October 2, 2019 — Meeting Transcript

All right, so it's 7 o'clock. We're going to go ahead and get started. Adequate notice has been given, and we want to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. And so who's going to lead us in the Pledge of All right. Thank you very much. So we're going to start with recognizing our own. And so today we have some STAAR students that we're going to recognize. I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Gordon.

Well, good evening, everyone. Just for people who don't normally come to the Board of Education meeting, we dedicate time at each of our meetings to recognize our students. And tonight we're going to recognized STAAR students and STAAR stands for students and teachers as research scientists. And this is a program that happens at University of Missouri St. Louis, UMSL. And we've had students participate in this program in the past and we were excited to have students participate in this past summer. I was at the privilege to go to the ceremony at the end of this program this summer. And it was amazing to see the types of research that the students were doing with other scientists. And it was incredible. It's an amazing program. And so tonight we're very fortunate to have the director, Kenneth Mars, here. And he's going to give a few remarks and tell you a little bit about the program. And then we have some recognitions of students from Clayton High School.

Thank you very much. You've heard all this before because I come over here every year and honor these Clayton kids, but it's fun to do it. So let's do it again. Before recognizing five outstanding Clayton High School students, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the STARS program. The STARS program enables outstanding rising senior students who show significant promise in science to attend an area research institution for six weeks. These students conduct research with outstanding faculty in a one-to-one environment. Classes and research are conducted using the facilities of the Cortex Innovation Community, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis University, Washington University, and the host institution, the University of Missouri St. Louis. In addition to our winners, we had two outstanding students from Clayton High School who participated in the program this summer. On July 19th, they presented their research findings to an audience of their peers, research scientists, their parents and friends. And having successfully completed the requirements for graduation from the program, they were presented with their laboratory coats, their STARS pin and graduation certificate and were commended STARS research scholars in a ceremony in the Desley Theater of the University of Missouri campus. These students are Zachary Hodgrey and Katie He. They did a fine job, and we congratulate them. The laboratory research is augmented by seminars presented by noted scientists from the St. Louis research community. In addition, students are presented information about the process of applying to colleges and universities around the country and attended a St. Louis Cardinal baseball game. Academically, the participants were a very, very select group, and I don't remember having so many qualified students apply to the STARS program. All students' research papers were reviewed and judged anonymously using the following criteria. The difficulty and complexity of the research, the appropriateness of the research methodology, findings, quality of writing, and the overall quality of the research process. In addition, each reviewer assigned points to eight critical components of the research paper in order to quantify the evaluation assessment. So it's with great pride and pleasure that I'm here this evening to present the STARS Awards for Excellence in Research to three outstanding Clayton High School seniors. The award reads as follows. Students and teachers as research scientists, in recognition of outstanding research accomplishments during the STARS program, the Partnership of Research Institutions presents this award of excellence to Kevin Kotzbauer. Is it Kevin? James Malone. And these certificates were signed by the senior officers from each of the participating research institutions. So congratulations to these three outstanding students. Oh, I skipped over the sentence. And Chris Sardisi, our third winner. Chris. Lastly, I'd like to congratulate the Clayton School District faculty and staff for the outstanding academic programs that provide the quality background that helps students like these win very, very competitive awards. My godson is a distinguished graduate of Clayton High School and working through his third year of medical school, so some good things happen here at Clayton. Thank you very much. We look forward to four, five, six, seven additional students from Clayton participating again this year.

I wondered if it'd be okay if we just, as I was reading through the work that they did, I just thought it'd be great for our students to just talk about, just tell us the title of their research. So that way you could hear the type of work that they were doing this summer. And so, Katie, do you want to just tell us a little, just tell us what you're doing? Just tell us the title, the research that you were working on. And then, Zach.

Yeah, my title was Synthesis and Characterization of Thermochromic Biotomic Complexes. And Zach, can you introduce your presentation? Oh yeah, this is my mom.

And then, Kevin, tell us about your

research.

Well, I work with carbohydrates,

and I've been searching, like, what's it called, like, glycosyl bromides. Thank you. It's way over our heads.

Okay. So we are, do we have, Chris, do we have any public comment this evening? Okay. So we don't have any public comment. And so we're going to move on to superintendent communication.

Okay. Thank you. So the students that we recognized tonight had an incredible opportunity this summer. And first of all, I was just so impressed by the amount of time that they dedicated to their own learning. And one of the things that I think we can consistently do is look at ways that we can expand learning beyond the walls of our schools and thinking about how we can give them relevant real-world experiences that will take them beyond their years in Clayton. Last week at the MSBA conference, I had an opportunity to visit a couple different workshops and one of the workshops really resonated with me and it was a school district that was focusing on personalized learning and an innovative way that they have been able to meet the needs of students. And so we're working to set up a meeting with that. It's on the Kansas City side. looking at how we can get some people to do a visit and thinking about ways that we can, uh, think about ways that we could expand that experiential learning more than we are currently doing. And, um, and allowing our students to have some different types of approaches to learning. So also at the board at the MSB conference, we had our board retreat and I just want to say thank you to the board for dedicating so much time and energy to that type of learning. And it just sets a tone that our board is about continuous improvement. And I want to say thank you to you for that. Much of our work centered around norms and protocols. And after we got back from the retreat, we were thinking about like what is it that we currently have in place? And so one of the things that we did was look back and saw that we have done some work already on norms and protocols. And so I know we're going to have our working session after this business meeting, but I also included in a packet all the norms and protocols that we have done in the past that could be a stepping stone for some of the work that we do in the future. So just wanted to make sure you had that. The thing that resonated with me for the board is that you all come to the table with divergent thinking. And that divergent thinking is actually a strength, and it helps us be stronger. But I do think that there is something that resonated in this book that I thought that we always should be grounded in, and that's that moral purpose. And I love how the authors describe moral purpose as relentless commitment to the learning of all students with no exceptions. And that's what we need to continue basing our work on. And I think that that is one commonality that we have across the board. And we may have some differences in terms of the way how we do things, and we need to become stronger at that. But I think that that moral imperative is where we're all grounded. And I appreciate that. The last thing I want to do is just remind everyone about the launch of our strategic planning work on Saturday. And I'm really excited about this because it's an opportunity for us to start thinking about what are our priorities for the future of the district? And then what are some ways that we can kind of question What questions do we want to answer in the future and what are desired outcomes that we want to see? And so I want to just let the board know is that this is a launch. It's not that we're walking out on Saturday with the strategic plan done. It's going to be an opportunity for us to make sure that we're grounded in our priorities and where we want to go, and that will allow us to then decide how we're going to get there. And that's going to continue to take place after Saturday. so it's going to be a different type of approach we ask you to be comfortable on that day so dress comfortably because there's been a lot of movement and working in different groups and so it does start at 9am at filament and we're looking forward to that work together we have about 49 people who are going to attend from the community which i think is great if you're thinking about a full day on a saturday in october we have that many people committed to this and luckily we have students and we have parents we have faculty administrators all part of this and community members as well so I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to Adam, see if he has any reports from the student.

Yeah, so I just wanted to talk a little bit today looking ahead to the strategic plan. I was looking over the profile of the Clayton graduate and I wanted to talk a bit about we had a climate strike on It was on the 27th, on Friday the 27th during fourth period. We had over 60% of people – or we had over 60 people, sorry, which was – and so it made me think of a quote that during my cultural leadership summer journey, one of the things that we heard is that it only takes 3% of people to start a movement. And so 60 people is much more than 3%. of the people at the high school. And so it made me think about a creative thinker, which is one of our big umbrella terms for the profile of a graduate. And specifically, a creative thinker explores multiple possibilities and challenges the status quo. And I think that that's something that we saw at the climate strike. And it was led by Belle Gage, Ella Ferguson, and Brooke Becker. They all gave speeches, and it was really wonderful. And I wanted to share some of the ideas that came out of it. One was using metal or biodegradable silverware or utensils in cafeterias, having reusable plates that we can have in the cafeterias, to plant more trees in the quad and around campuses on all the schools, and to effectively use our solar panels and continue to do that. And finally, to have reusable water bottles for each of the students. And so these were just some of the ideas that were generated that I wanted to share with all of you. And... And I think it was just a way to show that students really have a voice and are continuing to do wonderful things in our district and in St. Louis and in the world. So I wanted to share that. And the other thing I wanted to talk about was the District Advisory Council. Dr. Kaczewski and I have been working very hard on that, and we actually had to do a second round of applicants for a few grades to get a few additional people, and so we have enough. We actually have a few more in some grades at the high school, and so we're wrapping up the interviews and we'll be doing all that and choosing our candidates really soon because we now have enough for the high school. And then after that, I'll be reaching out to Dr. Jordan and the elementary school principals and continue to expand this to eighth graders and fifth graders. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Sounds great. So tonight we only have one study item, so we're going to move to study items. And the first study item, it's 5.01, it's policy IGAEB, which is teaching about human sexuality. So Milena. Milena.

Just as a reminder, as guidance for the Board of Education when we come to looking at a different policy, we have a worksheet that we've developed from work that we've done in the past. Those are some guiding questions that you might be thinking about. And Melaina is going to give an overview of the policy, anything that she thinks would be significant for you to know, and then we'll see if you have any questions or any clarifications.

So policy IGAEB, which is about teaching about human sexuality, the things that are yellow lined in there from MSBA, a lot of it is just movement within the policy of where the wording is. There's one addition, which is number, I think it's listed as number six for you, teaching students about consent, sexual harassment, sexual violence. Um, that's the addition. When I looked at the statute, almost everything in this policy comes straight from statute. So there isn't a lot of leeway, um, in wordsmith well, wordsmithing or anything. I don't know that I would recommend any changes. I would recommend just taking the policy as written by MSBA.

So does anybody have any questions or comments about this policy? Yes, go ahead.

Maybe we'll have more of a discussion of the substance of it, but I have one question about actually the wording, and it is one taken from the statutes that I think is worded incorrectly. It's like a double negative under Item 6. Or maybe it's just me. The first item, an expression of lack of consent through words or conduct does not constitute consent. If you take out the nots, he should be able to take out the, right? Because if you take those out, it says an expression of consent through words or conduct does constitute consent. I don't think that's what they're meaning to say. So we'll

reach out to them about that and ask the question.

Does anybody else?

No,

I think that's... Because we're trying to say all of the ways, I mean, all of those that the idea is that consent needs to be very clear. Right.

Right. So if you read that first thing, so the consent is a freely given agreement to the conduct at issue by a competent person and that an expression of lack of consent through words or conduct does not constitute consent. Does that make sense?

It does?

Yeah. So I think if reading that bullet by itself I don't think makes sense, but if you read that preamble part, so consent is a freely given agreement to the conducted issue by a competent person, and an expression of lackof consent through words orconduct does not constitute consent,

So meaning if you don't...

You don't say no, it doesn't mean yes.

Right.

Okay. Right.

All right, as long as it's clear to whoever needs to, and I'm not over or under thinking

it.

I don't think it's a problem for

us to ask about the wording on that one. And maybe there's some other way to say it.

Yeah, or getting rid of double negatives. Yeah, yeah. Those are confusing for most of us.

So other questions or comments? Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I'm

sorry. Thank you. Okay. I had a couple comments. One is just a wording thing also, which may or not be super important. But number 11, it says inappropriate text messaging and sexting. Do you think it would be beneficial to add, like, social media posts? Because I think that's where a lot of things are occurring now, not just text messages.

Inappropriate electronic messages. Yeah,

like, right. Or make it more general, like electronic messaging. But I think social media should be in there in addition to text messaging.

And how did you word it? You said electronic messaging. Electronic messaging.

And then the very last paragraph, the first sentence, well, there's just, yeah. So the district will not permit any entity to offer or furnish any course materials or instruction if that entity is a provider of abortion services. So that means like Planned Parenthood cannot provide us with material. Correct.

And is that like... Is that logistical or is that just our choice?

No, that's from statute.

Find it for me. I could not find that.

Yeah, can you, if I may add on to that, can you, so that's, is that legal? Because it's not illegal. Abortions aren't illegal. And I'm just trying to understand how... They're not teaching about abortion. I know, I know, I'm just saying though, but like... Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So yeah, so they're not teaching about abortions, and their job is, what they provide is not just abortion, right? Right. And they are definitely validated as providers of healthcare for everyone, for women in particular. Right. So why would that be the case? Is this something we have to accept?

Yeah, so I pulled up the state statute. So it's House Bill 1606. And so the language in there says no school district or charter school or its personnel or agents shall provide abortion services or permit a person or entity to offer, sponsor, or furnish in any manner any course materials or instruction related to human sexuality or or sexually transmitted diseases to its students if such person or entity is a provider of abortion services. So MSBA has lifted it straight from the state statute into the policy. So what it says to me is, even if we have Planned Parenthood, we can't have Planned Parenhood come to talk about contraceptives. We can't have them come to teach lessons in our classroom, even if they never mention abortion. because that's a service that they provide. That's

what I was looking for, clarification. So what

about WashU, for example? Because WashU provides abortions when the abortions at Planned Parenthood are a bit more risky. So are they involved in it? Will they be exempt from – can we not use them for their services? Yes.

So the way that I read the statute is to say, yes, we wouldn't be able to use them. What we have done in turn, so we used to use Planned Parenthood as a group, as an entity that would come to provide instruction within our classrooms. What we have doing in turn is train our teachers to be able to provide the instruction around contraceptives and all of that information that Planned Parenthhood was doing for us We've now trained our teachers so that our teachers are the ones providing that. So we don't use any outside entity anymore. And I

know that... Okay. Yeah. Okay, got it. Do you want me to ask the question about it? Yeah,

if you could, because it just seems a little... It seems like this is an attack on Planned Parenthood or anybody who provides abortions.

It seems that way because it is. Right, right, right, right.

Well, exactly. And so it's kind of odd to me. I mean, but they do more. They do way more than just provide abortions.

But some families in our district might not be receptive to that, and I wouldn't want to insult any of our families that don't. agree with that.

Right, well, I think that's a conflict, right? I'm a little uncomfortable also. I think a lot of folks like myself would be uncomfortable as well. But at the end of the day, legally, we're not saying that we want you to do abortions. We're saying they're coming in and providing other services. And so it doesn't make sense for them to alienate them just because they provide more than one thing.

So the question that I think you want me asking is, could we bring in, so in that instance of teaching about contraceptives, teaching about sexual health, could we bring an entity like WashU or another hospital or something like that that also provides the same services?

Yeah.

Okay.

Exactly. Because right now, as it was saying, you said the teachers are taught this information.

Right. So the way that we address this, so this came up as a question last year. We reviewed the policy at that point, and the way that we decided to address it with the teachers was to train the teachers, so provide the teachers with the professional development necessary for them to be able to provide the instruction instead of bringing an outside entity in. Okay. So this year starts the first place where our teachers are providing all of the instruction instead of bringing in guest speakers to help with that.

I actually think it's great to use our own teachers to do that. I do know that bringing Planned Parenthood did upset some families. And I wasn't happy with that either. So training our own teachers, I think, is probably the best case scenario.

I think it's a little dicey. So if a teacher's job is to do, their discipline is math or whatever, for example.

It's health teachers.

So their discipline is health. Their discipline may not be in sex ed. or in this particular area. So to have someone that's not professional in that area, like that's not what they studied, to come in and then talk about this, or to have teachers learn to talk about this is not the same as having a professional who does this on a daily basis to talk about it.

Yeah, I would say that the training for a health teacher is like there's a pretty big component around sexual health. So if I go through a program, a teacher program, and I'm getting a degree in health education, that's a pretty big of what I'm doing. I think some of this we have made decisions in the past that have been in response to personnel and level of comfort as opposed to saying what's the professional learning that we need to put in place in order for you to feel comfortable. to be able to provide this instruction in the classroom because that's our expectation. So we've shifted a little bit of what our expectation is, but I hear what you're saying that like a medical professional could provide another perspective within the classroom.

A lot more detailed perspective, right? And then let me ask you this question. So if we were to... strike this number 11 out, or maybe a portion of number 11 out, what would that do to us? Like, because...

Number 11, the one about sexting? The paragraph after. Or the

paragraph after. Oh, the one about... I'm assuming, I thought it was a part of it, but yeah, it's just a paragraph after.

Right, so when we asked that question to MSBA, not specifically about this one, but about another piece that was in here that was in statute, they said, well, you could take it out of the policy, but you're still required to do it. So, because it's a part of statute, it they said it's still a requirement. So even if we took it out of there, it wouldn't change what the practice has to be.

Jason, are you asking what would be the consequences?

Yeah, what would be the consequence is like, are we going to lose funding? Because we can't lose funding because it's not illegal. So I'm just trying to figure out like what would happen. Oh, I see what your

question is.

Gary, go ahead. Maybe just to give a little bit of an overview of what the policies do. I mean, not to like... get on a soapbox but like the policies um often serve to collect the legal standards by which the district has to operate because it's easier to look at your own policy manual than to i mean look at statutes or call the lawyer whatever so so much of much of what is in our policies is intended to serve as a more ready reference of what the legal obligations that we have. So part of the policy service that MSBA provides, I understand, is to kind of give us the more user-friendly version and way of storing our policies. So I think to Melina's point, if we don't put it in our policy, it just means that it's a little harder to find what the legal obligation is. I mean, whether you like it or not, this is the law in Missouri. I mean, it just is. So whether it's in our policy... So the things that are in this policy revision were in the bill that our legislature... passed and was signed by the governor. That's just what it is. So they apply to us whether we put it in policy or not. Now, I'm not saying there might not be good reasons to symbolically or for other reasons not put it in our policy, but it will still be the law. So that's just where we are.

Adam? I just have a question about clarifying that I know all of this is mandated, but Students may be separated by gender for human sexuality instruction that was moved up. Yeah, I'm wondering what does that, does that mean that our district has leeway and if we, so we do get to decide if we want to do that?

Correct. And we make that decision based on age.

We make that decision based on.

That's how our practice has been within the district, so the younger the children are. What is their age? So in fifth grade when we teach the puberty unit, we oftentimes separate the genders. In middle school, we do not, and in high school, we

don't. So what I was wondering, I don't know if this is, but for people who necessarily don't identify as a certain gender, I feel like that's very normative to put into, we are going to have students separated by gender. I don't think that that's very inclusive. So I'm wondering if that's something that we, if that's up to our discretion, is that something that we can take out of the policy or maybe look at in more detail?

Yeah. Other, I want to just make sure, Amy, do you have any questions? I just want to make sure we get all voices before we go back to others. Or Kristen?

I'm good.

Okay. Kristen, you got anything? Any others?

No. Lily, go ahead.

I wanted to comment on, well, I guess there's two things. One is since you referenced, because I tried to look at all, I hear what you're saying, Jason, very much. So I went through each of the statutes and the U.S. Code to see if we had to do that, that we couldn't use materials and information. Because I know at my work, when we do sex education with our clients, Planned Parenthood provides a great amount of information and handbooks and other kinds of things that are really helpful. I don't know if they're best practices, but I think it's unfortunate that that avenue is shut off to us. So I tried to look this up to see if we had to do it. I guess you need to add that.

If you look at the title page, it's on the title page to say that the policy has been revised to comply with House Bill 1606. That's not going

to be in the policy

itself. I don't know if they'll end up attaching it at the bottom with that list of policies because I think once they – you know that list that you're referencing at the bottom with the policies? Normally when they put something in there, then they add it to the list down here like the legal references on that last page. They normally add it.

So my suggestion is to have that, make sure that's in there. Okay. So that people can look it up if they have concerns about it. And then the other thing that I wanted to say is the one on sexual predator. I'm not finding it. So it's item number under six. No, it's item eight. teach students about the characteristics of and ways to identify sexual predators. Something about that really rubs me the wrong way. I mean, I think that's fine to teach that, but it sounds like a lot of putting it on the students to be able to kind of protect themselves or know about sexual predators. I think adding to that something about, I don't know, what to do if, you know, if you're confronted with a situation, we also teach them kind of what to do about it and not expect just teaching them to be enough to protect themselves or to be expected.

So are you saying that you want within the policy specifically something specific to what we do about that teaching piece that... sort of expands on that to say what to do if confronted with. And

how to, yeah. Okay. And the supports or whatever or what would need to be done to kind of handle that situation, not just being able to identify and thinking that's enough. Okay. And that is all. Do you have one more thing?

Yeah, so number one at the end of the paragraph, it says students shall be advised that teenage sexual activity places them in higher risk of dropping out of school because of consequences of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy. Is that true? If you have sex and get a disease like gonorrhea, you're going to drop out of school? Or if you get pregnant, do you have to drop out of school? To me it seems more like a scare tactic than it is anything else. It just seems like, oh, let me scare you a little bit with this information.

Yeah, so the way it's stated in the statute, so it's the same present abstinence from sexual activity It moves... Like, it goes through all of that the same way and then says, advise students that teenage sexual activity places them at a higher risk of dropping out of school because of the consequences of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy. So it says it's straight in the statute.

Okay.

So that's... Like, that's how I feel about this policy is, like, almost everything was, like, literally lifted from the bill. It

just seems very antiquated, like, very... It

is.

So I think it does, for me, it does bring up like how it's too late on this one, but how proactive could we have been? What could... I don't know. Were we aware of all this coming down the pike, and could we have done more before it became part of the law? Or can we add a

statement that says we don't agree with this policy, but by state we are obliged to hold up?

Well, and I think... I don't know, we're stating that

we don't agree. There's a lot of things that we could be doing in our country like that.

And just to specifically the point about providers being replaced by professional teaching staff, we have the luxury to do that in this district in a way that a lot of other districts do not necessarily. These services will not be delivered in some districts because they won't have staff to do that. I don't think it's crazy to recognize that, that while we're going to comply with the law unless we I guess decide not to, but that we are able to do that in a way that doesn't result in services and education not being provided. And we recognize that that's not necessarily the case in all districts. And I think there's merit to that. Anybody have anything else?

Yeah, go ahead, Adam.

One thing I'm just wondering is if – let's just say, is there a way that we can say – We're still allowed to say that our teachers are, if you have, if you need additional information or whatever, you can still go to Planned Parenthood. You can still look out the spot, all these other places. Is that under the law? Can we say you can still reach out to these people if you need? Is that allowed? Because I think that's important information for our students to have if you need additional help. Maybe the teachers will put that

in the policy.

The thing is, policy is so in

the weeds. Yeah,

I'm looking at what... Because there are a list of things in the statute. It does not talk about that, like who we're allowed to... refer to. So you could look that up

and let us know, right? And one last thing. This is just a pile on. I want to pile on now. Yeah, so it seems like it kind of demonizes females at the end of the day. I mean, I'm not a female, but I could be one. And I'm thinking to myself, like, the pregnancy thing, that... Sex can be anything nowadays. It's not just male and female, the traditional way of what we think of male and female. as well as abortions and all that stuff. It's like demonizing. This is kind of like I said, antiquated. It's very demonizing on women. And so I think that's more so what I want to convey along with you all. What we're talking about is that it's just a little bit old-fashioned. And if we can not accept it and enforce the issue, I think that would be great. Anybody have anything else?

Thank you, Milena. So I'll get

answers to these questions, and then we'll move forward from there. Thank you. All right.

Thanks. So we're going to move to checkout.

So here are some things that I captured in that conversation, and Barbara tried to capture this as well. But thinking about the number 11 electronic messaging, adding something around social media to that for Looking deeper into beyond just Planned Parenthood, so would an entity like Washington University be following that and looking into the hospitals or other resources. So we'll take a deeper dive into that. Also the question about what would be the consequences? What if we didn't follow this policy? What would happen and do we need, what if we force the issue? So we'll get some information around that as well. um the point about separation of the students based off gender i think that was you know if we're thinking taking an equity lens on this i think that was a question that we need to ask ourselves and we don't want to ever put students in a situation that would be uncomfortable for them and i thought that was a great question um yes

i think On that, to me the question is can we just take it out of here? Because that one's we may do that. So, you know, you're allowed to do that is what it's saying. So if we take it out of the policy, I mean, I heard what Melina was saying about, you know, taking it out of policy makes it less easily accessible. But I think that might solve that to me. That's what I was

saying also.

Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. It's beyond just what we're putting down in words. Right. And then making sure that we reference at the end the statute so that way when we're looking at the legal references. And then for number eight, teaching students about characteristics about sexual predators, making sure we're adding something into it in terms of a response to that type of situation. What I've heard, too, is that there are some things this policy feels a little antiquated or out of fashion. And, you know, sometimes these are one of the, this is like one of those policies that is, it may not absolutely match who we are and so what do we do if we want to question the givens on that? And then the other question is under these policies, do we need to clarify about can teachers provide those types of resources or listings of resources or just letting students know about those resources if they are providers of abortion. And then we also had the question about if do we need to add a statement to this about how we feel about this. So that was just kind of an overview. I'll make sure that we get what Barbara has as well, just to make sure I'm captured everything.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to action items. So 6.01, approval of policy GBEBC and approval to rescind GCBC and GDBC. Gary,

please. 7.01, I move that the Board of Education approve policy GBEBC into rescind policies GCPC and GDPC as presented.

It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, it passes unanimously. Thank you. We are now going to move on to the consent agenda. So, Gary,

please. 8.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the

consent agenda. Second. It's been moved in seconded. Any question or comments about the consent agenda? All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. So then we are actually going to move all the way into board communications. So does anybody have any board communications?

Adam? So I talked with Dr. Doherty and Joe for a little bit yesterday and kind of looking at some stuff that we've been looking at with capital improvements and a little bit with sustainability. I was wondering if I'm going about this right, but I'm proposing maybe looking at trying to add some things onto the agenda and seeing if we can talk about some other things. So I just wanted to tell you about two things that I was hoping at some point in the future that maybe we could talk about. One of them was looking into metal or biodegradable silverware. We've been talking a lot about our capital improvements, and I think just that idea was something that the board can really help with, and looking at how can we be a leader in St. Louis and our efforts to prevent climate change and to prevent global warming. I'm wondering if that's something where we could talk about possibly adding in there is looking at biodegradable or metal silverware. And then the other one was trying to look at the idea of having, the Globe has reported about this many times over the past few years, and especially when we talked about the policy today, IGAEB, I think something that's important in here is making sure that our students feel welcome. And so if people can't use the bathroom, I don't know how you can really learn. And so something I was hoping to look at throughout the year is if we can maybe look at having single stall bathrooms or gender-neutral bathrooms, which are kind of the same thing at each of our schools in the district.

So thank you for saying that. What I want to just, because we really, I think, need to, you know, work on our muscle, right, on when and how do we add things. So I'd like to take those one at a time and just see if the board is willing, right, to add that to a future agenda, right? So the first was the kind of metal or biodegradable silverware is... Is the board okay adding that at some point? So we can have comments about each one, but I want to take them each one at a time. Go ahead. How about that one?

I don't have an issue with that one. I'd like to just say something about the process right now.

Sure.

And that is that I don't think we figured out how we're adding agenda items in general, how board members do. And I know that we were going to have a protocol for our student rep Um, and that part of that is consideration of how agenda items you get to add agenda items in each of us. So that's all I'm commenting on. I don't have, I totally good with either of those on that level.

Yeah. And I think you're right, Lily, we need to work on that and have a protocol. In the absence of that, I'd like for the board, right, to have a discussion. Do we want to add that or not, right? Because really, again, it's that idea we work as a whole, right, rather than have any one person. So Adam's bringing to the board, right? Do we want to bring these two things forward? Absolutely. Yes,

100%. Could I make a suggestion? Yeah. I wondered, Adam, if we could pull back a little bit on this and look at sustainability measures within the district beyond just specifics about the silverware or the metal. I wonder if we could... Because we've had some other conversations around sustainability in the district, and I think that I wonder if we were going to put something on an agenda item as how we could look at it in a broader perspective versus just something like the silverware. I don't know if that makes sense. There's one that is in the, that we work with the city. We don't have a, and that could be something that we could potentially look at doing.

So just I want to actually reiterate what Lily's saying and because we haven't established a protocol around this and this would be the first time that any one of us have asked to put something. That's

actually not true. So if you think about last year, remember dyslexia? I brought to the board last year the idea of putting dyslexia on in the absence of kind of a protocol. And we talked about it and we all decided that that was a good idea. So just for what it's worth. Well, I asked, yeah, but I mean, I asked everybody, right? Rather than just put it on, right? We actually, we talked about it last year.

Okay, but that's different than what's happening right now. And coming from the president, when you do that, it's more the president tends to set the agenda. So I do, I do, I want to, I just want to support Lily in this because I do think this feels different. And I'm very supportive of both those things. So it's not that, but this is new. So I kind of feel like we're working on our protocols and norms. And if this is true and for everybody moving forward, that wasn't very clear before tonight. So for what that's worth.

Okay. Well, I mean, we can clarify that and kind of move forward.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we're working on as a board. So I do think that that will be a good thing to do. And I think this could be a great way to do it and when to do it. And I'm just wondering if maybe that's one of the things we need to work on. We're deciding how we go about doing it. Not to punt what you're saying, but I think it would be helpful for us all to have a conversation about

it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I guess from my perspective, I kind of thought we did with that before, but I'm okay waiting if that's okay. I mean, if you all want to kind of clarify that and move forward, there's not a sense of urgency. Yeah.

I personally think that would be a good thing to do. I don't know.

Go ahead. I don't want to get too rules-ish, but if we want to talk about norms or protocols or rules, like those are all three different things. And if we want to delve into the rules that were actually governed by in terms of Robert's Rules or whatever, like agendas can be modified at the beginning of a meeting and based on motions to modify the agenda. I mean, there is actually a rules-based way to do that. That doesn't mean that's the way we have to do it by protocol or by norm, kind of in decreasing technicality of the item. So that does exist. We can do it through other ways if we choose to do that. So just to, but that's not what, this wouldn't be that sort of rules-ish based way of doing it. This is more by norm or protocol or some hybrid of the two, just for whatever that's worth.

I'd like to say. Sure. I think, Jason, actually you reminded me of this. I think there's two different, there might be two different rules or protocols or however we want to go about doing it. I think one is that we did talk about specifically when we have a student rep how the student rep is going to be able to get agenda items on. So I think that's unfinished business that we really do need to finish. And then the other is how we want to do it for the rest of us that aren't at agenda planning, how we want to be able to add items to the agenda.

Okay. So I'm going to recommend that we just table it until we have a better protocol or it's clear definition and we'll come back to it. So that said, does anybody have any other board communication since that was what we're talking about? No, yes, maybe.

appreciative that we all went to the conference this last weekend I think each of us took away something that we learned and a lot of things just a reiteration or recognition that we are doing great things in the school district and there was a lot of what was presented at the conference that we already do very well but I am glad that we all went and I'm I think we all did learn something and I hope we continue to bring those new ideas back to the table so thank you for encouraging us and having us all do that.

Any others? Do you have one? No? Okay. Do you want to talk about the breakfast this morning?

Yes. Sean and I had breakfast this morning with Michelle Harris and Bridget McAndrew, which was really nice. We each shared kind of things that are going on in the district and in the city and Michelle seems really excited about the equity, the commission on equity. I forgot what the exact title is. Um, and talking about how, how they're going to work together with the city and what their plans are. We talked about different like real estate properties and developments that are going on in the city, um, that may or may not affect the district, but it's nice to stay informed of what each other is doing. And I just enjoy the, um, you know, the social aspect of us all, like getting to know each other. And, you know, just for the relationship between the city and the district, which is so important. So it was nice. And there was a Clayton Education Foundation board meeting last night, which I missed, but Sean was there, so he'll probably talk about that.

Yeah, I can't really reveal anything right now. We had a number of grants that were turned in, and I can't say that the Clayton Education Foundation is going to be giving out $65,000 worth of grants in two weeks, and there's going to be a prize patrol that's going to be surprising teachers throughout our schools on October 25th. And so if you want to come along and you can come and see some of that if you want to, and you can text me and find where we are that day and join us for the celebration and the surprise in the classrooms.

Anybody have anything else for board reports? Just maybe just one quick reminder. Barb did put a kind of a listing that looks like this at your table of other board meetings, right? Because we actually have a bit of a gap between now and three weeks from now is our next board meeting. So we suggested that if anybody was interested in going to somebody else's board, school board meetings, here's a list, right? No obligation but if you're interested, Here's some. Anybody's welcome to join me at U City tomorrow night if they'd like. Right? At 6 o'clock. But so that's just, again, a reminder of what was in the Friday memo. So, okay. So I think what we're going to do is maybe take a, you want to take a two or three minute break? Yeah. We're just going to take a two- or three-minute break because we're going to let the central office staff go and then we're going to continue on with our work session. Okay? So bathroom break for us, central office staff, you may go.

Heh.