroom? And so that will be a majority part of our November update when we do that for the strategic plan. And so look for that coming up. And then a few other things. Last week, I got to attend the sixth grade Y down cadet band performance. That was the first live performance in over 20 months. They did a great job. There was excitement in the theater. Parents were in attendance and you could just feel the energy there. So it was really nice to have finally an event in person. And I think everybody was just happy to do that. And we did that in a safe manner. sports the girls tennis team if you have not followed them they placed first in districts in their class and I know they were very energized by that so that was also a very good experience for them and then finally the month of October I want to make sure we recognize all the different groups and cultures that we have here which was we mentioned this at the last board meeting but it is National Disability History and Awareness Month as well as National Hispanic Heritage Month and i'm not sure if you saw but we are actually doing a video series on a place for everyone and just recognizing the different cultures each month and this month we did a video we released it for the national hispanic heritage month and then finally it is filipino american history month as well so i wanted to make sure we acknowledge that covid related update Our current dashboard right now, we have obviously 585 staff total right now and one active positive case. In our student population, we have eight positive cases and 26 in quarantine. This is an uptake from the last time I presented this information to the board. We did have to quarantine a classroom at an elementary level recently, and that's why you see the uptake on that. And total, it's 0.28% of active cases. The next slide may look familiar as the one I showed last time. The positivity rate in the county has decreased from the last time I reported it. It was 7.9% and now it is 6.9%. If you look at the two shaded areas, you will notice that it is declining a little bit. But again, I just am optimistically cautious because what you see later on in November, December and January from last year is a peak. And so we're not sure if this is what we can anticipate in the upcoming months. That's why we just want to continue to be cautious in everything we do. And the next slide is similar again as the one that we showed last time. Again, overall we're seeing a decline, but if you look again at the two shaded areas, last year exactly around this time is the lowest that we went and then all of a sudden it started spiking. Could be Halloween, could be Thanksgiving, it could be around the holidays. So we're just going to be very careful. And we're going to stay true to our mitigating plan with everything we have in place. And that was passed during consent agenda last time. We are also looking at doing a board resolution, you know, to bring it to the next board meeting in terms of vaccination or testing for our staff. And we just need to go through a few more details with that before we bring that forward. And then finally, I do want to touch base on our progress with the strategic plan. As you know, we have three goals in the plan, a place for everyone and then to grow as learners and finally in head and heart. So our focus is around equity work. It's around academic excellence and it is around social emotional learning. If we do the work that we need to do around equity and social-emotional learning, our kids will learn. And that is something that we believe in and that is something we're going to stay strong in. When we talk about these specific goals throughout the year, we'll give you updates. So we've given you an update on a place for everyone with our equity work. Upcoming will be an update on In Head and Heart. And then we'll give you an update of a place for everyone to grow as learners. So the academic piece will come next with more data on that. And one of the things that we talk about when we outline the strategic plan was that was our roadmap. And the destination is the profile of the graduate and the competencies we want them to leave with. So when you look at that, you may have noticed in videos and in photographs, in social media, the hashtag that we started this year, and it was hashtag Clayton experience. Because we want to make sure all of our learners, which includes students and staff, have the best experience in Clayton. Whatever their identity is, whatever their background is, they feel like this is a place they belong. They feel like this is place that they can thrive. And we want to capture that with that hashtag. So when you look at the competencies we want our students to leave us here with, so for example, intellectually curious, we want them to know learning is a constant. We want them to know that we will challenge them and we will support them and it's okay to fail forward. Those are all characteristics of someone who's intellectually curious. We want someone to be empathetic, which falls under goal three in head and heart. Show compassion, show kindness, show respect. Those are all life skills. Culturally competent, we want them to embrace diverse views. We want them to challenge prejudices that arise, and we want them to be successful in life. So those are all the destinations and competencies we want our students to leave with. And we're going to continue to stay strong and focus on that work. How does that happen? We'll always have things that matter. We always have things that we can control. When you put those two things together, that's what you focus on. And when you focus on that, that's what's going to determine our reality. And so our plan moving forward is to continue to do things that matter, things that we can control and zero in on that. And as we move forward, we've always said that excellence is a norm here. But how do we get from excellent to transformational? And that's going to be by laser like focus. And so I just wanted to remind everybody that we do have our strategic plan. We're staying strong and we're going to continue to work on that.

All right, thank you, Dr. Patel. Those are great words. I'll just add to that that yes, we as a board, We are all, I think, very proud of our strategic plan and it incorporates some really key elements such as social-emotional learning and equity and academic excellence. And I feel like, I think that this entire board, I believe, really believes that the equity, our equity work and our social-emotional learning is the foundation of academic excellence. And so we're really proud of that work, and we're going to plow forward and continue to do an excellent job. So with that said, we are going to move on to our regularly scheduled programming, which is ITANA. We'll

take it here.

Thank you. So just starting off, we've had a lot of sports achievements and events going on with the past couple of weeks with the fall sports season starting to come to an end. So as Dr. Patel mentioned, the girls tennis team did get first place in district, which is very exciting. So the cross country team is up there in the top right. They've had a lot meets recently too. And actually the Clayton Shaw Park meet is coming up I believe this Friday, which is always a very exciting meet because we host it and we get to see all the students run. And then in the middle right there is our JV volleyball team. So Cleeton had their first ever annual JV volleyball tournament this weekend, and we actually took first place. Then we also have a lot of achievements in the golf team. I believe we have one student who's a senior. She's going to be going to state this coming week. So I think we should all wish her well. And then Wydown has its very first ever soccer team. So that's also very exciting. And then more kind of related to sports, we've all been having our senior nights. So we have the tennis team, softball team, golf team, and the field hockey team who have all had their senior nights so far, and there's going to be more to come. And for anyone who maybe doesn't know what a senior night is, basically we just honor the seniors on the team, and we kind of send them off on our last home game or just at any home event, and you can see it's kind of fun and decorated with signs. So it's always very fun to watch if you ever get a chance. The speech and debate team had their first hybrid tournament this past weekend. And what I mean by hybrid is that all the students were in person. They were at the high school doing their rounds, but their opponents and their judges were all online. So while it's probably always a little frustrating that we still have to have Zoom meetings and have to see people through screens, at least they got to be with their teammates and talk to their coaches and their classmates. before and after their rounds. So up there is a quote. Someone said, I love the atmosphere of being around my teammates and being able to talk to each other in team room between rounds, even if I couldn't see my opponents in person. So I think that really encapsulates just what the feel of tournaments is. And they got second overall. So I actually saw this on the YDOM website, but the sixth grade health classes are making these sort of buttons that are supposed to advocate for upstanding behavior. And I think it really shows the progress that we're making in allowing students to express themselves in classes while also learning and also advocating for things. So yeah, those are just some of the ones that they made, and there's a lot more. So lastly, at the high school we had our first intruder drill this Monday. And in all the different classes we practiced what the different rendezvous points are and where the doors are and everything. And we're going to have another one I believe next month to practice our B-day classes. Today all the juniors took the PSAT. It was very long. But we all got through it and everyone got to leave school a little early, at least the juniors did. And then at Captain, I'm not sure if the other elementary schools are doing this as well, but I know that at Captain they have three of these mini pinatas which are going to be given out to students. It's going to be determined by a raffle. And this is kind of just to... commemorate the Hispanic Heritage Month, so they kind of ended off in a good way. And I know there's also a raffle involved with, sorry, a trivia night or something involved with that. So these students are able to learn more about Hispanic heritage and experience some of it. And then also, this is another thing that I'm not sure if it's happening at Merrimack and Glen Ridge as well, but I know that the captain chorus is starting to meet. And they're still separating it by grade so that they can keep their social distancing guidelines and keep everyone safe. But chorus has always been, I think, a big part of the elementary school. So it's great to see that they're starting back up. And another big part of elementary schools is the African dance unit. I know when I was at captain, we did it. And I'm sure for years before they did it. And I know Glenridge had their African dance unit. It was either last week or a couple weeks ago, and the other schools are going to be having it soon. So it's great to see that that's back. I'm not sure if they were able to do it last year, but it's definitely a good way to educate students. And then lastly, with the end of the quarter coming up, I think a lot of what I've heard at the high school is that there's a lot of people a little stressed out because, I mean, the end of the I think with the teacher grading day that's this Friday, students are gonna be able to capitalize on that and take the three-day weekend to work on anything they need to do. So yeah. Thank you.

Okay, we're on to number five, which is the special school district partnership. Hello, ladies.

Hello. I'm excited to be here. I'm Elizabeth Keenan. I'm the superintendent for special school district and we are going to be presenting together the partnership agreement. Not knowing what has happened prior to this, but I know that most of the time we have not presented the partnership agreement in a very thorough way. And one of our initiatives this year is to make sure that we're working on it together in a true partnership between SSD and each one of our partner districts. So I have two very talented and smart leaders, Dr. Nguyen and Ms. Melissa Malogan, who will also assist with this. So we're going to go over what the key points of the staffing and what it looks like here for Clayton and also what the partnership agreement is looking like.

