February 24, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, we're

live. Great. All right. Welcome, everybody. Adequate notice has been given. And as always, we are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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. All right. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Sean to start with recognizing our own.

Thank you, Joe. Good evening, everyone. Tonight we have two recognitions and we're going to be starting with some student recognition. And these are students who have been serving on our All In Coalition. And as you remember, our All In Coalition is our coalition that was formed many years ago when we were very fortunate to have a grant, to have a position, a full-time position in place to lead the All In Coalition. We had Kim Schrone, I think, a little while ago to learn a little bit more about the All In Coalition and she's here to celebrate the students who are giving a lot of voice to this work. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Kim Schironi and she is gonna talk a little bit about how the students have impacted the work of the All In Coalition. Kim, can you see us? You wanna go ahead and tell us a little bit about the All In Coalition and who we have here tonight to recognize the students. We're not able to hear you. Are you able to hear her? No. So how about this, Kim? Why don't we do this? Why don't we have the students who are here tonight to introduce themselves so that way we can see who is part of this group. And so, Zoe, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you? Hi,

I'm Zoe Hall. I'm a sophomore and I really enjoy being part of All In Coalition and I'm following my sister's footsteps.

Thank you, Zoe. Nicholas? Hi, my name is Nicholas and I'm a freshman at CHS. And I'm also really enjoying being a student rep and I'm really excited to help out in the future.

Gabriel?

Hi, I'm Gabriel Telsky. I'm a sixth grader at Whiteown. And I think on completion is very fun and something very different than what I've done in the past.

Raphael?

Hello, I'm Rafael Rodriguez. I'm a seventh grade at Y-Down, and I'm very happy to be part of y'all in coalition.

And Sean, I can jump in while Kim is continuing to work on her audio. We had a couple other student representatives. We have Kira Hoisington, Sydney Helwig, Camille Matlock, who are also part of the All-In student representatives. And we wanted to recognize these students tonight because not only are they doing a fantastic job in advancing the work of the All-in Clayton Coalition, but they recently have been stepping into some leadership roles in our community. And recently, they were able to lead a training in prevention education with OASIS members who have mild developmental disabilities. And so it's been really cool to see our all-in Clayton student representatives try new things in our community to further the mission of the organization, in addition to all the amazing things that they planned for Red Ribbon Week. And I don't know how many people watching have actually had a chance to participate in one of our all-in Clayton Coalition meetings, but you will quickly find out that our students have brought tremendous energy and new thinking and creative ideas to the coalition's work. And even though they just did this training with Oasis members, they have a couple other events that they are contributing to in this community and are just bringing so much creativity to really help us reach the youth in our community to prevent substance abuse. Kim, I don't know if you wanna try to jump in. I think your audio is working now. I'm not sure if I may have accidentally left something out

No, you did a great job, Robin. Thank you. Okay. Can you all hear me? Okay, good. Sorry about that. Yeah, like Dr. Wien said, our student representatives really have just breathed a new life into the coalition. They have been so dedicated this year, which is really impressive, especially considering that this year has just been so challenging for everyone, especially our students. And I remember at one of our first meetings, we were thinking about planning for Red Ribbon Week. And at that point, um both the high school and the middle school was still virtual and I you know just remember throwing it out there to them like do you guys want to plan anything even though schools are you know school is still virtual and they were like yes absolutely we want to and they implemented some different activities that were completely student-led so you know in a year when it would be understandable if they didn't have the motivation or the time to be able to dedicate they really have just gone above and beyond. And we hope that we can keep them for next year and many years after that. And they are going to help significantly with recruiting for this year and hopefully bringing more students on board next year. So we're just so proud of them and are just really looking forward to the future.

Thank you. students i didn't know if you had anything that you wanted to share in terms of what it meant means to you and i don't know if you have anything to contribute that you wanted to add to this about your participation on the all-in coalition no

pressure I'm just really happy I was able to be a part of this coalition. And I'm just really, you know, as I said before, really excited to do everything that comes in the future, especially when we're out of this pandemic. And of all the things I've done so far, I'm really happy and I've really been enjoying it.

Thanks, Nicholas.

Yeah, I have to agree with Nicholas. I was very surprised how much we actually got accomplished in this virtual realm. So I'm very excited to see what's going to happen in the future.

Thanks, Zoe. So if we don't have anything else, I'm going to again say thank you. And on behalf of the administration, the Board of Education, we are so grateful for your voice in the Olin Coalition. And we just also just appreciate you just being such great leaders and taking initiative to think about how you can make change. So thank you. We also have some really important people that we wanna recognize who support the district in so many ways that often goes unseen in terms of how they support. They're kind of unsung heroes in our district and that's our social workers. And so I'm gonna turn it over back to Robyn Wiens and she's gonna talk a little bit about our recognition of social workers.

Thanks, Zoe. So if we don't have anything else, I'm going to again say thank you. And on behalf of the administration, the Board of Education, we are so grateful for your voice in the Olin Coalition. And we just also just appreciate you just being such great leaders and taking initiative to think about how you can make change. So thank you. We also have some really important people that we wanna recognize who support the district in so many ways that often goes unseen in terms of how they support. They're kind of unsung heroes in our district and that's our social workers. And so I'm gonna turn it over back to Robin Wiens and she's gonna talk a little bit about our recognition of social workers.

All right. Well, good evening, everyone. Tonight I have the privilege of recognizing our outstanding social work department. I'd like to start by recognizing Dr. Sheila Powell Walker and Katie Burkhardt in honor of National School Social Worker Week. which is coming up on March 7th and celebrated through March 13th. This year's theme is Beacon of Hope, and in their role our school social workers are able to light the way emphasizing the whole child, collaborating with other professionals, linking students and families with needed services and advocating for the profession. So Dr. Paul Walker and Ms. Burkhardt, I just wanted to thank you for being beacons of hope to our students and their families. You've really kept us all grounded and focused on the hierarchy of school needs that all of our children face each day, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. From every phone call, email, student check-in, bag of food or toiletries that you've packed, gift cards you've gone to pick up and distribute, and then a few more phone calls, a few more emails, and a few more student check-ins, and leading professional development in our district. Your efforts to help us become a more trauma-informed learning community are truly valued, and I'm so thankful for everything you do. I also wanted to thank you for hosting Catherine Ingersoll, who's our social work practicum student. We are so grateful for Catherine's time and energy as we support her in developing her professional expertise. And then lastly, I wanted to recognize the important contributions of Abby Gutman, our SSD social worker. Abby has a very unique role in supporting students across all of our buildings. And I wanted to thank her for all the ways she helps our students thrive particularly in the face of the social emotional challenges of learning remotely and in person. Abby joined our team this year, and she's brought hopeful energy and creativity to the group and to our students. And so, Abby, we really appreciate your collaboration and new thinking here in the School District of Clayton. So again, thank you to all of our social workers for the amazing work you do with our students and with our staff every day. We wouldn't be here without you, and I'm very honored to be able to work alongside you.

Thank you, Robin. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Much appreciated. Thank

you, everyone.

Thank you all. And I just want to say on behalf of the board, thank you to each of you too. We appreciate it. And also on behalf of the Joe, do you have

another recognition that you want to recognize?

I do. You know, we have like a snap 2.03 that's a recognition. It does happen to be Stacy Siwak's birthday and we rarely happen to have a birthday on a board meeting. And so I just did really want to recognize Stacey for her birthday. So happy birthday, Stacey, on behalf of the board. I would sing to you, but I don't know that that would be good to be recorded. So happy, happy birthday to Stacey.

I do. You know, we have like a snap 2.03 that's a recognition. It does happen to be Stacy Seawalk's birthday and we rarely happen to have a birthday on a board meeting. And so I just did really want to recognize Stacey for her birthday. So happy birthday, Stacey, on behalf of the board. I would sing to you, but I don't know that that would be good to be recorded. So happy, happy birthday to Stacey.

Thank you. I'm happy to spend it with you all. Thank you. Joe, go ahead and sing.

No, no, we can't afford to have time. We can't do that. Yeah, I'm going to spare you and we'll move on. It wasn't on the agenda. Yeah, right. We'll move on to superintendent communication.

And I was going to just let our social workers know, you can go ahead and log off so you can go ahead. And enjoy the rest of your evening. Really great.

Thank you again for the recognition. Have a good evening.

Thanks guys.

All

right, Sean. Superintendent communication.

Okay. Okay, so tonight I wanted to just give us some updates about our fourth quarter changes and some vibes behind those changes. Want to also just let you know about some of the work, you know, just continuing to monitor our data within the district around COVID-19. Talk a little bit about ways that we've been working to recognize our peers within the district. I want to give a vaccine update and then also ways that we are creating new memories for students as this is, we're nearing the end of the school year and there's lots of traditions that we have at the end of the year. So I want to talk a little bit about that. And then I'm going to then set the stage for our conversation a little bit later around legislation. So I just wanted to point out our dashboard again. And as we keep coming back to our dashboard, and I share this every time we have a board meeting, and this is on our website. And I want to share it because it's important to know that the percentages are very, very low in our schools and in terms of transmission. And we have been able to implement risk mitigation measures that have been very successful. And we know that we've learned more about the risk mitigation measures as we've looked at other school districts and we've done some more research. And so that has helped inform directions how we've moved forward for the fourth quarter. I will say that we've had an increase of some quarantines this past week. And again, I just want to remind the board that A quarantine is actually part of the risk mitigation measure. So if we do find out about a positive case, those quarantines are the ability to keep children safe and staff safe. And what's been fortunate is that we've had very few transmissions from when we found out about other cases after we've done quarantines in the past. Some things I wanted to share about the fourth quarter changes. Last week, we let the community know that we are going to be extending our time for instruction at Y-Down and doing that right after spring break at the start of the fourth quarter. The teachers and some of the leadership team at Y-Down has been really creative in creating a new schedule for Y-Down so that way we can be responsive to the students' needs and thinking about how we can implement new structures at Wydown to keep students safe, minimizing transitions within the schools. So that's why we do have a new block schedule. We are currently collecting data from both elementary and middle school around any families that are wanting to change their status for the fourth quarter. So students that are in learning at home, they have the option of moving back to school and vice versa. You know, one of the whys that we're really looking at making some of these changes for the fourth quarter are, one, we should always look at ways to maximize student learning if possible and the safest way possible. And so that's one of the reasons we're doing that. The other thing is, is that we've seen data within our schools that our risk mitigation measures are working well. So it gives us an opportunity to think differently about the fourth quarter. And then the other thing, too, is changes that we're making at the fourth quarter are, again, another step that we're going to be taking towards what school is going to look like in the fall. So at this point, we know the decision we made for Y-Down, but we're still working on determining what fourth quarter might look like for the high school and hope to get that information out soon for potential changes. I just want to also say that I know that there are varied views about some of the decisions, like why would we make changes for fourth quarter? And some people agree and some people disagree. And I think that one of the things that I would hope is that they that people have seen that we have really worked to make decisions that are keeping the safety of our students and staff at the forefront. And we wouldn't make decisions about changes unless we feel like we could do it in a safe way. So we're looking forward to some of those changes after the third quarter, excuse me, right after spring break. One of the things that we also heard from teachers is that the importance of making sure that they're seeing the great things that we're doing in our schools every day. I am super proud of our staff for what they've done. And a lot of people don't know that from the very first day of school this year, we have had teachers working directly with students even when we were in remote learning. We looked at students who had the greatest need and provided supports. So our teachers have gone above and beyond for our students this year and we really truly appreciate them. And we implemented a new program where we have peer recognitions We can't see everything that's happening within our schools. And so we have engaged our staff to say, if you see something happening that's really great, let us know. And what we've been doing is bringing a film crew in and we've been taking turns. I've been doing this, central office administrators have been doing, and we surprise the staff member in a very safe way with all of our risk mitigation measures. And we then recognize them and we share the write-up that has been written about them And we also are giving them a handy dandy, really cool thermos. but it's a small way for us to recognize our staff. And then we share that video with the rest of the staff in the district and it's gone over really well. And I share that with you is because it is important that we recognize our staff because they have done so much in terms of adjusting similar to what our students and families have done, but they have been doing an incredible job and that's why we implemented those recognitions. In terms of a vaccine update, I will say that I really wish I could be sharing some really detailed information about vaccines, but I don't have any new information. And I will say as the leader of the school district, I'm disappointed about being able to say that. And a lot of people think that that's like local in terms of what we can do as a district. I know that our nurse coordinator has been working to try to find ways to get our staff vaccinated. We've encouraged people to go and get vaccinated if they had the opportunity. But this isn't unique to Clayton. We don't have the information. In fact, all the superintendents wrote a collective letter to our governor that we're sending. Actually, we sent it today. And saying that we expect that some things have to change and we need the vaccines for our educators. We're doing, we have expectations to be an in-person learning. We have expectations to have our students in school. And so we'd expect that we'd be supported by vaccines. And the vaccines aren't an end-all be-all resolution to this. It's another risk mitigation measure But we are really, I wish I could share more information with you. But tomorrow, we're also going to be sharing, you know, with the media that we are disappointed about this. And we want to collectively with other districts to say that we really need to see some action around this. So I wish I could be saying I have an update around the vaccines, but I don't. In terms of creating memories, I met with some students last week who are planning some different things that we could do for the end of the year for a prom. And then when people think prom, it's not the prom that you think about. Your mental model, our students have been really creative in terms of applying our risk mitigation measures and to the context of what a prom could potentially look like. Our high school is also creating a list of things that they're going to do for our seniors to celebrate them throughout the rest of this year. I'm gonna be sending that out, but there are some surprises too. So there's some things that we're not gonna be sharing, but we have decided to rent the PowerPlex for our graduation because we were not sure if we were going to be able to have our graduation at the Chaffetz, so we just wanted to make sure we had a date set for our students so that it wasn't delayed. So I just wanted to make you aware of that. The other thing is at the elementaries and the middle school, we are thinking about different ways that we can have events that everyone loves like field day, thinking about how that could look different. How do we have field day for the students that are still virtual? How do we have our promotions for Y-Down and our fifth graders? And so those conversations are happening and we're getting all that information. We will get all that information out at some point soon. The other thing is I've been working each, again, I work each week with Dr. Patel around our transition plan for our new superintendent and last week we had the opportunity to go into schools. This is the first time that she has been able to see some of our schools And I purposely brought her first to Captain because I thought it would be interesting to walk into a school and she, of course, asked that question, where are the walls? So it's an interesting space. And so it was fun to go over there so she can see it and then also start meeting with staff. And so we're going to continue to have those transition meetings every week. And then I am going to turn over this to Caitlin, our student rep, and then I'll set the stage for our conversation around legislation.

Yeah, so good evening, everyone. I'll be starting off today's student report by talking once again about something that online school has taught us. So this is what I've mentioned a couple of times in the past, but students do appreciate the greater flexibility that teachers have, especially the greater chances for retakes during COVID-19. And especially if the grading system is moving towards something being more assessment focused, retakes would allow students to reflect on what they've learned more and also be less punitive. And then following up on the block schedule that I mentioned last board meeting, I've talked to some students about how the high school may be moving on a block schedule. And although there are long periods, the opinions that I've received from students are generally positive. And the biggest benefit that I've been hearing is that there's less homework to worry about from less classes every night. And in addition, because third quarter is coming to an end, a lot of the district and regional competitions that students are participating in are also closing out. So Science Olympiad Regionals is this weekend. Speech and Debate has MISHA districts next weekend and then NSDA districts the weekend after that. So I've been talking to students about their general experiences with virtual competitions and the things that they've learned from it. So obviously, students are looking forward to having in-person competitions again whenever that is safe. But they have had a common learning experience, which is that they've had to learn how to be adaptable, which helps them as competitors in general in future years. As for our own District Advisory Council, what we're talking about right now is how we can increase accessibility and knowledge around different mental health services and resources that are available at the school. And this is a recurring conversation that we've been having throughout the year and that we found time to highlight right now. And in addition, it is something that's being talked about in the building as GLOBE has covered mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic recently. And for some last additional events, a few students, Mariah Lotsoff, Maya Goldwasser, and Alexandra Hagemeister set up a CHS hygiene product drive. And that's at the front desk of CHS from now until March 18th. And as for testing, the SAT for juniors is coming up on March 3rd.

Thank you, Caitlin.

Thank you, Sean. And thank you, Caitlin. So I think we are moving on to our study item, which is the legislation impacting schools 5.01. And I think, Sean, you're going to start it out, right?

Yes. Okay. So last week we had, you know, I want to say thank you to the board members that had invited our legislators to the board meeting. Actually, it was two weeks ago. And I thought that was a really informative way for the community to learn a little bit more about legislation that is impacting the district. And it was great to hear firsthand from legislators. And one of the things that I learned picked up from that conversation was that our legislators need to have opportunities to talk to elected board members and also administrators within districts, because they're also learning about the district. They don't often know every in and out of education. And so it's important for them to know that. So we have to have really strong relationships. And so that conversation was really important last week or last board meeting. And so we wanted to, what was interesting is that as part of an agenda item that we put on at the very beginning of the year was to talk about legislative advocacy. It just kind of fit perfectly with for this night. And so what we're going to do is it's gonna feel a little bit like a working session. We're gonna have some time for discussion, we're gonna have some to interact with one another in a different way in some breakout groups. And what we're gonna do is talk about what legislative advocacy looks like from the board perspective and from administrator perspective. We do think it's the responsibility of the board and the administration to understand what legislation is out there and how it could potentially impact our programming, our budgets, and just public education in general. We should, you know, there's questions around like what can we advocate for, what can't we advocate for. And board members and administration can't advocate for elected officials. We can't advocate for ballot initiatives such as A tax levy or a bond issue, but we can advocate for legislation around that that could potentially impact the district and We need, there is a difference. It's important for us to make sure that we look at our roles as informing others so that way people can be informed about their own decisions. And so we should talk about legislation. We should be thinking about how do we inform our legislators about what's happening within our schools? What we're going to do tonight is that we created kind of a worksheet almost, and we're gonna go into breakout rooms. And the breakout rooms are gonna have board members and administrators from the central office. And this isn't the administrators at central office leading the conversation. This is supposed to be a flowing conversation. I am gonna ask that the administrators use the Google Doc that we created to take notes And we have a series of questions that we're gonna be asking you to be thinking about. Like what does legislative advocacy look like? What are some innovations that we might be thinking about? The first thing that you're gonna do is when you get into that breakout group, is that there's a link to an article from the American Association, excuse me, the Association of School Boards in Iowa, I think it is. And then there's just some ideas about what they have done to advocate around legislation. And so I'm going to ask. It's a really quick article. You take a few minutes to read that, and then we can start looking at those questions. And we're going to spend about 25 minutes in the breakout group. And then once we get back, what I'm going to ask you to do is think about if you had to write a tweet for one thing that we need to be thinking about, what would that be? And so that's going to be our way of sharing out. But we will have all of those notes that are created from the small group. We will share that. And that's a shared document. So everyone will get copies of that. And then this will be a way for us to be thinking in the future how we can work as an administration and as a board around legislative advocacy. So I wanted to stop there and see if anyone had any questions before we got into this work. Okay, now the real thing. challenges. I'm going to, we have breakout rooms and I'm going to see if I can get you into your breakout rooms.

Actually, Sean,

I've got that already. You do. Okay. So you're going to be able to push them out into the breakout rooms. I'm going Amy, have you been invited to go into a breakout room?

Oh, sorry. Okay. Sean, sorry.

Yeah, it's okay.

I've got three computer screens, so it got buried in one of my other screens for some reason. But I think I have it now.

OK. So Sean, I'm going to screen the graphic and then join the other breakout room. OK.

And will I have the ability to join them, jump in or not?

Good. If not, text me and

we'll work through it.

Is everybody back?

I only see you at this point. There we go. It's

like you're

missing one group. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, we still have one group working it looks like. They have four seconds so they'll be back whether they want to come or not. The gong show?

Yep. All righty. So welcome back, everybody. We are going to have each group share their tweet. And so maybe what we'll do is go in reverse order. So does somebody from group three wish to share their tweet for us?

I am the reporter for group three. So our tweet was staying on top of the legislative process by involving our community to benefit our students. Hashtag advocate, hashtag a place to grow, hashtag head and heart.

Awesome. Thank you. How about group two? Does somebody from group two want to share the tweet, their tweet?

Sure. From immigrant parents to students, let's mobilize many voices to advocate for our students before things become laws.

Awesome. Thank you. And then from group one, does somebody want to share from group one the tweet?

All right, I think that's me. Our tweet is your voice does matter for our students. Hashtag get involved. Hashtag local control. Hashtag support our students. Hashta too many hashtags. Just kidding about

that. Thank you. So since this is a study item, I do want to just go around and also see if if if board members have any comments or kind of questions about about this. So I'm going to start with you, Stacy. Any comments, questions about kind of this topic.

Yeah, I brought this up in the breakout room too, but I just had after our last meeting with the legislators, I had a couple of ideas of how we can move forward. in educating the community and being more proactive and active in this process. And one was the thought to create a board legislative advisory committee, legislative advocacy committee like we have a financial advisory committee I thought involving the community would be a great way for us to get the word out to the community and get more help. even to talk to legislators, go to Jeff City, post things on social media, whatever it might be. I thought it would be a great way to involve community members. And I also think that we probably have high school students who would be really passionate about this work and are really interested in advocacy and politics. And whether it's through an actual like government class or it's a club of kids that are interested in this, I think involving our students would actually be a great way also to advocate. So I just think as many community members and students or parents, whatever it is to help us in this work will just help the whole community become more educated and help us as a school district to advocate for what we want.

Great, thank you. David, any comments or questions?

Kind of in this continuing on with Stacy's train of thought, You know, legislation, you know, around schools and things like that, I don't think really hit the radar for a lot of folks in the community. And the Board of Education is in a unique position to be able to pull together the people to help kind of educate the community. I mean, it's not that they can't track this down on their own, but it's a local group of people that they voted for that they connect with day to day. And, you know, we could kind of bring the message closer to home. I think it can be difficult because, you know, if you're not paying attention to it, you would never know. And just as an example, you know, There's things that the community, I think, would probably be more inclined to tune in from if it's being driven by the Board of Education. But I do think it's important that we provide a balanced perspective for people rather than a biased perspective. And I only say that because, you know, I'm having dialogues with folks around charter schools and I'm very, very proud to say I'm not a supporter of charter programs. So, but I think, you know, if you've not done, you know, the hours of reading to see what the differences are and where the failures are and where the successes are. It's easy to, it's easy to, you know, just kind of pick the, the, the brightest article that you find or the, you know, the group that's got the most budget money in marketing to publish and you don't have a rounded perspective. So I think it's important, I guess, to say in Stacy's point, I think we have an obligation. I would take it even further. I think we have obligation to help educate the community on legislation that's going to impact Clayton and do it in a, in a 360 degree perspective. So.

Thank you, David. Amy, comments or questions?

Oh, yeah, I'll just say that I like this exercise tonight and I wonder what we can kind of do to keep this moving and not let it, I don't want, I hope that, you know, it doesn't fall through the cracks that we could kind of revisit this sooner rather than later and come up with some concrete ways that we can become more involved and keep the ball moving.

Thank you. Kim, any comments or questions?

Yeah, just to piggyback on what everybody said. I mean, we actually came up with some ways that I think we can make sure that this discussion doesn't die. Some practical ways through vehicles we're already using now, like the globe, you know, to get students involved. Also the quarterly newsletters that come out for the district to all of the residents in the district, uh, that, you know, has a kind of a legislative update or bent to it. Um, help me out, Jason and Caitlin. I know there were a couple other things we talked about too, PTO council, um, and, uh, you know, the board informing the PTO. So, You know, there are some very practical ways that we can get involved right now using vehicles that we already have in order to help increase the awareness of legislation within the community. So.

Thank you. Caitlin, any comments or questions?

Yeah, just a comment on students. I think Miss Seawalk brings up a really good point about making sure that students are also getting involved in this. I talked about this a little bit in my breakout room, but students are very involved in national issues. So I think it would also be great for students to take the opportunity and step up for these more local issues that are directly affecting them. In addition, the school board is intended to represent students. I think also students can start to begin to represent themselves and advocate for themselves for these issues that are affecting their education and affecting their schools. Um, and different ways that that can be done is, um, like Ms. Hearst mentioned through the globe having, um, like maybe a regular article that, um, talks about legislation. Um, and then to Ms. Siwak's point, then, uh, perhaps seeing, um, the district advisory council, uh, can get a group of students together that are passionate about advocating for this local legislation.

Great. Thank you, Jason comments or questions?

Yeah, I think that what everyone's, I echo what everyone said so far, those sentiments. I also want to say though, you know, it's always, I'm sure Milena and Robin would get kind of frustrated sometimes. I'm always trying to push back on a policy, or we're trying, not me, but we are trying to as a group, trying to push back, on a policy that we don't like after we read it, but it's too late, it's already a policy. And so it'd be better if we can get in front of these issues by having more information about it, by staying on top of it. So this exercise is actually a really good exercise and it really helps us do more than blocking and tackling at the point as opposed to behind the line, so.

Great, thank you. Gary, comments or questions?

Thanks, Joe. I mean, I think you all know that this is a group and a topic that I've been pretty enthusiastically talking about for a while. I feel like it's been the legislative advocacy effort has been one of the most rewarding parts of being on the Board of Ed for me. And so you all have had to hear me talk about that ad nauseum. But I think it's really... I love that we're taking a focus and an effort to really think about what our role is. I thought the article that we read with some of the examples of what districts were doing to have these events, these dinners and forums and stuff was was inspiring, but I also don't think it's far off from where we could be. When we've hosted legislative advocacy meetings on early Friday mornings in our district, we've had a room full of high school students that come and a room full of legislators and parents and other district officials and board members. So I'm inspired by that and just thinking a lot about how we can we can push that forward. So I appreciate that this is a topic that we spent some time really thinking thoughtfully about and for all of you to be a part of it. I'm just really, really happy to do that tonight.

Joe, can I add something?

Yeah, please do, Sean.

Yeah, thank you, Darren. Please do, Sean.

I think just to echo what Gary was saying about thinking about what we've done in the past, I think the one thing that also we could be thinking about is because of COVID, we haven't been able to engage our board PLC group, which is that collective that goes across districts and having school board members come together. And we started that a few years ago here in Clayton. And I think about like maybe we should start thinking about that again too.

Yeah, thanks, Sean. And I, wow, this, I would, I think I could echo literally everything everybody said. I mean, wonderful comments, but I think the idea of, you know, student and balance and engaging the community and thinking it from a regional perspective are all very important. So I would just say, I think that this was a, this was a great discussion. So I appreciate it. So we are going to move on to a policy study which is 6.01 it's the first reading of policy gcl which is professional staff development and tony i think it's yours

Good evening everyone. So we have policy GCL, which is professional staff development. This is the first read of the policy that I'm presenting tonight and the way that the policy is written, there have been a few revisions. Essentially what you'll see are some highlighted changes in the policy, which is renaming the now outdated standards to the new Missouri leader standards. Additionally, it includes verbiage to the externship opportunities. And if you recall, that's what we discussed earlier this year with policy GCBA where we were having that count toward hours in the teacher salary schedule for compensation in accordance with House Bill 604. Policy GCL also allows the district to recognize those hours of the approved externship experiences to count toward professional learning hours for maintaining certification. It also ensures that the district-offered training that we do annually with dyslexia will count for up to two hours for professional development. So we are comfortable with the wording, the way it's presented.

Great. Thank you, Tony. Gary, any comments or questions about this

one? No, I don't have anything. Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you. Jason, any comments or question about this one?

No, not at this time.

Thank you. Caitlin, any comments or questions about this one?

No.

Thank you. Kim, comments or questions? Okay, thank you. Amy, any comments or question? Nope. Okay, thank you David. Any comments or questions? No. Thank You. Stacy, any comments or

Just quickly, I think, Tony, you just clarified this for me, though, but the policy reads it uses the word offers like offers to our that we would offer two hours of dyslexia training. But we do require that. Correct.

We have been doing that annually, I think, for the last two years, I believe.

OK. Or

more. Yeah.

And it is required.

Thanks. And I don't have any comments or questions. So thank you, Tony. Okay. So we are going to move on to our consent agenda. So Gary, do we have a motion for the consent

agenda? Yes, we do. I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda.

Second.

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

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, it passes unanimously. Thank you. So we're moving to the financials, 8.01, the January 2021 financials. Do we have a motion, Gary?

8.01, I move that the Board of Education approve payment of current expenditures and investments for January 2021 as submitted.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions about the January 2021 financials? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, it passes unanimously. So we're moving on to public comment. Chris and Sean, do we have any public comment?

Yeah, we have one public comment. Public comment is from Frank Hackman. And Frank writes, good evening. Some of you may have seen the obituary for Blair Balk in the Sunday, February 14th post-dispatch. I had the pleasure of serving with Blair on the Clayton School Board from a number of years as our terms overlapped quite a bit. I served from 1976 until 1986 and Blair served from 1979 until 1988. During that time period, the board made a number of significant decisions that maintained and continued the district's well deserved reputation for educational excellence. Examples included the voluntary desegregation settlement and its initial implementation, a major bond issue, and significant changes to the district to cope with the then declining enrollment numbers while still maintaining education excellence with a focus on the individual students and fiscal responsibility. During all the discussions about these matters, and there were many, many such discussions, Blair always maintained his very calm, level-headed, thoughtful perspective of focusing on what was in the best long-term, not short-term, interests of the students in the district and the district itself. His contributions to good decision-making by the board were very significant. In addition to these qualities, Blair was a delightful person to visit with on a broad variety of topics. He was my friend and he shall be missed. Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. So we are now moving on to board communication. Does anybody have anything updates for board communication? Stacey, go ahead.

Um, thanks. So, um, we had another legislative advocacy meeting, um, which Gary and David and I, and Sean all attended. And, um, as David brought up earlier, um, there's a house bill probably being voted on tomorrow and the Senate bill being debated on the floor right now. So read your, um, MSBA emails for more information on that. And also last Friday, I attended, um, the PAC ed steering committee meeting. and had the opportunity to meet Shalonda Williams, who's the practicum student from the Brown School of Social Work. So that was great. They reviewed a couple things. One was that they had put out a thought exchange to parents of students with IEPs and learning, learning differences and many of the comments, a large majority of the comments said that these remote learning days are not as effective for IEP kids because they work with so many different providers during the day and it's really hard for them to juggle. Um, but one other thing we discussed is that with wide on returning to extended days, they, um, made it very clear. They were happy that, um, special school district staff has been part of the planning and been able to provide input into what those days will look like for IEP kids. So they were thankful to have that voice in the planning. That's it.

Great. Thank you. Um, any other board communications?

So, Joe, just a quick comment. One, on our meeting tonight, I just want to say that I really appreciate having students involved. And it's a little harder in the Zoom environment, but I think it's just great to have them involved and to maintain that connection. And then I would be really remiss if I didn't specifically and personally recognize the upcoming school social worker week, you know, being married to a former school social worker. I really appreciate that we have those people in our district and the impact that they've made. So thanks for having them here tonight too. And it's great to hear from them.

Thanks, Gary. Any other board communication? Okay. So just a quick one, just a reminder to everybody that we, our next board meeting because of spring break and because we changed it around isn't until March the 31st, right? So we will have a little bit of a, because we changed kind of, we flip flopped a March 10th and March 31st. It would have been March 10th, but the next board meeting again is March 31st, which I'm sure you all know, but just a reminder.

And I think it'd be important to public to know is that instead of that meeting, we are having a board financial advisory meeting which includes community members. So we are gonna have that, which it's gonna be a great conversation.

Yep, thank you, yep. Okay, do we have a motion to adjourn?

I move that the Board of Education adjourn.

Second. Second.

Said the birthday girl.

Happy birthday, Stacey.

Thank you. All in favor of adjourning? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we are adjourned. Happy birthday, Stacy.

Thank you.