December 14, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, adequate notice has been given and we are going to start by standing and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. okay this is our last meeting of the year Stacey go ahead and let's approve that agenda

I move that the Board of Education December

2nd hey it's been moved and seconded questions or comments all in favor aye any opposed motion passes and we are going to move on to recognizing our own

All right, well, good evening everybody. I'm Robyn Wiens, I'm the assistant superintendent of student services and I wanted to introduce Kate Pavlison who is our SSD instructional coach and the lead sponsor for our high school group for Best Buddies. I also want to welcome a couple CHS students and best buddy members, Kate Shamal and Natalie Blanke. Christina Blankenship, who is the president of Clayton Pack Ed, unfortunately was unable to be with us tonight due to illness. And I also understand that one of our high school students who's with us is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. So happy birthday, Kate. Thank you so much. So we are excited. so inclusive schools week this year was december 5th through 9th and tonight we've asked the chs best buddies to join the clayton pack ed in presenting the inclusive schools week proclamation to the clayton board of education the chs best buddy's program is a student-led program that advocates for and works toward true and meaningful inclusion in our schools

All right, well, good evening everybody. I'm Robin Wiens, I'm the assistant superintendent of student services and I wanted to introduce Kate Pavlison who is our SSD instructional coach and the lead sponsor for our high school group for Best Buddies. I also want to welcome a couple CHS students and best buddy members, Kate Shamal and Natalie Blanke. Christina Blankenship, who is the president of Clayton Pack Ed, unfortunately was unable to be with us tonight due to illness. And I also understand that one of our high school students who's with us is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. So happy birthday, Kate. Thank you so much. So we are excited. so inclusive schools week this year was december 5th through 9th and tonight we've asked the chs best buddies to join the clayton pack ed in presenting the inclusive schools week proclamation to the clayton board of education the chs best buddy's program is a student-led program that advocates for and works toward true and meaningful inclusion in our schools

Thank you guys for having us tonight. Best Buddies at the high school, we're in our fifth year as a club. We continue to grow. We also have made changes this year with the new Greyhound time where we're filled in time during the day to get together and have time to build those friendships. Nate and Natalie are co-presidents this year, and so they're going to just share a little bit about why they're a part of Best Buddies.

So I'm Kate, and I started Best Buddies when I was a freshman. And what I've noticed over the years is that it combines kids that maybe, it's not just kids with 504s and kind of that have that kind of experience, or like maybe kids that don't have as many friends and like are kind of looking. And I feel like we've really blended that together beautifully that like we don't really get to see in a classroom setting.

Yeah, my first year was last year. I just really liked it. That best buddy is so welcoming. Everyone in the school. I really liked that about it. Friends that I probably wouldn't have.

And I'll be talking about the inclusion awards. Clayton Packett will be once again honoring Clayton teachers and staff as well as students who have demonstrated outstanding efforts in the area of inclusion for their dedication to providing a quality education and experience for our increasingly diverse student population, students marginalized due to disability, religion, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, cultural heritage, race, language preference, and other factors. There will also be a student visual arts contest as well. The deadline for nominations is midnight Friday, February 10th. Any parents, students, colleagues, or administrators and community members can submit a nomination form, which is available online at Clayton Packhead District webpages. And the winners will be honored on Wednesday, March 29th at a reception prior to the board meeting.

And so I just want to thank everybody, including our SSD leadership, Kate Pavlison and Melissa Logan, who's also here with us. And then also want to thank Chris Tunnell and the communications department for all of the things they've done to support and guide the PAC ed group. And we're also thankful for all of the volunteers and building administrators and the members in the Clayton community for their support of the Clayton PAC ed group. Thank you again for this time.

Yes. Thank you guys. Thank you so much.

So I do actually have one more recognizing our own that's not on the agenda, so it's an unofficial one. But I do want to take a moment to recognize Sandy Manchella, who this is her last board meeting with us. So Sandy, you know, I woke up this morning and there was a little bit of panic that set in because I didn't get you anything. Usually you're the one who gets people things. So I was like, hmm. is already a change so we did manage to get some flowers there so um but on a serious note though yes thank you Heike for doing that um yeah exactly good thing you did get it right uh but on a serious no you know a lot of people don't realize that you not we not only work together but you work together with the entire board and so hence you work for like the entire community I truly am at a loss of words to share because you and I have been together for, I think, 13 or 14 years, and you've seen me as a classroom teacher to a principal to now here, and you've always been a supporter, cheerleader, and always encouraged. I do wish you the best, and thank you. And I didn't know if you wanted to say anything. I'll put you on the spot.