So, yes, the staffing in Clayton, we have one director, myself, an instructional coach, 17 teachers, 20 paraprofessionals. We have five speech and language pathologists. We have a social worker. We also have an occupational therapist, physical therapist, music therapist, ABA associate, vision itinerant, hearing itinerant, and two school psychologists that help support the school district of Clayton at the five buildings. We currently have around 256 students with IEPs in the district. And you see the numbers up there that we currently have 96 at CHS, 64 at Widown, 26 at Copton, 34 at Glenridge and 36 at Merrimack. Majority of the students are in the least restrictive environment where they're in the classroom at least 80% of the time. We have 27 that are in the classroom 40 to 79% of the time, and then five are less than 40% of the time in the general education classroom. You also see the disability categories that we have. Other health impairment is our highest at 80, and then learning disability is 55. We also have students with autism, speech, emotional disturbance, language disorder, intellectual disability, blind, impartial sight, and young child with a developmental delay. And then we have two students with hearing impairments in the district.

So the partnership agreement really started back in 2013 and it's not a legal document. It's really kind of a norms document that we work on work with each one of our partner districts and we want to make sure we have a lot of input into this, so that's what we really focused on this past spring. We revised in 2019 and 2020 and it really is trying to make sure it's an effective and a. an agreement that really does represent both of the districts. So the new agreement was kind of scaled down because they felt like some of the things weren't as relevant as it was in the past. So we'll talk a little bit about those pieces of it, but we really wanted to really merge some of these categories to really kind of focus on doing several things well instead of trying to do everything that we think we're doing and not doing it all well. So we'll go into a little bit more about that.

Great. So in terms of the process that we all went through to strengthen the partnership was over the summer, SSD gathered quite a few stakeholders from partner districts that included board members, directors, parents, school and district level leaders to take a look at the previous partnership agreement and then to form committees, to review the different aspects of the partnership agreement. So Melissa and I actually both participated in different committees to update the current agreement. So the committee had over 40 people. You can see that there was quite a distribution across the district level leaders within SSD and then 17 partner district directors participated and then 10 partner district liaisons. I'm one of them, uh, participated in the evaluation of the previous agreement to update it to the one that was shared with you. We each completed a survey to inform what components of the current partnership agreement needed to be maintained and then put in some feedback around what other categories needed to either be considered or removed. And so the committee met several times over the summer, and we were able to really discuss in more detail and provide pretty detailed feedback to SSD about the parts that we thought needed to be revised or augmented. So a summary of the committee work, the original partnership agreement had 10 different areas to assess and through the committee work that was condensed to seven. And so now what's represented in the partnership agreement is staffing teaching, learning, and accountability, which included professional development, clarifying the responsibilities for each district. And that also included looking at space allocations and collaboration to make sure that we are in continuous improvement of our programs. student services, technology and access to student information, and then transportation and CTE. So as part of the process, Melissa and I will be working together several times a year to ensure that our collaboration is ongoing. And actually she and I meet more than that. We meet weekly. But really the spirit of that is to make sure that we are in constant two-way communication about how things are going and what we can do together. to continuously improve the quality of the services our students are receiving. And so in our early work together this school year, some of the action steps that we have already determined by using the assessment and evaluation tool that was also included in the partnership agreement is analyzing the panorama data together and developing really specific next steps and making sure that our area Uh, goal and plan for special school district is very much in alignment with this, with what the school district of Clayton is doing. And also taking a look at how that aligns to school improvement goals for each of our campuses. Um, we also, uh, are very committed to ongoing collaboration to really improve the correspondence and communication, um, between, uh, the different. the two districts to promote the different activities that we're doing to make sure that we are really providing our families with all the information they need about what's available through special school district and that they too understand all the different things that we are making available and offering to families. And then lastly, we want to make sure that are constantly focusing on how we can collaborate on professional learning opportunities and also taking a close look at our professional learning calendar for both classified staff and certificated staff, and really trying to identify more opportunities for working together. And then also utilizing each other as experts in a way to help each other's skill sets grow.

And by acknowledging this agreement, both special school district and the school district of Clayton will agree to the following endorsing the vision, the mission, and the belief statements that we have outlined in the partnership agreement. Also supporting our collaboration together. of that shared responsibility. Also understanding the agreement will guide our collaboration and enhance our ability to reach every child to achieve his or her full of potential. We commit to work cooperatively to implement these principles into the partnership agreement. And through this acknowledgement, it means that we will have Dr. Keenan sign off on it, Dr. Patel, Dr. Cuneo, the Special School District Board President, and Mrs. Rubin sign off on this agreement.

Excellent. Does anybody have any questions? Yes, Stacey.

Not a question, but I was actually at the governing council meeting when we reviewed this, so I had a little more background information. But I just wanted to point out to the rest of our board, too, because we talk about this a lot, that I appreciate in the agreement under each category there are ways to measure each of those categories so that it holds everyone accountable for achieving those goals. So I just wanted to put that out and appreciate it. all three of you and everybody else behind the scenes for working on updating the agreement. I think the changes in the categories were really, are really gonna be effective. So thank you. Thank you. Gary.

This is also probably guilty of not really being a question but more of a comment. But I did appreciate this process. I think it's really good to have a more engaged process with members of our community to understand this. I also think it might be helpful, and I might put Stacey on the spot because she has more experience with this than I do, just to explain a little bit the process by which Clayton participates in the governing structure of SSD in general and how we help to select that board and sit on that council. I'm just not sure that that's well understood in general by our community. It's another way that we sort of engage in this process that you all are talking about as well and how this gets developed. So I don't know if you'd want to say a little bit about that or anybody else.

You want to? I can do that. Okay. Dr. Keenan. Yes. So the Governing Council really is that oversight committee that really kind of ensures that there is a voice at the table. And so they really have three functions. So they are to approve our CSIP plan, They're supposed to approve our budget on an annual basis. And then they also elect our board members. And our board members, we might need to do some slight redistricting this year based on some changes in the enrollment from the census. But I don't see it affecting Clayton too much at all. So we have a new representative from Jan Goodman who had represented Clayton for many years, for 12 years and then Now we have Tiffany who is working with that, and she was living in Clayton, but now she lives in New City, but she still represents both of them. And you want to?

I would just add that so the governing council is one school board member from every partner district. So that every district in the county that partners with special school district is represented at these monthly meetings. And like Dr. Keenan said, unlike our school board elections, it's that governing council that elects the special school district board of education.

It didn't always exist because a special school district came into play in a place in 1957, which was way ahead of the time for special ed and me being in special ed, my background and my passion. It's really quite amazing that this exists. It's very unique because outside of St. Louis County districts have to pay for out of their general ed funds to support special ed students and the way the forward thinking of the citizens of St. Louis County really created this safety net to support special education students. And so the partners, the governing council didn't come into play until like the 90s, early 2000s. And because they really wanted to have some safety net to make sure that there was that voice at the table. And so it was put into legislation that there was that requirement to have a governing council and there's very specific requirements guidelines on how they're elected and how they elect our board members.

Thank you.

Thank you. I have two questions. Does anybody else have any questions? So I appreciate your affirmation of our strategic plan. I'm wondering if does the SSD, does the special education staff go through the same professional development that the Clayton team members go through?

Yes. Okay. They participate in the building PD and in the district-wide PD days.

Wonderful. And then my second question is, I noticed so it says that we have two school psychologists, one social worker, one occupational therapist. Is that just for the kids with IEP or are those ‑‑ okay.

Those are all based on the IEP. We look at the number of minutes and the supports that are required for caseload for students, and that's based on the special ed students.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I have a short ride home. I just live across the park. Thank you. Perfect.

Thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate your time. Okay, so we are going to move on to our legislative update. We've got two VIPs here tonight. Come on up.

Okay. All right. Well, I have the privilege of being able to introduce our two guests tonight. You all don't need me to say much about them, but I will try to say just a bit to get us started. Representative Ian Mackey and Senator Brian Williams, both of them represent districts that include all or most of the Clayton School District. I think at least Ian's is all in that list. totally positive on the map, but they represent our communities and we've had conversations with them before and we had just talked as we were planning some of our meetings out this fall about how we wanted to have a dialogue and have an opportunity to hear from them about things that they see affecting public school districts, including ours, coming up in the next session, and also a chance to talk about anything that may have happened in recent legislation as well. A couple of other things just to add about their background that I've I really enjoyed getting to know them and appreciate. Ian is a former public school teacher, and I appreciate that perspective and that education, and Brian has worked with a lot of organizations that are important to kids and our communities and things like that as well before they started doing these very important jobs, so I appreciate that. I also really love the fact that recently when Y-Down was recognized as part of the Blue Ribbon School process, there were two people there, and they were talking to kids and learning about what was going on there, and just reinforcing all the things that were happening there. And that was great to be able to watch and see. So it's great to have you all here. I know we're all interested in hearing what you have to say and your perspectives about what's happening in our state and things that might affect us. And we're just looking forward to hearing about that and having a chance to talk to you about it. So thanks for being here.

