September 3, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

I apologize for the late start very late start oh my gosh of our meeting but we just came from our joint meeting with the Board of Aldermen which ran a little late which is an annual meeting that we have with them to review the budget of the Center of Clayton which we share so now we will begin our Board of Education meeting adequate notice has been given and I would like everyone to stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance please Okay. Chris, would you read the motion to adopt the agenda please?

I move that the Board of Education adopt the agenda as posted.

Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Nope. Motion passes. Okay. Next on the agenda is recognizing our own, and I would like to call on Dr. Poole who is going to recognize Katie Burkhardt.

All right. Good evening. So today we want to recognize Katie Burkhart, who was one of our district social workers. She was recently awarded with the 2025 School Social Worker of the Year by the School Social Workers of Missouri. So let's give her a hand. Katie has been phenomenal, not only as a social worker but as an advocate for children and an aid to many buildings in terms of serving especially some of our children with their highest needs. Katie has been with the district since the inception of us bringing in social workers so she's been very instrumental and building the foundation for social work in the district, and being very instrumental in the systems that we have within student services. I can recall from this past school year when we had the tornado that devastated a lot of our citizens and a lot of our students, Katie working over the weekend and tirelessly through nights to create systems for folks to donate, for us to serve families, reaching out to families, making home visits, dropping off supplies and needed items for groceries and toiletries. And a lot of the work that we were able to do through the tornado was pretty much because of Katie with her hard work and her determination and took a tragedy and really, really helped the district come through to help a lot of families. So we are extremely thankful for Katie for her work and her service. And yeah, we're extremely blessed to have her in our district. Her family's here, too. Can they come up for a picture, too? Perfect. We're going

to take a picture. Congratulations. Come here.

Congratulations, Katie and family. Thank you so much for being here tonight. And I'm sorry we started a little bit late for your family, but we appreciate everything that you do. And thank you, Dr. Poole, for giving her such great and thorough accolades. Thank you. Okay, we are moving now on to public comment. We do have a few public comments tonight. And I am going to start with Meade Greenberg.

Congratulations, Katie and family. Thank you so much for being here tonight. And I'm sorry we started a little bit late for your family, but we appreciate everything that you do. And thank you, Dr. Poole, for giving her such great and thorough accolades. Thank you. Okay, we are moving now on to public comment. We do have a few public comments tonight. And I am going to start with Mead Greenberg.

Good evening. I'm your resident squeaky wheel about this topic, the tech self-study. So I just wanted to come back and kind of re-up some of my thoughts about it. First of all, I was so pleased to see it on the agenda tonight. I'm really looking forward to hearing what the team has to say. And I also just want to say thank you for doing it. I know it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm really excited about it. I wanted to share sort of the way that I've started to frame this and the way that I think kind of pulls together a lot of the concerns that I have and that other parents might have or that do have. I think, as we all know, whenever there's a screen involved, it's going to pull our attention, a child or an adult, our attention into that screen. And my feeling, and I think probably all of us in this room, is if we are going to pull our children's attention into a screen, into a device, into something that takes them away from the teachers that are in the room, their peers, all the opportunities to learn with the materials in the classroom, the wonderful facilities that I know we're going to invest in. If we're going to take their attention away from what's in the room and pull them into a screen, I want those experiences to really be worth it. And they should really be furthering an educational purpose and it should be mission driven and it should be backed by what the district believes about child development and our education system and what we want our kids to learn. So I just hope that the board can keep this in mind as well. I was so excited to see that there is a mention of balancing screen time with technology use in the classroom, and that is so important. And I just wanted to highlight that it's not just about screen time, but it's really about the intentionality of how it's being used. I care so much about child development, and I'm a mother of young children. My focus is obviously on that age group right now. I think particularly in the elementary years, but middle school and high school as well, the children's surroundings and their teachers that are in the room and socializing with other kids is so important. So I want to make sure that any time that they're interacting with screens or videos, it's worthwhile. But I also know that there are ways, there are reasons to use technology that can only be done through technology. My daughter came home and she said, I saw a video today and I braced myself, but she said she saw a hippopotamus eating a watermelon and then an alligator was eating a watermelon and the teacher was talking to them about the different animals and I thought, great, there's no other way for my kid to see a hippopotamus eat a watermelon. That's totally wonderful. So I support the different ways to take coding and all those sorts of things. I know that presentation skills are really important. So there's totally a role and a purpose for technology in education. I just want it to be really intentional, particularly with our youngest learners. So thank you so much.

And I apologize, I meant to before you, thank you, Meade, meant to remind everyone before you spoke about kind of our practices with public comments. As you see the clock on the screens, everyone has three minutes and also we don't respond to public comment at the meeting. We follow up afterwards. So anyone who makes a public comment can expect an email as a follow-up. Next, Ellie Gundt.

Hi, my name is Ellie Gund. I'm a Clayton alum and I'm also a current public school teacher. I'm here to address the board about the Clayton School District's partnership with ADL and why I think that's inappropriate. Something that I learned through my Clayton education and something that I try to embody in my classroom now is that we should always be gentle and supportive to individuals while being critical of systems, including governments. i think the cleveland school district had good intentions with partnering with the adl they were trying to support their jewish students unfortunately in this partnership they've precluded students and teachers from being critical of systems which is an important thing for students to learn to do through their education The ADL's definition of antisemitism includes that any criticism of the state of Israel is in itself antisemitic. That's simply not true, and that's not aligned with the beliefs of Jewish adults on that topic. In November 2024, 800 Jewish voters in the United States were surveyed as part of a biennial election survey on behalf of J Street, which is a liberal pro-Israel lobby. Those Jewish adults, 71% of them said it was not anti-Semitic to criticize how Israel was conducting the war in Gaza, and 59% said it was not antisemitic to accuse Israel of war crimes. Now, I want to be clear. Those voters did not necessarily think themselves that Israel was committing war crimes or was conducting the war poorly. But they said simply to hold those beliefs is not in itself anti-Semitic. I also want to highlight that the beliefs of young Jewish adults are very different from the beliefs of older Jewish adults on this question. Less than half of young Jewish adults ages 18 to 34 have favorable views of the Israeli government. Only 45% of them view the Israeli government favorably. And so by choosing to preclude criticism of Israel, the school district of Clayton is putting themselves out of alignment with what their Jewish students probably believe. We need to be supportive of Jewish students, of Palestinian students, of Muslim students, and of Israeli students. We need to be supported of those individuals, but we cannot let this good intention of being supportive of individuals keep us from being critical of oppressive systems and oppressive governments. By supporting students, by supporting each of these individuals in our care, we can make sure that they are able to develop their critical thinking skills to form their own opinions. But by precluding criticism, we cannot fulfill our educational mission. Thank you.

Frances? I can't read your last name. I'm sorry. OK, Pyrrhus. Sorry.

I wasn't going to speak today, but I guess I'm up. Okay, so I am a resident of Clayton. I also serve on the Clayton Equity Commission. Two months ago, parents from Glenridge addressed the incident that happened at Glenridge at our commission, and that was sort of the first time I was introduced to the topic. They also expressed extreme frustration at the response from the board and the administrators of Clayton. Invited to the meeting was a person from this organization called the ADL, an organization I knew only by their nice-sounding name, Anti-Defamation League, but not much else. They kept touting their program called No Place for Hate. Over the next 30 days that preceded our next meeting, I did some homework on the organization as well as what the district does to make Jewish kids feel welcome in our school district. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the district goes over and above to look after the well-being of Jewish kids, and as they should. There's partnerships with the Holocaust Museum, for example. There's people from local temples invited in to come speak to Jewish kids and so on, the Jewish kids. in the high school even have a club. You know, there's a lot that goes on. As far as the ADL goes, suffice it to say, this is not a neutral organization and you don't have to dig very deep to find this out. Objectively, it puts the state of Israel over all else, including safety of Jewish Americans. Yes, anti-Semitism is wrong, as is racism and anti-gay stuff, you know, and the list goes on. But surely there's a more neutral organization that gets us there. If we want to build an inclusive and respectful city and school district, we need to stop putting our thumb on the scale for one side. Kids can see inauthenticity a mile away, and by inviting the ADL in, I think we defeat the purpose of trying to stomp out anti-Semitism, honestly. And the last thing I'd like to say is the graffiti also mentioned anti-Black hate or there was sort of racism, but this has been completely lost in this discussion. So the ADL is here for anti-Semitism. Who takes care of our Black kids? You know, I think we need to find something that's neutral, that encompasses all these isms, and there has to be something out there. That's it. Thank you.

Jessica Jancode. I apologize if I mispronounced that as well.

That's okay, Jancose. Jancose. I also scribbled, so that's

on me

too. um hello my name is jessica i'm a chs grad and current clayton resident um i too am here to express my concern over the requirement that clayton school faculty undergo a mandatory training with the anti-defamation league also known as the agl According to the largest Jewish progressive organization in the world, Jewish Voice for Peace, for years the ADL has used its credibility as a civil rights organization to silence critics of the State of Israel, and their work has labeled anyone opposed to the State of Israel's suppression of Palestinians as anti-Semitic. This makes it hard to identify actual instances of anti-Semitism that are on the rise due to right-wing extremism in this country. As such, I'm concerned that the ADL's presence in our school system will not contribute to erasing anti-Semitism. Instead, it will contribute to an unsafe environment for students, teachers, and school administration to engage in open dialogue and discussion around what the UN, along with Israeli human rights organizations, have deemed a genocide. The role of local school boards is not to take a stance on the actions of foreign governments, but to create a space where students can dialogue with others and learn, think critically, and share their thoughts and experiences respectfully and safely. And my concerns are shared with the largest union in the United States, the National Education Association, who overwhelmingly voted this past June to cut ties with the ADL in recognition of this consistent bias and unreliability. This is the same teachers union that represents the majority of the teachers in the Clayton School District. So my questions are, who made the decision to partner with the ADL for this training on anti-Semitism? Were other programs from other sources considered? Were students considered at all or given a chance to provide input? Were a diverse array of parents consulted? And on the topic of equity, what is the Clayton School District doing to address Islamophobia? Do Muslim and Arab students have a student group where they can find community? I already know that at the high school level, the answer is no. And so why is that? When I was a student at CHS, I valued that in my classes, clubs, and as part of the globe, I was given the opportunity to think and speak critically about local and global issues. It was such an important part of my becoming a person in this world. I'm concerned that this partnership with the ADL is a step backwards. It creates a culture of violence and a fear within the school system for those who fall outside of ADL talking points. Ask the school board to reconsider your source for trainings on anti-semitism And to share your plans for ensuring that Arab and Muslim students also feel safe and welcome in Clayton. Thank you

Hello I won't speak as eloquently as the last three speakers because I don't have anything written down, but I did want to talk about the same matter. CHS for me was very formative because of my history teachers and because of speech and debate. One thing in AP World that we learned was to take into consideration the bias of the articles and the first accounts of situations and topics that came about. So what was very important was not just the content that was being put out, but who was behind putting out the content. Was it the farmers in feudal system or was it the feudal lords who were standing idly and were in the palaces? Who was best equipped to tell us about the occasion and to tell us about information? In speech and debate we looked at both sides and were able to have conversations very openly about things that were happening around the world. What I'm concerned about is that the ADL has, like the previous speakers have said, has an inherent political bias that's going to take shape and I'd also like to know how we came to this decision to partner with the ADL and also what our relationship with ADL is going forward as it has very concerning political views when there are other organizations that are more equipped to deal with training for antisemitism. Thank you.

Thank you all. Moving along, agenda item four. I will turn it over to Dr. Patel for her superintendent's update. Okay.

Thank you, everyone. And thank you for everyone who gave a comment. As Stacey said, we don't respond, but we will be reaching back out with email responses. So thank you for giving up some of your evening to be here tonight. Superintendent update. First thing, this is our first board meeting for the school year since school started, so I should put it that way. First two weeks went really well. I got to visit all the buildings, went into the classrooms, the students, the staff, everyone had great positive energy. It was a very smooth start and everyone I spoke to, I'm like, where do we need to knock? or, you know, keep this going. But it went really well. Even the parents, it was great. I'm trying to get in front of all the different schools at the start of the school year, school day, I should say. So I tried to rotate myself. Usually I always started past few years at Clayton High School and now I'm trying to go to different buildings. So I was like captain the first week And I got to meet this wonderful group of seven to eight families who it was their first time in Clayton dropping off their kindergarten students. So it was a great way to connect with the families and how excited and nervous they were. But I'm already in touch with many of them who have said that they've had a great first week, so it's been great just having that energy back. Then on Friday, we had our first professional learning day of the year. And in the morning, we actually did a morning of service. Usually the first professional development day of the year, half of it, we do it from a district perspective in terms of bringing the whole district staff together. So this year, we decided to give back to not only Clayton, but our surrounding communities. And we gave all of our staff choice sessions. And so over 65 staff members ended up helping at the North City neighborhood cleanup, whether it was just making sure all the bricks were laid out, cleaning debris, picking up items, whatever was needed. And it was interesting, their feedback, of course it was amazing, but their feedback was, it was sad because many of them didn't realize the devastation that's still out there. And as they drove away, they felt like they didn't even make a dent. you know, spending the whole morning there. So a lot of really good experiences for them and just knowing that your purpose is not just for you and what you're doing in front of you, but really for the greater community. So that was one of the choice sessions. Then the others, over 300 staff members were at Clayton High School. The rest of them in their choice sessions were either putting together care kits for our families in need or other families in the community. We had over 50 that were packed And that was from supplies from our food and essentials drive that we did, that parents also donated to and our staff did. We had staff baking treats for Evelyn's house, for the families whose loved ones are part of hospice. So we delivered those there. We had staff members writing hope notes for first responders. We partnered with BJC with that. And then we also had a huge area where Jen McEwen from the Wellness Center at the high school ran and staff were writing notes for our students that we're gonna pass out throughout the year. So again, a lot of variety, a lot of choice and a lot of really good feedback that they felt like yes it was part of giving back to the community but also connecting with one another as staff members. It was a great morning and then the afternoon was content-driven professional development where they all got together in PLCs to map out the year for them. So great first professional learning day. And then, of course, the work continues with our long-range facilities master plan. Our workshops have continued. We had our two athletic workshops in the past couple of weeks. We've had next week is a full-day elementary workshop, Clayton High School workshop. And we also, last week for two evenings, we took a tour to Spady Elementary School. And we had about 40 people that joined us, including staff. We had students who came on the trip. And we even had former board members who attended with us. So that was a great way for them to actually see the elementary schools. They had great questions. And one of the things that was a theme from the tours was was that it's something to see pictures of facilities like that, but it's something different when you actually go and tour it. And so they walked away just excited and energized with the possibilities of having new facilities that can help their learning and teaching move forward. So I felt like that was two really productive evenings. And I'm sure Nina is going to talk about it because Nina joined us as well on one of the tours. So that continues. And one of the things that I want to highlight with our community is, as you know, we've been working on this for, I would say almost a year and a half now when we started the long range facilities plan journey. And the board has prioritized three areas right looking at our elementary schools looking at adding an addition to Clayton High School for the CTE programming and looking at our athletic fields and including Y down middle school and looking at the field there. So with those three priorities means we need to have heavy community engagement and we invite everybody to our community engagement forum which is the first one we're going to have three first ones next Wednesday Yep, September 10th at Clayton High School at 7 o'clock. Hopefully you've been getting the emails, social media, website. We're really trying to promote it, and that's the first time that we're going to share the architect design team that we've assembled is going to share some initial concept designs for what the elementary schools could look like, what the high school addition could look like, and what athletics could look like. And that is just another place where I feel like we can get input from our community, which is very important. And then after that, Friday, we're going to be releasing a survey that will go out to the community and just getting additional input on what we have shared on September 10th. Parallel to that will be a phone survey that will be about 300 patrons is who we're going to try and get phone calls from. And we actually have a presentation tonight from the individuals that are going to be creating the survey and actually doing that. Excellence K-12 will be here later to explain that more in detail. But again, the point being we really need to have community input on it before the board and administration really decide next steps. Between now and December, there's more workshops. There's more conversations. But really, when you look at the timeline, it's really between now and October when a lot of the work needs to happen for us to have a better direction on next steps. So this is just the first community engagement forum, and hopefully you get a chance to visit. And if not, we will obviously give a recap on emails, put it on our website, and continue to share information. So stay involved and stay tuned on that. And then lastly, we have three presentations tonight. As I said, Excellence K-12 will be presenting a little overview of what the survey will look like. Dr. Milena Garganigo will be giving a curriculum update that we do annually and ask the board to approve the curriculum. And then finally, we have a tech study overview that Luke and Dr. Garganega will be also presenting. And that presentation is really just a forecast of what's going to be happening in the next two years with this tech study. Okay, with that I'm gonna hand it off to Nina for our student board update.

Thank you, everyone. And thank you for everyone who gave a comment. As Stacey said, we don't respond, but we will be reaching back out with email responses. So thank you for giving up some of your evening to be here tonight. Superintendent update. First thing, this is our first board meeting for the school year since school started, so I should put it that way. First two weeks went really well. I got to visit all the buildings, went into the classrooms, the students, the staff, everyone had great positive energy. It was a very smooth start and everyone I spoke to, I'm like, where do we need to knock? or, you know, keep this going. But it went really well. Even the parents, it was great. I'm trying to get in front of all the different schools at the start of the school year, school day, I should say. So I tried to rotate myself. Usually I always started past few years at Clayton High School and now I'm trying to go to different buildings. So I was like captain the first week And I got to meet this wonderful group of seven to eight families who it was their first time in Clayton dropping off their kindergarten students. So it was a great way to connect with the families and how excited and nervous they were. But I'm already in touch with many of them who have said that they've had a great first week, so it's been great just having that energy back. Then on Friday, we had our first professional learning day of the year. And in the morning, we actually did a morning of service. Usually the first professional development day of the year, half of it, we do it from a district perspective in terms of bringing the whole district staff together. So this year, we decided to give back to not only Clayton, but our surrounding communities. And we gave all of our staff choice sessions. And so over 65 staff members ended up helping at the North City neighborhood cleanup, whether it was just making sure all the bricks were laid out, cleaning debris, picking up items, whatever was needed. And it was interesting, their feedback, of course it was amazing, but their feedback was, it was sad because many of them didn't realize the devastation that's still out there. And as they drove away, they felt like they didn't even make a dent. you know, spending the whole morning there. So a lot of really good experiences for them and just knowing that your purpose is not just for you and what you're doing in front of you, but really for the greater community. So that was one of the choice sessions. Then the others, over 300 staff members were at Clayton High School. The rest of them in their choice sessions were either putting together care kits for our families in need or other families in the community. We had over 50 that were packed And that was from supplies from our food and essentials drive that we did, that parents also donated to and our staff did. We had staff baking treats for Evelyn's house, for the families whose loved ones are part of hospice. So we delivered those there. We had staff members writing hope notes for first responders. We partnered with BJC with that. And then we also had a huge area where Jen McEwen from the Wellness Center at the high school ran and staff were writing notes for our students that we're gonna pass out throughout the year. So again, a lot of variety, a lot of choice and a lot of really good feedback that they felt like yes it was part of giving back to the community but also connecting with one another as staff members. It was a great morning and then the afternoon was content-driven professional development where they all got together in PLCs to map out the year for them. So great first professional learning day. And then, of course, the work continues with our long-range facilities master plan. Our workshops have continued. We had our two athletic workshops in the past couple of weeks. We've had next week is a full-day elementary workshop, Clayton High School workshop. And we also, last week for two evenings, we took a tour to Spady Elementary School. And we had about 40 people that joined us, including staff. We had students who came on the trip. And we even had former board members who attended with us. So that was a great way for them to actually see the elementary schools. They had great questions. And one of the things that was a theme from the tours was was that it's something to see pictures of facilities like that, but it's something different when you actually go and tour it. And so they walked away just excited and energized with the possibilities of having new facilities that can help their learning and teaching move forward. So I felt like that was two really productive evenings. And I'm sure Nina is going to talk about it because Nina joined us as well on one of the tours. So that continues. And one of the things that I want to highlight with our community is, as you know, we've been working on this for, I would say almost a year and a half now when we started the long range facilities plan journey. And the board has prioritized three areas right looking at our elementary schools looking at adding an addition to Clayton High School for the CTE programming and looking at our athletic fields and including Y down middle school and looking at the field there. So with those three priorities means we need to have heavy community engagement and we invite everybody to our community engagement forum which is the first one we're going to have three first ones next Wednesday Yep, September 10th at Clayton High School at 7 o'clock. Hopefully you've been getting the emails, social media, website. We're really trying to promote it, and that's the first time that we're going to share the architect design team that we've assembled is going to share some initial concept designs for what the elementary schools could look like, what the high school addition could look like, and what athletics could look like. And that is just another place where I feel like we can get input from our community, which is very important. And then after that, Friday, we're going to be releasing a survey that will go out to the community and just getting additional input on what we have shared on September 10th. Parallel to that will be a phone survey that will be about 300 patrons is who we're going to try and get phone calls from. And we actually have a presentation tonight from the individuals that are going to be creating the survey and actually doing that. Excellence K-12 will be here later to explain that more in detail. But again, the point being we really need to have community input on it before the board and administration really decide next steps. Between now and December, there's more workshops. There's more conversations. But really, when you look at the timeline, it's really between now and October when a lot of the work needs to happen for us to have a better direction on next steps. So this is just the first community engagement forum, and hopefully you get a chance to visit. And if not, we will obviously give a recap on emails, put it on our website, and continue to share information. So stay involved and stay tuned on that. And then lastly, we have three presentations tonight. As I said, Excellence K-12 will be presenting a little overview of what the survey will look like. Dr. Garganego will be giving a curriculum update that we do annually and ask the board to approve the curriculum. And then finally, we have a tech study overview that Luke and Dr. Garganega will be also presenting. And that presentation is really just a forecast of what's going to be happening in the next two years with this tech study. Okay, with that I'm gonna hand it off to Nina for our student board update.

Hi, everyone. So like Dr. Patel said, Clayton is currently in the process of developing a plan for a long-term facilities update. And last Wednesday, I got the opportunity to tour Spady Elementary School along with a few other Clayton community members and teachers. Spady Elementary underwent a major renovation in 2022, and now they serve as a model and prime example of a modern, future-focused school. The school had many wonderful aspects, but my favorites were their emphasis on time management, versatility, and creativity. which are things I know Clayton values and could definitely emulate in a future remodeling. The layout of Spady is designed so that no time is wasted, which is super important for younger kids. For example, it takes less than a minute to get from their gym to their cafeteria, meaning that kids have more time to play and less time to be disruptive in the hallways. Additionally, many of their classrooms prioritize flexibility. This means almost all of their chairs and tables could be moved to easily create different formations. This is beneficial for young learners because it prevents them from getting bored and feeling stuck while also encouraging them to experiment with different ways of learning. Lastly, my favorite part, and the aspect I think is most valuable to Clayton, is their focus on creativity. For example, their garden, which is small and doesn't take up that much space, helps kids get outside and working with real-life plants and animals. Their video lab, which airs live announcements done by students every day, is a great chance for kids to practice writing, public speaking, and video production, especially at a young age. All in all, Spady Elementary School provided a great example for what I think Clayton Elementary's facilities could one day be. Additionally, in talking with CHS students about the possibility of renovating Gay Field, I got some great insight on what many of them feel would be most beneficial. An overwhelming majority of them believe that moving Gay Field to Shaw Park would be much easier logistically. Right now, many of them say they have a hard time finding a ride to practice. When I asked them why it was so difficult, they either said they were too intimidated to ask an upperclassman or that they simply didn't know enough people with licenses to have a consistent ride. When I asked about the current state of athletic facilities, many of them said, while they're nice, they don't really match the rest of the district in regards to efficiency and up-to-dateness. Some specific comments I got were the locker rooms at Gayfield aren't in great shape, certain dugouts at Aztec Field need more covers, and when there's a game at Gayfield, it's almost impossible to find parking. anywhere. And even in speaking about these renovations hypothetically, many of the students acknowledged the fact that it would be a long process, and surprisingly, almost all of them seemed okay with the fact that a remodeling may mean a pretty drastic change in day-to-day routine, which was pretty nice to hear. From these comments, I think it's safe to say that the student body definitely wouldn't be opposed to some facility updates. Next, I'll talk about the phone policy. As I reflect on the first three weeks of school, I can say one thing for sure. The phone policy is definitely working. Not only are students not on their phones, whether it's because they're doing other things like work or because they're just scared that they'll get in trouble, but they're also doing exactly what the phone policy was trying to encourage. Throughout the past two weeks, I've seen more people talking, socializing, and just doing their work in school than I had pretty much seen in the past two years. But while it's effective now, I do think it's important that teachers continue to encourage and remind students of the policy to ensure that the success we're seeing now continues to happen in the future. And lastly, for just my general update, right now I'm in the process of setting up focus groups to help get a more accurate representation of the entire student body. Sometime in late September to early October, I plan to meet with fifth graders from Glenridge, Merrimack, and Captain to discuss their comments and suggestions about their school experience. Additionally, I'll be meeting with Y-Down Student Council as well as Clayton High School's SBSA club sometime later this month to talk about what's working well in our schools and what areas could use some improvement. Through these conversations, I hope to collect a lot of information about how the district is feeling about this school year so that my future updates can truly represent the entire student body. Thank you.

Thank you, Nina. Yeah, great job. Okay, agenda item number six, we are going to have the presentation from Excellence K-12. And Gina Tarte will be... Joining

Thank you, Nina. Yeah, great job. Okay, agenda item number six, we are going to have the presentation from Excellence K-12. And Gina Tartt will be... Joining

Good evening So I'm here with Rick. He's our partner from excellence k12 He is working with the Paragon and Perkinson will team and he's going to give us an update on how the survey is Just gonna be set up and some of the details

Thank you. A little bit about us. We're in Blue Springs, Missouri, so we are in Missouri. We've been doing this for 17 years. We've experienced with a lot of school districts. We've raised a lot of money. The national average for passing municipal bonds, which includes school bonds, is 55%. Our clients pass at a rate of 95%, and I say all that just to tell you you're in good hands. We are going to take care of you. Go ahead to the next slide and let's talk about the telephone survey. So we're going to do a random digit dial phone survey of 300 individuals. We will call landlines and cell phones. We get a list of new phone numbers from a company in Fresno, California that does that, provides us with the numbers of everyone in the district. We start with number one and then we jump to number 20 and then we go to 40. So that's how we randomize it. It'll be matched to your population pattern so that we'll ask you to, and you already have, you've given us three zones of the city of Clayton that match pretty much the elementary zones. And we will complete calls to match the number of people in each of those, the percentage of the population in each of those. When we do those two things, it gives us a 5.6% margin of error This is the same thing that Gallup and Pew in USA Today do. Random digit dialing has been used since the mid-1950s. I first used it in 1981. It's old technology, but we use it because it works, and nothing has come along to replace it yet. Tell you a little bit about what we're going to ask in the survey. We're going to ask, first of all, about your brand. We're gonna ask people to give you a grade on a variety of things, everything from safety to classroom to facilities to preparation of kids for college. Everything you can think of about your brands are gonna give us a grade, A, B, C, D, F. We're then going to ask if patrons are civic-minded. We want to find out if you have people who understand that I will plant a tree today, and I will never enjoy the shade of that tree. That's being civic-minded. Then we're going to ask about each of your projects. So you've got four projects that we're going to talk about. And then we're going to do tax tolerance. And the way we do that is we have the amount of money it's going to cost the owner of an average home in the district to pass the bond at three different levels, at $200 million, at $150 million, and at $100 million. In that way, if you say, yeah, I'll go for the $443 a year at $200 million. They're done. If not, we'll skip down to the next one, and then we'll go down to the next interest that people have in the projects, what projects they like and what projects they don't, with the tax tolerance, you have the formula for a winning bond issue. The last, the next category we're gonna ask is about communications. How do patrons get information about the district? Which will help Gina when you do your marketing campaign for the election. And then the last section is demographics. We ask age, we ask time in the district, presence of kids today in the district, presents of kids or grandkids in the past. the district and we're going to give you in addition to a and I think that's the next slide in addition to a written report an executive summary we're going to you a digital dashboard that will enable you to look at all of the answers to the survey against the demographics so you can kind of slice and dice the data any way you want Hearing the voice of the customer at the same time that we do the phone survey, we're going to have three companion online surveys, staff, parents, and general public. Staff and parents are captured audiences, so you should get great feedback from that. And if you don't have your staff and parents on board, you'll know that you're in trouble right away. The general public online survey does not have much in the way of a statistical accuracy but it gives us the chance to say everyone had a chance to have their voice heard and that's important from a pr standpoint Uh, same questions that are on the phone survey without the two, three open ended. Questions that are on the firm survey, which are, uh, what do you think is the school's greatest strength and what do you think the school needs to work on? And the communication question other than friends and neighbors, where do you get your information about the district? We'll list out, uh, the different things that people can check off on that. So we don't have a, we're gonna have a bunch of open-ended. questions on the phone survey. All of these will run concurrently. They're all going to start next Friday, the 12th. Timing. So the calls start on the 12th. They will conclude on September the 26th. Well, then my company will have analysis the week of September the 29th, providing the executive summary to the school district on October 3rd. And then the digital dashboard will follow one week later. But you should have the information that you need to have by October the 3rd in terms of your bond issue and whether it's going to pass or not, or what people like and what they don't like. Questions?

Thank you. Whoever, Leo?

Is that package of questions that you just went through basically the same one that you've used for other districts you work with? Are you deviating in significant ways that I should know about?

The sections are the same. So we ask brand new questions with ABCDF answers, but what we ask about is all yours. The same thing with the civic questions and the projects and the tax dollars. So We feel good about the sections that we have, but then it's all your information that you want to gather. And I should say that we are at draft two on the survey. Dr. Patel and Gina and John have all had a chance to look at it. My understanding is that it next goes to kind of the larger leadership group that includes the architects, and then it will go to the Board of Education. So everybody's going to get a chance to see the survey in advance and make any comments that you have about it, edits, what have you. We just need it by the 10th, which is next Wednesday.

But in any event, you know what a good question is for this kind of survey and what a bad one is. And you're going to exercise your judgment if you think we're asking a bad one. It's always the fun

part of the job.

Any other questions? I just, thank you so much. I just wanted to comment that I really appreciated the, I appreciate the civic minded, civically minded questions and your tree analogy was perfect because it, you know, obviously works so well with what we're trying to do and hoping to get the community's support and hoping they are civic minded and realizing that what we're building is not for anyone here today. It's for future generations. So I appreciate your focus on that as well as the tax tolerance questions. I think those are going to be really, Important and maybe maybe the most important ones that are gonna guide us. So thank you for that

I think a good point that you may want to make is the phone calls that you do those are two registered voters

Yes, well They are to people who have a phone in the district. We ask three qualification questions up front. One, are you a registered voter? Two, are you male or female head of household? And three, do you live in the Clayton School District? We know they live in the Claytons School District because that's the list that we bought. But if they don't know that, then we probably aren't going to get to talk to them.

But you'll be able to aggregate then and know the registered voters, which is important to know. We

only talk to registered voters.

Okay.

Great. Likely voters? No. Why? We have found in other markets over the years that the likelihood of likely voters is not projectable. I'll give you a quick example. We did a survey in Platte City, which is north of Kansas City. Where the average number of voters had been 2,500? And if we talked to likely voters it would have been 2,500 ran the Ran the bond issue and 17,000 people voted So depending on how volatile the projects are and the tax tolerance is You don't know who's gonna vote yet.

I Would just I would ask us to really think about limiting the universe to likely voters. And I would take two out of the last three municipal elections that happened, the last two competitive April ones, and anyone who voted in the one in August

that just happened. You wouldn't take also a

November election? No. I would take your guys' one, and I would take the one that happened last April, and then I would take anyone who voted in King's election.

I'd count them in. sorry I would just

I would just

or maybe look at 2019 where we actually had a bond it was our last bond issue like there's a lot of

transit you have a he's

saying no okay we'll trust the expert

yeah um I do think

our community is unique. I do think, Jason, our community is unique and

it might be hard to... But we do have more people come out on bond years in terms of voters than not.

If we... When we get it, will we be able to... See for ourselves any breakout by age would be a question. Yes, we do have a way so we can

that's That's that's a very helpful for

as somebody who knocked on the doors from the list of that election That'll be a very helpful and for us to see and

I can tell you from experience if you ask people are you going to vote? Everyone will say yes Yeah, yeah, that's not the question You're talking about using a list of people who have voted in the past. Correct. And I'm telling you it's not projectable to people who will vote today, particularly with the tax tolerance that you're talking about. Okay? You're looking at the top end at a tax tolerance of $443 a year. I realize it's a wealthy community, but I will tell you I have never seen a school district pass anything remotely near that.

Oh, so what is the highest? That's a good question then. What is the highest that you have seen the school district pass as far as the tax

tolerance? $205.

Good to know.

So you're more than double that. I'm not saying you can't pass it. I realize the wealth here, but that is a big number. All three of those are fairly big numbers. I

feel like I should say we're not trying to get a $205 million. Okay.

That number you just shared with us, the 205, which of these are where in that range of your 200, 150, or $100 million bond issue? Which did that fall in? I

have no idea. I don't remember. We usually don't do the total numbers. We usually just do the tax dollars. The

highest one that's passed, I understand he's saying our highest at the 200 would be about 400-something a year. You said the highest thing you've seen pass is 205 per household per year. Yes. And so I'm wondering about-ish, what is that? How much did that get? Is that the 100 million? That's what I'm asking. If I take what Kim just said half. Yes, John?

100.

I'm

sorry, I didn't understand your question. Well, that's okay, he did. He did, that's good. Thank you.

Well, I did wonder who came up with those numbers. Are those the specific numbers you're gonna, I mean, we'll see the survey eventually, but those what you're right now, that's your graph?

Yes. Okay, and who helped, did John help you come up with that or is that something Gina? Yes. You guys worked together? Yeah,

John's been very much involved. We've been working through the different options and obviously calculating it together. Perfect. Yes,

great. The $200 million, Chris, if you remember, like if all the projects we do, the range that we originally heard was $150 to $200 million, if you take care of everything on our list. But remember,

other school districts did multiple. They didn't do it all at once. So that's the other thing. Right, this would be doing. So 220 might have been the highest, or 205, did you say? 205. 205 might have been the lowest you've seen, but it does mean that that same district didn't go out two or three years later and ask for another 100, ask for another. True, true.

And the 205 is tax tolerance, $205 for the owner of an average home.

Got

it. Okay, so not $205 million.

Oh, got it, yeah. Okay. Okay, any other questions or comments? Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm now very much looking forward to this draft and the results, of course.

Thanks so much. It'll be a great process for you to go through, see what your patrons think.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Curriculum update, Dr. Garganigo.

Ready for a lot of meat? Are you going to click for me? Oh, no. It works. Okay, great. Good evening, everyone. So I just wanted to recap why I come to the table every year. So policy IF states the following things, and we're really going to focus mainly on bullets two and three tonight. So what you direct the staff to implement as far as a curriculum is concerned, and then the fact that you will review and approve the district developed curriculum each year. So I'm gonna go through some, I've given you access to the documents that I think are the most important for you to approve and then I'm gonna go though and just sort of highlight some of those pieces for you tonight. I'm back to networking, Gina. I can go without slides, too, if you want. OK, I'll go without slides. So imagine a slide that talks about the self-study process. So just a reminder that as a part of Policy IF, we talk about a curriculum review process. We have a six-year cycle for each content area within the school district. Years one and two are really mainly a self-study. And sometime during year one, each Each area goes to the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council, which is a committee made up of a board member and parents throughout the district and administrators to just provide input through our work as we're determining what we're going to study and how we're going to approach that work. And then year two, sometime in the spring of year two, We give a presentation to the board where we ask for your approval of long-range goals, the financials that are attached to those goals, and you re-approve the curriculum for that content area at that time. So just a review of the process. But then really my focus tonight, oh, and also that in the spring the humanities groups are the ones that are going to come this spring. So that's literacy, English language development, social studies, world language, library, fine arts, and then we're going to have a technology piece which Luke and I will talk about later. So our big focus with our curriculum, Marzano states that in order to be a high reliability school, you need to have a safe school, a collaborative culture, effective teaching in each classroom and a guaranteed and viable curriculum. And guaranteed meaning that it's aligned vertically and horizontally, so across classrooms as well as across grade levels. And then viable meaning that we have enough time in order to implement that curriculum. So a lot of our work that we do in the summer is tinkering with that and making sure that we have things that are aligned with state standards, that are aligned within our system, within our district. And then making adjustments to ensure that we have time in order to do those things. Several years ago, we built a curriculum website as a way to be transparent with the what we teach within our classrooms. And so we put a lot of work into that. and curated a lot of information for the public with that piece. This site will change with the upcoming changes to the district website, and we're making some different kinds of changes to help make it a little easier to navigate and to understand some of those pieces. So I think our vision at the time and our theory of practice I think now has shifted a little bit. But always our goal is being transparent with what our teaching and learning environments look like in our classrooms. So the pieces that I'm asking you to approve tonight really fall into four categories. One is our new courses or our complete rewrites, and we have a process that we go through each year around new courses that I'll highlight. Some workaround alignment within the district. So when we make changes at an earlier grade level, then we have to keep making changes throughout the system. Reinstatement of courses. So sometimes we... course goes dormant for a little while either because of student lack of interest or because of training for teachers etc and sometimes we reinstate courses and then just some minor adjustments that that we make so the summer work really falls into these categories and this year our new courses so part of our new course proposal process is that a curriculum committee will propose a course It goes through the approval through the committee, goes to the building leadership team for approval, comes to the curriculum coordinator's council, which is all disciplines, and then ends with me. So I have the last right of refusal or approval. And so our new courses this year are Amped on Algebra, which is a combined algebra and business course. And really is something that we're super excited about because it's really moving into this real world learning kind of approach. So when you think about the children who can sign up for this class, it's anybody who their course as a freshman would be algebra. So college prep algebra. They can sign up for that course. It's a two-period course in conjunction with business, and their work is really around running the school store and understanding algebra concepts through this idea of business. And then when I met with the teachers the other day, they expanded my mental model of this because I was like, how much stuff can we put in the school store? But all the sports teams now, when they do sort of their theme games, so like their pink out games and things like that, they're using that class to print all of their shirts and everything. So they're working on all of those pieces. So it's an exciting course and it's team taught with a business teacher and a math teacher so the students get credit for both.

Could we ask them to get extra credit if they run the concession stand? I mean, seriously, we can't get anybody to run those and we get complaints from visiting teams all the time that we have a concession stand that is always closed. Okay, I can ask. Yeah.

So our Our second new course is walking fitness. So we add new courses and we review existing ones to determine what to sunset. And so the PE department is a good example of a department that has worked to freshen their offerings over the past several years from more traditional courses like net sports to walking fitness, strength and endurance in hopes of better meeting the needs of our students. So walking fitness was their new course. The total revisions are complete rewrites. Middle school literacy, all three grade levels, we did a complete rewrite with a focus on increasing the volume of reading and writing and better alignment to the state standards. Middle school math, you all approved the accelerated courses last year, and so we completed the curriculum work this summer. These are compacted courses that move at a more rapid pace while still addressing all standards. So it's a compacted 6-7 class, compacted 7-8 class. Latin, we chose a new resource for our Latin courses. The new text takes a more up-to-date approach to language learning, which is interesting for Latin. And the topics are just more relevant to learners in 2025. So we're trying to make Latin a more relevant kind of exciting topic for students to study. Good luck. And similarly, Spanish adopted a new resource last year, which you all approved. And we had rewritten the college prep Spanish 1, Spanish 2 last summer. And then this summer, we finished the sequence, rewriting Spanish 3 and Spanish 4. So then our courses around alignment within the district, our biggest example of that is social studies. So if you remember over the past couple of years, we've talked about the changes at the elementary schools to put the standards back into the grade levels, particularly at key stage two, grades three, four and five. That then subsequently had a change to sixth grade social studies last year. which was a focus more on sort of geography and that type of study of social studies. And then this year, the changes in seventh grade, which is a focus on civics. Reinstatement of courses at the high school. We've had a change in teachers in our theater program. And so we reinstated musical theater one and two and technical theater. So what was happening prior to this was those courses were offered outside of the school day and were in conjunction with the productions. So the spring production and the fall production. And so this puts it back into the school day allowing wider access for students and it doesn't it's not tied to the production anymore. So it allows students to study musical theater without being a member of the cast of the after school production. And then we worked on alignment with the musical theater program at the middle school. And then, finally, this the small adjustments so most departments will have one or two courses that will adjust. Each year I don't bring a lot of those to you because they're not big enough to feel like it's not a good use of your time. But the ones that I wanted to highlight today are elementary sel so with the development of the character with the. bringing in of the resource of character strong some of that resources divided in a way that grade levels Were were sort of overlapping with one another on what they were doing So a child could experience a same lesson multiple times because of decisions that teachers were making So we really developed a scope and sequence for it to say that these were the lessons that should go with kindergarten These are lessons that should go first grade, etc and that has proven to be helpful to the teachers, and I think will be more engaging for the children because there'll be new lessons each year. And then elementary phonics continues to be a place for us to study and the addition of elementary grammar in making sure that we have a good solid scope and sequence. So as we've been training all of our teachers with letters, we've been making different decisions about what the phonics instruction looks like within the classrooms, as well as just like what the sound walls and those kinds of things look like in the classrooms. And so developing those tools in order to be aligned across the system. Okay. What questions do you have?

I'll be really easy. I want to thank you so much for answering every question I had emailed to you before. Sure. Got them all in there. No problem.

I always struggle with this because I think that the boards of education weighing in on curriculum has basically been a negative process in a lot of cases. So I don't have a lot of input on this, but I'm going to break my own rule and note that some very activist and vocal constituents have over the years observed that there were not a lot of middle school students literacy texts with female protagonists. And there is now one in the eighth grade. And I think that's a positive development. That's my comment.

I'll also say with the middle school rewrite.

Yeah.

Mic drop. With the literacy rewrite at the middle school, some of what our decision at the time was in increasing the volume of reading and writing was to keep some of the core lit texts the same as they are right now because we have a process and it's like a financial process and a decision making process to cycle core lit texts in and out. And so that continues to be work that we'll continue to do. And diversifying the collection is one of our goals As a part of that work, so I think you'll continue to see movement in that way

So I'll just say seven words you said that were really important because we also and again speaking on behalf of like speaking or not on behalf of but just articulating what I've heard from constituents is there's been a criticism of it seems like there's less reading and writing in the curriculum, especially in the elementary and middle school. And you said emphasis on increasing the volume of reading and writing. So those seven words are very important. And I want to make sure that I repeated them so that it's heard because I know that Nisha, you've also heard that. Yes. Probably everybody at this table has heard that at some point and I think We've heard a lot of noise about that particularly around the issue of are you? getting rid of certain books that were beloved that I read and my father read and my grandfather read and are those now gone and you know, so so Some of that's died down but we still get pretty frequently like, you know, I don't see enough reading and writing. So I Increasing the volume of reading and writing. Yes.

That's great. I think the courses that you mentioned, like Amped, that are new are so exciting to me. And I think actually there are, I mean, like Kim mentioned, a concession stand. There's so many other possibilities with that class that I just think is really cool. And I also think like the musical theater in the school day will be great. I mean, I know a lot of kids including my own daughter who had that been in the school day would have been really exciting but couldn't do it when they got to the high school because they played sports or whatever after school. So I think anyway, I think all of those changes, the additions or bringing classes back are all really exciting. So thank you for that. Any other comments or questions?

So I'm going to go and piggyback on what Mead brought up. Instead of just talking about screens in relation to what Luke's going to come up and talk about, how much when you're doing your curriculum adjustments and corrections and all these things, do you talk about screen usage, how often it is, but also the intentionality of it, etc.? ?

Right. So I would say historically we have not spent a lot of time talking about that when we've when we've been doing the curriculum writing. I think what you're going to see in our next presentation is a forward thinking approach to how do we do a little bit of an audit of sort of where we are with that while also refreshing like I don't want to steal our thunder but a little bit of like refreshing our philosophy around technology within the system. So I think it's gonna come through that study and then that will apply then within the other disciplines as we, once we get that sort of landed.

Yeah. I guess I'm just trying to help us see that we should also be looking at this while we talk about curriculum, right? They go hand in hand. And if we do one without the other, we're kind of chasing our own tail. So

yeah. I would agree. I think also Luke and I did some work this summer with the ed techs at the elementary level in particular to think about the connection between technology and empowered learning. And so instead of talking about technology for technology's sake, talking about empowered learning and what are the tools which some can be screens, but they don't all have to be screens. Exactly. You've said that before. That can help empower learning. And actually on the 29th we ran, Luke and I with the ed techs ran professional learning for the Key Stage 1 teachers specifically around that. So it had a focus on empowered learning, but there was a component of it that had technology use And it was more about the quick use of technology within a classroom as opposed to these long drawn out like projects that have to be polished. Like there's ways to, and Mead referenced it in her comment, but there's like ways to address the use of purposeful integration of technology into teaching and learning. And that's what we're trying to tie that in with the idea of empowered learning. That's great.

Thank you. Nina. All right. These all sound so amazing. I'm just thinking a little bit about what this will look like at the high school, especially with the AMPED program. I'm just wondering, would this be something available to all grade levels? Or could you only be enrolled in the class if you're currently taking algebra? Or is it just kind of a prerequisite?

So it is an algebra class. So if you're ready to take college prep algebra one, you could either take a traditional college prep algebra one course or you can take the AMP course, which is college prep algebra one with this business component. Next year, our plan is to put geometry and construction into the program of studies, which would be a similar thing of like a combined CTE geometry course. So it would be a geometry credit plus a CTE credit. So it

would like this. It would call it would like, you know, count as your algebra or geometry. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

It is. It is. So they're meeting every day. So the way that we schedule it is so that they can meet every day. So they're meeting on an A day and a B day, it's like fourth and eighth hours. So they're so they're meeting every. And the teachers are dividing up what that looks like as far as the algebra component and as far as the business component. But the goal is that all of it focuses on the Algebra 1 standards the students would take the algebra one EOC at the end of the course. So that also will give us a good read of the algebra learning within that course by having that sort of formalized measure in place.

I have one other question. I was wondering when I heard you say that it satisfied a business requirement, does it by any chance also satisfy the state requirement for personal finance in the way some other high school business classes do?

So that one does not. We have a personal finance component that's embedded into econ. Right. That can meet that, but the AMT class does not. Okay.

Thank you. Okay, and we'll move right into the technology study overview. Oh, wait, sorry, we have to approve the curriculum. I apologize. I was getting confused because it was a presentation. But we do annually approve the curriculum,

right? Go ahead, Chris. I move that the Board of Education approve the district curriculum as presented.

Second.

Okay,

I guess we already have our questions and

comments. Yeah, I guess that's

right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None, okay. Motion passes, thank you. A lot of exciting

stuff.

Okay Luke, now the technology study overview please. You're still stuck with me.

Should

I try to drive again? Okay, I'm going to let you drive. Okay. Okay, ready? Okay, then the first slide of this presentation is going to look very familiar because I just talked about it. So again, our self-study process, we're going to move into a technology self-study. This is a little off cycle for us, but we think it's important to start this year with the self-study So it would be a two-year self-study. Sometime during this year, we'll meet with the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council to talk through some of the work of the committee, and we'll go more in depth with what that work will look like. We plan to come to the board with a device recommendation this spring, and then year two coming with the long range goals, financials, et cetera. So those are gonna look like two separate reports, and then we would have the four years of implementation. Self-study really allows us for a deeper dive When we're looking at these content areas, we're constantly working and making adjustments throughout the years So we don't wait for a self-study to make adjustments, but it is a time for us to go deeper with it And within the self-study we have a tendency to look towards site visits consultation with outside people to help inform our So just a recap of sort of where we've come from. These were our goals that we developed in 2022. They really fall into two areas, one around teaching and learning, so the what we do with technology within the teaching and learning space, and then the other is like the stuff. So what do we need to buy and what do we need have in place in the walls and the ceilings and everything in order for the hardware to work, and also with the hardware. and what are we provisioning both to students and to staff. So those were our two main areas of focus with those goals. We felt it important to talk through a little bit of the background of the fleet of devices, and this is really student devices that we're talking about. So in 2016 when we came with the technology study, our recommendation at that time was a one-to-one Chromebooks at the high school and not be one to one at the elementaries in the middle school. But they were carts of Chromebooks, iPads and MacBooks K through eight in order to really diversify the thinking of how we could use the tool in the teaching and learning space. As a consequence of the pandemic in 2020, we split those carts up and went one to one. So that was really what allowed us to, when we had to go to remote learning, the fact that we had all of those carts and that we had a fleet that really could have gone one to one if we needed it to, we ended up needing it to in order to continue teaching and learning at that time. And so we moved to putting all the iPads in grades K through 2, Chromebooks in 3 through 12, one-to-one. At the elementary school, generally the students do not take those devices home. Sometimes in fifth grade or in fourth grade there may be some movement towards students taking devices home. And then we maintained some specialized devices in some teaching and learning spaces. So our project lead the way courses had some different devices. They needed more powerful devices in order to do some of the work. This cycle then aligns somewhat with the life cycle of our devices. So we cycle devices out of the fleet every four to five years. So you'll see that like the 2016 to 2020 to now we're at 2025, we're sort of paralleling the life cycle of devices. So it's a good time for us to be studying this to make a recommendation to you as to what we would want to move forward with and what are our needs within our teaching and learning spaces now as opposed to where we've come from through the pandemic.

So I'm just going to hang on the fleet for just a moment longer because we're already there. It is part of the year one in the study. We thought it would be important, you know, Melina had mentioned earlier that, you know, this is kind of like an audit. And so we've kind of gone back and we've looked at some things that we've heard and feedback we've gotten. And then, you know, how we've kind of worked with that feedback. Also mentioned earlier that, challenges that we've had have not, we've not waited until this process to fix. So we are constantly working to improve all areas as this goes along. So just real quick, some of the things that we heard when we originally rolled out the iPads, there was a little bit of a learning curve I think for some of that and how we deployed apps that teachers and students needed in light blue there or anything that we've already really come up with solutions for. And so we were able to get an MDM that kind of handles some of that process, allows the district to retain ownership of applications and things like that, which was important. You know, with K through two students, they're younger, the process of logging in needs to not be complicated. And this was a common theme that we've heard and schools have heard having done this work for many years, it's been common in that process This year, we're really excited that here early on, we've rolled out a new tool that is allowing our K-2 teachers to really make this process super efficient through a company called Clever. And it is cleverly getting our kids in so that the teachers can do what they need to do and make sure that it's not spent typing in things and passwords and emails and all of that to get kids in. To kind of just transition, our Chromebooks, we've heard a lot over recent times. And, you know, just to share with some of the things that we've heard from students, from staff, you know, common things that we would hear would be processing power. The speed of login kind of is connected directly to that. We hear repeatedly that they're clunky and heavy and the screen resolution um a lack of touch screen just so you know some of those things we do within the larger cycle have smaller cycles for you know just being able to roll in and out devices so the devices that we did bring in this year actually were meeting some of those needs so really honestly improving a little bit of the processing processing power even though we didn't highlight it there but it did improve screen resolution and it did add in a touchscreen, but that is a portion of our student body because that's how that process rolls in over time. One of the big things that we do see commonly obviously with Chromebooks being a web-centered device, right? It is based and built to be just a web browser, that we have a lot of situations and courses that do require more than just a cloud solution or being able to do something through a website, whether that be through certain computer engineering programs or design work, whether it's with the Adobe Suite and beyond. There are a lot of instances where these just don't do that work. And so that is something we do here regularly. Now, we do meet that need through, you know, fixed labs and things like that. So those are just some of the things that we're working through. This is, you know, an audit headed into this study of kind of some of the things we've heard and some of the things we have areas of focus, things that we've heard, things that we know are prominent in the space right now. You get five years down the road, four or five years down the row, and much in this area of technology changes. And so there's some big things right now, especially as we approach the subject of AI and artificial intelligence and its role within our classrooms you know we want to make sure that we have a district philosophy around that use that protects students um that is it makes sense to be able to be used for educational purposes and we want to make that it is a clear um a clear picture of what we expect as a district and then we've we've spoken a couple of times tonight a major part of this study we do envision that it's going to be the role of technology in teaching and learning as a whole Right. So what does that look like? What is balance look like? What does equity look like within all of this? You know, we want to make sure that when we are using technology, that it does. It has a purpose. It is a tool. It is a resource. And as the technology person. Yes, I love that. know technology is growing and everything like that but it is also our job to make sure that you know we are we are making sure that the learning outcomes um that we are supporting that and and it's not taking the place it's not becoming the goal it has a tendency to become the goal we hear technology and then our our mind runs there so we don't want that to necessarily be the case And then we already talked a little bit about the replacement cycle. We know that's an area of focus. We know that that first year, we're gonna look hard at what is most appropriate for our students and more. and then an infrastructure analysis. You know, when we talk about technology, one of the biggest things that we continue to have to invest in and look at is cybersecurity, student privacy, and then just some of the bare bones things that we know we have to keep up with, and that's just the stuff that nobody sees behind the scenes, some of that infrastructure related items. So on that note, it's kind of the high level view. Are there any questions that we can answer?

Anyone have questions for Luke?

Hi. Would you speak to how the new policy, JFCD slash state law, will impact this work for you?

Yeah, and I'll speak to a couple maybe ways that I envision that we kind of have talked about some of how this work is going to be a part just natively of that. We know let's just, we can start with the device fleet itself, right? So one of the things that we will really be studying is that we have the right device for our students that can meet every need of our students. And by saying that, we have situations now obviously where our devices may or may not meet every single need, in which case that has brought in the need and the use of external devices, right? And so we are going to be asking the question, okay, what can we do as far as the device fleet that will diminish any use of external. And with the diminishing use of external, it does allow us to manage the devices more aptly. Like we're able to control those devices better. We're able to guarantee safety better for those devices for the students, which is ultimately the goal as well.

Yeah, our goal being to the sort of line that we put into that policy about during this year that we would be on a BYOD to remove that and to be able to have a device that meets the teaching and learning needs and that the children would be using the district provision device.

I just want to say I like that you said that you're going to be presenting this to the Teaching and Learning Committee not just because I'm on it, but Mead's also on it. And it reminds me back to what Chris was asking, that that's a group of people who this committee is comprised of parents and other teachers, staff members, who usually what we discuss is curriculum. So to have this piece into our discussions as the teaching and learning, I think is a great way to see how they come together. Anyone else before Nina?

I'll make a comment and then a question. Just as you go through this process, I do think it's important to keep in mind how policies and practices around technology in school, play out at home. And just keep in mind that the device that you give these kids to use every day is also the one they have at home. And I know certainly during the pandemic it felt like in my house, and I think a lot of people felt this way, you lost control of technology in your own house because of what was necessary for the education. And then the question is, have we looked into obtaining a hippopotamus and bringing it in to eat a watermelon?

I don't know that I can say 100% we haven't. Luke

has already looked into it.

We do have a pretty great zoo,

so it's possible. I'm just saying. We could look

into it. Nina, did you have any questions or comments?

You

don't have to, but just.

I mean, this is just a comment. I really like how you guys kind of talked about maybe talking about district-wide AI policy or philosophy. I know from my experience, it can be a little bit confusing because in a lot of my classes, I hear that AI is

Anyone else? Okay, well thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, we'll now move to number seven and start with policy 7.1, the first reading of policy IND.

All right, here I am again. So policy IND about ceremonies and observances, the change is simply a change of name from math, engineering, technology, and science to science, technology, engineering, and math. So my recommendation is that you accept this as proposed. Kim has a question.

I just want to know why we are required Why we're required by law to recognize Bird Appreciation Day.

I would actually like, hold on, I thought she was going to ask, I would like to understand how we're celebrating this. And I said we're on

spring break every maybe time because I've never heard my kids talk about that.

Imagine the amount of feedback I got from the principals when I told them that when I gave them this list of things. That one was the one that was highlighted, but I reminded them that it's during spring break. Okay, that's why. So I was like,

I have a graduate of the high school and a junior and a senior, and they've never come home and talked about it, and then I...

No. But our way of acknowledging a lot of these is through morning announcements. And then some of the bigger ones would be things that we would focus more on within the classrooms. But bird appreciation would be something that if we were not on spring break, we would acknowledge through the morning

announcements. Do we do any of number five?

Sorry, what did you say? Do we do any of those?

Yeah.

We do disability history and awareness. Yeah, I guess that's true. We do do that. And Emancipation Day, that's right. And then there's some things that happen within social studies classrooms, but I wouldn't say that they're like,

we're not big patriotic

day celebrated.

Do we know why Bird Appreciation Day was?

I do not. But I think it was in a previous version of this that you all approved, so.

Okay. Okay, just a first reading, so, okay. Let's move on to the first reading of EGAA, the copyright compliance.

So this policy language change really in response to COVID when online education and the use of copyrighted materials became just a little bit different because we were doing things online. And so educators traditionally have operated under a fair use provision, and I think as a consequence of COVID that started to bring up more thinking about what is fair use. And things that were traditionally seen in classrooms on walls or used in classrooms were moving towards digital spaces and shared electronically in cases. and so that generated some new interest in this policy. The language to me feels tighter, but not drastically different from what has been in place before, so I would recommend adopting the changes as proposed.

Okay, any questions or comments on that one? Anyone? No? Okay. Okay. Policy IGCD virtual courses. Uh-oh, what about IGBI? IGBI? Oh, sorry, yes, IGBI. Okay,

thought I had them in the wrong order. So IGBI homeschooling and other educational options. This is updated to align with Senate Bill 63. There's language and clarification including defining the terms like family-based educational schools and homeschool. That's the main changes here. So again, I would suggest that you adopt it as presented.

Any questions or comments on this one about homeschooling?

Oh, I'm still on green. I sent this in my email to you, but like homeschool and homeschooling is spelled, I think, in three different ways in this document. And I know you said it's probably because of which grammar tense it is.

Yeah, so it is intentional that when it's a noun, it's spelled as two words. When it's an adjective, it's spelled one word. And when it's a verb, it's spelled is one word.

That's silly.

I felt like a good sentence diagrammer in doing that.

To be in a more informed board or at least board member, how many folks do we have homeschooling?

We don't know that because families are not required to let us know that information. But what about one of these policies talks about

they need to let, they encourage the family to let They encourage them, but

it's not

required.

But we

are directing staff to conduct outreach

to those that are telling us? So when they do contact us. Generally speaking, it's the direction of family is enrolled in the school district and is making a different decision that we will sit down and have conversation with them. It doesn't often happen the other way, that somebody's already homeschooling and that we reach out to them because we don't know who to reach out to.

Okay, yeah that helps clarify. Okay. Thanks.

Yep

Okay now IG CD virtual courses

so The specific changes in this one relate to districts not being able to deny enrollment because we prefer in-person learning. Also, the district has 10 business days to make a decision when a family lets us know that they want their child to enroll in a virtual course. And then if a student is denied access for some reason, they have a right to appeal to the Board of Education within 30 days. I would just say in practice, we do not deny. So we let a family make a decision that's the appropriate decision for what they feel is the appropriate decision for their children. So I have given direction to the principals to actually not deny that. When the first virtual laws were put in place, they were written as very family friendly, student friendly language. And at that point we really weren't allowed to deny any of it. So we've continued that practice. If we feel like a child might not be successful or as successful in a virtual setting, we may have that conversation with the family but we're not gonna deny their access to the course. We feel like that's a family decision. And then... This update says that we don't have to allow students to participate in extracurricular activities who are in virtual courses, but that's coming in the next IGCDA. And so I would suggest that we adopt this as presented and then we're gonna talk about IGCDA and the language in that one.

Okay. Okay, any other comments on this one? I G C D a full-time mocap virtual courses.

Okay. So the difference between, um, part-time virtual and full-time virtual, um, we, the part-time virtual courses, the district pays for, um, for, for a student to participate in those, a full-time virtual student who's, um, applying to be in a mocap, um, program. So mocap core mocap providers are ones that have entered into a contract with DESE. Um, sometimes they're school districts. So Springfield is a mocap provider. We actually don't use Springfield as a MoCap provider because we're a partner district with them, so we started before all of that happened. But there are other districts within the state of Missouri that are MoCap providers and then there's other companies that are MoCap Providers. So a full-time, when a student wants to be full-time virtual they are disenrolled from the school district of Clayton and they enroll in the partner district. They are not, if it's a company. So if it's a school district, they're going to enroll in that school district. If it's a company, there's no district to enroll in, so they stay on our books in that case. The language throughout this policy, I would suggest that we adopt it with one change. And we've already asked MSBA to make it red for you. So the paragraph that talks about access to district facilities says, I'm suggesting that we not adopt that language. When a student's a full-time virtual student and they're enrolled in another school district in order to do that full-time virtual, I don't think we should be providing the facility for them to do their schooling. I think that's the responsibility of the family to figure out that piece. So I would suggest that we line that out. So we actually asked MSBA to make it red for you now. The other things that are coming in this update, it's to comply with Senate Bill 63. Sorry, just in case anyone didn't see it, it's not red. It's just lined out green. Oh, it's red on mine. Sorry. The other thing, the update is really to comply with Senate Bill 63, and this is going to go with a policy that Cameron's going to talk about. and it's about resident students who are in a home school, a family paced education or a virtual school that they are allowed to participate in extracurricular activities through the School District of Clayton. So that's an important change which in IGCD was like you could choose, no we can't choose. Now the statute is that we would allow the students to participate and The other changes that are included in this are updates from Senate Bill 727, which talk about the parents enrolling directly with the MOCAP district. It talks about the host district initiating an IEP process. So if a child unenrolled from Clayton, enrolled in Springfield as a full-time launch student through MoCap, Springfield would take care of the IEP process and reinstating that piece. And then that MoCap providers should inform the home districts of disenrollment, which does happen. They let us know when a child, generally they'll also let, if we have a friendly relationship with them, they will generally also let us know when the child is not being successfully like not successfully completing the course and if we have a relationship with that family, we can reach out to that family. So my suggestion would be that we adopt it with my one suggestion of a change of the facility piece. Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry, that was a lot of words.

Yeah, any questions or comments on that one from anyone?

When it says access to district facilities, Does that mean like having a classroom to use in our schools?

That's how I interpret it.

Okay. It is not the part underneath it, which is if you want to participate in our sports.

No, no. And we did check with MSBA about we weren't really comfortable with that idea of just opening our schools to people who are taking courses with some other school district. And they agreed that we could. There's a lot of liability there. Yeah, yeah. Okay, ILA, test integrity and security. Okay, this one is really, if you notice there's a whole lot stricken from this. It's really about simplifying the language to be more overarching about assessments in general. and ensuring that proctors administer assessments as directed by the individual assessment manual. So the training that we do with our teachers, so they sign off on the test integrity and security policy every year before they proctor any assessment. We go through each assessment with them and go through the manual with them to make sure that they know what they're doing for each individual assessment. So I would suggest adopting this as presented. It fits with what our practice is.

Are you the district-wide test coordinator? So I am currently,

like technically yes, but it's because of the hiring of Robin Hogg. We sort of share that role right now and we haven't really made a decision about what makes the most sense. So where we've drawn the line right now is anything related to the state falls with me. Anything that's local falls with Robin. Oh good, okay.

Any other questions or comments on this one? I actually really appreciated the changes in this one. I could not believe how wordy it was. I agree. Like, some of those are so redundant and unnecessary. So thank you for all your work on that. Okay. IGDAA. That's Cameron. Is Cameron. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Resident participation student involvement in activities and events

Yes, so IGD AA is a new policy that MSBA drafted as a result of Senate bill 63 which grants resident students who don't physically attend school so homeschool students family-based education students as well as virtual students to participate in school athletics 9 through 12. School athletics and activities 9 through 12. So pretty much the policy kind of outlines the guidelines and kind of guardrails around protecting those students' rights to participate in activities.

Do you have any idea like the number of students this would impact for us?

Hard to say. Or do we

have any you're aware of that That currently would want to participate in sports or something like that?

Yes, definitely. That are

homeschooled or all virtual?

Definitely. Over the years, we've gotten inquiries, especially as it relates to music, band, orchestra, things like that. So it pretty much creates, again, guidelines for those students to currently participate and be a part of that.

This is, oh, sorry, Pam, where are you going to go? No, I just, this is not about the policy. And so I, you know, about this policy in particular, but I can tell what I'm about to say is about to become a niche issue of mine. So I'm just going to say it. So there's language in here about, and in fact, it's one of the questions on the cover page about vaccinations and students should have by the same vaccination rules. I don't know if everyone saw, there's a now issue pushing the state of Florida to remove vaccination requirements for schools. If that's successful, this board will end up dealing with that, my guess is, sometime in the next couple of years. So just to put that on everyone's radar, that's just, you know, I can't imagine that it's not coming down the pike.

Well, and at the same time with California and Washington

.

So following that, under health and safety section, The first line where it says, you know, district requires parents to provide proof of residency, proof of age, proof of immunizations or exemptions from immunizations. Can we put an adjective in there of something like approved or legal exemptions from immunization? For now, until the state changes this. Under health and safety, I don't know what page that's on. Okay, the second is actually the second line to just add Instead of just like a legal exemption or a medical exemption from immunizations, rather just any exemption from immunizations. Does anyone disagree? I don't know what word would be better, legal or approved or professional or something.

Authorized maybe.

Authorized. Thank you, attorney.

Anything else any other questions or comments on that policy from anyone Okay, thank you Cameron

thank you

we are going to move now to GBC be staff conduct. This is a second reading But it doesn't need to be the final reading if we have if we have additional comments or suggestions We could have another reading too Thank you, Kelly.

We had our first reading at the last meeting, and we had lots of discussion. We made many changes, and then from there sent those to MSBA to see what they said that we could do and made those changes. I know a lot of our board members had questions that they submitted in advance that were really probably things that this group wants to continue to discuss, and I'm happy to continue to take notes, make any changes, and then whatever we think we want to bring back for a third reading if we don't think it's ready. We can do that too Okay,

I Have a few questions, but I'll let anyone else go first

I'm happy to go through my list. Sure. Okay. Um, so number four I'm gonna have to be going back and forth I have, could you move the third clause? We emailed about this. Can you move the third to the first clause as the negatives of the first two are confusing to the positive of the third? And I just wanted to see if people agree with me. This includes refraining from addressing concerns through appropriate internal channels, disparaging comments. Could you move the third clause to the first?

It wouldn't be refraining from This includes addressing concerns through appropriate channels, comma, refraining from.

Now I gotta read this again. Comma, comma, avoiding contact that undermines the work of others in addressing concerns. I just felt like that addressing concerns through appropriate channel should maybe include refraining from and then putting that one first, disparaging, and then avoiding.

You want refraining from first?

Includes refraining from. I think the refraining from applies to all three clauses.

No, we want them to address concerns through appropriate channels. So that's not a refraining. But it says handling. So I think that's

why you want to move. This includes addressing concerns. Thank you. Addressing concerns through appropriate internal channels, comma. Refraining from disparaging comments about colleagues of the district comma avoiding conduct.

Okay, that's what it is right now the way it is that refraining It looks like it goes with all three of those things But we don't want them refraining from addressing concerns through a bridge.

Okay, so addressing concerns from appropriate channels would go first Refraining from those two other things

It's not refraining. Refraining doesn't go to all three. There's three verbs, refraining, avoiding, and addressing. Addressing goes first.

Addressing goes fast. Okay. Yeah, good catch, Pam.

That's actually really important because that has a totally different meaning. Good catch. Number eight I'll just say my question and then we can say your comment to me My question was the words appropriate and board policy Seemed vague to me

Could or should they be clarified, and what is appropriate defers by the eye of the beholder? And you said that it's about professional boundaries, and you could reference our student-staff relationships policy to anchor it.

Yeah. So in that particular one, like it's, it's hard to explicitly prohibit everything that any buddy might ever possibly do. Um, so that's so

weird.

Right. Um, so, so that's why, you know, I don't know that we would want to add a whole bunch more, but in other areas of policy, some of these things show up like in our staff to student relationships policy. So, I didn't know if that would help to clarify, to direct them to that policy as an option. Another option might be for us to consider having a procedure that goes with this policy. So in other places we have, our policy is much more of bullet pointed sort of broad statements and then the procedural part is more of the specifics that we would get into. One of the other pieces with procedure is that something like in a CO team meeting, we can adjust the procedure as needed. It's not something that the board has to write the policy. So it also gives us a little bit more leeway at making those adjustments when we need to make adjustments too. So that might be something to consider.

I like that idea. I also like what you said. It says it aligns with board policy, but there's a lot of board policies. And so maybe anchoring, I like how you said to anchor it in the specific board policy. Okay. It speaks to this.

Does everyone agree that we want to try to anchor it back to the student-staff relations

policy? As long as we're sure that's the only one. If there's another one, it might also pertain to it. We should list that, too.

Right. Well, you're already saying that it aligns with board policy. Once you start listing it, you still need everything else. Yeah. Legal, counsel, degree.

The phrase you're looking for is including without limited to. That's right. Yeah, but you could use that. Oh. But whatever the appropriate, whatever the policies are, they're there. There's probably more than just the one.

I'd be afraid then to leave some out. As Kim just said, it feels so vague to me, and I understand there's a reason

for that.

I think

every single policy, yeah. So maybe we should make it a plural world. Plural word, board policies, I don't know.

I agree that that's what it means. It means all board policy. That's what it means?

So is consensus aligns to board policies plural? Do we need to do that or no? We

don't. Because board policy just encompasses everything. So consensus is leaving it alone. I agree it's vague, but I think it's intentionally vague.

It's precise but complicated. If you followed it all out, there would be answers, but they're long and they're in other policies. So it's a tree, you just have to go out and find all the leaves.

Skip to my last one, and I will no longer go after the vague ones. Number 16 is saying that our teachers cannot under any circumstance without violating policy, tutor students in the district even if they are not their own students. We have a policy that says they may not tutor their own active students, but this is saying they can't tutor any student in the district.

In the very last sentence,

I mean, I don't think it's something that I agree with. To limit it? Or to,

which don't you agree

with? Right, there's a kid wants to be tutored in math and there's another math teacher who's not that kid's teacher who can help this kid.

So this is one of the areas that we've had a lot of conversations related, actually more specifically to the staff conflict of interest policy. With that, it came up to even how different departments are interpreting our current conflict of interest policy For example, if I'm a geometry teacher and Nina's in my class, Nina might get tutored in geometry by one of my colleagues. But because we're both geometry teachers, we have access to the same assessments. We are in a PLC together. We have professional relationships. Perhaps if the other tutor is telling Nina things that I'm not doing correctly, that's creating a hardship. So we do see areas that potential problems could arise by having one teacher in the same department in the same course tutor someone else's kid obviously it would fall under our current conflict of interest policy that I would tutor Nina if she's in my class like I wouldn't do that but we don't have policy that would explicitly prohibit Nina from being tutored by my colleague even though we teach the same course so that was like one of those interpretations and in a different area so I don't know what the board you know wants to do as far as that policy is concerned but it is an area that needs discussion and clarification

So if we adopted this as is, saying no teacher can tutor any student, do we need to then go amend the other policies? Right.

And I think we are all under the impression that no matter what, our staff conflict of interest policy is in need of review. Okay. So that would probably happen no matter what. But what direction that goes will be a result of the direction that you guys provide. Do you know what other

districts did? I was

just going to ask the same question. Exactly. What's the standard?

I don't know what every other district does specifically. I'd be curious. I know in Rockwood, it couldn't be your same content area. So if I was a math teacher, I couldn't tutor in math. So it was content area. But Nisha had given an example of tutoring for the SAT would be different than me tutoring for math specifically. Yeah.

That suggestion is actually maybe a good compromise, is not in the content area. Because that would avoid departments having the issues you kind of described earlier. But I don't know what else you would do. So

then how does that fit for like elementary? If I'm an elementary teacher, I teach all content areas probably. But maybe not your grade level. But then you might have that kid the next year or the year after. I don't know.

You're doing a good job convincing me that this is the way to go.

Yeah, I actually think this is...

We're the highest-paying school district in terms of salaries. That's the other argument for it.

Well, and I have no problem with a teacher tutoring kids at Ladue or Burroughs or Brentwood or, like, name your area school. I just think you

start

accepting money... private money from district residents while your kid's in the district, I just think that you can see how that snowballs five or six different ways over time in ways that we don't really want to deal with.

Yeah. Lots of recommendations for college, all kinds of things. You get an

elementary school student teacher whose buddy teaches at the high school. We could all make up a dozen things.

And I could see the situation you're describing, Kelly. And math is the one that comes to mind for me too. They give all the same tests. They're very well coordinated. And I

do think, based on our conversations, our math department has been interpreting the current policy of that if I teach geometry, I don't tutor in geometry. Like, I think that was how they've been interpreting it. But I don't know that that would be the way other departments are interpreting it. So we need to make it more black and white. No, this would mean if I teach math, I'm not tutoring any math. And really, this is even more specific as written right now. It's that we wouldn't tutor... school district of Clayton students because we have access to them in other ways. If I want to tutor students, I would tutor students that go to Lydia or MICDS or somewhere else and I would provide my services to my school district of Claytons students through study or help sessions or greyhound time or whatever. I wouldn't be making additional money off of them just because I already have access to them that I am paid a salary for.

Then we don't need

that. We don't need that, you're right. Take out that phrase. Because there won't be an activity that we're describing.

No, I agree with deleting that phrase.

That clause because it's unnecessary if they're not doing it all there are no activities

So the consensus I'm hearing is that we as a board do not think that our staff should Tutor give private lessons Make money off of any school district of Clayton student and that we want to take out the last part about the propriety. Yes, I

Which we should do soon because now well whenever we if we approve this tonight or next time

Should probably do

Right right, it's maybe a reason to put the off voting on this tonight as that we approve them at the same time I

And then you guys in that same section, it says employees may not use their position district resources or access to students for personal financial gain such as promoting wish lists or soliciting gifts. I'm not sure exactly what that means by wish lists but what I do know is that the PTO collects wish lists and places that teachers like to go in terms of telling that to the parents so they know what kind of gift cards to buy as gifts.

I had a question about that, too. If you mean like for personal things or like teachers that post on Amazon wish lists for their classroom? I didn't know which way you meant that.

Teachers that post the Amazon wish list for their classrooms is what we are trying to say we don't want to do. We are very blessed that we have the resources that we have in the district. There are avenues for teachers to get whatever they need for their classrooms. And we would like our buildings, our district, to be getting teachers what they need for their classroom and not having teachers put out wish lists for a new chair or whatever. So why do you think some of

them do? Yeah, because they do.

Yes. And so this year, as those have come to our attention, we've let them know that it's not really a look that we're going for. Is it explicitly prohibited in policy? Up to this point, it wasn't. But I think there's a lot of good reasons why that's not something that we want to... Do. OK.

Are there PTOs that do this in an organized fashion?

Yeah.

Yes. Especially in

elementary. I

know they do it like at Merrimack, they do it for meals for parent-teacher conferences. They want to know, teachers, where do you want dinner from? They do it

for classroom supplies too. I do think, in my opinion, it would be different having the PTO run it versus I'm posting it on my Facebook page. Right. This is the employees

taking the action. They're not promoting it.

Correct. It's parents taking action. I like that. Because there are many parents, and I was included, that wanted to donate often and still do donate often to classrooms. So I don't want to preclude parents from being able to donate. But just through the PTO. But it should be through PTO. When the PTO promotes it, it's okay. The PTO may be

outside the purview of the district or am I totally off base on

that? They are outside.

Yeah, so.

It says employees cannot use access to students and families.

That would be the PTO. For

personal financial gain. That feels like the PTO.

But how is that the personal financial?

But that's employees using their access. If the PTO is promoting it, it's the other way

around. So the way,

and maybe the end. How do you think the PTOs know what the teachers want? They come to the PTO.

I guess my point is, well, Kelly, you're going to say it better than me.

I don't know that I'm going to say it better, but what I was trying to get to with the way it's written, which evidently it's not, so we probably need to rewrite it, but is the whole idea of if I'm teaching this group of kids and I'm the art teacher and I say, I'm going to run art camp and you're all going to come to my art camp. I am benefiting personally financial gain. because I had access to you all, you're my students, and now you're going to come to my art camp. So it's more of that. So like wish lists are actually a separate thing than this like whole idea of like I'm making money off of you in a different way.

Your art camp

idea is covered in the new first sentence.

So maybe we take it out of that part?

Take what

part? The second part. Sorry, let me go up here.

I mean, no, I think we still need to mention the wish list if you're wanting those to go away.

Are we wanting wish lists to go entirely away or are we wanting inappropriately used wish lists?

This is really for, hey kids, for the holidays, here are my favorite stores at Plaza Frontenac. No, but she's

saying... That's what we're trying to avoid.

No, she's also saying they're trying to avoid Amazon wish lists for their classroom supplies.

But if the PTO is organizing it, that's... Right, but teachers... My reason for my question

was I don't know that this policy applies to them.

I don't think it does. It's not intended to. It's prohibiting teachers from posting on Facebook and Amazon wish lists. Right, I'm not making my own, and you're sending them just to me. If the PTO is asking for our favorite things or buying wish lists, that would be separate than this. It's still initiated by the PTO. Correct. Right. Not by

the employee. And it's something like, I don't remember what they do it when the choir sings at Barnes and Noble and there's a list of books to buy for the classroom. That's not intended to be captured by this, I wouldn't think. It's for the classroom. It's not personal at all. So

they had had an event planned at Barnes and Noble. Yeah, I think it depends.

Maybe I'll merrimack uh has like a every december there's a book fair at barnes and noble you know the kids every kid grade choir comes and sings and then teachers have sort of like these are the books i would like for my classroom you know since you're here

sponsored it's not a teacher promoting their own like i've I want these, like, posters for my classroom. If a teacher wants posters for their classroom, we can get them posters for their classroom. And

that's a PTO event. Oh. Yeah, yeah. If it's PTO, then that's

separate

anyway.

And with heavy school involvement because the choir class is going there.

Because Ms. Shanker says, I'm happy to bring my kids to sing for Saturday morning. Yeah, that's right.

No, I'm going to beat it a little more. Let's do it. So you said your intention with the wish list is for parents not to buy things for the classroom because we want the school district to purchase everything needed for the classroom.

Not exactly. It's for teachers not to advertise their own personal wish list for parents to buy things for their classroom. If the PTO, if the building, if there are drives happening, if a parent reaches out and wants to give something, but what we want to avoid is... Teacher A is making an Amazon wish list and putting it on their personal social media and sending it out to everyone. We don't want people soliciting gifts. If a parent provided a gift, that would be different.

Okay. So the only thing that I think, so I'm going to beat the horse now too. The only thing that I was thinking which maybe could get a little murky here is our social workers, which are employed by the district, often put out lists of things that they want for families. and those really are considered wish lists, we might want. But that's not for the teachers. It is not. But it's an employee. But it is an employee. And it's kind of like a very gray line then between, well, social workers can do it because they need it for their kids. Well, I need... spiral notebooks for mine and it's the procurement process going through the district is takes two weeks and I could send something out to the parents and I know I could have 12 spiral notebooks here at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning

honest question is it burdensome to the administration to put in a clause saying that if you want to put out a wish list you have to get permission beforehand there's going to be half a dozen ideas that get approved on year one and it's not going to change that much after that and I mean, you can say that becomes burdensome for us and that's fine. But that's an easy way to just deal with it. So you're preventing bad. So

you can approve the social workers. You're preventing bad

asks. Or we

write in the clause that there's an exemption for. Or what about coaches that look for. I do think that's an important distinction. The social workers aren't doing it for personal gain. They are passing it on to our needy families.

Neither is the coach who says, I would like parents to throw in

for a new fill in

the blank.

The wish list that we're really trying to prevent are, I'm going to say, are still personal gain. Like if you would see some of the stuff on the wish list, it wasn't that all the kids want basketballs to play with at recess. It was more like specific to classroom decor and things like that. So it was kind of different.

So how do we – how do – Do you feel about Jason's suggestion, or Nisha maybe, how do you feel about just getting them approved first? How about we just add without prior approval? Or

you guys take it offline and discuss. I'm

not trying to put anyone on the

spot. Because I think Kim's point

is an important one with the social workers. They are still employees. We're not voting tonight anyway, so you and Nisha can talk this out.

Yeah, I think... I think this year Kelly already emailed the principals, gave them guidance on the wish list and instructions basically on if you have someone who's putting out a wish list, please make sure we have a conversation about it. It's not formalized. It's not a procedure or any of that. So I think with the discussion that's happening right now, knowing we have the staff conflict of interest policy that we will bring together, let Kelly and I work on a procedure about wish lists. Right. And if

you make it an administrative role, then it has to be enforced at the building level. Building level,

yeah. Because that's what we're

trying to do anyway.

Yeah. Okay.

If you think that's the best way to go, after you think about

it. Yeah. Because I know that also then brings in subjectivity as well. Yeah, that's hard to how we write that. Yeah, I really think about

that.

Okay. So we will, Nisha and I will have a conversation about the wish list and potentially look at turning that into a procedural piece instead of a policy piece. Okay.

Okay. I had a couple questions, too. On number 12... Only district-approved platforms and accounts may be used for official district communications. The second sentence, employees may not use personal or private accounts to communicate with students that communicate with students. I'm just wondering, does that to you mean like a private direct message somewhere with one student? Or could that be interpreted also as putting a post on there? Like... you know, Facebook or Instagram page or whatever, that is also communicating with students if the students are following them. So I just wasn't sure what you were intending. Well, and how do you want to deal with

coaches that have, like, text threads with, like, students or teachers, you know? I mean, like, that's pretty broad and

not really practical. So I just thought it needed some clarification.

These coaches use the GroupMe a lot.

Yeah. So is that, is GroupMe district-approved

platform?

for our coaches?

I don't know what platforms Steve Hudson has the coaches using.

But coaches will also, I mean, for the captains of the teams, they're reaching out directly to say, hey. They're

texting them.

Yeah, I've got this, you know, I'll give a good example. Soccer jerseys were designed after the boys won state championship last year. They had three designs. They reached out to the captains of those teams via text and said, what do you guys think? I want to get your input since you're captains. Directly from the Head coach to the boys soccer captains. We're gonna prevent that? So

in our student, I think it says the student staff relations policy, there is a whole part on there about electronic communication and it does have some of these exemptions like needing, I don't know if the coach one is specifically called out but it's like if you were chaperoning a trip or something, like there are some exemptions in there already So the essence of the way this, or my intent, I guess, what I was trying to get at is we don't want a staff member communicating one-on-one with a student through different social media platforms. So you meant one-on-ones? Like DM, yes. But to go back to your question, Stacey, I do think, although maybe we don't want to explicitly call it out in the policy, it would be a problem if a student is going to a teacher's public facing social media and writing that they disagree with the teacher and the teacher's commenting back and forth like it's not appropriate it's not professional do we need to have a policy that explicitly prohibits it probably not but you know i don't think we want that happening so even if somebody did take it a step further to think like oh this is being prohibited you probably shouldn't do it it's not a great idea

It's not

somewhere else in this policy.

Employees may not use personal or private accounts to communicate with students.

It doesn't say social media accounts either. I mean, you've got to limit it if you're going to do that.

Yeah.

Or you just have to take it out.

I mean, is this covered in number eight? Sort of. Yeah, it is.

Maybe we just leave number eight. Maybe we don't need number 12.

Mm-hmm. Okay, omit number 12. Mm-hmm. Got it? It's kind of tricky, though.

I mean, again, I see what you're saying. There is a line there. I mean, we also don't want our teachers and our students texting each other like that. You know what I mean? Right? We don't want that to become sort of an okay thing for them to do.

Yeah, and like I said, I do think that where we have the more concrete prohibitions of these things are in the student staff relations policy. Which we're going to look at next time too.

Okay, I had one more question. On number 10, which I know we kind of went back and forth about, the very last line, unprofessional, offensive or discriminatory content even if posted on personal accounts may result in disciplinary action if it undermines the district's reputation. Could we add or consider adding if it undermines district's reputation or causes a disruption of the educational

environment? So I think we could send that one to MSBA for their approval. Their guidance was actually to omit number 10 as a whole. I know, so they're probably going to not want to add anything. And let one in three cover it. Basically what they are saying is that ultimately teachers do have First Amendment rights and they said at a minimum we had to omit the last sentence, which I did in what I presented to you here. So I can definitely add that and send it to them and see what they say. I was

just looking for... Like, that type of discriminatory offensive content, we don't want to just take action if it's undermining our reputation, but also if it's, like, disrupting the classroom environment or the educational environment. It already says it. Does it? Second

sentence of 10. Personal social media use must not disrupt the work or school environment. Oh, okay,

never mind then.

Never mind, never mind. Okay. But remember... Even if it disrupts the environment, if it's protected under the First Amendment, it's

protected. It is

protected. I

know, but I wanted us to have something to

be able to say. There isn't any disciplinary action we can take against a staff member of the district if their conduct is protected under the First

I

mean, yes, of course if it's protected under the First Amendment. But it's sometimes...

But whether it's disruptive of the educational environment may impact whether it's protected. And also, this is a lot of legal analysis that we can't really do at this table.

Correct, yeah. Okay, but never mind. I didn't see it earlier in that one anyway, so forget it.

Okay, so we're going to let that one stay how it is for now?

Yeah.

MSBA recommended we take it out?

MSBA's initial, when we initially got it, like when we made the changes after first reading, they said their recommendation, I mean, I can read you specifically what they said. So why did we not take it out? Because we opted with the lesser one, which was to take out the last sentence. So their quote was... I mean, it's quite a long answer. Do

I prefer to take it out? No. I mean, you know, I don't really have a strong preference. I feel like the contents of number 10 are covered elsewhere. And if it's going to bring into question the validity of the entire policy or undermine the policy, then I would say take it out. If it doesn't, then I don't really

care.

What he said.

That makes sense.

So we're okay leaving?

Cutting out all of 10.

Cutting out all

10. We think it's covered elsewhere. I mean,

there's like two or three other places where it talks about social media. You know, my comment was I don't know why it's limited to social media. Like, you

know,

it's just model professional ethical

behavior

and show respect, you know, like the end. So I don't know. position on that.

Well, I'd be curious to see if the other policy addresses this.

MSBA, their statement was much of speech issues are legal gray area. Additionally, these are the types of issues that often end up in court. I would recommend at a minimum leaving off the last sentence of 10 as many of those things are too vague and should already be covered by one in three. We did that. Ultimately, a teacher does not lose their right to speak on this matter of public concern just because they're a teacher and districts need to be aware that there is some level of protected speech for their employees. So then she says, please let me know how you'd like to proceed. To be safe, I think it would be best to remove 10 altogether and let 1 and 3 cover everything. However, as the legal review states, at least some of 10 will need to be removed. That's what we did, even if you don't remove it in its entirety. Please let me know your thoughts, and I'd be happy to adjust your draft. So we took out the last sentence and left the rest of it.

Here's really the question. Could someone come up with an instance where we would need number 10 in order to hold that staff member accountable because it's not addressed elsewhere within the policy? If no one can come up with an example of that, then we should just strike number 10. It becomes superfluous.

Let me help you out there, buddy. Thank

you, tag team partner. I'd say it's also in number

four. Some of that stuff is covered in number

four.

Do they recommend we take anything else out?

No, that was the only one that they recommended that we take out. And I mean, this is the whole, you can see there's a lot. They gave some legal cases on why, which I know we're not going to bring up at the table, but so anyways.

We need to take it out.

Yeah, okay, we'll take it out. Okay, let's take it out. All right, omit 10. Got it?

Okay, are there any other comments or questions? From anyone? Oh,

go

ahead. The email that I sent yesterday, Nisha, did you get that to Kelly about the few couple of things that I said?

Yes.

Okay, did you see those, Kelly? There were two, one of them was adding a couple of, I think you already, did you change number six, number nine? I don't think I did, but I'm looking at this. Yeah, I don't think this is what I... No,

I didn't change anything after we submitted this draft. So anything that we wanted changed because it really needs to be a discussion once it's posted, it hasn't been changed in here. But if there's something that you want changed, we can definitely discuss it at this table. So the way I

wrote staff, I feel like it should say specifically staff are encouraged to include... It says to share concerns about staff conduct specifically. Instead of just saying to share concerns, I'm saying to share concerns about the staff construct, staff conduct.

So staff are encouraged to share concerns about self-conduct? I

don't know if we wanna limit it. No, are we asking staff to round another staff? That sounds horrible.

I think her point is don't

go telling other people about it, but tell the

industry.

Wait, I'm sorry, which one are we going? Nine. We're looking at

nine. Of course we want staff to be able to talk to whoever they need to talk to about how they feel about their work

environment. Don't you trust that our staff will act as professional adults and are doing that anyway? Yeah. I mean, that seems like really a little. I

just was going with Pam with saying just share concerns is very, concerns about what? That's all I was getting at was about what? So it's just about anything? Yeah. Just a vague. I

think I wouldn't want to limit it to just that because what if they have concerns about, I don't

know. Okay. I see. That's a good point that you're making. And staff conduct does

– I mean, that concern would fall under concerns.

I guess I'm trying to empower the staff, too, to know that they are allowed to talk about it in my – and that's – Kelly, would you – how would you – Yeah,

I think this one is actually more intended to kind of encompass, like, if I have a concern with, like, my supervisor, I don't go ranting about my supervisor on social media. I go to my supervisor and I say – you know, listen. That's how I was interpreting it. Yeah. So it's more about like expressing concerns, questions, things like that through the appropriate channels, which would be with that person involved. Yeah. So we, I don't think it's just about staff conduct. I think it is meant to be concerned and constructive criticism. That's

helpful. Okay, great. And then the other comment was that those three paragraphs that they end, I feel like those should be at the very beginning of the policy. I feel like those paragraphs are very powerful. They're very well put there. They seem very in our language and they literally ground everything that we're going to say, you know, in all these

points. Okay. I like that. Move the last three paragraphs to the top.

Got it. So anything else? We need to make a motion to bring it back. Oh, we hadn't made the motion yet. So we're good. I don't think we need to change it. Yeah, I don't think need to amend it because we didn't even read it yet. Correct. OK, great. So we're bringing it back. Good job, Leo. Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly. But you need to make a motion to approve the other policies. No,

those were all first readings. No, those are all first readings. This was the only, yeah. Okay, okay, we're moving on to action items.

Your board curfew should really be like 9 o'clock at the latest.

I think 9 o'clock should be, or whatever you feel is appropriate time limit for you.

If you... Yes.

Yes.

You

too. Thank you so much for all your input and your report. Thank you. Nina also was on the calendar, is now on the calendar committee. And Kate was at a meeting the other day with us, which was like, again, very valuable voice to have there. Okay, moving along to action items. Our first action item is our resolution condemning anti-Semitism in schools. I'm going to read it aloud and then Chris will read the motion to adopt it. School district well I guess I should preface this by saying. Oh yeah. Can Gina can you click on the resolution. I guess just for a very quick background on this in light of. Anti-Semitism we saw last spring physically on our own school building and what happened in our in our own community in August. In addition to everything all other kinds of anti-semitism we're seeing in our region and the country in the world That the board felt this was an important Resolution to adopt and write so I will read it aloud before we make the motion and have comments school district of Clayton Board of Education resolution condemning anti-semitic Whereas the Board of Education of the School District of Clayton affirms its commitment to ensuring a safe, inclusive and respectful learning environment for all students, staff and community members. And whereas schools play a critical role in fostering understanding, empathy and appreciation for diversity while preparing students to engage in an ever-changing world. And Whereas antisemitism has no place in our schools or community and causes harm to individuals, undermines a sense of belonging and conflicts with the district's core values and competencies outlined in the profile of the Clayton learner. And whereas the Board of Education recognizes the long and enduring history of antisemitism and acknowledges that in the present generation, antisemitism has experienced a drastic resurgence through harmful words, actions, and symbols, that perpetuate discrimination foster division and incite violence and whereas the school district of Clayton is committed to actively combating hate speech harassment and discrimination by advancing policies practices and education that promote respect safety and inclusion and. Whereas the school district of Clayton is committed to implementing protocols and procedures to report address and track incidents of anti-Semitism. And whereas standing against anti-Semitism aligns with this district's mission mission to provide all students with equitable access to high quality education free from fear, intimidation or exclusion. Now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the School District of Clayton hereby condemns antisemitism in our schools and community, affirms its commitment to fostering safe, inclusive and respectful learning environments where every student, staff member and family feels valued and protected, Stands in solidarity with Jewish students, families, and staff who have been targeted by hate speech or discrimination, affirming that they are valued members of the Clayton School community. Calls on students, staff, families, and community partners to join in actively rejecting antisemitism and to work together toward a culture of respect, empathy, and unity. Supports the implementation of enhanced anti-hate curriculum for professional learning opportunities, educational community programs, and academic programming for students. Adopted this third day of September 2025. After the meeting we will all sign this and this will live in our documents online with our other resolutions. Will you read the motion and then we'll have any questions or comments? Thank

you. Move that the Board of Education approved the resolution of the Board of Education condemning anti-semitism

It's been moved and seconded any comments or questions

I do have a comment Prior to being a board member in 2020 I was very I took a lot of pride in knowing that our board at that time made sure to create a resolution around anti-bias and anti-racism. And it was in reaction to what was going on in our community at that time and a way of supporting that. all of our community members and making sure that this, that board at the time was very clear on their values and their support for everyone in the community. And I'm really happy to be on the board now to be able to have this resolution at a time when I know this has been something, again, we are addressing a real need and calling on the support of everyone in our community to make sure that, you know, Hate is addressed in all forms. So I really appreciate that we're doing this and I I'm sad that we have to do it, you know, I'll just say that but uh here we are making a stand and I think that's the right thing to do

Any other questions or comments Okay, all those in favor aye any opposed No motion passes Thank you. And action item 8.2 is the Paragon contract for architectural services. John.

The contractual agreement before you engages Paragon and their collaborator, Perkins & Gold, for architectural services. This particular agreement also will interface with the construction manager at risk contract. It's been a long time coming since we selected them three months ago but I can tell you that June and July were interrupted with many people's vacations and so it didn't make a lot of progress during those months. But it is finally negotiated and it has full legal review by our lawyers over at Tooth Keeney. And it's ready for your approval. I'll be happy to take any questions.

You want to read the motion? Yes.

I move that the Board of Education approve a contract with Paragon Architecture for architectural services related to an academic wing addition at CHS, along with renovation and or reconstruction of all three elementary school buildings.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Oh, yeah, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Yes. Any questions? Yes.

Thank you for this. And when you shared this with Tewithkini, did they have any comments or suggestions for change that you had made before we got to see this?

This document has had many changes. And the areas of discussion were really around our expectations that they take responsibility for code compliance. in all forms, that they don't limit their liability whatsoever. There's various attempts to do that in the original drafts. And really then finally limits to fee, that fee cannot just accelerate due to cost of construction, due to tariffs or other unabated inflationary influences. So those three issues took lots of back and forth.

Joe the Contract is with Paragon. How does that relate to Perkins? No? Well, like what's the what's the relationship

there? Paragon is the architect of record. Okay Here Perkins and will is a collaborator. They're the design architects on the project they are under contract specifically with two Perkins and Will. I mean, Perkins and Will is under contract to Paragon. Got you.

Okay. So not directly with.

Not directly with us, although their name appears in this document several times. Okay. And they have been part of the negotiations and legal reviews as well. And one would presume that like as some contract, you know, provisions flowed out of them. Similarly yes, thank you and they're on the hook as well from a liability stance You know it shouldn't be you always think back to the classic problem of the Hyatt disaster many years ago When there was a manager architectural failure. I mean school buildings shouldn't present that kind of risk but But nevertheless we didn't think that their liability should be limited and

Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Motion passes. So now we will move to consent agenda. If you could read that motion, please, Chris.

I move that the Board of Education approve consent agenda items 9.2 through 9.9. Okay.

It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments about anything on consent? Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No, motion passes. So board communications. Leo or Ben was there, I think there was a CRSWC meeting. Do you have anything to report from there?

I would direct you to our previous meeting. We discussed the budget, which was the subject of our meeting earlier today. We discussed a request from the opera theater to use some parking. And I think there was an openness expressed to continuing that conversation with them. I think those were the highlights.

Okay, great. Anyone else have any committee meetings? I had a PTO council meeting last week. It's what they call their kickstart or jumpstart meeting to kick off the year. And so everyone, a lot of new PTO officers, so everyone meets each other. And I gave a board report, Nisha gave a superintendent's report also updating everyone on facilities and I had updated them on policies and things we were reviewing or would be reviewing soon. And we talked about that we're going to be attending PTO meetings so we can give them brief updates on facilities as one of our many avenues for communicating all of this out to the community. They then they break up into small groups based on their positions. So all the treasurers meet, all the secretaries meet, and they kind of get little like training and bounce ideas off of each other so that all the schools are aligned. Gina's there as well as the staff person. It was great. They have a lot of energy, a lot of energy to start off the year, which is great. Okay. That's all we can motion to adjourn. I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Okay, moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Good. Motion passes. Thank you. We're adjourned.