Well, I'll talk for a second. Yeah. Well, you, I mean, on behalf of the board, I think we can all agree that you have been absolutely outstanding and you will be dearly missed. And we hope to see you around here from time to time. Yes, we expect you to log in every Wednesday night. you it's been a pleasure for us too and I think we have a yes we're doing that later okay so now it's okay we just have a little gift

Thank you. Am I supposed to open it? Sure. Sure. Well, I didn't know if I should do it. What if it's something you don't like? If she'll like it. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. It's a gift certificate to Southwest. Thank you so much. You can really appreciate that. Read the message out loud. This will be put to good use. She said read the message out loud so everybody can hear it. The board. I'm going to put my glasses on. It says, Sandy, congratulations on your retirement. We will miss your organization and advice, but most of all... Oh, sorry.

It says, Sandy, congratulations on your retirement. We will miss your organization and advice, but most of all, we'll miss your smile and genuine kindness. You're leaving big shoes to fill. Enjoy your free time with love, Amy Gehry. Stacey Kim, Jason W., Jason G. Thank you.

Sorry, I've been trying to move it

over. It's because you cared so much about your job that it's so hard to leave it behind. That's right.

It is. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. As she gets her one-way ticket. Yes. As she books her one-way ticket to Florida. I just have to say, every day, I was telling Nisha, every single day, everybody says to me, how many more days you got left? How many more days you get left? And I truly don't know. I really don't know. So I know it's the end of the month, but I really don't because I don't want to count down. You just want to finish and then kind of move on to the thing. So I guess it's just like all hitting me now that it's coming. So sorry about this. I'm sorry. All good. Yeah.

Okay, Chris, do we have any public comments tonight? Nothing, okay. All right, so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Patel for... Superintendent communications.

Okay. Thank you Amy as I do for every superintendent update I do start off with some highlights that are happening across the district So of quite a few things going on right now Actually, the first one is on January 7th our HR department is working on Very diligently to make sure that we have our diversity recruitment and networking fair that we are actually partnering with LeDoux on and this year we take turns on where it's gonna be So last year we hosted it and next this year. It's going to be at LeDoux We have about 18 people registered for it right now Typically about 35 to 40 attend but nationwide. We're noticing that fewer and fewer people are attending These fairs and some are actually just canceling it. So we're actually excited that it's going to be coming up in January, and we feel like it's going to a great way for us to advertise all the wonderful opportunities we have in our district. Hope to have a good turnout for that. And then a couple of weeks ago, we actually celebrated Miramax teacher, fifth grade teacher, Bridget Landgraf. And she received the 2022 Outstanding Elementary Math Educator Award by Missouri Council of Teachers and Mathematics. a phenomenal teacher and we got to celebrate her and she was recognized for that and then one of the neat things that our students are doing actually is they actually attended a conference for middle school educators with two of our middle school teachers and they did a presentation with the teachers on student empowerment that was a neat experience for them and for them to showcase everything that they're doing classroom and in the building In other news, our Y-Down Middle School Chamber Orchestra was selected to perform at the Missouri Music Educators Conference in January, which is a very big honor. Extremely huge. So they're going to be traveling there and they're going to performing in front of a huge, huge audience. Something to be very proud of. then of course our globe at the high school gets awards constantly and they got another one they were named as a top 100 publication by missouri scholastic press association the globe was one of four newspapers from missouri honor and once again the globe continues to just go above and beyond in all their publications so we're very honored to have them be a part of our district as well and all the work that they're doing And then finally, in terms of highlights, we recently hosted elementary night at the basketball game. All three schools were there, a lot of students in attendance, all three principals were there, a lotta school spirit. So it was great to have like the community come together, but elementary. And then this Friday, we play Ladue, at Ladue. So that's gonna be a huge game and hopefully we have a huge as well. Carter and his friends will be there. That's right. That's right. And then I do want to give just a quick recap of our community engagement meeting that we had last time. As you know, we have two a year. Last year we started that and this one really was focused on how we're doing on the strategic plan and are we really moving the needle in the direction we need to. We brought the community in, had tabletop conversations and really listened to them and what we're doing well, what we need to improve on and basically are we going in the right direction. um and so one of the things we asked our community was when they left was to do a survey and like just give us some their thoughts like an exit ticket and what we did is we asked them the three three same questions for each goal and it was like a star rating one to seven was the scale it was with um like one being not at all knowledgeable like one star and then if you give seven stars you're extremely knowledgeable and you get around four stars you're somewhat knowledgeable And what we asked them was, before they attended the community engagement, how much knowledge did they really have on the goals? After they left the community engagement forum, how much did they learn? And then really, how they think we're doing in our goal. And so I'm going to just share the results that we got from it. So if you look at this chart for goal one, goal two, and goal three, those were the ratings they gave us. So before they attended the community engagement, you notice for goal one, it was a 3.8 stars out of seven. After the evening, they gave us a 5.5. And how are we doing in goal one was a 4.9. and then the same you could see for goal two and then you could see the rating for goal three so i thought this was a good way for us not to not only just because we also had um a section where they could give us just their thoughts you know like qualitative data this kind of quantified it for us and it gives us something to think about um in terms of where we're going next Some of the comments that we got and that I just wanted to highlight, these were some that we saw multiple times. But these are specific comments that they left. First one being individualized and personalized learning plans are incredibly important to have successful learners, someone said. Another person said as you continue to curate and cultivate teacher and student experience, I think it's important to push into community and parent connections. The third one, social-emotional needs of the students are crucial. Finding more ways for the students to feel connected to each other is another top priority, which we heard a lot. And then another pattern that came across, I think your very intentional strategic outlook is part of what makes our district so great. Thanks for continuing to look ahead and walk the walk by demonstrating what growing is like. So we really heard that the community appreciates these types of events. They like to be engaged with us, following the conversation. And mental wellness, of course, definitely. The topic is secondary. So I thought that was really good information. Our next community engagement forum will be April 19th. And on that one, we're going to focus on the profile and the actual competencies and how we're doing. is that really translating it this was really a good temperature check to have the community come to us and do you know what we're saying and what we're talking about and how we're moving our district forward is it really translating that's a huge part so I just wanted to share that with you And then finally I just want to take a moment and wish everyone a great holiday. December's around the corner and I know our students especially at the high school when I see them every morning I could feel that the little bit of stress that they have with finals coming around the corner or different assessments and I'm sure Carter's got that. I'm gonna hand it off to you Carter to give us a student perspective.