So I guess we'll kind of tag team this one. First, thank you to the board, administrative assistant to the Board of Education for what you do, and then, of course, Dr. Patel. It was really good to see you at a luncheon that I hosted a couple weeks ago. Representative Mackey was there as well. I would argue it was probably the first time we've had superintendents from just all over the region To give you all just kind of some insight on my Senate district and just the boundaries and demographics, I go roughly from essentially Highway 40 north to the Missouri River, so St. Charles County. So that includes 10 public school districts. So it goes from some of the wealthiest communities in the state to some of the more poverty-stricken ones. So I'm not going to go through all the school districts, but easily from Clayton to districts like Ferguson-Florissant, Normandy, Riverview Gardens, Hazelwood. So a very diverse district forced to focus on an unprecedented scope of disparities when it comes to education. And Ian and I will be able to kind of cover what's happening at the state level. You know, one thing I will say is, you know, there was emerging issues that we dealt with this past session, and I think there will be even more this upcoming session. Last session, we dealt with empowerment savings accounts, which, as in the state of Missouri, by Constitution, you can't use the term vouchers. So essentially, that's what it is. And there was a $50 million fiscal note on that, which would be determined what students will benefit from this. And then, of course... will have to deal with things like critical race theory. And you know, there's a group of folks who are committed convincing the state and, and, uh, educators that is taught in schools when even the governor has, has come out publicly and said that there's no evidence of critical race theory being taught in public schools. So that'll be a very pressing issue that we'll deal with. I'm sure in the Senate and the house. And you know, for me personally, once you start the conversation of, of one, addressing and erasing history, that becomes a very slippery slope. Next thing you know, it goes from false conversation around critical race theory, and then ultimately it becomes a conversation of did slavery exist, civil rights movement, and, you know, that's something that I think is important one of the most draconian steps that you can take when it comes to education is doing something that I think would erase the past and history of our country. And there's always a saying, once you forget to condemn history, it tends to repeat itself. And that's not something that we want in the state of Missouri. That's not something that want in terms of education. I'm going to stop there and let Ian kind of jump in, but those are the two most pressing issues that I see coming up this session, clearly seeing how these empowerment savings accounts benefit students, whether or not public schools benefit from it at all. Critical race theory, I think it's going to be within the election year, folks using it to propel themselves and whatever their future aspirations or endeavors are. And if we're not careful, we could ultimately have an issue that should be a non-starter actually creating a trajectory of erasing history and really denying students of information that really has created the fabric of our country. So again, I appreciate being here. I'm looking forward to a conversation and questions. And thank you all for what you do.

Thank you, Brian. It's definitely been a privilege and an honor to serve with Brian these last three years. Thank you, Dr. Patel, and thanks, Gary, for the invitation. Thank you all for this opportunity. Like Brian said, the focus on critical race theory defined differently by both sides of the aisle, of course, will be a huge issue for us next session, probably the biggest issue along with treatment of transgender students. That's gonna be the other big one. So two huge consequential issues that are going to affect the lives, the daily lives of the students in this district. Their livelihoods, their mental health, their constitutional rights, all of it. And It's going to require folks who have complicated and difficult conversations, typically in a smaller space, to magnify those values on display in Jefferson City. That's really what it's going to take. It's going to take folks coming to the Capitol to share their stories and their expertise in committee hearings, which is really valuable and really productive. I know that sometimes it can feel like you're talking to a brick wall. It can feel a little bit futile. But I can tell you that when folks sit down who the committee has not seen before, they're intrigued. They're interested. If they think they're going to disagree with them, they're even more intrigued. They want to know why they're there. They want to know what they have to say. And folks think about the remarks afterwards. Folks change their thinking. Folks don't jump up and say, oh, darn it. I never thought about that way. You're right. I guess I'll change my mind. But you can see, even over a brief period of time, people pull back, step away, move aside when they've been presented with new information or when they've been been presented with compelling information that conflicts with their preconceived notions. And that's what we have to do. We need students to do it. We absolutely need students to do. Folks sometimes think that coming to the Capitol is about bringing binders and clipboards and stacks of information that have been researched, which is great. It can be that. But a lot of times what's more important is telling a story and sharing an experience. and letting folks know who have the really incredible power of making a decision that impacts so many people just what the consequences of that decision are. And so come January, you know, the Education Committee meets every Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. It's certainly not convenient. It's going to require a lot of effort. But that's really the easiest place to get started. Maybe there will be rallies with signs and maybe there'll be big events and things like that, and those are great too. But don't discount that January 12th meeting in the middle of the winter time with snow in the forecast at 8 AM when it all gets started. That'll be just as important on both of those issues. Those are really the two that I think we're focused on stopping. Um, there's other issues that we're focused on. I think getting, getting done in a proactive way to, um, you know, we got a handful of, of, I think good items, um, done last session. Um, and this session, you know, I plan to really tackle the, um, K to three suspensions. That's something that has a lot of buy-in from the other side of the aisle. Um, and something that Kansas city just decided to do recently, I think this month, uh, maybe a week or so ago decided to be the newest district, um, to ban K to five suspensions. So, um, I think it's, it's certainly, um, a topic that we'll take on. Um, so it's not all doom and gloom, but for the sake of time, let's focus on the doom and gloom and figure out what we're going to do about it and, and really work together, um, to bring Clayton story to Jefferson city.

Excellent. Well,

thank you. That was really great. I'm wondering, is there anything, there's all this new federal stimulus money. Is there any new, I mean, is the state getting some of that to education? Is any of that going to education?

Yeah, so that's a great question, Steve. Thank you for that. So we're working on some things in terms of leveraging the federal stimulus funding. Clearly we would have to look once we go back in and see how that can impact education. I think early childhood education should be a space that we look into. Clearly all of that has to be within the federal guidelines. I can tell you right now my staff and I are looking at how do we create opportunities of economic development, in particular in areas like North St. Louis County? We're working on a project now with the University of Missouri St. Louis to acquire roughly its 39, 40 acres, which is their south campus because they're consolidating it and moving students to the north campus. That can create opportunities for potentially a Cortex-2, outpatient health care center, grocery store in an area that's a food desert. So we've spent quite a bit of time looking, trying to leverage that funding. Just for those who aren't familiar with the federal stimulus funding that has come in, the state will get close to $2 billion St. Louis County will get roughly $200 million, and the city of St. Louis will get $517 million. So I'm definitely receptive to ideas that you think would be beneficial to public education and to our region on how to utilize that funding. Clearly it would have to be within the scope of the federal guidelines, but I'm more than willing to do that. And, you know, I'll make it very clear to to you all is if our region in our state is not in a better condition than it was prior to the pandemic. With this influx of money that's come to our state is simply a result of failed leadership than a net bureaucracy. So we have an opportunity of a lifetime to really revamp and enhance not only education, but our region and the quality of lives of people who live here.

Yeah, I completely agree. And we won't know what opportunities exist until January. We had the opportunity back in the spring to give the governor at least quasi-blanket authority to spend as he saw fit, and we chose not to do that. We chose to sort of micromanage how it's going to be spent. So we take it little chunks at a time. It'll be considered, I think, piecemeal as we go along. I do think the governor, like Brian said, has placed an emphasis on early education, created the Office of Childhood, which is a new level of bureaucracy in state government that he's focused on spending in early education. His party has indicated that's an area where they're willing to spend money. i would suspect and hope that transportation is going to be part of that because we all know how insanely underfunded that is um and so you know we're working brian and i both along with other representatives in st louis area work with um sam page pretty regularly county executive page to figure out how the county can collaborate with the state spending as well because like brian said the county's sitting on a pot of money the city's sitting on a pod of money and the state's sitting on a pot of money, and we can't just spend that in silos. We've got to figure out how we're going to best work together to spend it collaboratively. So those are conversations that unfortunately and weirdly enough have to wait until January, but we'll be having an earnest.

Great. One more quick question. I'm wondering if another kind of flash issue will be If there'll be another initiative to kind of, uh, of expansion of, uh, charters is you think that will be back on the Republican.

Yeah. Um, you know, history tends to repeat itself. So a lot of the issues we deal with have been pressing issues. That's been going on well before in, and I got to the legislature, so I'm confident that it'll, it'll come up again. And, and that's a conversation that we'll have to have, you know, I have this conversation with folks all the time in charter schools, whether it's vouchers, whatever the case may be. If you have a perspective on what education should be, it should not be mutually exclusive to access and funding for public education. If you want to take private dollars and pursue a pathway towards what your perception or vision of education is, that's your prerogative. But as public elected officials, Ian and I both have a duty as well as the rest of our colleagues in the legislature, and that is to support, fully fund, and advocate for public education. And I don't think that's mutually exclusive to anything else. And I think we've gotten to a point where we're having a conversation about private entities that does not have any, in my opinion, visible check and balance system or oversight or level of accountability, and we're looking to invest public dollars. There's no other entity known to man that someone would do something like that. If I came to the state and said I had a private business, and I want you guys to invest X millions of dollars, and I couldn't tell you what that business did or what the money would go towards or how I would allocate those funds and how it would make our state better, they would tell me absolutely no. Not absolutely no, hell no. So we got to be real with ourselves about this. And like I said, if you want to take private dollars and execute your perception of what you think education should be, that's your prerogative. I have no say of that as a public official. But as a stakeholder to how the state spends money, I think we should be enhancing public education and not the latter.

