March 30, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

We good? Okay. Welcome, everybody. Adequate notice has been given. I hope everybody had a great spring break, and it's good to see everybody back at the board table. I think we are going to begin today with the Pledge of Allegiance. I almost forgot. Okay, we're going to start with recognizing our own and school social worker week. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Weems.

Good evening, everyone. Tonight I have the privilege of recognizing our outstanding social workers, Dr. Sheila Pella Walker and Miss Katie Burkhardt, neither of whom were able to join us in person tonight. But I'd like to recognize them in honor of National School Social Worker Week, which falls annually during the first calendar week of March. This year's theme from the School Social Work Association of America is Time to Shine. In their role, school social workers shine brightly for their students, families, and school community, shining hope, understanding, and respect. So to Dr. Paul Walker and Ms. Burkhardt, I just want to thank you for shining brightly for our students, their families, and our staff. And you've really kept us all grounded on the hierarchy of school needs that our children face each day, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. From every phone call, meeting, email, student check-in, bag of food or toiletries that you've packed to gift cards you've picked up and distributed. And then a few more of those and maybe some porch visits and collecting data and more student check-ins and leading professional development in the district. Your efforts to help us become a more trauma-informed learning community are truly valued. So thank you for all you do. I also want to thank you for hosting Katherine Ingersoll, who is our social work practicum student. Katherine has become a meaningful part of our team under Katie and Sheila's guidance. And we are so grateful for Katherine's time and energy and contributions as we support her in developing her professional expertise. And lastly, I wanted to recognize the important contributions of Abby Gutman, our SSD social worker. Abby has a unique role in supporting students across all of our buildings. And I want to thank her for all the ways she has helped our students be successful, particularly in the face of social-emotional challenges that may have been exacerbated during the last two years. So Abby, we appreciate your collaboration and the new thinking that you've brought to our team. And we are so glad that you are with us. And so I just wanted to close in saying we are so grateful every day for all the contributions that our social workers bring to our families, to our students, and to our staff members here in Clayton. Thank you.

All right. Well, it's board recognition week. about

that i will take that one um so tonight it's a special evening for us typically there's a usually a national school board recognition week that happens early in march but because of our board meetings and how it was mapped out we're recognizing our amazing board here tonight over in the united states there are over 90 000 board members that serve over 13 000 school districts We are lucky to have seven individuals here that serve our students and our community every single day. I truly, board, when I was trying to think of what to say to you guys tonight, I was really stumbling for words. I can say thank you. I can say I appreciate you. We appreciate the support that you give us constantly. And it still is not enough. The schools have given a little bit something for all of you as just a token of appreciation to just to let you know how much we, it means to us that you serve and you volunteer your time. Don't get paid for this, but you give it your all. And I cannot thank you enough. I tried to put my own personal feelings into the card, and I wrote you each a note for that. But truly, as being a new superintendent in this district, you have no idea how much your support has meant to me. You have challenged me, you have pushed me, and I hope that we can continue to foster this relationship because it truly is a team of eight. that makes this and so i thank you for all of your support and then a special thanks to joe and steve because this is your last board meeting and for all the years that you have served joe you have been ever since i came here you you're available by phone email text you've coached me you've helped me through so many things and i really appreciate that Steve, you have been the person who always challenged me to think about things and how to make it better. And I thank you for that because you truly have made me a better person. So thank you to all of you for everything that you've done. We really appreciate it. And also we have a small video that we put together from other stakeholders to express our gratitude to each one of you. So Chris, if you could play that for us, please. Hello, Clayton family. This is Nisha Patel, your superintendent. I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize, thank and celebrate seven incredible individuals who work tirelessly to serve our school district. These seven individuals are our school board members. They volunteer their time to make sure that we are successful and that we have the best Clayton experience. I'd like to personally thank all of them for their continued support, dedication and time to our school district. As you know, March 6th through the 12th is School Board Recognition Week, which is celebrated across the nation. And so let's take a few moments to truly thank them and hear a few words of gratitude from our stakeholders.

As an employee of the district, as well as a parent, I have two kiddos in the district, one at the high school and one at Merrimack. I could just tell that every decision that they make is about the kids. They're always student-centered and staff-centered, and I just always feel appreciated. So I just thank them for their countless hours and the time and dedication that they put into the district.

I know that it's a lot of time and dedication and a lot of stress. There is a lot of behind the scenes work besides the formal meetings that are public, and it is a really difficult job to balance all that they have to do outside of this job. And it is absolutely remarkable that they're working really hard to do this.

I know that particularly in Clayton, I've been here 21 years and I've always felt that the board put kids first and has always been really supportive of the administrators and the teachers to make decisions in the best interest of kids. And obviously they have input and guidance but the fact that they treat us as professionals and experts in our field is very much appreciated and I know that's not the case in every district. For that, I'm very, very grateful and thank you for all that you do.

The willingness to listen. And I think that's a great thing about Clayton is accessibility. If a parent wants to talk to anybody on any level in the district, Their door is open. You can email them. There are no

barriers. I really appreciate the different perspectives that they all bring and their commitment to really making sure that they're representing all of the different perspectives that are in our community and really doing what's the most student-centered thing to support all of our children's success.

First and foremost, thank you. It's not an easy volunteer role by any stretch of the imagination. You see it today on TV, how many meetings are becoming a little strange and reckless. And you know that's the case everywhere. But it's also about difference of opinion. Difference of opinion on the board and how they deal with that in an interpersonal way is really a skill set that you have to say thank you for bringing that skill set to the board.

And with that, we thank each one of you for all of your service. So thank you.

Oh, well, thank you. And thank you to all the schools who put our goodies in our bags. We love it all and the beautiful artwork and the T-shirts and the cups. And it was all so thoughtful and we're so appreciative. I'll echo what Dr. Patel said in that I don't tell you guys enough, but I appreciate each and every one of you guys so much, all of your time and energy. It is remarkable, and thank you for all that you guys do. And especially to Joe and to Steve on their last meeting. You guys are awesome. Thank you. So now are we gonna go on to superintendent communications?

All right, thank you. So few things for the superintendent communications. First thing is, well it is spring, so spring is, well it's almost here, right? That's why I put that in quotations or in parentheses. It's almost here. Here it's gonna be like 47 degrees for a high tomorrow. So, hey, we're here. But hopefully everybody had a great spring break. You got to relax, rejuvenate, talk to a lot of students and staff members who shared some of their experiences over spring break. And from what I hear, it was a lot of resting and relaxing. So that's a good thing. So whenever we get to spring break, we're ready for fourth quarter and we always want to finish strong. And when we get to that point, we always start thinking about the summer and we start thinking of next year. And we also reflect on the past year. As we know, we've been navigating the pandemic the best we can. Typically during this communications or in my update, I always give a COVID update, but I'm not going to today because we're going to have a presentation about it later on. with our plan moving forward starting on Monday in terms of our mitigation factors. So we'll discuss that. Chris Tennill and Heather will be up here and presenting that. But one thing I did want to talk about is as we talk about spring break and we talk about fourth quarter, and I said we reflect on the school year, we've continued our focus on not only being great at a lot of things, but truly wanting to be transformational. That's been in our strategic plan. We've been giving updates to the board and the community about everything that we've been doing. Some of the things when you just reflect, right? I was sitting yesterday and I was thinking, okay, this year alone, what are some highlights and things we've done and accomplished? despite a pandemic, despite everyone saying this has been probably the worst year in the past three years. When you think about it, like when you look at our niche ratings, right? Our schools continue to be high performing. We noticed that all three of our elementary schools are in the top four elementary schools in the state. We were Blue Ribbon School, Wydown Middle School. We have an Emerson Award winning individual at Wydown Middle school as well. And then when you think of student engagement, our students are phenomenal and we have quite a few of them actually by the way here today which I love seeing. but they are succeeding in not only local, state, but national levels. We have 14 national merit students at the high school this year. When you look at GLOBE, the GLOBE is getting awards every time you turn around, they're getting another national award. So is the yearbook. And then you hear about chess, you hear about debate club, you hear about athletics activities. We had record number of students showing up at sporting events. That is amazing. In the middle of a pandemic too, right? They're cheering on each other. So we try to focus on not only engaging our students but empowering them. We have professional learning that we continue to do with all of our staff. And the professional learning was really about empowering our students and not only our students, but also our staff. We continue to focus even on little things in terms of, it's not really little, but when you think about construction in our building, right? Safety, security, our library at the high school, we're starting to begin renovations on that. We're hiring, right? When you think about that, we just hired a brand new principal for Glenridge Elementary School. We hired an assistant principal for the middle school, and now we're in the process of a new CFO. There's a lot of great things we've been doing. But all those great things are a part of doing small things really, really well. One of the things I personally enjoy doing is reading whenever I get a chance. And someone shared this book with me most recently and recommended it to me, and it's called Atomic Habits by James Clear. And in that book, it talks about your habits every single day. If you can just increase your output by 1% every single day, Your impact will be magnified over time. And in that book, it shared an example which I want to share with you guys because I was like, that is so true. Think about, I love to travel. So think about wanting to go from Los Angeles to New Jeffery Yorg City. So the plane is going to take off from LAX, headed towards New Jeffery Yorg City. Upon takeoff, if the pilot adjusts its heading, which is the direction that the plane's going to go, by 3.5 degrees south, your destination will now become Washington DC. So upon takeoff, you don't even notice the change, because it's just a matter of a few feet that the nose of the plane is changing. But when you magnify it across the United States, you're hundreds of miles later, hundreds of miles away from your original destination. So my point in sharing that is when we look at our profile of the graduate, the outcomes that we want from our students Yes, that is the goal. That is the outcomes. But the only way we're going to get there is if we continue to look at everything that we do and how do we make it better? How do we continue to tweak it? And it is messy. It is hard to be transformational. It is challenging and it'll push you. But I truly believe we are all in this together, and we're committed to continuing to be better. So I, for one, am excited for the fourth quarter, and I'm excited for next year and the years after that because we're going to continue to do that. So thank you for all your support as always. My Tana.

All right, thank you. So few things for the superintendent communications. First thing is, well it is spring, so spring is, well it's almost here, right? That's why I put that in quotations or in parentheses. It's almost here. Here it's gonna be like 47 degrees for a high tomorrow. So, hey, we're here. But hopefully everybody had a great spring break. You got to relax, rejuvenate, talk to a lot of students and staff members who shared some of their experiences over spring break. And from what I hear, it was a lot of resting and relaxing. So that's a good thing. So whenever we get to spring break, we're ready for fourth quarter and we always want to finish strong. And when we get to that point, we always start thinking about the summer and we start thinking of next year. And we also reflect on the past year. As we know, we've been navigating the pandemic the best we can. Typically during this communications or in my update, I always give a COVID update, but I'm not going to today because we're going to have a presentation about it later on. with our plan moving forward starting on Monday in terms of our mitigation factors. So we'll discuss that. Chris Tennell and Heather will be up here and presenting that. But one thing I did want to talk about is as we talk about spring break and we talk about fourth quarter, and I said we reflect on the school year, we've continued our focus on not only being great at a lot of things, but truly wanting to be transformational. That's been in our strategic plan. We've been giving updates to the board and the community about everything that we've been doing. Some of the things when you just reflect, right? I was sitting yesterday and I was thinking, okay, this year alone, what are some highlights and things we've done and accomplished? despite a pandemic, despite everyone saying this has been probably the worst year in the past three years. When you think about it, like when you look at our niche ratings, right? Our schools continue to be high performing. We noticed that all three of our elementary schools are in the top four elementary schools in the state. We were Blue Ribbon School, Wydown Middle School. We have an Emerson Award winning individual at Wydown Middle school as well. And then when you think of student engagement, our students are phenomenal and we have quite a few of them actually by the way here today which I love seeing. but they are succeeding in not only local, state, but national levels. We have 14 national merit students at the high school this year. When you look at GLOBE, the GLOBE is getting awards every time you turn around, they're getting another national award. So is the yearbook. And then you hear about chess, you hear about debate club, you hear about athletics activities. We had record number of students showing up at sporting events. That is amazing. In the middle of a pandemic too, right? They're cheering on each other. So we try to focus on not only engaging our students but empowering them. We have professional learning that we continue to do with all of our staff. And the professional learning was really about empowering our students and not only our students, but also our staff. We continue to focus even on little things in terms of, it's not really little, but when you think about construction in our building, right? Safety, security, our library at the high school, we're starting to begin renovations on that. We're hiring, right? When you think about that, we just hired a brand new principal for Glenridge Elementary School. We hired an assistant principal for the middle school, and now we're in the process of a new CFO. There's a lot of great things we've been doing. But all those great things are a part of doing small things really, really well. One of the things I personally enjoy doing is reading whenever I get a chance. And someone shared this book with me most recently and recommended it to me, and it's called Atomic Habits by James Clear. And in that book, it talks about your habits every single day. If you can just increase your output by 1% every single day, Your impact will be magnified over time. And in that book, it shared an example which I want to share with you guys because I was like, that is so true. Think about, I love to travel. So think about wanting to go from Los Angeles to New York City. So the plane is going to take off from LAX, headed towards New York City. Upon takeoff, if the pilot adjusts its heading, which is the direction that the plane's going to go, by 3.5 degrees south, your destination will now become Washington DC. So upon takeoff, you don't even notice the change, because it's just a matter of a few feet that the nose of the plane is changing. But when you magnify it across the United States, you're hundreds of miles later, hundreds of miles away from your original destination. So my point in sharing that is when we look at our profile of the graduate, the outcomes that we want from our students Yes, that is the goal. That is the outcomes. But the only way we're going to get there is if we continue to look at everything that we do and how do we make it better? How do we continue to tweak it? And it is messy. It is hard to be transformational. It is challenging and it'll push you. But I truly believe we are all in this together, and we're committed to continuing to be better. So I, for one, am excited for the fourth quarter, and I'm excited for next year and the years after that because we're going to continue to do that. So thank you for all your support as always. My Tana.