So, as you all know, today we're going to be looking at the audit, but students are not exactly super opinionated about that. So, instead, since we're approaching the end of the semester, I'm going to talk a little bit about finals and just in general how the end of the So essentially how it's gonna work this year is that each teacher has like the option of whether or not they want to provide a cumulative final or even if they just want to have like a unit test project at the end. Or even if they just wanna use the time to go over. So in most of my classes and a lot of classes peers are having we're noticing that there are a lot more finals than there were like a year or two years ago but a lot less than what so essentially like some background on like how it worked is like before all of covid like every core teacher was required to give a final from the feedback i heard those were pretty difficult tests um and then when covid hit uh we canceled and just It's definitely been a bit of a transition for students to get back into the finals. I know that students are glad not to have the same, like, every class you have a cumulative final and super difficult to study for hours for. But it is definitely a transition in the past two years. A couple of them. And so, I guess... We are glad, and it has been a relief not to have this mandated schedule. But I know for a lot of students, in a very stressful week, it's probably gonna be the same. So I guess just always looking out for ways to make that a little bit easier. Make that easier? So in terms of some productive feedback, that I've heard students would be interested in is they appreciate that administrators care about the stress, like we have Wellness Week at the high school. There's other various study group tips that they're doing at the high school, but in general, a lot of the stress is a little bit unavoidable just by nature of having finals. So in terms of, like, specific things that I know students are looking for with final exams, we talked about this a little bit earlier, that a lot of students would be very interested in actually beginning of January because in the past, like, a final has just been a number that goes in the grade. That's it. You don't learn from mistakes you make. You can't really use it as a tool next spring when you have to show you know them. so i think that's definitely something that then is getting to learn from their mistakes that they can learn from them um and then also just another note uh i've heard from some people who've graduated high school and are now starting college that it has been a bit of a transition especially going into college when they haven't had these stamps for the past two years And they've actually said that in some cases it was a little bit kind of nice to have this experience in high school where you're having this super difficult cumulative final exam where you have to sit down and study for it. Because when you get to college, that's every class. So I think the approach that we're taking where you're sort of getting a taste of both worlds where Sure, you're giving teachers the freedom where maybe they don't believe in a final if you have projects instead, but also you're still getting that cumulative final experience. I think it's beneficial for students both now and down the road.

Thank you. Oh, yeah, go ahead. I think what's also... ... Percentage of weight

it carries in your semester grade? Yeah. Is that also up to each individual teacher?

Or do departments

set those? Yeah,

so they have guidelines. I'm pretty sure all of them are between 10 and 20%. And then they are specifically designated by each department within that range. That made me think of something else, which was that for some students, a lot of the times the structure of a cumulative final is pretty different than the unit tests, just like the types of questions that are on them. Because I know at least in, especially in AP classes, they basically change the structure of the test to mirror an AP test. So I know some students are worried that, like, the cumulative final might even be, like, a bit of a curveball as compared to all the unit tests. So, again, it's just something else to look out for.

I have a question for you, too, and it's kind of a follow-up to maybe a month ago when we talked about the approach to homework and consistency across homework and grading. Have you heard feedback from students that are taking the same classes taught by different teachers that there's coordination between those teachers and that the administration of whatever the final thing is is consistent for the same classes? Or are you hearing that there's still differences in? either the approach because it's up to the teachers or in the way that they're grading, or one's grading on a curve and another isn't. What kind of feedback are you getting there?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I've definitely noticed that there is coordination between teachers, like they're having these discussions to sort of try and decide together. But I also know of multiple instances where they are doing different things. Like, I know in my English class, there are three different teachers that teach the English class, and they have three different structures for their final. So, what do you mean? It creates equity issues, doesn't it? A little bit. And it does become a little bit more of like who is your teacher as opposed to what do you know.

