February 4, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, welcome everyone. It's 7 p.m. We're going to get started. Adequate notice has been given. I'd like 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. Thank you. And did we have any public comment? I didn't have a chance to look, Gina, no? Okay, great. Okay, so we're moving on to our superintendent communications with Dr. Patel. Oh no, sorry, we have to approve the agenda, I'm sorry. I

move that

we

approve the agenda as posted. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, agenda

is

approved.

Now I'll turn it over to Dr. Patel. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight on this lovely warm weather day. It feels like it's almost summer lately. Since we last met, we've had some meaningful learning happening as always and some highlights that I do want to share with you tonight. first highlight was last friday i had the honor of driving down to the ozarks to watch our widown middle school chamber orchestra perform at the mmea i always have to say that right mmea conference so the missouri music educators um conference that they have every year and they select different chamber orchestras from across the state to come perform and wide on was selected And I have to tell you, it was simply stellar, outstanding. When they were done performing, the whole ballroom, everybody gave them a standing ovation and they would not stop clapping. Like it took a while to get everybody to settle down. It was like one of those goosebump moments and like there were tears in people's eyes. And it was all led by Carolyn Day, our amazing instructor. But these students were outstanding, and I'm so proud of them as superintendent. And it was great to see them. So if you know any of them or if you see them or if you our amazing teacher, Carolyn Day, please congratulate her. And also at the conference, I walked in and our fine arts coordinator and band teacher, Daniel Henderson was there. And so he was just standing there and then all of a sudden someone told me something and I said, Daniel, last night at the conference were you awarded the Missouri Music Educator of the Year? And he was like, I was. And it's like, did you know about this? Because we probably could have come. And he's like, I did, but I wouldn't want to go around saying, hey, I'm the Missouri Music Educator of the Year Award. So he was recognized. And that is a huge moment to be proud of. And if anyone knows Mr. Henderson, he's phenomenal. And our students are lucky to have him as well. So please congratulate him as well. This week, switching gears, this week is school counselor appreciation week. So we have pictures of all of them up there. But I just wanted to take a moment and congratulate them and recognize them for all the work they do every single day in our schools, the kindness they show to our students, the care. The dedication they have and a lot of the work they do is behind the scenes And so I just want to make sure that we recognize them if you see them anywhere in the buildings or out and about Please thank them and appreciate them for all that they do Next As you know, at the last board meeting, our board voted to place Prop O on April 7th's ballot. And so we've continued to work on all the things leading up to that. Our focus really has shifted now to the communication part and how do we get our community to understand What Prop O supports and how we continue to enhance all of the learning that's happening and strengthen our community. So tonight you will hear a presentation from Donovan Group, Susan Downing, Gina Tarte, our communications chief officer, and they're going to share the plan that we have leading up to April 7th. And this week, actually, we've had a lot of focus groups. We've been hearing from different stakeholders. And one of the things that has come up that we know we need to address is our Bridge Campus. And when we talked about the three projects that we are focusing on for Prop O, which is Glen Ridge Elementary School, Clayton High School Learning Lab, and then Gay Field, the main question right now is where will the children and our students go from Glen Ridge Elementary? And so we've been exploring a couple of options. And one option is a partnership with WashU to be able to use the Fontbonne University space. And what that could look like is having a bridge, what we're calling a bridge campus on Fontbonne property and utilizing their athletic center for the gym and the cafeteria portion of it. So we don't have the details finalized. We're still working with WashU. But the more we know and as we finalize that plan, we'll be sure to communicate that out. In addition, we're going to almost create like a FAQ for just Glenridge Elementary School and say this is what the Bridge Campus is going to look like. Here's pictures of what it would look like. Here are We have to consider the transportation, day-to-day food, how we're going to do all of that. So as we get those details mapped out, please be assured that we will be sharing all that with you. So we will have all of that dedicated. We'll send it out, as you know, through various ways, maybe home mailers. We'll have it on the website, social media, et cetera. What our goal is to be as transparent as possible and to communicate as much as possible. leading up to April 7th. And I believe that is it. Nina actually was part of one of the focus groups that we have held over the past three days and she, our student board rep, is now going to give us a little more information about what that looked like.

Now I'll turn it over to Dr. Patel. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight on this lovely warm weather day. It feels like it's almost summer lately. Since we last met, we've had some meaningful learning happening as always and some highlights that I do want to share with you tonight. first highlight was last friday i had the honor of driving down to the ozarks to watch our widown middle school chamber orchestra perform at the mmea i always have to say that right mmea conference so the missouri music educators um conference that they have every year and they select different chamber orchestras from across the state to come perform and wide on was selected And I have to tell you, it was simply stellar, outstanding. When they were done performing, the whole ballroom, everybody gave them a standing ovation and they would not stop clapping. Like it took a while to get everybody to settle down. It was like one of those goosebump moments and like there were tears in people's eyes. And it was all led by Carolyn Day, our amazing instructor. But these students were outstanding, and I'm so proud of them as superintendent. And it was great to see them. So if you know any of them or if you see them or if you our amazing teacher, Carolyn Day, please congratulate her. And also at the conference, I walked in and our fine arts coordinator and band teacher, Daniel Henderson was there. And so he was just standing there and then all of a sudden someone told me something and I said, Daniel, last night at the conference were you awarded the Missouri Music Educator of the Year? And he was like, I was. And it's like, did you know about this? Because we probably could have come. And he's like, I did, but I wouldn't want to go around saying, hey, I'm the Missouri Music Educator of the Year Award. So he was recognized. And that is a huge moment to be proud of. And if anyone knows Mr. Henderson, he's phenomenal. And our students are lucky to have him as well. So please congratulate him as well. This week, switching gears, this week is school counselor appreciation week. So we have pictures of all of them up there. But I just wanted to take a moment and congratulate them and recognize them for all the work they do every single day in our schools, the kindness they show to our students, the care. The dedication they have and a lot of the work they do is behind the scenes And so I just want to make sure that we recognize them if you see them anywhere in the buildings or out and about Please thank them and appreciate them for all that they do Next As you know, at the last board meeting, our board voted to place Prop O on April 7th's ballot. And so we've continued to work on all the things leading up to that. Our focus really has shifted now to the communication part and how do we get our community to understand What Prop O supports and how we continue to enhance all of the learning that's happening and strengthen our community. So tonight you will hear a presentation from Donovan Group, Susan Downing, Gina Tartt, our communications chief officer, and they're going to share the plan that we have leading up to April 7th. And this week, actually, we've had a lot of focus groups. We've been hearing from different stakeholders. And one of the things that has come up that we know we need to address is our Bridge Campus. And when we talked about the three projects that we are focusing on for Prop O, which is Glen Ridge Elementary School, Clayton High School Learning Lab, and then Gay Field, the main question right now is where will the children and our students go from Glen Ridge Elementary? And so we've been exploring a couple of options. And one option is a partnership with WashU to be able to use the Fontbonne University space. And what that could look like is having a bridge, what we're calling a bridge campus on Fontbonne property and utilizing their athletic center for the gym and the cafeteria portion of it. So we don't have the details finalized. We're still working with WashU. But the more we know and as we finalize that plan, we'll be sure to communicate that out. In addition, we're going to almost create like a FAQ for just Glenridge Elementary School and say this is what the Bridge Campus is going to look like. Here's pictures of what it would look like. Here are We have to consider the transportation, day-to-day food, how we're going to do all of that. So as we get those details mapped out, please be assured that we will be sharing all that with you. So we will have all of that dedicated. We'll send it out, as you know, through various ways, maybe home mailers. We'll have it on the website, social media, et cetera. What our goal is to be as transparent as possible and to communicate as much as possible. leading up to April 7th. And I believe that is it. Nina actually was part of one of the focus groups that we have held over the past three days and she, our student board rep, is now going to give us a little more information about what that looked like.

So yesterday, I got the chance to meet with a focus group to discuss Prop O. And we talked a little bit about advertisement language and wording, but we mostly talked about how Clayton students can continue to help advocate for their needs. We talked about how important it is to get not only representation from all students, but especially from the students who currently experience classes in the sectors that would be potentially renovated, as this really helps emphasize the importance of these updates. Because of this, I am making it my goal to reach out to more students on the robotics team, regular CTE participants, and students who spend a lot of time at Gayfield. Additionally, I will be meeting with Glenridge students next Monday, where I hope to get even more insight on how they will benefit from the renovations. All in all, students have already played an enormous part in representing the purpose of and advocating for Prop O, and I am excited to continue my work to ensure that their voices continue to be heard. It was a super fun focus group, and a lot of people had such amazing ideas. I'm once again blown away by the students of Clayton High School.

Thanks, Nina. And thanks for participating and rallying the students around this. OK, we're moving on now to agenda item 5.1, which is communications presentation. You can come on up. Yep. for the bond campaign. Thank you.

Okay, good evening. I'm Gina Tarte and I'm joined with some colleagues who are going to give an update tonight about what's in progress for the bond information campaign. The entire focus is hinged on transparency and education, sharing information with the community so that they know what the priorities are and what will be included. So you would introduce yourself. Sure, sure.

Okay, good evening. I'm Gina Tartt and I'm joined with some colleagues who are going to give an update tonight about what's in progress for the bond information campaign. The entire focus is hinged on transparency and education, sharing information with the community so that they know what the priorities are and what will be included. So you would introduce yourself. Sure, sure.

So good evening. My name is Dr. Lori Miller and I am a partner at the Donovan Group and the Donovan Group is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We are a nationwide communications public relations firm only working with K-12 public schools and education. That's our why. And I'm just grateful to be with you all to support your work in informing your community about what your needs are, what the proposed solutions are and what they can expect throughout this process.

Good evening I'm Susan Downing and I have spent 16 years with the school district the first five on their board one of those years as their board president and the next 11 as their communications director and retired in 2020 which I retired before the pandemic came around. It wasn't the reason, but then spent another year running their most recent bond campaign. So I'm here just to kind of offer my advice and thoughts through those experiences. So I'm happy to be with you all tonight.

So we want to talk about what's our focus, right? And so as a public school district, we're required to remain neutral on ballot issues. So what that means is we're going to focus on the information piece. We won't cross over into that lane of advocacy. And I don't know if you want to continue to express, like employees may express their own personal views as private citizens, but not during their work time or to use resources at work.

And we've been sharing information with employees so that they're aware that they can inform and providing them with guidance so that it's clear.

So what does success look like if we do a great job of informing? I think success means that you've built additional trust, you have deeper engagement with your community, open dialogue, open conversation, and that as a board you're leading with integrity. And that will pay it forward moving past this bond. So whether the bond is successfully passed or not, this time right now leading up to April is a time to continue to build up your relationships with your community. So when we do a bond or referendum, campaign process, we talk about it in phases. And you all are in the last phase of that process, which we call at the Donovan Group the solution phase, which means you've already put the measure, you've taken the action to put the measure on the ballot And so our focus during this phase is inform, inform, inform, right? So let's explain what is on the ballot, what are your specific needs that you're addressing with your solution and provide accessible information to all of the voters. So from now until that April 7th date, that's what the focus is, is just to engage and inform. So where we currently are at in that process is on the left-hand side here, you can see that there have been a number of things that have gone into place even though you just took that action in the solution phase on January 21st. So you can see there that there's been efforts to send out a news release, create messages for your families and staff, social media announcement. We have a bond brand, which is important to convey what is this about. So that's your Prop O. We have a dedicated webpage now on your website that has all of the information about Prop O and also includes the FAQ. as well as an opportunity for individuals throughout the community to submit questions. And then those get submitted directly to the district so that we can answer those and add those to our FAQ. We have a draft fact sheet in place. We have a sheet that will support all of you and staff about what they can do in terms of advocating and what they can't do in terms of advocating. So we're helping everybody go through this process in the most ethical way. We also have created some, what we call at our firm, like storyboard or shot sheets, which is a way to map out how we're going to put some video reels together. So video reels are short 90 second videos at the most that really highlight different components of the bond. We've also started to draft posters, talking points for all of you and your staff, and we're gearing up to send out a mailer in the middle part of February here. In progress, you can see on the right-hand side some of the things that we are currently building up to, and one of the things that is probably most of urgency right now is that mailer that's going to go out, mailer number one, It's a four panel mailer that goes in great detail about the bond campaign. And then we've been doing focus groups this whole week, and so we'll talk a little bit more about that next. So throughout this week's Monday through today, we've been hosting a series of focus groups. We said 12 groups we've met, I believe. We've met with parents, community members, including community members who don't have children in the schools. We've met your city leaders, business partners. We've worked with your staff. We even talked to high school students, as Nina shared. We talked to your athletics folks, safety folks, we talked to them as well, and even the Clayton Condo Building Association, and we just held a focus group with you all a little before this. And so some of the things that we've done with these focus groups is we work to kind of give those key messages. What is this bond about? Starting to inform them and then leading with some opening questions like we've asked them to give us some feedback on certain messages or statements like what's clear, what's confusing. what's compelling, what's not compelling, what's trustworthy, what's not trustworthy. And that feedback has really helped us firm up our information for mailer number one. We've asked them are there certain words or messages or expressions that the district should definitely use in this information? Are there likewise in the same vein any words or expressions we should be avoiding because that wouldn't resonate or it would maybe create confusion for the community? We also asked them questions like, you know, who do you want to hear this information from? Who do you trust the most? And also, how do you like to get that information? So really good feedback. We've learned, you know, just some themes that people are very curious about that bridge campus. They want to know more about that. We've heard that there's a desire for a timeline that everyone understands, like where my student might be impacted. and what that looks like if this is passed with Glen Ridge Elementary in particular. What does it really mean, a zero tax rate increase? How can that be? So I think that's all good feedback for us to use in informing the community. They're sharing our needs, their needs, right? So in terms of the campaign, I think it's important for the board to understand that there's alignment between a number of entities to make sure that we're all saying the same things. And so you can see that on a weekly basis, we are coordinating ourselves, whether it's district leadership, the design team, which is Paragon Architecture, Myself and other members of my team of the Diamond Group, and Susan along with Gina, we are coming together to make sure that our messaging is aligned, that any visuals that are being created and shared out with the community are aligned, that the timing is coordinated, and that we're intentional about the outreach that's occurring around the campaign. Here is a set of key messages that we've been testing with our focus groups and tells a storyline, if you will, of what the bond is about. So from a high level, we always like to start with our students and our why. And this is a premier district. It's a top performing district for your students and lots of families choose Clayton. yet our students said this and Nina I've held on to this you know it was a great expression that our facilities or our schools don't reflect or match the reputation of the students and and the excellence that they have so I think that's an important piece I think it's also important to share with the community that as a board you have been intentional to collaborate with the community to listen to the community engage them around what are our our dire or most pressing facility needs, how can we prioritize that? What are our priorities? And then propose a solution for the voters. We have informed individuals that you have taken a phased approach to this because the overall cost of all of the facility needs would be asked to raise taxes and that you are intentional and good financial stewards of their tax dollars in your You're trying to do this important work for your students in a way that doesn't increase taxes. So our targeted audiences, it's important that we identify who do we need to make sure we're engaging with. And so here you'll see a set of primary targeted audiences and also secondary audiences that we want to make sure that we're engaging with so we do this. We list them out because we want to make sure that we message consistently to those different groups in ways that they need to hear the messages. And then with reaching all audiences, we deploy a number of strategies. So some of these things we've already talked about that we're working on. One of the things that we heard through the focus groups that's going to be really important is giving lots of opportunities for individuals to get into the school, particularly Glen Ridge Elementary, to really see for themselves why there are the needs that there are. and what those needs are. And then thinking about as many community presentations as you can do, and our help with you for that, newsletter articles, fact sheets, signage, all that to say is those weekly communications that we have, we like to be responsive to what you're experiencing. So if you're finding out in the community that you need something that we are not working on as a communication, And then we do that, right? We add that to our calendar. So currently we have a three and a half, four month calendar mapped out with all these different communication tools to make sure that they are being delivered to you to use. But again, if there's anything that comes up throughout the process that we need to tend to, we do. So just from a really high level, what does that timeline look like? You know, we just finished January, right? So February does include the focus groups. We'll see the fact sheet, mailer number one come out, the start or initiation of some pretty significant community outreach, the video reels and other assets that support information. In March, I think it'll be important that we continue that community outreach as a board Look at those tours, do as many tours as you can. We'll have additional video reels and there will be another mailer if not two additional mailers that will be more like postcard mailers that remind everyone that Prop O is on the ballot. And then April is the final outreach before election day on the 7th. So what can the board expect? We want you to expect ongoing updates from this team. I'm gonna provide you a report, a summary report from the focus groups, what we learned so you have that information. We will share with you that communications calendar so you can review that and suggest what you might need in addition to that. And we need you to feel like you can have continued support in the work that you do with messaging and engaging with members of the community or even the media. So from a role perspective, sometimes I'm asked, board members are like, what's my role in this process, in this campaign? We think it's important for you to stay informed, use the materials that we put together for you, direct questions that community members have to the district's webpage, the referendum webpage, and then also help model integrity-based communication. We just really wanna make sure that everybody in the community understands these are our needs, Here's what this Prop O is about, and here's why we think that's the best solution. Okay? Questions?

Okay, who's got questions about communications plan? Anyone? Pam, go ahead.

One of the slides you asked to come in the focus groups, who do you want to listen to the most? Yes. What kind of answers did you get? It

was fascinating because we got varied answers depending on who the group was. But I do think if I were to summarize and what I'm hearing from all of them collectively is they want to hear from board members. They want to hear from students. They want to And I think they wanna also hear from administration what is needed. But I would say students came out almost in almost every focus group.

Came out in ours.

Yes, yeah.

The next thing is about this, is there a place for the district to disseminate the information about the senior tax freeze and the impact of that on voters who have applied and received that?

Yeah, it's a great question. Right now, it is included in the FAQ, but if you're thinking that it might need a more prominent place, we can definitely make sure that it's incorporated into other communication tools.

Yeah, I agree.

Perfect. Good. One final one. Whether it's for you or for you, Susan, but how have you advised, how did you advise the LeDoux School Board and how have you advised all the board members that you've worked with to best disseminate this information so that we know our, I know you said that you have that on here, the second to last slide, but What would you recommend? Sure.

I can start with that. I think one of the important things for you all to remember is that while I'm sure it feels like you work for the school district, you certainly put in the hours and the time and the effort. You are not employees. You're private citizens, and you can do everything a private citizen can do to advocate for Prop O. Now, you can't use district resources, and you probably have a little more access to district resources than the average person on the street But you can put up a yard sign. You can have a coffee. You can talk to anybody at the grocery store and tell them information about it. You can direct people to the web page. I would encourage you to be as active as you can. I think you advocating for it shows strength and unity among the board, and you leverage that to the extent that you can.

Yeah, I would agree with that. In my past experiences, there's a lot of value or promise in having board members stand shoulder to shoulder, whether it's with students or staff or administration, to share the information, right? You're doing that as a board member. You want to make sure you stay in that lane. However, you all have really strong capital and trust from community members, because they put you on this board and you represent them. So I think that's important for them to hear from you. Thank you. Jason?

Sorry, I think you alluded to this for a second, but how many mailings are we doing?

So, yes, typically in the process that we facilitate, we will do three mailers. Sometimes districts are like two is enough. I think it just depends on the context of what's being asked and what the information is. But our first mailer is always a really that detailed mailer. That's a four panel mailer. And then we usually will follow that up with a postcard mailer that's less intensive. It's just high level reminding everyone what's on the ballot. But yeah, and then if we do a third one, it's just to remind people to vote, to go out and vote. Okay, thanks. Yeah.

That sounds good. Any other questions about the plan? Thank you so much. Nina, do you have any questions about it? You don't have to. Okay, good.

So I think social media is a great way to spread the word, so I'm really glad you guys brought that up too. And I was just wondering, are you planning on maybe having like a separate – and this might be a thing and I can't remember, but are you planning on having like a separate social media page solely for like the information sharing of PropO or like are you thinking that it will mostly be like posted on the superintendent or like Clayton School District Instagram or – Other social media platforms.

Yeah, I will. I'll actually let Gina answer that because it's it's what she does.

Currently, we have the messages slotted in with our regular social media calendar. So people in the community won't hear about proper every single day in our newsfeed, but they'll continue to get that good quality information about student spotlights and outstanding things going on in our schools and then sharing proper information along the way. I think if people got it every single day, that might take away from what we do in our business in terms of educating our students. So it'll be a message that'll be spread out on a lot of different channels, but social media will be just one to complement some of the others.

But Nina, the Citizens Committee, which is a committee of citizens who are advocating and out there to say vote yes on Prepo, they have social media pages that were just created. That's what I thought. Yeah. That's a good question. Yeah. Anything else? Thank you for all the work you have been doing and that you will continue to do until April 7th. I appreciate it. You've thought of everything, it seems to me. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, we're moving on to policy. We have a few first readings. First... with Dr. Sulberger is the first reading of policy GBEBA, which is the Drug-Free Workplace. It's a first reading, so it's our chance to make any suggestions, ask any questions. Does anyone have questions or comments on this one, the Drug-Free workplace, GBEBA policy?

Okay, hi. Can I ask questions? Are we ready? Yeah, go ahead. Leo and I were just pointing at each other because we had a discussion today about this. So one of my questions about this is that on the bottom of page 1 to top of page 2, it says the district added use to transport at required district activities, so basically saying I think this is right, staff cannot be using substances at required district activities. And I felt that that was not quite inclusive enough but was struggling with what would be the appropriate wording. And so I understand that we have district events that students are not at that staff you know, gets to choose what they do. But that when there are students around, whether the staff has a direct supervising responsibility for the students, I just don't want us to get in trouble of not saying that they can't be using substances or can't be imbibed or imbibing or something like that. And so Leo had a great idea. Yeah?

I guess the question is why was the word required added there and is that word necessary? That's to ask the question directly.

So the word required was added there intentionally because we were trying to make sure that if staff were at a district maybe sponsored event or a conference or after work things where they're representing the district, but like you said not having students there that they wouldn't be in violation of this policy. So I do see what you're saying of district activity is defined at the top where it says any activity, event or function where students are under direct or district supervision such as field trips or athletic events. I do think, I agree that that would maybe cover us for that first one. I still, though, have reservations about the second part where we because it's or otherwise engaged in district business.

Because district business isn't defined. That's

correct. So I wonder if we maybe omitted in the first one, but leave it in the second one.

Yeah I mean. I think it's debatable whether the situations you've described constitute district business and if it's not defined maybe. It would be up to some administrative discretion but I'm also OK with leaving it required in the second time. So it's just the first time I think we remove it and then that resolves that. Yeah

I agree. That makes sense.

I'm in agreement of removing the first required does anybody else have thoughts or questions on the second required.

I think that makes sense to me to leave it in the second one. Yeah. Since we didn't define what district business is, so it clarifies that a bit. Well, sorry. I'm not a lawyer. Okay, any other questions or comments about this policy? The drug-free work-based policy?

No, I have one other on camp but Kelly and I emailed about this the second page under cannabis it says Prohibited drug. Oh, and it looks like it was already changed to substance. We

got it. Yep Heike sent it in we got it changed

great

Okay next policy the next first reading is policy GBE BB employee alcohol and drug testing Okay, any questions or comments on this one?

No Pam Well, I'm not really sure how to bring this up but in the policy it allows drivers Who drive our students to have consumed alcohol? It says only they cannot unless they've consumed it within the four hours prior to driving that seems unsafe to me. I went into some other stuff in my question to you about the metabolism of alcohol and different people, but that is less important. I understand that the Department of Transportation has this four-hour rule. I don't know how to change it, but it doesn't feel right to me in this.

Point out where it is.

I don't

It's under provisions applicable to drivers on page three. Thank you. It's the second paragraph as required by law. Drivers shall not report for duty within four hours of using alcohol. I mean, that's

ridiculous.

My question was going to be how do we ever know?

And I guess we have other policies including this one that say you cannot appear to be under the influence. Right. If they

would be exhibiting any of those factors that would give us reasonable suspicion, then we would go ahead and have them tested for drug and alcohol.

that would work what's like logistically

yeah so we actually have a procedure a board procedure that has already been reviewed since I've been here so I it might have been last year but recently so if the staff member is exhibiting any signs that maybe they would be, um, under the influence of something. So that might be slurred speech. It might be sleepiness as one that I've had, you know, a teacher seems really sleepy or they're falling asleep on their desk, things like that. Um, so when they're exhibiting those factors, they would give me a call. So I'm trained in reasonable suspicion. I went through the department of transportations. um, training course that they have. And, um, there's also two people currently that work in facilities because they kind of monitor, um, the testing part because our drivers have to be tested at a certain, so they actually monitor that part. And then there's another HR specialist that has the training too. So if I wouldn't be available, um, There's multiple people through the district that have this reasonable suspicion. We have a form that we use to actually document. So we would go over, we would document those signs that we're seeing. And if we would say that, yes, we have reasonable suspicion, we would take them to go be tested for drugs and alcohol

at that moment.

At that moment, correct. Where I think it gets really tricky is, as you know, with marijuana being legal here, some of those things could still show up, but because we're not allowed to be under the influence of the drug, if we have these signs, it's still there, I guess, if that makes sense. Does that answer?

Where do they go to get the testing?

We use the Mercy Center, so we use Mercy's testing facility. And then the results of that go to Laurie Rainwater and Facilities and Heather Christman, who's our nurse coordinator. And if we were to get a positive on that, since I've been here, I haven't had to take any of our employees to do that. It's all been the random drug testing that we do for our drivers. But if they were to get a negative, they would immediately turn that over to me, and then I would have to determine what our next steps are.

So as soon as you take them out of whatever environment they're in, there's a substitute put in,

and

you go through that process with them?

Yes.

And have you had anybody refuse to do, like cooperate?

No, we haven't had anybody refuse to cooperate, and I think in the policy it has a language that refusal to participate in it, yeah. So no, we don't have any of our drivers that have refused to participate, and thankfully we have not had any employees since I've been here since, that we've had reasonable suspicion to believe they were under the influence of something at work. But that was one of the first procedures that I looked at. I did have some questions on why the procedure was the way it was. So we discussed it as a central office team because my concern was, A lot of it fell on the principals who are not trained in reasonable suspicion. So I wanted them to immediately contact me so that I would go over and say, like, yes, I am observing these things that you are too. And then they still write up what they observed that kind of started the whole process. So we tighten that up.

And the facilities.

No, we have two people in HR, and we have two people at facilities, and then I think a third one is going through it. So soon we'll have five. Right now we have four. I think it's great that training exists and that you all did

that.

Yeah.

That's valuable. Awesome. OK. Any other questions or comments about that? Do you feel OK about that,

Nancy? Required by law. You said the Department of Transportation has this rule. So what kind of law is this? Is this a state

law? They can't do any safety sensitive functions. And I think that even includes like checking things. Like if you had a job that you had to check, like any sort of safety sensitive things you wouldn't be able to do if you had consumed alcohols within that four hour window. I understand what you're saying of like, so if it was, you know, if I had 12 beers and I stopped for hours and five minutes before I was coming to work, that would be a problem. We would reasonably assume that that person would appear under the influence.

Is it worth citing what the law is or saying state law? Or I don't know what the law is. I think

it's a federal law, yes. Okay, that's federal. I can look it up and try to add it in there if that would help.

I defer to others on this, but that just seems vague to me.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

No, it's probably not a federal law. It looks like it's

state statute. I think It might already kind of be referenced there

yeah the Missouri Constitution it says Yeah, that's funny while drivers cannot use Missouri Constitution oh No, this is about medical marijuana

I can look it up and see if there's something that we could cite there and then add that in at the next meeting. If

it does reference the federal drug free work on

the second page. Yeah.

On the second

paragraph. Yeah. The second part of the reference disclaimers.

Anything else? Any other comments on this one, anybody else? Okay the next, the other last first reading we have is policy GCBA professional staff compensation. So this does include new requirements from a House bill I believe, a new Senate bill I guess. Any questions or comments on this one? Professional staff compensation.

No, the only thing that I was gonna say is our school district does not really fall into this hard to, we don't really have a hard to staff issue here. So we're adopting the policy to be up with the requirements, but it's really not a non-issue for us.

Yes, thank you for bringing that up. I was going to have Kelly, just for the public's sake, define what that is.

Yeah, so we call hard to staff areas an area that we don't have any certified applicants for, appropriately certified. So if we were putting in a teacher maybe that only has a substitute certificate into our a math teaching position, they would not be appropriately certified and then we would fall into this hard to staff area. And there are districts around us that have many teachers that are not appropriately certified and they are having hard to staff positions. And something like being able to place them higher on the salary schedule to recruit more qualified staff would be appropriate for them. But we are very fortunate that you know, going back to the proper we are a destination district. People want to come work here and we are not faced with this problem right now. And we have a lot of strategies so that moving forward, we won't find ourselves in this this problem either.

Thank you for that. Yeah, that's what I. I talked to Kelly about this, and I was really impressed with how much, because I said, how do we combat this going, now we don't have a problem. Is there anything in place that we make sure that we don't have problem? And there's several things that we do as a district to ensure that we have

yeah so the first thing we start with is that's why we do earn up every year our early retirement um notice they give us that early retirement notice so that we can plan for the future and we know what positions are coming because if if we are going to have you know several positions for physics teachers like that that could get hard to fill that we would have um the right fit so we start with getting that notification early um and then i also do a lot of things with like our student teachers in the local university so When we have student interns, I always offer to come and observe a lesson for them and to go through interview feedback. Some of them take me up on it, some of them don't, but that gets me an opportunity to get to know them a little bit better. We're also looking more at our classified staff and trying to determine what we can be doing to offer them if they might be interested in moving into education. So one of the things that I hopefully in the near future will bring to you all is we're looking at for the tuition reimbursement right now it's at all it's set at a lower rate for our classified staff we'd like to bump that up a little bit we have very few classified staff that are actually taking advantage of the tuition reimbursement so we're hoping that you know if if we did have tas or people that would be interested in becoming teachers if they knew we had a little bit more tuition reimbursement money or if you know i could get sit down with them with another university. A lot of the university programs are pretty reasonable right now. So even though we technically say three credit hours, that amount could probably get them a lot more than three credit hours. So we've been looking at some of those things like that to be proactive. I also explained to Chris that our hard to fill areas tend to be more in the entry level positions like KidZone, that's like a split shift. So that doesn't work with everybody's schedule. And some of the things that we've had success with is we have some of our high school students that are working at KidZone and we've actually recently even had some of our staff here at Central Office that are looking for additional hours. They work before and after their shifts here at Central Office and help out in a different way. I can speak. There's a member on my HR team that is doing that, and it's really cool for her to be able to see the kids that she normally is maybe a little bit farther removed when you're in HR versus in the buildings. So I think that there's been some really positive outcomes from that as well.

Those are great ideas. Thanks for sharing all that. Okay, moving on now to second reading. 6.4 on the agenda, policy JEA compulsory and part-time attendance. If you'll read that motion please. 6.4.

I move that we approve policy JEA compulsary and part-time attendants with the recommended changes. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any further comments or questions on this one? With the changes? Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No, okay that motion passes. The next policy is JECC, assignment of students to grade level classes. If you'll read that motion please.

I move that we approve policy JECC one, assignment of students two grade levels classes with the recommended changes. Second.

Any further questions or comments on this one? Okay, all of those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. 6.6 on the policy JFCL A Plus Scholarship Program.

I move we approve policy JFCL, A Plus Scholarship program with the recommended changes.

Second.

Okay,

that's been moved and seconded. Any further comments or questions on this one? All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay motion passes. Policy JG student discipline.

I move that we approve policy JG student discipline with the recommended changes. Second.

Okay, moved and seconded. Any questions or comments on this one? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. And the last one, policy JHDE behavioral threat assessment.

I move that that we approve policy JHDE behavioral threat assessment. Second.

And yes, any questions or comments? And I'm going to

just make a comment on this. I understand why we have this. I understand that we're doing this. I understand the title of the policy comes right out of the Missouri statute and we're tracking the Missouri statute. I really don't like the change from risk to threat I think that hardens our language in a negative way. And I would like, I'll just, I'm going to vote for the thing. I would ask that you guys avoid language that is that negative about our students, even if it's a negative situation. That's a tough word. It bugs me. But I'll vote for it.

I hear you, Leo, and I don't disagree. I think that's not a Clayton word. That's a common language of what it's called, so we can't really avoid it.

It's right out of the statute. Maybe we could, but we don't need to. But I understand what you're saying. It bugs me about the whole culture, so that's all

right. Right. So I think part of what you're saying is let's make it culturally not that harsh. We're still going to follow the procedure, but instead of allowing our staff to start thinking about these things in that harsh of a threat, instead risk really. So I don't know what the language would be, but I just think our understanding of how we approach it with our heart and our head is important to think about.

So one interesting thing with that is that we actually had the same conversation and looking at it. And when we're looking at our assessments, we are not using the term threat assessment as risk assessment. I appreciate that. Yeah, in our internal language, it's the same

thing. And the mindset that kind of transmits, I think there's a little value there. So I appreciate your doing

that. Good. Great. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No, okay, that motion passes as well. And now we are moving on to consent agenda.

I move that we approve consent agenda item 7.2 through 7.5.

Second.

Okay, that's been moved and seconded.

I'm going to comment on one thing in there. Go ahead. Boy, those tuition rates are a great deal. People should be coming to Clayton at those rates, and maybe we should be looking at whether we could raise them. Just a thought. But the tuition rates for personal tuition students seem like a steal at that rate.

I think we can't. There's a state, yeah. It's kind of

weird. Yeah.

It hasn't changed in three years, and it's going up by 3%. There's not

a state-defined equation, but there is a recommendation as to how we come up with the tuition rate that John assesses every year, which he's about to explain.

You're asking about the formulas for setting the rate? I'm just saying it's a great deal. I

didn't ask any questions. I just said it was a great deal.

Maybe John start with what the tuition rate is being proposed for the 26 plus seven year. It

is a good deal compared to private schools in the area.

Which are the only other schools that charge tuition. We are the only public school that does.

I think that there's a lot of interesting things in that consent agreement that I just wanted to point out. And maybe you guys already knew this because you've done this in the past. But as I said, our tuition rates have not increased for three years. They are going up by 3% starting next year. That's one piece. The other is that it is also new to say starting next year we will not enroll new students who do not live in St. Louis County.

Correct.

And so I wanted to point that out and either let you or you, Nisha, explain that, or I can explain what I was told by you all.

Currently, and it's been for a long time, SSD provides special ed services to students. They are not legally obligated to provide those services to students who do not reside in St. Louis County. When we accept somebody from outside St. Louis County, we take on some risk and liability in the event that that child or student would need special ed services, and we're not prepared to contract or employ people to serve those needs, which can vary widely on a case-by-case basis. So to protect ourselves from the potential liability of that, we've reviewed the matter with legal counsel and been advised that we can restrict our acceptance of enrollment of tuition students to those that reside in St. Louis County.

Wouldn't another alternative though be to accept tuition students from anywhere and just make it clear that they would not be eligible to receive SSD services if they needed them? That has

been our past practice, but in reviewing the matter with legal counsel under FAPE, which is federal law, we have an obligation to provide those services. We can't escape that obligation. And I was going to say,

depending on the needs, sometimes there's... I'm trying to think how to say this nicely, like a danger to others. It's not just them receiving services, but it might be an unsafe situation.

But the truth is, it's

out of our

hands. Yeah. So for the 23, 24 students that we currently have in the district that are tuition students that are not in the county, what is our plan for them? Oh,

they can stay.

Stay just for next year or stay through graduation? No, stay through. So how does that liability then go away? Is SSD agreed to continue to provide them services through graduation?

Currently none of those students are receiving SPED services. What if

they need them?

And so I mean there is some risk that a situation could develop out of that group. And we could certainly grandfather them or terminate their enrollment if we wish at the end of any school year.

They're enrolled

one year at a time.

Do we have any idea what the cost is per student if we were to pay SSC to add a student outside of the county to their roles?

They have refused to do so.

I don't think they would enroll them.

Their legal counsel has advised them. So we

wouldn't just be able to pay them? No, I think we'd have to hire our own

staff. So we're not really removing the liability for the 23 students that we already have. Correct. But

moving forward, we're avoiding it. Because our option would have been to then, I mean, we review them every year anyway, but our option would then be not grandfathering them in, which is tough too.

Well, look, I mean, I also had my conversations about this, you know, and so where I sort of lean on this and it's probably not a surprise to anyone who has paid attention. Like I have on a number of levels, I have some real heartburn around saying St. Louis City kids or. Jefferson County kids or Franklin County kids, whatever. St.

Charles.

Yeah, St. Charles can't come and access our excellent school district. And so on that level, I have some real heartburn around it. I accept that there are reasons that it is best for the district today to enact this. I appreciate that it is done administratively. I think that I would just ask that we keep an eye on what happens with schools Special education in our region in general over the coming years because I think that is an ongoing discussion right now And if there's an opportunity to reopen this I would ask the administration to reverse this That's that's my request

Two things. First, yeah, I really agree with Jade. When I heard this, I thought, what? This isn't us. This doesn't align with our values. This isn't what we're known for. And I know Nisha has done quite a bit to look into this. Immediately, you had that same response, which was, if we could, we really would like to keep these folks, et cetera, et cetera. We had to get legal involved. It's a really tough thing to accept. What I'll say is I'm the one, all of us that's on the SSD governing council. We're just about to have elections for the SSD Board of Education. So that is something that I'll be asking the candidates how they feel about this issue. We have the representative from our district is up for election this year. So I agree. It's a really tough thing.

Do we want... Okay. Sorry, I cut you off. We shouldn't really be doing this in consent agenda, having this... type of discussion. We should have pulled it out. Well, then it shouldn't

be in the consent

agenda. We could pull it out,

but I don't

know if there's that much more conversation anyone wants to have. So much of this is out of our hands. Special school district can't do what they can do, but should we pull it out? Does anyone want further discussion on this? It's a special school district decision and it's an administrative decision that I'm leaving up to Nisha.

And it's an unfunded liability.

Yeah.

It is. I mean, in addition to it being it is an asset to us now from a financial standpoint because it's about half of our tuition students, which isn't insignificant even if our tuition is less than private school, which we should also maybe talk about at another meeting. Is that right? What? But it's also an unfunded

Okay.

Which I, that feels wrong too. Right. I know. So I, okay.

I think really, John, you're up here to confirm that there is a math equation that is how these tuition rates get set. That's really, it's not necessarily a supply and demand discussion.

Well, the statute and the policy allow us to set it at an amount that does not exceed our cost of education. So our cost of education, there's variables in there that you can decide which variables in or not. Like do you include the debt levy? Do you include a factor for that? Do you include factor for other things? So this is number, these numbers are below our cost of education which are not really an incremental cost for each additional student. They're the total cost divided by the number of students. Our incremental cost of one more student is not that number, and so we're setting these rates. They are attractive. They are intended to help grow our tuition enrollment, and indeed, our enrollment has more than doubled over the last, three or four years.

The only other thing I want to call out in consent is we have a donation on behalf of the district the Board of Education would like to thank Essex Industries Inc for their generous donation of five thousand dollars to the high school robotics program. So thank you to them. OK. All those in favor. Any opposed to the consent agenda? Okay, it passes. So we are moving on now to board committee reports. Ben, you had a technology committee maybe?

Yes, in fact, we did, yeah. It was really a focus on the devices this time around in terms of student devices, how they're used, a little more refinement of some of the data that's already been collected And so, again, I think marching along. Yeah, I think Luke and I have talked a little bit, and to continue to really synthesize this information and work towards some goals. And there's also the AI thread that we've talked about as well. Again, lots to talk about there, but great. Another great meeting.

I'll piggyback on that because I had a teaching and learning meeting as well, and it was about the technology study. And the Teaching and Learning Committee, as you know, is not just... district employees, but there's parents there too. So it's great to get their perspective on all of this. And one thing I really liked that Melina said to start the meeting is that, I think it was Melina or Luke, that we're trying to move our students from consumers to creators. And I just thought like that mindset change about how our students are creators with technology and not consumers of it, I think was a great different mindset. We talked about a survey that went out about technology and also looked at some new language about that we don't want to look at our learning as device dependent but enhanced by the technology. So kind of like an added bonus. We talked about student devices, AI, and technology use not just in the classroom but outside of the classroom, beyond the classroom. And how are we setting our kids up to be successful with it even when they leave us? So it's always a great, we looked at the goals and we give a lot of feedback. As Melina said, it's a pretty vocal group that really pushes her thinking and Luke's thinking, which I think is great. We reviewed kind of the fleet we have and where we're moving towards, which I know is what Ben's talked about too. But it was a really robust discussion around how do we present this to the community? Like what phrase, what words do we want to use? How are we presenting it? And how are we taking it? And as parents, really, it was really to get the parent perspective. So that was teaching and learning. Let's see, Kim, you had a, or I don't know if Jason was there too, financial advisory. Yes,

so Jason and I were both, last night with John, we had the financial advisory committee meeting, so we meet with them once each semester. And we gave them an update on a number of different things, but the major thing that we talked about was the bond issue that was passed during our last board meeting. So we went through some of the project priorities. We also had a chance to talk about messaging and answer questions, clarify questions. One of the things that we did talk about during that meeting is after we had Prop E, which is different than this bond issue that we're doing, we had a voluntary rollback as the board after that. And I think that there is an opportunity potentially to do that here. where the operating levy is and where our percentage is, and we're at a very healthy operating levy right now. Not that we don't want to remain at a healthy operating levy, but our operating levy is really at the point where the board should be talking about it just in general, even in the absence of, I would say, this bond issue that we're putting forward to see if we should be giving back money to our tax base if we don't need it. And so that's something that I think the board should consider. What did the committee, what was their take on that? They thought it was a good idea. They thought that it could also shore up support for the April election. So... It will take some explaining. So a lot of discussion was around how will you get that information out? Because you're gonna then promise to effectively lower people's taxes. But it is possible to do that. Okay,

thank you for sharing that. And I'm glad it was a timely meeting. I'm glad you had that. Now with the bond issue, definitely on the ballot too. Did anyone else have any other events they attended or mini meetings or anything?

No, the other thing that we talked about, which I mean at the end of the meeting, which I thought was interesting, maybe good to share, is you guys know that everybody pays taxes, residential real estate taxes, commercial real estate taxes. They're collected by the county and then individuals can protest their residential property taxes or even your commercial property taxes. And apparently sometime last year, St. Louis County changed the system, the actual information technology accounting system or enterprise resource system, ERP, that they use in order to collect, account for, and then redistribute those taxes, refunds or amounts that go to schools. And whereas in the past, John and school CFOs used to get an eight or a 10 page report. And treasurers of the boards used to be able to sit down with the CFO and say, OK, here are new properties that have entered the tax roll, for example, for Clayton. Here are properties that we know are new properties that aren't on here. We should make an appointment to sit down and ask where it is because there could be additional money there that we're not receiving that maybe we should be receiving. Well, those reports are gone since this new system was put in place, and instead they're getting a 100-page report or 200-page report with an entire list of everybody's properties in St. Louis County at wide, and it's now impossible for John and his staff or any financial staff at our school board level to be able to Analyze that information and determine if it's right and Until they fix those problems at a system level at the county from this disaster system that I guess they have in place We won't be able to do that and we're not the only one that won't be able do that. Nobody will be able to do So that's just you know, not great Anything else John Is there a

timeline?

No, they don't. And apparently we had another school CFO there who's on our financial advisory committee And apparently, even if you call now and say, well, hey, can you just, what do you want us to do? The answer is just look up your top 10 and see if it's right. And even to do that, you have to, Matt was saying, our new CFO coming in was saying, even to do that you have to write your own queries in order to do that. And again, you get a PDF document that is over 100 pages long.

They don't give you the raw data at all? No, you're

basically doing the county accounting job. You're doing the work for them. Which isn't another thing that school district financial offices really need to be responsible for or should be responsible for. Wow. So if you see a school district CFO or accountant, particularly ours, you should tell them they're doing a great job.

Wow. I have one more question about that. Do you have any idea if it will be when or if this gets changed, will it be retroactive? Could we then look past and who knows?

There is no information that is being shared other than they know it's a problem and they're trying to make it better, but they can't tell you how or when or what. Great.

Go government. Any other communications to share? If not, we can

adjourn.

I move that the meeting be adjourned. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

All

those in favor? Aye.