August 17, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

here we are live so whenever you guys are ready

okay good evening everybody it is august the 17th and we are back and this is our first meeting of um the school year for 2022 so i'm excited to see everybody on zoom we'll be in person next time And I want to welcome Carter Davis, who's our new student board rep. We're very excited to have him with us tonight. And, oh, did I, I think I said adequate, I didn't say that adequate notice has been given, but it has. And let's go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible and liberty for all.

All right. Sorry, guys. That's kind of awkward on Zoom, but that's okay. So I think we're going to start tonight with superintendent communication. So I will turn it over to Dr. Patel. Thank you, Amy. Good

Good evening, everyone. It is August, so nice to see everyone. I know it's on Zoom, so I appreciate the flexibility. And the reason we have it on Zoom is because we have construction going on in our boardroom. So thank you for doing this via Zoom. Very excited to start the new school year. I can't believe we get to say happy new year when we roll around. It's already August and once this month hits, it's filled with excitement and positive energy. Our staff returned, all of our staff returned on Monday. So we were very happy to see all of our teachers back. And then our students return on Monday, coming up in a few days. So we're excited for that. I always say to our staff, not many professions can say that in August we get to have a fresh start every year. So that's always a good thing. I do want to take a moment just to share with our community, you know, just because we have the summer. It doesn't mean that learning is stopped. We always talk about academic excellence in our district, having high standards for our students. And so we spend a lot of time in the summer throughout the year, but particularly in the summer with a lot of learning that happens with our staff. So this is a graphic, and I know it goes a little quickly, but I'm just going to go through it just to share with you the amount of teaching and learning that occurred over the summer. So we had over 47 summer institutes that were held. And out of those 47, we had 400 individuals, attendees that took part in that. In addition to that, we had about 30 external events, meaning our staff went out to get professional learning development occurring. And we spent over 500 hours just working on curriculum writing. That says a lot about our staff and our dedication to what we want to make sure we have a high standard for everything that we do. So I just wanted to make sure that, you know, we put that out there. A lot of that work comes out of our teaching and learning department. And so I want to thank all of them who participated in this as well. So something to be very proud of over the summer. You know, I know as educators, we all get the questions. What do you guys do in the summer? So this, you know, I want to make sure that everybody understands it continues throughout. So while we were doing that there, we also had a lot of different things happening over the summer and that's going on into the school year right now as well. We had a lot of construction that's occurring in five of our buildings. So at Clayton High School, we have Chris, if you can go to the next slide for me, Clayton High School. We have the library renovation occurring. We have construction happening at Merrimack Elementary, at the Family Center, at Captain, the library in there, of course, at the Admin Center as well. This is all part of our safety security update. So we're hoping that we'll get most of it done by the time school comes around and the students come in on Monday. Obviously, it's construction. So we all know how that goes. So we are still working on quite a bit of it. And hopefully we can get it done in the next few weeks or months. In addition, we did have some rain. Remember the little rainstorm we had? So we were dealing with some of that at the high school, making sure that's all taken care of as well. And the exciting thing is we welcomed about 25 new educators to our district this year. So we had our new teacher induction last week, which was very beneficial, I know, just from the feedback that they gave us. In addition to those individuals in that picture, we have, I'm not sure if they're in the picture, but we have a new administrator, assistant principal at Y-Down Middle School that joined us, Dr. Daniels. So he'll be with us. We have a new assistant principal at the high school, Buddy Soderman, who's going to be joining us. And then, of course, later on, we have John Brazeal, our new CFO, that'll be joining us as well. So very excited to have them part of our family. And then I must say thank you to our maintenance department. And that was a picture. I was walking down the hallway at Clayton High School one day and I hear this, you know, all this work happening. And I go down the hall and I see these three individuals and they have been working so hard, not just these three, all of them the entire summer. And I was like, let me take a picture. And they were just so excited. I mean, this is at the end. I think this was like around six or seven in the evening. And they were They take pride in what they do. They're very happy. So I have to thank them as well. So with all of that being said, our focus continues to be on their strategic plan this upcoming school year, making sure we're a place for everyone to grow as learners in head and heart. We want to make sure we focus on the competencies that we want our students to leave us with. One of the feedback things that we heard from our students is a lot of them weren't familiar with the competencies, right? Which is fine because that was our first year rolling it out. This year, we're trying to be very strategic in involving our students and having student voice in these competencies that we've identified. And also my challenge to the staff has been how are we as the adults modeling that. If we want our kids to be intellectually curious, are we as adults being intellectually curious? If we want them to be collaborative, do we show that in our own actions when we talk to one another, when we have meetings with one another, are we empathetic? So that's been a big message that we've been sending this school year. So our strategic plan and our competencies for sure is our North Star as always. So we're going to continue with that. And so with that, I want to make sure that we also know we understand our COVID policy and practices. It is still here. It is not gone. But we also have to learn how to manage it in the long run, right? And make sure that we are being, as we get back to school, we're being cautious, we're being safe, and we're doing things in the manner that we need to. So later on today, we have a presentation and Chris Tennill and Heather and Tony are going to present the information about our COVID plan and protocols for the upcoming year. And I did send out communication a few weeks ago about that as well. So we'll just get into a little bit more information about that in a little bit. And I believe now I would like to hand it off to Carter and Carter officially welcome to the school board as the school board rep.