Yeah. So not great. I

have a question. Go ahead. Along the lines of now students are experiencing cumulative exams and they haven't in the past, have you noticed and do you think the students, especially the ones that all of you have gone through COVID, are getting and or would benefit from if they're not getting their teachers really helping them to know how to study for an exam like that? Are teachers taking time to really help kids build skills around studying and what that looks like?

I know, at least in my experience, teachers haven't really been the ones to sort of give that instruction. I know that there are optional events hosted by the counseling departments, which are like, this is how you study for a final, but... I mean, I didn't attend those, and I'd expect that they didn't have amazing turnout. Yeah. But, I mean, it's something that our schools are doing, but I don't know how much they're, like, almost requiring that students learn this.

Right. Do you think that that would be beneficial for your teacher that's teaching the subject to give you some of those skills right there in class, if that's possible?

I mean... I think teachers are not trying to like hit you with something sneaky on the final. Like they're all like telling you this is what it's going to look like, this is what you need to know. But I mean in terms of like the techniques of actually learning that stuff that they're telling you you need to learn, I think that could be helpful especially for some students who need that guidance on okay, what do I do next? Great. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. Carter? And I think we are moving on to our audit. And good luck

with your finals.

Yeah. Yes, very well.

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to introduce Gina Cochran. She's a partner with the audit firm of KEB. They performed this year's audit for the year-end of June of 2022. And you have copies of the audit in front of you for reference.

Okay. So thanks for having me here tonight. I appreciate that. Carter, very disappointed that you're not interested in this audit. Oh, I am. accountants in the profession so it's a good profession we pay well right now so I'm just going to go over a high-level review of the audit for you all here today not get in in depth in your financial statements they've already been approved by management just need to be accepted by the board and as I go through here He will go through the slides. So just to remind everybody, management is responsible for the preparation of your financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles that's known as GAAP. Your financial statements, the government-wide financial statements use the full accrual basis of accounting and your fund financial statements actually use the modified full basis of accounting. Our responsibility as auditors is to express an opinion on those financial statements. and in terms of their fair presentation. So, our audit was performed in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, also governmental auditing standards, and then uniform guidance because we had to have a single audit again. And we will, or we've issued actually what's known as an unmodified opinion on your financial statements. It's a clean opinion. It's the best of three opinions that we can issue. So, that's what you really want from your auditors. There were no material weaknesses noted in your internal controls over your financial reporting and no noncompliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grants. Also a great thing. This slide goes over the portion of our audit related to the federal awards. And we audited the child nutrition cluster as our major program this year, only had to audit one to get our coverage. And we issued also an unmodified or clean opinion on that compliance over that major program. Again, no material weaknesses noted over the controls related to that program and no audit findings that were required to be reported in accordance with that uniform guidance over that federal program. Another part of our audit you'll find in there is our report on the state compliance. There you go. So we examined the district's compliance over specified requirements of Missouri laws and regulations regarding budgetary and disbursement procedures and also adequate disclosure related to your attendance. Those are all required by DUSSE. So that examination is performed in accordance with those standards established by the ASCPA, and we also issued an unmodified opinion on the related to those specific requirements of Missouri laws and regulations. This last part of the presentation goes over some required communications with the board. It includes the significant accounting policies. Those are in Note A to your financial statements. The only thing that changed this year was that the district actually adopted GASB 87 related to leases. That's been around for about five years or more. Everybody hates it. Everybody hates it, nobody wants to do it, but it puts everybody on the same playing field. Really, if you're either purchasing your fixed assets or you're leasing those fixed assets. So it's important that you've got apples to apples if you're comparing your financial statements to other districts. and really it had no impact on your numbers in your financial statements, it was a disclosure change this year for you because those assets and related liabilities were already on your books. Your significant estimates were required to go over also, and that includes your net pension liability and the OPEB or other post-employment liabilities. Other post-employment related benefits, those are in your government-wide financial statements. And they're based on actuarially determined items in accordance with the GASB statements related to those two items. no transactions that lacked authoritative guidance or consensus. And a new requirement is just to let you know that we complied with all ethical requirements related to independence. As our audit reports always say, independent auditors, that we just have to disclose to you that we are independent of all management and board members. The financial statements are neutral, consistent and clear, meaning that if you're looking at current year's financial statements compared to last year's financial statements, they're comparable apples to apples there. No difficulties in countered and performing our audits and no disagreements with management. This top item is a new audit disclosure also to the Board of Education. We're required to disclose significant risks related to every audit. This should not be a concern to you in terms of management overriding controls. It's required. item for all audits so if you saw a laundry list of two or three or four items here there would be concern no action to be taken it's just that the there could be override of controls by management even if your controls were set up to operate perfectly we still have to consider that in our audit and we we look then at higher risk areas related to the audit we can't do every audit exactly the same No financial statements, no financial statement misstatements as a result of our audit this year. And the management provided us with the representation letter when they approved the financial statements. And that letter just indicates that the management provided us all of the information we needed to complete the financial statements and that they're complete and accurate, not only in terms of the numbers, but also related to disclosures. So everything was disclosed to us that needed to be reported in your financial statements. To our knowledge, no management consultation with other independent accountants, and that's typically only the case if there is a complex or a controversial item in your financial statements, which there were not. So lastly, just wanted to thank John and Brent for their assistance with the audit this year. Things went very smoothly. We dealt a lot with Brent directly and had no issues related to the audit. So we appreciate John, you, and Brent's help related to that very much. And also thank the board for allowing us to be engaged for the audit. We appreciate that as well. Any questions for me? That's just our team there, so. All

right, questions?

I think you can let her rip. I'm not prepared to talk now, obviously.

Okay. Well, first of all, congratulations, John, to you and your team on completing a successful and clean audit. So it's always, you know, from an insider perspective, a little nerve-wracking until it's done. But thankfully, we have nothing to be concerned about with respect to our district financials here. No financial restatements, everything clean, no material findings. Those are all great things, as you've summarized. I guess more of the questions that we talked about prior to coming in were around our... unfamiliarity with the government accounting standards as opposed to private accounting standards. We really have a question related to in a public company setting, the partner that audits my public company needs to be replaced every five years even if we don't replace the audit firm. Is there a similar recommendation for on government accounting with respect to auditing school districts?

No specific requirement in

terms of that. Is there a best practice?

We have policy that we solicit new services every five years. Right. We may engage the same company at that point in time. But

we RFP for the

outers,

yeah. And

that's coming up for this next audit. Right. And just

so you know also, Brian Wertz was the partner for the first four years. He made a shift in what he was doing in terms of audits. He's pulling away from a lot of those audits and transferring them, so this is my first year on the engagement and actually got a clean look at that. Julia was new on the engagement. Allison has been on the engagement before, but Brian was on the engagement previously as the partner in charge. Yeah, you look very different than Brian this year

from the year before.

Just a quick follow-up on that. Do you have a policy internally that you rotate teams every certain number of years?

We do not. If there's ever a request to do that, we do. Or if it makes sense internally just because of a partner getting out of the audit field, we make that. But we've got plenty of folks besides. So Brian is one of our key school districts, Rick Grazza, and myself. So we've got really all three audit partners in the St. Louis office, our school district. and charter school auditors.

Okay, thank you.

I mean, I don't have any other questions. I mean, there's really nothing to ask when you guys deliver a clean report like this, except thank you for your engagement with us, and John, congratulations again to you and your team, and keep up the good work. Thank you.

Thank

you.

So I think we need to move to approve that.

Okay, receipt of the financial audit report and the federal state program report for fiscal year 2021-2022 is hereby acknowledged and accepted from Kerber, Eck, and Brickle LLP, the district's independent financial auditor.

Moved and seconded. Questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, it passes. All right, and so now we are on to policy DIAA fund balance.

DIAA is a proposed policy to the board. Can you turn on your mic, John? DIA is a proposed policy that we're asking you to consider. It relates to our fund balance and how we designate it, and it will also establish a minimum fund balance level to help create stability in the organization's finances. We are well above the minimum that's stated here, 25% at this point in time, but... Years down the road, that may come back into play. This was presented and discussed with the Finance Committee. Kim and Jason were at that meeting. That got a very good support at that meeting. This has been run past MSBA, and this draft is presented for your consideration.

Okay, are there any questions? Has anybody read it other than Kim and Jason? And Gary?

That's that's like other than I mean first Just a couple questions John So this isn't something that we've had before in terms of any kind of minimum How I may guess maybe this might be a little bit of a series of questions Do you know how common it is for districts to have? minimum standards that articulated

It's rather common It's proposed in GASB 54, I think.

So it's recommended by the governor? As a

policy for us to have. We haven't had it before, but many districts do.

And are there... I know you don't know an entire comprehensive history of our finances, but are you aware of any time, certainly in recent times, that we would have not been in compliance with this policy had

we had it? You would have been below it in 2018 and 2019, most recently.

So that would have been for maybe more than a fiscal year before we went out for additional tax-related funding? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, just so you know, that was part of the discussion that we had with the broader financial, long-term financial planning committee or financial planning committee. I don't know what we're calling it now. But we talked about the reason to have a policy like this in place is, you know, I think many of us here can remember the last time we went out for the fundraise, it almost felt like an emergency to have to go out. And by setting this minimum fund balance, you basically – trigger something that is like a smoke alarm, right? Where then the board and the community has a chance to come together and say at 25%, it's not yet an emergency. But it's something that we need to be looking at, preparing for, planning for. What are we going to do? Do we want to draw an expense? Do we want start thinking about reducing expenditures? Do we want go out with another bond issue? What are the different levers that we can pull to make sure that we don't find ourselves in dire financial straits at any point? And so it's really there, really, as a safety net. And that's what we discussed kind of at length with the entire committee and with John to try to establish what that safety net should be. And what John had provided was kind of, oh my gosh, probably 30 years worth of historical district data on what our expenses versus revenues were so that we could look at what the percentages of fund balances were and then kind of align with everybody that was in there on what percentage made sense so that's how we arrived at the 25 percent

yeah

what's critical is the last paragraph of the policy says if we didn't reach that point then we're to develop a plan to recover from that that's right so that's that's it's really kind of put on the alert or the smoke alarm as you say yeah we need to consider something and then develop a plan to

Yeah, so I mean, and appreciate the additional background. And I did read it, but I'm not as smart as Kim or Don for sure. So the way I kind of understood this was that it would be, it's not as if it mandates, you know, we fall below a fund balance. We don't mandate cuts or whatever. It's in a budgeting process and what budget would be submitted if it's projected that the fund balance would be Implicated in a way that drops below the minimums. That doesn't happen. Essentially, we don't consider a budget.

No, no, no. What John just said is really important. It's that last paragraph. Once it gets to that level, it's time to come up with a plan. It's not prescriptive as to what that plan should be, must be, has to be. That will be for the board to decide at that time in conjunction with hopefully additional conversations with the community, what enrollment looks like. And just to eliminate any absence of doubt, we are very far away from needing to have that discussion. I will not be on the board when we have that discussion, even if I'm here for another term. I mean, I anticipate that where we are, with respect to our district finances currently, is in a very healthy and positive position. But this is set up so that when maybe none of us are sitting around this table six years, 10 years from now, it again is a smoke alarm that we put in place signaling that hey, look over here, it's time to start planning. So.

It's a written statement to help us have a common understanding of what that target is.

And I think, I mean, I'm cobbling a little bit together, including some of my own assumptions for this. But I think if I'm understanding you all and understanding the policy correctly, if we rewind the clock back to 2018 and 2019, we would have been having a conversation a year earlier had we had this in place, which I think is actually pretty healthy and would have allowed us to have more, well, a less urgent conversation with the community. I mean, am I? Yes. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay.

Go for it. Sorry. So going back to 2018, if I remember correctly, I think we were having a conversation. They were already having a conversation, I think, the superintendent and folks in the office, right? It's more about coming to us as a board, letting us know. Is that what we're saying? That conversation was already happening, I think, in 2017, that we're coming into a situation where our fund balance is... Is that incorrect? It was good

that those conversations were being had at that time because they were needed. This kind of puts everybody on alert. When we get at this point or near this point, we need to be having those conversations. Without this document, it's up to... whoever's in charge to make that decision. To make sure the board is aware. This kind of puts everybody on a common understanding of the situation.

I think what's important, too, is that then if the board's aware, the community will be aware. Right. Because I think that was what was scary last time is that the community not only did the board not really know but the community had no idea i mean everyone thinks clayton's always in great financial shape and then all of a sudden it was literally like this emergency and nobody understood like how could a district like clayton be in trouble that doesn't make sense so i think that's the most important part of that so thank you for not only putting this policy in place but for also adding that last paragraph that will make it so that the board and in turn the community and the public will be aware that we will have a plan in place to figure out what to do well in advance.

Just to briefly add on to that, the idea of having a figure isn't new. This came up in the budget discussion last spring. All this does is defines how we're coming up with that figure in a clear way and we're codifying that percentage, right? So you can even see it coming down the pike years in advance to your point, Stacey.

Jason has really young kids on the board, so he might still be here when

this gets triggered.

Okay. So great. So this is our first reading. I will confess I did not have a chance to read it, but I think this is an important one. So we will have a second reading, and to the extent that anybody does have edits to it, please, this will be on our website. on our January 18th? 19th. 19th meeting, so 18th. Oh,

Stacey, you'll be in Hawaii. Sandy. Sandy. Yeah. Brian, Jason, whoever you are.

Yeah, we'll bring it back in January. Let's

go with that. We'll go with that

date. This document will come up like other policies where we revisit policy annually and just because it's kind of a living document we can kind of edit it. And one last thing. Are there any What if we figure out that there's a problem coming down the pipeline and we don't say anything about it, someone doesn't say anything about. Are there any repercussions for that process in the procedure of getting it to us? What if someone doesn't mention it in time? They see it, they don't mention it. Is there a process to hold someone accountable?

Yeah, pretty much. I think every year when we do the budget and it looks forward, there needs to be a statement in that budget addressing this particular issue to give you that heads up as whether we're in the good or whether we're trending towards the problem. What repercussions behind that, if there needs to be? I think that's between the board and the superintendent. Whoever's sitting in this is the one

that needs to be diligent about that issue. Yeah, and I think that's, so that's what we should as a procedure part, and that's when I go back and look at it again with edits for next time that we'll talk about the procedure that's involved in that. That's what...

Yeah, so the fund balance is always calculated at the time that the budget is calculated. It's a projected fund balance at the time of the budget, to John's point. So the expectation would be that as the budget is presented to the board, whatever the board looks like at that time, and whoever, especially your treasurer, is on that board, that they're paying attention to that, have knowledge that 25% is the kind of red line that we've set. And then, again, as John says, if that isn't there, the treasurer should be looking for it, the whole board should be looking for. And assuming that it is there, if it somehow doesn't look like it's right, well then, you know, superintendent, CFO, board, collectively figure out how to solve the problem. Yes.

Cool. Appreciate it, Ben. Thanks.

Thank you. And we are on to number nine, which is our consent agenda.

I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda for items 9.02 through 9.09. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay,

I moved that the Board of Education approve item nine

point

I Need to read the whole thing. Yeah the whole thing again. Sorry. I do have an old copy I guess I apologize I moved that the board of education approved consent agenda items nine point zero two through nine

Seconded as

Hey, good job, Gary. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It passes. And another motion.

I move that the Board of Education approve October 2022 disbursements in the sum of $2,313,825.11. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Did we

miss the October financial report,

1.01? Do we have to approve that?

There wasn't a motion for it. Okay. Oh, it says it's attached as information.

Okay, so board communications. Who wants the report? Okay, go ahead, Stacy.

PTO Council? Yes, there was a PTO Council meeting And I would say, which has been a recurring theme with PTOs is they are having trouble getting people to show up to meetings. And there was kind of this general consensus like maybe we need to change the way we look at our PTO meetings. Maybe they really can just be business meetings with the officers and any other information where we need other parents' involvement in our opinions, we will do that in different types of events or emails or I think they're working so hard to try to get people to show up to these meetings, and I just think the world has changed, and parents aren't showing up for PTO meetings. So I think there was a lot of brainstorming around how do they get parent input if they're not coming to meetings. It's kind of each school going around giving their reports like that. But they are all very happy they've been back to hosting events, which have had great turnouts. I know one of them I talked about was Merrimack had a movie night or something. Oh,

yeah, they did. Well, it's generally out on the blacktop. Right, but it moved up to the high

school. But there was a great turnout there, and they're back to normal with those events, which has been great. And I can also give a report on the wellness committee meeting last week. Let's see. We heard from the All In Coalition if, since all of you are parents, also you may have received a survey from All In Coalition about our kids' drug and alcohol use. And so Lily reviewed some of the statistics around that, which I'm not going to lie are alarming. Clayton has like really high numbers of our teenagers using and abusing alcohol and cannabis. Um, but all in coalition is doing like really impressive work in our schools and with our kids and outreach to the parents. Uh, so that's great. Um, some of the other things we heard about were, um, talked about trying to create more, um, variety in our school lunches. We're not totally back to pre COVID lunches where like even in the elementary, they had those a la carte items to pick from. And I think, so they're trying to brainstorm and be creative in ways to make lunches more attractive and appealing to the kids. Let's see, Robin for the first time had a partnership with SSM that offered free mammograms for all of our staff and families, which was great, and hopefully we'll continue that annually with them. We continue to do COVID testing, but they're re-looking at that because we haven't had really Many people show up for those. It's a weekly thing we have on Tuesday mornings. So I think reevaluating that program, but had a good turnout for staff flu shots and the community for the COVID booster.

Thanks for going to those, Stacey. Anybody else? Go ahead, Chris.

Yeah, the governing council for SSD met. I was only there for part of that meeting, unfortunately, because of other things, but not a lot of new news there. Just really happy with our partnership with them, happy to hear from best buddies and know that the SSD is doing such a great job of making sure that those kinds of things are happening in our district. The other one is that I think there's been two... diversity inclusion meetings. Jason was at the last one with me. And they're doing great work still too. The same exact thing, they're looking at data. We looked at academic data and now we're looking at SEL data from Panorama and just looking at in all our different breakdowns of different groups of students, how things are going in each of those, what data we need to really understand how to make recommendations for making sure that we're meeting our goals of diversity and inclusion in our classrooms. And really, we want to, at the end of this, give really solid recommendations to students, staff, administrators about how we think, now that we've really looked and analyzed the data, how we think that could be improved. So still doing that great work.

I just thought of one more thing. Sorry. Were you going to report something? No. I think since our last board meeting, Jason and I did a walkthrough at Glen Ridge with Nisha, and... Some of the highlights of that one I remembered is we saw so many amazing, it's almost like they were putting on a show for us for Empowered Learning. No joke, because we ran into a student in the hallway with his para who had this individualized plan of what zones he's in, what zones he wants to get to, what are his targets. And we've talked about all those colored zones. And it was, he was so excited to tell us about it. Like, I don't remember, but for example, like I'm in a yellow, but I'm really trying to get to green and how, and we asked, how are you planning to get there? And that was great. Um, and it seemed like in every classroom, all of the kids had a choice in how they were learning. Like they could work individually, work with a partner, work in a group play, play on the iPad, use the iPad or a game or whatever, which was great. Um. One classroom, there's a classroom set for each of our elementary schools of virtual reality headsets. and this is so cool, one of the classrooms, they were visiting national parks. Like in virtual reality, which is super cool. And another thing that was great was it was the week before Thanksgiving, so I guess we had like graduates come back home and stuff. And there was a Glenridge and Clayton High School graduate who I think is a chemist who was teaching a second grade class about how we make vaccines and how vaccines work. So it was just cool to bring a graduate, like we talk about profile of a graduate. It was cool to bring a Teaching our kids. Such a, you know, current and important lesson. It's great.

Something else. Yeah. I did a tour with Nisha of Captain not too long ago. And we were shocked, and I will say that this is something that I know we're all already thinking about. But again, being proactive, we aren't having a ton of cases of COVID, but certainly we all know that RSV and influenza are really high. And COVID cases are going up as well. And I know that that's all being monitored. But Nisha and I were shocked because almost every class had COVID. Very few students. I mean, it was across the board. Every class was missing a chunk of students. It was right before Thanksgiving. So there were definitely kids out because it was Thanksgiving coming up. But the teachers were saying, yeah, students are sick. So I think. Again, I know our nursing staff does an amazing job at making sure parents know. And maybe that's a good sign. Maybe that's kids staying home because they have something minor that prior to COVID, maybe their parent would have let them come, but that's not what we're seeing, hopefully. But yeah, I would love to know just from the parent perspective. what their experience is this winter because we've gone through COVID and now we're going through a really tough flu season. And just, again, being proactive about how we can really be in communication with families about how to keep their kids healthy and what we can do just within our classrooms to make sure that that's a priority, just a continued priority, not to let that action that we strove to really do a good job of that during COVID, let's keep that up because... Here we are not worried as much about COVID, but influenza has been. So I think we're just going to continue to see this every winter probably. And so that just needs to continue to be on our minds in terms of what we can do about – and really having an action plan. You know, what if a class only has two kids in it that day? You know, what does that look like? How do we handle that? You know, again, it's – just things to think about. We didn't know we were going to need to know what to do during COVID, but now that we know that those kinds of things happen, like how can we have a wellness committee, et cetera, really be looking at that and just having some sort of sense of, okay, this is kind of what we can do actively, not just in reaction to COVID. And then there was something else that you said. I guess I'm not going to remember. But that's okay. Thank you. Stacy,

it's your turn. we haven't had a meeting in a long time

because we

had the

engagement

okay so just real quickly then i'll throw my two 30 seconds on the center so we had a center board meeting they uh this the staff has engaged a marketing firm uh to do sort of like a local market study comparing the center to both other community rec centers and then also made a point that it needs to also include the other gyms here in the clayton area um and come up with sort of like a marketing strategy and plan for that so I'll be very interested to see what their recommendations are.

Yeah, it will be interesting. It will.

Yeah, it well.

That's my report.

Okay. I'm sorry. I just wanted to mention this didn't get discussed, but I know that the middle school speaking about you reminded me that having alumni come back into discuss what they're doing. It's really inspirational for kids and I want to just say that the middle school had like a career day several weeks ago where tons of current parents or alumni came in and just talked about what they do And I know for sure that that had a lot of impact. And it's incredibly helpful for students to know what's available and what it actually looks like instead of just having it, you know, I'm an economist. Well, what does that mean exactly? So I really appreciate that YM did that. want us to really make sure we continue to really give kids real world understanding and knowledge about the types of professions across the board that there are in all kinds of, you know, areas. And that's what I think I saw. Um, I wasn't actually there, but that's what I heard happened. And I just, I'm really proud that YDOT's doing that. I think it's just really, those kids learn a lot from those, those, those sessions. And it, it's like a, it's sort of like a, to us, we're like, oh, I mean, it feels like, oh, they don't know. You know what I mean? It's really a great place for them to get exposed to a number of things all in one day. So I just wanted to mention that was great.

Okay. Okay, so... few more things. Like I said, it's our last meeting of the year. I wish everybody happy holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, everything. I'm sorry if I missed anything. And I have very good news for Chris Nguyen and Jason Growe that they passed their Missouri School Board Association training. And so I've got a certificate and a mazel tov and a pin for you that I expect you guys to be wearing. Okay? Every day. Okay. So good job. Gold star. And with that, I think we can adjourn.

Okay. Okay, so... few more things. Like I said, it's our last meeting of the year. I wish everybody happy holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, everything. I'm sorry if I missed anything. And I have very good news for Chris Nguyen and Jason Groh that they passed their Missouri School Board Association training. And so I've got a certificate and a mazel tov and a pin for you that I expect you guys to be wearing. Okay? Every day. Okay. So good job. Gold star. And with that, I think we can adjourn.

I move that the Board of Education adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye.