June 24, 2020 — Meeting Transcript

uh kim just to join back on all

right we're just giving another minute here so we can uh have the other folks back on

we are live now

Okay.

Just give Kim one more minute here.

She's coming she couldn't.

Awesome. I think we're all here is everybody board members you everybody good, good to go get it. Okay. All right. Well, welcome everybody to our latest and greatest Zoom meeting. Adequate notice has been given. And we are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance to that flag in the corner of Sean. Pledge of Allegience. to the flag of the United States of

America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, so we are going to start, as we always do, with recognizing our own. And so I'm going to hand it over to Sean for

that. Can you hear me okay? Okay, great. Well, good evening everyone. As Joe said, we always try to make sure that we're recognizing our own as part of our board meetings and it's been great that throughout the year we've been able to recognize our own within our schools and visiting schools and hearing about the great work that they're doing and so great that we had so many students throughout this year in reflection who have been part of our board meanings because we've been going into schools. So in terms of recognizing our own tonight, We're actually recognizing two people and and one of those is a student. And so this year we took on an endeavor of having a student board representative and it was a great conversation that the board had and We've continued to have and last year, Adam Jaffe was selected as the board representative. And he has really set the stage for our future board representatives. He is someone who has been an example to everyone. Adam, I think that you have Pushed our thinking in a respectful way and we have a lot to learn from you. And I just want to say thank you for your service on the board. I admired that you always prepared by reading the materials. You brought the materials to the other students on the advisory and made sure that they were aware of it. You brought back their opinions. And then you also pushed us on some of our thinking around some of the work in the district. And so I want to just take a few moments and recognize you, Adam, for your service to the board this year. Thanks, Dr. Doherty. And then we have one other person that we're going to recognize, and she doesn't know that I'm going to recognize her. And some people in the audience who are streaming may not know Barbara Moore. And Barbara Moore is actually the executive assistant to the superintendent in the Board of Education. And she has been in the district for a number of years. She's worked in different capacities. She worked at CAPTN. She worked in our human resources department. And most recently for the last nine years, she has served as the assistant to the superintendent and she served under Charmin Wilkinson and has been a support to me for the last four years. And I just want to recognize her because a few weeks ago, she announced that she's retiring on June 30th. And so Barbara has been with the district for many years And Barbara, I really truly appreciate your dry sense of humor, your directness and willingness to always be available to help and support me over the last four years and the board as well. And you've had many different board members that you've served over the years, and I'm sure all of them would echo that. So thank you, Barbara, for your service to Clayton and to the Board of Education. so um so i am going to um go ahead and turn it back over to joe

yep so thank you um sean and thank you both uh barbara and adam it's been awesome to work with you both we really appreciate it um And it's a little bit. Well, it's amazing that the really this is that you're both of your last meetings so that's That is amazing. So we're going to go to public comment and I guess Chris, you're going to read out the public comment that we have

Yeah, we have four public comments submitted for tonight. First, the first comment is from Becky Patel and Her comment reads as follows. I have two comments. One, I request that the BOE modify the comment policy under COVID to allow for the public to actually speak in their own voices during the public comment portion of the meetings. This capability is available on Zoom webinar and other platforms, and I've used it both as a panelist and attendee. Two, I read the equity resolution shared in advance of the meeting and was disappointed to see it fall short from the beginning by acknowledging institutional racism in society without explicitly acknowledging racism in the school district of Clayton. We must acknowledge the harm students, families, and teachers have experienced as part of repairing that harm. Next comment is from Suzanne Whitman. Suzanne's comment reads as followed. Dear members of the Board of Education, I am sad and discouraged after reading the resolution on equity that the board plans to discuss this evening. It reads as if the goals are to reassure the community that the board has good values and intentions, to prepare the district for no change, and to provide legal cover. The resolution contains no specific new actions to be taken, no dates or timeframes committed to, and no new ideas to be implemented. Instead, it diverts attention from the real existing problems of racial equality in the Clayton School District. The resolution starts off on a field so broad that no one on the board could possibly be held accountable for it, nor does anyone on the board have agency over it. Deaths and injustices against black Americans, systemic bias and institutional racism in our society, inequities in our education system. This may as well be a resolution in support of world peace. The subtext says that the board is neither culpable for the problem nor really capable of solving it. The resolution then defines character The board is committed, values students, sees, hears, and cares. So we know who you are, but not what you will do. Affirming that the sense of self and how the board is perceived rather than helpful, skillful action is the main concern. Finally, this resolution commits to continuing. Continuing to review policies and practices, continuing to become equitable and anti-racist. In other words, this is a resolution of no change. So what's the problem with these innocuous words if we truly want to change our system to support black people in our district? First, they undermine future efforts. The district actually needs to be supported to change and be prepared for change, not walk back from the level of readiness we have seen at recent protests. A resolution like this actually undermines any difficult changes our superintendent may wish to introduce because change is hard, and this does not even mention anything hard, much less indicate board support for it. Secondly, these words cause further harm to Black members of our community by underlying that we will do nothing. This resolution makes it clear that the board will discuss national issues rather than Clayton issues, will double down on character rather than take action, and will continue but will not change. At some point, we need to do more than say we just care about justice. Thank you. The next comment is from Lily Raymond. Comment reads, Thank you, Sean, Milena, Robin, Tony and all staff involved in rethinking and revising the equity and excellence report format and content. It is much more cohesive and focused. I will address the three questions posed in the executive summary. What should be the outcomes dashboard items not already included? Regarding disproportionate discipline of our black students. Although the report indicates that the analysis of discipline will be a future action Please keep in mind that the BOE has previously received this one data clearly indicating disproportionality and harsher punishment consequences for our Black students. Further, the district has already implemented some restorative practices. Thus, you already have baseline info and some post-intervention data, meaning you are able to examine the data now as to whether these practices have resulted in positive change. Please don't start from scratch. Use this data to further guide your practices. We need to be tracking and informing the CSD staff and BOE of reports of racist incidents in the schools and districts. As a board member, I would sometimes hear about an incident through formal or informal means and sometimes not. If we don't have a tracking process in place, it is impossible to know how prevalent instances of racism are and whether we are making progress in eliminating them. Two, what are our priorities and considerations for advisory? Yes. This year, we lacked a community advisory for guidance, feedback, sustained commitment and accountability. Please, please select people that are ready for action who are already well-versed in racial equity work and who are committed to progress in this area. We cannot afford to wait or to bring people up to speed. Additionally, we have so many people in our community who are knowledgeable, experienced and anxious to impact real change. As Jason so accurately stated at the last BOE meeting, We have not done enough this past year. We have a lot of work to do to make up for lost time. An advisory board prepared for action is needed yesterday. Lastly, the question of potential implications of this work. One of the most difficult realities of this work is will our community and district continue to care about and invest in racial equity if our numbers of black African-American students continue to precipitously decline? Will this work even be seen as relevant Our resident black student population continues to hover around 4%. There is a precipitous decline in our African-American students from Normandy and Vic. Do we care? Do we care if there is only one African-American student alone in the classroom? What impact does that have on each of our students? Are we going to be complicit in the resegregation of our schools and our region? There are actions we can take, and it will require hard work and commitment. Are we willing to take them? Thank you for listening and your dedication to our students. And the final comment is from Pam Washington. And Pam comments reads the series of five questions. What is each board member's position or stand as it relates to addressing white supremacy, anti-racism and equitable education to specifically black students in the school district of Clayton? When will you shift from using the term equity to explicitly using the correct language of racism and anti-racism for a transformative action the district proposes to put in place? How will the district begin investing, valuing in black students' families so their intellect, voices, culture, style and history are revered and not devalued ridiculed, silenced, or punished? How is the BOE addressing administrators, faculty, and staff that contone racist and harmful acts directed towards Black students, faculty, staff, and families? Five, how does the BOE intend to gather additional voice from Black parents in the district as they have with a student representative on the board? Having one African-American board member is insufficient. Have you considered having a few African-American students as representatives so their voices are heard? And that's all the public comments for this evening.

Okay, thanks for reading those Chris and thanks Becky and thanks Suzanne and thanks Lily and thanks Pam for your comments. We are gonna move on next to superintendent communications. So I'm gonna give it back over to you, Sean.

Okay. So again, good evening, everyone. This is the last official board meeting of the 2020 1920 school year and want to just say thank you to the Board of Education for their service this year. And also, again, welcome to our new board members. We have we've we've addressed a lot of different things over this year and had a very unusual year very different than any other year that we probably can remember in terms of continued learning. And I wanna just say thank you publicly to the Board of Education for their support during that time. I know that one of the things on many people's minds right now is what's gonna happen in the fall? And there's so much ambiguity and I really wish it wasn't that way. We are taking into consideration a great deal of information and input and determining how to best synthesize an effective plan for the fall. We've engaged an architect to look at our spaces and also superintendents have been meeting every week with one another and also with public health officials to get more information. And what I have found is that a lot of people have a lot of differing opinions. And so... We also know that there are people in our community who are absolutely ready for their kids to go back to school. And then we also know there's people who do not want their children to go back at school in fear of the virus. And so at this point, we actually do not have our finalized plan yet. And that's because we are continuing to take all that information in consideration. And we plan to announce on July 20th what our plan is going to be for the fall. I also think it's important to note that although if we have an announcement of a plan on July 20th, our first day of school is until August 24th and that things could potentially change even between that period of time. We are sending another survey this week to our parents just to get some additional information about their comfort level about sending their children back to school and seeing whether or not that they're ready. Our goal, no matter what the model is going to be for us, is to provide the learners of Clayton with high quality education and making sure that we're providing a structure that protects their physical and emotional well-being. And so we are very intentional about saying a high quality education. And that may not be that it's in brick and mortar. It may be virtual. It may be blended. but no matter what model that we use, we're going to make sure it's the highest quality. The guiding principles that we're using is about the health and safety of our students and staff, and then also making sure that we're making decisions that's going to be cognizant of the social emotional well-being, and also making sure that students have what they need to be successful. regardless of how we start school, we're gonna be prepared to be agile enough to adapt what's happening with public health issues. And so if things happen where we have to pull back, we're gonna ready for that and making sure that whatever we do is high quality. So we are initiating a action team that's gonna be working over the next couple weeks with the most recent information we have so that we were prepared for July 20th. I also think it's important for our public to know that things, no matter what, are going to be different. And I've said that a number of times. There will be some type of screening process that might be self-screening. We know that we have different recommendations about that. Our environments may not look as collaborative as they've looked in the past, meaning that we have to have social distancing for our desk. We may have to limit the number of people that are in our classrooms and that's where we're getting information from our architects to actually take a look at our space and then we can determine how many people we can fit in those spaces. But just because we are going to be social distancing doesn't mean that we're not necessarily going to be collaborative and we will definitely be creative in that way. People will be wearing masks. There are, especially the adults, and there's different guidance about what that means for students. And so we will take into consideration that guidance, but there are going to be people wearing masks in our schools. movement in the buildings is going to be limited. So what we've learned is that it's important to keep cohorts of students together, so that way it makes it easier for us to do some tracing if needed. And so that might mean that adults are moving throughout the building, not the students. We're still not sure at the elementary levels what lunch and recess is gonna look like. One of the things that's really great about our schools is that we always wanna have volunteers, we wanna have people in our buildings. At the elementary level, people are used to coming into the buildings to pick up their children. A lot of those things are gonna change and we are gonna have to have some different systems in place so that way we're limiting the amount of people that are in our buildings. We also are going to have to enact measures if there is an outbreak within a school. And so we'll have to differentiate based on each facility and what happens. We'll have to make sure that we're keeping data, we'll have to make that we're keeping logs of our cleaning schedules, so that way we're held accountable for making sure we have the safest and cleanest environment for our students. We are excited that on July 1st, we're starting our athletics again. And again, that is going to be different with many different precautions in place. We are still planning to have our summer academy for elementary starting on July 27th. Still working on logistics on that. And as I shared with you recently, to the Board of Education, is that we are going to have our graduation for our high school students on June 30th. That was a pretty quick turnaround time because we thought we might have to wait till July, but we decided to have the drive-in graduation at the PowerPlex. And board, we're going to be sending you some further details about what that's going to look like and your role during that. We know that it will look different. And we will try to make sure that we're maintaining communication with you so that way you're not completely surprised on July 20th. But one thing I do know for sure is that we're not going to compromise our strong relationships with students and our excellent academic experience that we provide. So if there are... One of the things that I know that we have to do is that in the next few weeks, we just have to start being decisive. Like this is what we're going to do. And because we have to reduce that ambiguity and make sure that people feel comfortable moving forward with our plan. And I'm also realistic enough to know that no matter what the plan is, There are going to be people who are going to think that there's a different and better plan that we should have put in place. And we just need to make sure that we have a plan that we can back up and the reasoning why we're doing it this way and making sure we're making it the highest quality. So I just wanted to start by sharing that because I know that's on the minds of so many people. It's not a ton of specific information, but I think we just need to start setting the stage for our community that things are going to be different. but we're not gonna compromise our high quality education. Any questions about that?

