December 18, 2019 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, we are going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. Adequate notice

has

been, you might

explain, sorry.

You're good. So acquittals have been given. We are going to start with the pledge, and then we're going to come back, and I'm going to explain one adjustment we needed to make last minute to the agenda that has to do with Adzick Field and kind of the timing of that. But I'm going to ask Greg Pearson to lead us in the pledge. Thank you. So before we even move into recognition, what I just want to share is that obviously sometimes with capital projects there are things that come up. There's something that came up around Essex Field. kind of an action that we need to take in terms of continuing the work it has instilled onto the consent agenda. So you'll see it as we get to it, but I just wanted to share that with you all. Just as a kind of a heads up. It was posted, we put it on, but it's very last minute, which is just why I'm telling you all that, okay? So we're going to move to recognizing our own. Okay, thank you.

So good evening, everyone. And for those of you that haven't been to a board meeting, our board has been really intentional about making sure that we recognize students as part of our work. And we also make sure that we're recognizing the great work that's happening within our schools. And so this year we're actually taking our board meetings on tour and we're going into schools and learning more about what they're doing and learning about their goals. And so tonight we're at the family center and it's an opportunity for us to be able to hear what great things happen at the family center. Um, I just want to take a few moments before the family center staff leaves later, just to say thank you for being here tonight and being available to our board of education, to hear their questions, to open your classrooms. Um, one of the things that I've said to Debbie as part of when we do walkthroughs is that when you go into a classroom in this building, it's, it's, not completely obvious, but what you do and what you do with the materials in your classroom are so intentional. with the children and making sure you're setting it up for provocations with the students. And it's very subtle, but we recognize that. And I want to say thank you to the Family Center staff who is so intentional about doing what's best for our youngest learners. So thank you. And so what I'm going to do is bring up Debbie Riley, who is our director, and she's going to introduce the rest of the staff who is going to be part of this presentation.

Let's just do that. Let's just do just first thank you so much for coming to our school we're really excited about your being in different locations and we are excited to host you I joined my colleagues from the Family Center and welcoming you and we're glad that you're here you may notice that we don't have any awards to give out here And our students aren't here. They're in bed. However, we will be sharing learning with you this evening. And it's learning that happens every day. We are highlighting three learning areas this evening. Janie Halyan will share our parent learning. Kath Poppy will share our staff learning. And Anna Schwartzman will share student lead learning in our early childhood programs.

So I'm just going to give you some quick vignettes of what parents have been learning this year. That's our other part that we want to pay attention to. So I'm going to kind of highlight very briefly just a couple of our different programs. An international family that recently moved to Clayton enrolled their four-year-old at the family center. He spoke very little English at the start of school and struggled with intense meltdowns in the classroom. Through the help of their parent educator, they were able to identify some simple strategies to help him feel more in control of his emotions and use language to describe his feelings rather than acting out. His meltdowns have significantly decreased, and in his few short months at the family center, his use of English is now surpassing his mom's. An elementary parent sought support through the district's parent coaching program. This mom came in exhausted by all the power struggles with her strong third grader. She had read many books and tried many strategies that did not seem to be working. She was feeling very discouraged. Together, we identified some tools for communicating with her daughter that allowed her to step out of the power struggles and use new language that helped foster competence and a desire for cooperation in her daughter. Through the Myers-Briggs temperament inventory, a dad of a fourth grader gained insight into his son's temperament and the frustration that he continually felt. Dad's strong sense of duty and responsibility became clear, and the realization that his son was from birth wired totally different from him. He was able to reframe his view of his son from stubborn and defiant to persistent and committed to finding ways of being capable. This new awareness helped dad find ways to work with his son, rather than being continually frustrated and angry with him. Lastly, parents of sixth graders met for six weeks at Wydown to study the book The Gift of Failure by Jessica Leahy, who's a middle school educator. They learned strategies to quiet their own anxieties and begin to see struggles and obstacles as learning opportunities for their new middle schoolers. The group left with tools to help support rather than rescue. When a child brought home a failing grade on a test or was hurt by an interaction with a peer, this helps increase our kids' problem solving skills and their emotional resilience when parents and hold on to that anxiety, and do what kids most need them to do. This group plans to continue next semester, and we'll be studying the book How to Talk So Teens Will Listen, and Listen So Teens Will Talk.

So I'm here to talk to you about our professional development learning, and Speaking of professional development, I was fortunate enough to attend the Learning Forward Conference last week, which was here, a national conference here in St. Louis. And one of the sessions that I attended, it focused on using storytelling as a way of presenting information. I learned that research shows you are 22% more likely to retain information you hear when presented in a story form. came out of this book. So I thought I'd try that out on you guys. Here we go. Once upon a time, there was a magical place called the Family Center. It was a place filled with laughter, creativity, play, joy, and also challenges, some sadness and conflict. Every day, educators worked hard to prepare engaging environments for the children and families they served. These educators considered themselves lifelong learners. They learned with each other and with the children, always searching for ways to hone their craft. One day, the family center's lead learner came across a new book that inspired her. It was a different kind of learning than her staff was used to. She wondered if they would embrace this book. She knew in her heart that this book directly aligned to the building's goal Educators will cultivate resilience so they can lead, accept and overcome challenges and thrive. School leaders must focus on boosting resilience of staff as a lever for school transformation and excellence to support the social emotional growth of students. She presented her idea to her vision action team over the summer. The group read and talked and read some more and talked some more and read and talked some more. They agreed this would be a challenge. This book study would stretch their learning into some unfamiliar territory, maybe into their zone of proximal development, which is the very best, where the very best learning happens. They planned the study for the first three chapters and ordered the books for everyone. Because of that, the educators returned to school this fall and dove into this study of resilience, which began with understanding why we are who we are learning to understand and name our emotions so that we can choose how we respond to them, and learning about how to tell stories that empower. The habits we were cultivating through this study included acceptance and optimism. And because of that, even more educators accepted the invitation to help prepare the learning for our future meetings studying this book. The educators worked together to study chapters focused on empathy and trust, They reflected and shared their core beliefs. They learned to identify distorted thought patterns and to be open to alternate ideas. They learned that resilient people have healthy self-perception and are committed to taking care of themselves. Finally, the vision action team wanted to gather feedback investigating the value of our Onward study book. We asked questions to see if staff members were gaining new skills enjoying the variety of formats, feeling supported in their family center work, changing some practices, using new knowledge and skills, and feeling that this learning had an impact on the growth of colleagues, children, and parents. These are the answers we received directly from the survey. Identifying and thinking about my core values has made me realize why I make choices and prioritize my time throughout the day. It's helped me to understand other families, students, and coworkers better. Understanding the lenses others choose helps me appreciate their thinking and the way other people look at problems and concerns. It fosters understanding and appreciation rather than frustration. One thing that keeps sticking with me is telling empowering stories. I'm working on paying more attention to what I say and how I say it, both out loud to others and to myself. I have a long way to go, but I do feel like I'm using more positive words and it's helping my optimism. My hope is that I can improve in this area and spread optimism. Learning about patterns of distorted thinking has helped me reframe my thinking as I interact with others in my professional and personal life. Using this as a staff-wide book study opens up conversations with my peers that I might not be willing to wade into otherwise. Talking about emotions and what triggers us feels less confrontational and more trust building among team members. It's been helpful to use the book as a common language. The whole idea of strengthening myself as a teacher is helping me to feel more connected with others and allows me to bring my best self to the classroom. To change behavior and mindset and approach takes time, energy, and support. I hope that we will slow the rule and delve deeper into what this means for ourselves as well as the families, childrens, and colleagues with whom we interact each day. Most importantly, let's keep going with the small hands-on activities that really bring the chapter messages to life and deepen our understanding of them. I absolutely love this book and this work. the end or perhaps just the beginning.

Hello,

it's nice to see some of you and nice to meet some of you tonight as well. I'm Anna Schwartzman and I'm an early childhood teacher here at the Family Center and I just want to thank you again for spending time with us here this evening and inviting us to share the learning of the children with you. So instead of listening to me talk about our program tonight, I'm going to let the children speak for themselves in a short video we put together to share with you. And just hoping that it gives a little peek into how children learn at the Family Center through collaboration, play, inquiry, observation, exploration, and the relationships they build with people, materials, and their environment. Thanks for watching again.

with my voice. Daddy, daddy, daddy. Play.

What happened?

What makes it go up? What makes it go What happened? Charlie, what happened to your hand? Hi. Exploration. Here we go. Oh yeah, I know what you're doing now. I have inquiries. I know! What is this? I found blue!

It's not good!

I like it. It's not good. I'm a really good tigger. Ew! Don't eat it with your teeth. Ew! We're Lace and Sip. You look so sassy. It's a boy! It's a boy. Santa's a boy! He's a ball. He's a ball, he's a ball. I'm Daddy. I'm Daddy, I'm telling you the story. I can't wait to hear the story. Oh, that's beautiful! I'm making it for you. Educate, inspire, empower. I love my school.

Thank you. Thank you Debbie.

So that video gave us a lot of insight about some of the things that happens each day. Got a little nervous about the sticks, but I got to let go a little bit, let go and learn about inquiry. So thank you. We really appreciate your time and energy. And thanks for giving us insight about what happens around teacher learning, gives us insight around parent learning, and most importantly, what happens with our students. So thank you

And I want to say that it's, before we even move on to public participation, it's really awesome to get to move around to each of the schools. So we've been to Y-Down and now to the Family Center. So yeah, thanks just on behalf of the board for sharing. It's really awesome to kind of get a deeper flavor of what goes on in each building. So thank you. So do we have any public participation? Okay. Just making sure. Anybody wish to participate? All right. Okay, great. So we're going to move on then to the superintendent communication. Okay.

Thank you. So, you know, as the lead learner of the district, one of the things that I told the board about is that I spend time in a classroom each week, and I ask our central office administrators to do that as well, just to spend time in the same classroom each week. It gives us an opportunity to see the curriculum in action, And it also gives us an opportunity to interact with our students and our teachers. And so last, I've been working in a freshman English classroom this past year. And we've been learning about the importance of being vulnerable as a leader. And so last week, I was vulnerable and asked if I could teach one of the lessons. So I was able to go into the classroom and teach the lesson. And the lesson was actually about love. And so it was connected to the text, the freshman text. And And so we had some discussion about whether or not love is something that is just a feeling or is it a choice or is it a social construct. And we were using examples from the text that they were reading to have these discussions. And so afterwards I had the students do kind of a quick write as an opportunity for them to, you know, kind of share what their thoughts were and kind of support their ideas. And I collected that writing and had an opportunity to read it over the weekend. I just wanted to, just to point out that our students are just amazing writers. And I think that, um, and thinkers, and I love the way the students were able to synthesize their thoughts and be able to use their, their own personal experience experience from the tax and be able to articulate themselves in the writing. And I just, I think that's just such a hallmark of our district. We start very young with getting our students to be able to communicate and it just carries through. And I just think that was such a great example. So. I just wanted to highlight that and share with you that it carries through with our conference English program and how we want to make sure that we're continuing to have students become strong writers. And I think I've heard stories from alumni who come back and say, you know, When I get to college and I have to write an essay or do a paper, it's not a problem for me. And it's interesting to hear some of my peers say, wow, I don't write like that. So it says a lot, and I just wanted to share that with you because it's really, really important. A couple things that I also wanted to share is that last week we put a mid-year update equity report in the board memo, and It's an opportunity to share some of the work that we're doing in the district. And one, let you know that we shared that with the board, but that's also going to go on our district website. And what I, when I went through all the work that we were doing You know we're not there yet, and we know that, and we still have some you know there's still some things we need that are concerns around some data. But we're also seeing some movement with data which is encouraging for us and we'll talk a little bit more about that with our assessment report. But one of the other things I noticed is that we're moving from just building awareness it's it's building awareness awareness is not enough around educational equity it's about what actually happens in the actions that we take in our classrooms. And what I notice about that is that we're being very conscientious and intentional about helping our educators become warm demanders. And that's part of the work of Zaretta Hammond around culturally responsive teaching. And what she says is that in order to be a warm demander, we have to be explicitly focused on building rapport and trust. We need to show personal regard for the students by inquiring about important people and events in their lives. We need to earn the right to demand engagement and effort. which I think is really important. And then also encourage that positive, that pro productive struggle. And so I wanted to encourage the board to take a look at that report and we will share that with the community as well, but just wanted to remind people to look at that and that we are going to have another report around our educational equity in spring, which would be a board presentation at the table. And the last thing I wanted, two things I want to share is that I wanted to remind the board members that in January, We're going to change our first January 8th meeting to a working session. And a working session is different in that we're not going to have kind of this formal setup. It's going to be an opportunity that's going to be more interactive, and we're actually going to have it at the high school, and we're going to focus on our strategic planning. And it's an opportunity for the board to have those aspirational conversations around what do we want next around the district and looking and examining those questions that we've been examining. I just wanted to make sure the board knew that we were going to do that on January 8th. It's going to be at the high school library, and we are going to start at 6 o'clock with that. And then lastly, tonight we're going to be presenting our district audit, and this is something that we do every year, and it's something that kind of makes sure that we are holding ourselves accountable to a fiscal healthy district, and so to be a fiscal healthy district. Excuse me. And so I want to recognize our business office for the work that they do. There's a lot that goes in putting this audit together and a lot of behind the scenes that happens to compile all this data and information. And going through this and hearing our auditors talk about the things that we're doing makes me feel confident in the work that we're doing in the district to make sure that we're fiscally healthy and making sure that we're not doing anything that has risk that could be liabilities for us. And one of the parts of this process is that we actually have a community member who every year takes a thorough dive into our audit. And his name's Rick Bliss, he is a community member and we met with him yesterday and he did a thorough dive into this audit and asked us a lot of questions And I bring that up because I think it's important that the community knows that we want our community to hold us accountable and to ask hard questions. And he asked some really good questions, and I just wanted to publicly recognize that he dedicated a ton of time, and Jason was at that meeting, and Jason could attest this, to ask really good questions. And we were able to answer a lot of those questions, but he gave us some ideas about how we can even better communicate some of the information. And so I just want to publicly thank him. And we're glad that we have our auditor here. Brian is somewhere out there. And so they are going to do their – they're going to present the information to you and see if you had any clarifying questions. So I'd like to introduce Mary Jo and Brian to come up to the table. Oh, shoot. Sorry. Adam, I apologize. I apologize about that. We're going to have our student report first and then have our – Yeah,

sure. The first thing I wanted to say is that... It's nothing against you, Adam. Thank you all! Yeah, it was great. Thank you. So I want to let everyone know that I spoke to the principals about the district advisory council and expanding. And so we've been working on that and having them think about some ways to bring that into the middle school and elementary schools. And we'll be following up after break to kind of synthesize everything. Going along with that, I was going to have a meeting with the District Advisory Council on Monday but that didn't work out. And so that's something that I'm going to be bringing up to them as well as how we want to expand that work and any ideas that they have as well and how they want to be a part of that process. Something else, Dr. Doherty asked me to come to a superintendent's lunch that he hosted for superintendents around St. Louis, and I just think it's really neat that we have such amazing things going on in our district and that they all seem very happy to be there, and it's just nice to... you know, be able to do that. And the last thing I want to talk about is so for our younger students and it's so nice to be here that these past, you know, few days everyone is just getting ready for break and, you know, we've got some nice, we had two snow days and everyone, that's been good for our younger students. I know our middle school students are getting ready for, they have specifically in math and I believe English, some end of course stuff going on that they take some standardized testing, getting ready for high school and And for the high schoolers, we're in finals mode. And so the past few days have been a little bit of a frenzy and a struggle. And we thank the administration for all the work that they've done and all the thinking that's gone into how to make our lives best in these coming days. And I think something that I've been hearing a lot of from teachers and from students is really thinking about, and I think this is a great time, especially with our profile of a graduate and our strategic plan coming to fruition, that We have the time to look at ideas and principles that have been in place for a long time and that have just always been the way that they have been. And I think it's a really good time to look at how can we challenge that? Can we have discussions about these issues that have been the way that they are for a long time and how we can make them better for students. And especially as you talk about mental wellness and equity, I think that these issues, it's the best time to do that. And I think that this prompted that with the snow days and thinking about our finals and not having those review days was a great time for our students, teachers, and community members and our parents to think about how can we make it better? How can we make it for students?

Thank you. All right, now we're going to talk about the district audit. Thank you. And just as a reminder, we're going to have a presentation. Then we're going to do checkout. And then we're actually going to come back to approval of the audit. So just in terms of function here.

So I just realized if you want to clear a room, you can either say fire or audit. My name is Brian Wirtz and I'm a partner with Kerr Breckenbrock on the independent auditors for the district. Once upon a time, the district had hired us to prepare the audit for this year. As Sean said, we did have a lunch yesterday for about two hours or so. We dove into this pretty deep with a lot of questions, a lot of good questions. Not only did we have some of the answers, but we had all the answers to his questions, I think, for the most part. It was a good lunch. It was good to get other people's perspectives on our dry information sometimes, I think. So it was very worthwhile and enjoyable. But I'm here tonight to basically give a brief presentation as to our audit and our results, which is what we do every year. Starting out, talking about what each other's responsibilities are when it comes to an audit. So what's management's responsibility versus our responsibility? So it's management's responsibility to prepare the financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. It's also management's responsibility to select the basis of accounting used to prepare the financial statement. GAAP requires the government-wide financial statements to be in the accrual basis of accounting, which is much like a for-profit entity. And the fund financial statements are reported on the modified accrual basis. So those basis of accounting are considered GAAP. And the other thing that management is responsible, but it's not listed up there, is to maintain an internal control structure to safeguard the district's assets and to make sure that the financial statements are free of material misstatement due to error or fraud. So you can't rely on your auditors to come in and do this audit and if there's a misstatement in the financial statements, they'll just find it because then we're considered a part of the internal control structure and we would no longer be independent, and therefore we couldn't do the audit. So all of that is management's responsibility. Our responsibility then is to express an opinion on the fair presentation of the financial statements. We perform our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards. plan the audit, we determine where there are risks or we feel there are risks in the financial statements where there could be a material misstatement. We develop audit procedures to address those risks and then perform our audit. As a part of that, we also get an understanding of the internal controls of the district. Management will provide us with commentaries, how the controls work, and then we will run transactions through the cycles to determine what they told us is indeed accurate. But we do not give an opinion on the internal controls of the district as part of the audit. That's a separate engagement. As it relates to fraud, we are required to assess fraud. We're required to have communications with employees and management about if they have any knowledge of fraud. And if anything through those conversations or anything comes to our attention while we're performing our audit procedures, As it relates to fraud, we'd be required to investigate those things, but we're not required to develop audit procedures to find fraud. The type of audit opinion we gave this year is an unmodified opinion which basically states that based on our audit procedures, we are giving limited assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement. We can't give absolute assurance because we're not testing 100% of the transactions. If during the course of our audit we had any internal control deficiencies, whether it be a control deficiency which is a minor weakness, a significant deficiency which is sort of the next level up, or a significant deficiency that's a material weakness which is a weakness in the internal control structure that makes it probable that a misstatement would exist and go undetected, we'd be required to report those to you. Also, if we had any issues of non-compliance, we would be required to disclose that to you. We have nothing to report in either instance this year. We're also required to do some audit requirements as it relates to DESE, as it relates to budgetary and disbursement procedures and the accurate disclosure of attendance records. We perform those procedures in accordance with attestation standards, and we give an unmodified opinion on that as well. Other required communications as a part of our audit, mostly, like I said before, the management is required to determine what significant accounting policies are used to prepare the financial statements. And those are actually, it says note A1, but it should be note A to the financial statements. No new accounting policies were adopted in the application of the existing policies had that changed. So we have consistent reporting from year to year. There are significant estimates in these financial statements that we're required to make you aware of because once those estimates become reality, they could be significantly different than the estimates that are in the financial statements. We're required to audit management's assumptions used in the estimates and determine if they're reasonable. And the most significant estimates in these finance statements relate to OPEB liability and pension liabilities. in the in the government-wide financial statements there's about 15 million dollars worth of assets related to pension liability and OPEB and there's about 52 million in liabilities related to that and basically the most significant is the district's proportionate share of the underfunding of the state retirement system Just to tell you how significant these are, there's about, I counted 17 pages out of the 78 that we're presenting are related to these two things, either disclosures or footnotes or supplemental information. So it's really significant information. No transactions like authoritative guidance or consensus. Financial statement disclosure is neutral, consistent, clear. We have no difficulties in performing our audit and no disagreements with management. The last thing, our financial statement. If we had any audit adjustments as a result of our audit, if something came to our attention that an adjustment had to be made to the financial statements, we'd be required to disclose that to you. I'm happy to report that we did not have any of those. At the end of our engagement, we do get a representation letter from management. which basically states they gave us all the financial records that we asked for, answered our questions to the best of their ability, didn't withhold any information, let us know if there was any contingent liabilities out there, and then any subsequent events, if there was any subsequent events. So from June 30th through December 12th, we're required to analyze any contingent liibilities or subsequent events and determine... If there's an adjustment or a disclosure that needs to be made and anything after that date, we're not required to look at. So that's sort of the ending date of this audit is December the 12th. If management had any other consultations with any other independent accountants or auditors during the year, we would be required to disclose that to you. And to our knowledge, they did not. The end. They lived happily ever after. So yeah, we appreciate Mary Jo and Brent and everybody else in the district. They do a great job for us. Kind of came in late this year, which is sort of our timing. So it was a pretty quick turnaround, but they're always in good shape when we get out here. They write the financial statements for us, which is sort So

thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions? Go

ahead. I have three questions. My first question is, I know that we've been getting kind of the unqualified opinion each year that I've been on the board. And I was wondering if you can kind of put that into context for us. Like how many districts do you do these, roughly, how many districts do this for and what is the percentage? Is that typical?

It is. So we probably do about 15 to 20 in our office. I would say half of those are on a basis that's not GAAP, which is usually modified cash. The other ones are GAAP. So if you're on a modified cash, you get an unqualified opinion or an unmodified opinion, but it's based on the basis of accounting you're presenting, which is not GAAP. So it says these financial statements are not in accordance with GAAP because they're modified cash, but we still have an unmodified It's pretty unusual to get something other than modified.

My second question is...

Not the discounted. Yes. It's

meaningful. Besides that it's a requirement for us to get this audit done each year, is there anything that we should kind of glean from the report or that you guys do kind of get from this report? that helps us in our work or guides our work or is it more just kind of something we have to do and it's great i think

what we can speak to a few years ago that we were having a finding in our audit and so um and it was around the purchasing procedures and and through this the audit it told us that we needed to do something about it and and put in new procedures and be able to account for windows when there is an illegal purchase. And so, um, so it does inform us in terms of, you know, there, if there's a finding we need to think about how we're going to address that finding and we have put new procedures in place over the last few years that has been helpful. Um, and I think Brian could attest that that has been helpful

I think the other thing that's probably helpful or should be is the district adopts a budget and you sort of have to stay on that budget. If you're going to go over budget, you have to make resolutions so everybody's aware that hey, we're making adjustments for these over expenditures if needed. So I think there's some benefit there. I

was going to say the other thing is a monitoring tool for our financial constituents. The SEC looks at it for our bond rating. Our investors look at it when they're purchasing our bonds. So we do utilize it and think about it as we're creating it and how it is perceived by all those other parties. And actually, we even have conversation on how we're presenting stuff to make sure it's understandable to those parties when we're presenting it.

The other thing that's sort of an unwritten thing when it comes to an audit is if we come across anything we would consider abuse, like government abuse, abusive spending, we'd be required to bring that to your attention as well.

And then my last question is just any update. Maybe this doesn't fit into this, so feel free to talk about this at another time. But I was wondering, well, first thanks to Rick Bliss for continually giving his time to the district. We're going to hire him, I think. Yeah, that's pretty great. But I was wonder if we're doing any planning ahead for whatever it's going to be, resource allocation, long-term financial planning, Even before we're finished with the strategic plan, given that, I mean, we know that will be a piece of it. And yes, we don't know exactly how to align our spending with whatever the plan's going to tell us. But can we do some of that stuff ahead of time, thinking up who and when and how we're going to do this? We're already

starting to think about that. And the other thing that we're looking at, and Mary Jo can speak to this a little bit more, we're thinking about doing some training within central office around um looking at i can't think of the name of the district that um the one we have to apply for oh

yeah it's a it's out it's in it's on the east coast and they help they do cohorts where they help you study how to determine whether or not you're getting basically return on your investment because it is difficult with education we actually had a conversation with rick about this yesterday he kind of asked the same question so

So we're looking at the structure we want to put in place as a board advisory, but we're also looking at how we can make sure that when we're investing in something that we're getting the dividends out of it. And so I'm looking at a structure for that.

You're thinking about a board advisory kind of?

I would think different than what we've done in the past with the long-term financial planning. And that's something I'd like to talk to the board about as part of our working session.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody have questions, other questions, comments? Yeah, comment real fast. I thought yesterday was really informative as well. I thought Rick being a COO of a company, He asked some really good questions. And what was great about it, I think, what was really good about it was that it wasn't like he found anything. It was alarming. It was more clarifying. And some of it was style. So I thought it was really, really good. I think we've got a lot to build on for the future.

Thank you both. Appreciate it. So next is checkout. Do we really check out? No, no.

No, I just think that this is something that the only check I would say is that we really do use this audit as an opportunity to see if there's anything that is a finding. And if there's a finding, we adjust. And I also, we are going to be looking at what we're going to be doing in the future for an advisory because that community input is really important. Awesome. Thanks.

Okay, so we're gonna move to action items. So the first action item is actually the approval of the audit now. So at some point I want

a motion. Move that the Board of Education approve the fiscal year 2018-2019 independent auditors report of the financial statements and federal and statement programs as submitted.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Passes unanimously, 7-0. Okay, so we're going to move on. That was actually our only action item for this evening. We're going to move onto study. We had some other ones, but just we had to do that first. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. You're right, you're right. Yep, yep, yep. I'm sorry. We're, yeah, flipping it. So yes, sorry. My bad. So we're moving onto a study topic, which is, and they're both, we've got two policies. So the first is policy EF, food service management. Who uses that? That's Mary Jo.

And the policies tonight, just so you know, they kind of bleed into two different departments. So we have business and then we also have student services. So Mary Jo, do you want to just get a quick overview about EF?

So basically we're presenting the two policies together because there is an update to the food service policy which talks about discrimination. And then within that... It references the other policy. And so they have to align because it's really what's changing in both of them is the same. And it's basically stating that if someone has an issue that they feel that they've been discriminated against in any way and they bring it to the attention of the compliance officer, the compliance officer has to first address it with the U.S. community. And so it has to go to the federal government first, and then we can try to resolve it after that, but we have to at least let them know that there's been an issue presented. So that's basically it.

So any questions about either of these policies? Any questions or comments? Go

ahead. So we could ask a question about either policy right now?

Yeah, we're going to take them in partnership.

I have a question about the... Policy AC. So with respect to the food services, do we make sure that, like especially at the elementary school level, well maybe at any level, when kids come to us and they don't speak English, that we have it translated somewhere so that they can see what they're eating? Because I was reading through the law, and that was one of the specific things that the law said needed to be done, and I just want to make sure that I'm a nerd. And I just want to, you know, because a lot of kids come and they don't speak English, especially at the elementary school. And they said that we needed to make sure that they had to translate it, that they know what they were eating and that there was somebody available to translate for them.

And Chris, I don't know, I know the venues are online. Are they... Do you know if that is translatable?

It's a good question.

We'll find out.

Any other questions? Comments?

Okay, thank you guys. So I definitely misspoke because we actually have five more action items. Whoops. Sorry. So moving back to action items. So the first one is 9.01 and it's approval of the 2021 academic calendar for the motion.

I move that the School District of Clayton Board of Education approve the 2020-2021 calendar as submitted.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, it passes unanimously. Thank you. All right, so we're moving on to 9.02, which is approval of the communication development and central office staffing reorganization. Is there a motion?

I move that the School District of Clayton Board of Education approve the proposed communications development and central office staff reorganization. Second. It's

been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions? Go ahead, Stacey. I

just had a comment. I just wanted to thank you for giving us that information comparing what other districts are doing. Because I found that very helpful in supporting what we're

planning to do. Okay, thank you. Thanks for the question. Next one. And Lily?

Yeah, I concur with that. I had one follow-up question. I was wondering on the administrative piece that we're adding, it seems like that position is going to have a lot of, functions that can overlap with student services too. And I was just wondering if you could give clarification of who's gonna be, like how is that gonna be supervised or, you know what I mean? How is that gonna work?

So what we'll probably do is since that person's going to be working in different departments, each of the people that are going to be over in those departments will give input around the evaluation and feedback. We'll probably have one person that we assign that person to to administer the evaluation, but we'll be seeking input from HR, from student services, to be able to do that and give feedback to that person. So it'll be a collaborative effort. Yeah, because it

seems like a lot of stuff actually fall into more student services. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's it. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, passes unanimously, thanks. Okay, so we're moving on to 9.03, which is approval of Policy IC. Do we have a motion?

I move that the School District of Clayton Board of Education approve the changes to Policy IC as submitted.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously, thanks. So we're moving on to 9.04, which is approval of policy DH.

I move that the Board of Education approve policy DH, bonded employees and officers as presented and submitted in the report provided to the board.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Any opposed? Passes unanimously, thanks. And then 9.05, approval of policy DI.

I move that the Board of Education approve policy DI, fiscal accounting and reporting slash accounting system as presented in the report presented in the meeting.

Second.

So we moved and seconded it. Any questions or comments? Yes, Gary.

Maybe just to clarify, these were not presented tonight but they were presented in the past. I don't know if that's always clear to people that are watching our meeting for the first time.

Yeah, great point. Yes, right. This is the second time we're taking them off, having talked about them in the study. Any other questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, thank you. It passes unanimously. So now we're moving on to the consent agenda And just a reminder that we added the piece about Isaac Field. I just want to note that it is something we have to have Ameren pay for because they're a single source. So there's not really, it's either do it or don't move forward with the project. So this is, that's why we added it to consent. So do we have a motion for consent? I move that the Board of Education

approve the consent agenda.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments about the consent agenda? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, thank you. It passes unanimously. Did

you want to say something about the donation? I do. Thank you very much.

Yes, we do have a donation from Gina and Dr. Michael Bernstein for $500, which is to the CARE Fund to be used for test prep. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. Okay, so we're moving on to financials. And this is 11.01. Do we

have a motion? I move that the Board of Education approve the payment of current expenditures and investments as submitted. Okay,

it's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions about financials? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, passing unanimously. Thank you. all right we are now moving on to board communication I do just want to say as we open it up obviously the committee's but I do want to say that today was the first day of filing for the board it was delayed by day because of snow so we did have three candidates who signed up today They would be Chris Win and David Gulick and Gary Pearson. And that's for three positions. It will remain open into the middle of January and the exact date is escaping me. It's the 21st. 21st, maybe?

it's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions about financials? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, passing unanimously. Thank you. all right we are now moving on to board communication I do just want to say as we open it up obviously the committee's but I do want to say that today was the first day of filing for the board it was delayed by day because of snow so we did have three candidates who signed up today They would be Chris Wynn and David Gulick and Gary Pearson. And that's for three positions. It will remain open into the middle of January and the exact date is escaping me. It's the 21st. 21st, maybe?

22nd, the day after.

20th? Yeah,

because that's Martin Luther

King. Okay, thank you. So that will be the last day, so there's still plenty of time to file, but just again for the public, folks won't be able to file while the district is closed, which is in essence for the, after Friday for the two weeks. So up until January 6th, there'll be a hiatus Okay. So does anybody have any committee reports they would like to offer?

I do.

Please, Stacy.

Not a committee report, but I had the pleasure of joining Sean on a walkthrough last week here at the Family Center, which was so great. You forget just how cute those little kids are. But I was so impressed with so many things. But just to highlight a few of the things... First of all, I had never been to the rooms on the high school campus, which is so cool. We're so lucky to have that. It's a win-win. Like our high school students being able to use work with the early childhood students and vice versa is such a great collaboration. And I know the Clayton Education Foundation just gave a grant. for a project they're doing together, which I hope is the start of many more things between, because I think that was so great. I was also so impressed. We talk so much about social-emotional learning and kids learning coping mechanisms to take care of their own mental well-being. And one room we went in, they were practicing breathing, like to calm down, like breathing exercises. And they're even reading a book about breathing. And it was so cute, like these little kids closing their eyes and just taking deep breaths to calm down and transition. And so I just had this thought, like I hope, it's so great we're starting that so young. You know, that by the time these kids get to high school, hopefully they will be equipped with many strategies to calm themselves. So I thought that was great too. Thank

you.

It was fun.

And again, any board member who wants to go for a walkthrough, just tell Barbara and she'll schedule it on our calendar.

Any other reports from the group? All right. You do have one, Lily? About

SSD, I was just looking and I don't have my notes. I don't know that I have... anything just off the top of my head. But I do want to mention that, I know you were there too for the Black Student Union last Thursday, I think it was. Sponsored with the All In Coalition. It was great. Kind of a bunch of things around substance use among students. And they had a panel presentation with parents, students, someone from Harris Stowe. And they had a panel discussion around drinking and substance use in kids. And then they had breakout sessions for half an hour each. from preferred family about kind of treatment and recognition of some issues around substance use. And they had two college students who had set up kind of a room where you just talk about your feelings or whatever's going on for you as a place to kind of decompress and how you can do that at high schools or colleges. And then I didn't go to the third room, but it was very well done. I think well attended by African American students and a few families. I wish there would have been a wider span of offerings, but it's kind of close to the end of the year. But it was very good and very relevant to some of the issues we deal with in our community.

The BSU has really been thoughtful about the events that they're going to be planning for the rest of the year. um on the panel and just

speaking about their views and experiences in the district

any other committee reports um don't i would just offer one and it's more just of a heads up so there it just because as we sit here at the family center i'm just um share with you all that there's a couple of groups that are thinking about what it would be like to have universal pre-K across the county, and could we do actually a county tax proposition to pay for that. So that's kind of in the works. There's a number of school districts and school boards that are talking about actually two different models that they're working through. So I'll just kind of give you all the heads up that that's... being talked about. I think a pretty cool idea. Yeah,

and I could also just share some of the information in the Friday memo and some of the presentations we've seen so far. Well, Matt, that'd be great. Cool. All right.

Do we have a motion to adjourn?

Can I just say, I just hope that the Board of Education has a good winter break. And we want to say thank you for your service and really appreciate the time and energy that you give to this. And I'm glad we're ending a little earlier tonight so Pat can go home and study. Your work is appreciated, and we really appreciate it. Thank you. I hope you find some time for you. Awesome. Thank you. You

too. I'll

move that the Board of Education adjourns.

Second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. We're adjourned. Happy holidays, everybody.