Yeah, and I would add I don't think the landscape has really changed that much in terms of where the issue lies. I think certainly it'll be brought up again. I think the players are similar or almost exactly the same to where they were recent years past where it's failed. But that illustrates an example of where we do hear from school districts a lot, and they're rural districts. We hear from rural superintendents who write us letters and emails to every member of the legislature who show up to testify, school board members, parents. Folks come down there from rural parts of the state on that issue all the time, and they're not afraid of blowback. They're not afraid of any sort of criticisms or critiques. They take it head-on, and we need to do the same on the issues that we care about.

Go ahead, Joe.

So Brian and Ian, thank you for being here. It's awesome to see both. So just two things. One, so I have an idea on that money, which would be mental health, right? Mental health for students. I mean, just the mental health challenges of students in particular in public school districts are, as you both know, are off the chain and COVID has just made them exacerbated. But I have a question for you all, so I really appreciate kind of the call to action of coming to Jeff City and sitting at the Tuesday 8 a.m. committee or whatever it is. It feels like a lot of school boards in this area, they love to write letters as a whole school board, and I guess maybe you could... just help share with us, like, what's the value of that versus showing up or versus writing us separate? Because at least in, you know, and I float around a lot of different school boards, and we even have a, you know, professional learning community, you know, around the St. Louis County School Boards. It feels like that's more what they do, less show up. It feels like the showing up is more important, but I just, I would love to hear from the experts.

Yeah. I think writing letters do help. Whenever we have committee hearings, being able to have written testimony, especially from folks who can't make it up, is very beneficial. Committee hearings for me is an opportunity not only to hear about an issue. but also potentially get information that I may not have known prior to that hearing. So when folks provide those written testimonies, especially from experts and school board directors, folks that deal with education every single day, it's very insightful. I've seen members of committees kind of change their opinion or maybe get a different perspective on an issue because the information was provided. So I do think it's power in that. But again, Ian made a really good point. I think having the students really become engaged and understand what these issues are and understand that they don't have to talk about these just among their peers. These can be conversations that they have with adults, with leaders, with their families, and we get firsthand experience or firsthand insight on what their experience day-to-day as students today. And I stress to folks all the time, You know, my third grade teacher who I think was phenomenal. You know, I don't know if she would be a phenomenal teacher in, in today's society, you know, that's just to be determined. And, and I think, um, getting that insight from students and again, folks testifying, uh, sending any type of insight to a committee hearing that provides a perspective that could be beneficial to, to whatever the issue is, is important.

Yeah, I agree in the sense that it is helpful. It's sort of though like when we're campaigning and you can write a postcard to somebody, you could call them or you can knock on their door, right? So when we do all those, because we know that we're going to send postcards to people who read them and we hope they vote for us, we call them for the same reason. But we know that if we knock on somebody's door and they're standing there and we're talking to them, and you guys know because you've done it, right? Everybody here has done it. So That's what showing up to the committee hearing is. It's like going out and knocking on the door. It's just as awkward, it's just as off-putting, it's just a strange, and it's just as effective. And so that's definitely set apart in terms of effectiveness from the other two. But certainly, I will say too, the letters, they're super helpful to me because I represent the district. And when you all send a letter that says, hey, we've all discussed this, we've all come to this conclusion, here's how we feel about it and we feel strongly about it. I mean, nobody listens more than we do to that. So it's extremely helpful for us to know that. But then it loses, I think, some of its effect when it's presented to other members who don't have that same connection. Oh, and in terms of the mental health piece too, we had – I'm still working on this line in the budget called the School Safety Grant, which is I think now maybe barely underutilized. But when I first found it, it was not utilized at all. And it started at $1 million. It's kind of dropped a little bit since then. But it was a grant that schools could apply for to harden their targets basically for school shootings and hire consultants to come in and do school shooting drills. And I proposed a simple language change that didn't move any dollars, but said, why don't we let schools apply to hire a part-time social worker, a grad student, an MSW student, you know, hire somebody even on a part-time basis and use this money for that. And we got this close to having it happen, but with the influx of money, something like that I think is a state-administered grant for schools that are short on that kind of staffing and that kind of support is something that I'll be working on next session for sure.

Brian, Ian, it's good to see you guys. Thanks for coming out tonight. i have a couple questions um one's a follow-up to steve's question um regarding the 200 and the 500 000 i know one is for the city one is for the county and you only really oversee the county um is there any thought to investing in like economic development for like or infrastructure for like families who who really need community investment so that we start creating jobs and safe places for families to start building a community.

Is there

any thought about that, money being used for that?

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one, there should be a regional approach and I should have went a little more in depth. Uh, Steven, I was just being conscious of time. I will make sure that my staff provides the board with just some of the projects we've identified in the region, um, that we're hoping to be able to fund. And essentially Jason, what it's going to do is we're working towards a shared funding model between the municipalities, ST. LOUIS COUNTY AND THE STATE OF MISSOURI, WHICH EVERYONE WOULD HOPEFULLY BE ABLE TO DO A FEDERAL MATCH WITH THE MONEY THAT THEY RECEIVE FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. AND AGAIN, THAT PROJECT I WAS DISCUSSING AT UMSL, THAT COULD BE MIXED USE HOUSING, AGAIN, A GROCERY STORE, YOU KNOW, EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER. We're looking at Jamestown Mall. We've identified an organization called Refuge Restoration right up north near Ferguson and Delwood. They're looking to acquire that old Snooks Plaza right there. So right now, what we're hoping to be able to do And the governor's waiting to get a tangible document from our office, which we're trying to make sure we get all of the as many projects as we can and have them vetted. We're working with the county, their economic partnership as well. And hopefully he would consider putting that into his recommendation for funding. So when we go back in January, that recommendation is there. Uh, and I think those are going to day one, um, be helpful to families on the ground that need access. We're talking about broadband also addressing areas of North St. Louis County that may not have access to broadband in. not assuming that it's going to be easy to get to a hotspot on a parking lot of the library. So we're looking at a very comprehensive approach to this, but right now we're just trying to identify a funding model and be able to get various levels of government on board to ultimately invest. The city, I can tell you, I think about how do we make North St. Louis and downtown St. Louis safe every single day. I don't have to live there to care about it. So we'll be talking with the mayor as well as elected officials in St. Louis City on how the state can provide resources to address things like education, crime, um, unhoused population access to broadband, um, workforce development is for those who have any idea what I was working on last year. Uh, I dedicated an entire year towards criminal justice reform, which led to a bill that we passed that changed the expungement law. So now folks who may have made a mistake and committed a nonviolent offense can get their records cleared and go directly into the workforce and be model citizens. We've addressed police accountability issues, which we hope would enhance the relationship between the community and law enforcement to be able to find out who the bad actors are in our communities. And then last but not least, that motion to vacate provision, which you've heard about high-profile cases like Lamar Johnson and Kevin Strickland. That was my bill that Ann was very helpful in getting across the finish line that would now help folks who may have children or parents that were incarcerated for crimes they may not have committed and give them a second chance to have that evidence produced before courts so you know look this is a multi-layered thing but those are just some some real-time things that we've been working on i think answers your question and again um the description of being an elected official is not to know everything, but know people that know everything about something. So if you have some ideas, I'd love to hear them sooner than later.

So yeah, so I just wanna make sure that the things that you all are working on, I'm sure this is what you all are doing. But my question is, is it data-driven? There's data out there that says these things are drivers for children who are having tough times at learning. Or these things are prohibiting children from getting a great education. I know we're in a great zip code. We're number one all the time, mostly, when it comes to the blue ribbon. But we also have a very wealthy zip code. And the wealthy zip codes, and tell me if I'm wrong or right, Joe, you probably know more than I do about this, but the wealthy zip codes seem to do, those kids seem to do better on testing and education than the ones that are disparate, so to

speak. No, and the statistics and the data matter, but I was at Jennings High School two weeks ago, and I tapped the principal and superintendent, Dr. Knight, and I said, why are so many, I just see kids walking past and they're crying. And I said, what is this about? And you never really think about the fact that it was a student that got killed in a car accident the night before. Dr. Fowler, the principal at Jennings High School said, you know, Senator, we need to figure out how to get mental health services for these young people because they're traumatized and needs of kids coming to school and they're grieving over their friends who are getting killed or dying in car accidents or whatever the case may be. So, you know, yes, Jason, you know, we're working with groups to get that data. But right now we understand what those disparities are. You know, as a board director for a community health center, And I advocated for a behavior health center for children, the first of its kind in the city of St. Louis. When I took the ACE test myself, I was like, whoa. So, you know, the social determinants are real and, you know, it starts with, again, addressing housing issues where folks live, clearly providing the, you know, healthy options and access and You know, again, that's something that I'm committed to, and Ian has been a tremendous partner in

that. Gotcha. All right, my other question, two more questions, right? So how often do school board members show up to the January 7th date, like those days? How often do they show up to Jeff City? How often do you see them?

Yeah, it depends on, it really depends on a number of things. We see, I would say in a given hearing, a contentious hearing that we're talking about a bill that public schools think they're gonna be negatively impacted by. I mean, we don't see a ton, but we see two or three school administrators or superintendents. And of course we see the lobbyists for them, but we usually see two or three on the ground folks who will come and testify. And teachers too. We see teachers sometimes, usually they testify in a parent capacity. Usually they're testifying as a parent of a child, but they're also a teacher. But we see, we see teachers come and testify as well.