Good evening, everyone. It is August, so nice to see everyone. I know it's on Zoom, so I appreciate the flexibility. And the reason we have it on Zoom is because we have construction going on in our boardroom. So thank you for doing this via Zoom. Very excited to start the new school year. I can't believe we get to say happy new year when we roll around. It's already August and once this month hits, it's filled with excitement and positive energy. Our staff returned, all of our staff returned on Monday. So we were very happy to see all of our teachers back. And then our students return on Monday, coming up in a few days. So we're excited for that. I always say to our staff, not many professions can say that in August we get to have a fresh start every year. So that's always a good thing. I do want to take a moment just to share with our community, you know, just because we have the summer. It doesn't mean that learning is stopped. We always talk about academic excellence in our district, having high standards for our students. And so we spend a lot of time in the summer throughout the year, but particularly in the summer with a lot of learning that happens with our staff. So this is a graphic, and I know it goes a little quickly, but I'm just going to go through it just to share with you the amount of teaching and learning that occurred over the summer. So we had over 47 summer institutes that were held. And out of those 47, we had 400 individuals, attendees that took part in that. In addition to that, we had about 30 external events, meaning our staff went out to get professional learning development occurring. And we spent over 500 hours just working on curriculum writing. That says a lot about our staff and our dedication to what we want to make sure we have a high standard for everything that we do. So I just wanted to make sure that, you know, we put that out there. A lot of that work comes out of our teaching and learning department. And so I want to thank all of them who participated in this as well. So something to be very proud of over the summer. You know, I know as educators, we all get the questions. What do you guys do in the summer? So this, you know, I want to make sure that everybody understands it continues throughout. So while we were doing that there, we also had a lot of different things happening over the summer and that's going on into the school year right now as well. We had a lot of construction that's occurring in five of our buildings. So at Clayton High School, we have Chris, if you can go to the next slide for me, Clayton High School. We have the library renovation occurring. We have construction happening at Merrimack Elementary, at the Family Center, at Captain, the library in there, of course, at the Admin Center as well. This is all part of our safety security update. So we're hoping that we'll get most of it done by the time school comes around and the students come in on Monday. Obviously, it's construction. So we all know how that goes. So we are still working on quite a bit of it. And hopefully we can get it done in the next few weeks or months. In addition, we did have some rain. Remember the little rainstorm we had? So we were dealing with some of that at the high school, making sure that's all taken care of as well. And the exciting thing is we welcomed about 25 new educators to our district this year. So we had our new teacher induction last week, which was very beneficial, I know, just from the feedback that they gave us. In addition to those individuals in that picture, we have, I'm not sure if they're in the picture, but we have a new administrator, assistant principal at Y-Down Middle School that joined us, Dr. Daniels. So he'll be with us. We have a new assistant principal at the high school, Buddy Soderman, who's going to be joining us. And then, of course, later on, we have John Brazil, our new CFO, that'll be joining us as well. So very excited to have them part of our family. And then I must say thank you to our maintenance department. And that was a picture. I was walking down the hallway at Clayton High School one day and I hear this, you know, all this work happening. And I go down the hall and I see these three individuals and they have been working so hard, not just these three, all of them the entire summer. And I was like, let me take a picture. And they were just so excited. I mean, this is at the end. I think this was like around six or seven in the evening. And they were They take pride in what they do. They're very happy. So I have to thank them as well. So with all of that being said, our focus continues to be on their strategic plan this upcoming school year, making sure we're a place for everyone to grow as learners in head and heart. We want to make sure we focus on the competencies that we want our students to leave us with. One of the feedback things that we heard from our students is a lot of them weren't familiar with the competencies, right? Which is fine because that was our first year rolling it out. This year, we're trying to be very strategic in involving our students and having student voice in these competencies that we've identified. And also my challenge to the staff has been how are we as the adults modeling that. If we want our kids to be intellectually curious, are we as adults being intellectually curious? If we want them to be collaborative, do we show that in our own actions when we talk to one another, when we have meetings with one another, are we empathetic? So that's been a big message that we've been sending this school year. So our strategic plan and our competencies for sure is our North Star as always. So we're going to continue with that. And so with that, I want to make sure that we also know we understand our COVID policy and practices. It is still here. It is not gone. But we also have to learn how to manage it in the long run, right? And make sure that we are being, as we get back to school, we're being cautious, we're being safe, and we're doing things in the manner that we need to. So later on today, we have a presentation and Chris Tennell and Heather and Tony are going to present the information about our COVID plan and protocols for the upcoming year. And I did send out communication a few weeks ago about that as well. So we'll just get into a little bit more information about that in a little bit. And I believe now I would like to hand it off to Carter and Carter officially welcome to the school board as the school board rep.

Thank you. I'd just like to start off by introducing myself. I'm Carter, I'm going to be a junior at Clayton. I'm the new student representative on the Board of Education. I'm super excited for this year. So I'd like to start off my sort of just going over sort of what I was thinking in terms of the plans for this position for this year. I was thinking this would be a big source of information and providing the board with trustworthy student information so they can make the best decisions possible. So on that note, we were sort of thinking about maybe like redoing the way that we do these like recent events and topics to make it a little bit more in depth and sort of issues that are really important to students and maybe beyond sort of what you could see on like the Clayton website. So on that note, we're sort of going to go into sort of what's been going on recently with students. So seeing that it has been summer, obviously there hasn't been a ton going on beyond what Dr. Patel explained. But one thing really exciting was that just like around two weeks ago, the fall sports started, which was, I don't know, really exciting for students. And one really interesting aspect of that is we're getting to see for the first time how our new participation policy is working with regards to sports. So we went out and we talked to students from some of the sports which were primarily impacted by the participation policy, sports like boys soccer, girls volleyball, girls tennis. And we actually heard some really good news as a result of the new participation policy. So some of the main things that we heard were that A, there was a lot more participation and excitement during these summer activities. And second, that there was sort of a whole new like mindset at tryouts. And a lot of people said it was much more productive and like serious. And they felt like people were taking the sports a lot more seriously than before. Another like really good piece of information, which I was really glad to hear, was that it seemed as though if a student like wanted to make the team and they went to all the summer activities in almost any every case, they made the team and they were not cut if they put in like the sort of bare minimum of work that was provided to them by the team. So if they went to those summer workouts, went to practices, then they almost, in most cases, were given a spot on the team, which I thought was really great news. So yeah, that's sort of the main issues that have been going on lately with students.

Excellent. Well, thank you, Carter. That's really great information to have. And I'm glad to hear that things are working out with that participation policy. So I think we are going to now move on to our presentation for the night, which is some information on our COVID protocols for the year. And Chris and Heather and Tony are going to

present to us. Sorry, I'm just rearranging my windows here. One second. We're also, Heather

was just coming in. There she is. All right. Good evening, everyone. It is great to have the opportunity to talk a little bit about our COVID plan. Working with me tonight is Heather Christman. So those of you guys who have seen us here before know that Heather and I have had the opportunity to work closely together on all things COVID related since March of 2020. So we've got a lot of history on working with the district's response and how we've worked through this. Tony is here also to help address and talk about some of the changes to some of the previous resolutions and approaches that we've had in the district that affect staff specifically. So with that, my screen is not sharing, sorry. You might feel like they're out of practice with Zoom maybe a little bit. It's just been too long. So with that, we'll kind of go through exactly what we're looking at for our 2022-2023 COVID protocols. And I think the first thing that Heather and I want to make sure that we have an opportunity to talk about is what's really driving these revisions? What's really changed? And we've seen kind of gradually throughout the course of the summer, but more recently with the updated guidance specifically for K-12 schools, the CDC put out is public health guidance and approach is really just evolving in terms of how we need to think about managing COVID-19. And I think Heather's going to talk a little specifically about kind of the two big shifts that we saw in the change with the CDC guidance.

Hi, everybody. Good to see everyone again tonight. Hope everybody had a great summer. Thanks for having me. So as Chris was saying, there's been a big shift and I'm sure everybody's kind of seen it out in the community. And so with a large amount of the community being like either immunized or being exposed, there is a lot of people with immunity right now. So when I met with Jason Newland a few weeks ago, the biggest things that he was describing to me was that We now have preventive measures, right? So we have the vaccines that are available. And his biggest thing for me was to make sure we keep making it available to our community. And of course, as always has said how wonderful our numbers look and just keep up the good work. The other thing is testing. We have testing available. You can, the state also offers it for free. So like it's readily available to everybody. And then, of course, now we are knowing how to treat it a lot better. So our rates have come down for fatalities. So in hospitalizations, rates are coming down as well.

Yeah, so when we think about that and we think about actually what are we doing with COVID-19 this upcoming year, first and foremost, we're continuing to monitor all the reported cases. And I think a good thing to keep in mind is As much as I hate to say we've gotten really good about pivoting and making the decisions that we need to make for students and staff, we have. We've gotten really good at making those decisions and choices that we need to be. We've had two plus years to kind of practice and work through it. So we feel very confident that being able to continue to monitor the status of COVID-19 with the information that's available to us will put us in a position that if we get to a point where we start to have to make some different decisions, we're hopeful that we don't, we will be ready to do so. We've revised our COVID dashboard. We will be keeping our COVID dashboard up this year. It will change a little bit. It'll only be reporting positive cases, but I've been working with Jeff Pulse and we've been working with that so that it should actually update almost in real time. So parents will actually be able to use that and families and staff as a monitoring tool to kind of see what the status of COVID-19 is within our schools. As Heather said before, we're working to provide access to both vaccines and testing. And we're actually going to be doing that ongoing throughout the year. We'll talk a little bit more about that later on. And also, I mean, we are maintaining a mask recommended environment. We probably should have led with that on this slide because that's a big thing, but based on just the evolving public health guidance and everything that we're reading, staying in a mass recommended environment is actually where we need to be. And I'm gonna let Heather talk about the last two pieces on this slide.

So when I thought about looking at like isolation and exclusion and what happened last year, because we learned at... So last year, if the elementary class had three positive cases, these two kind of go together. I would have to exclude kids that were unvaccinated. And I have to be honest, after doing it a few times and watching things, you know, go out, I noticed that a lot of these kids were not becoming positive and they were like losing out on education. So A big part will be instead of excluding those kids, we're going to make sure they get their education and they'll stay in class. But we will let families know that there's been three positive cases in a class. That way they can be aware and I will recommend masking at that point.

I think the important part here is that the exclusion procedures, especially for or students or staff who are exposed. I mean, the guidance, the most recent guidance from the CDC that's also picked up by the St. Louis County Department of Public Health doesn't really have anything beyond just monitoring for symptoms for someone who is exposed, regardless of vaccination status. So that's a big piece that's driving that as well. So we talk about what we're doing. We'll talk about what is, what is different right now. So the CDC guidelines that just came out, do not have dropped any recommendations for social distancing or anything like that in a K-12 public environment. The same with contact tracing and, you know, the, the mentality there and Heather can talk a little bit more about this is the fact that we're, we're being exposed to COVID-19 all the time now because it's kind of hit that communicable disease status in the community. So, The social distancing and contact tracing isn't really a good expenditure of energy, given the prevalence of this throughout the country.

I would agree. So just like the flu and everything else that's out, that's communicable diseases, we are exposed every day and we will still, if a staff member or a student comes to us saying that they are symptomatic in any way, we will recommend testing. There's a new algorithm that we got from WashU that recommends testing and even a home test is great. And They can tell us it was negative return to school, and then we recommend wearing a mask while symptomatic.

Yeah. And then in terms of communication, we're really looking for the improvements we're making to the dashboard to really take the place of a way for parents to monitor positive cases. We do not plan to be sending home emails on a daily basis every time we have a positive case in the school. And we really only maintained that last spring. at our elementary schools. And I think given the way that the general public health guidance has evolved on this, I think it's an appropriate time to pull back on that. As Heather mentioned, we do have our communication system set up though to communicate with a class, with families and staff in that class if we have three or more positive cases. And we're leaving this in place simply because, I mean, it's kind of what we've done all along you know, if we have three or four cases of flu in a, in a third grade class, um, you know, our school nurses are going to reach out to those families and those teachers and, and let them go with, let them know what's going on. So it just kind of moves that piece of communication in with the way that we communicate about any other communicable diseases that we're dealing with in our schools. Uh, as, as Heather mentioned, um, if you're exposed to a positive case, we're just monitoring for symptoms. You know, there is no guidance for exclusion regardless of vaccination status. So again, everybody just kind of comes into that same piece of monitoring for symptoms. And, you know, if you do become symptomatic, please get tested and talk a little bit more about that

in a second. And Heather, did you want to talk about the requirements that we have that

we're

lifting? Oh, lifting, sorry. Lifting requirements for unvaccinated staff. So we were doing weekly testing last year on staff that are unvaccinated. We did, I will say we went from like around 40-ish down to like 24 by the end of the year. So that was kind of amazing. So lifting that will also, for those staff members that end up being exposed, they still can come to school with our new regulations requirements. Yeah,

and Tony will talk a little bit more about that here in about two slides. And consistent with that, we're also lifting our requirement for either proof of vaccination or a negative test for any visitor vendors or volunteers. who are coming into our schools. And then kind of the underlying thing with all this, you know, we are moving into the school year without any predetermined thresholds to move to mask required in our schools. You know, we're just keeping the mask recommended, mask optional, whatever language you choose that you feel is appropriate and moving in that direction. As Heather mentioned early on, you know, regular testing, access to testing and vaccines is kind of one of the most important and effective strategies that we have there. So in addition to the clinic that we're actually, booster clinic that we're doing next Wednesday evening after school, we have a partnership set up with Webster Groves University, or Webster Groves School District, and we will have both testing and vaccinations, and those vaccinations will be available for all ages every Tuesday from 9 to 11 a.m., and we're going to stage this out of the training room over at the high school. That's a time of the day when that room is actually not being used. Also offers convenient outside access to that, so we will actually stand that up starting next week. We'll be sharing that information with parents and staff probably tomorrow or Friday, and that'll be something that will be there to support them. At this point, we're planning for throughout the entire school year. Is that correct, Heather?

Correct, and Webster's Day is on Wednesday. They're very open to changing anything. Like if we decide we need a later date, they're happy to adjust.

Yeah, so I think that will be another one of the ways that we continue to support ensuring that our students and staff are safe and healthy. Through DESE in St. Louis County, Heather has access to quite a large supply of rapid COVID tests We found out a couple of days ago, we're also actually able to apply for a different supply of rapid COVID tests that we can actually just distribute to staff or families who may need them as opposed to just have to use them in the office or something like that. So we're exploring that again to provide another resource for all of our families and staff. So with that, I'm going to turn it over, Heather, unless you have anything else to add, turn it over to Tony to talk about the last two pieces of of our changes in COVID response.

I don't think so, thank you.

All right, great.

All right, thanks guys. So good evening everyone. So I'm here to talk about the COVID-19 staff vaccination procedures resolution. So last year what we did is we brought forth the resolution that would require our staff to have proof of vaccination or to be required if they did not have that, if they had exemption status, they would do weekly COVID-19 testing. So what we're proposing now is we did not have an expiration date on that resolution. So I would like to propose this evening that we end that and later this evening the consent will have the proposal to have the expiration date as of today, August 17th, 2022. And that's due to all the reasons that Chris and Heather have shared. Okay, and then next what I'd like to do is give an update on the board resolution on COVID-19 leave. So each year since 2020, what we have done is we brought forth a board resolution typically on a semester basis. So that first year we did it, we had it expiring December 31st, 2020. This was the board resolution that gave the COVID leave to our staff. It was 10 days, two thirds pay if it was for a family member, full pay if it was themselves, if it was for the employee. What I've done is I've conducted some research and around our market districts and basically no one in our areas providing additional COVID leave. However, in looking through with best practices and what I think is best for employees, I would like to go ahead and recommend that we have a board resolution for COVID-19 leave, modified a bit from the past, have five additional paid days of COVID leave for an employee or for their family member. Chris Wanner, At the full rate of pay so dropping the two thirds but going from 10 days to five days because I think that's the right thing to do. Chris Wanner, And this time in the uncertainty and i'd also like to have it go until the end of the school year expiring June 30 so just go ahead and being proactive and do it for the whole year if we don't need it use it at some point when this is behind us,

hopefully, in the near future.

Sorry, I muted myself. Thanks, Tony. So then a lot of the, you know, with the exception of the two resolutions that Tony's bringing tonight, a lot of the approach that we talked about is outlined in the safe return to schools plan that's also in as a consent item for your approval tonight. So with that, if there are any questions, we'd be happy to entertain those at this point.

Nisha or Chris, can you take the presentation down? So we can perfect. So I

can see. Okay. Um, any questions, comments? Go ahead, Chris, your, but take yourself off.

It might. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Hello everyone. Um, thank you all for your presentation. I appreciate, um, The details that you gave, they were really helpful. And I do appreciate the communication that Nisha has put out and just the idea that we're continuing to be proactive and have these clinics on a regular basis that give these such important mitigation practices with vaccines and with tests is phenomenal. So big props to us and way to go for you guys, because I know that that's a lot of coordinating and work. So thank you all for that. My question is only one, which is for our kids who are immunocompromised, can you give me an understanding of what goes into the plan for them for mitigation. I know that our goal and your goal is to have them in class as much as possible. So how are we accommodating them? I know that maybe 504s or IEPs may be involved in that plan, but there probably are some kids that are immunocompromised that don't have either one of those. So if you could just comment on all of that, that would be great. Thank you.

So Chris, great question. Um, coming from, you know, the old cardiac nurse that worked with transplant, I'm well aware of my immunocompromised kiddos and concerned. Um, so I have to be honest, that was kind of one of my big reasons to stay with recommended for masks. Cause I want people to feel like I really do feel like I'm, I recommend it. Like I really do like wholeheartedly I'll be in my office wearing one and I, I want the kids to feel that, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like saying optional is like, you know, so I really go with recommended with, like you said, 504s are definitely involved in it. And so anybody that has is immunocompromised, I would tell them, please talk to your physician first. They will give us guidance on what's best for you and we'll make those accommodations. A lot of times it is make sure that we have the mask, maybe set them further away from students to give them a little bit more space um so yes we um I always ask you know what is your physician because it's you would be surprised and like some of the feed we get back on some too so um does that answer your question Chris

Yeah. I mean, I think so. It sounds like you're working really individually with the family and the student and you're making sure that the family has spoken to their physician and that whatever the family really feels comfortable with is able to happen. Absolutely. And I'm assuming that that's pretty, in some ways, hard to do because if you're a high school student, you're going from class to class to class and you have a different teacher in each classroom and that does take some coordinating on our end, I think to make sure that all the team that teaches and is involved with this student is very aware of their needs. Correct.

Cool. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else? Questions? Okay. um

so have i just want to thank heather i know that she's been working really hard all summer um and so we we appreciate you and um we appreciate you being here tonight and appreciate everything you're gonna endure this year so in advance um so thank you and i think with that we are going to move on to our policy study of the 5.01, which is our student involvement and decision-making. And I think Jason and Stacy are going to give us some information on that. And they've also been working very hard this summer on this.

Thanks, Amy. So as you all have read, probably hopefully in the executive summary, as Amy just said, Jason Growe and I were asked to review and update the student representative to the school board policy. As you know, we started this program in 2019. So we are entering our fourth year with a student representative on the school board. and felt that after three years, it was time to review our policy and make some changes. So Jason and I had lots of conversations. We also had lots of conversations with Carter and Sophia because we of course wanted to get their input And into the policy as well. Our goal was really to make sure that our needs as a board were being met, and that what that you know there are certain things we want to get out of having a student on the board and we needed to make sure that that was happening, and we also wanted something in the policy to give us the prerogative and the leeway to, you know, change this, change the duties of the student rep at any time, including even if we decided at some point to not have a student rep at all. So we added some of that language as well. We changed, we did change The title, the District Advisory Council, we found was something that most high school kids didn't even know, including Carter, what it was because it really isn't very descriptive of working with the school board. So part of what we did as well is change the name of the District Advisory Council to the School Board Student Advisory, the SBSA. And Sophia's role, which we used to call an alternate student rep, we changed to associate student rep. We felt that alternate didn't fairly clearly define that person's role as well. So all of us working together rewrote this policy and that you should have all seen redlined. It looks like there's a lot of red writing on here. A lot of it is not necessarily new. We kind of just reordered some of it to make it more consecutive in the order that things happen. Jason Growe, do you want to add anything about maybe our goal or the process we went through working on this?

Thanks, Amy. So as you all have read, probably hopefully in the executive summary, as Amy just said, Jason Grow and I were asked to review and update the student representative to the school board policy. As you know, we started this program in 2019. So we are entering our fourth year with a student representative on the school board. and felt that after three years, it was time to review our policy and make some changes. So Jason and I had lots of conversations. We also had lots of conversations with Carter and Sophia because we of course wanted to get their input And into the policy as well. Our goal was really to make sure that our needs as a board were being met, and that what that you know there are certain things we want to get out of having a student on the board and we needed to make sure that that was happening, and we also wanted something in the policy to give us the prerogative and the leeway to, you know, change this, change the duties of the student rep at any time, including even if we decided at some point to not have a student rep at all. So we added some of that language as well. We changed, we did change The title, the District Advisory Council, we found was something that most high school kids didn't even know, including Carter, what it was because it really isn't very descriptive of working with the school board. So part of what we did as well is change the name of the District Advisory Council to the School Board Student Advisory, the SBSA. And Sophia's role, which we used to call an alternate student rep, we changed to associate student rep. We felt that alternate didn't fairly clearly define that person's role as well. So all of us working together rewrote this policy and that you should have all seen redlined. It looks like there's a lot of red writing on here. A lot of it is not necessarily new. We kind of just reordered some of it to make it more consecutive in the order that things happen. Jason Groh, do you want to add anything about maybe our goal or the process we went through working on this?

No, I think you hit the high point, Stacey, in terms of what's materially changed in front of us tonight. I just, you know, the only thing I would just add is just my thanks to you for really leading this effort, but then also to Carter and Sophia as well for bringing forward your ideas and your thoughts about how we can improve this process. And I think, you know, I look forward to this being allowing us to get even more perspective from the student body across the district through these changes.

I guess, does anybody have any questions? Yeah. Or go ahead, Amy.

I just have one quick question. And I was wondering if we needed to, if anybody thought we needed to reference the associate student rep in the policy. Um,

it's on number, uh, we did. Oh, okay. I thought we did. It's on number 13. I mean, we didn't define the role. We didn't really define that role because we thought that was probably up to the student rep and the associate to figure out, but that's why we use the word collaborate with, because we thought the two of them together can figure out how to delegate the responsibilities. Okay. Perfect. But we did define how that person is chosen, selected. We thought adding details about how the student rep and the associate student rep are selected was important because we had kind of a muddled process before. So we redefined the

selection process as well. Any other questions? Go ahead, Kim.

Yeah, my only question is on the last point. So I understand that the term of service is junior year for the student board representative, but why is it that it's at the discretion of the student board representative whether or not they're an advisor their senior year? Is that in case things go south? No,

I just think... Well, I can't speak for anyone else. I'd say my thinking on that was that to ask this person, Carter, right now, to commit to this position for two whole school years is a lot. And You know, ideally, we hope that the student rep rolls off and is an advisor now. And the advisor can work as much or as little as they want. But we thought who better to give advice to and answer questions and give feedback to the current student rep than someone that is just to have the health of position. So we really were just we had also there had also been confusion in the past as to what the student reps role was when they roll off. And some of our past student reps thought that they led the district advisory council. Some of them thought they helped choose the next student rep. And so we really were looking for a place for that person. And we felt the best place would really be to advise the new student rep. So I added the if they choose to do so because I felt like asking them to commit to two whole years of service was a lot. But I'm open to feedback on that from the rest of you as well.

And also, if I could just jump in, Stacey, quickly. I would just add that one of the, I would say, sort of informal guiding principles we worked on was beyond how the student rep is chosen and the purpose of the student rep, we really wanted to provide a lot of flexibility for the students. to make this work, you know, for them as well. And so one of those things is, you know, what happens when you have this person that goes through a year, a great year of experience, what happens to that person the next year? And this allows for perhaps some role there, but some flexibility as well. I

have a question. Can you all hear me well? So I appreciate the work you did on this. I do think that we still need to go back to those who were on the board, Amy, Gary at the time. Were you on the board at the time? I can't hear you. So going back to when we... So you can't hear me. Can you hear

me now? Is that better? Yes. Going back to when... Went back to when we first created this position. We were supposed to really go back and kind of expound on the role of this position, right? From the... I'm so distracted right now. From the position itself all the way down to the elementary school. But we never did that. And so just now, looking at this, now we've even divided it up and now we got board members who are taking the control of it and then doctoring it up and really working on the policy without really being the board itself discussing it, talking about it, going into details. Does anyone disagree with me so far about what I'm talking about?

No, but I think we're only getting about 50% of what's coming through, which is part of

that. Let me try to hold. One second.

Okay. Can you all hear me now? Is that better?

Yeah, a lot better. Jason one thing I did hear you that I did hear come through was about engaging all the elementary schools and we did include that on number 11 and Carter and Sophie already have a plan to do that to expand it

to include

kids from all the elementary schools that I don't I didn't hear much of what else you said but I did hear that.

So yeah, so let me just let me just stick with that one point I'll talk about the former point. after this. So even if we include the elementary schools, I still think it's something that we as a board need to really help develop or really be spearheading that process since we have the most experience in what that should look like or how that would work. And so I don't want to leave it up to the students to build that out. That's a lot. We're talking about building, you know... We're creating... we're creating something that's a position and a process, and they may not know how to do all that. And so I want to make sure that we're not leaving it up to them to get that done. Secondly, I also want to make sure, going back to my former point, is that this has been, you know, I'm not sure if we're going about this correctly, but I felt like when we first created this position that we were going to, us as a board, discuss it as a whole first as we to help develop and blow it out a little bit expound on a little bit but it looks to me like that's not the case that it's like delegated to two two people and then like you're coming back to us and we're reading this for the first time and then we're moving forward um you can correct me if i'm wrong but that's kind of like my my point of view here my perspective

So on your first point about the elementary school kids, the policy does read that the student rep will work with administrators. And Carter could maybe tell you more about his plans for that. But he's going to work with the school principals to identify students and invite them and work with them to set up the meetings and organize. I don't know if Carter, if you want to jump in on that point.

Yeah, we are definitely planning to work with administrators, teachers. And actually over the summer, we've been working with a lot of people on the board to sort of like get the initial plans in place. And we feel really good about those. And I'd love to like talk to anyone who wants to about those.

Yeah, so that's cool. That's great. I appreciate that, man. So... I understand you all will be looking into choosing the folks, the young folks that will be on the advisory council. But I guess what I'm saying is the planning of the process of how that's going to function, the functionality of it, is something I think that we as adults or we as board members need to spearhead that process. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. Because I think what happens is that we'll run into a problem where it's almost like because there's no parameters there, people can kind of do what they want. And then we find ourselves Monday morning quarterbacking and trying to unpack things and try to figure things out. And I don't want to be in that position. I think we need to actually take the lead on this as a board and actually put the process together. Consulting with Carter and other folks to make sure that we're thinking of all the proper things that need to be involved. But definitely, we need to be the ones to put that work together or put that plan together. Period.

So I think, are you talking, Jason, mostly about when you're saying to put the plan together? Are you talking about the advancements advisory to the board the advisory board to the school board

yeah yep yep uh yes exactly yeah

that's so you're okay because i i think that um so you're not talking about necessarily this power i'm just trying to make sure that i understand

well no i am i'm talking about two things i'm talking about you know it's i i guess it's uh what i'm saying is they're one in the same. We need to make sure that we continue to, to hash out massage this, this, this position of the, um, the person on the board. And then we also need to help out plan the rest of this process out or how it's going to work. And if you thought through all the way through the, we need to think through this process all the way through. It just can't be like, we're allowing whoever's in that position to then kind of like be the architect of this process of this, of these positions.

Right. And I, yeah, so I agree. We've been working, so Stacey and Jason and I and Carter and Sophia and Nisha have been working all summer on that, on exactly what you're saying. And making sure that there is a process in place that makes sense and works for the board so that we can really be extracting information that's valuable to us and that's valuable to the kids too. And I do think that it's going to evolve as the year goes. And I think that we've got a good plan in place to get things started. And I know that when Carter and I last met, he indicated that the advisory board, that wasn't actually all put together yet. Some of the reason is because a lot of the kids, I don't know if you may remember that Carter or Nisha even said in this meeting that a lot of these kids at the high school, they don't even know that there is a board. And that's a PR problem. And so that's one of the things that I think Carter is going to be working on at the beginning of the school year is really recruiting kids to be on the board and I think that Carter even has a place like subcommittees for that advisory board. So he's going to have, I'm sorry, Carter, I don't mean to be speaking for you. So you could interrupt me and correct me, but my understanding is that there's actually now going to be subcommittees one subcommittee that's reviewing policies. So Carter's going to have our agenda. So he knows exactly what's coming up and he has subcommittees that he's put in place. So one subcommittee actually will be looking at the policies. Another subcommittee is looking at curriculum. Another subcommittee of is looking at social, is it social emotional Carter?

Like student life issues.

Student life. And am I missing one committee?

No, that's good.

Okay. So I do think that there is a lot of process that's been thought out this summer. And that, you know, the reason we were doing that is exactly for the reasons that you're articulating is, you know, we want to make sure that Carter and Sophia have the support from us that they need and that's That's on us to give them the support that they need. And I take accountability for years past when I was president and it didn't go as we wanted. And we didn't put the time in with the student reps. So I think that's incumbent upon, especially myself, that's one of my goals for the year, to make sure that these student reps have the resources and the support from us in advance so that they can make it useful for us. And we've also talked

about getting the dates of the school board student advisory meetings so that one of us or a board members, like we could rotate and take turns attending the meetings. Oh yeah, that's right. Which we'd never done before. Almost like, you know, we, instead of just one of us being assigned to it, like committee assignment that maybe we rotate through and each attend different meetings because I think it will benefit the students and us to stay in constant contact with what's going on with the advisory.

Yeah. So at any of those, at any of those meetings will be one of us. I don't know if it should be the S you know, that's something that we need to talk about probably offline, but if it's the same person or, um, you know, it's us, we're all rotating, but one of us should be at every single one of those student, um, advisory meetings in case they need help with something in case they need a question answered in case they need some guidance.

Right. Yeah, and I think in theory that's a good idea. I just, I'm also, so I do think that's a good from a management standpoint, that's from my perspective, but then also from the position of anonymity, like being able to say things when they want to say things in an uncomfortable space, talk about things, having an adult there might encumber that process. That's a good point. So yes, I want to make sure. I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to be too much into the weeds of micromanaging what they're talking about, what they want to convey to us. This is just my opinion based on what we're talking about. I really wanted to hear from their perspective. That was the whole goal, was to hear their perspective, their lived experience as high schoolers and grade schoolers and middle schoolers. And whether we deem it to be irrelevant or not worth it to hear, I mean, I don't know. That's not for us to judge. I mean, I think our goal is just to kind of listen to what they have to say. So I'm just hoping that we're not squelching that honesty, that unbridledness that they have right now. The autonomy to talk freely with us being in these meetings with them, unless they want us there, for example.

No, you're right. I think that's a really good point. And we also want to empower Carter and all of the students to... you know, express themselves and to organize and facilitate the process. You know, that's why we chose Carter is we have great faith in him to lead the school board student advisory and inform the board on how they feel. So I want to make sure that he feels empowered and all the kids feel empowered to do so. Like you said, Jason, without us, you know, hindering that. So we might-

I mean, really what's, that's what it comes down to. And I mean, we should really give you the floor here, you know, like, but, but that's really what you have to feel free to do is to, is to lead that student voice opinion. And if the board is ever, you feel too heavy handed in that to tell

us.

Yeah. I think that makes sense. And, you know, I, I know that I just said that, you know, our plan was to have one of the board members at all of those meetings. Um, but in, you know, in listening to what you guys are saying, you know, if, if Carter and Sophia don't, you know, their wish, if they don't want one of us there, then that's fine too. I mean, we're gonna, we do want to make sure that they don't feel that they want to be able to express themselves in a way that Carter's can effectively communicate back to us. And so if one of If that means that one of us shouldn't be there, then I'm going to believe that in Carter's discretion.

Gotcha. And I would say also to your other point, Jason, about the policy itself, this is just a first reading. So that's why we're doing it. So on first readings, you'll have time now or after this even for questions on it. And we're not approving the final version tonight.

Just a first reading. I appreciate you reiterating that and reminding us of that, definitely.

Can I ask a question? Yes. I guess it's just more of an observation of the discussion that we've just had because I think there's ultimately it sounds like this position was created to really help the board do a better job of what we do which is to make sure that we are living our strategic plan and so on and so forth. And we need the student voice in order to do that period. And so we know that, but I love the idea of giving that we've given the council, the school board student, that piece a little bit of direction on what we actually wanna hear because having those subcommittees is really helpful for, I think those students to say, oh, on that subject, here's what we think. And then we are getting, okay, that's the feedback we're getting from the students. So that's really helpful for us to go forward with policy and et cetera. I also like what Jason said, though, that we also want the students to just feel free to have a voice. So I think there could be like a nice balance between the two, I guess is what I'm saying. I would, as a board member, value knowing about those three or four subjects that you just said there'll be subcommittees on, Carter. But I love the idea also that as a council, that you also know that you have the ability to come to us and to really, like Jason said, give us the lowdown and really be honest about the things that are also important to just you that don't have to do with those subcommittees. So I kind of like the idea of us having that structure and maybe Carter always reports on those things or every other meeting he reports on those actual subcommittee subjects. But I also, again, agree with the idea that Carter should really be able to, like Jason said, have the ability to give us that real stuff that's important to the students that maybe we're not asking about.

I also wanted to point out, I don't know if you're looking at the policy right now in the first paragraph before the numbered responsibilities Thanks to Jason Growe for writing up this part. But we added a sentence that says, the board may elect in its sole discretion to expand or contract the specific responsibilities of the student representative, including not appointing a student representative for any given length of time. In other words, that gives us the leeway depending on how our, who our student rep is and how successful they are, you know, or not to, you know, Carter's doing an amazing job. We can expand his responsibilities and say, okay, we trust you now to oversee this process. And if we don't think so, then we can pull back and say, you know what, we're going to get involved in this and help you out. So we thought it was important to add a clause like that where we can kind of always keep tabs on it. And, and if we see like it says that we need to or want to expand or contract the student reps responsibilities, we have the authority to do that. So we just need to make sure it's working for us and working for the kids.

I also wanted to point out, I don't know if you're looking at the policy right now in the first paragraph before the numbered responsibilities Thanks to Jason Grove for writing up this part. But we added a sentence that says, the board may elect in its sole discretion to expand or contract the specific responsibilities of the student representative, including not appointing a student representative for any given length of time. In other words, that gives us the leeway depending on how our, who our student rep is and how successful they are, you know, or not to, you know, Carter's doing an amazing job. We can expand his responsibilities and say, okay, we trust you now to oversee this process. And if we don't think so, then we can pull back and say, you know what, we're going to get involved in this and help you out. So we thought it was important to add a clause like that where we can kind of always keep tabs on it. And, and if we see like it says that we need to or want to expand or contract the student reps responsibilities, we have the authority to do that. So we just need to make sure it's working for us and working for the kids.

I agree. Carter, do you have anything else? Do you wanna add anything or do you feel okay with this conversation?

No, I feel good about it. I'll definitely sort of look at what we talked about, sort of probably finalize sort of the more like concrete and detailed sort of plans for where we're going with this and get that out to everyone. But yeah, I feel good.

I will just like, I would just quickly add that in the few meetings, few short meetings I've had with Carter, I can tell you guys, he is totally on top of this. Like he is so organized. He has a whole plan. He's very communicative and really open to communicating with any of us at any time. And I totally have faith and trust in him that he's going to do a great job. And I think you guys will see that as you start working with him more as well.

So

thanks Carter.

I second that.

I agree. um okay do you guys want to move on next topic okay um so we are gonna go to our um action items now and the first one is 6.01 which is um the third reading and approval c g g a so stacy will you read us a motion please

yes sorry i was muted Uh, I move that the board approved policy J G G a seclusion and restraint for a third reading and approval.

Second.

Okay. Any questions or comments? Nope. Okay. All in favor. Hi. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. unanimously and we are now on to 6.02 um conflict member conflict of interest policy

i move that the board approved the re-adoption of policy bbfa board member conflict of interest and financial disclosure

second it's been moved and seconded questions or comments Okay. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. And we are now on the construction change order.

Sorry, I move that the board approve change order number 16 to the ISC construction contract in the amount of $36,247. Second. It's

been moved and seconded. Questions or comments? Yeah, I have a

comment. So yeah, I just wanted to thank John. I think he's probably on and I know that he prepared that statement. If you guys haven't had a chance to look at that, it's presented a little bit differently than what we've seen in the past. And John obviously, and together with Nisha, I'm sure took a lot of time to put that together for us. So if you do get a chance to look at it, it shows what's been previously approved, what's been rejected and what's pending. And to get to that, you know, the net aggregate sum I know is really what we're approving. You know, kind of our fiduciary responsibilities and what is truly kind of sometimes discretionary spend outside of what our major spend items are on, um, you know, in terms of salaries and personnel and that type of thing. So John, thank you for putting that together. It's really helpful. It's easy to understand. Um, and I really like. Awesome.

Yes, actually, Kim, thank you. I meant, I meant to mention that also so much easier to understand. Thank you, John, so much.

I'll, I'll serve that, that thought as well. Thank you for that. And It means more coming from Kim in terms of her expertise and looking at things like this, but it was very helpful. Thank you.

Great. Um, all in favor, any opposed motion passes. Um, we are onto our consent agenda.

I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda item 7.02 through 7.07. Second. It's been

moved and seconded. Questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Gary, are you opposed?

No, aye.

Okay.

Just a little

wait. You raised your hand so I thought you were opposing it.

Yeah, I was just a little behind you. Sorry, can't keep up with you as usual.

All right, great. So we're on the financials. And we need a motion, please, for the May 2022 financials.

I move that the Board of Education approve the payment of current expenditures and investments for May 2022. Second. Wait, Amy and Gary...

Well, it's okay. Just go ahead. And so

are there any questions or comments? Yeah. So I have a similar comment and I think John is on, but he has put a really nice kind of two-page summary in front, one or two-page summary, in front of each of those monthly financial reports now that you have not seen in the past that captures kind of the major buckets and the variance of spend in the buckets. It's really easy to read. it's a very digestible amount of information. You don't have to go through all, you know, 60 or 90 pages, depending on which month you're looking at. So if you haven't had a chance to look at it, please do, because I think it'll help with just kind of overall financial literacy. If you get questions about, you know, the health of the finances for the school district and John, again, I want to thank you for doing that. So, and if you guys haven't, you know, spent any time with John, he's great. We're very lucky to have him for this interim position. period until we find a permanent CFO. I'm hoping maybe he will take the job. But so thank you, John. And if you have any questions, you know, ask him yourself. But but it's it's a really nice report and it is different from what we have seen in the past.

Yeah, I agree. OK, so. OK, so all in favor. I abstain. I

abstain as well.

Okay, so we've got five yeses and two abstains. Then the June financials.

I move that the board approve disbursements for June 2022 as presented. Second. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Questions? All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. And there are I don't think there's any public comments tonight unless Chris tells me otherwise.

There are no public comments tonight.

Okay. So and as far as board communication is concerned concerned. So I don't think any of us, I don't know if any of us have anything. I don't think that I do. But go ahead, Stacey.

I just wanted to mention, I know most of us were at the new teacher breakfast. And thank you, Dr. Patel, for including us in that. I was, as I think we all were, so impressed with all of our new hires when they were introduced and we heard all of their bios, which we, of course, have gotten through the course of approving their hires. But to hear as a collective group how impressive each of them are got me so excited for the school year. So thank you for including us in I thought it was great to meet them and was super impressed with the new staff we have starting. That's all.

And I just want to thank the entire board for everyone that came. I know it means a lot for our teachers to see everyone there. So I know it means so much. So I appreciated everyone taking their time to be there.

Awesome. So if nobody has anything else, then we can adjourn.

I move that the Board of Education adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Bye. See you next week.