September 6, 2023 — Meeting Transcript

Am I good? Okay. All right, ladies, we're going to start. Good? Okay. Okay, so we are going to get back to order, and adequate notice has been given. But you need to, Gary, we need to adopt the agenda again.

Move that the Board of Education adopt the agenda as posted. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay, motion passes. Do we have public participation tonight? Nope, okay. So I think we're going to, do I need a motion to move for that?

Okay.

The playground, okay. Is this to read ahead? Okay,

Dr. Murdoch, if you would, and our students. We just rearranged the agenda. We just rearraged

it. I didn't know if I needed a motion for that. It should be on BoardDoc.

And we are here, first of all, to say thank you for approving

our inclusive playground for Glen Ridge. To give you a little background about our playground, I've been in the district, this is my 11th, I'm going into my 11th year. I started off at Merrimack and we were fundraising for the playground at Merrimack. And so when I got the wonderful position at Glen Ridge, they were fundraising for a new playground at Glen Ridge. Oh, and Merrimack, too. Yes, they're next. We already know that, right? And so if you go to that next slide, Luke, Agents of Change Project, fifth graders are charged to find an issue within Glen Ridge around problems that they see. And so if you see the topics that the entire fifth grade came up with, anti-bullying campaign, accessible playgrounds, school lunches, school vandalism and inclusion. And so while they were giving their presentation to a live audience of parents and staff members from across the district, Dr. Patel happened to be in the room with other administrators about the accessible playgrounds. During this time, they shared a lot of information that we weren't even aware of about there was some information about when playgrounds should be redone because ours was at the time 16 or 17 years old and said that we should have a new playground. And so the kids met with me. They also had their own issues. I'm going to tell you, they'll share their why of why they wanted to research the playground. For me, I wanted the playground to be more accessible for all of our students because we had a couple students that had a hard time accessing every component of our playground. So during that presentation, Dr. Patel turned around and said, what's going on? I said, we're on it. We're fundraising. She says, stop it. Let me talk to John. And then that is where we started. So I would love for me to stop talking and our students to start talking about their why, why they chose to do this research project and then their process, the way that they were on the playground committee. We had different meetings throughout the year. And so I want to talk about their experience of the process and then their why.

Thank you, Dr. Murdock. Hi, my name is Lona Shin and I am a former student of Glen Ridge. Now I am a sixth grader at White Owl Middle School. My experience with agents of really a good one for me because I got to dive deep into the topic of inclusive playgrounds. And while I was learning to teach others, I really did get to teach myself.

Hi, I'm Z Tucker. I'm also a sixth grader at Y-Down. Me choosing Accessible Playgrounds started out as kind of just a schoolwork, but then I started to learn about it, and I realized that it really is helpful and important, and that led to me being here today.

Hi, I'm Thomas Castellano. I chose to do accessible playgrounds because I think that playgrounds are a big part of elementary school. It's what kids like about school. It's where they learn to take risks and meet friends.

Hello my name is Julian Samantha once former student of Glenridge Elementary now I'm a secretary at Whiteown and to add on something that Tommy or Thomas said Usually in elementary school, you're like former friends that you might have been in a class last year. You don't get to see them anymore because you're in a different class. But at recess, you get to see them and just have fun.

Hi, my name is Brooklyn Brogan Kimke. You probably figured out that I'm a student at Y-Down, and I was a former student of Grand Ranch. And when I was in fourth grade, my teacher read us a book about a girl named Melody who had disabilities. She had cerebral palsy, and after reading that book, it gave me kind of a new perspective. And in fifth grade, I realized this is my chance. This is my chance to help people, and this is my chance to make an impact on Glen Ridge. So that's my life. Our process consisted of things like surveys and asking around and interviews, things like that. Things like we asked around school, a lot of things.

So the idea kind of started off as what can you do to... impact the community and like he said um like it used to be just like and we thought it was just like some more schoolwork but it started to like grow on us and then we're like and then we got like new ideas about what we could do and yeah

I would say first it started with kind of thinking of ideas with the group, seeing what everyone thought, and then starting to make it happen, surveying school. And eventually it all led to voting for a new playground.

Yeah, I mean, my group only had two people, and we came up with a lot of ideas we thought Did

a lot of stuff. In one of our inclusive playground team surveys, we found out that Actually, a really big population of Glen Ridge students had been injured on the playground at least once. So we decided we needed a new playground and not only because we need inclusivity, but because this playground, as Dr. Murdoch mentioned earlier, it's getting kind of old.

So we met with five different companies, and they submitted their own renderings. They walked around the playground. We watched different recesses to see what the students were accessing. And so then they came up with their designs, and then I kind of narrowed it down to the top three based off of the presentations from the children of what they wanted. After that, all the children that did the presentation was on the playground committee and then I listed help from teachers. So I had a teacher rep from each grade level as well as parents. And I also had parents with students with disabilities on there as well because their voices really need to be heard to make sure that our playground was accessible for all. So we met three times throughout the year and we met with the top three companies and they presented to our committee They listened to our feedback answer questions parents took their children's to different playgrounds They went to Merrimack's playground because that one was just a few years old and then other ones around the area and then gave their feedback to the companies. Jim Brunel was key because he was there. He was my note taker. We wanted to make sure that all the information that we gave to the companies, they got the same exact information so they wouldn't have one up on the other. So we took some copious notes and then we compiled all the notes. Jim and I compiled all the notes and resubmitted those notes to the companies, provided feedback, more feedback. We had parents email like, oh, we thought about this, submitted all that to the companies and gave them a few weeks. And then they submitted their renderings and then I invited the playground committee to come back and they voted. And we 100 percent, we could not believe it. All the votes went to Kurt Hutchison, who actually put in Miramax Playground because he actually embodied every single thing that the committee wanted and mentioned and the things that we did not want. And so the next few slides you will see is the playground. And then I also have a poster as well. And so there's music play, there are items for wheelchairs to be able to go on, but not just one wheelchair, but for students who are not in a wheelchair as well. We have a couple pieces that will stay that were newer pieces to Glynn Ridge. We have students that love to spin, so we have some sensory items that are also included. We have some shade, because that was also important. We talked about color. which is also important with certain students with disabilities that we thought was important to make sure we have these cool, warm colors. And so another thing that Z brought up is just when you have kids that are taller and how uncomfortable our equipment could be, so we have different levels. So we have low levels, mid-level, and high level, but it's all for elementary students. And our most important part of it was the swing. Swings right now are not accessible to all, and so that was also something that was important to have some straps for swings. And so we have different swings, and then our tire swings that we have right now, you can probably get two or three kids on there. These swings that they have, I think you can get up to five, so you can have more kids on the swings, and then we are adding more swings to that space. Thank you.

That was a great, I loved it. And the kids were spectacular. You guys did a great job. Does anyone have questions? Go ahead.

What's the timeline for this? Great question. Well, we wanted to present it to the board first. So then after that, we're going to communicate with Curt and hopefully we'll start getting things ordered now because of supply and demand. And our hope is that they will start this summer. So it'll be ready for the fall.

Great. I just want to say too, while I have the floor, I was also in the presentations last year and you should be so proud of yourselves where you came from all that work you had done. I mean, these kids, first of all, were so impressive, just all the research and data they collected to make the presentations. Um, And from there to now, look where you are with the rendering. So I'm just so impressed. And I think and I see Mrs. Barnes here. So thanks to you. Are you the only one maybe that this this whole unit agents have changed to me is just so cool. And if it doesn't like embody our whole strategic plan, I don't know what does it is. It's just really neat to see it in action. And I hope you kids feel really great because really all that work you did, look, I mean, I know you're at Wydow now, but you live in the community and that's what's so great about it is everyone who lives there can still use the playground even if you're not at school there. So I hope you'll continue to use it once it's built and be proud that the younger kids will have it for a long time. Great work.

And that's one of the main reasons I wanted them to come and do a presentation to the board, because to really see the value that you guys, what you have done is amazing work. And we're so proud of you, truly, for being from that classroom where you were like, this is just work. I have another assignment. I'm going to get it done, right? But then you really started like learning about it and it helped you be better students as well. And then look what you're doing. And I remember being in that presentation and I was going to say the same thing. Stacey was there. Chris, I think you were there too. And when we walked out, we're like, wow, what an amazing job you did. And how can we help make that happen? So thank you to the board as well. Appreciate it. And of course, the teacher couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yes. And thank you, Fearless Leader, as well, for making sure our kids have a voice.

Are we going to get like a VIP tour of the playground when it's time? Tour? Can we play on it? Yeah. Yeah. If you guys know anybody who can hook that up, just let us know.

All right.

Thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

And thank you, parents, as well, for being here. I think they've got enough sugar and cookies and juice, so have a great evening. Have fun at bedtime. All right, I'm going to go ahead and jump back up on the agenda to superintendent update and board student rep update. A few things that have been happening since it's been only a couple of weeks since we last met. The first thing, I do want to officially thank our PTOs. They did an amazing job. If you did not get a chance to attend our back-to-school bash, it was the first time we've ever done that here in the school district of Clayton. And from the feedback, it's now going to become a tradition. We probably had easily 1,000 people there. There were food trucks, DJ, the cheerleaders were there, the Greyhound made an appearance. The Clayton PD had a tent and our SROs were there. I mean, it was an amazing community event. We had teachers and staff and parents and kids playing. And so I really hope we will continue and we are continuing this. I just, I think there's, it's gonna be a great community building event. So thank you to all the PTOs that worked hard for that. And then the first two weeks of school was just, I would, I wish I had some wood, but it's been very, very smooth. Kids are enjoying being back in school. Our staff's in a good place. There were lots of smiles. Officer Riley, you can see him there already visiting all the elementary schools, trying to be a part of it. Senior sunrise, lots of different events. Sports are back in, soccer. football, softball, you name it. So it's just been a really good two weeks and good start to the school year for sure. One of the things that we've been hearing has been some concerns and a few parents have been vocal for the past year almost or year and a half about our students with special needs and how we're servicing them. So one of the things that have been doing since before the start of the school year was having these special education community forums where parents have come to us and just really around four specific topics that we've been having conversation around, like transitions, their family experience, communication, and really the partnership agreement and how we can make it better. And we have readily said, yes, there have been areas that we need to improve on, and yes, that we could do a much, much better job in. And that's the first thing in always making things better is saying when we could have done better, we should have done better. in admitting that. And so we are really laser-like focused, not only from the school district of Clayton but the special school district is also committed in making sure that we are meeting the needs of these children and doing the best possible thing that we can and providing them the best experience. And so we've put a lot of action steps together and that will be presented at the next board meeting when, you know, if you remember every year they come here and we agree to a partnership agreement So part of that agreement is going to be the action steps that we're going to have, and we're going to hold ourselves accountable. So we actually are going to measure things and see, okay, are we making an impact? And we're hoping truly to just gain the trust of some of those families that we've lost because we have lost their trust. And how do we gain that back? So our next, the partnership agreement will be presented to the school board on the 27th. And then our next meeting will be the 12th, which will be online because we're hoping for more parent engagement. But it just makes us better. And I think it makes us better for all of our students. So that I wanted to make sure we emphasize and just share that with you. And then other than that, we had most recently we had on Friday, we had our back to school celebration. If you remember, we used to call it opening day and we would have an opening week for our entire district staff. We did it this Friday so that we could really focus on giving teachers as much time during opening week for professional learning and getting ready for school. So we did that this Friday, and we had someone by the name of John O'Leary, who's local from our area, talk about his journey. And he was inspirational and motivational. And we got really, really good feedback on that morning and how he really reminded us of why we do what we do. And the morning actually started off with Greyhound himself and our own Carter Davis. He emceed as well as Mohini. So they all welcomed the entire district. So that was nice. It was just a great morning, and it reminded us of our purpose, which is our students. And so we talked a little bit about the Clayton, the students being what Clayton is, and then us really providing them the experience, which is each one of us, and we do make a difference in their lives. So that was a recap of the morning. And now I'll toss it over to you.

Yeah, the sixth graders are definitely giving me a run for my money. Yeah, it's really great to see. The first two weeks have definitely been really great. One thing I remember last time is we saw a lot of the athletes working out in the morning and that's definitely paid off. There's been a lot of fall winds and a lot of well-doing in volleyball, golf, field hockey, soccer, swimming, the whole nine yards. Everyone's really showing that they're ready for the school year to begin and the Clayton Greyhound spirit. And one thing is the SPSA got their start at the activities fair last week. And we saw a lot of students, high schoolers of all grades, really interested in continuing a sort of more and a bigger enlarged presence within the school. And so we're definitely pursuing that. The SPSA had our first meeting as well, and their really main focus was a lot of people wanted to talk about the cell phone policy, which there's definitely just a less tolerance for cell phones in the classroom. And while I definitely think it's been a rough transition for some kids in some classrooms, it definitely has a net positive. I firsthand am seeing the sort of... the more involvement and engagement and less off-topic and really focusing on what the teacher has to offer and really make sure we're learning. And similarly to electronics, we also had a lot of discussions about the new Wi-Fi. Many people had issues, but we're finding as the school year goes on that it's definitely fixing itself out. And with... There was two concerns about Google Forms and Google Sites, which are sometimes needed in the classroom, which aren't necessarily available right now. And it should be definitely looking forward to maintaining that. But so for right now, it's overall been working with general school work. Personal advice has been working. However, students definitely feel like there are some things they could use before for school that aren't necessarily available at the moment. And finally, with the SPSA, we were really looking into expanding into middle and elementary schoolers. As we see, you know, the elementary schoolers and the middle schoolers definitely have a voice that they're willing to share. And one thing that my co-chair and I were really discussing the other day is, you know, Clayton's whole school district is really focused on paths within each subject, like math and history all have, like, a sequence-to-sequence class sort of – Development that goes throughout the elementary school middle school high school and one thing we really are looking forward to when discussing with elementary and middle school teacher kids are really is how effective that path is because I did find that with juniors and seniors especially some found that their courses were limited because of some classes they may have taken in elementary school or middle school. And when you're set on that path, for example in math, there are very easy ways you can expedient the process, while other subjects found, like in history or Spanish, that they ended up repeating themselves and not allowing students to take other courses that would have benefited them better. And so when we're looking at the success rate of this path, I think definitely we should reach out to middle schoolers and elementary school to make sure we're challenging them at the start. And so they can be prepared for maybe more courses offered to them in the high school. And so, yeah, it's, and to finish it off, it really is really great to see all the elementary schoolers or sixth graders here, because with Clayton High School, for example, we had the renovation with the library. And we can see when students participate in renovations, it really creates a space where everyone's really ready to learn and be engaged with the Clayton School District.

That was great. Thank you so much. If nobody has any questions. I think we are on to our strategic plan dashboard with Luke.

All right. Well, good evening. I don't get to talk about playgrounds, but this will be great as well because we get to talk a little bit about some of the work that we've been doing to our strategic plan and some of the data work that surrounds it. Obviously, it is our guiding document, so super important. And and we've been able to spend a lot of time just kind of going through and making some updates. What you're going to see here is the most recent version of the strategic plan. And so it has it has gotten a lot of updates to the look in making it a little bit more. understandable as I flip through it you'll notice that some of that is seems to be called out a little bit more one of the things that we really wanted to hone in on it was the data piece which is what we'll be looking at here in a minute and so we wanted to call some of that so there was some language changes overall by and large most of it would will remain the same but you'll see some of the differences in the design of it as we kind of go through You know, most of the content as we look at the mission statement and the vision statement all remains the same. None of that has changed, but obviously got a new fresh look that looks really sharp. And then we'll fast forward a little bit. There are a couple of changes to the profile of a Clayton graduate, mostly just in wording, nothing that really changes the goals of what we're trying to accomplish with a Clayton graduate. So all of that. And then I would like to call to your attention here the new look for the goals themselves. As you look under this, you'll notice that called out underneath are really we wanted to really detail out measurements with the plan. And so you will see there that there is a measurement for each objective under each goal. This really allows us to really kind of go out and measure this. And we wanted to make sure that those each objective was measurable. And so in order to do that, one of the ways that in the big changes that you will see is goal two now has fewer more consolidated areas that we are able to go in and measure. And so we moved from I want to say it was eight to three. was that right but yes seven to three um and so now yeah we've we've we've dialed that back consolidated and it really gives us an opportunity to then build this in the data dashboard that allows us to track a little bit more appropriately so and then you'll see again here with goal three calling out each and every individual measurement on the plan itself. And so, like I said, the majority of it remained the same other than calling out a lot of the measurement components, which is the major piece that I want to show you this evening. We've been working very diligently to get a data dashboard up and running that we're the first iteration is we are going to continually add to the dashboard so we have chosen very specific objectives to start off with so you won't see every objective measured at this point in time and so I will speak to some of those here. So we'll start here. This is going to live on the district website, so you will be able to go into the area of the district website that is strategic plan and then see the data dashboard for each goal. And so under each goal, then you will be able cycle up through so you can get some of the idea in the field for what the dashboard is going to encompass. And so you will see there that we are using panorama data and then being able to display it here on the website to give us some data on how we're comparing and then how we're going. If you look at positive feelings there, we are going from spring 2022 to spring 2023 and then seeing how we're moving with those favorable surveys as we go through. And I will take you a little bit on a... I write down the dashboard for goal one there. So you'll see very similar. One of the things that we really wanted to kind of set out and do also is make it easily understandable and high level. And so this is not something that you would find that we're going to get into the weeds with, I would say, would be the best way. But we do have all that data available so that if somebody should want to get into a little bit more detail, we would be able to. that and so this is goal one and so we get a little look at all of our different objectives that we will be scoring there how we are comparing nationally as well and so let's move on and so that was move on to strategic goal two here and so As you're looking at strategic goal two, you'll notice that we have our 2022 map data and EOC data here. One thing you should know about the map data is that the state of Missouri had said do not compare backwards from 2022. And so it really has become the starting point. This will evolve as we move forward, as we have more data points to work off of. as there is data that is more comparable from year to year to year. So you will see this look probably different next year and then the next year as we start to gather that data that is comparable to itself. And so what you're looking at here is really just a very simplistic look at how each grade level for math scored against the state of Missouri. And so a very easy way to kind of glance and see how we are doing as a district in comparison to the state. And then as we kind of move down, you'll notice there's some animation there, so it looks pretty cool. And then the same with ELA and science all the way up until like you'll see English 2 as the EOC that's being taken or biology, the EOC that is being taken at the high school level. And then we'll hop down to... PSAT and SAT. And so our levels, obviously, that are compared nationally, very similar. We try to keep it in the same format as moving forward. So to anybody that would get on the website, they would be able to see kind of exactly how we would compare that data. And then lastly, our NWEA data as for all of the grades as well. So the last one I will show you and on goal... Jumped all the way through there on goal three. We have one objective currently that we are going to place on the on the dashboard this is a one that is shared with goal one and so that data is Is currently going to be identical to what is in goal one because that is a shared Objective or a shared measurement tool for that objective? Any questions? But the new data dashboard.

I have one question. Sure. First of all, great work. I think this is like very visually appealing and easy to understand. And I appreciate it because it's living on the website to just stay high level. I think that's perfectly appropriate. Simplifying it makes all of this easier to understand for everybody. So great work on that. My one question is... how and when or do you even plan to draw the community's attention to this? Like, are you going to publicize that this exists on the website so that the community knows it's

Yeah, I mean, I think once this becomes live on the website, which will be in the near future here, we will definitely call attention to it as we really should because this is a great way to just take a look at how we're doing as a school district. So we'll make sure that... Like in a newsletter

or social media or whatever, somehow. Because I do think these are questions sometimes we get at those community forums. So I want to make sure everybody realizes like now it's there and it's... Absolutely.

Yeah, I kind of have a similar comment to the one that I made when we were having the joint meeting with the city. So I appreciate the national averages and the national comparisons, but do we have any ability to double click into that for school districts of our demographic and of our size? Because I think that that data probably looks significantly different compared to the national norm. maybe that's a question for a follow-up but i would hope that we can uh we can get to that point

yeah because

it's hard to compare a high school the size of clayton to a high school that has 6 000 kids sense belonging in that high school probably very different than sense of belonging in ours

and i believe robin you may be able to answer this but with the panorama Specifically, sense of belonging, we can compare it to like schools, correct? And I believe the other two we could not.

We can. Some of them are nationally benchmarked. Right. To the whole data set. Right.

I think it's level. I know it compares to level, so we compare high schools to high schools and middle schools to middle schools.

But to drill it down even further to Kim's point would be something we would have to look at. Okay. So we'll work on that too.

Yeah, first of all, I think this is great, great work and it's really helpful for me at least as a board member to say, okay, how exactly are we doing on our strategic plan? And you know, over time we'll have more data points so we can see longitudinally are we overall getting better or staying the same. I guess my question is, and I don't know if anyone, I don't know you answer this or Dr. Patel if you answer this, but as a board member, I guess this fall we're about to get our updates on how we're doing against the various goals. Should we sort of be expecting the presentations that you all give us based on this? This is how we're measuring ourselves against the goal. This is, it went up, it went down. Here's why and here's what we're doing for next year or here's what you look forward to.

So you mean in terms of the specific objectives?

Yeah.

Each one under the strategic plan?

Yeah.

So we can absolutely do that. We haven't planned on doing it like specific board meetings to do it. It really is going to depend on when we get the data

for

each of the objectives, but we can... And this is

not, just to be clear, this is not me saying this is how I want it. Right. This is how it has to be. But I sort of remember last year in the fall, we got updates on the various goals. Right. We got a different goal. You know, for me at least, again, not mandating, but it would be helpful and I think maybe just a great way to summarize. We did better. We made progress against our goal. Here's why.

Right.

Here's what we can expect for next year. For me as a board member, that's all I really need to say. Yeah.

Thank you for that feedback. That's good

Jason okay, okay? That was great. Thank you. We appreciate it Melina

Am I driving the first part from here? For the first part? And then you'll take over? Do you have my slide deck? Good evening. So I wanted to spend tonight talking a little bit about the work that we've done around curriculum and do some work around sort of making sure that we all have a shared understanding around curriculum within the district. I wanted to start with our policy, IF, and just lift out a couple important points from that policy that the board directs the staff, which is my team really, to implement a curriculum that's aligned to the Missouri learning standards. that's aligned internally, so from classroom to classroom and within levels. And then also that allows each student to succeed. That the board will review and approve the district developed curriculum and then the selection and adoption of materials is really the work of the curriculum committee and you all approve that through the financials that we present to you whenever we're looking to purchase those materials. So in our development of our curriculum one of the new components for us is the addition of the teaching and learning advisory council so we added that committee last year it's a committee of the board so Stacy. helps us by sitting on that group. It's a parent group and a student group. So the parent reps come from all six of our buildings. We have two administrators, one elementary and one secondary principal who sit on the committee with us. And then there's a group of students that helps us also. So the purpose of that group really is as an advisory for curriculum changes. So if you remember, we used to come to the table multiple times during the self study. And it felt like we were telling you the same story each time we were coming. So this allows us to have a better communication with the broader community about the work that we're doing and get some information and some feedback from them. So generally speaking, the meetings follow a pretty similar structure for each meeting. The coordinator or the committee does some sort of presentation to level the playing field so that we're all talking about the same things. And then we're soliciting feedback. So we have some kind of provocations that we're presenting to the group to solicit feedback, get perspectives and input to continue to help us in developing our goals related to that work. We purposely try to do it in the first year of self-study. Last year because it was the first year we didn't get through all of the groups so the beginning part of this semester the other two groups are going with them. And then in year two of the self-study is when we come to the table at the end of that year in the spring for our final presentation of our long range goals, our financials that are attached to those goals. And then that's also when we would have you do any curriculum approval at that time for that specific department. Then we have four years of implementation of those long range goals. So just to remind you of sort of where we are in that process right now, our specialty groups are the groups that are coming to you this year for board approval. So they're in their second year of self study. It's that list plus professional learning is coming this year. Then next year Humanities will start their first year of self study so they'll come to the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council and then we continue that process. So when we talk about curriculum, one of the things that guides our work with curriculum is standards. So we have state standards that guide our work, and then we also oftentimes tap into national standards for different departments also. The purpose of standards is to outline what students should know or be able to do at each grade level, and then they inform teachers about the focus. So if you think about a standard related to addition, the concept of addition is a huge concept. A kindergarten teacher is focused on addition within 20. A second grade teacher is focused on addition within 100. So it gives the scope of what they're working on. That helps the receiving teacher to know what to expect children know and understand, and it helps the teacher who's teaching the students to know the breadth with which they cover things. DESE's website talks about the fact that the Missouri Learning Standards don't dictate curriculum. So local districts have the power to make the decisions about curriculum and the strategies and the materials and the textbooks that they use. The state standards help us in informing those decisions that we make, and then the state uses what they have identified as priority standards, so lifting up a set of standards within each grade level to say these are the things that we're going to use to assess students on the MAP test, et cetera. I always talk with people about the difference between curriculum and resources. So oftentimes people think of a text series, so like you approved the purchase of illustrative mathematics for elementary last year. That's a text series. That book is not written for Missouri. It's written for the whole country. It's super comprehensive. It's way more than we could teach in a year. The curriculum then is for us to make the decisions locally about what we're gonna focus, what we're gonna amplify, what we're going to consolidate. How we make those decisions is important. So the curriculum is written by us and I often say to our teachers, like I don't want anybody to say we have Clayton's curriculum. It's our work. It's our teacher's work. They're using resources to inform that process when they do that. It's intended to be a blueprint, not a script. We don't want our teachers going in reading page by page from a book. Marzano, the work that we've done with Marzano talks about in high reliability schools, one of the things that has to be in place is what they call a guaranteed and viable curriculum. So guaranteed meaning that it's aligned vertically in the sense that the receiving teacher knows what students have learned before and they know what they're supposed to focus on. It's aligned horizontally in the sense that if Chris and I are teaching the same course, that we have the same things that we're focused on. And then the viability is that we have enough time to do it. That one is probably the hardest for us. I think it's hard for everyone in education because we want to teach everything. So that's a lot of what we spend our time focused on when we're doing curriculum writing. I talk about the fact with new teachers, I always talk about this. If you think of a continuum of lockstep on one end of the continuum. So everyone is on the same page in the same day. So Chris and I would be same page, same day. and the other side of the continuum being complete autonomy. Chris is teaching what she wants to teach, I'm teaching what I want to teach, and never the tween shall meet. We can't be in either of those places. We have to tend towards the middle of that, and I say we tend towards the autonomous side of that because the students in your class and the students in my class have different needs. Your talents and my talents are different. But the standards inform where we're going and how far we're going with those things. So in Clayton, what curriculum writing looks like is that we follow a nationally recognized model called understanding by design. What that model does is instead of a lot of people think, okay, we start with planning lessons. That's actually the last thing that we do. We start with what do we want students to know and be able to do? So the standards inform that we make decisions about those standards. Then we say, how are we going to know if they know it? So the next thing we do is write the assessments. The final thing we do is plan the activities and the pedagogical structures. The timelines that influence the way that we make decisions about how we're gonna write curriculum within the district, when we purchased illustrative mathematics last year, we said to the teachers, we want you to implement it with some level of fidelity the first year. We're not gonna write curriculum the first year because we have to know what's in the materials and what's in the resources. The year two of implementation then, so this coming summer after the teachers have taught it for the first time, we will write curriculum and make decisions. That's where we make decisions about moving units, it's where we make decision about consolidating or expanding or bringing in other resources. The other thing that sometimes influences our timelines are legal changes. So there's a lot of things right now related to teaching of literacy within the state. Those things will influence when we would write curriculum. The alignment to district philosophy, so if you think about the profile of the graduate, that's a district philosophy that has influenced some of our thinking around the writing of curriculum. So our elementary counselors spent time this summer writing curriculum that was focused specifically around the profile of the Graduate Competencies. And then again, like I said before, it's not lesson planning. That happens during the year, it doesn't happen during the summer. So this past summer, I just wanted to lift up and highlight a couple different things that we focused on. We have a new course proposal process where departments recommend new courses. They go through a series of committees The coordinators council is the last committee that makes a decision and then I have the final say on whether we approve it or don't approve the course. So the three courses that are listed there, we came to you last year to talk to you about realignment of middle school math, child development is in our CTE department, plant science two is in our science department. So those courses take priority Because they're new courses, we give them priority. We also give them more days to write because they're starting from scratch. The next thing that influences my decisions is alignment to standards. So our elementary science, a couple years ago you approved their goals related to realigning to Missouri learning standards and the learning for justice standards. So we spent time this summer rewriting the units for three through five, the summer before we had done K through two. Alignment within the district. So because of the changes that we're making with social studies, that school social studies is gonna have to make some changes because the kids are gonna come with a different body of knowledge. So they started that work. Legal changes then influenced it. So like I had already talked about with elementary literacy, And then probably our biggest bucket is what I call adjustments. So there are departments that have one or two courses that they want to adjust something either because the kids are presenting in a way that we don't need to be teaching the same thing that we're teaching, and so we need to make some adjustments, or there's something else that's influencing that, but it's not a complete overhaul. It's just a tweak. And that's probably my biggest bucket of, and they get the shortest number of days to be able to do the work. So the last thing I wanted to highlight, and this is the thing that I'm looking for you to approve, is the curriculum website. So if you remember last year, I talked to you about the fact that we had done a complete revamp of the elementary curriculum website. And really my why behind this was to have a way of communicating the approved curricula to the general public, a clear and transparent format that's easy for families, both prospective families and current families to understand what it is that we teach in each course that we have, and then a curated resource to articulate vertical and horizontal alignment within the district. So I'm going to ask Luke to, one of the things that you need to know about me is that like my philosophy about anything is that three clicks to anything, like if it's more than three clicks, then we've gone too far. So when you go to the homepage of the website, across the top bar there's a link for curriculum, When you click on the curriculum, it divides it into the different strands. So look if you'll go to humanities and then go to social studies. And then the social studies homepage gives you the enduring understandings for the department and then has the curriculum maps for the three levels on the left. If you'll click on the nine through 12 map. When you click on the grade span map, it gives you a comprehensive list of all the courses that are offered within that department. And then, Luke, if you'll just click on World in US 2, I'm just gonna show you an example of what, this is the work that we did this summer. So to drill down to be able to say, if I'm going to take World in US 2 what does that mean? And so there's a course description, there's enduring understandings and essential questions for the courses. Those are the things that drive us. Those are like big meaty questions that the kids are gonna grapple with within the course. And then there's a unit outline of the units that they're gonna focus on. And then the last thing is the resources that are provided for students. What you'll notice with most of these is that we have teacher selected materials is what's put within the resources, because we don't use a lot of textbooks within the school district. So where we do use a textbook, we list that one specifically, but otherwise we list teacher-selected materials. So what questions do you have for me?

Oh, I don't have a question necessarily, but I do want to say

I like that.

Thank you.

Yeah. Anything? Anyone else? That was a really good presentation. Well, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Go

ahead.

It's really awesome, Elena. Thank you. It's really needed and helpful and so great for everyone involved. You know, parents, community members, people from other schools that want to know more about what Clayton does and doesn't do. It's just going to elevate everything. I'm so proud of you guys for doing all this work because it's a lot of work. I went through every single one of those. And that's a lot of hard work. So good for you. I think it's phenomenal. I really appreciated that when you go and you click, you can see for every department who the coordinator is. And it actually says not just who the person is. It gives you their contact information. So a parent could be like, oh, so easy. And then it also gives how long that person's been in our district, what their qualifications were coming into the day. I mean, it's so great. It's just so reassuring. We already know how great all the people are, but this just puts it out there. We know how amazing our classes are. Thank you for doing this.

Thank you. I have to say that I have a tremendous team. My team did a huge amount of work. Like, this was a really big lift, and I met with them before this meeting tonight, and we went through the presentation, and I just said to them, like, we couldn't have done this without, like, the lift that my team did this summer.

Big kudos.

Yeah, they did a great job. You know when we don't have a lot of questions.

Yeah, so it's great. The amount of information that's on there and the ease of finding it, the website for a long time has been one of my, like, pet peeves of how difficult it is. You know, you put stuff in the search engine, it would go to the World Wide Web. So the fact, I mean, truly, that's what it did. So the fact that you can get in here and find everything, people who are evaluating school, people who are looking ahead to what high school curricula looks like or middle school curricula looks So the one wondering that I have, and I'd really actually like to hear Mohini's opinion on this is, and for context, my sister is a teacher. My mother was a teacher. My Mother-in-law was a teacher. Stacy was a teacher. I think it's great that teachers here have the autonomy on that range of autonomy versus structure. You have to teach us and have to be in the same page. The one wondering I have, and I know we've talked about this before as the board, is that horizontal measurement, especially within the high school for classes that are taught by different teachers but are the same courses, that when it comes to grading standards and when it comes to objective measurements of the knowledge of the students for, you're the expert in curriculum so I can't remember the term that I saw there, When it comes to that measurement, I think that there still are some inconsistencies that exist and figuring out a way to make sure that it gets more consistent across time will really help so that students in the high school in particular are not well, I want that teacher because I know he's easier in this course or I don't want that teacher because of whatever the reason is. The autonomy is really important but that balance of some objective measure of the kids so that they are not picking a teacher because of whatever personal preference they have or disliking a teacher or liking a teacher because of that, I think it's gonna be good for everybody.

think some of our work we we've been doing a pretty big overhaul through professional learning around professional learning communities and the meeting of like um course alike at the high school the the professional learning communities are mostly around course alike teams and the the focus this year is really on what you're talking about so like what are the common formative assessments that they can be writing that then they can be looking at and assessing together. So we can look at the whole body of students as opposed to me just looking at my students, you looking at your students. Let's look at them all together and trying to become more aligned in that sense horizontally in that way. So the overhaul is a PLC overhaul across the district. The high schools, it looks different at each level. And at the high school, it's looking like course alike.

Yeah, I'll definitely say like tonight I have to go read for English, for example, right? While like in another of the same class, you know, they're not getting the same amount of reading. And I just think, I definitely agree that in high school especially, we have just different classes teaching different things. And I know in math specifically, we do see all the teachers being on the same page. So I really hope with like the humanities and the sciences, we definitely get more looking towards that because a lot of students feel unprepared or feel like, unfairly, you know biased against because of their teacher and it's really like it's very important that it's Maintained for the high school students especially since this is like the busiest years and so they can create that community having the same coursework And not you know trying to avoid a class because there's too much going on

Anyone else Okay. Thank you. I think we're going to approve this. So we need a motion.

I move that the Board of Education approves the district curriculum site as presented. Okay,

thanks. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Definitely yes. And Melina, are you just going to stay up here? Yeah. for our policy update?

Yes. So I think I'm bringing four policy, I think it's four policies. They're all changes related to Senate Bill 681, so all of them are through statute. Most of them are language changes. We would recommend that we go with MSBA's recommendation for all of these.

Does anybody have any questions about any of the proposed policy changes? Go ahead, Stacy.

This is not within our discretion, but I'm just curious. The instructional intervention policy about recognizing dyslexia. Do we know why special school district doesn't recognize and I don't know, Chris is nodding. I don't know if you know that or if you're just agreeing with me. Why that's not something that they recognize as a learning disability in an IEP and that they support? Anyone? Just curious.

It's definitely not part of the Missouri State Special Education. So it's not part of the 13 disability categories that are currently outlined at the state level.

And we don't know, but we don't know why. Like, I don't know. It just seems, it just always has been interesting to me That dyslexia is like the one thing that we take on at special school district, doesn't it? It never has, right? That's why I was asking if we knew why. Yeah, okay. Okay, can I ask about a couple other policies questions? Are we just going one by one? The policy about promoting, retaining, accelerating that IKE, is that... Is this something that we as a district deal with often, that we don't promote a student or retain a student? Is that something that we need to discuss very often as a

district? I don't know what your definition of often is. Yes, there is evidence of us having those conversations with individual students and their families. But

it's not any kind of overwhelming conversation?

No, I feel like I could count them on one hand. Okay,

no, that's exactly, that's helpful. Thank you. Okay, and I did want to ask about the policy IND that was the one adding Holocaust Education Week. Yep. So I think it said there are some districts piloting

it.

I'm just wondering, where are we in the work? Have we talked to those districts? I know we don't have to do it until I think it's 24, 25, or maybe 25, 26. But I'm just wondering where are we in work with figuring out what that's going to look like. And I recognize, of course, we teach about the Holocaust in certain history classes. But we've never had a designated week to recognize it, not six through 12 like it's now mandated. So I'm just wondering where are we in planning for that?

So the Social Studies Committee is working on that. And when I talked to the state about what's not clear within the law is the frequency with which it needs to happen based on the law. So my first question was, is this every year six through 12? Because we have instances where we're teaching the Holocaust in middle school and we have instances where The state's reply back to that was it's not clear in the law. So we're still, I feel like this happens often with the state that we're waiting for direction from them. What our team has been looking at is a way to, there is some discretion that districts have on maybe not using the second week of April. It can be another week that's designated by the district. We're looking at something in the winter And the committee is doing some work with that so as opposed to waiting for the state to tell us what to do We're doing some work in preparation for that I don't know whether they've talked to the districts that are piloting stuff. I can ask Paul that question

and I along those lines and I apologize because this is probably a little in the weeds, but I would just encourage them to reach out to A year ago, maybe, St. Louis opened a brand new Holocaust museum that is a wealth of information. And they even have on the website like toolkits for teachers, activities, classroom activities. I mean, anyway, it's just a great resource that we are so lucky in St. Louis to have here. So I just wanted to remind them. I'm sure they're aware of that. But it's incredible. And we're lucky to have that resource here that can maybe help with it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Would there be, I mean, I don't know the timing. Things seem so unclear from the state yet. Do we need to update this now or could we wait till there's

more guidance? I think because of the fact that it's related to statute, that's why we're doing it now.

like update our policy taking into account the non-specific guidance from the law. I mean, it's kind

of... I think it's just because the policy says that we need to acknowledge, that we need to have it. We're just agreeing to have it, I think is what the policy is, right? It's very broad. Right, and then the procedure would be about how we would do it.

Yeah. It's a little crazy. Yep.

Okay, IGC, the Extended Instructional Programs. Yep. I was really interested in reading that it says the reading improvement instruction programs may take place outside the school day. Do we have any of those that actually exist?

So when we, before 681, we had 319, Senate Bill 319, that had us doing what now is called reading success plans, used to be called reading improvement plans. And with the reading improvement plans, we had some things that happened. It was tutoring outside of the school day. Those are, it's a little determined individually with the students and the families what makes the most sense. So we have few of those. I don't know right now. We're still in our testing window right now, so I don't know what our plan is for this year yet. We have to figure out which families we're trying to talk to first.

But that's something that has worked well in the past? It has. It's a good way to add extra time for students that need it?

For some. It's potentially challenging also. So when you're talking about transportation for students and things like that, that gets a little more challenging. So that's why it has to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Okay. Did you know that in INC, the ceremonies and observances, do you realize that it says, number three says that the text of the Bill of Rights will be displayed in all of our school buildings? Yes. Does anyone know if the Bill of Rights is in all of our school buildings? I've been to a lot of our school buildings. I have not seen it. It's funny to me that they, again, they put this language out there. How much of it do we make sure we're doing? Because I don't think we're doing that one, but I don't feel really upset about that. Maybe the state would. You know what I mean? I don't know. I'm just... I don't... I'm pretty sure

anywhere we're teaching U.S. history, it's in the classroom.

Sorry. We do.

But you don't have to participate? Are

we doing that right

now? We are. We say it every day. Sometimes Nisha and I say it six times a day.

I was saying kids are not...

Me too. Right. We'll check on the Bill of Rights.

Thank you,

Chris.

Thanks. Sorry.

I already had to email Paul,

so... Let's put it there. It'll be

there. It'll

No, Nisha, I got that one.

You got it?

Yeah, I'm good. I

got it.

Thanks for the texting.

Okay, so thank you. I think we're good. So we have to vote on two. We have a second reading of policy BBF and policy BBBA. Okay. So, Gary, go ahead and start with BBBA, please.

11.01? Yeah. So I move that the board adopt policy BBBA1 board member qualifications with the recommended changes. Second.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Are there any further questions? Okay. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes. And the second one, please.

11.02, I move that the Board of Education adopt policy BBF school board member ethics with the recommended changes. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any questions? Comments? All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. And the consent agenda, please.

I move that the board of education approve the consent agenda 12.02 to 12.08.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. And we are then on to board communications calendar. I don't think that Jason and I need to go into the last CRSWC meeting because we had a Extensive meeting tonight on that so I'll spare people for their agony but Does anybody else have any further

updates? Council council meeting it was what they call their jumpstart, which is kicking off the new school year voted on the new slate of officers and It's actually a really great very productive meeting they They're doing, I think, a great job of comparing, especially among the elementary schools because there are three of them, how they handle certain things, actually across all levels, things like contracts, legal matters. And so I believe at the next meeting John's going to go and kind of advise them through that because it seems different schools are handling certain contracts differently. But it's one reason why I appreciate that we have a PTO council so they can kind of compare notes with each other and share best practices. And they're even talking about having a special spot on the website where they can share things with each other, even like flyers and planning for events and that sort of thing. Um, they, they broke up to into like all the treasures had been a little meeting and all the communications people had a little meeting. And I think that helps all of us in the district, all the schools become more like everything they're doing, be more in line and cohesive. And

yeah.

That's it. And they voted to do the back-to-school bash. Again, that was something that they talked about. Should they do it every other year? But they felt like there was such great feedback and momentum that they want to continue it. That's it.

Okay. If there is nothing further, then we will go ahead and adjourn. So, we don't need to... We don't move to adjourn, right? Sometimes we... I was like, I know the city did, so... Okay. Second. We're adjourned.