Do you think with this national push to ban a more robust black history in school districts, do you think that there will be even less people willing to show up and actually fight for something like that in Jeff City?

I think we'll probably see more folks show up who want it. That's my fear is we'll see folks who show up who want to ban it, yeah, who want to ban an equitable educational experience, who want to banned accurate history education. I think we will see folks show up. My fear is we may see teachers or former teachers show up. We may see, I mean there's a lot of folks out there with an ax to grind and we may see them show up and do just that. And, you know, it's not atypical for districts who are doing well to want to fly under the radar, right? To want to avoid the spotlight. Not just Clayton by any means. Districts all over the state. That's just, you know, an M.O. of doing well. That's the same with a student. I mean, you're getting all A's. Why are you going to go stick your nose in everybody's business? but that's what we have to do. But my fear is that folks who do have an axe to grind will be the ones who show up and we have to be there to meet them with our version of events too and with our stories to tell. And to your earlier question too about the infrastructure, one data-driven piece that I'm working on right now is starting on Monday, Newly created food insecurity task force is meeting on Monday That's a bill that I got signed into law last year to create a task force with Department of AG Department of Social Services corporate executives from grocery stores food banks and other advocacy organizations to all work together to identify a number of different drivers for food deserts my particular focus is tax increment financing and how we have initially had this perception of that tax increment financing in food deserts would bring grocery stores, would bring healthy food, would help us solve all these problems. And what we're seeing from data is that's not working. And so we're looking to jump from what we know exists in that data to potential solutions that we have not yet determined but will work on determining through this task force. And like Brian said, if you're onto something that we haven't thought of, bring it our way for sure.

Gotcha. And just to wrap this up, so number one, I want to say it's tough doing what you're doing. Being a representative and trying to get to the core of certain issues is tough because you're like, this is what's happening now. We're dealing with infrastructure issues when it comes to Wi-Fi, when it comes to a lot of things, right? Food deserts, it's whatever. And we're always trying to fix the problem, fix the immediate issue and not really the core. So I do, I'm not going to ever beat you guys up. You guys are doing a great job. I know, but if you could just, we can, there's some way we can focus on the core, like the origin of the issue, then I think we'll be in a great space. Well, my last question is, is back to, um, this idea of CRT, right? This, this, this made up thing. Um, What's the fervor like? Is it catching fire right now up there? And why do we got to wait until January 7th to get busy? Why can't we go up there and just jump down on it now?

No one will be there. There you go. That's why we'll wait until January. Nobody will be there in the meantime. So unfortunately, we'll have to wait until January. But to your point about getting at the core, that's really what I hope happens from folks who share our view of this issue will do. At the end of the day, whatever they pass, we can take solace in knowing that it's going to be ineffective. In Clayton, it will be. It will be ineffective and in other districts because you can't prescribe in law how teachers shall or will teach. You can't do it. You can ban 1,000 books, there's 1,001. A new one will be written tomorrow. What's a teacher who wants to get at the core of this issue going to start by teaching? Maybe the current events, maybe the fact that the legislature banned critical race theory. Well, gosh, kids, why would they do that? Well, what's critical race theory? Well, why would the legislature ban it? what we can't teach about what the legislature just debated? Of course we can. Teachers will find a way, as Jeff Goldblum reminded us. Life will find a way. Teachers will find away. They will not succeed. But to your point about getting at the core, that's why we need folks in Jefferson City because we know that critical race theory is not what they're after. It's not what it's about.

It's about

segregation, getting back to segregation, getting back separating black kids and white kids. putting people in different camps. That's what it's about, and that's what we have to combat.

Brian, I appreciate you taking your time to answer my question. Thank you very much, man. Yeah.

Go ahead, Stacey. I have a question, but I wanted to first say that Jason asking you guys, like, do school board members ever show up? and your answer to that, and then certainly following up with that when this topic comes up in January, you think there will be a lot of people who want to ban it that show up. And like Joe mentioned, we're part of a group of area school boards that get together, and we also have this legislative advocacy group with area school board members that meets. It just got me thinking that You know, there is strength in numbers, and maybe we need to be reaching broader than our local area and reaching out to some rural districts who feel the same way we do, to Kansas City districts who feel the and either writing more letters or showing up together or whatever we think would be most impactful. But it just got me thinking, you know, we're like in a little bubble here. But there certainly are other school districts across this state who value the same things we do. And I think it might be worth our while to find them. So...

And Stacey, let's be clear, you know, and I guess because it becomes so inside baseball and you guys understand this as elected leaders as well. So what happens is partisan issues, they take hyper-partisan issues and they raise them, which even forces folks to really kind of play to a litmus test within their party. So you have several Republicans who are in... more than in favor of public education. But then when you take a hyper-partisan issue like this, it almost the extreme arm of their party forces them to have to react. So what we see in the Senate is that you have the majority party and then you have this faction of it that would force them to have to take a vote or engage with an issue And if they don't, it makes them look as if they're not in line with their party to the population or their base. That's what's happening. So you have folks who truly know like this should not be an issue that we're dealing with. But you're going to have an extreme arm of folks. I mean, and it's on both sides. You know, I mean, you can have someone on our side raise an issue and you're like, you know. I don't think that's a practical thing to do. But the reality of it is that if you're not voting with the Republicans, who are you voting with? Or vice versa. So we have to get sophisticated as a state and as a region to be able to kind of see through that fear mongering and pandering And what it's doing is it's squeezing really the practical and sophisticated leaders to where they almost don't really have a space in this. And that's what's happening, Jason. You know, it's not a thing where you got – you know, I can tell you right now one issue that we'll be working on. Last year, last session, we passed a bill which – was called the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which simply would nullify federal gun laws in the state of Missouri. I have a colleague right now in southeast Missouri who's already come out publicly saying we need to change provisions because this has just went too far. It's even creating dangerous environments for law enforcement. So we're going to work together to address this. But fortunately, he had the courage to do that. There was a lot of folks who voted for that that knew that one, it was unconstitutional. Two, it was by far a overreach of the Second Amendment. But had they not voted for it, guess what? their colleagues would have said, well, this person didn't vote for it, so they're not pro-Second Amendment. They're anti-gun. And the first thing that goes to someone who doesn't spend their day-to-day indulging in policy and statute and engaging with people, they're just going to assume you're trying to take their guns as a Republican. So we need to vote you out.

Right. Yeah. I mean, that's a perfect example. That bill was never supposed to pass. They sent that to Jay Nixon right away every session. Oh, it's got to get vetoed, going to get vetoed. Oh, look what we did. We passed it. They vetoed it. Parsons got in there. Initially, it didn't pass. It didn't pass. I mean, I think we passed it in, I think, one of the last two days, right? It finally got over the finish line. And the eyes of folks on the other side of the aisle who voted for it or as wide as mine right now, realizing what they'd just done immediately in real time. We weren't supposed to actually take this step. That's where they are. That's kind of the environment we're in.

Yeah, thank you for that insight. I totally understand what you're saying. Um, my next question was, um, Ian, you mentioned one of the, um, topics you see coming up in the legislature that affects schools is our transgender students. And I'm just curious specifically what you mean by that, like in athletics or other, are there other areas of education where you see that coming into play?

I think the athletic fight is going to be the biggest. We'll see the health care fight again. We'll see maybe some other aspects of it, but I think really the biggest push will be that athletic piece because that requires some explanation to folks who don't have any experience with the issue, who might be inclined to agree with our view of that issue, but who haven't been presented with the facts yet. and it requires a lot of work, just like the other issues we've been talking about. It requires a lot of on our part to... Educate. Yeah, yeah, to put folks on notice, and I think we can stop it. I really think we can stop, but it will take a lot of effort. And it'll take folks who the other side doesn't expect to show up. I don't really think they expect that to be a school fight, you know? I think they expect that in a social issue camp. Schools don't usually show up to talk to us about, you know, social issues in terms of gays, guns and abortion, those social issues. You know, schools don't really show up to talk about that and they put it in that bucket. They try to. I think they've been surprised even last session and even with COVID, how many at least written responses they got, but even in person, how many folks that they didn't think were affected by this showing up and testifying. And I think if schools get involved, I think this is the perfect opportunity to get rural schools involved too. I think that was, I mean, that is really where I feel like letter writing and emailing and that impersonal communication can be super effective. I don't know if Brian's identified any. I haven't really identified any. I went to a rural school that has been having a lot of problems with this. I'm still friends with teachers and counselors down there and friends of their friends, and I see what they post on social media, and it's awful. And maybe there's a teacher in there, though, that's willing to stick their neck out. Maybe there's an administrator willing to do the same. So I think that's a great idea. I think we really need more of that for sure.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, so thank you both for coming. So just two quick questions. To follow up on Stacey's question about the transgender issue, is there any possibility that also extends to public expenditure on things like transgender restrooms in schools? So that's my first question. And then the second is a follow-up to what you guys were talking about as far as legislation becoming hyperpartisan in this day and age, and the example that you used about the overreach on the Second Amendment. Is that the future of Missouri and national politics in general? Is that bills will get passed and nobody intends will get passed, and then there'll be a walking back of the bill after that as we're seeing now because there are rural sheriffs and law enforcement officials that are saying we can't do our jobs.