Anybody have any questions for Sean before we move on? No, okay. All right, so next is then Adam, the student rep. You wanna give us an update?

Sure, yeah. I wanted to give my last student communication and... I wrote something just to get my thoughts down. So today's going to be my last meeting, and I want to start off by thanking all of you, to all the people who made this happen. Joe, Jason, Stacey, Kristen, Gary, Lily, Amy, and of course, Dr. Doherty. I want to thank you for giving us a chance at this process. The idea to have a student rep sitting at the board table was not conceived by us as a district, but to quote Dr. DoherTY, we couldn't just be excellent. We have to be transformational. That's why you challenged us, the students and the administration that in addition to the student representative we needed to create what we now call the district advisory council. We still have room for a momentous change in both entities and reaching all students in the district. And I believe that with your guidance and support this process will be what we always intended, a way to give students voice and a way to ensure that all students are heard in our district. Right now, students are demanding a change. We've heard it at protests, we've heard it from the Black Student Union, and we've heard it district advisory council members. We have work to do. I do not want to discredit the work we have been doing as a board, as a district, and as a community. I only ask us to make sure that we continue to listen to our why, that we listen to the voices of our students, as the work we do is to ensure that every child that walks through our doors is given equal opportunity to learn. We have the resources to make this happen. We have to hold ourselves accountable. After the Educational March for Justice, I had a conversation with some of our amazing alumni. And one thing I would like to share with you all that they mentioned is quoting Jason, we need to change the narrative. They reminded me that we need to change way we talk about this work to ensure justice. This is not equity work. We are dealing with racism and anti-racism. I wholeheartedly believe in the sentiment that when we talk about equity, we are losing the focus of the discussion. Right now we need to address racism. And so when I encourage us not to label this work as equity work, but rather making our school district live up to what it means to be anti-racist. The reason I sit here is to tell you exactly what I'm telling you right now. Now more than last year, now more than ever, we as a district need to hear the voices of the people that we are trying to serve. The student representative process is important and I hope it can help us address racism in our district now and in the future. We will never be perfect. And I hope our students can remind the board and the community of the work that still needs to be done. This work is not easy, but we must remember our district inspires the future leaders of this world. So let's let our future leaders lead. Let our students help guide you on this work. Let them be a voice for change, a voice for peace. And I can only hope above all else, a voice for justice. Thanks for letting me help you this year.

Thanks, Adam. And thanks for... Again, thanks for your service this last year. You've done a fantastic job. You were really a great selection as the first student rep. You really set a great bar. So thank you. We really appreciate it.

So do you mind if I just say something real quick?

Please go ahead, Amy.

So I just also wanted to thank Adam. And I've told him before that he's done a great job. With respect to the student rep, I have expressed before that my concern is that not all student voices are reflected in that, in the process. And so I mean, I'll throw out there and I've told this to Adam already that, and I apologize if I don't say this in a very artfully way, artful way, I'd love to see a black female as our next student rep. So I'll just throw it out there and I'm hoping that to the extent that black children haven't applied, that we can go out and find some black children that would be interested in doing it. So we're not just attracting the high flyers to serve in that position and on the advisory committee. I'm sorry if I offended anybody.

Thank you, Amy. So we are going to move on to 6.01, which is the Board of Education resolution on equity and anti-racism. And before we do that, I just want to own that there's lots of school boards who have done some kind of resolution. This was a template. I think interestingly enough, I know Jason gave some great feedback on it, made it stronger, more action oriented. I know Kim and David did too, along with Amy. I know Stacey and Gary gave some thoughts. So I don't expect that what we have started with is necessarily what we'll end with. But I guess I want to ask the board a question. really even before we start the discussion, which is, you know, we can spend time wordsmithing and making this better. If that's what you want to do, we can certainly take it offline. But I think, and I've heard, and I just want to honor that it's not about a resolution. Quite honestly, it's not about March. It's about action, right? And I, you know, it's really about the action we take. And I certainly want to honor that. And I also wanna honor that just given the comments that I've already seen from fellow board members, which have really, I think changed this resolution pretty again, strengthened and changed it. I wonder if we wanna take the time now to wordsmith it or if we wanna create a subset of us and maybe even get different representation or additional representation and take it that way. So I guess just before we jump in, I wanted to say that because I open it up. What's your pleasure? What do you guys want to do? Go ahead,

Stacy. Thanks, Joe. So I think it's a great question. I think we could spend a lot or maybe too much time tonight wordsmithing it. But I did just want to bring up that when we wrote, I wasn't on the board then. But when the board wrote the Gun Sense Resolution, I know Stacey Newman helped with that. So I didn't know if we might think about is it good to bring in an outside, doesn't have to be a politician, but someone else to help us write this is one thought. or even a group. I know when we've had antisemitic acts in the past, the ADL came in and kind of helped us through that. So I didn't know if maybe we should think about even an outsider helping us with the wordsmithing, but I agree maybe it needs to be more action oriented. I look at this resolution personally as just a starting point and a show of commitment to change. This is not, Um, this isn't definitive and everything we are, you know, committing to do as far as our actions. But I looked at this more as a jumping off point and showing the community that we are committed to change. Um, I'm open to wordsmithing it tonight. I don't know if that'll take too much time. If we should give you our feedback another time about that, but I just wanted to throw out there that in the past, you know, we, we had someone else help us with it.

Thank you. Other thoughts.

You know, say something. Um, and I think it's, I think everybody's heart is in the right place and wanting to put some, put pen to paper. Um, but I mean, my first time, I mean, and I'm not opposed to the resolution. I do think that it needs to be much more narrow in scope and be, um, just directed towards, um, black lives matter or something with respect to, um, I think it needs to be narrowed in scope, but with that said, I will also say that, I mean, I wonder if our conversation would be, um, you know, if it would be more impactful if we were talking about ways, you know, how are we going to move forward? And we're all committed to change, but we might not necessarily have the answers or we don't know how to necessarily do that ourselves. And so, um, who can we get to help us to move forward and make that change? And then maybe whoever that, you know, if we all agree that we need somebody to help us, maybe that could be one of the responsibilities of that person is helping us put pen to paper so we can really be more targeted and do a resolution that kind of makes sense and reflects our commitment to change. But I, you know, and I, and I do think this is great and I appreciate everybody's hard work and working on the resolution, but we might, I mean, I don't, you know, my, my vote would be to just move on and let's get to the. To the, um, equity report. Cause I don't know that we're going to be able to come up with the words tonight and in this meeting to vote, did I just go off to vote and to, um, pass this resolution?

Other thoughts?

Yeah, I'll go. So I think the resolution, I understand what it's for and why it was written. But I want to go back to what we talked about a while back on other meetings, which is we've done a lot of research a lot of research on what's happening and what are some of the causes as to why we're experiencing these types of injustices in the district. And the question, the one thing I guess that I've arrived at is we got to start making some stuff happen. We need some action. And I think, you know, so this is nothing new. Obviously, Joe and Sean, so I don't want you all to think I'm hitting you with some sidebars here, but like I'm saying, we need to make some things happen with some low-hanging fruit to show, to demonstrate that we understand why this is such a big deal. And Because this is something that, honestly, this is something that should have happened years ago. We're kind of like late to the party here. And I know everyone across the nation is the same, but I'm not one to feel like I'm a follower. I don't want to follow other people. I want to be a leader in these areas. But we're essentially late to the party. And we need to have some I think we could have and should have as a group coming here tonight with some, hey, here's what's going to have some action points. This is what's going to happen first, second, and third with low-hanging fruit stuff and get the ball rolling. And also reading this and being isolated and reading this at home by yourself your emotions are a bit different. You know, your energy is a bit different. One's energy is a bit difference. But I do appreciate the fact that we're trying to do something here. But also on the second note, I want to make the point of, I think it's good for us to have a conversation about it. It gives, about this resolution that is, because it gives the public an idea of whether or not we understand how we're processing anti-racism, equity, how we're processing the movement of Black Lives Matter as a board. So I think we should definitely have a conversation about it. We can get to that if you all are willing to do that.

Thank you. So any other thoughts? I mean, we can get to the conversation. I just wanted to honor if, you know, I just wanted to see what folks want to do because I know I saw some, I think there's some, you know, very different language that we can put in here. Do you want to just get to it? Yeah. Gary, go ahead.

Well, Joe, I was just going to say it's interesting that Stacey mentioned the gun violence. I think first proclamation and then resolution that we passed a few years ago because when you first mentioned that this might be something that we were going to do is the first thing that I thought of. And I thought about the fact that we were a lot of people worked really hard on that and we thought we had a good, a good statement. And there were a lot of people that were really mad about it when we, when we did it and they didn't like it. So it's, it was difficult to figure out how, how do we, how do we do this? What if we, if we make, if we go through that again, whose input do we need? What should it say what should it be about and we've we've seen just in putting out something that we're thinking about we've seen um some pretty strong reactions to it so um i don't mind and i would actually like to have the conversation and it's conversations that i'm having frankly in like all kinds of aspect of my life and i'm struggling with all of them frankly but i also i don't i don't know what the answer is in terms of what our resolution should be or what that you know, the specific statement should be or anything. I don't mind having the conversation, but certainly not going to sit here and tell you I know what the right answer is and all this. And that's just me being honest and maybe a little bit more vulnerable than feels particularly comfortable. But I don't quite know where to go. And I don't know if we as a group have the input and the guidance that we need to do that. So that's my take.

Go ahead,

Sean.

Can I put a wondering out there? And I wonder about since so much, so there's been some, the conversation and some revisions have been around action oriented. And I definitely think that that needs to be part of the resolution. I'm wondering about whether or not we get into our conversation around the work that we're doing around the report and like what we were going to talk about next, and then come back to the resolution. Because I wonder about whether or not as part of that conversation, it could then lead to what those action steps actually need to be in the resolution. And then it could influence what needs to happen with PB Harmon Zuckerman, Particularly at the board level and administrative level. I just, I thought I'd throw that out there so we can maybe have a framework for that conversation and then come back to saying PB Harmon Zuckerton, Okay, we just talked about the work. How does that influence what we're going to commit to as part of the resolution, but I just throw throw that out there. PB Harmon

Zuckerson, What do you think about that we talked about the the that and then come back, not that we don't talk about it, but we've at least flipped the order. So everybody okay with that. HAB-Jacques Juilland, I am, where would that put us in the agenda. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, It's just the very next item. PB, HarmonZuckerman, So it's that so we just flip 6.01 and 6.0 PB, Harmon Zuckserman, Everybody okay with

that. PB, Harmonzuckerman,

Yeah.

So just to be clear, we don't have a motion. We haven't made a motion on this. We've been talking about it, but there's not been any motion.

No.

Just trying to keep good notes here.

No, thank you. That's why I wanted to interject before we made one. Okay. All right. So we'll go to 6.02, and then we're going to come back to 6.01. So I guess 6.02, I'm going to hand it off to you. Right, Sean?

Yeah. So tonight is just, it's really just an opportunity for the board to talk about how we're moving forward with developing an anti-racist culture and mindset within the district. And I really appreciate what Adam said and actually in terms of using the word equity. And then I also appreciate what Jason said in terms about late to the game. And I think as I have a personal reflection and think about what we've been doing, we had an initiative that started in 2016. And what we named that initiative was the Achievement Gap Initiative. And as part of that process and the work that we were doing, we came back and evaluated the name because we felt like there was actually a lot of baggage with that achievement gap. It was putting the onus on the black students and it wasn't putting it on the adults. And so we had a conversation about purposely moving it to equity. And so it's interesting that the last four years to have, there are three years to have this conversation and now having the conversation around being anti-racist. And I think Jason's point around being late to the game, I think that what has happened is that we ultimately knew that it was around being anti-racist and addressing racism, but I think that we were scared to say it. And I think that sometimes it's hard to say that. And I think now we have evolved to the point where reflecting on all of our work, we have to think about ways and efforts that we're going to be more vigilant and targeted about being anti-racists and having an anti-bias community. And I think that we collectively have to address institutionalized racism and own our failures and own where we've made some mistakes, even with the language that we're using. And we have to be bold in the way we're enacting change and somewhat unapologetic around it. I would say that I have believed that the work that we have been doing, those efforts, they have served as a basis. And we think about that continuum. It's helped build awareness. But what we've realized is that if we don't address the anti-racism aspect of this, the most effective teaching strategies are not going to work. And so it'll still permeate what's happening in the schools. And so I have seen that evolution. And I think that now we're at this point where we have to be explicit. So some next steps moving forward is that I think that we have to all have a common understanding about what we mean to be anti-racist. And I think that one of the things that is going to be important is that the board dedicates their own time to an investment of going through some type of anti-racism training and to develop that common language. And maybe similar to what we're going to be doing with our administrators, going through the crossroads training and making that an option for us. We need to be thinking about different ways to hold ourselves accountable and having those measurable goals come back to the table on an ongoing basis. In our strategic plan, we talk about an evergreen model and that we're going to keep coming back, keep coming back. We have to do that about our work with anti-racism. As we said, the board advisory is something that I think is going to be a way for us to get different voices from the community and making sure we have black voices on that advisory to help monitor and inform and also to hold us accountable to the goals that we establish. And I also think it's important for us just to have a mechanism for people to talk. We talked about engaging a third party to evaluate the systems and look at it. And I think that we can continue to do that, but I think that, and I've shared this with the board is that I think our actual next step is that when we're looking at our goals, we have to look at what resources we're putting towards those goals to be successful. And so I'm going to recommend that we develop a job description for someone who's going to be dedicated to help leading this work and have a coordinator position in the district. I think that that would allow us to have leadership and dedicated person to it. But I also am cautious in saying that that doesn't mean that's the only person doing the work in our district. It means that everyone's going to have a responsibility, but we need to have someone who's leading that concerted effort The other thing that I think is really important, and Adam spoke to this as well, is that our students' voices have to be part of this work. Listening to some of the students at the protest, listening to some, hearing some of the emails that we've got, reading some of the emails we've gotten, and it's indicative of why we need to change. And our students are incredible, and they have amazing ideas, and we definitely have to have their voices part of the work. So I would say that the report that we provided to you has, these are our best thinking about how do we get to that transformational aspect of this work. But I do think it's important for us to stop and reflect and say, how can we be outcome driven? How do we provide brave spaces for people to be vulnerable to make mistakes? Because I guarantee people are going to make mistakes in this work. but we also have to have a certain level of vulnerability for people to make those mistakes and also to learn from them and be better. And also I've also learned is that as the leader of the district, I have to be very upfront about our communication because there are some really good things that we've been doing in the district and maybe haven't been communicating that best to our community. And if they don't hear what we're doing, they think we're not doing anything. And so I take responsibility for that and thinking about how we make sure that this is explicit in terms of what we're doing. And so tonight, what I was thinking about for the board is to think about what would be the outcomes or some considerations that we'd wanna have for our board advisory to take under consideration. And then what are those possible implications of the work that we haven't thought about? And so I would just thought that this would be an opportunity for the board to have that conversation. And then maybe what we could do is after that conversation, come back to the resolution and say, okay, then this is definitely needs to be something that we need to have as part of a resolution for us. So.

Great, thank you, Sean. So thoughts on outcomes implications? for Sean's questions?

Or any questions about the report itself that we sent to you?

First, I'll go first, man. So look, so that was a lot, Sean, you said there. I'm just trying to process it. Regarding a board, what do you call it? A board advisory. I think that's, to me, that's just, it's a little bit more dithering. This is just my opinion now. A bit more dithtering before we actually take our step. I actually think that we know exactly what we need to do to start this process. I mean, I think it's, it's important that we put ourselves in the situations as if to say, this is personal to you. Okay. So if this were you, what would you want done? What would you want to happen that will make you feel like things are going to start, are going to change for you, that there's going to be some kind of equality or some kind of, um, yeah, equality for you going forward. One thing I talked about earlier with Amy was, we both kind of mentioned this, which was a training, a training for not just the administration, but setting up a semester training per semester on diversity training, anti-racism training, Let's skip diversity because that's become kind of a watered down word. Let's just go with anti-racism training. And we have that like we would have the other, what are they called, Sean? Professional. Yeah, professional training. Exactly. We'd have that like we have other professional training development. And we will revisit it at the beginning of the semester, then we'll revisit it somewhere along the line in some fashion that's feasible for us to do so. But the main thing is keeping it in the ball in front of us, keeping it in front of us so that we know what the issues are, what our limbs looks like, how we're going to operate so that we're aware of it, cognizant of it at all times. Um, I don't think we need to get a board. I don't think any more outside folk at this moment. I think we just need to really make a move. Um, um, you know, a move that's gonna an actionable move that is, that's going to put us in the right direction and, uh, and help us with, um, achieving this goal. But it can't be just training the superintendents. It can't be just trained the principals. Everyone, every teacher has to be trained, has to be taught this because this is, you know, Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote an article today in the New Jeffery Yorg Times and her first line was Black Americans protesting the violation of their rights. is a tradition. We have been protesting the right to be seen as equal since the beginning of time, since we got here. So it's imperative that everybody who works in the school district has this type of training because racism is violent. It is destroying our community. It's destroying our young kids. I was just having a conversation with Amy today, or with Amy yesterday, where we were talking about, you know, kids are growing up, and I'll let you all talk in a second, but like from first to third grade, fourth grade, they're growing up, these kids feel like they're all even and all equal. And then all of a sudden, fifth and sixth grade, things start to change. And because they're hearing their parents talk, they're hearing their friends and family other folks that they're hanging around and talk. And they're hearing these racist comments or their Black parents like me are teaching them how to defend against it. And they're like, well, wait a minute, Mom, Dad. That's not my experience right now in fourth grade. And I'm trying to prepare their fourth grade mind for sixth grade. Right? And Other people's kids and parents are doing the same. And so I say all that to say that this is pervading our young kids. These kids don't learn this on their own. They learn this because we as adults are destroying them. And we haven't come up with the right answers and the right methods to mitigate this from happening going forward. But... I'll fall back and let someone else talk.

First, I'll go first, man. So look, so that was a lot, Sean, you said there. I'm just trying to process it. Regarding a board, what do you call it? A board advisory. I think that's, to me, that's just, it's a little bit more dithering. This is just my opinion now. A bit more dithtering before we actually take our step. I actually think that we know exactly what we need to do to start this process. I mean, I think it's, it's important that we put ourselves in the situations as if to say, this is personal to you. Okay. So if this were you, what would you want done? What would you want to happen that will make you feel like things are going to start, are going to change for you, that there's going to be some kind of equality or some kind of, um, yeah, equality for you going forward. One thing I talked about earlier with Amy was, we both kind of mentioned this, which was a training, a training for not just the administration, but setting up a semester training per semester on diversity training, anti-racism training, Let's skip diversity because that's become kind of a watered down word. Let's just go with anti-racism training. And we have that like we would have the other, what are they called, Sean? Professional. Yeah, professional training. Exactly. We'd have that like we have other professional training development. And we will revisit it at the beginning of the semester, then we'll revisit it somewhere along the line in some fashion that's feasible for us to do so. But the main thing is keeping it in the ball in front of us, keeping it in front of us so that we know what the issues are, what our limbs looks like, how we're going to operate so that we're aware of it, cognizant of it at all times. Um, I don't think we need to get a board. I don't think any more outside folk at this moment. I think we just need to really make a move. Um, um, you know, a move that's gonna an actionable move that is, that's going to put us in the right direction and, uh, and help us with, um, achieving this goal. But it can't be just training the superintendents. It can't be just trained the principals. Everyone, every teacher has to be trained, has to be taught this because this is, you know, Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote an article today in the New York Times and her first line was Black Americans protesting the violation of their rights. is a tradition. We have been protesting the right to be seen as equal since the beginning of time, since we got here. So it's imperative that everybody who works in the school district has this type of training because racism is violent. It is destroying our community. It's destroying our young kids. I was just having a conversation with Amy today, or with Amy yesterday, where we were talking about, you know, kids are growing up, and I'll let you all talk in a second, but like from first to third grade, fourth grade, they're growing up, these kids feel like they're all even and all equal. And then all of a sudden, fifth and sixth grade, things start to change. And because they're hearing their parents talk, they're hearing their friends and family other folks that they're hanging around and talk. And they're hearing these racist comments or their Black parents like me are teaching them how to defend against it. And they're like, well, wait a minute, Mom, Dad. That's not my experience right now in fourth grade. And I'm trying to prepare their fourth grade mind for sixth grade. Right? And Other people's kids and parents are doing the same. And so I say all that to say that this is pervading our young kids. These kids don't learn this on their own. They learn this because we as adults are destroying them. And we haven't come up with the right answers and the right methods to mitigate this from happening going forward. But... I'll fall back and let someone else talk.

Thank you, Jason. Other thoughts or comments?

Joe, I'll just make a few high-level comments on the report. I really appreciate the report. I know you guys have spent so much time working on it and I appreciate everybody's hard work and thoughts that have gone into creating the report. for me, what's confusing is that, um, you know, when I, when I flipped through this report and look at it, a lot of it is, or I would say 80% of it or 90% maybe is, is directed towards black students. So I, I would love to see a called like instead of equity and excellence, maybe we call it like our black excellence initiative. Um, And we separate, have a separate report that is, that encompasses other equity related issues, but it isn't, you know, separate the black, I guess our black excellence initiative from, and then have a separate equity initiative. And I'd love to hear people's thoughts on that to see if they agree or disagree. But I think it gets diluted from two standpoints. I think it gets deluded from the black students perspective and then from the other kids that need attention too. It would be great to have a separate conversation about what are we doing to support, there's all different types of children within our schools that need attention. And it feels like when it's all lumped together that it gets a little bit diluted and we're not having specific, the specific conversations. And so I think that some of that goes to Sean's comment, I think in this report where he says establishing a common definition of equity, but that would, that I would love to hear people's thoughts on that. And then, um, maybe somebody has a better suggestion, um, but maybe just kind of separating, separating it out. Um, And I also, I don't want to cause extra work for people either. So the second, I guess, and then the other question or thing that I'll say is at this point, you know, for me, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and it feels like we're spending a lot of time spinning our wheels. And I know that I don't have the answers. And I'm so happy to hear other people talking about hiring somebody that would be able to help us navigate this situation and lead an initiative that might have the answers and might be able to help because we could sit here all day till we're blue in the face and throw out suggestions. Well, this needs to happen or that needs to happen or this is what's going to work. I mean, I certainly don't know and I'm not an expert in it. I support it and I support change and I want to see change. I just don't know how to get there. I love that we're talking about hiring somebody to help us with that. And so that kind of ties into those guiding questions. I mean, I would love to hear, get thoughts from whoever we hire to help us on some of these questions on what should our advisory committee look like and what should be the outcomes? I mean, it's important for us all to talk about it, but I'd love to hear somebody that is truly, that is maybe that's at least more qualified than myself.

Amy, I also had a note about the word equity. So I was happy to see that Sean mentioned that too, that we need a common definition and maybe we can even talk about that tonight, but that's all, that's kind of thrown me this whole year. Anytime we talked about equity, which is why it oftentimes in the conversation, I also brought up other groups of our students because to me equity is so broad. But I do think we need to be very narrow in this just like we talked about with the resolution being too broad, I think we need to call it what it is either with Amy suggestion or something else. that's specific to our African American and black students. So I don't know if we wanna talk about it tonight, I think it'd be a good starting point. I think we've talked a lot of times about defining what equity is and we haven't quite gotten there yet. We haven't even really had a discussion about how to define it yet. So I don' know if Sean has maybe something in mind already but I had the same note written down about that word and equity and excellence and about the advisory, the name of the advisory group too. But I think we need to be really specific about it.

Thank you. Other thoughts? Question

for you guys. I'm not sure if you all noticed this, man, but it's interesting how we as a group can talk about the lack thereof, how we can talk about African-Americans needing something and being able to isolate that down to one thing and saying, this is what this is. Would anyone agree with that? We can actually discuss this and say, we're talking about African Americans needing the proper attention, that this issue is kind of an isolated issue. It's not about trying to expand and get other groups involved. That is one thing, right? Right? Gotta shake a hand or something like that? All right. Then could we then say then there's also a need to actually hire, like for example, hire more African Americans. Now you can't say I'm looking for African Americans to hire. I'm putting this job post out and I'm looking for an African American to hire. When we could talk about issues that are affecting black people in a singular format when we can't put out a RFP saying we need to hire African Americans for positions. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Anyone could comment on that, like where we are in this space? Because then this also helps us talk about this bigger

picture. I'm not sure I'm following

you.

I'm kind of confused on what you're saying. Sorry.

Yeah, I don't understand. Gotcha.

Well, Jason, can I ask you maybe a question that would, because I was confused too, but like specifically about the hiring, you know, I think I think, I mean, you tell me if this is like at all what you were saying, but I think this is what I was hearing is we can say we want to have more African American teachers, but we can't necessarily just say, hey, we only are going to hire African American teachers right now. Like, so what do we do instead? Is that the question?

Right, right. So we can say that there's an issue with African Americans achieving in schools, right? In these schools. But we can't necessarily say that there's a need for African-American teachers to be hired. So let's go specifically hire more African-American teachers because that's illegal, right? So you see how complex this conversation can be? That's all. I just want to make sure to put that out there on the table so that we're having a conversation that's very complex. There's a need for American teachers in Clayton. Some of you all might disagree, but I think there is definitely a need for African-American teachers to be representing in the school district. But we can't put out an RFP saying that we're going to hire specifically Black teachers, 15 Black teachers. That's our goal because that's illegal. When we can identify an issue regarding equity, that's affecting black people, and we could talk about that. But then we can't... We can't take that

specific action.

Exactly. It's an interesting conversation. I just want to put that out there.

No, you're right. I think at some point... I mean, this is a little bit of pontification here, but I think... So where you're going, Jason, is called a BFOQ, right? And race is explicitly prohibited from being a BFOQ... And I think at some point, I'd like to believe that we as a culture will get past that because we've got plenty of data that shows that having more diversity in our teaching staff has very tangible outcomes with the kids. And so to your point, we're hamstrung. We recognize there's a gap. There's a legal thing that prohibits us from specifically addressing the gap and then it's even further compounded by the fact that the number of graduating teachers or I should say the number of people graduating with teaching certificates and educational degrees is what 20 or 25 percent I think is the number let alone black males you know so to your point it's just it's a ridiculously complicated thing that seems like we should be able to fix And I don't know what the answer is. I really wish I didn't.

But I want to push back a little bit and just say, I agree that it's complicated, but there's nothing wrong with saying that we want to have a goal of a representative, teachers are representative of our student population. We can say that. And if we... I believe that there are enough African American black teachers out there that if we look and recruit in the right ways, we can find them, right? So, I mean, it's, you know, I mean, there are lots of qualified folks. So we also just have to be careful, right? There are other districts that are able to have a more representative staff. We just have to look in the right places, recruit the right people and create the right environment so that folks quite honestly wanna come and stay.

So I don't- And so that's a great point, Joe, and I agree with that. So if Normandy can have, Joe, what is Normandy's African American population per staff? What is it? I mean, what's the majority of black folks working in this school?

Well, it's still lower than it should be given that the student population is 98% black, but it's certainly, they have a lot more 45, 50%, right?

Maybe. All right. So that's a lot. So it's not like we can't find it. The question is, are we going to get outside of our comfort zone and make the decision to hire folks that you may not seem, that may not seem to you, you may not identify with off the bat because you don't talk to those types of folks. But we got to make that decision and roll with it because There are definitely qualified teachers out there that we could possibly use, that we can actually go to other schools and pick from those schools to get them to come over here and start working in Clayton. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. So I think there's some low-hanging fruit that we could start with right now. Um,

so I would

just, I think hiring,

I'm just saying we have, um, I think that some of the efforts this past year have, we are actually seeing that, um, having a, making a difference. And so I think that our human resources department has been putting in concerted effort towards that. And we are seeing an increase in the total number of African-American teachers in our schools. So can we improve it? Definitely, because it's not representative of our students yet. But I think that our efforts, we definitely are making it known through our diversity recruitment events, the way that we're individually recruiting individuals. And I think that you're right. It does, we have to be very concerted about it.

Sean, did I read somewhere that it was a pretty high, much higher percentage at least of our new hires where for next year are people of color, isn't that right?

Yes. And so I would say that not every one of those people is African-American. So a good portion of them are African-American. Some of them could be Asian. Some of them. Could be Hispanic, but it's not necessarily African-American for every one of them, but we have increased our African-American population of tires.

Kim, are you saying something? Because if you are, we can't hear you. Okay.

Can you? Joe, can you hear me?

I can hear you, but we couldn't hear Kim. It seemed like Kim was trying to say something and we couldn't hear.

Okay. I'm going to talk through. Now you're going to see two of me probably. But no, I just wanted to say, Sean, that I think it's good that there is, that you are increasing the percentage of educators and administrators that are people of color. And I think that the representation is critical for black students, but it's also critical for other minority students. I mean, Jason, You and I have shared experiences of, you know, when we talk about racism and anti-racism in our district, for sure it crosses into other subgroups. So I don't want to detract away from the, for certain, you know, from the Black Lives Matter movement or anything else, but But I commend the district for making a concerted effort to hire very qualified teachers and administrators that are of color.

Well, that's a good point, Kim. So the thing is this, it's the data that we're talking about, right? The data suggests that African-Americans are doing poorly. Asian students aren't doing poorly in the school district. There are They're performing at a very high rate. So when we talk about hiring African-American teachers, and trust me, I still think that even beyond the data, there needs to be representation for children in the school district no matter what. So we're also talking about the data suggests that we got an issue, right? Kids aren't performing well. And we know racism is a problem. And not having Black teachers and knowing why people don't hire African Americans. It's a problem. African Americans have hard times. Not all anecdotally, we all know somebody that's really good at getting jobs. But I'm saying there is, it's always been tough for African Americans to get the job. We're always being second guessed question, submit more information, provide this. I'm not sure about you. I don't know you. You know what I'm saying? It's always been the case. And that's in every facet of life and business, even being pulled over by the police. What are you doing here in this community? Come on, man. Why are you here? Who do you know? So I'm saying it's the same thing when it comes to why we're talking about hiring more African-American teachers. We're trying to find a way to make sure there's representation and also provide some kind of balance in the school amongst the staff so that they, so that people can shut that kind of conversation down.

He's frozen

on me.

Yeah, Jason,

you're back if you want to.

So, so, but having, having more African Americans on the staff provides balance and also helps put some of the, um, you know, discrimination talk and check. You know what I'm saying? Because you start to, now you're familiar, have a relationship with somebody, things start to change. I mean, that's why it's important, I think, that we're trying to look to having, hiring more African Americans. Yeah,

I don't disagree with that at all. And I mean, I think everybody on our board probably agrees that, you know, the entire schooling process from early childhood education through high school is probably one of the most powerful normalizing forces in a person's life. So, you know, when our students enter our buildings for the first time, I mean, they're coming in with beliefs that they've learned at home, at church, in their neighborhoods. And so, you know, we have a student or a child in a classroom, their language, you know, and their beliefs and their treatment of difference are either normalized or unnormalized. And so I agree with you, Jason. I mean, having a, you know, having minority teachers in the front classroom help to either normalize or unnormalize the beliefs that our students come in with. And I think that it's a very important responsibility that our school

district plays. I do want to add, too, that what I think is interesting is to look across the data too. So, I mean, I certainly agree with everything that's being said, but what's interesting is, you know, Panorama, Panorama data tells an interesting story, right? That, and Sean shared it with us, right? In Panorama, right, nationally, actually, you know, nationally validated and reliable tool, blah, blah, blah. One of the best in the country, if not the best in country around social emotional learning. And what it says from last year is that actually our Asian students have the lowest sense of belonging data and our Asian and our Latinx students, although we don't have a huge population of Latinx students, have the lowest school climate data. Now I'm not taking away from any of that other stuff, but we should also unpack that just per the data. Why is that? That's an important component. Maybe not for this specific conversation as we're talking about kind of specifically race equity around our black students, but I don't wanna lose sight of that. That's powerful data and it's valid and reliable data.

And so that's exactly why I think I feel like The reports need to be separated because I think when it's all lumped together, we're diluting both sides of the equation. And, you know, we need to make time on a different night for a whole conversation around that data we got with respect to our Asian kids or with respect to antisemitic remarks or antisemitic issues we're having. And, you know, but, but those are, they're just different issues, I think. I mean, there's some similarities, but I think it would be helpful if it was, if it was separate and instead of just lumped in, you know, like that doesn't get a whole lot of attention in the conversation tonight when we're talking about racism you know, predominantly we're talking about African American students. And so, you know, it might be good to also be talking about some of these other issues, but not just glossing over it and doing it in a context where we could really give it the time and thought that it deserves.

Can I just say this? I think that Amy and Joe you both have great points, which goes back to the ultimate, the overall arching point, which is racism. This is racism. If right now we are raising racism against Asian, the Asian population is promoted right now, right? The Wuhan virus, the Kung flu. So, so I think that we're not, we're actually, I know Amy, we were both a little nervous. We don't want to detract from what's happening here, but we're still talking about racism, which goes back to not just training the administration, right? But also training the staff. So we can put everything in this resolution into play, right? All these different things into play. And I'm trying to tell you, Sean, you and I have talked about this offline. And I mentioned to you that you all have done an excellent job of putting the right language and the right structures in place in the frameworks to make this happen. Here's the problem. If the players aren't on this in their format or in that game, And it doesn't matter what we do. We get, oh, did you lose me? No, you're back. You're back. Gotcha. So, yeah, so it doesn't matter. Like, we are, as I'm saying, we are doing some excellent work. In particular, I'm just talking about, we talked to Melaina the most about this, right? Melaina and the people who are helping her out or who she's working with, you all are doing great work. It's not just you all. It's the entire community. ethos. It's the culture of the school district. It's the players that are coming to work every day and teaching these classrooms. Everyone has to be on board, and that comes with the training. So we got the format. Let's get the training put in play. And then after we get the training in play, then let's put some measures as David would say, as Joe used to always talk about, what are the measurables once we have the training? Because we got the format We know what needs to be done. But this is racism. We're talking about racism at an all-time high, at the highest level. And we're trying to reduce that racism. And when it comes to African Americans, black and white issues, that's a major issue too. It's like the number one issue. We're talking our kids, once again, watching George Floyd get murdered. It was just another New Jeffery Yorg Times article that just came out about a Hispanic man who died in jail, who was murdered in jail. And the chief of police watched him die. This just happened like 20 minutes ago. So these things are happening all around us as people of color. I'm just trying to figure out how are we going to I'm not trying to figure out anything, actually. I think what I'm trying to say is this is racism. I think Amy, Joe, you all have a great point. And Kim, you have a good point.

Can I just say this? I think that Amy and Joe you both have great points, which goes back to the ultimate, the overall arching point, which is racism. This is racism. If right now we are raising racism against Asian, the Asian population is promoted right now, right? The Wuhan virus, the Kung flu. So, so I think that we're not, we're actually, I know Amy, we were both a little nervous. We don't want to detract from what's happening here, but we're still talking about racism, which goes back to not just training the administration, right? But also training the staff. So we can put everything in this resolution into play, right? All these different things into play. And I'm trying to tell you, Sean, you and I have talked about this offline. And I mentioned to you that you all have done an excellent job of putting the right language and the right structures in place in the frameworks to make this happen. Here's the problem. If the players aren't on this in their format or in that game, And it doesn't matter what we do. We get, oh, did you lose me? No, you're back. You're back. Gotcha. So, yeah, so it doesn't matter. Like, we are, as I'm saying, we are doing some excellent work. In particular, I'm just talking about, we talked to Melaina the most about this, right? Melaina and the people who are helping her out or who she's working with, you all are doing great work. It's not just you all. It's the entire community. ethos. It's the culture of the school district. It's the players that are coming to work every day and teaching these classrooms. Everyone has to be on board, and that comes with the training. So we got the format. Let's get the training put in play. And then after we get the training in play, then let's put some measures as David would say, as Joe used to always talk about, what are the measurables once we have the training? Because we got the format We know what needs to be done. But this is racism. We're talking about racism at an all-time high, at the highest level. And we're trying to reduce that racism. And when it comes to African Americans, black and white issues, that's a major issue too. It's like the number one issue. We're talking our kids, once again, watching George Floyd get murdered. It was just another New York Times article that just came out about a Hispanic man who died in jail, who was murdered in jail. And the chief of police watched him die. This just happened like 20 minutes ago. So these things are happening all around us as people of color. I'm just trying to figure out how are we going to I'm not trying to figure out anything, actually. I think what I'm trying to say is this is racism. I think Amy, Joe, you all have a great point. And Kim, you have a good point.

But Jason, are you, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. I don't, I still, so with respect to this, like our equity initiative, do you think that it's fine? I mean, does it need to be separate or do you feel like it's fine just to lump everything together? Or is it, do you know what I'm saying?

Good question. I think that we need to specifically work on the data that we're talking about, right? The data that supports the African-Americans are, and this is just my words, and you all can hold me accountable, are failing, are failing across the board. I know we're doing better than the lowest, you know, the next highest school districts. We're the highest and the lowest. I sound like Trump right now. No, I hear you. But what I'm trying to say is that that's still failing to me because it's not on board and it doesn't show the true strengths of these African American children. So we've got to fix that problem. Right, but so... So to your point though, racism is the issue. Racism is the issue. I think we need to focus on African American issues, but racism is the overall arching problem that we're having.

Amy, I think also what you're maybe trying to say is each of these groups have different needs. Right. So like to what Joe said, our Asian students it's a social emotional sense of belonging need for our African-American students. It's the academic achievement gap and racism combined with racism needs. So I do think what you're saying Amy about separating it makes sense to me because we can be more specific and be more equitable if we're targeting one group at a time. Right, I mean, what,

you know, and I mean, even within, you know, black kids, I mean, yeah, I mean, obviously I don't mean to dilute racism, but it's like, in addition to racism, they're all individual kids and they still all need something, you know, a little bit different. And so it feels like there just needs to be some more separation so we can make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Um, and make, make sure that each group gets what they need, but also, you know, within the group, they're all individual too. And so, um, what one child needs, you know, the next child might need something just a little bit different. And it feels like the more we can, um, the more we can have very targeted and focused conversations, it might be... I don't know. And again, like I said, I certainly don't have the answers to this. At the end of the day, my goal in this conversation is hopefully everybody can agree that we can agree that we... there's a problem and the problem needs to be fixed. And we were, we're all committed to change and we need help to bring about that change. And Sean's amazing and wonderful and he walks on water, but you know, you know, we, we all need, we might need help. We might need different resources and somebody that has specific training in this issue to help us navigate how to, how to achieve what we, really want to achieve and how to interrupt and destroy that cycle of racism. We can agree that it exists, but I don't know that any of us know how to fix it. Or even we could hire a lot more African-American teachers, but is that one action in and of itself going to fix everything? I mean, I don't know. Probably not. There's probably a lot more things that we need to do that I have that none of us have even thought about. So that's why, you know, I'd really love to see, see us get somebody in here to help us.

So, so I want to, I know Adam hasn't got his voice in. And so I just want to give Adam, I know you're raising your hand. You have been so Adam, go ahead.

Yeah. Um, thanks Joe. I, There was just a few things as like the discussion came about and a few things that I wanted to relate back to the students and just some things that I've heard, especially from black district advisory council members and other students in the district that I've talked to, whether it's anecdotally or part of organizations. And there were a few things that came to mind. One is, I know we've talked a lot about teachers and the role that teachers play in students' lives, and that is incredibly important. And having more Black teachers is essential. And I think something else that I've heard from a lot of Black students, and especially on the District Advisory Council, is they've said that a lot of times there aren't other Black teachers students in their same classroom, especially in elementary school growing up. So that's something else that I think is like a good example of when you know something that the students need and I think something that I didn't see fully in the equity report and I think that is something that we can put in there is just making sure I know that we've talked about affinity groups and that's really important but I think also literally just having other students that look like you and maybe have your same perspective in the same class is really important. That was one thing I thought. The other was, we've talked a lot about racial bias training for staff, for the board, for administrators. I think it's important to have students go through that too and really making sure that we're addressing that within the classrooms as well. And especially at a really young age that we can be doing that work. And so I know that that's something that a lot of students have expressed and wanted as well. And I think that those were the main two points that I had of just like knowing, I wanted to share what the students were thinking about the report and some things that I had heard earlier that just connected back to the conversation.

Awesome. Thank you. I also wonder, I mean, I think that we, I mean, you know, when you think about what are the outcomes, right? I mean, we've talked about training and they're clearly training outcomes. There's outcomes around discipline and the disproportionality of discipline. We know that. There's outcomes around culture and climate. Racism certainly, you know, it showed it as I was talking about panorama. There's academic performance. And then there's kind of, you know, a representation slash opportunities. I mean, if I had to break it down over, you know, how are some of the... And then obviously we talked about the... the staff being more representative, right? And racism permeates all those things, clearly. So,

Joe, I'm

going to do it.

Go ahead, David. Sorry, Jason. I was going to say that I don't think creating actionable steps and building a... an advisory board, if you will, are mutually exclusive. I think they can be done in parallel. I kind of, you know, I agreed with Jason Sinsmith that we've been, and I'm kind of the new guy here, obviously, but I'm looking at this report that we started in 2016 and trying to look at where we can check boxes of success. And it feels like we've done a lot of pontificating and maybe a lot of studies. And I think there's a whole lot of low-hanging fruit we could go after. But concurrently, I would really appreciate having a group of parents that can sit down and be very honest and frank with me about their life in Clayton. And I think we could do that concurrently with identifying some actionable stuff. So I know we've kind of gone back and forth. I just wanted to put that out there that they're not mutually exclusive. Thank you.

Jason, did you want to say something?

Yeah, I also wanted to add in there that we should be thinking about curriculum and how we talk about race when it comes to history, for example. You know, sometimes when my boys come home and they were studying history or something that was dealing with race, it was passed off as a formality. Uh, as another section in the book that we just got to look at, read it and then get through it and go to the next, next section. Um, but really it needs to be talked about, and this is where the training comes in, right? When you're, when you're, when it's on your mind, you're talking about the violence that racism, um, uh, induces when discussing those things in your conversation, your narrative is different about it. Um, and so. we really need to talk about racism when we talk about history and what's happened, very honestly. And not being a non-negotiable when it comes to dealing with issues like the Confederate South versus the North. And understanding that everything about the Civil War And

Jason, I think you froze on us.

Yeah, that's my point. Just making sure we're honest about the conversation when it comes to race.

So other thoughts, Gary? Did you have, did you want to say

something? Yeah, a couple things really quick. Just I think this has been, well, I said I was not totally comfortable with how we were going to talk about it, but I'm glad we're talking about it and it's still hard. But a couple of things. One, the panorama stuff that we've been talking about, Joe, I know where I saw it most recently, but I want to make sure one thing, since hopefully there are other people listening and paying attention to this. That is something that people can go and look at. We have that somewhere, correct? I don't know where to say it is, but that's out there somewhere. I think that's true, right?

Sean would have to answer that. I know Sean sent us a bunch of data around Panorama, but I don't know if it's publicly available. Sean, you're on mute if you're talking.

Sorry. Some of the panorama data is in the report we did. So that's where you probably saw it. It's in the

equity. I mean, I know that's not where I most recently saw it. And I

sent some to the board as well.

Right. Okay. So before I said anything about it, I just want to make sure of that. There's some interesting things in there and some of it I'm a bit cynical about because if you look at those numbers, number one, they're all pretty close together. So, but when it, you know, on the sense of belonging and on the school climate, there's a little bit more separation. No, actually not much more separation between the different breakdowns. So to say, well, this group is actually, you know, not as, has a higher number than that group. Well, they're all pretty similar, including whites. I mean, so I don't know that that's the best indicator that we have that we have a problem. You know, so I just want to throw that out there. The other thing that I wanted to just kind of check in on is that we started, I mean, one of the first couple things that I heard you say, Jason, when we started talking about this is some of this we know exactly what to do. And actually, I wrote that down because that seemed important. We know exactly what to and I want to make sure that we are talking about what it is that we think we are, are these the things that we're, are we talking about those things? Or are there other things that we need to be talking about that we know what to do or that some of us think we know exactly what to do. Does that make sense? Like, I mean, we've, we've talked about a few specific things tonight and I want to, I want to hear if that's, if that's what it is or if that's what you think it is or, or what else. That's what I wanted to follow up on.

Oh, gotcha. So, so I mean, once again, I've kind of evolved on this conversation. This is a topic of conversation that I always talk about. So I want to make sure that I'm slowing it down and let you know where I am and how I got here. So I'm just saying to you that it's very difficult in this day and time to talk about racism and just really focusing on African-American issues. And in the school district, that is. In particular, that is. Because the school district is made up of several different ethnicities, right? Several different groups. So I'm saying to you that I think in a school setting, in particular in a school setting we have to address racism. And some people would say white supremacy. Some people would say white privilege. But that's what we need to address when it comes to making sure that Asian students, that African American students, that students that are Jewish, that are African, meaning from African countries, from wherever, are all treated equal. And having that dialogue, because that's going to start to chip away at a lot of the things that are happening. It's also going to help the teachers and help police the students when they're communicating, make sure they're more effective. Also police the teachers when they're communicating about race and give them the language so that we're not stumbling over the words and knowing what we need to say and being confident when we say things. So that's what I'm saying. And this is not a... This is not a... a popular position that I'm explaining to you all tonight, my position. But it's just very complicated to sit here and say, well, let's focus on African-Americans. Because we just saw George Floyd get killed, right? Get murdered. And not even just him, not even him. We saw Breonna Taylor We saw the young man in Georgia. We saw a whole host of folks going back to Michael Brown and before him, right? And we can't bring all that energy into the school setting. People aren't just, it's not happening at the school setting. It's not common. What we need to do is have the conversation about racism in general. And just um white supremacy in general and how we look at it and how we understand it so that you know we have a better understanding and yeah it's a better understanding there's a better dialogue that folks understand their position and where they are when it comes to ethnicity if that makes any sense so racism is kind of the issue when it comes to school districts

Yeah, so would you say then if we are talking about like we know what we need to do, like would you put at the top of that list, we need to talk about this as racism? Like is that kind of?

Yeah, I think talking about it as racism. As racism. Because it's a tough conversation, right? I mean, as we all underscore tonight, man, it's a tough You know, so that's why I think we need to be discussing racism. And I think it's called anti-racism. It's called anti- racism. It's not called anti-Black. That's something that I would say, anti-Black, that is a thing called anti-Black, but I'm saying this is anti-racism, so I mean, Is that what you all were getting at, Joe and Sean, and Amy, when this was being developed? Is that what you were getting at, the idea of racism as a whole? Or were you all thinking about just anti-blackness and how we approach that issue?

I was thinking of it more in the context of just black and white. but I mean, I'm open to like, sorry, my husband's eating a banana pop in the background causing a bunch of noise. Um, I'm, I was thinking about, about it and as more black and white, but I I'm open to, I mean, I want to hear different opinions because I just don't know. I mean, sometimes I hear, um, you know, sometimes we'll have a conversation with somebody and they'll say, this is really, you know, an issue that's just black and white and where we can't throw in Hispanic and Asian. So it really needs to be addressed just on that level. And I could certainly wrap my head around that, but now, but then I, you know, but then on the other side of the equation, like what I'm hearing you say tonight is it's not just black and white, that it's really just racism in general And that, and it's at that level that we should be addressing it. And I don't know, I want to address it. And I wanna, I just, you know, I don't, I'm just kind of trying to understand it.

Well, there's also a bigger conversation here. Like when, this is my opinion, when it comes to African-Americans going to school, as we talked before, right? So this is nothing new. If you know me, you had a conversation with me, you would know where I stand on African American students going to school in predominantly white community. I mean, it's a whole nother conversation.

Right?

Right. And so someone say, well, school districts like Normandy isn't as good as and violent there. But what you got to understand is, is racism, racism is violent too. It's extremely violent. You may not see someone get beat up on the street or choked or shot, murdered, but you will see people lose a sense of who they are. You will see people hate themselves because of their ethnicity and their skin color. I mean, the issues that African Americans go through, like myself, who went to school in Richland Heights and Webster Grove and Parkway and grew up in those communities, watching myself and my friends go through those iterations as they grew up to turn 18 and graduated. It's complicated. And a lot of us don't make it out, but it's violent. It's violent, man. And then, you know, so I don't want to get off into the details of that exactly, but I'm saying this is where I'm saying when I say I've evolved on on and have this conversation multiple times, this is where it's coming from. I mean, I've seen this happen, you know, and I'm just saying that we need to be focusing on racism at the school level because, I mean, because there's a whole host of other issues that go along with just focusing on African-Americans in white settings. If that makes any sense. I'll be quiet. So Jason,

sorry, I was just going to say to your point about discussing racism. I think when I think about what is our role as a school board and a school district in discussing that issue, I think because we're in the business of education, I think we are in a unique situation. You know, we educate youth. That's what we do. So I think educating on racism and anti-racism is something that we have the unique opportunity to do since that's what we're doing. We're educating kids every day. And to Adam's point, you know, we talk about providing training on anti-racism work for teachers and administrators and staff, but I think Adam made a great point about bringing that to the kids because that's where it starts, you know? If we can educate our youth on racism and anti-racism, then our future will be much brighter. And I think being a school district, we have the opportunity to do that. So, and in relation, you know, I know it was mentioned in the report too, to training and professional development around anti-racism. I wonder, I guess this is a question for Sean. I wonder if we have designated an organization or a person who would provide that training and could they do that for our students as well? I mean, I think that would be something great to think about.

Yeah, so we have been working with Crossroads and we've had several different people go through that training. I went through the training. I've gone through a lot of different trainings throughout my educational career. I did seeking educational equity and diversity. I've done some of the honoring all voices. I've done the educational consultants. All of it, I've learned something from. The thing about the Crossroads training is that it really helps the participant understand institutionalized racism and how it starts with historical perspective and really, really, really diving deep in story and telling about injustices that still are impacting systems that are happening today. And so I have found that to be an effective. I think the question I don't know if they've done that with the students. And I'm going to ask that question. But I do think that we do have an opportunity to think about, you know, if we really want to have systemic change, what would be some bold move we would do for our students that would allow them to have these conversations and create those kind of brave spaces for them to have this type of learning? So can you guys still hear me? Okay. I'm just wondering about going back to the conversation around the resolution and hearing all the great things that were said. Is there, what I'm hearing is that this board needs to have some additional conversation around the development of that resolution. But I'm wondering about whether or not that we could kind of identify some of those action steps that we've talked about that we wanna make sure that we're incorporating into it, which would also then influence the work that we're doing as a district as well. And when you're talking about systems in place and making sure it's assured, we have those systems in place. We just need to make sure that the content is, having that anti-racist mindset and making sure our central questions match what we want for our teachers. So, so I just was going to see if there's anything in terms of that we can maybe start jotting down some things that we would consider as action steps we'd want to consider to be part of this resolution.

I mean, Sean, at first I'm just going to say that Joe got kicked off. So he's trying to get back in. Oh, But I mean, one thought is that we could reference in the resolution all of the action steps that are kind of set forth in our initiative. So there's a lot of action steps in the initiative. And I think that by calling out certain action steps in the resolution, we certainly don't want to limit ourselves to just three things that we're going to do. So we could like incorporate by reference all of the terms and sorry, if I'm sounding like a lawyer, we can incorporate all of the action steps that we've outlined in the equity and excellence initiative. So we could do it that way or I don't know. That's just a thought.

Hey, Jason, can I, not to put you on the spot because I keep seeming to do that tonight, but what do you think, what's your take on where we are with this resolution, like resolution, like whether we're ready to do it, what it should say, like what, I mean, I've quizzed you enough on what you thought, you know, our things should be here. I mean, how does this play into it to get back to that? Like, where do you, what's your

I do think, I do think that, um, you know, having this conversation tonight helped help me evolve my, uh, my, uh, energy around this resolution when I first got it. I mean, I, I still kind of feel to explain to you, but, um, when I first got out, I was like, okay, this is cool, but it's missing a lot of things. Right. Um, And, but after having this conversation and being able to talk about it and see where everyone else is, you know, where everyone else is when it comes to race, dealing with racism. It kind of calmed, it just kind of helped me calm down a little bit, calm my energy down. And be more patient with it. Once again, I still feel like... We can sign this, but I still feel like it'd be greater if we just made a decision to do something. I'm not talking about hatefully either. I'm saying we got time. No one's pushing us today to make a decision, but they want to hear us have this dialogue and want to make sure that we're all on the same page, that we understand what racism is, that we understand why white supremacy is. and we understand all these things that are affecting our students, affecting our young students from learning, right? And then us having this conversation, I've had this conversation since I've been on the board. One of this magnitude, right? Joe, do you think we've had this conversation? Right, so this is one that has, I think we need to have it for a while now. So-

It feels pretty different to me.

Yeah, so I feel like I don't want to sign this necessarily right now. I'd rather wait until we have, since we've had this conversation, to even have another conversation with it. But in the meantime, we're working towards the first step fairly soon. First one or two or three steps to show people that, hey, we know what's going on. We are engaged. We're all on the same page. Whether we agree with some things or not is irrelevant, but we are all on the same thing. We all have an understanding. I

think that makes sense to me. I don't know what other people think, but that seems right to me too.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree too. I think Jason, it's your turn to freeze. I froze out and got kicked out. Sorry about that. Um, so did you guys move on to the resolution or are we still talking about the report? Are we blended? Yeah. We kind of blended it.

We've been transitioned to that. Yeah.

You know, I just, I want to point out one, um, paragraph, um, can hear myself echoing. Hold

on. You

hear that? Was that a fire? Sorry about that. I don't know what happened there, man. Internet sucks.

Just put it, just unmute it. I think they can hear me. Can

you hear me? The heck is going on over there?

We can't. Yeah. Jason, while you were frozen, Kim started to say something, but did you want to finish your thought before Kim says what she's going to say?

Um, I'm not sure why I left off. I think I was just saying that, um, I forgot what I was saying. I think I said enough, but I think you got the gist of what I was trying to say. Kim, what were you saying? I think I missed what you were saying, Kim.

Kim, go ahead. You're on mute though. We can't hear you.

Can you hear me

now? With an echo.

I'm sorry for the echo. Is there still an echo?

A little one. Just tell

him

to hold on a second.

Okay, hold on a second

going on

over there.

Oh, they got. Okay, there we go. Try again. Yeah.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can. Go for it.

Okay, great. So we got rid of one computer. So, so, you know, what struck me is we've been talking, you're all shaking your head at us. As I, you know, I've been listening to everybody talk and there was a paragraph in the report that I think really is a nice summary and captures where we are trying to get to. And it captures some of the addressing racism as a whole that Jason talked about and making sure that we are taking steps to ensure that we're as anti-racist as possible. And so I just wanted to, I think it's worth reading. And it says, we need to move beyond just acknowledging inequities in regards to race. We need to take an in-depth understanding of racism and how it impacts behavior behaviors, mindsets, systems and actions or lack of actions that lead to inequities in our school system. We will ensure that culturally responsive teaching is a standard in each of our classrooms. We are going to address racism and implicit bias within our school systems and be explicit about it. We will have deep-rooted understanding about institutionalized racism and develop collective commitments to address it. I think if you start with all of those we statements and then you figure out what action items go underneath those to turn those into a reality, you have a pretty good, you have a solid foundation for I think both the statement that I think we were all trying to get to as a board as well as things that really the school district can do that are practical around not just having anti-racism, anti-bias training for educators and administrators, but also for our students and some of the other things that have been said around the table tonight. So that's just my two cents.

Thank you. Any other thoughts? I mean, it also sounds like I know we had some technical difficulties, but it sounds like folks might want that. That's good. And folks might want some more time. Folks don't feel pressured tonight. This was a good conversation. And by the way, that was the purpose of giving you all a draft of a resolution. And this was really to get the conversation going. It wasn't to adopt that specific thing. It sounds like folks are saying we want some more time, to think about it, do it right, make it action oriented. Is that a fair characterization?

I have one quick question. Has the public had any input... Have stakeholders had an input on it besides just the board? Nope. One of the things that I... Off of that point, just that I've heard from students and some other community members is just The idea of, and I know a lot of our, a lot of what we've been talking about today has been about the wording and how we're gonna word a lot of what were saying and the word choice that we're using. And I know a lot students in particular in the district advisory council has mentioned this, just the idea of making sure that the people that it's going to affect have a say on the word choice. And something that we learn about in school even is the idea of how important words are, and especially to the community that it's impacting. And so hearing people of color talk about this resolution I think is really important when we go look at the wording of it, and especially you know, all of us, you know, and all of you all coming from a place of, you know, being elective representatives, it, you know, coming from a position of power, I think sometimes dictating the word choice may not allow all the community members to feel like it represents their voice. And I'm just wondering, I, again, I haven't been around for a resolution, but that's something that I've heard from the students. And I just wanted to share that.

Well, and to that point, that's a great point, Adam. And we even heard it in some of the public comment, right? In one of the public comments, right? That we need to have a more representative and some other community members, right? So, which I think is a good point. So what's- Question, before

we move on, one question. Do we track like reported racist incidents? Do we track those?

You broke up a little bit, Jason. I was saying,

do we track racist incidents when they're reported? Do we track

them? If something's reported to us, we definitely document things that are happening. If it's something that's considered to be racist, we would definitely track that. We don't have a formal mechanism for when it you know, like here's the things that happen when some, like here are the reports of racism. And I heard that in public comment and thought about that and making sure that, you know, when we have here, we hear something not only just with what happens with staff or what happens with students. And so I think about what could be the best mechanism for tracking that, but we don't have like an official, like, tracking of racism. We do track all incidences that happen, but something to think about.

Yeah, I think there was a mention of an anonymous tip line, I believe. Is that right? Didn't we hear that? Or did I hear that? I think I was around you when I heard

that.

Yeah, so maybe we advertise that anonymous tip line and encourage folks to speak.

Yeah, we already have plans to

gotcha

revamp that to make sure people are aware of that let me put that out there

awesome awesome sorry that's one question yep cool

oh good question so i don't um good conversation do it i mean are there other thoughts and number one and number two again i just want to kind of call our question, which is, and I think I'm hearing that folks aren't ready this evening to go based upon the conversation and getting more input. Don't necessarily want to vote on a resolution this evening, but I want to make sure I double check. I mean, is that what I'm hearing? Thumbs up? Yes? Yes? Okay. All right.

So Joe, may I make a suggestion? Please do, Sean. I know this is our last board meeting of the year. I'm just wondering if there could be like an ad hoc kind of group that comes together, a few board members and maybe even some other people from the community that small group that can start crafting something just so that way it would be great if like, even when we start doing kind of our working sessions and our orientations at the beginning of August or at the end of July, maybe we could have something ready to go to at least get it going before the start of a school year.

That's great. Anybody interested in being on that ad

hoc? My screen froze. Could you all say what you just said again? I totally kind of missed it. Sorry about that.

Can you hear me OK now?

I hear you fine.

What I was saying is I just don't want the, this is our last board meeting and I just don't what the work to get pushed off until we have our next boarding. So I'm wondering if we should have like a little ad hoc group that works like a working group that could be some board members and maybe even maybe engage some people from the community to help with that. And then that way we can bring this back as an action like early and later in the summer before, instead of just waiting to the next board meeting, like actually doing some work on it in between.

I'm available. I would love to be on that ad hoc board.

Yeah, Amy and I are happy to do it too. I just volunteered her.

Count me in.

Yeah, definitely. I think, I mean, I feel the same as far as being a part of it and that we can't really wait to work on it. I mean, just because we're not working on this tonight or deciding something tonight, I don't think it would be appropriate to sit around and wait until our next meeting to talk about it again, so.

So I think that's awesome. We also have to be sensitive about public meetings and how many people, right? We can essence have three board members before we get into public meeting violations. It doesn't mean that other folks can't inform, but I do want to just point that out, right? I heard five people, five of seven.

Right.

So- We can also have a

public meeting as long as it's noticed. Of

course.

We can. Well, we could rotate in and out as well. There's some ways we can work through it. All

right. I was also going to say really quick, I'd be happy to, but I'd rather get some students of color to sit in on those. And I'd be happy find some folks that would be good for that. So I'd rather do that than have me. That

would be great.

That's great. All right. So we're going to move forward with that. And yes, we'll figure out the the rotation and or just have a public meeting. So yes, great idea. Anything else on this before we move to our action items?

I just want to say thank you to the board for the conversation.

Yeah, good conversation. Okay, so we're going to move to our action items. Our first one is 7.01. It's approval of the budget for the 2020-21 school year. So Gary, do you want to read the action item?

Moved that the Board of Education approve the 2020-2021 budget as presented.

Second. Okay. All right. Seconded by Stacey. Any comments or questions about the budget?

I have one question.

Okay. Go ahead, Stacey.

As it relates to the COVID costs, this might be, I don't know if this is a question for Mary Jo or for Sean, but... Oh, sorry. Sorry. But I know, Sean, you keep talking about, you know, we don't know what the fall is going to look like. And we've talked a lot about the possibility of a blended model and that, you know, some students or their parents might not feel comfortable sending their kids to school, even if we open. So if one of the possible scenarios you're thinking about includes a choice, whether a kid whether a parent would send their student to school or whether they would stay at home and learn virtually. I'm just wondering if you considered any costs to, like I don't know what they would be called but zoom cameras in the classroom so that students at home could be learning virtually at the same time to save you know basically so the teacher doesn't have to teach the lesson twice and I don't know if that falls into any of these technology costs they look pretty low if we were thinking about putting cameras in all the classrooms but I didn't know if that was something you have considered or if that's even a possibility as far as you know, any scheduling things you've thought about, Sean?

So we've explored lots of different ideas around what blended learning could look like, what could a synchronous learning look like. We've actually, some people, we've talked about streaming. How can we stream from classrooms? We haven't established yet what that would actually look like and whether or not that's a viable option. I think that what we would ask from the board is that if it comes to the point where we would need to have some budget adjustments or thinking about how we're using our resources differently to solve a problem, we feel comfortable coming to you and asking you for that. But we will first look at seeing how can we maybe rearrange resources that we currently have budgeted before we would make that decision to ask for additional money.

Okay, yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.

Thanks.

Any other questions?

Yeah, this is just a question for Mary Jo. We do have an alternative, like another case scenario budget that you're working on, I'm assuming. Just COVID

related or?

Yeah, yeah, COVID related. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

really until we finalize our plans and see, you know, because there are some items, you know, I was... talking to Kim and David today, like about transportation. So, you know, as we look at like transportation, we most likely will have less field trip costs during the school year. So if we need additional costs just to be transporting students for to and from school or even athletic events, we'll be able to shift it from one bucket to another. So there might be an, you know, an increased cost somewhere, but it most likely will be a reduced cost somewhere else.

Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, cool. Sounds good. By the way, it was a good job. It was a good read. The budget was a good read, I have to say. So, good job.

Didn't put you to sleep?

No, I fell asleep a couple times for sure, but it was good. It was good. Good job.

Any other questions? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Everybody, all right. Any opposed? Okay, it passes unanimously, 7-0. Thank you. All right, 7.02 is the approval of the student involvement in decision-making policy JFB, which is student representative to the school board.

All right, 7.02, I move that the Board of Education approves the structure of the student representative to the board and student advisory for the 2020-2021 school year, as well as the policy language for policy JFB as submitted.

Second. Second.

OK, it's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions?

So I have a comment.

Go ahead.

So I, as you know, I'm in favor of the concept. I would like the board to be able to have, um, be a part of the application and interview process. And, um, for since the student is working directly with the board, um, and I also want to make sure that the district advisory council is, um, a good cross section of, of the kids in our student body, kind of along the lines of the comment I made earlier. So I guess my approval is, I guess, subject to those comments.

So Amy, we heard that last time and we added that to the document. And so if you look under what is the selection process for the student representative, we added board members will have a role in the selection process.

Well, I see it, but with the policy that we're approving, it says that numbers, and I saw that I appreciate that, Sean, but the policy. Oh, I see what you're

saying. Under the policy. Number

six says it's consistent.

So what I might suggest is that be selected through an application and interview process and get rid of by district administrators. Then that way it's encompassing.

Yeah, or we could say which, you know, some, yeah, I mean, just that I want to make it clear that the board, if we want to be a part of the process that we were, we can be a part of that process.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, So I apologize on that we tried to put it in the document and we missed it on PB Sarah Silver, So,

PB Sarah Silver,

I don't know how the board feels about PB Sarah Silver, Amending that where we would approve it without that. PB Sarah Silver, Last section. PB Harmon

Zuckerson, So if so, we since we have a PB Harmon Zuckerton, You know motion in a second. We need to vote that down and then offer an amendment. So what do others think?

Yeah, I agree.

I think that I could amend the motion, actually, Joe. I mean, not to get too prickly about it. I think that would be fine. I mean, it's not a substantive amendment. It's more informed. So are we only talking about number six in the policy? be selected through an application and interview process by district administrators. That's that last phrase we're talking about deleting?

Just, yeah, deleting by district administrators.

Well, and then, I mean, to Amy's second point on the district advisory council, do you want to ensure that the district advisory council is representative of a cross-section of the student body? Can we also add that line? Because I think that that's very important also.

And there's not, the policy doesn't talk as much about the council process.

No, it doesn't. But I mean, it doesn't, but that's in the, I guess, in the summary. Well,

I think it's in the structure of the student representatives is in that area. Yeah. And after one year, the representatives

will continue to serve on the... But it just doesn't talk about how we're committed to... You know, I just want to make sure that all of our kids' voices are heard and it isn't just, you know, one type of voice. And that's my main concern.

Well, and the question is, what are we doing to ensure that that's happening? Like, how do we... What's the process to make sure we have diverse...

Adam Pavey, The

pool of applicants or whatever we were whatever we're calling them for that advisory council and that's that's the question. That's not really Adam Pavey

, Always Adam Pavey. Has answered that before. Adam Pavey . But he could remind us

Adam

Pavey As with

everything, if we just let Adam like tell us, he probably can tell you

I guess the question is, if we're voting on the policy. Do we want that in the past that language in the policy

right

I want to make sure I got this right. So are we saying, this is a bit before, I should have asked it a moment ago. So are we say we're going to be in the interview process? Is that what we're saying? will be a part of the interview process i kind of missed this

if we want we want to i don't you don't have to it's not up you're i don't think you have to be a part of that but i think if we want to be a part we can be and we also want to make sure that um and i don't mean that in a way so as to micromanage the process i just mean it in a way is you know this is a student board rep that we're working directly with and so i think that That's an area where we should have, should be part of the process. And then also for that student advisory board, I think it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we're, you know, we really need to make sure we're hearing from, you know, not just one type of student, but we want to make sure that Is there a kid on the board that has dyslexia? Is there a kid in the gifted? Is there a black kid? Is there a athlete? You know, are we really hearing from making sure that all of our kids' voices are reflected in that student board rep?

But we're not trying to get involved with the process of selecting the student board rep, right? Are we? So I said, we're not trying to get involved with the process of selecting the student board rep, are we? Like, are we trying to get involved selecting the student rep?

Can I jump in really quick? Yes. We've had a lot of discussion about this and Dr. Dory and I have talked about it. And so what we are saying, and I think this addresses what Kim and Amy are saying, and what the board has wanted. What we want to do is have, I understand the need for the board to to have input in the process. And I think that's what we should call it because I think that it's important for the board to be one voice along with district administrators and with some district advisory council members and previous board members. And so the point to that is, and the reason behind that to have input and not maybe necessarily like the final decision or be the decision maker is just because if we're treating the student representative as another member of the board, Board members don't get to interview other board members and your voice when you're voting in an election for another board member is one out of many. And so we wanna make sure that the process is making sure that we're staying true to student voice and making sure that students are having a say and along with district administrators as well. So the wording would be along the lines of the board would provide input on the application process. And I think that that would allow for the most the most effective way to reach all of our audiences that are gonna be used by that student itself, like the process itself. So I like the idea of getting rid of the line and just keeping it as it is. I think also with the district advisory council to address that and making sure that we're having a lot of different perspective on the council. If you'd like, I mean, we do have like, I have specific action steps that we're working on. I can tell you those now. We can include that in somewhere in here. And I think that that even is a good idea in general when reviewing this policy to say, what are you going to do to make this better? And so if you'd like, we're addressing that. And if we'd like to include that, we can.

So because we have a motion on, because we have a... vote on the table right now, I'm wondering is that since the policy is really related to the student representative, we definitely heard from the board that we wanna make sure we have a cross section of our student body. But I'm wondering since we have this motion on the table right how people would feel if like Gary said, amend the current motion to get rid of the last three words and number six Harmon Zuckerman, And know that we are going to move forward with making sure that we have that those action items that we are including in the plan, but it may not necessarily be in the policy because the policies really about the student representative, not the advisory. Does that make sense or not.

Harmon Zuckerman , Yes. So Gary, could you Harmon Zuckerman.

Would you Harmon

Zuckermann, amend that

Yeah, so I'm gonna phrase it something like this and Barb and I will figure this out. So the motion would read that the Board of Education approves the structure of the student representative to the board and student advisory for the 2021 school year as well as the policy language for policy JFB with the noted changes to be incorporated in the policy language or something along those lines, I think. And I'm doing this on the fly, so sorry, but that's what I'm, that sounds about right to me.

We still need to vote this one down though, right? To bring up the new motion.

No, he can just- I mean, with

that, I can offer the amendment because I made the motion, but it's within that purview. HAB-Jacques Juilland, You don't have a real technical rule on that point. But that's general Robert rules. HAB-Jactes Juilland, So did that make sense as as I was reading it. I was kind of writing it as I was reading. So, PB, Harmon

Zuckerman, Right. What do you need a second for the amendment right PB, Harmon

Zuckserman, Yeah, and guys, we lost a voter. So we need to wait right

PB, HarmonZuckserman, Oh, PB, HarmonZuckerman, Back. First of all, all right, Stacy seconds. Jason, we'll just make sure you're back. Yeah. I don't

know what happened there, man. Sorry.

No

problem.

Okay. So with amendment, it's been moved and seconded any kind of to amend as we were discussing any questions or comments about that? All right. All in favor. Harmon Zuckerman, Any opposed. Harmon Zuckerman , Okay, great. Thank you. It passes seven zero unanimously. So the 7.03 is approval of the 2020 2021 assessment plan.

David Ensign, Okay 7.03 I moved that the Board of Education approve the assessment plan as presented

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments about the 2020-21 assessment plan? Okay, all in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, passed unanimously. 7.04, the professional development plan for the 2020-2021 school year. Gary, you're on

mute. 7.04, I move that the board approve the district professional development plan for 2020-2021 school years as seen.

So second.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions about the professional development plan for the 2020-21 school year?

So I guess my only question is, not knowing what the school year is going to look like next year, I would expect that this could be subject to change if we... whether kids are in school or out of school. I mean, I would think that there's an opportunity to move forward or consolidate some professional development depending on what the actual school year looks like. I guess that's a question as much as a statement, but.

Yeah. So we be presenting the plan as if we were in school, but there would be, I mean, but if we were going to have a regular school year, but it's a, there's definitely, we can adjust this based off our need and need to adjust it. So yes, this is not set in stone, but we just needed to make sure that as policy, we always need to make sure that the board sees our year long plan. Um, but definitely know that we would have to make some adjustments potentially to it if needed.

Any other questions about the professional development plan for next school year? Harmon Zuckerman, Okay, all in favor.

Aye. Harmon

Zuckerman. Opposed Harmon Zuckerman Thank you. It passes unanimously 70 alright 7.05 is approval of the literacy year to self study

Harmon Zuckerman 7.05 I move that the Board of Education approves the literacy review goals and financials as outlined in the report.

Second,

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions about the literacy self study for year two? Okay, all in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, passes unanimously 7-0. Okay, moving on 7.06 Fine Arts Self Study for year two.

7.06 I move that the Board of Education approve the Fine Arts Review Goals and Financials Act outlined in the report.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions about the Fine Arts Self-Study for year two? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, pass is unanimously 7-0. I need to recuse myself from this next one, which means I'm actually gonna leave the meeting and somebody tell me when I can come back.

Is he gone? Yeah, he's gone. Okay. We need to approve the part-time temporary employment, which is 7.07. So can I get a motion for that please, Gary?

7.07, I move that the Board of Education approve the part-time temporary employment report as submitted.

Second.

Great, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

No.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. Bye. Great motion passes.

I texted him.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so we're moving on to the consent agenda.

8.01 I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda.

Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded, the consent agenda. Any comments or questions about the consent agenda? All righty, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. Passage unanimously seven zero. Um, I do want to just note there were two note donations in there. So thank you to Hewitt Packard enterprise company for the Aruba education connectivity bundles that they provided at no cost. And then also thank you to the Natalie Gail Melman foundation, which made a thousand dollar donation for CHS athletics. Um, Okay, so we're moving on to the financials, 9.01.

Actually, we have one more thing, 8.12 there, Joe.

Oh, but that's part of the-

Oh, no, I'm sorry. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. No,

you're good.

Mess here.

Yep, no problem. So the financials, nine point one.

This is, we've been going a long time. Can I just point out, you know, four hours?

We have been going a long times.

Harmon Zuckerman, Okay 9.1 I moved that the Board of Education approved payment of current expenditures and investments for the May for May 2020 as submitted. Sarah Silver, Second,

Harmon Zuckerman.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded any questions about the may financials. Harmon Zuckerman , Alrighty, all in favor.

Sarah Silver, Aye. Harmon Zuckermann,

Aye. HarmonZuckerman, Any opposed. Harmon Zuckerma, All right. Passes unanimously 7-0. Thank you. So we're moving on to board communication. Does anybody have any board communication? Go ahead, Stacy.

This is quick, but as you might already know, the Center of Clayton and Shaw Park Pool are expected to be opening July 1st. You'll have to make reservations at the pool and... you can see their sites for more information.

Awesome. Thank you. Which is just next week.

Go

ahead,

Adam. I just wanted to say that for the process, just to let you all know, July 1st is the application deadline for the next student representative. And then we'll be doing interviews the week following. And so I'll let you all know once we've gathered all the applications and we can work on the process of distributing those and getting your input and the interviews. And those will be on Zoom calls pretty much at the discretion of the applicants and what time works best for them. Again, thank you. I've learned so much this year. You're all the best. Thanks.

Awesome. Thank you, Adam. Any other board comments?

Joe, I just had one thing. This isn't really a report. It's more of a question from me. I've just been kind of monitoring and hearing about what's happening with special school district. And I think we all got some emails about that. I don't know what there is to really talk about it or plan for, but I guess I just wanted to hear from Sean as far as if um, their impasse with the union, um, were to continue how that would affect us or how we would work around that. Or I'm not really sure what that would look like in terms of what would happen, but just looking for any kind of guidance there.

So, um, I don't have a lot of guidance right now because we don't know exactly what's going to happen with that. Um, so we have not, um, What I will say is that if something does happen, we will have to figure something out. But I don't have any more guidance right now yet on that, to be quite honest with you.

So I'm assuming it's a situation where there, we could be in a situation where we would have school opening and if special school district was not, didn't have an agreement in place with their teachers and we would have to work around that for, you know, Yeah, that would create some adjustments for us, right? To add one more piece of unknown to the puzzle, right?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't have that information for you.

Yeah, I don't know that there's a specific answer. I just assumed that it's something to be keeping in mind.

Gotcha. Any other board reports or comments? I will say you guys should have seen, I don't know if you all filled out the doodle poll, but this is our last meeting of the school year. But we had talked about getting together at the end of July or the beginning of August as our kind of a first almost orientation meeting of the next school year. So if you haven't filled that out, please do. Harmon Zuckerman, All right. Do we appreciate everybody. This was a long meeting, given that we started executive session at 530 but Harmon Zuckerman , I appreciate it. Is there a motion to adjourn.

Harmon Zuckerman. Good. Harmon

Zuckermann, For me.

Harmon Zuckering, A good second. All right. All in favor. Harmon Zuckerma, Anybody opposed. No, it passes. All right. Excellent. Thank you, y'all. Take care. See you guys. Thank you.

Bye.

It's not important. It is. It's not. You're still on, Kim and Amy. Oh, sorry.

I'm just saying people can hear you.