Thank you. Sorry, one second. OK, so starting off right before break we had a wide on District Advisory Council meeting and we mostly talked about the no cut policy actually, but I'm going to wait to talk about that for another time after we've heard more about it. After that, though, we moved on to talk about how the students are feeling with regards to COVID and masks being recommended in the next week. And I think mostly people were still a little bit hesitant just because obviously COVID is still kind of a scary thing. And their number one concern was just that maybe with masks coming off, people would almost forget that COVID still exists. So I think just making sure that we are still reminding students that they need to wash their hands and social distance and be safe is going to be important, especially for those kids who feel a little more scared to be going to school. And then we also talked about using outdoor spaces more because Whitehound doesn't have the greatest outdoor space for classes to be outside or to have PE, but they're trying to work on how to make more areas for that. And then just some other things that have happened recently. Basically, the district has won a lot of things. So first, Ydown had his production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. And I think they were able to do that pretty much almost normally as if the pandemic didn't exist. But obviously, they still were wearing masks in the auditorium. And the robotics team that has been working really hard since I think first semester had their first competition the weekend, last weekend actually. And they went to Peoria and they made it all the way to quarterfinals. The mock trial team also made it pretty far. They got to second in state. And then we had 10 national speech and debate qualifiers, which is pretty huge. So they're going to be going to Louisville in the summer to compete more. And then we've had a lot of our first spring sport events. So, for example, yesterday, I know that varsity girls soccer won there. I think it was one of their first games. And then just some other things that are happening in fourth quarter, we have the student run musical at the high school, which I believe is Percy Jackson. So it's pretty much completely student run. You know, people are like managing it and are in the play as well for musical side. And then at Y-Down, so since last year and this year, the sixth graders weren't really able to have a sixth grade camp. They're doing like a sort of day camp. So there's going to be two days for each grade. And the camps are going to be like between Y-Down and Forest Park. And everything else is going to be the same. It's just not going to be at Sherwood, basically, and it won't be overnight. But they're still going to have the opportunity to have this camp experience. And we're going to have a lot more sporting events. As Dr. Patel said, our sports like games and matches have been really big this year, even like through the pandemic. So there's going to be lots of soccer games, lacrosse games, even like the Y-Down has their field hockey team and some other teams. So there's gonna be lots of events and opportunities for students to come out and support each other. And then next week, a lot of people are taking those end-of-course exams. It's just for, I think, biology, some econ classes, English classes, and one more subject, which is, I believe, just a high school thing, but I'm not sure if there's any more middle school standardized tests next week. And then prom is another big thing that's happening fourth quarter because last year they weren't really able to have prom, at least through the high school, but this year the juniors are once again organizing the prom for the juniors and the seniors. Yeah, thank you.

Wonderful thanks, I Tana. Alright, so we switched our our agenda up just a little bit and I think we're going to start with athletics and then we will get to a place for everyone.

So tonight we have Steve and Dan here from the high school and Tashawn, and they're going to share with us an update with what's going on with the athletic program and some exciting changes that we are going to be looking forward to next year. And this is through a very thorough process that they're going to talk about in terms of getting input from a lot of different stakeholders to making these changes.

Well, good evening. First off, I just want to thank you all for giving us the opportunity to share our work towards changes in the Clayton High School philosophy on athletics. This work started last late July of last summer and has continued all the way up through the month of February. And before I move on, I also want to thank all the students who have come here tonight to support me. And they've been part of this conversation as well. So through the executive summary, this work is a combination of several focus groups consisting of all the constituents for which the athletic department serves. We're just over 100 individuals that have had a voice towards these changes in the Clayton High School philosophy on athletics. You see the list there. I've talked to all of the CHS varsity coaches. Our Captains Council, which is 30 plus students. It's a leadership group that represents all of our Clayton High School sports teams. The Athletic Advisory Committee, which is again a parent group that represents all our sports at Clayton High School, several Y-Down families, and now you all, the Board of Education. The focus of the work concentrates mostly on competition between our own student population, with the end result being athletic excellence just as we are in the classroom, achieving academic excellence. I think it's important that we visit the history of where we have been as we move into where we want to go. Previously, to 2018, the School District of Clayton Athletics ran on a no-cut policy, which every student who came out for a sport was able to participate. Through our research, we believe that goes back 30 plus years. And the focus of that was around the social and social emotional needs of our students and the whole child and to provide opportunities for students to stay connected to CHS outside of the classroom. In 2018, a representative group came together and made some amendments and termed it the participation policy. And that's what we follow today. They felt that the term no cut meant there were no expectations. It felt the environment was more recreational rather than competitive. And they wanted to have higher expectations, and they did so. So now there are clearly defined expectations that each athlete must meet to participate. And as far as limits on roster spots go, we can choose to cut senior athletes who try out for varsity spots, but they are given choices. They can opt to play on a JV team. They can choose a different extracurricular or they can choose to be a student assistant. all keeping in mind the idea of our social, emotional needs of our students and the whole child. I think we need to make note, though, that during the time of the no-cut policy, really there were fewer options for students to find connections outside of the classroom. Really, it was only through athletics and the arts. Now we have a robust arts program, a robust athletics program, and also over 50 clubs that students can choose to participate in to stay connected to Clayton High School outside the classroom. So the relevant factors that have surfaced through these conversations, Clayton High School is ranked as one of the top high schools in the state of Missouri each and every year. We're ranked in the upper echelon of public high schools in the United States each and every year, in 2022, 12 students were selected to the Allstate band, jazz band and orchestra. In 2021 at the internationally genetic engineer machine competition, we won bronze competing against 340 teams. speech and debate earned a spot in the top 100 schools nationally but still we are producing fewer sports championships and we are competing in the lower levels of the saint louis suburban conference i like to sit right there for a minute you can see the suburban conference is compromised at 31 high schools public high schools in the saint louis area each sport for each school is placed within one of those pools. You can see there's a yellow pool in parentheses, a red pool, a green pool and a blue pool. The most competitive teams are in the yellow pool within those schools. The reason you see platinum, gold, silver and bronze is I'm on a committee now that's looking for those pools, the terms for winning those championships to carry more weight. So the platinum will be the top pool on down to the bronze. Currently, we have four teams participating in the blue, six in the green and five in the red. I see no reason as a high school that has around 900 kids every year and we are resourced so well that we should have teams in the blue pool. Through this new philosophy, I strongly believe those four sports will move up into the green pool and some of those schools in the green pool could move into the red. The Commissioner's Cup. You might not be aware of this, but the commissioner of the Suburban Conference gives out an award, the Commissioner's Cup, to the top performing school in athletics each year. I'm also on that committee and Webster High School won that. They won one state championship, but had several teams that won conference championships and district championships. Other constraints driving these changes are practice facility limitations due to overcrowding. COACH TO ATHLETE RATIO, AND HIGH-LEVEL MIDDLE SCHOOL ATHLETES LEAVING THE DISTRICT AFTER WIDOWN. YOU SEE THERE'S THE CURRENT MISSION STATEMENT, AND I'M NOT GOING TO READ THROUGH IT IN FULL, BUT THAT WAS WRITTEN IN 2018. If you pay close attention to sentence two, paragraph one, we have made some changes in the proposed mission statement moving forward to that sentence. And we've also added a sentence to paragraph two after the first line there. I will move on to what those changes are and read those aloud. Both meaning athletics and academics involve students in a healthy learning environment and growth process which strive to accomplish excellence. addition to the bottom paragraph we also value and place an emphasis on competition within our own student population in order for our athletes to reach their fullest potential so again the focus is on competition leading towards excellence within athletics just as we do in the classroom with academics the proposed philosophy This philosophy will impact all of our freshman teams, our JV teams, and our varsity teams. The philosophy is one that strengthens the community by having a positive influence on our student athletes, adheres to the highest level of academic success, has a strong focus on character, provides opportunities for athletes to excel, compete, and win, creates a competitive environment within the student population that stimulates growth, recruits and retains outstanding coaches who support student athletes are on the forefront of creative thinking strategy training and student support we also want to engage the community to make clayton sports a shared experience with our alumni and one that clayton elementary students and families aspire towards what must be in place We must offer multiple opportunities for our students to choose from. We must recognize that participation in athletics is a privilege, and as such, certain expectations must be met. This philosophy will support the district's mission, vision, and core values, and it will complement the district's profile of graduate. This philosophy falls in line with those competencies listed within the strategic plan. And this philosophy supports one where Clayton High School reserves the right to limit roster spots within competitive opportunities. the outcomes that will come of this philosophy. We will attain more student athletes as they transition from eighth to ninth grade. Most all of our Y down families know that Clayton High School has a strong academic reputation. Families will now consider Clayton High School for its competitive environment and its drive to achieve excellence within athletics. Students will take pride in making their freshmen their JV team or their varsity team. Currently, there's no sense of pride when you have unlimited roster spots at the JV or freshman level. Students will be, this is direct quote from several students who do not participate in athletics. Students will be more willing to support their sports teams, increase school spirit at competitions and within the building. They quote unquote say we do not take sports seriously by not limiting roster spots at the lower level. The elementary and middle school students will increase the amount of training and participation in their respective sports in preparation for their freshman year, which will naturally lead to an increased skill level before they arrive at CHS. We will use our resources wisely as facilities will become better places to train. I have three examples of that. Currently at Clayton High School during the winter, between both basketball programs, we have eight teams. We are still well-resourced with the use of the center of Clayton, but it's still very, very difficult for all those teams to train on those courts. Within the boys program, we have five teams, two freshmen, two JV and a varsity. At the MICDS tournament, I had a father approach me upset. that we could not break a full court press. And my answer was simple, we don't have a full court to practice on. We have to share it with so many other teams. Girls tennis in the fall, we had almost 60 girls come out. We have eight courts to practice on from 3 to 6 o'clock, and we carry 8 to 12 girls on the varsity. And we give them priority so they get two to three courts. So that leaves five to six courts for 40-plus girls to train on each and every day. We're not giving our girls equitable experience compared to the teams we compete with. Volleyball, we have four teams, one freshman, two JV, and a varsity. Our varsity team trains in half of the court space, with JV being on the other side of the stupor gymnasium. Our varsity team lost by three points to Westminster in the district title game. Several of you may have been there. Westminster went on after that win to easily capture a state championship. One might argue that if we gave our girls an equitable training experience compared to Westminster, we would have won the state championship. Moving on, we can increase our ability to hire and retain high-level coaches. Most all high schools in this region, the varsity coach is in charge of the entire program. Most varsity coaches have to manage three programs, the varsity team, one freshman and one JV team. Here at Clayton High School, for instance, in our basketball programs, the head coach has to manage five teams. So I believe when we post positions, we're not getting the best candidates due to that reason. More athletes will attend out of season workouts. This came directly from some of our student athletes who are here tonight. We compensate our coaches for the season for which they're competing against other schools. Most of our coaches offer out of season training 12 months out of the year. Most of our lower level students do not attend these. optional workouts for these training sessions due to the fact that there are unlimited roster spots at the lower level. If we limited roster spots, I believe those students would come to these optional training sessions. Sports that typically have a lower amount of participation will now have increased participation. Examples of that, boys lacrosse has half the number in the fall of boys participating than girls. Why? Because we have 70 plus boys playing soccer. If we limited those roster spots, many of those boys would move over to cross country. Softball, we barely have enough girls each year to field a varsity team. Two years ago, four girls left the softball team after day one because one of them wanted to play tennis and brought her friends with her. If we limited those roster spots, those four girls who had softball experience would have stayed within the softball program, in my opinion. Football, very much the same. Last year, almost every single senior who was cut from the varsity roster on soccer went and played football. As we look to grow football in Clayton, I believe if we put in limits within the roster spots with lower level soccer, some of those boys would then also go over to football and cheer much the same. Several of the girls within the tennis program have a rich background in gymnastics. And if we put limits there, our cheer program would grow. We have 85% of our students participating in sports, which is huge. We should be proud of that. The goal for the state's 55%. In my opinion, that number will not drop if we make limits or put limits in place. They will just move. Students will make other choices. Moving on, freshmen and junior varsity teams will be able to grow and learn together as they develop into varsity players. Having multiple lower level teams does not allow lower level players to grow together as one team. I cannot put data to this, but every one of those students behind me can agree they've all achieved great success in sports. And there's something about chemistry that is created in practice. It equals success when you're playing in a game. But when you have two JV teams practicing together, and then when they go compete, they separate out, and then they need to come back, the chemistry, it's impossible to create that. Ultimately, our end goal, as mentioned before, is excellence and increased success within CHS sports. And again, I repeat there is a through line of the social emotional needs of our students and the whole child within this change philosophy as well. And I will finish. My explanation and I feel like this helps people understand this change. I believe that Clayton High School athletes can be put into three buckets. One bucket being our most talented athletes, our highest skilled, our blue chip athletes, those who we believe can play at the next level. As coaches, we hear about them in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. We get excited when we hear about these athletes. And you have that middle bucket of student athletes. And those athletes, in my opinion, determine the success of your season. When you wrap those athletes and surround your highest and most talented athletes, you train together, you create that chemistry, that success within competition. And then you have that third bucket of athletes. Those athletes are out there to build their college resume, to be around that social experience, and to be a part of a team. Those are the athletes that might not get their first choice, but there's always gonna be an opportunity for them to participate on a team within this new philosophy. Additional supports, this comes directly from Misha. This is the Missouri State High School Activities Association philosophy. It says at the very beginning, we believe in competition. And towards the bottom there it says, we believe there's a difference between recreational sports and competitive sports. And we believe further that competition should be regulated by standards, which I believe I've mentioned in this presentation. At this time, does anyone have any questions, feedback? Sean, Dan, you want to add anything? All right.

No, I do want to say I want to thank Steve for all the work that he's done on this. And these are conversations that have taken place for a long period of time. And I know that even preceding Steve, and he mentioned that when Bob Bone was here, that whole idea of a no-cut policy was an attempt at renorming, is what I would say, because as Steve mentioned earlier, the no-cut policy, while its intentions were very, very good over the years, I believe that kind of without the proper guidance, I think the true meaning was actually lost. And then there became this sense of that no cut means no rules, no expectations. And as a result, not only just families and students, student athletes, but coaches even started kind of feeling that way. Like it was like, well, you couldn't remove a kid from a team for any reason. And so the conversations that started around the renorming process for the participation policy back in 2018, I think kind of started that work. And Steve really picked it up and ran with it and involved a lot of people. So I commend him for that. And I think that I couldn't argue with anything in the presentation.

Oh, yep. Go ahead, Joe.

So I appreciate your presentation. I think it's great. You know, as somebody who played Division I sports, you know, I am all in for having a stronger program than we do. But I will say if I move to concerns, I feel like it's a code word for we are going to cut and I don't think our participation will stay at 85 percent. So I guess I respectfully disagree. So I mean I feel like it should be and both. and so I would just give you that feedback. I hope we monitor it, and if we feel like, even if like we had to start an intramural basketball program, you know, just so kids could get that experience or something, because it, that's what it feels like, and I will just say in high school, a little bit of a trigger for me, I remember a, because I could have also played college soccer, and I had an athletic director who said, you know what? We're not going to let sophomores play on the varsity team even with their skill because they were trying to recruit football players. And there were four of us that said, we won't play either. So I just think we have to be careful. That's all. I mean, I applaud what you're doing. And I hope the participation stays high because I do think Participation with expectation, right? So I'm not saying there shouldn't be great expectation. But participation with expectation in sports is, I think, very important.

No, I agree. And through one of my meetings I had, one of the parents said the exact same thing, almost word for word. And I said, you know, this is obviously something we need to monitor over time. You know, we're going to transition into this new philosophy, put new expectations in place, but we need to be mindful of these changes. So thank you.

Thank you so much for not only the presentation, but all of this work that I know has been years in the making. Thank you to you kids and all the other stakeholders that were involved in this. And I know, I mean, I personally have three kids that have so far participated in five different sports here, and I have personally witnessed all of the challenges you've listed here, not to mention in the fall and the spring when the weather's bad and everyone has to move inside. So I hear you on that for sure. I feel like for so long the excuse was kind of like, Clayton's so focused on academics. But so many of us would say that doesn't mean we can't also be excellent in athletics. So I really do appreciate acknowledging that we could be great at both. And I really think we can. Um, one question I do have, um, as a concern, um, did you give any thought to. I guess maybe I'll preface this by saying like I've witnessed in a sport this year where freshmen came out without much experience and by the end of the season, they were great. So we really were able to grow our athletes. So I'm just wondering if you gave any consideration, maybe at the freshman level to allow more roster space to help grow athletes? Or are you envisioning that they would grow elsewhere? Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, and I think I'll answer your question and transition into some other thoughts I have. We've definitely considered that. It would be difficult to say that we're going to have a policy in place where we're only going to keep all freshmen, but then beyond in the sophomore, junior, and senior year, then we could put roster limits in place. because it's so difficult to manage the number of freshmen that come out in a school that will be at less than 900 kids next year. So I would like to stay with a policy that's consistent year after year, so this community can develop around that philosophy from kindergarten through 12th grade. I mean, if we had 2000 kids, that would be very easy to do. We know we would have the right amount of freshmen. So often we have to create C teams just because we've got five freshmen out and we've got to bring down sophomores just to create a team we're doing that now within baseball so in order to stay consistent within all of our sports programs i think that might be difficult if you look at the numbers And also, we offer 26 Misha-sponsored sports right now. We have three clubs, hockey, boys lacrosse, and ultimate frisbee. And right around the corner, there's going to be esports and boys volleyball. They'll both be sanctioned by Misha, I'd say, within the next five years. Volleyball probably before esports. The impact right now within 26 of the current sports, if we had this in place this year, would be five sports. So if you think of it in that way, it's not that big of an impact. But within the sports that will impact, it's going to significantly impact other sports, which we need increased population, and also allows those impacted sports better training possibilities and be resourced better for those students that are working hard and possibly could play at the next level.

Thank you. I totally understand and appreciate what you're saying about the freshmen and what, you know, what I was meaning about giving them a chance to grow and improve. But I think if we change the overall culture K through 12 in our district, our athletes will be coming to us, you know, better trained and with more experience where it won't be maybe your, our responsibility to do that. So that makes sense.

No, thank you. Correct. And Dr. Patel and I had that exact same conversation. I mean, moving forward, this is the direction we're going to go. And it's my office's job to communicate to the entire community, not just those who are Clayton High School.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Steve, too. There are several sports in the area that schools much larger than us that don't run freshman teams actually in some of the sports that we run freshman teams and some of the sports in which we run two freshman teams. Correct. Actually. And so, I mean, I think our commitment to maintaining opportunities for freshmen, I think is really, really important through this. But I think we already kind of do that. And I think that, you know, we'll continue to do that as well.

Yeah, and to your point, Dan, for instance, they do not carry a boy's freshman baseball team nor a girl's freshman basketball team. And they have 500 more students than us. So it's our job as educators to set students up for success. It's very, very difficult for Tashauna and I when we schedule to set our girls freshman basketball team and our boys freshman baseball team up for success. There are no schools our size that offer teams. And it's just very difficult. I think our boys freshman baseball Team has won eight games in 10 years.

Any? I kind of go ahead.

Thank you. I was just wondering if there was any possibility of having some sort of recreational league for the people that maybe get cut from a team? Because if we have a lot of people getting cut from one of the bigger teams, like the girls' volleyball team, for example, and then those girls don't... go on to join another team and they're kind of left with nothing to do after school and i mean obviously they could join another team but if they were discouraged from doing so just because they had already gotten cut from one team like would there be an opportunity for them to do something in season where they can still have like a team community and be able to practice

Yeah, we've talked about that too. You know, currently speaking of girls volleyball, we have a CHS volleyball club now that meets this time of year. It's co-ed and the kids come out and they play pickup games and they're very active after school. They meet a couple times a day. I don't see why we couldn't do that in other sports. I mean, we'd have to find sponsors and those that can organize that. But, you know, there's always those options out there for sure.

Well, I also want to thank you. And I guess my comments are probably going to be a little contrarian. So I'll share since it's my last board meeting. And just to preface, and I think Dan knows, in terms of my own child, I had one daughter who was a super athlete. and two daughters who participated, but they were not athletic. So to me, what is success? You say we want to really focus on success. And to me, success is 85% participation. That means success. The fact that our kids are getting high-quality education physical education, physical activity, that is the most important thing to me. The fact that Clayton clearly articulates and values academics over sports, and frankly in a country, in a city, that sports, in my opinion, is... valued in a kind of a crazy way. So I'll share that. You know, I understand your comment about that there's a lot of logistic issues. And maybe we have too many sports, okay? And that, you know, Clayton, maybe our problem is we can't say no. We have a hard time saying no to things. And maybe we simply You know, we only have, what, 200 kids, approximately, a class. So, you know, maybe the problem is we need to shrink the number, easy for me to say, but shrink the number of sports we do. So I don't know if, you know, our facility is the facility and you guys manage it great. So those are just my thoughts. You know, you put up a little chart about comparing Clayton to the other 32 athletes school districts you know we're on the small size of school districts so the fact maybe that we're not competing against you know we do which is now at what 4 000 uh students or you know a parkway or something I don't know. But I share Joe's thought that the most important thing for me is how many kids are going to practice every day and are participating in getting that experience. And if we monitor, if success means that we win more... If success means winning more games but... you know, we're down to 70%, to me that would be failure. So whatever that's worth.

I want to make sure I'm clear about this. So when I watch my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles play, it's a professional team, I like to see them win. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Do we want to win? Or do we just want participation? That's what I wanted to know. What's our goal here?

I don't want

to do both. Antana, tell me.

Okay. Well, yeah, I think everyone wants to win more because winning is a lot of fun. But, like, I don't know. I think there are. And I do agree that, like, I think having more strict, you know, like, practice regiments could definitely help us achieve better results. But I think we could also, like, look at other factors because, like, even – like I was saying earlier this year, I think a lot of our teams have excelled more than they have in the past. And I don't know if it's just because, like, the players that are playing on the team this year are better, but I think we can also focus on other factors. I don't know. I think – coming out of COVID, a lot of the teams were brought together and a lot of people are more invested in sports. So I think we can achieve both in a way. Um, I don't know. Yeah. So I think. We want to win more, but I also agree that I think participation is great because the more people that we have like active in sports, I think the more, the better like school spirit will be and the better people will feel like I know when I'm, um, During field hockey season, I think I'm much happier than when I don't have a team to go talk to after school.

Thank you, all three of you. I've talked to countless individuals, parents, students. Both Tashaun and I are here every night at games, and this has always been a part of the conversations. The three years we've been here, and then I've coached 15 years here. This community is changing. They want to win. the kids in the back of the room they want to win and this is this what i've provided you with is not something that i came up with this has been a an effort by many many people and we feel like this is the recipe for the clayton community and clayton athletics to win but still maintain participation because we're giving opportunities for each and every student to participate in sports We were just limiting rosters in five sports out of the 26. So I think the term cut can be intimidating. But when you look at it, the impact across the entire school year, the impact is not that great. But the impact that we'll have is going to be the difference between just participating and participating and winning.

so i appreciate that i just want to say that i support you 100 percent i think that athletics is what keeps many kids engaged and inspired and um we do we do great in academics and um You know when you go to Clayton, not everybody gets to be an honors. Not everybody gets to be in the gifted program. Not everybody gets. To be in the school play, but for some reason we've adopted this philosophy that anybody can play sports and that diminishes the honor of being selected to be on the same in the same way that. Kids are proud of being in honors or kids are proud of making the school play. I appreciate what everybody is saying here tonight, but for what it's worth, I support it 110%. Go ahead, Kim.

Yeah, I want to affirm that I too support this 100% and I do have athletes within my own family that we're considering not attending Clayton High School. And one of the, and I think that this is going to be good for the future of the high school athletic program, not only for them but really 10 years down the road when you talk about this philosophy is going to trickle down all the way to the elementary schools and you need for me Steve not to be contrarian to what you said but for me 85% is not the goal you can't be competitive and have a high quality athletic program if you're just targeting the 85% you can't learn how to break a basketball press if you only practice on half a court you can't

I don't completely agree with that.

so yeah i hear you i mean yeah so and and we have so many options that i don't think that the answer is to limit the number of sports options i think it's two if students really want to play a sport there will be a sport that's available to them it just may not be the first choice of sport that they had but i will tell you since my daughter did play tennis her freshman year playing tennis her freshman year was an exercise in a social happy hour after school There was no tennis being learned, not by fault of the coach. You got 60 girls on four courts. There's not enough reps that you could possibly get in where you develop any type of tennis skill to have improvement during the course of that season, let alone into the next season, or to be competitive even at the lowest level of those platinum, gold, silver, bronze tiers. So if we want to win and we want to have participation, then I think that the direction you guys are taking in the program is absolutely the right direction. But what I would love to hear is, and I don't know if we're going to hear from any of the student athletes that are in the high school. But I mean, since you guys are really at the center of every decision that this board should make, I can't imagine that you wouldn't be here if you didn't also support that. And I know some of you are captains of the sports teams at the high school right now. And I can't imagine you would be here if you did also have the support of your teammates. So, and if that's not the case or if any of you have concerns, then that's who I'd really be interested in hearing from.

Did any of you like to add any extra thoughts? I've talked to almost all of you individually. Go ahead, Ethan.

I just feel like in terms of the idea of cutting certain sports, I feel like that would hurt the participation percentage more than anything else. When you're taking away certain sports, that's sports that certain people fall in love with. That's something that really takes you through the day. Right now, I'm not in a sport. I play basketball in the winter. I'm not going to lie. My life in the winter is so much better than it is in the spring and in the fall. Just playing a certain sport just really brings a lot of joy and happiness out of you. It's a whole lot more fun to win than it is to lose. for the first time in 11 years, and I think part of that is the competitiveness. And we've really ramped that up. And I think if we continue to ramp that up, the sky's the limit. I think that's really important. And also once you reach those high levels of activity and once we start winning, then the people that keep leaving after Y-Down to go play at CBC and to SMET, they'll start staying. And then we start winning more. And then we win conference. want to win the big thing. And that'll also up school pride and school spirit because everyone wants to be part of a school that has winning teams. Like, everyone at CBC loves their sports because they win everything. Same with the SMET, same with SLU, same with every other big school. So I think it's important that we just continue to just, the goal should be participation, but also we need to win. Like, that's What's your name? You're very articulate.

And Ethan, didn't you shoot the winning three-point buzzer beater this year? Yeah, against Ledoux. Congratulations. That's one of the reasons why Matthew is going to be a Greyhound next year instead of a Billiken at Slough

High. Thank you,

Ethan.

I just want to thank Ethan because I think Ethan brought up another really good point, which is part of the goal here is a or what i know mister hudson school since he took this role has been is increasing school spirit and i think Once we have winning teams and those games are more fun to attend for the non-athletes, the school spirit will drastically increase. And the attendance at our games will drastically increase, which I know it already has, but it'll get even more. So even kids that are not athletes or are not athletes in that season will become more involved as spectators and fans if the games are good and fun to go to and we're winning. So I think that's another positive outcome of this plan. So thanks.

Anyone else want to share? Paige?

back Mr. Hudson on everything here. I think just as an athlete who works really hard on and off the field, I train both in season, out of season. I think last season, although I pushed myself really hard on the field and was ranked pretty highly in St. Louis, I was told that I wasn't good enough to make the Allstate team because I went to Clayton. And then again, for the all-metro team, the all-metro reporter didn't want to come to a play-in game, which is why I was put on third team instead of first team. Even as a player who's ranked number one in almost every... and almost every stat in St. Louis. And I think that boils down to us not having, A, the camaraderie as a varsity team, and I think that comes from athletes who want to be on the field and athletes who want to put in the time both on and off the field, whether that's in school athletics or outside of school athletics. And I think if we can get a higher participation of not just the varsity teams, But students who are also wanting to come out and compete to be on these JV teams, I think that we'll ultimately be able to have higher success on the varsity teams while also gaining a number of students who are joining these lower level teams as well.

And can I just add, I think we should also consider how we're measuring participation when we weight participation versus success in terms of wins. Obviously, we want those wins and we do want participation. But if we employ this cut policy, we have a fixed number of kids who are participating. And I think although that number may drop under 85, the number of kids who are going to come out to summer workouts, like whatever off-season, will definitely increase. So looking at it from that perspective, participation could increase as well. And then you have success in terms of wins and student involvement.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Just to piggyback off of what Paige said, so this basically was an experience that my friend had. So he ended up playing three years at Clayton on the football team. And then he decided to go to a different school his senior year. And he actually told me, he was like, Eric, I don't want to leave. I don't want out to make the decision. I want to stay at Clayton, but it's like he had to make the decision because he wanted to play Division I football. He wanted to stay at Claydon, but the schools that are looking at him, they wouldn't give him the offers or the looks just because of the school that he went to. So I feel like if we make these changes, it'll open up more doors for students who are good but don't get the notoriety that they should get because they go to Clayton.

Thanks Eric, well said.

I just also want to add same scenario that also happened to my friend Tyler Gantt. He was here from kindergarten through 8th grade. And he had the option to either go to Clayton or go to CBC. And he's a star football player. And he ultimately chose CBC just because of the success of their football team. And he now has more than 10 Division I offers, including Wisconsin, Kentucky, Iowa State, pretty much every big school in the nation. And those are the type of athletes that we're missing out on just because of our poor success in sports.

And piggyback off of what Ethan said, I feel like if we try and keep these athletes at the school, it'll just bring more attention to the school. So people will say, hey, Clayton's not just good at education, they're also good at athletics now. So I feel like that'll bring more attention to this school as well.

Just one more thing to add as far as both of our varsity and JV level teams. Although we want the success in our varsity level teams, we also want the success in JV level teams and by having a no cut policy and anyone can be on the team, we're telling kids that it's okay if you're on JV and it doesn't matter that you're there, you're not going to get cut. So I think that there's definitely a lot, especially for girls lacrosse, I think that sometimes there's a stigma around the JV team that it's more of a social hour, like you were saying about the tennis team, than it is actually a competitive sport. And these are the same people who are then moving up to our varsity levels. You're taking... these kids who've played JV since they were juniors and took it as a social hour for three years, and then those are our varsity athletes, saying that we don't get a huge coming out of another wave of really talented athletes. So therefore, like, later on, we are reducing our success levels, which is completely the opposite of what we want. So I think although... especially in lacrosse and these sports that aren't going to have huge impacts on the cut policy, I think it's just important to note that we're going to be able to further our success later on by implementing a more competitive environment in our lower-level teams as well.

Thank you.

Aren't they amazing?

Unbelievable. Thank you guys all for being here tonight. You guys are awesome. Does anybody else have any questions or comments? Go ahead, Jason.

One last thing. I just want to make sure I'm clear about it. I do support what you're doing, and I personally want to see us become more competitive. I coach. I coach. No, I'm just being silly, but in all seriousness, I do coach at the rec, and there are some talented coaches athletes that i've come across and i'm always afraid that those kids will end up leaving and going to another school and i'm just like man we got a nice cohort of kids coming up in the next four years that are like sixth through eighth grade right now or whatever fifth through eighth grade and i think those kids need to stay here and i think what you're doing doesn't does as a service of trying to keep those kids here so thanks man i

agree thank you

and i just want to thank you steve and tishan for all the work that you put in every single day i've always said one of the hardest individuals that works in a school district is an ad the amount of hours you put into a into anything it's remarkable so thank you for all of that and then students we are so proud of you you guys are phenomenal today and you always are we love cheering you guys on that's for sure atana go ahead

Yeah, I think after hearing what all my classmates had to say, I do agree that we should go forward with this. But I think it's a balance for those five teams. Like we mentioned earlier, having some sort of opportunity for them to practice, not necessarily with the JV and varsity teams, but just as a club. And that will create even more of a culture of we're working towards something big. And it'll be even more rewarding if we make the team, which I think will just improve our competitiveness even more.

Thank you. And as I said to Joe earlier, we will absolutely continue to monitor this, look at the data, look at the participation rates, look at our success rate. Are we making the right decision? You know, I will say that through my research, there's a school in Hudson, Massachusetts, Hudson High School, actually. It's very similar to this school. Yeah, exactly. Spelled with H-U-D, but very similar to this They changed and went to a no-cut policy, and within one year went back to a cut policy. I reached out to that athletic director five, six times and never heard back because I wanted to hear the why. There's got to be one. But, yeah, it might look different here. Back to what I mentioned, we've just got to continue to monitor and listen to the voices in the room. So thank you all so much.

Thank you, Steve. And to Sean and Dan. Wait, would this go into effect next

year? I'm sorry.

Yes, that would be the plan. You know, I'll get together with similar groups of people and look at what the communication will look like, the timing of when it should go out. And then prior to each season, each coach can address how this philosophy will impact their program well in advance so students are aware and families are aware of the expectations. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so we are going to move on to a place for everyone and head and heart. But you guys, we'll take a break after this, okay? If everybody's okay. All right.

Well, good evening, everyone, again. Tonight, Dr. Poole and I are here to give you a strategic plan goal three update. Just to reground us all in the different goals of our strategic plan, tonight we are going to be sharing some information related to goal number three, which is we will be dedicated to the personal growth of our learners in their social, emotional and physical well-being.

So just to kind of, you know, jump in and, you know, as a district, you know, from the top on down how we, you know, work to try to accomplish this goal, starting with our professional learning and what our focus is, really being rooted in individualized learning. And really understanding that, you know, in order to not only reach our kids on a social emotional level and also continue to work to be an equitable district, the work is tied together. I found a quote at the top that kind of sums that up. in terms of the overall context in which students develop and the relationships they build over time, contextual factors such as societal realities, individual realities, cultural background all influence social-emotional and academic development. So understanding in order to reach our kids and meet their social-emotional needs, we need to understand exactly who they are as individuals, really looking at those cultural factors and their societal realities. So we really focus on the idea of the humanization process and humanizing each student's, you know, identity and humanizing each students experience. From a curricular level, we really focus on empowered learning, you know, which focuses on pace, place, path, voice and choice for each student. And then also looking at it from a standpoint of how do I ensure that all of us, the students I work with feel seen? So really hinging on those foundations, a lot of our equity work and social emotional work is linked together. being that they both work together in order to accomplish the same goal.

So the focus of tonight's information in alignment with goal three is to report out on some of the big themes that came out of our two community engagement forums from last semester. As a lot of you know, we hosted two different events. One was facilitated by administrators with community parents and another evening was facilitated by our students and was actually for students. And the three main buckets we focused on in those discussions were mental health, academic learning and healthy choices. And really just exploring what were some of the joys, concerns, areas of stress, and just overall how our students and our parents were experiencing our teaching and learning environment kind of through those three perspectives. So the first one I wanted to talk about was students' mental health. And I would say there were three major ideas that came up in the discussions, which were related to friends, family and school and school activities. And I would best describe these themes as really being a two-sided coin. On one side of the coin, you know, all three of these things were really at the center of students' abilities to feel anchored and cared for in this teaching and learning community. being with friends, being with family and participating in school activities and school classes really was a source of joy and really makes a lot of our students smile. And on the other side of that was that these three things are also an overwhelming sense of the source of what I would describe as, am I enough? Particularly when students are stressed, friends, spending time with family, participating in school activities is a great way for them to feel connected and centered. And on the flip side, there was a lot of talk about am I doing well enough in my classes to have a good future? Am I doing enough for my parents' expectations? And am I enough compared to my friends and what my friends are doing? From the student perspective, there was a lot of discussion around feeling overwhelmed with schoolwork, talking about being enough, school grades, colleges, college applications, extracurriculars. and not being enough for my parents or not disappointing those who I care about. And the parent's perspective also aligned to that. They also added things about concerns about busy schedules of activities, and that combined with a lot of schoolwork would make their children stressed out. And I think one of the exit tickets that students left really summed this part up. They said, we need to feel like we're prepared for the future without being stressed all the time that we aren't doing enough to achieve success. Another focus of our discussions was around academic learning. And three big ideas that came out of those discussions with both parents and students was homework, grades, and also their experiences in their specialty classes. So with homework, there were concerns about the amount, both ends of the continuum of there not being enough but then also too much. Students also talked a lot about the grade weighting at the secondary level. And homework was also most frequently identified as a source of stress by students and parents. The specialty classes often came up as a source of joy, particularly the arts such as band, acting, sculpture were named multiple times and students mentioned them because they provided a creative outlet. Several students described it as being in those classes was a different way to think. And at times that different thinking made them feel more relaxed and helped build their self-worth. One student shared, band really makes me feel good about myself. The core classes also did come up in the discussions, particularly when activities or assignments felt much more relevant to where they are in their lives and to current events. All of any experiences that they talked about often kind of met that criteria. And they did say that the challenge in classes was good because it pushed them to learn more. I would say with respect to grades, many secondary students I think are still making meaning of the adjustments in grading practices. I think that several secondary students expressed that they're hoping that the formative work would count more toward their final grades. They did say that the retake system for tests was very much appreciated And some of the different scheduling that the high school has tried with tests has helped alleviate some stress because previously it has been a great source of stress when there were multiple big assignments or multiple big exams all scheduled in the same week. And in terms of like what that stress looked like and felt like for our students, many of them talked about somatic responses. So did their parents. Talked about my child will say that they feel like they're having a stomach ache, they're feeling tired, they're feeling stressed, et cetera. And so the students also found that the office hours were very, very helpful that we've previously offered for them to get extra help. Lastly, we talked about healthy choices. And there are a couple more themes that came up in this. One, I would say, was related to cell phone and internet usage. Another one was related to friendships. Another one was physical activity. Sleep also came up. And then kind of what we would think of as more traditional topics related to healthy choices, drinking, vaping, smoking, and drug use. So what I found very interesting was that where some of the conversations around cell phone and internet usage, parents expressed the challenges of managing this as their children got older. And that they mentioned that it's much easier to have screen time controls when your students are younger, but once they get older into middle school and high school, it's hard to balance the new freedoms, but also the challenges of kind of that unfettered access environment. to the internet and to social media platforms. On the other hand, students said that they felt like social media usage was actually a source of relaxation or entertainment and not really a source of stress. And depending on the age group, because we had both middle school and high school students involved, they perceived cell phone and internet usage at times didn't actually support healthy friendships. So I think that speaks a lot to how our students are using cell phones and internet to communicate with each other. When it came to drinking, vaping, smoking and drugs, most parents who participated felt like they have open conversations with their children about these topics, but they also worry about if their children will make those healthy choices in their absence. And then students mentioned that usage of those things isn't necessarily associated with peer pressure, but rather as a coping strategy for dealing with stress. Time management and sleep also popped up as a theme. Some students admitted that they're not getting enough sleep, and when asked about what's the function of that, some of them said that the recreational scrolling on a cell phone often gets in the way of going to bed at a reasonable time, and that that time could have actually been used to complete some schoolwork instead, or actually going to sleep at a reasonable time. Another thing that popped up was physical activity. Both parents and students acknowledge that physical activity is a healthy choice for dealing with stress and for lifelong wellness. And then friendships also came up around healthy choices that students feel good when they feel like they belong among their friend group, which we know is also affirmed by social-emotional learning data, that our students are wanting to feel included. And one of the challenges is that they want to feel included with their friends even when they know their friends may not always be making the most healthy choice in certain situations. So in terms of next steps based on this information, and some of these things have already been set off in motion, is really thinking more strategically about stress management strategies. How can we be more intentional about those things? How can we be planful when we know there are times of the year where our students are experiencing more stress? One example I can give you is that both secondary schools have already started thinking about what are some things they can do to help address stress levels as we go into state testing season, as we move into times of EOCs and standardized exams. I will say that you can expect to see some more visits from the therapy dogs from Duo Dogs and a variety of our buildings in the next two months. And I think we can also start thinking at the system level on how we might augment or expand our reach with outside providers and providing more targeted coping skill development and support for our students who may need it the most and being really thoughtful about what time of year we're offering those. I would also say in terms of next steps is it's helped again illuminate and clarify what our areas of focus and priorities might be as it relates to sense of belonging, self-efficacy, self-management especially in SEL instruction and the intentionality in those areas. Obviously we have all the information that our panorama data is telling us but also our profile of a graduate committee has been working on identifying social-emotional learning competencies for K-5. They've met about five times, and they've also been really looking closely and developing what those different competencies look like at a variety of age and key stages. at the elementary level. We've also started learning more about the current state of social-emotional learning instruction at the secondary level. We had several secondary folks join us at the last K-5 Profile of the Graduate Committee meeting, and that involved looking at the CASEL standards and how we're currently addressing them and where there might be some opportunities to grow. I'd also add that as a result of some of this information, we've been able to put together several more proposals for summer learning opportunities for our employees that are really centered on mental health and supporting youth mental health. A couple other things I think that we need to continue to think about, especially as we kind of come out of a more restrictive COVID risk mitigation plan or approach from the last two years is really being intentional about how we're fostering friendships and connections, especially at those transitions from fifth to sixth grade and eighth grade. to ninth grade and just thinking about the unique needs of some of our different cohorts so for example we have a couple grade levels that have never eaten lunch together in the cafeteria so how do we plan for that and teach into that in the coming year and lastly um i think that there are a lot of opportunities based on the feedback that we got around parent education some of you may have joined us last night uh we partnered with the all in clayton coalition to offer a webinar on substance use trends among youth. And on April 25th, whatever that last Monday is, we're offering another webinar with a panel of experts to talk about healthy cell phone usage and developmentally what's appropriate and what we can expect in the impacts on its usage on young people. So there are a lot of opportunities for us to step into to help support our parents in a lot of these areas as well. In terms of up next, we're looking at changes in our panorama data. We're going to be closing that data collection out at the end of the month. looking at how our buildings are making progress toward their SEL goals that were stated in their school improvement plans. And we also just wrapped up our survey collection of the Missouri student survey, which looks at how students are engaging with substance uses and just really like healthy choice patterns is I think the best way I can describe it. And we should be getting that data back in June as well. So that will be a really helpful way for us to understand what direction we can go in some of these initiatives.

And then just to kind of give a brief equity update in terms of where our work is, you know, within the Department of Equity and Inclusion One thing we just did, which I'm super, super, super excited about, we just hired an equity and inclusion coordinator that will sit with the other curriculum and department coordinators within the district. It is Jennifer Todd, who is our counsel at Glen Ridge, and she's awesome because she brings a great SEL lens to the work and can really help in that capacity. She's worked in multiple cities and multiple districts with very great diversity. So she's really going to add another, you know, another brain in the kitchen to really, you know, add to the work, you know, and really help expand it to another level. Then just kind of do a quick recap of Black History Month and the programming that we did at each level. From elementary on up to the high school level, we had some awesome programming in terms of the great things that the elementary schools were able to do on a day-to-day basis within their classrooms and really getting into the everyday programming of the curriculum within each building. And then the phenomenal... history program that the middle school and high school put on together, which Dr. Tarita Rimes and Dr. Sheila Powell Walker were the leaders of that, and they did a phenomenal job with that program. And then in terms of future programming with Black History Month, especially seeing how things went this year at the elementary school, this summer a cohort of elementary teachers are meeting to create a curriculum that we have on Black History Month so that it's something that we can continue to evolve and it can be an everyday part of our programming and our curriculum moving forward. And then in May we have Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, and we're looking at trying to do some similar programming like we did during Black History Month with that. Dr. Patel and I, prior to spring break, met with a group of our Asian students to kind of discuss what are some ways we can get better in serving their needs, not only from a curricular level but also from a programming level as well. So we came up with some awesome ideas in terms of specific events, kind of like we did during Black History Month with the Lifebooks read we had and some of the other events. So really stay tuned for the programming that we have coming with that as well. On April 20th, we have our third and final community engagement forum, which will follow pretty much the same structure that the other two did, that Dr. Weins led with an equity focus, focusing on goal one. Today I actually met with the equity committee as well to really do some fine-tuning on what that program will look like. We'll look at the following... the following categories in terms of content and curriculum access, uh, interventions, um, and support services for students. Um, also professional learning and if it's having an impact on student achievement and really looking at those and having some conversations and activities, um, and trying to attract a wide range of parents to make sure that we're on the right track and we're doing the right thing from that. And then using that event to really as a launching pad to, uh, further our programming with different affinity groups within parents and within students as well. So really using that as a pad to really bring in the community into the work of equity that we're doing within the district. Also, before spring break, I had an opportunity to meet with some of our leaders in the educational foundation in terms of expanding our alumni programming to have a more diverse collection of alumni taking part in activities and being more active in the education foundation. So going into the next school year, really looking at some events to really grow that population so that when alumni are coming back to the district that we have you know just a diverse population coming back as we had when they were in school And then I recently met with Dr. Patel in terms of creating a bias incident reporting tool so that, you know, one thing that we've talked about often, especially with developing the strategic plan, was how are we going to track bias-related incidents and what are we doing exactly to combat against those? So by creating a bias incident recording tool, it gives us an opportunity to get the necessary data that we need in order to see, you know, how big of a problem is, you know, bias incidents within our district and, How are we putting programming and systems in place in order to combat against those?

And that

is it.

Awesome. Does anybody? Go ahead, Joe.

It's my last meeting. You know, I got to. Thank you. So just two things real quick. One, just compliments to you both, Cameron and Robin. You guys are doing a great job. Thank you. I think this is awesome. And then just a wondering, I heard you say that you're thinking about K-5, social emotional learning competencies or learning standards or whatever. I would just encourage us to look at 612 too because at least what I heard in some of the, you know, was some real challenges from the middle school and the high school in particular. So that's all I would say. And there's many districts that are doing that too.

Yes, and that is absolutely kind of in our roadmap, but we decided to start with K-5 so that way we would have a better idea of like where to build on. So it's in a different phase, but yes, absolutely on the radar. Well,

good

job. Thank you.

go

ahead stacy

okay great job and i re i was really i'm really happy to see kind of from those computer community engagement forum events kind of all that anecdotal data summarized together because i first of all i thought those events were great and i it was course great to be back in person with the community after not doing so for so long i would love to see us in the future do it with younger kids as well and i actually hope we can find reason to do those kind of things every year with parents and students because i think those informal conversations are so important and everybody probably opens up more you know in a in a setting like that. And hopefully we'll be able to even include more people because we won't need to spread out as much that far into the future. I wanted to thank you, Cameron, for mentioning about including more affinity groups and the Asian American Pacific Islander Month because I think that's definitely a group of our students that I could see wanting that sense of belonging and leadership in our schools. And I also wanted to point out that May is also Jewish American Heritage Month, and Passover is coming up this month. So I just, for what it's worth, I just wanted to make note of that as well to see if there was anything we could do with that type of affinity group at the same time to acknowledge May for them as, I shouldn't say them, for us as well. Thank you.

Anybody else? Joe? Last comments? Nothing? Okay. Steve? No comment on

this other than

a thank you. Great job to both of you. We appreciate it. It's so important. I'm so happy to see us really focusing on social and emotional health. It's so incredibly important, especially right now as we... have dealt with COVID for the past several years now. And you know, it's just we all need it. So I'm glad that we're aware. So thank you. Okay, so we are now going to go to our we're on item number six, which is our very long policy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Break, break.

Sit your ass down You

are going to our study item which is our first reading of policy AC and

All right, good evening. So we are here with Policy AC, which is prohibition against illegal discrimination, harassment and retaliation. The US Department of Education issued regulations around sexual harassment under Title IX in August of 2020. So the new rule requires special procedures for allegations, especially for severe forms of sexual harassment or assault. The update to Policy AC is the last piece of implementing compliance with the new federal rule. The update changes to AC are to direct all sexual harassment reports to the Title IX coordinator named under policy ACA for intake screening. The Title IX coordinator is trained to classify the cases so that when a report does not trigger ACA, it can be returned to the AC process to be handled promptly. So essentially, the most important difference is that the Title IX rules require the ACA process, which is extensive, affords more procedural protections than process and AC. All of those have to be finished before any discipline is imposed for the behavior that counts as ACA-covered sexual harassment. So essentially, it's vital that the Title IX coordinator has the chance to screen all the sexual harassment reports that come in to catch those that are now required to be handled under Title IX sexual harassment procedure that's included in policy ACA.

Okay. This was a really long one. Yes. And it was – so I guess this is new, and it's kind of – It's policy AC with revisions to it? Yes. Yeah. And the revisions were made as a result of – I guess some new policies from the Department

of Education, right? Yeah, it's from the 2020 when we implemented ACA under Title IX. Yeah. Basically, AC was sexual harassment. ACA is the Title IX sexual harassment. So any sexual harassment claims now have to go initially to the person who is in charge of ACA. to determine if they are under Title IX or if they are an ACA policy violation, possible policy violation. Because the investigative procedures are different if it's AC versus ACA.

Yeah. It's interesting because under the policy ACA, you know, I guess you can't take any disciplinary action until the investigation has been thoroughly, you know, played out. Correct. But the offense would be worse under ACA. Correct. Whereas under policy AC, you could discipline immediately for a lesser offense. So in a case where, I mean, I know it's just the law. There's nothing we can do about it. But I just, it was interesting. Does anybody? Go ahead, Jason.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is, we went through this last year. I think I was pretty tormented by it then, untormented by it now. And reading it again just kind of rehashed old wounds. And so, yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, it's just, I'm sorry, I have to take this off. I can't really hear myself think. But, yeah, I just find it, this is a very complicated thing to read. I think it's very tough for the victim. It just puts him in a worse situation. It would make somebody say, hey, I don't even feel like making the complaint because this is just too much for me to go through. So I feel like, honestly, when we had an opportunity, I'm not even sure if we really did, but when it was fresh, I think we should have made more noise about it and put in more pushback just to let people know that this is ridiculous. But I don't have much to say about it other than... Yeah.

Yes, this was cumbersome. But I have a few questions. So on the bottom of page one, it says that we can't use the terms gender identity or sexual orientation unless we've discussed it with our attorney. And I'm just wondering if we have discussed it with our Attorney or if you think we should discuss it with our Attorney to include those terms in our version of the policy.

Yeah, we have not discussed that with our attorney. When we had talked about this previously, they were talking about the word sex being more inclusive under court, and that's still kind of ongoing, so they were saying that it could just be included under that definition. Right,

and it did say that, but because it mentioned that, I was just curious if we had taken them up on the offer.

We have not, but I can certainly look into it if that's what the board would like to do.

I mean, it is pretty clear that the word sex includes that, so I'm fine not. Because it mentioned it, I was just curious if you had. And now I'm trying to remember what page this is on. I think there's a part, oh, I think it's page five. Hold on, let me look. No, it's not page five. Page six. Actually, I think this is in page six and seven. Page six were the definitions in discrimination. So part of where it says display of written material, pictures or electronic images, et cetera, et cetera. Do we take that electronic images for instance to mean like social media posts? Is that what that would mean? It's on page six under the definition discrimination.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we've all, I mean, it kind of almost fits multiple things because it's also written material depending on the situation. But yeah, the electronic images would, you know, that could be photographs, that could be things that, and again, the piece around social media is also, we're always looking for the nexus of the intersection to the educational environment and to the harassment that happened is going to be another important component of that.

Yeah, and it, yeah, I think it's on page seven too when it talks about communications but I was just I guess I just wanted to make sure when we say electronic images that that could include social media whether it was faculty student, student to student or whatever because it also mentions like on page 11 something about it being on or off property and I just started thinking about I don't know if that includes those might be two separate things but I guess, first of all, I just wanted to make sure that because social media is so prevalent and that is where so many of these cases probably occur, especially student-to-student these days, that we could include social media in what we're calling electronic images. Okay. Yes. And then when it mentions, I guess, so on page 11, it says something, and I'll try to find where, about... it occurring on or off property, which I guess would mean doesn't have to be on district property. That's correct. Okay. I don't even remember where it was. I just made a note and I can hardly read. Okay. Um, and okay, sorry. I have one more question. And it's back on page five. Sorry, I forgot this before. Let me find where it was. It says something about not being disciplined for speech. Yeah, does that mean they're talking about free speech, I guess, under the law? First Amendment rights. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's it. Thank you.

Okay, so it's a question for you guys and probably for Amy because it's a legal question. I share Jason's frustration with the fact that this is very unwieldy, and I think it actually exacerbates some of the issues that we talked about the last time this came up, but it's the law. One of the things, though, I noticed that we changed some of the language where we struck out on page three prohibited and replaced it with illegal discrimination. So you could see that under the retaliatory action subsection. Amy, do you see that? Yeah, but then when you go to page six, here it is in six, it says behaviors that could constitute illegal harassment. So we don't define what illegal harassment is. We just say it could constitute this. Should there be somewhere here where we define what illegal harassment the word earlier and, you know, we struck out prohibited and we've replaced it with illegal. And I don't know, is it a defined term? Is it not a defined term? Because of those, you know, because of what is called out later in the policy that says this is what, you know, could be considered illegal. But it doesn't say it is. And again, this policy is

Tough. So on page five, it kind of gives some examples under those different, just like under discrimination and harassment. Is that what you're, is that what you're referring to?

Yes. It's on page six actually. under harassment, behaviors that could constitute illegal harassment include but are not limited to. But it doesn't say that it is illegal harassment. So if we as board members or administrators or anybody in the district is pulling out this policy because there's been a complaint that's made and they're trying to determine did illegal harassment really occur, this policy wouldn't tell you that it has because we don't define what illegal harassment is. We just say it could be these things. but then earlier on, yeah, but then earlier on we say, you know, it only, this policy only occurs for illegal discrimination if it is illegal. At least that's how I read it. Maybe I'm not reading it right. Again, I'm no lawyer, but... Yes. Right. So if, you know, if we are... Required to go to this policy in these instances, how would you know what to apply? Is my question. And I leave that for others that are smarter than me to answer. I don't know that you necessarily

want to limit it to just, I mean, ILLEGAL HARASSMENT.

RIGHT, SO THEN WHY DID WE STRIKE PROHIBITED AND REPLACE IT WITH THE WORD ILLEGAL?

WELL, WE DIDN'T DO IT. IT WAS THE MSBA THAT DID IT. OH. AND THEY DID THAT IN ORDER TO COMPLY WITH SOME NEW REGULATIONS BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.

OKAY.

SO I DON'T, IT WASN'T, WE DIDN't MAKE THESE CHANGES.

And we have to either decide to accept or not accept the changes.

Um, yeah. Yeah. We have to vote on whether we're going to, whether we're going.

Michelle or someone just to get, can we

accept some and not accept others? I think that that would be maybe one of those nuanced areas that you, you know, as lawyer or a school external lawyers could look through. Cause it just, it's very confusing.

Yeah, and we can consult with the district council to get a little bit more background information of that particular sentence. Based on what they have listed later, I'm wondering if it has their – well, I don't want to say anything accurate, but I have a wondering if maybe it's related to protected classes as what constitutes illegal because a lot of these are protected classes. Yeah, and then also – Yeah. So we can contact district council about

that. One question that, you know, it talks a lot about reporting immediately in there. If there's a report of an allegation, it needs to be reported immediately. And they emphasize that several times. So my question, though, is if I don't do it immediately, is there like an expiration from when a person can then I guess what I'm trying to say is they're an aspiration. If I don't do it immediately, I do it later on. Let's just say it's a month later, two months later. Can that person still file a grievance if it's later on? If they see there's an allegation of harassment?

In terms of the person who's making the report? Or if a student told a teacher or a school administrator and we did not take any action on it?

I think Both ways. So let's just say a student, there was an issue and didn't say anything for a while and then finally says something.

We would still, yeah, it would still immediately.

And if a teacher or a faculty member saw something and didn't say until later, what happens there? Is there an expiration on there? Is there a problem? Will it still be...

That would be problematic, but we would still look into it. And then they would actually be in violation of... I mean, we would talk to them about this is the requirement that you need to report it immediately. And there's an annual training that they have to go through for compliance training that they have sign off that they understand the policy.

What if the student, for example, told the adult or the teacher not to say anything? They're not comfortable.

It doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. They're still obligated as a mandated reporter to...

Yeah, I just want to make sure there wasn't some kind of trick situation there where if you don't do it immediately, it doesn't count. No. Okay.

I do think under Title IX there's a statute of limitations. That's... That's what I

meant to say, statute of limitations.

OK, thanks guys. Thank you. Oh no, it's just a study item. OK. So we are going to move on to the safe return to learn. safe return to learn plan, which is an action item. So we do get to vote on this, Steve.

We good? All right. Good evening. My name is Chris Settle. Happy to be here with Heather Christman, our nurse slash health services coordinator. I have had the privilege, it's weird to use the word privilege in the same sentence with pandemic, but the privilege of being able to have Heather as a partner and work with her for the last two years on all of this. And she has been just a steady guiding force with all the decisions and everything that we've had to make. And I don't think gets recognized enough for the amazing work that she's done over the last 24 months. So I just want to lead by saying that, you know, I was going to say that, obviously. But we're here to talk a little bit about the transition starting on Monday that the district is making to a mask recommended environment. And we'll go through a brief presentation for you. The way Heather and I have it worked out, she asked me to kind of do the play by play of the presentation. She's gonna provide the color commentary and the fill in for that. So when we think about the work that we've been doing in the last 24 months navigating through The pandemic, we've really had two really important goals in mind is one to keep students learning in person for as long and as often as possible. And to ensure that our schools are safe, healthy environments for our students and our staff. We've done that because we've had the support and the opportunity to make decisions based on data, based on the science that we know about it, and based on local and internal trends. We've had guidance from a number of groups as I kind of opened with Heather's guidance has been just paramount throughout this process. But we've also worked with, you know, a lot of the national public health partners that everybody's familiar with, the CDC, Missouri's Department of Health and Senior Services, St. Louis County Health, Dr. Patel's been involved in a superintendent's working group, Uh, we've had access to medical professionals that other districts have put together in groups. We've had access to our own medical professionals and all of those advisors throughout this whole process, um, have, have really worked to help us put together, you know, a set of mitigation procedures that have really ebbed and flowed over the last two years. And, and they've, they've changed when we needed to change and they've changed because we want to keep that goal of students learning in person and keeping schools safe and healthy and keeping our schools to be safe and healthy environments. And because of that ebb and flow, because we watched that data, we've kind of gotten to a point right now where when we look at the data, it supports our transition to a mask recommended environment. Is there anything that you want to add to that?

I would say to add to the like other people that I've been working with, um, the nurse coordinators have been getting together. It was in the beginning of the pandemic, it was weekly. So every Monday we all sat together. It was really great to like talk to Parkway or Ladew or anyone to be like, what are you doing? How is this working? Oh, obviously that's not working for us. Well, let's try this. So that's been really great. And just to know that like We weren't in this, you know, like we weren't alone. So like, I will say it's been really a fantastic thing and now it's gone from the beginning of the year, it went down to every other week and now it's going to be once a month, which it's almost like losing for me, like a, a feeling member. Cause I've been with these people for the last two years. Um, but I still have a lot of support from a lot of our parents here in the district. And then, um, some colleagues still at children's hospital.

So when we talk about data being kind of an important driver for our decision makers, we want to kind of look at our current reality and where things are here in the district. So these are updated numbers as of today. So we're currently tracking three positive cases in the district, one student, one staff. Our positive case number is nine-tenths of 1%. We typically would see that number be, just if I think about back over the course of these 24 months of the pandemic, an average is around one or less. There's usually a zero in front of that decimal point for a lot of the times that we've been tracking and looking at this. Just to put that in perspective, so when we had that big surge from Omicron back in January, the internal positivity rate that we were tracking was like 4.1%, 4.15%. So that shows you how that kind of moves up and down. We also look at this data that we have access to around St. Louis County that shows the current positivity rate. Actually, this data was pulled yesterday. So yesterday's positivity rate in St. Louis County is running about 3.1%. Put that in perspective. So the last time we were together on February 23rd, it was 8.3. So it continues to trend in the direction that we want to see it. I think the other thing they look at is daily new case rate. And again, you see that peak that you also saw in that was our big January surge that everybody, not only in the area but across the country, dealt with. And right now, we're running at about 6.7 new cases per 100,000. Again, perspective, when we were last together back in February, that number was 17 and a half. So again, that number continues to move in the right direction. And I'm gonna ask Heather to talk a little bit more about this, but one of the reasons why we continue to see our numbers trend the way we do is because of the work that we've done, not only providing opportunities to get our students and staff vaccinated, but also talking about the importance of that. And for that, we know that we really have a pretty significantly high vaccinated percentage of students and staff within our schools.

So I can also share too. I, um, I worked at children's for 16 years and then I've been here now six years. So I have, you know, I can talk to people that I now know in the city or a now know in the county in different districts, um, would do the nurse over there. That's the coordinator. I've known her probably 20 years. I worked with her at Children's previously. So it's really nice to be able to just offhandedly talk to them too about their numbers and their percentage rates. And when I talked to the county and Amanda, who doesn't work in this department anymore, but when she was, I'd be like, She had asked me stuff about our percentage rates of vaccination. And I would tell her, I'm like, yeah, our, I mean, I can tell you right. Our seniors they're 90, 90%. That's amazing. I mean, um, and she just like stopped and she was like, that's why your numbers look like they do. So like when I would be in a panic that we had three positive cases in the classroom, she was like that's nothing and i'm like okay because that's a lot that's not normal for us um i talked to someone right before spring break in the city into i was sharing this with dr patel it was amazing i was so floored about some of the things that she had said to me and their vaccination rates are literally 25 percent And, um, I have, I mean, I think, and I was telling her cause she was asking me what can I help? Can I help her get her rates up? And I was like, I have to tell you are offering the clinics in the buildings was amazing. It really was. And to work with seeing pharmacy, um, if you ask them to, they'll tell you where their favorite tester to come to. Um, and it's mostly because they they're thanked when they're here. And the staff, like the nursing staff, like we help. It's not like we're just here as ornaments. So and that was the biggest thing I gave to her. I'm like being able to offer them in our building is what was a big take

home. One last little piece of data put this in perspective. So when you look at the state of Missouri and you look at the vaccinated percentage number of children between the ages of five and 17, who have completed their vaccination. For the state of Missouri, it's 29%. So that kind of puts it in perspective to where our numbers are for that. So Monday, April 4th, we are scheduled to move to a mask recommended environment. So when we talk about it being mask recommended, What does that mean? We've communicated a couple times with our parents already. We have additional communication planned to come out on Friday of this week, but we wanted to do that keeping with the fact that we have really monitored data and trends and stuck with trying to see what is happening, especially in our district, but also in the area around it. we knew we would need to have some thresholds or we would need to kind of a guidance to, to move back to mask recommended and, and working with Heather and looking at, um, what other school districts who had transitioned to a lot of, a lot of whom had transitioned to mask a mask recommended or mask optional environment, um, long before we did. Um, so we had, we had opportunities for some, some great learning there. Um, we work to set a threshold of 1.5% for each of our buildings. So what that means is that anytime we have more than 1.5% of that building's population of students and staff, that building will test positive three consecutive days so it's not we're trying to give a little grace and not just kind of be sending everybody back and forth for for a little one day blip but if if they test positive if they have a positivity rate that exceeds that for three consecutive days that building will transition back to universal masking or masks required for a period of two weeks and do you want to talk a little bit more about what we've seen with that 1.5 percent in other districts

So, yeah, I can. As a matter of fact, I talked to Anne Bodie with Lidu Monday, Tuesday, and they had the same spring break we did, and they have six cases right now. We looked at MICDS, and they had spring break the week before us. They have one. They have one case. Parkway, much bigger district. They have five positive staff and five positive students. Um, so I, I will be honest when people ask me like, um, why we hadn't, and I was like, I want to see what's going to happen in your district first. I mean, I'll be honest. I totally like said that. Um, and, and I reached out to Ann, um, this week too. I mean, she, she was, she offered any help that we needed if I had any more questions about it. Um, We also the testing. So like, um, we are kind of partnered with this like trial thing that we're trying to figure out with and, um, we're working with Webster and Ladoo. So it's the three of us. And then we offer testing four days a week. So if I, so in the search, we get asked daily, where should I go? Where should I go? So we'd be constantly like recommending places. And then somebody would be like, that's terrible. Okay. I won't send anybody there ever again. But so here on Tuesdays for two hours, we offer testing here and anybody from Webster, anybody from Ladue can come get tested. And same vice versa. We can go to Ladue or Webster to get it done. So like there is most of the times are 9 to 11, but they do have an offer at a time that's like 2 to 4. It's an off time.

We've hosted that for the week before spring break and then just this past week. We have been purposeful in not necessarily sharing it out because Heather wanted to work out the kinks of actually hosting it here to make sure we had it in the right location and that we had it moving, but then we'll be pushing that communication out to our families and our staff moving forward as well. Just important asterisks on the whole moving to mask recommended is that, you know, the title of that slide is that we're moving to mask recommended for K-12. So we will still stay with universal masking for all of our pre-K programs, our pre-K building, which is the family center. And then also we'll be requiring students to wear masks when they return from quarantine. So right now, under the current quarantine guidelines or exclusion guidance, they're allowed to return to school after five days and then they must remain masked for the duration of their 10 day quarantine period. This just shows you really quickly what 1.5% in terms of a positivity threshold looks like at each of our schools. We had the famous center up there, obviously, with the thinking that hopefully when our pre-five-year-old population is eligible to be vaccinated, that we'll be able to move them to this type of program as well. But that kind of gives you an idea of how we'll be monitoring that on a daily basis. YOU WANT TO ADD

TO THAT? I WOULD JUST SAY, LIKE, IT'S BEEN PRETTY AMUSING. LAST YEAR, FAMILY CENTER HAD, WE DID NEVER ONCE QUARANTINE A CLASS AT THE FAMILY CENTER. I feel like that's a really big thing to boast because those are our youngest kids. Let's be honest, they're not the greatest mask wetters, but they're probably just as good as our high school students, to be honest. So that's pretty amazing just to look at. We had zero last year, and I think we've only had two this year. So, I mean, that's pretty amazing.

So as we move forward to finish out the school year, obviously we – that we're going to keep this masking in place for pre-K students and staff. We are going to allow them to start taking mass breaks and removing their mask when they're playing outdoors. That was something that we worked with Debbie Riley very closely with. we're going to continue to contact trace and, and do everything that we have been doing. So if you have any concerned parents that ask you about that, about that, um, you know, that, that doesn't go away, we'll still gonna be vigilant about any exposures or anything that we have in our schools. Um, we're maintaining our vaccination or weekly testing program, uh, for staff, you know, still requiring visitors, vendors, and volunteers who are having contact with students to either show proof of vaccination um or be tested and and of course you know we're going to continue working with the same group of advisors that we've had all along and and monitoring what's going on with covid you know in our area so if we do need to pivot again we're able to do that as quickly as possible as we're back heather was having a conversation about that just today

I talked to ID infectious disease at Children's today actually for 20 minutes just to be like, okay, I'm going to the board tonight. This is the question that I feel like that I'll have and it's like with the new variant just on our threshold, like is it still a good idea? And the answer was yes, but we still have to sit and monitor. We don't know exactly what's gonna happen. We just gonna have to like monitor the situation.

And that's all we've got.

Okay, thank you. Let's let Joe go first.

So... I recognize it's a balance. It's, you know, very, very difficult and I recognize that we have literally the board has gotten, you speak about infectious disease, one of the co-directors of infectious disease at Wash U said keep the masks, right? I mean so we have a balance, right? I understand that. I also understand that and I appreciate all the great work you all have done and Nisha, you and your staff too. I actually don't like that this is a board decision. I mean, I actually don't think this should be a board decision and I've expressed that. I understand why it needs to be. So because it is, I just want to say I don't support it. And so I'm going to vote against it. And that pains me, but I want to at least tell you why that I will. And it's really about students, about staff, and about trends. You know, our vaccination rate is great, but it's not so great for everybody, right? So when you look at our free and reduced lunch students and we look at our black students, it's almost 30% less. And I think so that, you know, when we talk about a place for everyone, that concerns me. I just want to say that. And that's not even talking about folks that are immunocompromised. Staff, actually that same person who was the co-director at Wash U talked about we've asked our staff, our teachers, right? What is the hardest job to do right now? Frontline health workers and probably teachers, right? And I just... know i've had children in the district for 20 years so anecdotally i you know i know lots of staff but um i suspect that our staff maybe not a formal survey but our staff are like other staff right other teachers right they would prefer masks right and then trends right i mean i i do think you know i hear what they're saying but we do have to monitor that The new Omicron variant is now 54% of all the cases in the country. And so I feel bad about it. I don't want to undo it, but I just want to say that. So I still support you. I think you're awesome, but I got to vote no. So that's what I'll say.

Okay. Steve, go ahead.

So I only have really one question. 90% vaccinated. how do we even know what the positivity rate is? For many, certainly for a lot of kids and high schoolers, they decide that it would be like a cold or something. So we're basically, expecting parents to, if the kid's feeling a little under the weather, they're supposed to test and then report that to the district. Is that basically what we're saying? With the knowledge that if they did that, it might cause masks to be required. So that's my concern is that I love the structure and everything, but The good thing that we've got such a high percentage vaccinated, but that means that we may not know. We could be at 3% and not knowing. That would be my concern.

I mean, yeah, because there's definitely the asymptomatic cases. And I will be honest, how many times I've been exposed? More than we can count, right? Because like, let's be honest, they're in my office, right? Like if they're sick, I'm there. I'm with them. And I will tell you, my mom laughs at me because I have such a stack of dust underneath my counter. It's kind of ridiculous. If my kids sneeze or look the wrong way, I'm testing them. And I will be 100% transparent. I hear my husband had it in December. I stuck him in the basement and I tested myself and my kids every single day. And could I have had it and it didn't pop positive? Maybe. Maybe. Right? Maybe. I also wonder, like when I look at some science and stuff, is because I'm getting exposed every day or because I'm testing so many people, maybe I am getting my own immunity from that, but I'm not testing positive. And I have to be honest, that's kind of what I believe.

And then I guess just a follow-up question. On an operational basis, so if a child is...

we don't test the kids in the office no no we send them home just like we would for like hey your kid has a fever today and we send them home and that wouldn't change

Um, first of all, thank you, Chris, for all your communication with this. And thank you, Heather, especially for all the work you've been doing the past couple of years. You're the, you've been the right person at the right time for this job. So thank you very much. Um, I love the idea of the testing once a week here and especially love that it's in collaboration with other districts. I think that's beneficial for a lot of reasons. Um, I have two questions. One is when we look at those vaccination rates, I know that The official definition still of fully vaccinated is just the first two shots. Do you have any indication what percentage of our staff or students are boosted on top of that?

So students aren't really required to be boosted yet, so I I can't really give you a number on that, but staff. I mean it's yeah, I mean it's pretty much just as high and then like we offered a booster clinic. was it december yeah like in december for staff um and i never say no if you know me i never say no. if you call me and you're like can my neighbor come of course like yes and the fine print says yes only like clayton no one more person that i'm gonna keep the rest of us safe right like so that's my answer always um I have already gotten plans of like next year, because in my opinion from the beginning, I was like, this is going to be like the flu shot. We're going to all have to get this every year. So my plan is yes, to offer it every year. And if we have to offer multiple clinics, then of course that's what I mean. We've done nine so far. I will continue to do it. If anything with working with other districts, The three of us have been like, we should utilize this to our benefit. Right? So like there's things that we don't, and this is off painted, but COVID, but, um, things that we don' qualify for because we don't have enough students for like the dental bus or for the vision. But if we did it as a three district, we would have enough. So I will say doing the testing is actually just brought other open eyes to other. That's great.

And my next question is, and this is because I've gotten this question from the community, want this to be a public question and answer is how did we arrive at the 1.5 threshold when it seems like every district kind of has different ones all the way up to like three and five, you know, percent. How did we land at 1.5? I

was the ones that I most there's like 12 of us that typically show up on a Monday to those leadership meetings. And so for the most part, 1.5 was what most of us have kind of like come to. And so that's what I just brought to the district was like, you know,

any, any further comments or questions? I'll just throw in that I do support this. And what I'm about to say is I know that it's just there's not really a better answer right now, and I know everybody's using their best thinking, but I will say I do support it. I think we're kidding ourselves if we think we're really going to have an accurate answer reading of if there's 1.5% or not. So, you know, as you continue to meet with your group, I would say, you know, I would encourage, you know, if something does emerge as like, oh, this might be a better metric, maybe we think about it. But I do understand it's just so nuanced and difficult and it's just, you know... It is, you know, it is what it is.

I would say just in general too, I would say that I'm more reserved with like, like just cautious, I guess is more the word. I'll like mention like, okay, so the nurse will tell me they have this positive and this positive. And even though they don't necessarily think that they are like connected, I push more for the side of let's just err on the side of it is instead. So like, yes, we might have to quarantine this class for like or the kids that are not vaccinated in this class. But like I'm protecting them. That's like that's my goal, right, is to keep those kids safe. Makes sense.

All right. Well, great. Then I appreciate you guys being here tonight. Oh, I'm sorry, Kim.

No problem. I didn't see you raising your hand. No, not at all. So I also want to thank you for all your work in the last couple of years. And I also support it and agree with Amy and also agree, Joe, with some of your comments and your comments that there is no way to definitively measure objectively exactly what it is at any given time. What we have is best thinking i think is what you said amy and we have snapshots in time but i will say that everything that you guys have done has been consistent from the start and so that's appreciated because at least our baseline hasn't moved or we haven't moved the goal posts the entire time as a district i think that that we've kind of all wrestled with how best to deal with this so that's very much appreciated And I also want to say that I think that the recommendations that you're making are also consistent with the latest thinking from the American Association of Pediatricians, which just recently changed their stance like in the beginning of March because even when the CDC changed their stance earlier, they were still cautious. And it's just within the last 30 days that they have now said it really is an individual family decision. Every family has to make the decision for themselves. So the fact that we're going mass recommended versus required, I think allows individual families to make those decisions just as individual families are making decisions about whether or not the vaccine is right for them or for their kids. So I think that that's all good. And I think that all that we can do as a board, whether we support this or not, is remember that the pandemic affects families in all kinds of different ways, right? What we can do as parents and board members and administrators and teachers is just kind of role model, like the empathy everybody has to have towards everybody else because there's not gonna be any decision which is gonna be right for everybody. And the one thing that I am a little concerned about, and I'm not sure in which of the schools we should be most concerned about it is, is when we move to this, and maybe Aitana you can give us your opinion, is what happens if there is bullying of kids who decide to wear a mask or not to wear a mask? you know what are we what do we have in place or not have in place as a district to deal with that assuming that there's enough votes for this to pass where we do go to mass recommended so what is the district's plan assuming that we you know this goes through to deal with that type of thing

And I think Kim, you mentioned the fact that we have to have empathy, right? We have to be respectful of each other's decision making and all the communication that we've sent so far regarding the idea that we will be going mask recommended is that whole messaging, right? And we've been trying to be very proactive in that in terms of even the building principles in their messaging to their staff and their messaging to their communities are sending that idea. If it does happen, we would address it just like we would with any other bullying situation. You know, have the conversation, try to get restorative practice together and say, okay, what happened? Why would you do this? And it's a learning and teachable moment. So just like any other bullying incident that would happen, we would

And then I noticed that in your recommendation, there are some instances where masks will be required in certain circumstances. Is that to protect staff members that may have had, you know, organ transplants or other things? Or have you guys identified exactly what those circumstances are? Is that a hypothetical that's just out there? I mean, are there?

Yeah, at this point, it's just a hypothetical that's out there just because we wanted them AT LEAST MENTION THAT THERE IS THAT POSSIBILITY IF WE DO HAVE A STAFF MEMBER THAT GOES THROUGH THE PROCESS TO GET ADA ACCOMMODATIONS, THEN WE'D HAVE TO GO, YOU KNOW, WE WOULD HAVE TO TAKE THOSE STEPS TO MEET THOSE ACCOMMODACTIONS.