Well, it's going to be two sides to it. It's going to be legislation and policies. And it's going to be folks electing people consistently who aren't really trying to govern, but really trying to kind of gaslight their way through the process. So you're going to have folks that will just go and say, you know, ban critical race theory, vote for me. you know, just become really this cancer in the body and never govern. And like I said, it's both sides. So I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you there's a lot of smart, competent people who don't really have time for it, and you're going to lose them as elected leaders. And then you're going to start finding a lot of people that can just go on some platform, say, you know, ban this or get rid of this or whatever, and here you are. So, you know, it's going to be really, I think my time here is to probably, I guess, do whatever we can to lead and engage the public as much as we can around issues. And hopefully that, that translates into folks making the right decisions when they vote, because I'll give you one more example that just came to mind. It's very important. The past couple election cycles, we increased minimum wage. We dealt with ethics reforms at the state level. We passed medical marijuana. We've done all these different initiatives that have been voted into law unanimously. Several folks have voted throughout the entire state, but then they would turn around and vote for someone who was strongly opposed to all these ballot initiatives. So how do you explain that? And what happens is you just elected someone who was strongly opposed to initiatives that you voted for at the ballot, like Medicaid expansion. So you voted for Medicaid expansion, then you vote for someone who's strongly opposed to it, and then you're confused on why they tried to roll it back. That's just one example on, you know, and I can't explain the thought process on why it happens. But, you know, you vote for someone who wants to roll back Medicaid expansion and instead you wanted it in the process. So, you know, I know it sounds a little bipolar, but it's wild. Yeah. And that's what's happening. Yeah, it's

union members voting for Donald Trump. We saw a large percentage of that happen right after no on A was another example. Folks batting down right to work and then Donald Trump winning the state by 20 points right after. It's a lot of cognitive dissonance. And it's because folks are tribal right now. So when they are presented with an opportunity to parse out an issue, they'll apply some critical thinking to that, make a good decision. When it comes to electoral politics, tribe, tribe, tribe. And how we get beyond that is really an open question. And yeah, I do think the bathroom piece will be brought up. The guy they gave the bathroom bill to last year was really incompetent. I don't know if they'll give it to him again or if somebody else will take it up. But we'll see. He knows it too.

Anybody else? Go ahead, Itana.

I just wanted to say that I really appreciated how you guys mentioned that student voices are really going to be valued in this situation because I think what I hear from a lot of my classmates is that they want to share their stories, but they feel like no one's going to listen and they have nowhere to take the stories to. So yeah, I just wanted to thank you for mentioning that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't want to steal you from your responsibility here, but I have a phenomenal youth advisory board that advises me and we have it on my website. We got some awesome people from schools all over the region. So if you have time on your busy plate, We have some phenomenal leaders that, you know, from Ladue to Ferguson, Florissant, all over, that advise me on policies. They're my boss. So if, like I said again, I don't want to take you from this responsibility, but we have an awesome youth advisory board.

Yeah, you should do that. You should definitely do that. And email either or both of us. If you go to house.mo.gov, you can find our pages. Our email addresses are our names with that format on the House website. email us so that we can be in touch with you. Once you email us, I'm sure Brian too will put it in our announcement list that we send out. That way you'll get the information about the hearings. And we can plan ahead of time. You don't have to just randomly drive down there and try to find your way around the building and find out what room and sit in the... We'll we'll plan how to testify, you know, we'll play on how to, how to, um, talk to a group of legislators and it's only like three minutes. It's really brief.

Um, it's a neat experience too. It's a little intimidating, but it's such a neat experience and it's really cool. And for the board as well as you, uh, Dr. Patel, um, I have a website, um, just Senator Brian Williams.com and we provide all the updates. as well, and Jason, things that we're doing in terms of economic development. So please check it out. It's there for you all. It's not there for me, so please check it out, and again, we provide updates. I don't know if you're on there or not, Gary. Absolutely. But we do real-time updates. We'll be doing a couple of town halls, one with the League of Women Voters talking about Medicaid expansion. We're doing one on Domestic Violence Awareness Month next week, I believe, and then I also lead the Human Trafficking Day at the Capitol And we're doing it virtual, so you can get on from anywhere in the state or come up to the Capitol if you choose. And I work for Ian and as well as the rest of my colleagues in the Senate District in the House. So wherever they tell me to be, I'm there as well.

And I want to thank both of you for taking the time to be here tonight and truly being advocates for public education. I know every time I've met you, you've been very open to the dialogue and you have a lot of information. And you're not just there to say, well, this is wrong and this is wrong. You actually come to the table with solutions. And an example of that would be the luncheon that you had. where you know that our young African-American students are struggling, and how do we create a safe space for them? And you provided an option and a solution through the SAB chapter that we're looking at actually to create here.

Yeah, thank you. And what the superintendent is talking about, as I hosted a luncheon in which Ian joined colleagues in the legislature, all of the superintendents from this region, so all 10 school districts, Dr. Patel was there, and we had a gentleman named Dr. Bledsoe who is partnering with Missouri State in Springfield, but started an organization called SOB, which is focusing on a safe space for black males, addressing mental health disparity, being able to really promote positivity among them. And for you to show up, it was tremendous. And again, I would argue that's probably, oh, we had the state board of education there. So We have members of the state board there, Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge from the 1st Congressional District, who I asked the governor to appoint. She's been doing a phenomenal job so far, a Normandy graduate. And, I mean, again, it was phenomenal. So thanks again for coming.

Absolutely. We just appreciate all the options and, you know, again, like I said, solutions that you come to the table with. So thank you again for being here.

Thank you. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Can I say one last thing, Nisha? I don't mean to upstage you. But you all did a great job. Go ahead. I do want to say, man, I do appreciate you two for just being outspoken about these things. Because I see a lot of politicians, a lot of folks in general who are ambivalent who are apolitical, who are scared about these things, more so the former of the three things. But I do appreciate you all being outspoken about this because it needs to be talked about, it needs to be addressed, and we can't be afraid. So thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Yeah,

definitely, definitely. Thank you guys for what you do. And like I said, reach out. We're all neighbors, you know. So, you know, we live in this community. And Jason is one of my fraternity brothers, so is Cameron. So, you know, I've got a lot of accountability in here. And y'all can all vote for me. So that's a lot of pressure on us. But again, I thank you all for what you do. And please stay in touch. When I tell you it means a lot to hear from you all. Anyone that's ever dealt with me knows that I take great pride in being accessible and present. So does Ian. I don't normally speak for people, but in this instance I am. So keep in touch and let's grab a coffee or whatever you feel appropriate so we can really stay plugged in this upcoming session. Thank you very much.

Okay, that was great. Gary, thanks for coordinating.

Yeah, and I think, I definitely think we're going to have to remind each other about that January 8th committee meeting. Just be proactive in a way that we haven't before to stay involved ourselves and be a part of this. So I appreciate that prompting.

Okay. We are on to number six, which is the first reading of IGCD virtual courses and IGCDA.

Hi. Hello. So you all approved a version of IGCD in December of 2018. And then since then, the MSBA has decided to separate out the Missouri Course Access and Virtual School Program, so MOCAP from all other virtual courses. So IGCD would still be the overarching policy for all virtual instruction, but then IGCDA would be specific to MOCAP. So a lot of the changes are just removal of language related to mocap into ig cda and then a couple things addressing student responsibility and behavior when in a virtual setting so things related to school codes of conduct that we can still investigate things with students related to those and then the display of different things within the family home and how those things are addressed so my recommendation is that we move forward with the way that msba has asked us for this i did reach out to msba to talk about from my perspective i don't feel like mocap should be removed because we're supposed to treat mocap exactly the same way that we treat all other virtual um pieces their suggestion was while that is true um they felt like it was more complex and too complicated when it was all wrapped into one policy so that's why their suggestion is to break it into two so what questions do you have for me

um does anyone have any questions Go ahead.

It looks like one of the policies, the appeal process says that the, um, uh, superintendent or designee makes the decision on the appeal. And the other one, it says that it actually goes to the superintendent designee and then to the board. Should they be the same?

So the way that the appeal process happens for, um, mocap is a little bit different. Um, and I, we have it posted on our website. What, what it looks like, but the appeal for it is, um, it actually skips over us and moves straight to you. Um, Oh no, it goes from us straight to the state. I think I have to double check on it, but I have it on our website the way that it, the way that it is, but mocap is handled a little bit differently than like a local appeal kind of thing. So yeah, I just noticed that there were

two different appeal processes and I didn't know if they should be the same.

Okay. Let me follow up with MSBA to make sure.

Thanks. Um, Stacy,

um, Yeah, thanks. So on the, I think this is the IGCD, it mentions, I'm trying to find where, on page three there's a statement that says, before a student independently enrolls in and pays for virtual courses, students don't independently pay for

So there are a couple instances. Virtual courses, so I was confused by that. There are a couple instances where a student would pay for it individually. So if it's above, we're required to pay for a course up to a full-time enrollment. So at the high school, that's like three credit hours. Okay. If a student decides that they want to take something above a full-time enrolment, then the family would be responsible for paying for that, or if they want to go outside of a MOCAP provider. Oh, okay. Thank you.

Okay, I have a couple more questions. little questions. So it mentioned, um, somewhere on here also about the district will accept all grades earned through the district sponsored virtual instruction and mocap are is our grading scale though. How does that work when our, if our grading scale in Clayton is different from the virtual grading scale?

Yeah. So it's the same way that when a student transfers in with seated courses, we take it from the grading scale from the school that they attended. Okay. So the same thing is true with the MOCAP providers. So however the grade is on the transcript from the provider is how we then transfer the grade in. Okay.

Okay, thank you. And, sorry, a couple places in here it mentioned district-sponsored virtual instruction. Does that mean... or district offered virtual courses. Clayton doesn't offer

virtual

courses

though. So correct. Clayton currently does not have any virtual courses that we teach. Clayton is in the process of developing virtual courses that we will teach. So like currently our district preferred provider is launch, right? Um, we have

Springfield through Springfield

public schools. We have been working to develop. So like there are several courses at the high school in particular. So American government PE health, are all courses that we send a lot of kids out. So I'm working with our teams right now to develop our own so that we would stop sending kids out and we would provide it within the district.

Okay, that would be great. But I saw that language and I was unsure about that. And it mentions in here too about... you know, that we can, we should be monitoring the like what was the wording, the quality of the courses. And so I assume like how often are we doing that? Yeah.

So the, um, so when we chose to partner with launch, um, one of the things that our coordinators did was to vet, um, a lot of the courses. So go through. So each of our coordinators has gone through and looked at the program of studies and looked at, um, the curriculum with, with those courses to determine whether we were in support of it. Um, that's how we chose that to be our district preferred provider, but a child and a family can make a decision to go to any mocap provider. Um, and we don't have a lot of control over that. What we liked about being able to say that launch was our district preferred provider was to be able to say that our staff has looked at those courses and has worked with that district to talk about what's being offered in those courses. So like as a parent, I would feel more comfortable.

Yeah.

um seeing that it's definitely not the same as a clayton education right um but it does meet state standards it meets state standards and the mocap does do a vetting process of all of the of all of their providers and they just asked districts this past summer to go through and provide feedback, um, on the other providers. So we've had some other providers that we haven't had as much success with, um, that families have chosen to go with. So I provided that information back to MoCap, um, because my hope is that they're sort of cyclical in their process of determining providers in that sense. Um, but we're definitely very much like anything that's vetted and approved by MoCap. We don't have a lot of control over. Mm-hmm. students choosing to go there.

Right. And sorry, one more. When it mentions the students adhering to the district's code of conduct, which district are they talking about? And have you found like, have we dealt with any discrepancies as far as like disciplinary issues, not adhering to whatever, whichever district code of conduct that's referring to.

Right. So that language is new in this version of the policy I'm assuming, but I'll double check. I'm assuming that they're talking about our district code of conduct. Okay. We might

want to change that language to say that then because

like, so the local district.

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thanks.

Anyone else? Okay. Melina, do they, I assume there's an attorney comment on IGCD at the?

Yeah.

I guess we're going to get the answer to that.

The, yeah, the answer is that the, the one that they're okay with, if it means the district. So what they're saying is that when a student transfers in, they're talking about who assumes the cost of the remainder of that course. And so if a student transfers in and they're in, they're enrolled in a mocap course, we would, we, the district would assume the cost of, um, the rest of that course. Good. Yeah. Okay.

All right, then let's move. Oh, I'm sorry, Steve. Go

ahead. So could you – what students are actually using this? Is this as part of like the alternative school or are these homeschooled kids or –

So the way that the MOCAP law is written is that a student has to have been a full-time enrollee within our district prior to having access to these courses. So homeschool students don't necessarily fit in that unless they were previously enrolled with us. Oftentimes, before COVID, typically the students in our district that were accessing these courses were high school students mainly. And sometimes it would be like a one-off course. So sometimes just a graduation requirement, sometimes a credit recovery. Or sometimes if a student was dealing with some sort of a personal issue of some sort that coming to school was difficult for them, that we had this opportunity to provide to them. Since COVID, we have had more access from younger students. So more middle school students. And when we moved away from our learn at home model last year into this year, we have some elementary students enrolled also. Thank you. MS.

Okay. I guess we are, let's talk about the policy AH, use of tobacco and vaping products, which has quite an extensive definition list. Good evening,

everyone. And yes, Amy, that pretty much captures the spirit of the updated policy. I mean, beef jerky. Yes. So MSBA has revised policy AH due to House Bill 1682, which was passed in 2020, and also based on suggestions from the Department of Health and Senior Services Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, which is helps to help make our schools tobacco and vape free. So the proposed changes in this version are actually not required because our current policy is already in alignment to House Bill 1682. However, this updated policy has some newer language to reflect the interest in taking a stronger stance on the dangers of vaping from school districts across the state. So if you were to look on board docs right now to look at what policy age looked like when it was approved back in 2015, as Amy alluded to, it's a lot shorter. It does not have the definitions that are currently included on this. So they define a lot more of the terms. Um, and I also worked on this with, uh, Kim Sharoni from the all in Clayton coalition, uh, to get her feedback on it as well.

Any questions, Carrie?

So a question that I had about this, and I didn't, I was just sort of comparing the two just now, but there's a reference in here to long enough that I've now lost my place, of course. Smoking cessation products, there's a reference that the policy does not prohibit adults from using products that are approved by FDA for smoking cessation. And as it happens, there was actually just this week, there was some fairly controversial new approvals of some products in that category, which I just happened to have heard about. And I was like, oh, this is timely. We're talking about this. And then there's also a reference in that same paragraph, Robin, to students may possess and use those products as allowed under policy JHCD, which is basically how you get medicine at school and the process for that and stuff like that. So two comments or questions, I guess. One, I think The context of what is an approved smoking cessation device seems to be a little bit in flux right now, so I wonder if we should be considering that in going into this policy. And then also... Maybe I don't understand the other policy well enough, but I'm not sure that this is consistent to say students may possess these products as allowed under JHCD. I don't think they're allowed to possess those products under JHCD because the whole process is how those medications can be administered when they're at school. So that seems like a little bit of a conflict to me. Maybe I don't understand it well enough, but it just sort of raised a little bit of a question for me.

Yeah, I can take a closer look at that because we did just – if I remember correctly, JHCD, I think, was updated sometime in the last 12 months. Maybe

that they're inconsistent with –

Yeah, I will double-check that, and also I will do some research on the approved smoking cessation products. One thing I learned in this process is that actually this region does not have any – vaping cessation opportunities for youth. So that is a programmatic gap in our region. So while smoking of cigarettes and other substances, those supports are available, there's nothing currently available for youth related to vaping. Go

ahead, Kim.

Yeah, so to Amy's point, I guess I'm a little perplexed on why we struck imitation tobacco products from the title but then we leave it in the body of the definitions. And then, you know, why we strike electronic cigarettes but we leave imitation tobacco products in? It seems like bubble gum, shredded bubble gum that resembles chewing tobacco is probably less dangerous than electronic cigarettes.

I am not well-versed in the transition away from the term e-cigarette, except for that I don't know if it's kind of a relevance and change over time if the terminology has evolved. What I did learn, though, is that with the imitation tobacco products a little bit more than 10 years ago, the FDA banned the use of kind of like the marketing of candy cigarettes. So they're actually still produced, but they aren't called that anymore. And so the spirit of those changes And with the imitation tobacco products was a movement that felt that by allowing those candy products to still be available, that it would desensitize youth to the dangers of tobacco and influence their choices as adults. So I don't know if that's perhaps a vestige of that.

So then shouldn't it remain in the title?

Yes, we can include it.

I mean, I just think if it's included in the policy and the body of the policy, it seems strange to strike it from the title.

I think it's – oh, sorry. I thought I had the same thought, and then I found e-cigarettes and imitation – like they're not just – they're under vapor products.

It's a more specific example. Right. It's a

type of vapor product. I think it was listed in all the vapor products, so I thought maybe that was why. Okay.

It

seems

like that was the

intent of it. Very confusing. Yeah. So I think tobacco and vaping products includes imitation tobacco products and e-cigarettes. Like, those are all listed below in the paragraph. So I think that's probably what it was. I was confused by that, too.

So we can add it back in if we feel like that would make it clear, or we can leave it as is? Well,

you can research it and let us know. You don't have to make a decision today.

Yeah, I think the point is we want to make sure it's broad enough to include it, whether it's in the title or not. I read this to mean that the change in the title was because other things were being added that didn't fit into imitation tobacco products. If that's not the case, then maybe we need to revisit the title as well. But I think the point that we're including all of those things in the things that we're controlling, right? Yeah,

that's a good point. I was just looking at the title of the old one to see if it was, which is interesting because currently it's posted as use of tobacco and vaping products online.

Just real quick, just to ask a question. You talking about candy cigarettes that kind of used to eat when I was a little dude? Yes.

Interesting, man.

That's interesting. No, I mean, it makes sense. It makes sense, yeah.

And beef jerky. Okay. Learn something new every day. Yes, you do. All right. Thank you, Robin. Okay. So we are on, I think, number seven, which is our action items. Okay.

I move that the Board of Education approve the personnel item listed below for Sarah

Miller.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Are there any comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Does someone know to get you?

Okay. We could probably go ahead with the consent agenda. We have a quorum. Yeah.

I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda 8.02 through 8.12. Okay. I have a question on one of the items

in the consent agenda.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah,

so on 806, the professional service vendor contract for the Clayton High School Library, that proposal went out when the board was not meeting or maybe right after we met in the beginning of September. And it looks like there were six bids that were returned back, but we don't have a range of bids. We just have that the board has picked board architects.

bond

bond architects do we have any idea what that range of bids was and where bond is i would expect that's a fairly large proposal compared to you know some of these other smaller things although the auditorium lighting is pretty big too but that needs to be done to be in compliance

I do not know the proposal in terms of what the range was on it. I believe right now it was just the RFQ, so I'm not sure if they even actually submitted a range specifically. It was more just about the qualifications and are they meeting the criteria for it.

Okay. I mean, it just seems like once you choose which architect you're going to pick and they do the study that you end up with that architect. regardless of whether they are the highest or the lowest bidder at the end of the day,

no? Well, point of clarification, Bob was the architect for the study of White Owl Middle School and a different architect was picked who designed White Owl Middle school.

Okay, that's good. Okay, so there is some future checks and balances that we get to do there. Okay, great. That was the only one because I know that that's going to be multi-million dollar project by the time the board sees it.

Yeah. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. And we are on to public comment. Wow. Okay. Hi, Chris.

Good evening. So we have six submissions for public comment this evening. The first comment this evening is from Lynn Quarter. Lynn writes, I wanted to write a note of appreciation for the detailed information that Cameron Poole presented at the last board meeting and for all the work he and others are engaging in to create a more equitable district for our students and families at Clayton. I was especially excited to hear about the equity and excellence master's certificate partnership, and also love seeing the data on percentage of new faculty diverse hires. I believe that hiring and retaining a diverse teaching staff is beneficial for all of our students in Clayton. I also appreciated Jason Wilson directing our attention to the discontinuation of the Vic program and to the question of what our plan will look like as we move forward without that program in place. I look forward to hearing more in the coming months. Diversity in our schools is something that I value immensely as a Clayton parent and alumni. Thank you to the board for your continued commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and ABAR work in our district. Second comment is from Amber Kempf. It reads, my name is Amber Kempf, and I'm a resident of Clayton and the parent of a sixth grader at Whiteowne. My son started in the district first at the Family Center and then at Glen Ridge before arriving at Whiteown. I have been following the work of Cameron Poole, our Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, and was happy to hear at the last board meeting A detailed report of all the hard work he and other staff and administration have been doing. I'm especially grateful for his obvious support of all of our teachers, staff, students, parents, as they are learning and building their capacity to support individual inclusive and equitable learning experience experiences for all of our students. I see Mr. Poole is constructing a solid plan to build upon the equity and inclusion initiatives of our district strategic plan that this school board, our past and current administration, students, teachers, parents, and the greater Clayton community has been advocating for and working towards the past several years. We still have much work to do, and I'm happy to see a good foundation based upon data, science, and thoughtful planning being laid to support that work. I'm writing this comment not as an educator, an expert in issues of social justice, or someone that has a deep understanding of the science and data that so clearly shows why equitable and inclusive education is absolutely critical to both the learning and emotional well-being of every single one of our students. I am instead writing this comment as the mother of a white son and a white parent who only recently has been fortunate enough to have educational opportunities, offers to build my own emotional capacity and support to understand how deep and pervasive racism is in our country, and the history, laws, and systems maintaining it. I appreciate this district for often being the source of that learning for me. I am grateful to the district that my son will not have to wait so long to learn this truth, and his educational experience will mirror the learning I am trying to provide at home about issues of racial and social justice. I am happy to support him and everyone in this community as we all learn together, even if that learning can sometimes be hard and cause discomfort. We live in a time when lies are peddled as truth and folks often allow their fear and ignorance to overcome their better judgment. However, as a collective we are stronger than a few loud, angry, fearful, misinformed people who clearly do not understand the importance of our community places on making Clayton both a place where everyone is welcome and there is a true sense of belonging for all. Thank you to the board and all who continue this work. My family and I believe the greater community of Clayton supports you in teaching our children how to listen to each other, feel and process their feelings in a healthy way, and think critically about social justice. Our next comment is from Marnie Dillard. Marnie writes, My family received a flyer written by someone who remained anonymous that was intended to spread disinformation about efforts being made by the Clayton School District to improve the quality of education for all of our students. I want to make it clear that as a parent of a white-owned student, I am in full support of giving our teachers the freedom to teach our students the truth about our country's past and present issues surrounding systemic racism. It is only through a thorough understanding of both our troubled past and our current challenges that our children will be able to move this country forward. Thank you. Next comment is from Ronald Mallon. Ronald writes, I understand that there has been nationally a great deal of public concern over material surrounding the history of race and racism in America that is taught in public schools. As a Clayton parent, I want to say that I support the teaching of age-appropriate truthful history to our students. A truthful history should, of course, indicate our various individual and collective achievements, but it should also not shy away from difficult and painful subjects, including especially acknowledging the history and reality of racial oppression in the United States. I am not looking for our students to be taught a particular contentious political viewpoint, but rather I ask for them to be taught accurate American history, the good and the bad, and to acquire the ability to reflect upon, communicate, and act upon this knowledge in the circumstances that their future brings. Finally, I ask for the school board to stand up for our schools, educators and students in the face of criticism of this mission to provide a frank and accurate understanding of our history to our children. Next comment is from Melissa Pillow. Melissa writes, I am writing today on behalf of our family's ongoing learning and support of the School District of Clayton equity, diversity and inclusion work. The anti-CRT movement is founded, funded, and fueled by racism. This is not a time or place where we can afford to grant false equivalency to both sides. I expect the district to exhibit strong information literacy leadership and protect our teachers and students from this misinformation and propaganda campaign. When taught, embraced, and supported by school and community, when integrated and scaffolded from grade to grade, anti-racist learning poses no threat or adverse outcomes for our white children. The impact of racism, on the other hand, harms us all. In particular, racism produces acute and sustained trauma and is literally life or death for our families of color. I value the work Cameron Poole is spearheading for the district. Our students of color and other children who are marginalized need to see real structural change. I want to see our community pull together and support families who are struggling with these both and concepts about our country's hard history alongside their children. I want our school to show that communities can stand together, learn together, and grow together. I want to see us actively and emphatically resist the influence of outside groups who are intentionally preying on local individual discontent to bolster a movement against teaching anything about our nation's hard truths. Anti-racist learning can make some students and their families feel uncomfortable. They may struggle with new concepts. They might shut down and express denial of their need to learn it at all. They may get angry, defensive, or just express sadness or shame. All of these things can happen in the best learning environments and about many topics. Our vulnerable planet, new math, PE, when new learning is having this effect on your child, it can be heartbreaking. Yet as a white parent with two white children, this is when we acknowledge that this learning is hard for us to do. We try harder, pull in more differentiated resources. We do not give up and we certainly do not allow racist propaganda to distract us and divide us to stunt our educational growth. Nationally, this contrived coordinated anti-CRT movement is drawing professional and personal energy away from the teaching that needs to happen. I expect the district to one, continue teaching hard history, two, continue supporting students of color and other children who are marginalized by the dominant culture, three, Protect our students and teachers as they face explicit and implicit criticism for this teaching and learning and existing. And four, hold up models of learning from within our community that validate both and concepts. We are one Clayton with many different experiences. Our children deserve to see what it looks like when community is fostered and created, making our schools truly a place for everyone. And our final comment this evening comes from Janelle Lamarck. As a white parent of two white students attending Clayton schools, I am grateful to the district for showing honest and accurate portrayals of America's often troubling racial past and present. My children benefit from learning true history. I expect the school board to continue to support teachers who do this work and not allow absurd disinformation campaigns to push censorship in our classrooms. And that's all.

Okay. Um, thank you. And we are on to board communications. Joe, do you want to update us on the financial advisory committee meeting?

Sure. We had the financial advisory committee meeting. Amy and Kim and I were there, and of course Nisha, and then the advisory folks. Really, typically what we've done with that is have a hypothesis and then kind of have the committee members react. And so the hypothesis was around the addition mental health and social-emotional learning supports that was presented. And there was some, I guess, good feedback, and there's, I guess, more information that needs to be created. That's what I would say. I

think that's right. Okay. Hercs and Rec.

Yes, the Parks and Recs met again last Monday. It was a notable meeting because it was the first one that was held in person in about a year and a half. We actually met under the Enterprise Pavilion in Shaw Park. So a good conversation, updates from Patty and her staff. Kind of again, a lot of talk about the upcoming master planning process and they also, Commission's turning its attention to what might happen in terms of budget for the city and things like that so there were some good conversations including around the Center of Clayton. I think it's always a good opportunity to talk with people about that entity and that facility and what it exists for and what it does for both the city and the school district so I thought that was a good conversation and I've only I haven't been to one of those meetings in person in the year plus I've been a representative to that committee so I hadn't even met some of those people so that was nice thank you for going I did forget that it was not a Zoom meeting until about 10 minutes before, so I rushed there from my office downtown.

Well, at least you got there, right? That's right. Better late than never. Does anybody else have any updates they'd like to share? Okay. And I guess we are going to adjourn, folks. I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes.