November 19, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

So I invite everyone to join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Chris, will you please read the motion to adopt the agenda?

I move that we adopt the agenda

as posted. Second. Okay, all those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. Okay, we are moving on now to public comment. We have three tonight. First, and I just want to remind everyone watching that we do not respond publicly to public comment but we will follow up individually afterwards. And that you will have a three minute timer on the screen. It will buzz when it gets close. First, I invite Jessica Jankos. Did I pronounce that right? It is? Jankosi. Okay. Sorry. Sorry.

Hi, everyone. My name is Jess, and I am a CHS alum living in Clayton. As you all know, I've been coming to these meetings to talk to you about my concerns with the ADL partnership and ADL curriculum. Another thing I've been doing is I've been talking to parents and students from across the district who share my concerns. However, when it comes to testifying, I hear a lot of similar responses. People are worried about risking their employment. For students, their parents don't want them to get involved. Lots of folks don't feel safe speaking about the issue. I've talked to parents also who were afraid that speaking publicly on their concerns about the ADL would put them at risk of deportation as non-citizens. They and all of us have seen many well-documented cases at this point of students and others who've spoken in support of the Palestinian people being detained and deported, and their immigration status used as a way to silence them. The reporting measures built into the ADL curriculum are a huge safety concern, particularly because of the ADL's work as the largest non-governmental police trainer in the country. With the connections between police and immigration enforcement at an all-time high, this partnership between the ADL and Clayton will particularly put students and families who are non-citizens at risk. The ADL makes it very clear that they equate criticism of the country of Israel with anti-Semitism. And so by inviting them into the district, you're kind of creating a clear pipeline of students who express feeling critical or even conflicted about what they see in the news being put at risk of getting reported. These reports are then received by the ADL, who says on their website that quote, if your incident is anti-Semitic in nature and you need legal help, your parent or legal guardian can use this K-12 anti-Semitism legal line reviewed by the ADL and external legal partners. My concern is that even if this legal line isn't utilized, the ADL's presence will have a chilling effect for immigrant students and families in the district, and especially for black and brown student and immigrant families who are at higher risk of deportation. Even if no reports are ever followed up on, the fear of this possibility will silence students. For these reasons and so many others that we have shared, I ask you to put a pause on the implementation of the ADL curriculum. They're not the only organization that does this kind of work, and the benefits of their curriculum do not outweigh the concerns. Take some time to talk to students, families, teachers in the district. See what they think, and maybe explore alternatives like the ones we've named in the past with PARSEO and the Zinn Education Project. The more buy-in you have from students regarding this programming, the more meaningful and impactful it will be. Anti-bias training can be inherently uncomfortable, but it should not be inherently unsafe. Thank you.

Thank you, Jess.

Frances. Frances Paris. I live in Clayton. I'm a Clayton parent. So I'm going to repeat maybe some things that Jess has already said. So we've heard anonymously from a number of students, teachers, parents about how unsafe they feel on this topic. And this ADL business is really not the legacy we all want. You all keep saying we need an anti-bias program. Agreed. Specifically, the ADL's program. And we can easily ignore ADL's politics. Can we, though? How can we embrace an organization that claims to stand for human rights when Jonathan Greenblatt, its leader, cannot condemn Elon Musk's proud Zeke Hiles? plural, two Ziegheils, one after another. How can we embrace an organization that has been credibly accused of doxing and harassing social activists? How can we embrace and organization that pays for US police departments to attend militaristic-styled crowd control training in Israel? Picking the ADL is like a vegan choosing to eat at a steakhouse because they can get a side order of green beans cooked in animal fat, and in the process ignore the giant oozing dead carcass sitting on the plate. This brings me to the ADL's half-baked curriculum, and we've heard this from more than a few teachers. It's milquetoast stuff, generic, something middle schoolers would have put together in a group project. Let's love each other with the names of a few civil rights icons thrown in, and all roads lead to Israel. It's a fig leaf. And what it lacks in innovative anti-hate teaching, it makes up for in the implicit silencing of any discussion they don't want to hear, including the pain of students who don't agree with their politics. So I ask you, what is the point of you trying to float $150 million bond to build sports fields, lab facilities, when the presence of the ADL robs this normally high functioning school of its very soul of inquiry, critical and independent thought discussion. Our award-winning magazine, The Globe, has been rendered mute on this topic despite initially inviting discussion. We need to start from scratch and be intentional on finding an anti-bias vendor. Form a committee of students, alumni, teachers, parents, citizens, whoever. We need to do this soon before this tail wags the dog. We cannot let the ADL's snitch principle become our culture. I know you can do this. I know you're committed to these kids. I've watched you work hard. The last meeting I was here at, which spanned more than five hours, Don't let your hard work be for the benefit of an organization whose singular mission has nothing to do with the well-being of our kids or our city. And lastly, I'll say, I sit on the Clayton's Equity Commission, and we work really hard to make this an inviting city to everybody. Putting the ADL right at the basis of the foundation of our city doesn't help with this process. Thanks very much.

Jolina Peng?

Good evening, my name is Jolina paying I graduated from clayton in 2016 and Washington 2019 and now I work in K through 12 environmental education and I live in this district. And i'm here because i'm deeply uneasy about adopting the adl is no place for hate program so My concern is not whether we address anti semitism but who he asked to define it for our students. The ADL today is a major lobbying and advocacy organization. In 2024, it spent about $1.4 million lobbying Congress, much of it on Israel-related legislation. Its CEO has said bluntly that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism and promised to fight anti-Zionist through lawsuits, research, and lobbying. When that worldview underpins a required anti-bias program, the district is no longer just teaching about prejudice. It is endorsing one side of a live foreign policy debate. And that has real consequences in Clayton. Jewish students who feel afraid deserve protection and solidarity, and so do Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students, some with family under bombardment, all trying to make sense of the news. When a politically aligned outside group is empowered to decide what counts as bias, those students hear that advocating for Palestinian human rights or criticizing any government might be labeled bigotry. That does not make anyone safer, and it tells part of our community that their grief and conscience are out of bounds at school. The good news is that we have other choices, as mentioned earlier. Programs like Facing History and Ourselves, Parseo, News Literacy Projects, Checkology Platform, they have independent evaluations that show gains in empathy, pro-social behavior, civic self-efficacy, historical thinking, and more caring and democratic classroom climates, along with big jumps in students' ability to spot weak evidence and identify reliable sources. And none of them lobby Congress. Here in St. Louis, the Kaplan-Feldman Holocaust Museum, as mentioned again, has a dedicated education staff and a speaker's bureau. And yeah, so with all of these options, with all these options that are built to teach what antisemitism is and what it actually is not, and to warn how misidentifications and the false equation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism might be used for political ends, I ask you to consider my ask of you tonight. So first and most urgently, of course, is to pause the planned expansion of No Place for Hate at Wiedon and Clayton High School. I think that this deserves a transparent review. I also think you should adopt clear criteria for any outside anti-bias partner and potentially consider convening a working group of educators, students, and community members, Jewish, Muslim, Arab, and immigrant families to compare ADL materials with alternatives. Confronting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate, I agree with everybody here, I'm sure, is non-negotiable. Handing that task to a highly politicized lobbying organization is a choice. And tonight we're asking you to make a better one. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, agenda item three. I will turn it over to Dr. Patel for superintendent communication.

Great, thank you. Welcome everyone and thank you for the public comments. We will be responding to those at a later time. So appreciate you taking your time. Superintendent update. We did not have a recognizing our own specific agenda item, but I will go through quite a few programs that we have that I would like to recognize. So first off, I wanted to share with you last week, I got an opportunity to visit the Y Down Theater Company's production of Elf. And it was fantastic. We were able to see our students on stage shine, a lot of cheer, a lot of laughs. They were surprised that I've never watched the movie else myself. I think everybody's like, wait, what? I know, I know, it's a shock. Oh, thank you. See, I'm in good company. But we've got more. But the students were fantastic and they did a great job. And of course, we have our outstanding teachers who support our students too. not only achieve academically, but also achieve on the state and in different arenas. So with that, I wanted to thank them for their performance that night. And then we also have our students on stage quite a bit this week. Yesterday was a choir concert at Wiedown. Tomorrow is an orchestra concert. And I know we have plenty more coming up as we head into the winter. And then next, when we talk about commitment of students, I wanted to highlight our girls tennis state champions. This is the third year in a row that they have gotten this and the fourth time in the history of the district. So again, a lot of time and effort and practice goes into this. And I just want to make sure that we recognize them for this outstanding achievement. And I think we can learn a lot from our students as I was going through these slides with the amount that they balance. They come to school every day. They learn. They do presentations. They do projects. They take AP classes. They push themselves, challenge themselves. And then on top of that, they're in activities and athletics and on the stage. So kudos to all of our students for that. Another team, cross country. Boys were eighth in the state, girls 14th. We had our senior Ava placed 13th in the state. Again, a lot of accomplishments and they did a tremendous job. And I know they train really hard every single day to do this. And then I would be remiss not to mention that our boys swimming and diving team took 10th overall in state out of 60 teams. That, again, is a huge accomplishment. And, again, like our students are academically very talented, but they perform on the field, on the stage, and even the pool. So all walks of life. Switching gears, last night Long Range Facilities Master Plan update. Last night we had community, we opened up Glen Ridge and Merrimack for community tours. We had a handful of parents and community members show up. I felt like they were very engaged. All of them as they walked out completely saw the need for us to modernize our facilities. And I felt like there was good conversations with the individuals that attended. This is not the first or the last time we're going to open up our doors. We'll keep doing that in the future. If you did not make the tours, not to worry. We'll have more opportunities for you to do that. Thank you, Mr. Heckman. Thank you for being there. I believe you were at Merrimack. So we appreciate it. Thank you. A lot of things have been happening. When you reflect on this work, it's been almost 18 months that we've been talking about facilities planning in our district. We have had community engagement workshops. We have had school-based workshops. We've had Board of Education retreats over the last 18 months, a lot of community tours. We've been discussing the possibility of swing space for our elementary schools and touring those sites. As a matter of fact, this week we toured Fontbonne to see if that could be feasible for our elementary schools. to be used as a swing space, so we continue to look into that. We have focused on communication and engagement with our community from mailers like in postcard forms or just our first publication this school year was a feature inside Clayton Magazine that everybody should have gotten The Globe has done several articles on it. We do social media, short videos, email communication. So we're trying every way possible to engage the community in this work. A big part of that was also the survey that a lot of individuals took and gave us feedback. And based on all the feedback that we're getting, we are responding in ways that we can. And I want to make sure that everybody understands that. And the next steps, we're going to continue to offer ways for us to engage with the community, do information sessions as we lead up to the January board meeting where we will have a discussion on whether we are going to go for a potential bond issue in April, which would be a zero tax rate increase. again no decisions have been made but we're looking at all the information as we work towards the january board meeting so i wanted to give everybody an update on that and please look out for more information we'll keep sharing that as we put that together i believe that is all i have now nina i will hand it off to you because i know you've been talking to our students about this

So last Thursday, I got the chance to meet with Clayton's Principal's Advisory Club. Our main topic of discussion was finals because those are coming up and I'm sure weighing on a lot of students' minds. I asked the group what they felt was most helpful and supportive during the stressful time. A few of the responses I got were the activities sponsored by the Wellness Center. And these activities, I think, started last year. They span throughout the week and they put on fun de-stressing activities. They said that the activities sponsored by the Wellness Center are super fun and de-stressing, especially the duo dogs and team making station. And those are always super fun. They happen during lunch throughout the week of finals. And then someone else said they really liked hot tips and study tips, which is an activity put on annually by the school that talks about like finals tips. And then they also have hot chocolate, which is super fun. And they said that is really helpful in providing good study strategies. And then I also asked them how they felt about the actual final schedule or the structure of the week itself. Many of them felt like it was a lot to be condensed into only three days, but once we discussed further and realized that extending the time period could cut into our break or cut into the prep weeks before, we decided that it was worth it, especially because the group consensus was that teachers do pretty good jobs in the week leading up to it of preparing students for the exams. And finally, I asked the group if they liked the way the finals are approached or if they feel like the environment is too competitive or stressful. A lot of them said that while they feel the natural stress and anxiousness that comes along with exams, most of them actually feel like the collective nerves foster a sense of unity and collaboration. As one student said, we're all a little stressed, but at least we're stressed together. I think this really attests to the fact that even when things get a little difficult, teamwork and friendship stay a core value for many Clayton students. Finals were also a big discussion topic in this week's Link Crew meetings. Link Crew is a program led primarily by CHS upperclassmen to help freshmen navigate their first year. This week, we discussed the final schedule along with study tips and tricks. I think it's safe to say that the freshmen definitely felt a little better after hearing some pointers from experienced test takers. Now moving on to a long-range facilities master plan update. Last night, I also got the chance to tour Glenridge as part of Clayton's community night. It was so interesting to see how the building has changed and adapted since I graduated Glenridge in 2020. Dr. Murdoch talked a lot about the essential changes and improvements that would be made with the potential renovations, many of which were ones that my Glenridge focus groups had also discussed with me a few weeks ago. It was very interesting to see both the students and principal agree on so many fundamental changes that they would like to see. It was such a great night, and I look forward to going Back to Glenridge soon to meet with their focus group again.

Thank you, Nina, and thanks for attending the tour. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay, we have one presentation tonight. Dr. Garganigo and Mr. Seavey, I think, are going to present on our Goal 3 update of our strategic plan.

And I just wanted everyone to know that typically a Goal 3 strategic plan updates would have been Dr. Poole and Mike Seby at the table, but today Dr. Milena Garganigo is going to take place for Dr. Pooley because he has a personal matter he's dealing with. So thank you, Dr. Garganega.

And I just wanted everyone to know that typically a Goal 3 strategic plan updates would have been Dr. Poole and Mike Seby at the table, but today Dr. Garganego is going to take place for Dr. Pooley because he has a personal matter he's dealing with. So thank you, Dr. Garganega.

Sure. Good evening. As Nisha shared, I'm here and I'm honored to be here with Mike Seavey to share the information of the work that the Student Services Department has been doing. So I hope that I do it justice in sharing the, helping Mike to share this information with you all. So we wanted to start similar to how we started the work with goal two. by starting off talking just about the goal as a whole. And so when you think about our comprehensive school improvement plan that we refer to as the strategic plan, our tagline is a place for everyone to grow as learners in head and heart. And so tonight we're really gonna focus on that head and heart part, and laser in on the idea of social-emotional well-being and growth. The one thing I would say is that we see all three of our goals of the strategic plan being very connected with one another, and I think you're gonna see through this presentation sort of the breadcrumbs of that connection as well as the work that our departments do together in order to make sure that we have sort of a unified philosophy as we move our work forward.

Okay, first of all, I want to acknowledge that this is my first presentation on this board and go on record to thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the Clayton community. As Melaina mentioned, we'll be focusing on goal three. And all three goals really focus on student growth. Goal three particularly focus on social emotional learning as well as physical wellness. Tonight we'll be focusing the social and emotional component of that. Tonight, we want to provide you an update on the indicators under Goal 3 with the focus on social-emotional well-being and look at how we're working to become more intentional about the growth of our students by embedding social-emotional learning into our existing MTSS process. Okay. Under Goal 3, you'll see there are four objectives in our strategic plan. Each of those touch upon some dimension of social-emotional As you may notice, each of these objectives align well to the qualities of the profile of Clayton graduate. Each of these objectives have a measurement attached to them indicating where students are with respect to the objective. In three out of the four objectives, panorama data is used as that measure. So this is what we'll be reporting on tonight. You'll also notice that Objective C uses the Missouri State Student Survey. That's actually administered by the Department of Mental Health every other year, every two years. The last data we have for that is 2024. And the next data collection for that will be March, next semester of 2026. So we really wanted to defer that report on that objective until we have more recent data. Over the summer, the Student Services Department held a retreat. Actually, this was my first opportunity to meet many of our student services staff. Part of our goal was to really look at these objectives and see what do we already have in place to support students on each of these objectives? So the Student Services Department really put together all the interventions that they had in place, divided it out by level, elementary, middle school, high school, and by tier. And so I don't want to take for granted that everyone knows what that means in education. We talk about tiers like it's... I don't know, like food, I guess. So basically, the overwhelming number of students function well with the instruction that's out there for every student. That's a tier one. There's a small number of students that don't function with the tier one instruction and need a little bit extra to be able to function at that level. Those are your tier two interventions. And there's even a smaller group of students who need even more than that. That's your tier three, which are pretty intensive interventions for the most part. So the goal of our student services retreat was really looking at what do we have at each level and each tier and looking at where we might have gaps. So getting into the Panorama data, you may be aware that Panorama is administered twice a year in the fall and in the spring. Students from grades three to 12 self-report on six topics or dimensions or domains. This part of the survey aims to ask how students perceive their own social emotional skills. So there are multiple Likert scale questions that go with each of these topics. And the responses can range from favorable to neutral to negative. The score for each question is a percentage of students who rate themselves favorably or positively with respect to the questions. The number you see as an average from all the questions in that topic, that creates an overall topic score. So the way Panorama defines self-management is how well students manage their emotions, thoughts and behaviors in different situations. You'll notice that the data covers last school year comparing fall 2024 to spring 2025 showing movement within one school year. To interpret this data, 82% of students grades three through five rated themselves favorably on their self-management skills in the fall of 2024. In the spring of 2025, 81% rated themselves favorably. And so you can see a similar data across the middle school and high school as well. What's not captured here, it's hard because you have two data points, is the historical data. I will say since the time that we've started collecting data on this, our numbers at each level has either stayed steady or has increased. Panorama defined social awareness as how well students consider the perspectives of others and empathize with them. Again, you'll notice that the data looked at the elementary, middle school, and high school for last school year, fall 2024, spring 2025. Overall, the measure looks pretty steady from fall to spring at each level. And again, from a multi-year perspective, each level has increased their score since we started collecting data. Sense of belonging. This actually falls into a different type of data set. Instead of focusing on how students perceive their own social-emotional skills, this really asks students about the learning environment. So Panorama defines sense of belonging as how much students feel they're valued members of the school community. One trend that really stands out in that sense of belonging score As students progress from elementary to middle to high school, the score actually drops. I will say, however, a multi-year perspective shows that this is an area where as a district we've grown tremendously. The data actually goes back to 2019, just before the pandemic. So if you consider where the district has been on the score historically in 2019, at the elementary level, we're at 64%. At the middle school, we're at 50%, and at the high school, we're 50%. So also, despite what might look like low numbers, it's interesting when we compare ourselves to other schools. And so our spring 2025 data indicates that when compared to all other schools who took this survey across the nation, which I think Panorama has 2,000 school districts nationwide, and you look at a percentile, at the elementary, we're at the 90th percentile, which means that we score higher than 90% of the schools that took those survey. At the middle school level, we're at the 80th percentile. And at the 60th percentile are the high school. And I know that seems low. But if you then break the data apart even more and you look at where if you compare Y down to other middle schools, not all schools, we actually are at the 90th percentile. If you take Clayton High School and you compare it to other high schools, we're at 90th percentile So what might look right there on that graph is maybe not such a positive. When you compare us to other schools at those levels, we actually do quite well.

So similar to how we've presented academic data to you, we wanted to dive in a little bit more with the sense of belonging data and not just give you the overall percentages but look at it by identity groups to study what those data and that information looked like to sort of help inform some possible next steps for us. So we present this in the similar way that we do to academic data, that we start with the fall, go to the spring. Anything that's a decrease in score, we represent in red. Anything that's an increase in score, we'd represent in blue. And what these data have shown to us is that, again, the 9 through 12 seems to be an area of focus for us moving forward. And I would say overall, the sense of belonging is a place for us to consider what that work looks like. But nine through 12 feels like a place for us put some more energy, particularly with African American students and Asian students. When we look at another set of identity groups, the area of focus that we see here is a lot of red with students who have 504 plans. And so continuing to think about what these data tell us and how it can inform our practices moving forward and maybe some goal setting that we can put in place to focus in the area of sense of belonging.

The question is, what do we do with this data? One of the goals that we have as a student services department is vertical alignment, which means that from K to 12 and hopefully pre-K to 12, we can look at continuity in terms of what we're teaching students social and emotionally and how we respond to it. you know, one thing that we've actually put on the calendar for this school year is vertical PLCs or professional learning communities for our student services department. Which, you know, what we'll be doing is looking at the data and what you guys have seen is really just a small subset of what we'll be reviewing with the purpose of looking at like where do we need to improve? Where do we need to fill in gaps? And so That leads to this. I hope this is a familiar slide for folks. Okay, the answer, I'm seeing heads shake yes. So I'm sure at the last board meeting, Melaina talked a little bit about how we're supporting academic success through the MTSS process. social-emotional learning and academic success are so interdependent. You know, one impacts the other. And so we often find that because of that impact, we're needing to address both simultaneously. Additionally, you know, they're not dissimilar in their process. Actually, they have more in common than not. And so our goal is to really integrate our social-emotional into our existing MTSS process. Just to piggy on this, typically our approach to social emotional stuff or social emotional interventions are a response to something. A problem behavior or a social emotional concern. It's a response. And so our typical response is try to eliminate a problem behavior So the paradigm shift for our department is that rather than operating from a deficits approach, we'd like to create a system where we focus on developing the underlying skills that students need to be successful socially, emotionally, behaviorally so that they can be academically successful. So aligning our social emotional learning into the MTSS model allows us to be more intentional and proactive. In order to do that, we must first identify the social emotional skills or competencies that we expect students to have and then teach those skills and support learning for all students at a tier one level. And that would be our foundational framework for instruction, which is on our graphic there. So once we identify those competencies, we'd like to modify our data collection through Panorama to more closely align to those competencies. Tier two and three support is really a matter of identifying students who are not demonstrating those skills and then providing the corresponding interventions and support. So our collaborative teams would be reviewing data and looking for students who may need more than tier one and plugging them to the corresponding interventions. The identified social-emotional competencies would provide a framework and organize and develop our interventions that target those various skills. So that would create a continuum of interventions and supports for us. And so if we were able to use Educlimber, a tool like that, we could actually track interventions and the skills that students are learning. and progress monitor that way. So once in place, our systems and structures can look at the data, make database decisions, and help us to continually improve how we serve students. So we really are excited to be working with Teaching and Learning to really work together on this. I know Melina's going to talk a little bit more about our next steps. But I'll say there are pockets of this already happening. You know, what was not captured in our panorama data is the kindergarten through second grade students. And so because it's not in there, I know our elementaries have really worked on data collection for them. It's not pan around. So their data looks like a combination of behavioral data, attendance data, academic data, teacher report, student interviews to come up with a composite score and to use that as a jumping off point to plug kids into needed supports. Also our student services team really started to identify the social-emotional competencies. And we really depended upon what the community and the district has already identified through the profile of a Clayton graduate. So as we started to do that, I discovered that teaching and learning was doing a similar process and actually had way ahead start on that through the approaches to learning and the elementary report cards. So our goal is to really come back together and put our heads together and figure that out for the district.

So when we think about next steps, I think Mike's teed this up nicely. The work of the student services team and the visioning around student services and the interconnectedness of academics and student services, so teaching and learning. So we've decided to start meeting together to do that work together. So Mike and Cameron and I and Robin are all meeting together to really lay out our work and visiting each other's meetings to be voices in those spaces so that we know that we're aligned in that work. So that's become a really exciting part of our work and the profile is what has guided a lot of that initial work. When we think about data collection, a couple different things. Panorama has a robust set of questions. We have chosen, we chose several years ago the set of questions that we were gonna use and haven't really veered from that over the past several years. And so we see this as an opportunity with the departments working together and the work that Student Services is doing as a whole team to really revisit those components of Panorama to make sure that what our objectives are align with then what we're measuring, which also has us thinking about the evergreen model of our CSIP plan and the thinking around we may have outgrown some of our objectives at this point, and so it's time for us to really think differently about what those objectives are and then in turn what the measures would be to help us to collect that information. Mike talked a little bit about Educlimber. You know I talk a lot about Educlimbers. When I showed you last time what the interventions are looking like for academics and the timeline, we really piloted a lot of things with academic interventions last year and then put things into place this year, K-8. And so this year we're piloting some things with SEL interventions. And so what we're piloting right now, because we don't really have the measures identified in a way that we feel really comfortable with, we're just piloting the fact that we're tracking information on which students we're intervening with. So when we think about those Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions, let's just make sure that we're capturing that information so that we have that longitudinally for children. And then we'll work on figuring out what the measures are and the progress monitoring kinds of tools. So this, what you saw last time with progress monitoring of multiple data points, that's our vision for SEL also. We just haven't gotten to that point of developing that. And then the program review for counseling, I think really provides us with an opportunity to connect all of this. So to really think about goal three as a place for us to start thinking about that work, making sure that we're keeping the two departments connected in the work and so therefore the three goals of the strategic plan connected. and making sure that within that program review, we've had really a comprehensive study of our work and set some goals for ourselves moving forward that can help us get to some of these places that we're hoping to get to. So what questions do you have for us?

I have some, but I'll let others go first. Mike, good job on your first presentation.

Oh, thank you.

That was great. Who has some questions for either one?

Mike I just want to say we're so glad that you are here and you are helping Cameron lead this team To do this work. We're very honored. So thank you. And yes, congratulations on your first presentation Hope we're not scary Okay, I am So this place where you guys just ended at this idea of revising goal three objectives, I want to go up to like that first wherever it is. that slide that says current goal three objectives. So I'm glad to hear that you're looking to revise those. For anyone listening, it is typical in a strategic plan for that to be revised by the district every three to five-ish years. Our district has these three goals of a place for everyone to grow as learners and head and heart, and those are not changing, but each of the objectives for those do change, and so these four objectives One of the things I want to see is how we ask the questions of what of these objectives have already become incorporated or embedded into our system, and so we don't need them to be listed as an evergreen objective anymore. Which ones no longer apply, or do we feel that we need to refocus on? So I look forward to hearing what you guys come up with whenever we get to hear that again. I would like to... ask that you consider asking the question about resilience and how can we evaluate that, that in the psychological literature, resilience is a key factor for help for students and adults in being able to move forward and problem solve through stressful situations, for lack of a better word. And that really connects with our profile of a Clinton graduate in multiple areas. So I wanted to put that one out there. Next question is where you show these graphs, these charts, bar graphs they're called. And I know, Mike, you spoke to prior year's data. I would love to be able to see that chart and to see what, if any of these are statistically significant in positive improvement or in lack of improvement. And my third one, the sense of belonging data. I really appreciate, Mike, how you spoke to that sense of belonging and put it into a perspective of us compared to nationwide, to other schools. That was really helpful. I personally am curious as we were doing all that phone stuff last year, one of the pieces that was pointed to of how taking phones away from the school could likely improve a sense of belonging and now that the state has made us do that, I'm curious to see if we're gonna see any difference in that data from fall to spring this year. So I have my eyes out for that.

Yeah. That's it for now. Anyone else, questions or comments? Leo?

I have a kind of higher level question about...

Higher level.

Are we, with regards to revising the CSIP stuff, is it intended that we go to those in some kind of pattern or regular cadence? Or just when it comes up, what's the intention or plan?

So as they stated, the CSIP is an evergreen model. So the objectives continuously change. Last year, Milena looked at goal two and we adjusted those objectives. But what we are going to do now, starting August of 2026, each year at the first board meeting, we'll present the goals and the objectives and have the board ask the board to formally adopt them. So that would be our formal review in front of the board. But throughout the year, we would be looking at the action steps and the objectives and adjusting them through program reviews or studies. Was that the question? Yeah,

no, I think it's important that evergreen not mean static. Yes. And as long as there is some, that process seems so. Yeah. Okay, now a question more on the subject matter of the presentation. When I... think about the belonging thing, the anecdotal experience that I had or that was raised with me partly just because of the group of parents that I was close to had to do with school transitions in particular and transitions to the middle school even more particularly. And I wondered whether you have anything you see in the data related to the effect those transitions have and whether there's any kind of specific plans in place or processes that you guys have considered around that narrower topic.

So, breaking down how they ask the questions on Sense of Belonging. The question is, really there's six questions. How much support do the adults at your school give you? How well do people at your school understand you as a person? How connected do you feel to the adults at your schools? How much respect do students in your school show you? How much do you matter to others at school? Overall, how much do you feel like you belong at your school? I'm wondering where the opportunity would be in that to find out how those transitions go, and that's definitely something we can look at.

Or is there data of just sixth grade and just ninth grade within that maybe?

Yeah. I mean, I think a number of people I've talked to feel like people really get to know them at these elementary schools, which is fantastic. And then there's an information loss, which isn't, inevitable maybe to some extent, but we should be working to mitigate it to the extent we can about helping the kids feel like they are seen when they make that transition.

Any other questions or comments?

Chris? Well now I have a new one because you helped me come up with a new one. So that's interesting and it's related to something that I think about in I'm glad that you brought this up, is at the high school we have, do we still have in place the trusted adult question?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. And when does that take place? Because here we are, brand new freshmen, right? You wouldn't ask them that within the first quarter, right? I mean, how do you handle that?

Yeah, they... Do you know when they're asking it? They're asking it later into the year, but it's not too late. Like, it's somewhere within first semester that they're asking the question.

Yeah. Yeah, and I wonder... As a team, what can you do to – are there ways that you try to ensure there is a trusted adult for everyone prior to even asking the question? Does that make sense? I mean, is that a – you know what I'm saying? I understand asking it, but what things are happening in order to sort of make sure that that – Build that trust. Yeah, that that sort of – those sort of relationships are being, you know, that are – you know what – well my next question was going to be in how do we do that same thing in height in middle school if we do at all

so we've had instances where we've done it at middle school we've also had instances where we have asked that question at elementary and we've tried a couple different ways to do it at elementary including like giving the children like pictures of the adults as opposed to just like you know so to draw from as opposed to like name out of your head, but like you know who and I would say there's been different kinds of success with that information so the in response to your question about Being proactive about it. Yeah, I I would I would sort of argue that the teachers would say that that's part of their work every day okay, right is like establishing relationship with children within their classrooms and I think we also have information reported back to us that instances like your English conference and that kind of stuff create situations where your English teacher gets to know you a little bit better than everyone else because they spend time individually with you multiple times throughout the year. So we're trying to build some of those spaces. I think the infusion of Greyhound Time also provides an opportunity for children to connect with adults. Sometimes it's around academics, but I think that's okay. in thinking through that piece. The proactive piece of like ask, thinking about asking the question No, I answered that part. The other part is once we have those data and information, then we spend time to really look at that to see who are the children who are reporting that they don't have an adult, and then how are we thinking through how to help make that connection for children? Because I think that is the goal, that 100% of children can identify at least one adult in a school that they could trust.

Okay. And then I think to piggyback with that, and it goes with Leo's question as well, we're trying to be very intentional during those transition years in creating programs that would help our students. So like for sixth grade, we have... Sorry, for ninth grade you have Link Crew, right? Where the students are mentoring the incoming freshmen. The high school started the Compass program where ninth graders also are in classes and they meet around specific topics. So we're trying to be intentional during those transition years specifically. And then the web. And then the Web, that's the one I was thinking, for middle school, for sixth grade. So doing those things proactively.

I know they did this at Glenridge, and I'm guessing they do this at the others, that the teachers get a list of who has said they are their special adult.

Like

these are the students who have said you are their special person.

Do you guys do that at the middle school and high school too?

I don't know the answer to that question. I don't either.

I think that's really cool. I think that is pretty powerful. Right? Because the teacher may or may not know. you know that they're that person for that student, but that could go a long way in helping that relationship continue to be important for both parties. So yeah, I love that. My other question was how different are the questions that are on the Missouri State Student Survey?

So the Missouri State, I actually have the 2024 results. A lot of the emphasis is on good decisions, substance abuse, risk-taking behaviors. There are some questions about mood. So a lot of this, I know that our all-in coalition is looking forward to uh this and actually supplementing the information

yes

with some listening sessions and all that so they have an invested interest because it aligns very well to their mission yes

okay so yeah it's very mental health based type stuff it's we're not talking about you know self-aware or you know all the self-advocacy stuff and all that other kind of stuff right and it's required for all schools and it's every other year

It is every other year. It's not required. I know districts that are not doing it because we just engaged in a conversation with a bunch of districts about whether people were doing it and I said we do it. And there were others that said they didn't. And

what do we get, what do you guys do with that? Like how does it help you?

I can speak to that because that goes back to us having an evergreen model and adjusting these objectives as needed. I believe when this objective was created and the CSIP was developed, at that time there was a focus. We developed a wellness committee. And part of that was we needed a data point to help with that and all in coalition specifically. Hence, that objective and that measurement was used because the panorama data wasn't helpful for all in coalition. Now that we have Shelly in place running that, she's looking at this and looking at different data points. I think we're at a point where I don't know if that would still be a measurement point that we would utilize in the future.

Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. I just want to say the vertical alignment thing that you guys are talking about and making sure that we are really looking at how these learners are growing each year and it continues to build off of itself is huge. So I really appreciate that aspect. And then I want to say that the fact that you guys are now meeting together all the time, I mean, it's just brilliant, beyond brilliant. I'm so happy about this because you're exactly right. You know what you're talking about. They're totally related. Can't speak about one without the other. So it's going to be even more powerful, and I'm sure our numbers will continue to go up and up. So congrats to you for making such a bold and impressive move in doing that. I don't know how many schools are doing that, but I think it's pretty awesome.

Great.

Jason?

Feels like I shouldn't ask a question after that, but. I will say I agree with Dr. Pam and everyone else. This is really great. I really appreciate the presentation and information here. What is it? So I hear like a next step is getting more, you know, integrating your work into Educlimber. What's the timing on that? Did I miss that?

Yeah, so similar to with the academics, we piloted for a year and then sort of worked out the kinks and then put something into place. We're piloting some things with SEL this year. So we have things entered, but we don't have a measurement tool attached to it, so a progress monitoring tool. So we have the data captured right now. of who is receiving interventions related specifically to SEL. We just don't, we're still in the process of developing what that looks like as far as measuring growth over time while they're in that intervention and then working out a couple of the kinks because the system is a little clunky. It's set up to do academic interventions. And we're forcing it to do something that's a little clunky. And so Mike and Cameron and I have been thinking through, like, what does that really look like? So the pilot year is helpful to us to sort of play around with that before we commit to we need everybody to have their information in there. So the social work and counseling team is working right now, really K-8, around the sort of playing around in the system right now.

Okay. So I don't know whether this question is actually an EduClimber question or not, so you guys can tell me. But when we say, okay, we need to double-click and dig into what's going on with our African American students, what's going on

Like how do we dig into that? Yeah. What

is it like? What are the activities that are actually happening to close the gap there?

So I would say we are using Educlimber to do that even now. So at a school level, like a data team would sit down to look at those information. So maybe a good example is to talk about the K2 sort of panorama version of data that was collected this year. So as the counselors and social workers went out to blitz the buildings and collect all that information from students, it was entered into a spreadsheet. So pre-EdgeClimber, we would enter stuff into spreadsheet. We would have demographic information in there. We would sort it by the demographics. The system just allows us to do that much easier and allows us to do it in a visualization way so that it's pretty clear when a data team is looking at those data what we're seeing as far as numbers and percents and those types of things and then working through like percentiles and those kinds of things all factor into that. But it's pretty easy for us to manipulate those data when they're in EdgeClimber.

Okay. So in other words, it is happening in sort of a pre-Educlimber era.

Yeah. So before we adapted Educlimber, we did everything in spreadsheets and we filtered spreadsheets and we had a lot of spreadsheets. And now this allows us to have it all in one place. It also, like the connection that we're talking about with academics and SEL, it allows us to look at really a 360 view of a child. So if we're seeing an inter, like one of the questions that you all asked me last month was about the overlap of literacy and math interventions, that it also allows us to look the overlap of literacy, math, and SEL interventions To be able to sometimes that informs like how we have to prioritize our work We can't have children out of tier one instruction all day long because they need support in all these other areas We have to think through then. How are we? How are we prioritizing that?

All right, and then one one last question Which I apologize that it's a little bit of an on-the-spot question But is there a theory as to why the IEP scores were in the blue and the 504 scores were in the red?

I don't know that we have a theory.

Yeah. It just caught my eye, so I thought I'd ask. Okay, great. Thank you.

To speak to, I think you asked, and I don't know if... Maybe I'm wrong, but part of what you asked two questions ago was, what do you do with that data? Once you see that it's the African-American students and the 504 students, it's not just where do you put it, it's what do you do, what are you doing? And I think the answer, am I right, I'm asking you, is those individual teams, they actually get that data at the school level. They sit and they decide what things need to be changed, moved, whatever, that kind of thing.

Right. And I mean, it all goes back to the hexagons and our goal of knowing every learner well and responding to their needs. It's really about the individual child when we're at the data team meetings. The sort of collective data of what that looks like across identity groups or something like that is not necessarily what that data team is looking at. They're looking at the individual children and how we're going to intervene or instruct the individual children. We're looking at the things that look like trends. and and trying to make decisions about that and that's where I think this fits into like goal one and that sense of Really around equity in those types of things like all that evidence with it That's kind of where I see the interconnectedness of the three goals is like when we see those trends What is the work that we're doing as a system to help address those trends?

so one of my questions along these same lines was I what are some examples of interventions you're doing with our African American and 504 students because those scores were low. And I hear you and appreciate that we are looking at individual students, but we also can't ignore that those are specific student groups. So is there something, like for example, I know at the high school we have affinity groups for African American students. Or is there something else we're doing for that, for African American students or 504 students to help as groups? because we see that trend with Sense of Belonging.

The work that I would have said is the same thing that you're saying, the affinity groups. I don't know. I would say from an academic lens, I wouldn't say that we've dug into that 504 piece yet. Yeah, that's... I don't know if the student services team... Like, that was sort of a new data point for me in going through, like, putting this presentation together. And I...

Go back up there.

Yeah. I wonder... Asian students. Yeah.

Oh, right. Asian students also. Yeah. I wonder one of my other questions was about participation in Panorama, like at the high school level. What percent of students are

actually doing the Panorama survey? So we administer it to 100% of the students. Right. We do it through class. So do you

feel

that

almost 100% of the students are

doing it? I mean, it's pretty close. The number is pretty close. Okay. I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on, because the children have taken it for a long time. Yeah. And it's kind of the same questions. And we've talked about this with academic data before too. Like when we used FAST for a long time, the kids got kind of tired of taking FAST. They get kind of tired of NWA. I don't know how that feels as a student with Panorama.

I mean, like any test, no one's like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to take this. But I do think it is kind of interesting, especially because a lot of the questions, they're pretty easy to answer, so they don't require a ton of brain work or you to really dig that deep into them. But I do thing it's always interesting. I never dread taking it, because it's interesting to look through the questions again and then remember them from past years. And I remember this year when I was taking it, I remember my answer from a past year and say, oh well, how has this changed? How has this changed? And I also think it's interesting um the difference between like fall and spring how like i'm like because i mean it's only like a few months later so it's pretty easy to remember like the specific questions especially the ones that like resonate with you the most um and like kind of think about you how your answers change but no i definitely don't think it's something that like students dread or like really trying to get out of especially because it doesn't take very long and i mean you take it like at the beginning of a class so it kind of cuts into class time a little bit which is and you feel like students take

it seriously

Because it's short and doesn't require

a lot of thought. Yes, because it's

short and then also because it's administered through the classes. So your teacher says, okay, everybody get out your Chromebook. You have to take this test or this thing. And everybody's doing it. It's not like anyone's doing anything else. So it's kind of just like, all right, let's all get it done. And it's definitely not terrible or anything like that. Okay,

good. Yeah. Good. I think the 504 data point is also interesting to me because there are so many diverse... you know, unique reasons why students have 504 plans, right? So that's a, I think, would be a really hard group to figure out why this is happening. It's not like some of our other student groups. There are physical disabilities. There are, you know, mental disabilities. There are learning disabilities. There are so many health, you know, reasons. There's so many reasons that students have 504 plan. So that one's

tough. I just want to point out, though, that, yes, the three to five went from 60 to 65, but the other two only went down. They're only red because they went down by one.

Yeah, that's true.

So I'm not feeling super concerned about that.

But the number's

low. But the number itself, you're saying, I understand what you're saying, compared to IP, which are 60, yeah, uh-huh.

I will say that over the years that we've given this, the lowest point for students who have 504 plans was 40%. So we do have the number. When Mike was saying that things have either stayed steady or they have gone up over the years, 40%, I think, we would be having another kind of conversation because the 53-54 is pretty close to the total population also.

I do think at some point, this is not an urgent thing. It doesn't even have to be another presentation, but just some sort of a, like literally just copy and paste some longitudinal data on a PDF and send it to us. I think that would be helpful.

We can put it into a weekend.

Yeah, that's, I mean,

like

literally at your convenience. But can I ask, like how big of a drop Is it dropped to where I should care? Like, I don't know. There's got to be a better way. Yeah, statistically significant. Like, you know, 80 to 79, okay, fine. Like, you can see where one person has changed their answer or whatever. But like, is eight points the right? Is it 10? Is it five? Like, when do I care?

So there are limitations in this data. So this is a rating of favorability. So in a five-point Likert scale, for instance, a question might ask, And the answers might range from always, most of the time, sometimes, rarely, and never. The way Panorama is capturing this is just those top two. So you might get a sometimes, which is not a negative. Right. So when you look at, for instance, you look at that 55%, you're thinking, wow, 45% are negative. That's not necessarily the case because that range of what they call approaching favorable is usually pretty high. Like on our high school data, it was close to 30%. Even though we had a 59% favorability, there were about 30% of students that said, okay, I'm approaching favorability. So it's not a net negative. So with this conversation, I feel like we probably need to get some answers for the board and dig in a little bit more to come up with some explanations. And so I know in our student services PLC, which the first one's next week, this will probably come up in our meeting as we're looking at data. So we appreciate that input.

Oh. So... Now that I've heard all these questions, I have, I think, two more. You guys gave us 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12 data. I think it would be really important to see what happens with a specific class as they progress through. That seems to be important. And then the other is what happens within, let's just say, 6 through 8. Does historical data tell us that 6th graders have a lower sense of belonging? And by the time they get to 8th grade, they have a higher one I care much more about that than just how do all of our middle schoolers say. Because then if we have a sixth grade class that comes in and it's low, and we have this historical data that says it always increases over the three years, we have comfort in knowing that it will likely get better. And if it doesn't improve as prior years do, that's something to have concern about. So I'd like to look at the data those two ways. And then the last one is this one with the Asian students six through eight. 15% is a big jump from fall to spring. And I wonder, did something happen? Was there a new affinity group? Did something happen? Do we have any idea? I don't know. You know, like we're asking questions about a few points that are lower. But this seems statistically significant, even though I don't know what that was. Very much so. So we should figure out what that is and repeat it. Yeah.

Ben, did you have any questions or comments? Nina, any other questions or comments?

I was going to ask the same question about maybe splitting the data up even further and seeing how it changes, especially at the high school level. Because that's like four whole years. And I feel like freshman answering and senior answering are pretty different. So I think it would be very interesting to split up the data even more.

Yeah, by grade levels. Yeah, I agree. OK. Anyone else? Anything else? Thank you very much for your presentation and for your partnership in aligning your work across departments. That's great. So thank you for being here. And we will move on now to agenda item six, to our policies. We have several first readings of policies. The first one is policy AC, prohibition against illegal discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. John is here. Does anyone have questions or comments on policy AC?

There are a couple of revisions here. One of them relates to the wording of, well, I should say that the policy prohibits illegal discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. So the first amendment that's been brought to us by MSBA is to revise the statuses that are, the wording of the statuses that to be respected, not discriminated against. And the second amendments are from the district ourselves as we restate who the compliance officers are.

Yeah.

And it's catching up with federal developments according to the MSBA now is what we're doing there.

Right. So these typically change with presidential administrations and so this one is actually.

From Biden.

from more from the Biden administration. The Trump administration has already revised the language slightly and I would expect this will be back in front of us in the spring with another revision.

Okay, policy EF, food service management.

This is also in responding to the USDA guidelines

Any questions, comments, suggestions? And

amending those same provisions.

On EF from anyone? Okay, policy GBE is staff health and safety. Oh, this is Dr. Solberger, yeah.

Good evening. I've got a couple policies tonight to look at for our first reading with you. So the staff health and safety policy, there was actually an update that happened previously that we did not accept any update. So this is kind of like two revisions ago that we are looking at. If you were looking at the board doc, the part that's in blue was actually just the explanation. The really, the part that is changing is actually the the part that's being omitted, which is about the Department of Transportation because it's every two years that they have to go through that. So it says individuals employed by the district or through a contracted service to drive must annually, and that's actually every two years. So that's the major change in that policy.

Any questions? Any questions on that one? Okay, policy GBE- B.C. criminal background checks.

I do believe this one actually had some typos, but I think those have gotten fixed from MSBA on it. So there are some word changes that are aligning to law basically. As you all know, we participate in the WRAP-back program. So where it says that continued participation in the program requires all employees to be fingerprinted every six years. Now since we use the WRAP back program, once they're entered into state and federal fingerprinting, we don't have to do that every six years because we get the automatic notifications through the mock system.

Great.

Oh, Pam?

I have two... Non-grammatical ones. So you and I had emailed about this, that on the top of page two, that when we use drivers that are employed by a different transportation company, we do not do those background checks. They do those background checks, and they are not required to provide us with proof annually. And I have concern about that. I don't know what an appropriate or legal difference would be. But I don't trust, I don't wanna trust another organization with insuring background checks of people who are driving our students. Or tell me why I should?

So I think that would be something that we could check into if we could ask annually that we would have proof from them. Oh, hi, John.

Looks like he has an answer.

When we sign an agreement with them, they are required to have performed those agreements. So First Student and a lot of the districts, I mean the service providers around that work for other districts are doing that under contract for those districts as their sole providers. Additionally, rarely are those districts Well, they should never be. Actually, our students should always have teachers and staff with them when they're on those buses. They should never be out of sight of our own staff.

Now you've convinced me why. Thank you. Thanks, John. My next one is also the last page about adult learner. I think it's the last page in green. It says may be required to And I know you had said, because they're not always, but in this it says that adults on our property during school day may be required. And I think that if it's during our school days when we have our students here, it should be required.

And what I put back in the email to you is I think that there is, the word may is important because there could be an instance where, you know, maybe they're on campus for an hour and they are in a location that they're actually not around students. You know, maybe they are on district property here at central office or, you know, the background check process is pretty robust. Like, you know, they have to make an appointment. They have to go get the Um, the fingerprints taken, if they're only going to be here one time, is it more similar? So like for our, our volunteers and stuff, we have volunteers who, you know, are basically two different levels. Like I might be alone with kids or I'm always in a location that is probably has other adults around or things like that. So I would say that would be why. I would advocate that we would leave that word may because I could see instances where it doesn't really make sense. They're not going to be anywhere close to the students, but still on district property that maybe it's not all that important.

Do we have? What courses? We don't

have any right now. So this is a change in state statute. And I do think that if all of a sudden we started having a class that was meeting in one of the classrooms at the high school, they could be using the restrooms or whatever and it's on a regular basis, it might make sense. And if that happens, then it says we would be able to require that. But I also think it's more likely that it would be an isolated sort of situation where a few adult learners were on campus for a small period of time, and we would, you know, schedule them to not be where our students are anyways, and it wouldn't really make sense.

How are you doing that when it's a course? Courses are with other students. If they're not with other

students... No, this would be like an adult education course. So like after school, we have like... English language learners and things like that come take courses here, but it's not when the kids are on campus. Correct. Correct. But if for some reason that happened, we might.

Yeah. Which is why we don't do it. Just why we don't have any currently probably. Any other questions on that one? Criminal background checks? Okay, the next one is policy GCPB, resignation of professional staff members.

Mm hmm. So this one has the major changes with the due process and allegations of sexual misconduct with a student. You'll notice that that language is what's actually in the next two. So the renewal of the professional staff members, it shows up in there as well as this GCPB resignation of professional staff members. It's interesting to me because state statute says that we have to fill out a DESE disclosure anytime we are hiring somebody from another district. So in that, it actually requires us to disclose if someone left our district without you know, even voluntarily in lieu of termination for possible allegations of sexual misconduct. As you guys all know, if we're dealing with a situation like that, we're consulting our attorneys to figure out what we can and cannot disclose. And then the major change that are in these two new policies now is that we would go through due process. So if we were terminating somebody or non-renewing them due to sexual misconduct, they would be entitled to a hearing. if that was something that they should be entitled to. Questions on that one?

And then the next one, policy GCPF renewal of professional staff members. Yeah, it's actually that same part.

That's primarily where I would say that the major change comes in, correct. The parts that are changed in the first, like the employment contracts and the tenure, those are like not substantial changes. It's just like changes of wording.

Oh, I think I said the wrong one. That was termination of professional staff members.

So GCPF, I think is the last one. Is the last one. As the renewal of professional staff members, but it's actually that same due process for allegations of sexual misconduct. That's The primary change that's substantial, the non-substantial parts is the change of wordings in the employment contracts and tenured teachers. That, like I said, it's changes in wording, but it's still April 15th for non-tenured staff, May 15th for tenured staff.

Any questions on that one?

Okay.

Thank you, Dr. Silver. Thank you. So 6.8 is a second reading, but Dr. Garganigo is going to explain this first one, IGBB programs for gifted students to us

before we vote. Yeah, so with policy IGBB there were a couple suggestions made in the first reading that didn't get captured on the document. So I wanna read what those changes would be so that you're approving them with those changes. So the first, if you flip onto the backside under identification, the sentence that says the identification process is open to students living in the district, we would say is also open to students living the district who are not currently enrolled. So adding the word also there. And then in the, And then in the section with parent and guardian request for review, we would change the district assistant superintendent of student services to the district's assistant superintendent of equity and student services. So Cameron's title wasn't changed there. And then the sentence that starts with, Parents and guardians about the request for review, we would change the sentence to say parents slash guardians who receive notice that their child has not met the eligibility requirements to receive gifted services may request a review of that decision by contacting the district's assistant superintendent of equity and student services. So just a clarity, so Pam helped us with that language, thank you.

I have no issues with any of those changes, but somehow maybe I missed this. So are tuition students not eligible for the gifted program? Is that the way to read that? But if it says districts, students living in the district.

Students living in the district who don't attend our schools. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I think that's the clarity there. So like a homeschool student. All right, my bad.

Any other questions or comments on this one? So do we need to, Heike, make the motion, like approve it with the proposed changes? I think we need to award it like that, right? No, because you have it. Okay, so she's.

It already says it's a recommended change. Oh, it does, oh, it does,

okay, great.

Great, yeah. I move that we approve policy IGBB programs for gifted students as presented with the recommended changes.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. Now second reading of policy IGBCA programs for homeless students. Will you read that motion please?

I move that we approve policy IGBCA, programs for homeless students as presented with the recommended changes. Second.

Okay, that's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments on this second reading? All those in favor. Aye. Okay, any opposed? That motion passes. The second reading of IGBE students in foster care.

I move that we approve policy IGBE students in Foster Care as presented with the recommended changes.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments on this one? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. And lastly, JHDF suicide awareness and prevention.

I move that we approve policy JHDF suicide awareness and prevention as presented with the recommended changes.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Any questions or comments on this second reading?

I just want to point out that we spent that time last time kind of combining two parts and making it much more clear, and it is. Thank you.

That's great. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Okay, moving on to our action items. Chris, will you read the motion to approve

BLDD Architects? I move that we approve a contract with BLDD Architects for architectural services related to an athletic facilities including but not limited to gay field and attic field.

Second.

Okay, this has been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments for John on this one, the BLDD contract? Anyone? No? Ben?

I guess with this one in the end, with BLDD and BSI, are these all in the normal range of these kind of percentage fees of construction?

The fees are reflective of what services are in the agreement. So you'll have some agreements or say architectural services that won't have a lot of consultants like... engineering or civil engineering or HVAC, et cetera. These are, and you'll see the fee being substantially lower, but for the services that are provided, these are in the range that you would

expect. So the scope of services are kind of aligned in terms of where the heaviest work is done at different phases kind of thing? Because you mentioned during construction there's probably not a whole lot.

Right, so the fee overall is based as a percentage of the cost of construction. But then it's further divided that down in a percentage per service. So there's a piece for the share for schematic. There's a share for design development. There's a for construction documents, there's a share for construction phase. And you'll break that down. So if we were to halt the agreement, They would get paid for what they have earned in each of those sections If they don't halt the agreement they'll be paid as they progress through the the entire process Those are

all milestones that are kind of mutually agreed upon in terms of what that what that means We accept that this milestone is complete. Yes. They're

very standard to for These are a IA documents and you know, they're Used regularly in this type of work, so the milestones are very standard. Gotcha. And if there are change orders to the contract, how are those factored? It'll be back in front of you, but... So... I mean, change orders in the construction process. Well, if there was some new scope that came

up, like we needed to redesign something that was on us, let's say, or I don't know, something could come up that would alter the scope.

So the scope can be increased or decreased, right? We could say we're going to do two buildings or we're going to The fee, which is a percentage of the cost, will adjust to that scope.

Gotcha. Right on. That makes sense. Yeah. Now, when we say cost of construction, what does that include? The soft costs and things like that? Just hard costs. Just hard costs. Okay. Okay. I'm good. Thank you.

Any other? Kim?

yeah so just for just to just for clarity, so everybody can hear, including public that may be listening so. Yes or no john have we fully defined the scope of any of the. athletic facilities, including but not limited to gain attic field yet. Do we have alignment on scope.

I'm not sure I understood the question.

Do we know what the plan is for athletics?

For BLDD. They have a scope that has them working on Gay Field, Adzak Field, a softball field in Shaw Park, and the athletic facilities at White Island.

Okay. So those, that is stuff that we have previously reviewed in past meetings with public input?

Yes.

Okay. That was the question. And then should we reduce or expand the scope of that work? So should we decide we're not going to build the softball field or we're not going fill in the blank then these percentage fees that Ben just kind of went through with you would be right-sized to that scope contraction.

Yes.

Conversely, if we should decide that we're going to build a second football stadium, which by the way, we're not gonna do that, but then the scope would expand to that and the percentage fees that you just described would then also apply to that expanded scope.

Correct.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you for asking that so simply. That was great. It was. That was good. Any other questions or comments on the BLDD contract? Okay. Did you already read the motion? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. That motion passes. And the next one is the BSI contract for construction management services. Will you read that?

I

move that we

approve a contract with BSI constructors for construction management at-risk services.

Second.

Okay, this has been moved and seconded. Any questions for John on the BSI contract? Similarly. Anyone?

Kim? I would just say that we have talked about what construction management at-risk is, what the scope of those services encompass, and those have all been captured in previous public meetings. Okay. True.

Anything else? Good point. Okay, if nothing else, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes as well. Moving on to consent agenda. Chris, will you read that motion, please? 8.1. I move we

approve consent agenda.

Any comments on anything in consent? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Consent agenda passes. Okay, now board communications. Any committee reports? Let's see. A handful of us had some committee meetings. Who would like to go first? Okay. ben you had i think a couple right technology parks and rec maybe

yeah yep um well well i guess one first thing to say is that with the city charter change um i will be moving into ex officio status with the parks and rec And I will continue along with the Shaw Park ice rink space task force whenever that completes. It's getting there. It's kind of getting there. But anyway, so let's see. Parks and Rec was in person at the center. Just a good broad, there's a lot of discussion around the rec sports leagues. There's been some issues with sportsmanship for the players and the parents. So it's been a good opportunity to revise and update and let everybody know about rec sports are for everyone and so forth. So that was kind of good to see. And then today we had the tech study, and I sort of roamed between the two subcommittees. So there's the device side, and folks are hard at work kind of establishing what are the important features of these devices, age-appropriate usage. So just a lot of really great dialogue because there's representation across all the schools, all the subjects. And then on the AI side, we actually looked at the DESE published guidebook around AI. So I've got some actions here if anybody wants a light reading. So that group kind of focused on looking through those. How does that apply to our district? And continuing to do a bunch of discovery around AI, what it means. And so a lot more to come on that.

I like that there's subcommittee on the hard, you know, the devices, the actual devices and then the AI work. That's great. Leo, any legislative advocacy meetings or anything?

No. Pam. The Clayton Education Foundation, I don't think I really need to update because Nisha did in the Weekly so yeah, but the equity the equity committee meeting Was great we reviewed people, Cameron had people divide up by the building that they're in and they reviewed what equity is looking like in each of their buildings in their professional groups so that everyone could see at different levels what equity looked like. and then what it was looking like in the different schools. And then at the end, we finished kind of like where we just were with goal three, but with goal one, a place for everyone, we reviewed the, I don't know, eight to 10 objectives under that goal and discussed in smaller groups, which ones were no longer needed because they've been already embedded into our system which ones you know we still need to continue to work on are there ones that we want to bring in and so um cameron is gonna do a deep dive into that and then we'll continue that work in the equity meeting that's it

um anyone have any oh chris do you want to talk about the st louis school boards plc that's coming up what the topic will be your thank you

um hopefully you all saw thank you in the weekend update that there is going to be a PLC on December 6th, on Saturday. And we've decided to make it about superintendent board relationships, how to make that relationship strong and robust and as good as possible. And I was telling them how great it's been for us to do that kind of work. So we're excited because we know that this is important for every board member Every superintendent. So we're hoping to get really good turnout for everybody to come and learn, you know, sort of best practices around making sure that that relationship is really sound. So please join us.

That's a great topic because school boards and superintendents are always invited to it, but we've never talked about the

relationship together. Yeah, I don't think we've ever talked about it. And it's a newer committee in general, but yeah, this is something we've never talked and we always know that MSBA talks about it, right? But in general, we just knew that having a smaller group of us talking about it is different than just doing it at the MSBA, especially because not everyone goes to MSBA conference. So yeah, we're hoping that it could be useful to lots of folks.

And just for newer board members and the public or whatever, this is school board members in St. Louis County, Jefferson County, St. Charles County, and St. Louis City get together. I think it's always the first Saturday in December and the first Saturday in June maybe to discuss different topics and superintendents as well. So thank you, Chris, for being on the planning committee. Anything else? Any other announcements from anyone? I just want to thank anybody who came to the tours last night of Merrimack and Glenridge that Dr. Patel talked about last night, which were great, and be on the lookout for more to come on that. And we can adjourn.

I move that the Board of Education adjourn.

Second.