OKAY. ALL RIGHT. WOULD THAT APPLY TO US?

YES, IF THEY HAD GOT IT THROUGH A 504 ACCOMMODATION, IT WOULD.

I JUST WANTED TO ADD ONE MORE THING. I do also support this, not because I think this pandemic is over, but I'm comfortable with everything you've recommended and where we're at with the numbers and our vaccination rates, et cetera. But I also think we need to be cognizant of the social emotional. told that the masks have taken on a lot of our kids. And we talk a lot about social, emotional learning and feelings of our students. And I didn't, I just didn't want to ignore that piece of it also. And so in my opinion, because I am comfortable with where we are with our cases and our positivity rates and our vaccination rates, I'm comfortable going to mask recommended also because I know that socially emotionally for a lot of our kids, the masks have been an issue. And I, I know we focus so much on that, that I want to acknowledge how much the mask recommended will help some of that too.

Okay. Um,

yeah. So please read the motion. I move that the board of education approved the safe return to in-person learning continuity of services plan.

It's been moved and seconded. Um, any further questions or comments all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So we've got, um, um, most of us in favor and Joe opposed. And we are now on to the academic calendar. I think we just need a motion.

Should we do these separate motions, I guess? Separate? Okay. First, I move that the Board of Education approve the 2022-2023 calendar. Okay.

Second. I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Go ahead.

I do. Chris, I think you probably know what I'm going to ask. I don't mean to micromanage the process, but I am just curious if you looked at other districts that moved their final exams to January to even out the semesters or talk to some of our semester course teachers like we talked about before, only because I'm curious how that's been working since they moved that way when we moved the start date.

Sure. On a higher level, we asked Dan to explore that conversation with his students and his staff. He can talk a little bit more deeply about it beyond. He did do a poll and ask where students and staff were in terms of moving exams to after winter break. Um, students were, were 10 to one, um, with about half of the students in the high school voting, um, in favor of keeping exams, uh, where they were. Um, staff was, was about seven to one, um. With probably about two thirds to three fourths of the staff voting. So kind of keeping them where they are.

Okay. Thank you for, thank you for coming prepared for my question. You're welcome. I appreciate it. Thanks. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Good job.

I was just going to say, I think that it's great that we're moving from early release days from 7 to 2. That's been an issue for so long, so thank you. I think that's brilliant.

Yeah, and I just, again, I have no interest in micromanaging the process either. And I know you guys took a lot of work to get here. The only thing that I noticed when comparing the 22-23 to the 23-24 calendar is, is that November 8th, which is a random Tuesday, really the right date? Oh, it's a federal election day. Okay, that makes sense. Because I saw it the following year as the first, which is right after Halloween, which I know a lot of parents in the parent surveys that come back with. So I didn't know if it was...

No. So, and that makes sense. Yeah. So then, you know, when we, when we make changes, we kind of try to set up templated guidelines. So moving forward, then our plan will be in even years to have that day beyond the Tuesday in November, that's election day. And in odd years, when there is no federal election that day, I'll move to November 1st.

Okay. And hopefully we have more years where we end by Memorial Day, which I know is not next year, but then it is the following year. No, it's not.

Well, no, we're done in May. We're just not done by Memorial Day. After

Memorial Day. Oh, it

is still after.

It is still after.

Just May 31st. Bummer. I thought that... Okay. We can vote on this one, I think.

Yeah. And what if they change school board elections to November? Will that change? I mean, you'll just... Will that change it? I mean, because they're seriously considering it right now in the legislature. I mean, it's like has a chance of passing. So I'm just wondering if that would affect the calendar because then.

It could. I mean, we'd have to look at the traffic that we'd expect, you know, what other elections get moved to November as far as that goes. I mean, you know. My disposition from having done what I do for 20 years is if we ever get to a year where the district has a ballot issue, whether it's a bond issue or tax referendum on there, I always feel like if you're going to ask people to come to your schools to vote to support them, it's great if they can run into happy kids and teachers along the way too. So that could create a potential challenge as well if we lose the availability of that April election date.

OK. Yep, so all in favor. I any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Hey next one

I moved at the Board of Education approved the 2023-2024 calendar.

And moved and seconded questions or comments on this one.

I do have one question, so this one I think it's because Good Friday is in March. marches like almost like every friday i mean it just looks crazy so my question is um because we can't move good friday have we been i know when my kids were really young we didn't get good friday off are we doing that now is it that hard do that many teachers want substitutes is that our reason and is it really that many that we really need that off because when i look at this year in And then April is a long month with no days off.

Yes, and we discussed that a lot with the committee. And when we look back at historical data, one of the reasons why we switched to starting to have that day off as it being an unpaid – typically it was an unpaid day is because we cannot fill the substitute request. We have so many requests for personal holidays, personal religious holiday.

We have even less subs now probably. And

we have even less subs Now. So we felt it was in best interest to go ahead and maintain that as – Not an instructional day.

I'm just anticipating a lot of complaints about that March calendar. It's a lot of Fridays with no school. Well, it's conference prep day.

Anyway. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. And we are on to our consent agenda.

I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda for agenda items 8.02 through 8.04. It's

been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed Motion passes. And on that, I want to thank the law firm of Curtis, Hines, Garrett, and O'Keeffe for their generous donation to the Merrimack Library Fund in memory of Mr. Aubrey Yowett. So thank you very much. We appreciate it. I

just had one comment because

he's a

neighbor of mine. Oh, yeah. Aubrey was a unique And I, to add on to that, I know I sent an article, I think to Nisha about him since she's new to the district, but, um,

I'm not a Merrimack family, but from what I understand, he would greet the kids walking to and or from school every day for many, many, many years in that neighborhood and outside Merrimack. So I think the whole Merrimack community really got to know him. Up until

he was 103, the drop-off lane is on Central in front of us.

Yeah, it is. Okay, I think our last thing or one of

our last things is the financials. I move that the Board of Education approve payment of current expenditures and investments for February 2022 as detailed below. Second.

I

have a couple questions.

OK, and I don't get to ask Mary Jo that many questions for that much longer so. Mary Jo, thanks for the recap. I actually really like the four page summary that you put together on the financials so. I noticed it in the financials. A lot of the puts and takes tend to be federal reimbursements for coronavirus or staff salaries are lower because we're not running programs or not. When do we expect that those federal monies for pandemic will no longer be available because that's going to have an impact on the budget long term and then the offset of that is that as soon as the pandemic is over I would expect our expenses then go up because you know we are going to hopefully re-implement some of the programs that have disappeared like the summer programs and the transportation stuff that you called out in your summary so do we have an idea of what that looks like going into next year

So right now, really the art for our district and it's not really from most, but because we didn't receive that much, we have used all of the federal funding for COVID specific expenses. We have not really offset any like real regular expenditures. So, you know, we have Nurse Heather being an additional nurse. So that's primarily the expenses moving forward with some instructional expenses. We're going to have some what they consider loss of learning instructional expenses moving forward those will most likely be additional and just during the term of the covet funds which will be for two more years so 2024. But the summer programs and stuff like that, we don't actually. The summer programs, they were a little bit smaller the last two years, but not significantly. It's the loss of Summer Quest, which will not be returning. And that's like a half-million-dollar program. And then there's a few other fee-based summer programs that we're not bringing back, at least right away, as we continue to revamp the summer, which Robin knows better, but she'll be working more on that. So I don't expect a lot of changes, really, due to the COVID funding.

all right thanks that's helpful and so and then while mary jo sitting there i think everybody knows that we're losing mary jo to another district and um i just wanted to thank you publicly during this board meeting in case we i'm sure we'll see you until you're gone but um so the public knows that might be watching that um you know you've been with the district a long time the contributions you made i think are very meaningful And I think, you know, I did leave you a voicemail. We exchanged some voicemails last week where you will be a hard act to follow. So thank you because the detail that you provide and I know you've met with me fairly often outside of these meetings and your knowledge of especially the property taxes that are unique to the Clayton district are really, I mean, we're going to have to have your number still on speed dial after you leave. So thank you for your service to the district. thank you

okay um where are we okay all in favor aye aye great um any opposed motion passes and with that we are at the uh public comment

So we have one public comment this evening, and the comment is from Mr. Paul Helsher. As an employee of the district, I would like to take a moment to publicly thank Steve Singer for his contribution to the Clayton School District. Although I did not have his daughters in class, I first got to know Steve many years ago as the coach of his daughter's soccer team at CHS. Over a period of about five years with an earlier phase of visioning, social studies curriculum reviews, and some budget cuts to summer school, I feel like I was in front of the Board of Education on a monthly basis. Steve was always prepared, read all the provided materials, and asked tough, thoughtful questions. When we reference the ways in which citizens can get involved with our local government and our high school civics class, we often provide the example of a local board of education. With his return to the board at this time, Steve embodies this characteristic of citizenship. On behalf of myself and many members of the CHS faculty, Steve, thank you for your service to Clayton for many years.

So nice. Very nice. And I echo that. All right, great. We are on right now to the board communications. I know that there have been several meetings. Does anybody have any updates? Okay, go ahead, Joe.

Wow, such deference. No, never ever before. So we are St. Louis Board PLC. I don't know if I shared this with you all. I don't think I did. We're going to have another hopefully in-person meeting. On Saturday, June the 4th, 9 to noon, most likely we'll be in U City. So more to come. But it will be exciting because hopefully it will be in person. So I just wanted to say that. And while I have a mic, I just want to say thank you to all of you. Really awesome serving with each of you. And thank you, Nisha and Itana too. It has been a great six years. So thank you.

It's going to be sad without you, Joe. I don't know. I expect to see you in the audience.

Each and every board meeting.

I hope Chris tells me every meeting that he sees your name pop up on the list. Watching it from home. Anybody else? I know that Gary had an SSD meeting and a Parks and Rec, there was an equity and inclusion, equity meeting today. Did anything happen at that?

Didn't

go. Jason? I didn't make it. Nope. Okay. Cameron?

We pretty much discussed

it. Okay. All right. Thank you. Go ahead, Stacey.

I had a social emotional wellness committee meeting And we heard from Chartwells who told us they now have a food truck available for events for the districts they serve, which would be great for sporting events, other school events. And we had dinner catered by Chartwells tonight. It was delicious. So I think that's great. They recently completed a survey and what they realized they needed the most improvement in from the survey results was variety in what they offer. Also, another update is that we hope to have elementary cafeterias totally back up and running next year, fingers crossed with salad bars back available and more choices. But as Dr. Wien said earlier, our younger kids are going to have to learn how to use the cafeteria kind of for the first time. So that'll be a big transition. Also, the normal pricing will be back next year in our cafeterias. So the free and reduced lunch applications will be out this summer for our families that need it. The Clayton Kids Triathlon is returning in August this year for ages 5 to 14, which is always a huge turnout for the community and great. Early next fall, our staff will be able to get biometric screening, which is really exciting. um through the district and at chs at the high school the last week of may during final exams and at y down during map testing we'll be having wellness weeks which dr ween's also talked about with the therapy dogs again the duo dogs which is a crowd favorite the spring panorama survey will be given in the next few weeks to grades 3 through 12 and i also wanted to mention that the high school recently hosted Dance Marathon, which I don't have the number in front of me. I believe they raised over $40,000. It is a huge endeavor and is completely student-run. And I believe these kids work on this maybe almost a year to put together. So to raise that much money in a school and community as small as we are is a huge accomplishment. The money's raised for Riley's Children's. Is it Riley's? for a children's hospital. Um, I'm sorry if I'm not remembering the name, but the kids plan it from start to finish. They get the sponsors, they get the donations, they run the activities and I just want to congratulate them on that. Um, as I think it fits in with the social emotional wellness as well. So those kudos to them. Terrific. Thank you.

Yes. So, there were a lot of us at the last CEF meeting. Dr. Patel was there. Milena was there. Chris was there. They spent a lot of the meeting talking about the teacher innovation Grant selection and I won't spoil the surprise, but they were very generous with the amount of money that they are allocating this year. And I'm sure that you know they always do something special to notify those teachers that have been awarded those grants, and I'm sure that's coming soon. But we just want to thank the foundation for continuing to support us as a school district there. And then the other thing that they spent quite a bit of time talking about was the Hall of Fame Distinguished Educators Award event, which is going to be held. um in april i'm looking for the date april 22nd so um i think the doors open at five o'clock and the event starts at 5 30. um the induction ceremony is there and then there's a gala celebration the following day on the 23rd that starts at seven o'clock so i believe that all of the board members here are invited and they're always looking for more volunteers for the cef um so if you uh are looking for something to do at the end of april come one come all anything that i might have missed nisha i

i forgot to also add that same weekend april 23rd is the finally dedication of adzic field which we feel like we've had in use for a while but due to covid and other things we haven't been able to formally dedicate it and that's also that weekend

It's been a quite unusual experience to come back on the board.

Okay,

it's kind of sad. I

know.

Yeah, that's true. Okay, I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye.