November 13, 2019 — Meeting Transcript

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. Awesome, thanks. So before we get into public recognition, I do want to announce, it's not on the agenda though, where's Mary Jo? It's Mary Jo's 50th birthday today. So we're going to sing her happy birthday because that's the big deal. So ready? One, two, three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Well played, Mary Jo. Okay, so... It's not even her birthday.

All

right, now we're going to move

on to recognizing our own 2.0. Okay. all right well good evening everyone uh as part of our work at the board table we have been building in recognizing our own it's an opportunity for us to recognize our students and the work that they do but it's also an opportunity to recognize the work that's happening within our schools with our administration and teachers and so we have made it we've made a decision to start having some of our board meetings in the schools and so it might feel a little awkward and uncomfortable just because it feels a little different but we're leaning into that discomfort and we're just doing something a little different. Our hope is that it gets more people to come to the board meetings and see what great things are happening within our schools. As part of that, there's sometimes some transition. And so part of that transition is having the right system in place. So we're going to ask everyone to make sure that they're using a strong voice tonight when they're presenting because we don't have an amplification system. The microphones are really here so that way we can live stream our board meetings and to record them. So tonight we're here at Wydown and we're very excited to have some students who are going to give the board some information about something that's happening here in Wydown, at Wydown. And then we also have some teachers who are part of, who are teachers of the DaVinci class. And then afterwards Jamie is going to give us an update about some of the great work that they're doing connected to their school improvement plan. And then that'll be it. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Jamie to do introductions. Okay.

Hello everybody. Thank you so much for coming tonight and coming to Whiteown. I love even that we have the Whiteown webpage back there for a little ambiance, which is wonderful. I'm going to share some information with you through these wonderful people here about our Da Vinci class. And Da Vinci is actually a class that has been on the books at Whiteown for quite some time. But this year we took a little bit different spin of it. It started a little bit last year and then we kind of expanded it this year. So Da Vinci is this year being taught by teams of teachers. So Ms. Sinebeck and Mr. Crook are part of these different teams of teachers that teach this class. And kids that sign up for it are all different types of students with lots of different interests. So I have three expert scholars here with us, Chloe and Finn and Elijah. And they're going to share with you a little bit about that. But first, Barry and Frankie are going to kind of jump into sort of the curricular changes and why we think this is so important to our school. Because these types of classes really focus on individualization, teaching kids how to be creative thinkers, teaching kids how pursue their own interests and passions. And that's where we want to see our school grow to. So this is sort of our first step into some of those pieces. So Barry and Frankie, I'm going to turn it over to you.

The DaVinci class is designed to allow students to pursue topics that they're interested in at the same time trying to get them to find topics that they are interested in. And so what if we allowed students the time, the support, and resources to study things that excite them? So what skills do they need to be able to do that? And how does those skills then transfer to other classrooms and other things? But that's at the heart of what we're trying to do. And so some of the questions or the challenges that we have are, how do you pick a topic or illuminate a topic? How do we determine what's true in our research? When is your project or the work that you're doing publishable? When is it good enough to share with everybody else? What's worth teaching to other people? Those are some of the things that are at the heart of our new curriculum.

Some of what we've done with that is ask students, how should we evaluate this work? What are the skills that you're really working on and how do we say where you are working on these skills? We've delved into the profile of the graduate work. as well as some library standards, really looking at big things that you're working on. Not, I can add and subtract corrections, but I can communicate my ideas with the world or I can think creatively about a topic. And students have come up with their own rubrics and ways to measure that growth and then be able to communicate that through their individual projects. So it's been a really fun adventure.

So we're going to turn it over to the students and say a little bit about what they've been learning about this semester.

So in Da Vinci, I researched about fishing because that's a topic that I'm passionate about, and that's what you can do in Da Vinci. You can research anything you'd like and answer questions that you want to answer. There are no guidelines for what you want to work on, and Da Vinci is always flexible. In this project, I was able to go fishing for a school project, so I could convince my mom to take me fishing since I could say that it was for school. I fished at different streams, lakes, and ponds for my data. I also found new spots to fish at through this project.

A project that we are currently working on is about where we find a problem, whether it be in the Wyndham School or it would be a global problem. And I decided to focus on animal cruelty. And I chose animal cruelty or animal abuse because I believe that it is a real problem that we should be paying more attention to because there are millions of animals out there that are suffering. And so how I started with this process is I did lots of research and asked the basic questions like who, what, where, when, how because I needed to get the basics of what animal abuse is and why people are mean to animals. And then so I figured that like people are mean to animal because of past trauma or like disabilities with like abuse in their past. So a solution that I came up with was a more creative solution because I thought what if that people could get help and animals can be used as therapy so that they can that animals help them so that they learn that like, oh, animals can help me get better. And I decided that I will present this, the research that I found in a slideshow that I'll present to the group in Da Vinci. And so the teachers helped me with my process. They helped me organize and figure out what time, like I need this time myself for my research and getting my project ready and then practicing for my presenting. So it was really helpful.

In DaVinci, I researched about the top five greatest players and I looked on seven different websites and found that the top five greatest player were Kareem, Michael Jordan, LeBron, Oscar Robertson, and Magic Johnson. In DaVinci you can also listen to music while you research so you can enjoy your time in class.

So one of the things that we love about this class, and when we think about where we're kind of moving forward, is the idea that sometimes, and it's kind of great that it's paired with that gifted presentation today. Because sometimes in our gifted classes and exploratorium and different things, there are classes that allow kids to learn about themselves as learners. Think about deeper critical thinking and have their own passions. What I love about this class is it's open to any student at YDOT to come and participate and be a part of as a semester. So they can learn their own passions, whether it's which kind of lures work best, right? And I learned it was the crappie. He also learned that I had never caught a fish in my life. So that was also an exchange. Or really setting up how do you really tell which basketball player is the best? You know what I mean? Like which is the skill that we're going to use and diving deep into that. So while some of the topics may be something that seem middle schooled, the depth of what they're learning and the questions that they're pulling out has been really cool to see that. So this is our first kind of semester push, and one of the things we're excited about is it really does, as everything else, take the feeling of the teachers that are in the class. So Ms. Beeson and Mr. Crook teach the 8th hour class. Ms. Simon, Ms. Mooney, and Ms. Sinovac teach the 9th hour class. And they have the scale of the curriculum, but they really work with the kids that are in front of them to do what they need to do. So we're really excited about that. So one of the things that we are dreaming about is looking at taking the Da Vinci students who are interested in going to an expeditionary learning experience. And Finn's going to talk a little bit about that.

One of the things that hope to accomplish this year is going to the Great Smoky Mountain Institute at Tremont. For this trip, we will explore while thinking like a polymath. That's what Da Vinci is about. Thinking like a polymath, but the twist is we'll be in the

Smoky Mountains. So the kids of this group are actually thinking about designing their own experience at Tremont. And Tremont is an experience that Widom has taken before, but it was an experience just for some of the Exploratorium students, and we're really trying to expand that. Now, as we know, expanding it comes with challenges, one being funding and different things of that nature. But we feel it is so important for kids to get out there, to get into Tremont and have these experiences. And then next year, they're actually going to start designing a field trip to go somewhere at a different place too. So the kids are a part of the design model and where they're going and what they're learning about when they go there, which is pretty cool. So that's our great team up to go ahead and transition to our school movement talk. Is that?

Yep. Okay.

Thank you guys very, very much. So thank you, we are really excited about DaVinci and we think it's something that we, like I said, is where we're trying to look and grow and move towards. So I think everybody knows Doug and Tarita but we work very, very closely together so there's no way I could have given this presentation without our team here. One team, one dream is what we say here at White On as we go together. We all know that YDOT has many, many wonderful things that they do and they focus on and they're working towards. But there are some areas of improvement that we need to work towards and go forward with. One of the ones that came up as we were looking over the last couple years was the achievement gap, very specifically was the achievement gap between our students. So we started kind of diving into the numbers a couple of years ago and have come up with some school improvement goals that kind of flesh out where we're going and how we're going to work on the achievement gap as well as moving forward. And oftentimes when we're looking at these pieces, we are focusing on making sure that we're improving the entire school as well as focusing on what we need to make it all going forward. So we have looked in two specific areas, looking at our discipline as well as looking at our academic achievement. And so we've set some very specific goals and this was a work in progress to get some very specific data driven goals. We know that data does not tell the whole story. We know that date is a jumping off point, but we also believe that they have to have some measures. So we started looking at referrals and trying to figure out what kind of who's getting referrals and we were disproportionate in our amount of referrals. There are more referrals that we're giving for African American students than were for our white students, or for our white non-Hispanic students. And in the same sense, our academic achievement, there was some very specific gaps. We looked specifically at the math test. There's a lot of assessments we give, but we are really looking at measurable targets that we can move towards. So as a leadership team, we started with our subject managers and then we moved towards our leadership team to really look at what we are gonna do to make some improvement on these goals and set some specific targets for ourselves. So in doing that then, one of the things that we also found out was the rates of students who had six or more referrals was also fairly significant for the amount of students who were students of color. And so over the summer, we really started working on what we were gonna do to try to work towards that and what policies and things that we were gonna do differently to try to work toward that. So we developed different types of strategies that went across. So we looked at relationships, we looked at effective pedagogy, empowering learning and intervention strategies. And those are things that I think are broad, that they really focus on really lifting up the whole school and where we wanna go, and also making sure that we're pointed enough to do what we need to do to meet our goals. Um, because as we learned, like we spent a lot of time this summer and feel free to jump in. We spent a lot of the time this summer, um, really reading and researching and meeting with people about what we want to do around culturally responsive teaching. Um, and that's it's some, so we, we looked at Drina Hammond's work. We looked at Sharaki Khali's work. We read Anthony Muhammad's work. We look at Marzano's works. We looked at Fisher and Frey. We read a lot of these different kinds of books to look at and met with different people and said, who have had success and said, which did you pick up or which did you do? And they said, you can't just pick one. It needs to be a comprehensive look at all these different pieces. So we also worked with Jamie Almanzon last year And he gave us some feedback, too, around what were some pretty important pedagogical strands that we needed to be looked at. So over the summer, we looked at three specific pedagogical strands, that we are trying to work towards. One is student talk versus teacher talk. One is around questioning of students. What types of questions are we asking? And then the other one is learning objectives. What are the learning objectives that are being used? We started this work last year. and the teachers got to pick which one they wanted to learn and work through. And then we did some work around the strands and how we're implementing them, and then we did some walkthroughs in the spring. Over the summer, we kind of switched gears. Last year, we asked some teachers to help lead this. Over the summer what we talked about was as the instructional leaders of the school, that development should come from the three of us. We worked hard to create syllabuses and documents to actually lead that work. So Doug works on?

Questioning.

And Trita does? Learning intentions. Learning intentions. And I work with the student talk versus teacher talk. And so we've actually structured all of our professional learning so that half of the time of the early release days or the time that we have is spent where the teachers have chosen which of those they want to work on, and they stay with that all year. And they stay with that group all year. And then in between those professional learnings, we have walkthroughs. Janet Cruz as you know has been working with us as an instructional coach and she has been Amazing at really coaching the three of us as well as working in the building in terms of walkthroughs So we actually this morning just had another round of walkthroughs where we go in and everything is very transparent but we go in and we take data on all of these three strands so we can really specifically see how our learning is impacting the instruction because I We really believe, as Whitaker says, it's the people, not the programs. So if we want to change the pictures, we've got to really change what's happening inside the classroom. And that's a lot harder change to make. I mean, sometimes the program's kind of flashy and it's there and it's good, but to really change instruction is what's really going to make a difference for our kids long term. So it's been really great, though, and what we do is we actually pair a Y-down teacher – with an instructional coach from around the district. So I pull favors from all the other building principals and they, so like Eric Niles comes from Captain, and Carrie Larry comes from Miramac, and Jen Selinwick, and Andrew Caccioli, and Milena, and everybody comes together, and they partner with the Wydown teacher, and then they spend the day walking through the building and taking data. So it becomes a learning experience for the teachers that are in the, you know, doing the walkthroughs, and then we also have the data portion. And what was even great about today is we're already seeing like where We're accomplishing things, and then where we need to go next. You know, like, we've got kids talking, now are they talking on topic? Do you know, like, you've got kids talking or they're working in groups, is everybody equally working on groups? We're asking good questions, but who is getting asked questions and what kinds of questions are they getting asked? So, like, we're able to kind of take that step up to the next level. And so we do call these accountability walkthroughs because we are accountable to our kids. And so that's what we feel like that. So on that same vein, Doug and Tarita and I have publicly shared with the teachers our intention of really being in classrooms much more this school year. So we keep track of – we have a little chart in my office, and we keep track of which classrooms we're in each week, whether it's – most of them are either, like, a five- or ten-minute drop-in or a more formal observation – And then we go through each week and look and see which teachers haven't been hit and have been in their room. And then we kind of make a priority chart because it's important that we're in there enough so we can see really what's going on in the classrooms. And then we share those with the teachers. So we're holding ourselves accountable as well to really working all together as a goal because it is really about what's being in the classroom. We also are still continuing to look at this idea of empowered learning. So thinking about, you know, I just got to go with the gifted team out to the D school in Stanford and it was awesome. We learned so much and it was so much fun. So now taking that back, like how do we actually make that design thinking something that's accessible in all of our curriculums and ensured experiences? And how do we make sure that that happens everywhere we go? So I said to Megan and Frankie while we were out there, I said, so we're going to come back and maybe do this for the subject managers who are our department chairs and start doing some of those things. Also through professional learning grant out of Melaina's office, we were able to get some money to go visit some schools on the coasts to look at some design thinking schools that are really doing some cutting edge things and seeing how we can put these into our curricular experiences so that they become a staple of what we do all the time. Still working on PLC stuff, still trying to develop common assessments and coming together to see what do we do when people aren't learning and moving forward. Intervention strategies, and we've worked a lot on, we've worked for years and continually trying to perfect our idea of what we're doing for our strategies classes because we are really lucky about the amount of full-time employees we have compared to the amount of need we have. So we should be seeing some really great results. And so we've really kind of been trying and trying and trying different things. This year, we've redesigned the mass strategy structure, so we've tiered it, and then also given some really specific resources. Do you want to talk to that at all? So

we met with all our math teachers around PLCs and just structured their time with the students. So it's not spent just on homework, not really spent on homework at all, but it's spent on some of the skills that they need more help on and then things from the classroom. And then we just got a new software program that children will be working on as well that they can work on at home and at school. And so we really structured our math strategy class. And they're smaller as well than

normal. And then with reading, we really looked at who was in reading strategies class We're lucky to really try to minimize those numbers to like one student with or two students with one teacher or one student with one teacher to really get to the heart of as much time on text reading as possible. And that's what, you know, the much time interacting and reading with text as possible to try to pull that together. We also started a learning center which is just more I need some time for executive functioning and doing my homework at school. You know, like I just need some of those executive functioning skills. So we've really tried to tear out some of those interventions to see and make sure Part of that is also some real clear communication with families about why your child's in the class, how to get out of the class, if you want to keep your child in the class. Because it is something that we want the trust from our families and also from the students. Like here's where you are, here's how we want to get you. Because one of the things we know from working and learning from like John Hattie is that idea of the students really understanding where they are in the progression of their learning is one of the most critical factors of achievement. So that's another thing that we're really trying to develop is this sort of idea that the kids really know where they fall and where they need to go towards those learning objectives. The other thing we're really working on is relationships. So the Y-Down Ways, if you want to talk a little bit about the Y-Down Way.

The elementary kids, if they go to Merrimack or they go to Glen Ridge, they all have this set of values that the kids hold near and dear and things like that. And so sort of the driving force at the very beginning was what do we stand for here at White House? So we started backwards. We sort of started out with what characteristics do we want kids to have. when they leave us, and did some work and basically came up with perseverance, compassion, integrity, and respect. And so we piloted it very willingly with sixth grade core. They just said, let's just run with it. And they did a great job. And you saw down there earlier about how they just run with it, and then last year we threw it out to the building as well, and there was huge interest in it. So it's still in its infancy. And we're going to reconvene the committee pretty soon and start asking staff about how we can support their work in the classroom.

And along with the White Owl Maze and that character committee, you know we've been working on the restorative circles and developing the restorative circles. Doug and Jason actually just took a group of student leaders down to the counselor conference down in Tantara, and they presented.

Yeah, so the restorative practices, just so you all know, so much of it is around the community building. They talk about restorative practices about repairing harm in a disciplinary situation, right? And having the kid really reflect on... who was harmed by what they did and how to improve it. But about 80% of it is just having the community building circle in the classroom, so you have all 25 people really just getting to know one another. Who are we as people? Who are we as a class? And so we trained the whole staff. It took about two years process. And we decided that we wanted to do it in-house rather than send people to a conference at Ed Plus. But in order for people to feel the impact of the community building, we thought it would be best if it was with your peers. So with 14 other teachers and then you feel their impact over two days. And that feeling will then say, oh, I want to do this with our kids. So we did that over four semester sequence. And then the next step was to take it to the kids. So through pursuit days, we trained two groups of 27 kids on running them so they can actually run them. And we took a group now over to the elementary schools with fifth grade so that the middle school kids run circles with the fifth graders on the transition. We had a lot of success with that. The next step is some of the kids presented at Tantara to the adults. That was fascinating. So they took teachers who hadn't been exposed to it and in a circle, like, trained them. So that was fascinating. So we've had a lot of positive results from it.

Another program we did this year to build relationships is we redid our sixth grade orientation program for the web program, which is where everybody belongs. It's attached to the link crew at the high school. It's the same company. We had three extraordinary, dynamic, awesome web trainers in Frankie and Chris Chisholm and Jason Thompson. And if you would have seen the sixth graders and the eighth graders, because the eighth graders are our leaders, and then the sixth graders come for that day. It was an amazing day, and it has really had an impact on our year here is how we even kicked off. And then we invited all the sixth grade families to come up for lunch and really had a good start to the year. But it was a lot of hard work at the beginning of the year with everything else going on, but they did a great job. So that was also another thing that we did. The last thing I want to mention is one of the things that became important through our PDC and we've really built into our professional development plan when it comes to relationships, and specifically around making relationships with students and families of color, is we looked sort of at four deficits that we had. And that was actually through different kind of conversations we've had in our own building, listening to the conversations that we had through the equity committee, and then just looking at data and other components. But we realize that we really need to step up our game and really do a great job around high expectations in academic achievement for all students, high expectations for behavior for all students, how we deal with microaggressions when kids are seeing microaggressions, and then how are we doing with student and parent communications home. And so what we did was we used a model out of Jenny Donahue's collective efficacy where we had our teacher leaders who do great at this. They plan PD on each of these topics. And so when we do one hour of our PD is around the pedagogy that we lead. The other hour is this assured experiences where these teachers lead them. So by the end of this year, everybody will know the expectations in our building are on those four topics. So that we have some common language around it. We have how we're going to work towards it and what we're going to do when it comes to those things. And so like with the microaggressions, they actually like practice interrupting microaggressions. And not just with kids, but when you hear adults say those things or your colleagues say those things. Or we practice and we heard from some parents around how to do parent communications more effectively. And like how do we... work on culturally responsive when it comes to high expectations for behavior. You know, how do we work with high expectations for academics? And all of these things, as I'm sitting here and I look out in the audience and sitting here, we have just amazing teachers. I know you know that. And Doug Treat and I are really lucky that we are here and we get to present to you, but nothing happens without the amazing hard work of all of our teachers. And as I think of each of these things, I can see faces that attach to each one of them and how they've really... pushed for it and pushed me and pushed us to really keep on this path to continual improvement and where we can see us going next. And so I just want to say that publicly to everyone that can hear is that YDEM would not be what it is without its teachers and its parents and of course its students.

the is really important for us in the board to come around to all of the schools and so it's great of the opportunity to go to the other schools too but we would thank you because the work happens at schools and it doesn't happen in central office right where we meet often so we appreciate the opportunity so do we have any public comment I think we might have one maybe yes

thank you thank you

Thank you. So just as we do public comment, just a reminder just for everybody for public comment. So we ask folks to limit it to three minutes. The board doesn't respond, although somebody from the administration will reach out. and respond. So it's not that we don't hear you, it's just that we have a practice that we don't respond. Leo Taggart, right? Thank you.

Leo, do you mind standing up just here a little bit so the microphones can pick up? There you go, perfect.

Okay, so my name is Leo Taggart. I'm an eighth grader here at White Island Middle School, and my topic today is school start times. Just yesterday, the district did start one hour later, and that was a huge impact, and it worked really well. And I think that I'm going to give you seven points on why we should make that permanent. Point number one, it could reduce the time kids are left home alone. Many kids are left home because of parents' schedules, and they get really stressed because of lack of sleep, because of homework, because they have a test on Tuesday, and they need a support group to really help them out and cope with that stress. And because school times start so early and then end earlier, many parents, their schedules don't really work around that. So they don't have, teams don't have the support group to help them with the stress. My second point is that it could reduce health-related issues that come with lack of sleep. Being sleep deprived can cause a number of different bothersome symptoms in kids of any age. A loss of sleep disrupts attention span, focus on their environment, sensory inputs. It can also create a delayed reaction time, irritability, depressed mood, forgetfulness, clumsiness, and trouble learning new concepts. My third point is that it can reduce caffeine dependence. Many teens, as we've heard complaints, go to Starbucks on Friday and a lot of people go to Starbucks every single day after school because they're exhausted and they need energy to stay up through the night to do their homework. And then some people get coffee in the morning because they need to get energy to go through the day. So, that's really important and teens should not be relying on caffeine at this young age. My fourth point is that it gives students a chance to eat breakfast. Breakfast is huge. Many people and students don't get a chance to eat because they're falling asleep really late and then they have to wake up really early. Breakfast is really important. It gets them energy to start off the day and then end the day. With no breakfast, you will have less energy and it will make their attention span be bad. My fifth point is that it could reduce the number of mood changes teens experience. Many teens experience a ton of mood changes because of stress. A lot of stress is caused because not many hours of sleep. So I get mad at my parents a lot Sorry, Mom. Because I'm really stressed out because I have a test or I'm not getting the grade that they want because I'm not sleeping very well. Another point is that it could reduce car accidents for teens. Many teens, and especially at Clayton High School, drive themselves to school. And if they wake up too early, then they don't have the energy and their attention span is terrible. So they can't really... see what's around them and could get in car accidents. My last point is the circadian clock schedule. Teen circadian clock schedule runs later, meaning that the teen brain stays up later and sleeps later. Pushing school times later could let teens adapt to their sleep schedules that they can't even control. If school times are pushed later, the clock schedule makes teens extremely tired throughout the day, making their focus levels go down. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. So I think Jamie's still out there. Jamie mentioned tonight that the teachers that are in the building are really helping making the work move forward, and I also want to recognize the administrators who have to lead that work. I mean, you set the tone for the school, and I want to just recognize you for always thinking about how YDOM can evolve We talk about complacency and that we don't want to become complacent in our high achievement. We want to constantly think about how we can be better for our students. And then always thinking about how we empower. And the other thing that I really appreciated about your presentation tonight is that when we talk about our work around educational equity, it's not about something that is a theme that we're working on. It becomes part of our practice. And that's what Jamie's doing with making this part of our practice and part of the system. So I want to just recognize you for that. So for the last three days, I've actually been at the National Superintendent Forum. And it's a different type of experience than I've ever had in terms of professional development because it was by invitation only. It was a small group of superintendents, about 70 throughout across the country. We address topics ranging from social-emotional learning, equity, innovation, and transformational leadership. And some of the speakers were George Kuros, which he wrote The Innovator's Mindset, which is a book that we really love in the district. And then another speaker was Jamie Kossup, who is the global education evangelist at Google, and that is his job title. And they spoke about the skills that were necessary for students to be successful. And when I heard all of the speakers throughout these last three days, they have been talking about how it's really important that we have high academic expectations, but it has to be coupled with opportunities for problem solving, creativity, collaboration, growth mindset where students have an opportunity to fail forward and then being managers of stress. And I really thought that was interesting that it aligned really with our profile, the graduate, and what we're working towards as a district. And Jamie also encouraged us to stop using these as softs, calling them soft skills, because oftentimes you hear those being called soft skills. And when you say that, you're actually not putting... the importance to these skills that our students need. So I won't say that anymore, and I'm going to encourage you not to do that either. But the other thing that was said during this was how we have to help our kids be self-actualized, which I thought was interesting too, making sure that they are happy and kind people. And One of the speaker's definition of kindness is kindness is loaning someone your strength instead of reminding them of their weaknesses. And I thought about, and then Adam, I think kind of came together. Adam wrote me an email this week, and he sent me an article from The Atlantic. And it was called, it said, stop trying to raise successful kids and start raising kind ones. And it was an article about how the importance of having to teach our kids how to be kind. And so I share that with you is because We are grounding a lot of our work around the strategic plan around those skills, but it's not about lowering expectations. It's not lowering academic focus on academics. It's about giving them skills that are going to carry them through to a world that we don't know what it's going to look like. So I just wanted to emphasize that and really appreciated that the district gave me that opportunity to be a part of this. One of the practices that we have in our district is a model called plan, do and revise. This is when we are looking at that PLC model, it's like when we're saying let's try this based off the data that we're using, let's plan something, let's do it, let's revise it as we look at data again and evidence. And I wanted to bring that up because I'm thinking about the report that you're gonna be here tonight, that you're gonna hear tonight around gifted education. Over the last couple years, we've been planning and we've been doing. And then by looking at information and looking at data, we've had to revise and then start planning again and implementing new strategies. And so tonight's going to be an opportunity for the board to get an update about where we are with our gifted education program. And I believe it's important for our public to hear the work that we are doing around this program. But I also think it's important for the board to hear this at a governance level because you might need to make some decisions in the near future about items pertaining to resources that we might need to put towards the gifted program, potentially in terms of human capital. And so I think it's really important that we all hear that collectively in order to make decisions. I'm going to just check in and see if Adam has any kind of report from the high school or anything that you want to share before we get started with our information item.

Yeah, pretty quick. I just wanted to say we had our first District Advisory Council meeting where we talked about a few things. One of the things was what we wanted our official name to be, and it is going to be the District Advisory Council. That's been talked about a little bit, so we got that done. We talked a little bit about the process that we're going to go through, which is on Friday I get the documents and then I'll take time to read that over the weekend. And then we'll be meeting on the Mondays before the Wednesday board meeting. And so we'll talk about specific things. I'll pull out specific, for example, the gifted presentation today was something that really relates to students. So we talked about that for a little bit. And then they'll ask me, they'll tell me if they have any questions or anything else. And then we make time at the end of the meeting to if they want to have anything else brought up to the board, adding items to the agenda or just specific questions that they might have about certain things. Other than that, fall sports across country was fourth in the state, which is pretty cool. We have four swimmers going to state as well. And the last thing, we've got a speech and debate tournament coming up on the 22nd and 23rd, so not this weekend but the next, where we'll have 305 judges, 29 schools, and over 500 competitors. So that's something pretty awesome happening at the high school. Awesome.

Thank you. So we're going to move on to 6.0, which is an information item on gifted. And I just want to, again, remind her, right, this is an information item, so it's an update. It's not a study item. It's not an action item. So we're not being asked to vote, nor are we really asked to dig in. This is really an update that Melaina and Robin and team are bringing to us. So the floor is yours.

So I'm going to introduce, obviously you know Robin Queens. She's the assistant superintendent of student services and then Megan Margario is our new coordinator of gifted education. And then I'm going to ask Megan to introduce her team who is in the audience.

Yes, so we have all of the gifted specialists from the district in the audience with us tonight. So from Captain we have Laura Winkler. From Glenridge we have Susan Carter. From Mayor Mack, Randy Schweitzer. And from Whiteown, Frankie Senevek.

So the way that we are planning to organize this is that we submitted a report to you that we feel like is a pretty comprehensive report of where we are with our work. And if you've been on the board for a while, you will see. Hopefully have noticed within that report kind of a significant change to some work that we had presented to you Starting two years ago So we wanted to hit a few highlights of that work So Robin's going to talk a little bit about identification and some changes that we're thinking that we've been implementing through identification Megan's going to talk little bit about curriculum And then I'll talk a little bit next steps But the intent of our presentation is not to be a comprehensive overview of what we've done here, but just a couple things to highlight. And then we'll open it up for questions.

Thanks. So over the summer, we conducted a pretty deep data review of the students who were currently identified in the district's gifted program. And we determined that several of the existing structures within the current district's gifted identification process were actually excluding students from traditionally underrepresented populations. And we found that subjective measures such as grades and then test scores such as the NWA MAP assessment and the SRI were heavily favored data points that were actually precluding some of our most underrepresented students from moving forward into individual evaluation and for further testing. More specifically, we recognize that the identification of African American students fell well below the state's 20% equity threshold. So in DESE's guidance related to identifying and serving traditionally underrepresented gifted students, DESE outlines what we call the 20% Equity Index, which basically means that the total percentage of students receiving gifted services should really mirror our subgroup percentages within the district by more or less 20%. And so while African American students make up approximately 15% of our general population in our school district, They only currently make up about 4% of the students receiving gifted services which falls well outside of the 20% equity index. So in order to meet DESE's recommendation, we really should be seeing a representation of African American students in our school district's gifted program closer to 12 to 18%. So for that reason, we started modifying the identification process for the 2019-2020 school year. First of all, we started with removing grades and historical standardized testing data from the universal screening process and transitioning from national norms to more localized norms. So additionally that means students from traditionally underrepresented populations will actually be compared to their racial peers as opposed to national norms. In addition, this is going to increase our ability to screen more students. So DESE actually recommends that you move about 10% to 20% of your student population into individual evaluation We are actively and intentionally casting a wider net, and we are actually moving 33 to 40% of our students into individual evaluations so we can make sure that we are catching students who have previously been overlooked due to some of the structural pieces of the identification process. So the test that we have transitioned to, some were already in use and some are new to the school district. We are currently using the cognitive abilities test, the TORNS test of creativity, as well as a new behavioral scale called the HOPE rating scale that is completed by classroom teachers. These different assessments represent, by DESE's guidelines, measurements of general mental ability, creativity and problem solving. And then DESE has another category considered other, which would include teacher observation data, tools like the Hope Scale and then portfolios that students or teachers could also consider. So we feel like this combination of assessments has a stronger emphasis on nonverbal assessments as well as a stronger mix between qualitative and quantitative measures, and really to improve the alignment between the identification process and the actual programmatic outcomes that are being delivered into all of the school buildings. So the HOPE rating scale is new to our district. We actually have normed that locally, collecting data on students who have both been identified and not identified in our school district. And then moving forward, we are now in the phase where we have established review teams at every building, and we are all meeting regularly. to look at the data together and are really looking at students whose data falls in the top two stay nines. So essentially we're looking at students who are falling in about the top 10% of students as compared to their Clayton peers. In addition to that, and we'll talk a little bit more about this in the board policy that was for study, is a stronger building advocacy process and a clearer review process for for parents who want to request a review of their student's eligibility if they have been determined to be ineligible for gifted services after going through the individual evaluation process.

Okay, so from a curriculum standpoint, kind of in line with what Robin was saying about our identification. So we're identifying students who have strengths in creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking. And so in recognizing that, we went ahead and modified our curriculum to make sure that the services that we provide in the gifted classroom are matching those that we're identifying students for. So we created a cohesive, vertically aligned curriculum over the summer. All gifted specialists got together. They wrote curriculum for about 18 hours over the summer and developed this curriculum map for grades two through eight. Again, this is aligned kind of to our new identification process. But beyond that, what it does is it really creates those targeted areas where we know gifted kids are known to struggle. And so I love that Sean kind of brought up those quote unquote soft skills because those are the ones where we tend to see our kids find the most difficulty. And so we really tried to center our curriculum map kind of around those areas and kind of not necessarily trying to purposefully like create a target area around like anxiety, but trying to create opportunities for maybe that to bubble up in an area that is safe for students. where we can then kind of directly coach them. So we built our curriculum map around three kind of areas called creative confidence, design thinking and purposeful play. And so the idea here is that with these three areas our students will be allowed to confront failure frequently which is not something that gifted students are necessarily accustomed to And so allowing them to kind of know what it feels like to fail hard, fast, and often, and not feel afraid of that. And so also it's going to help them to then build some resiliency to not necessarily being afraid of trying to step out of their box and trying something new, to take advantage of an opportunity that's out there that maybe they don't necessarily know how it's going to end. It also helps them to increase their risk-taking. We're really trying to push innovative thinking for our kids, And getting them to just share ideas wildly and unabashedly. Additionally, with those directed opportunities for coaching, it allows gifted specialists to use the skills that we've been trained in, which is really getting at that metacognitive skill for kids. And so utilizing specialists in the ways that kind of we were trained. And then finally, the curriculum map also offers an opportunity for really clear expectations at every grade level for what kids are supposed to be able to do and how much coaching is going to be needed. And so for our second graders, obviously, it's a lot of directed instruction. But by the time that they're in sixth and seventh grade, we really want to see that independent transition of those skills and so how we get there. But then that also allows a window for parents and community members to be able to see what gifted kids are going to be working on that year, what skills we're going to be working that year and gives them like kind of a window into the classroom. An additional kind of component of our program this year is that at the elementary level they've also organized their report card according to that curriculum map so that's coming out and will be something that goes with our first quarter, our first semester report cards. But they also have started a kindergarten and first grade push in. And what we're trying to do there is just allow students an opportunity to work with a gifted specialist. Every student in kindergarten and first grade gets the chance to work with the gifted specialist in a time like a free choice time And that allows the gifted specialist to be a station for for critical thinking problem-solving The things that we work on in the classroom they get to then bring into our youngest learners By doing so it allows the gifted specialists an opportunity to really identify those students of promise And then when we have those data review meetings like she was talking about during identification Those gifted specialists are an added voice at the table who know kind of what that kid is like as a learner and can advocate for them if necessary Another and kind of final piece to what the elementary gifted specialists have added to their kind of plate this year is that they have a flex time, which is really responsive to the needs of the building. And so in some buildings it looks like the gifted specialist going in and working with teachers to support them on maybe enrichment or differentiation opportunities within the classroom. But it might also look like in another building that it is about creating a support group for students who maybe have anxiety and helping those kids work on that in a way that feels safe and comfortable in a small group setting to really develop those coping strategies. So what that's allowed is our gifted specialists to not only be really responsive to the needs of the building, but to also integrate themselves into the building a little bit deeper.

So as we think about next steps, I think Sean did a really nice job of starting this with thinking about the plan-do-revise cycle. And so I think this is a really clear example of how we do our work. And when I say that curriculum writing is never done and our work is ever evolving, I think the gifted program right now is a really clear sample of this. So when we think from the identification process, in our study and look at that, that we determined some pretty big gaps. Our next step there is to really look at that data and that information to say have we resolved what we identified as gaps? So we'll continue to do some pretty deep data diving to really get a sense of what is it telling us and how are we, like is our program starting to mirror better our population? When we think about curriculum and next steps with curriculum, The, when we went into, like they took on a lion's share of rewriting a cohesive program two through eight over the summer. And really revising a lot of different things, starting to really think very cohesively between the buildings, between the elementary and the middle school level. So as we come out of the first year of that, a lot of our work is gonna be to review that and is that really accomplishing some of the goals that we had put forward? and then to look at some articulation pieces that might be, that have presented themselves. So thinking about like students who take a course at the middle school for a semester versus students who take the course for a year, how are we making sure that we're meeting those needs? So like the foundational skills that we put in first semester, how do we help students in second semester with that? So really looking at those pieces. Thinking about the kindergarten and first grade push-in piece, that's a new piece for us this year. We tried some things with that last year But we've put a solid commitment into that this year and having exposure for all children. And so really revisiting that and looking at what are the structures in both the pedagogical structures as well as just sort of instructional pieces with connecting with children and then how does that help influence our work as we move forward through identification pieces. The flex time is the piece that probably is kind of the biggest question mark for us right now because as we looked at that and as we envisioned that piece, we were really looking at it from a perspective of what are needs of children? So children who are identified as gifted or not just gifted for the 150 minutes that they're pulled out. But so what are the supports that we need to put in place for classroom teachers So that could look like side by side coaching with classroom teachers. It could look like work with children. And so that piece, it feels to me like it's really in its infancy and evolving but we intentionally wanted it to be specific to the needs of the building as well as particular people within the building, students as well as teachers. So some of that will probably come out in professional learning pieces that we identify within the building or just what that side by side work looks like. Sean alluded to some of our update will indicate maybe some need for some resources, and that's a place that when we look at the way that our gifted specialists are utilized throughout the day, we're tapping them out at this point. And so it's like looking at how to, right now what we've prioritized is direct instruction to children both through the pull-out program and then the K1, but then what does that mean for the support in other places? And so we're trying to explore that piece.

Thank you, Melina and Robin and Megan. We appreciate it. And we really appreciate the opportunity for you to give us an update. We understand that it's not fully baked, but you're coming back to us and telling us how you're doing. Does anybody at the board have any pressing questions?

Yeah, sure. So thank you. This was great. It feels like we were responsive to a need and that we're really making great headway. So thank you for paying attention to that need. I just have a quick question on – so it said that there was like a personal or an individual evaluation in grades two and four, and then it looks like we do it – The next year, in the spring of 2020, we do it in first, third, and fifth grade. Did I get that right? So is there anything in place for – I guess my question is twofold. So, A, if we don't identify a kid in first grade, then do we also maybe reevaluate in third grade or as a – okay. And then can they still get identified? Like what about a fifth grader or a sixth grader or a seventh grader? Are we still looking at that point or – Could there be possible identification

in those grades, or how does that work? So the goal is that when we're starting the identification process this year, like looking at kind of starting the process for our first, third, and fifth graders for identification in sixth grade. And so we've looked at sixth grade as kind of that last year of us going through this process with them and trying to identify them.

So then what do you do for kids, though, when the light bulb maybe goes on a little bit later for certain kids? So how do we make sure that we're capturing those kids that might need something extra once they hit freshman year or eighth grade or something like that?

So we don't currently have a step in our identification process after sixth grade. However, any new students who transfer into this, uh, into the district in the middle school grades, we do screen them, um, for the gifted program.

And we just don't have a program that runs through high school. So identifying for a freshman year, they

would just take honors or AP or nothing. Other

questions? Lily.

I do. Um, thank you very much. And, um, You know, having seen the evolution and over time, some of what I really appreciated about the update is that you're paying attention to the accelerating, the enrichment as well as kind of accelerating some of the curriculum for students. I think that's getting at something that's been really important. And then addressing the underrepresented students students and seeming to really be able to make some progress in that. So thank you very much for that, and the adaptability and kind of tweaking things as you go along. So a couple of questions. One is very specific. Do you have an idea? I saw that when – I think it was in this report and not the – Let's see. The weight, you're using the whisk for the next, if somebody appeals,

right? It would be an additional tool that we would consider using if we needed, if we felt like we were in a position that we needed to do further testing.

So if you, do you have a cutoff in mind that you're going to, so that it's not kind of ambiguous and like, do you guys... Have a score in mind that it will help you decide, yes, they should go into the gifted program? Or have you not come up with one?

We have not had to use it yet this school year. I think just like any identification process, its strength is really looking in the body of data that's available for students. So looking at multiple data points and how that data point complements or fits together with our observational data, with the problem solving and creativity data, and looking at all together so we're really getting a full picture of how that

child's presenting. Right, and I know you have all that data. I guess just something that I was wondering about and to think about is whether or not you do want to be, before you use it, kind of have something in mind about the, you know, that they're over 130 or whatever it might be that that might make it less subjective. I guess that's my point. Then a couple much more general questions that I have is... I'm wondering about what efforts are being made to ensure, you've looked at African American students, but any efforts to make sure underrepresented twice-exceptionally students are something you're going to cast a wider net and have ideas about how to do that? No, we've talked

about that. So DESE allows providers for us to – like they have a provision where we can create an additional alternative pathway if needed for that. It's something that we're going to have to look at the data and just see. But we started with African Americans because that seemed to be the most glaring need that was present in our program, and we'll have to approach that for sure. Okay, great.

And – The other question I have is, since we are having additional testing with creativity and the nonverbal tests, do you have thoughts about how then we may end up with students with all kinds of, I guess a broader definition of gifted? do you have ideas about how to tailor then what kind of services we're providing based on if this is a super creative student or if this is a very, you know, a student that's really good at a particular area, like how we're going to individualize it?

Yeah, so we've been working a lot on just kind of for lack of a better term, like kind of rebranding our understanding of gifted. Because what we've previously been identifying for where we were identifying under these like largely academic pieces but our services were provided more along what the gifted specialists are trained for which are more of those like metacognitive pieces. And so we're working our way toward like kind of an understanding, like more like developing a better understanding of like what giftedness is in our district. But also working with and trying to provide resources for classroom teachers in areas of like academic development and academic acceleration and things like that, because we can we're happy to be a resource and a support for that. But our skill set is set in those kind of metacognitive skills, and that's really what we're trying to get after with the kids that we identify, is making sure that when they come to us, it's those kids that really are in need of that creative problem-solving or critical thinking need.

Thank you. And then my last question is, do you have – are we receiving or seeking parental input as we go along? I don't mind that,

I'm sorry. So we have been working with a group, the Parents of Gifted Learners, so Jessica Adelcalar and Chris Nguyen have been meeting with us and meeting with Megan on a pretty regular basis.

Yeah, but parent nomination is not a part of the gifted identification process because we utilize a universal screener. So really the step for parents to get involved in the process is really that final kind of review process where if they receive a letter indicating that their child did not qualify for services and they want to kind of request a further review of that, then we've got a process built in for that. Okay, thank you.

Questions, anybody else?

Go ahead. The advisory council had two quick questions. One of them was looking at the name, I know that we call it Exploratorium in the middle school, but in the elementary school it's the gifted program, and just wondering to see if there's any way to check in with students who maybe aren't in the gifted program to see how that narrative works. comes across to them and then something else that they were wondering was if those so like we talked about DaVinci earlier today which is a great opportunity for students who may not be in the Exploratorium program to go do some work that kind of works on some of these skills that you know we're working on finding that individualization I'm wondering if there's any like I know you talked about the flex time for the kindergarten and first graders but is there anything else for other students to get some of these resources in the elementary school

In the elementary schools? Yeah. Our gifted specialists are really kind of at max capacity at this point with just trying to meet the needs of the students that are identified and then also kind of getting into those classrooms. They are working with teachers through those flex time, and the flex time isn't limited to just kindergarten or first grade. It's for any grade level. So like the teacher at Merrimack is working with a fourth grade teacher, and so they don't have to be just like kindergarten or first graders. The kindergarten or first grade is more of a push-in program.

Thank you. Any other

questions? Can I just respond to Adam really quick? I believe in elementary it's not called the gifted program anymore. It's called Excel. Yeah, it's called extended

learning.

They call it

Excel. Okay. Sorry. No, you're fine. I just wanted to address that question.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. So we're moving on to 7.01, which is policy IGBB on gifted. Yes.

So in 2018, Senate Bill 743 started requiring school districts that had a gifted program to create a board-approved policy establishing a process that outlined procedures and conditions. for situations where parents or guardians may request a review of a decision that their child was ineligible for the district's gifted education program. So if you flip to the last section, that is the part that is new. The way that we've outlined or are suggesting the board approve this policy that sets up procedure for parents to reach out to me the district assistant superintendent of student services to request a review of their child's eligibility and after receiving that review that I would convene a multidisciplinary team to review the existing data related to the student and that the team would determine whether the student does qualify does not qualify or further data collection is needed in order for the team to make a final decision

Thank you. Anybody have any questions, comments? Lily.

I have one. I think I have one. And that is on doing that. I was just wondering, just because policies, we want to be so specific and clear on that. I was wondering about, we use interchangeably, I think one time it says that it's going to be the superintendent will designate a district administrative staff, and then on the last page it says the district's assistant superintendent of student services. Should we be consistent about that and just say that it's I don't know, either making it general in case it changes from being the student services. You know what I'm saying? Do you

want me to show you?

Yeah, I see

what you're saying. Because it's both. Yes, because the first part on the bottom of page three says, designates the superintendent will designate a member of the school district and admin staff in this case I have been the one that has been designated we could adjust the language to say by contacting the the district administrative staff designated by the superintendent. Yeah, I

think being consistent in that it doesn't matter to me which way we do it. If you think it's always gonna be this, we're gonna have an assistant superintendent of student services, it makes sense to just call it that. We'll just add it behind

the assistant superintendent if everyone's okay with those changes.

Do you do testing for emotional intelligence for gifted?

I'm sorry, we typically don't take questions from the audience. Any other questions? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. So we're moving on to 7.02, which is policy IKF.

So policy IKF is about graduation requirements. Most of the changes that are being recommended are wording changes and then like pretty much everything else that I brought to the table this year, additions because of Senate Bill 603 related to virtual education so they wanted language within the policy related to that. So my recommendation is to take the changes as proposed.

Questions? Okay, so we are moving on to 7.03, which is the Board of Education protocol around communication with the superintendent. Amy, that's you.

Okay, so Joe and I had the opportunity to get together, I don't know, a couple weeks ago and draft some protocol around communication with the superintendent. And the reason that we did this was to attempt to provide some structure and put some – some mechanism in place for how boards, this board and future boards, are going to communicate with the superintendent of the school district. And the reason we thought that this was an important thing was because typically the superintendent is busy doing a lot of things, and in order to preserve and protect his time or her time, whoever the superintendent is during any given board, We feel that it's important that there's some structure in place so that the superintendent can then, in turn, ensure some maximum student impact. So that's really the reason why we did this. And the board protocol was attached to... It was in board docs, so hopefully everybody's had a chance to review it. And if anybody has comments, we would love to discuss.

So we can just start, does anybody? Yes, Stacy.

Thank you for your time doing this. I just had one small thought. So in the rationale statement, it says to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the superintendent and administration to ensure optimal student impact. I wonder if we want the and administration in there or if this should specifically be the superintendent Yeah. Or if you mean that, if this is about communication with the superintendent, that then will trickle down and. The efficiency of the

administration also. So I actually started to kind of redline mine. I think what Joe and I intended was for this just to be communication with the superintendent and that we were going to do a separate protocol with respect to communication with administration so as to not confuse the two, but that was our... Yeah, I was going to

suggest either deleting that from this or adding it throughout.

Okay.

But if this is specific to superintendent, we should probably take that. That's right. Thank

you.

Other

thoughts?

I had a similar question about that as far as how we would think about folding in the other staff. And I think maybe one reason to have a separate protocol is because presumably communications with the rest of the staff might include the superintendent at some level. You may want to specify that. But I do think this is really helpful, and as I think about my own practice on other boards and other groups and feedback from our district and administrators. I think it's helpful to think about, particularly the longer we The longer we work together and as boards, you know, we only have one year as one set board, but it changes every year. And you have different lengths of time when people have worked together and with each other. And I certainly find myself – it's easier to be informal and sometimes out of protocol with more experience and more – as you work together, and it's good to be reminded of there is still a process and there's governance, and I think this is a good way to put some of that structure in place and just help us to remember that. So I found this to be kind of helpful reminders and procedures because I thought about my own function.

I think if you're saying that, I will say that we talked about this last spring as a board. This is not something we haven't talked about. The idea is we need to put this in writing because of that. Sometimes it's easy to forget, so we want to document it and have a written governance manual. Do you want to speak to this?

Sure. So I don't want to forget. One of the board members did send an email saying, Suggesting a few items be added, so I thought that I would bring those up. And if anybody has any comments to those, we can add them or not add them as people see fit. And the first was to add a statement that this protocol will be reviewed annually, ideally sometime after the April election. So that was the first comment. So is that something that all protocols that we have

should be

reviewed?

by each new thing. So is this something specific to this, or is that something that we want to call out for all? You know,

every new board needs to go through them. Right, kind of as needed. Either or, I'm just saying. I think it's a good idea. I just

think

it

should be for all the board calls that work.

And a reminder of what they are. I think that's another reminder. Right. Okay. And the second one was that the superintendent with notification to the board president may reach out to individual board members for input to provide information. So does anybody have any comments or questions?

I guess my understanding was that that's always, like the superintendent can reach out to any of us. I think this is more about us reaching him or her. Is that right? Or maybe we need that in writing.

I mean, I think that the protocol speaks more to how board members are going to communicate with the superintendent. So I'm not sure that we necessarily need to add that, but if people feel strongly about it, then...

I mean, I do think that it's a, sorry to

jump around too much, but there have been criticism in the past of that happening. And so I think it might not be a bad idea to clarify that just because we have a procedure with how we kind of formally communicate, it doesn't mean the superintendent is limited.

So do you want to add a statement to the effect of nothing here and she'll limit the superintendent from... reaching out to individual board members? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I mean, I think that seems very appropriate to me that that be included. I wouldn't have certainly insisted on it.

Yeah. No, I agree.

Okay. Any other thoughts, questions? I would just say, again, I think it's really, I mean, to emphasize what Amy started out by saying, the whole point of this is to make our superintendent the most efficient and effective administrator on behalf of students. And we need to not unnecessarily take up, in this case, Sean's time, right? And so we've got to be respectful of that, right? Because that's what this is getting at. Okay, awesome. Thank you. So we're going to move on to, I guess, check that

out. Are we voting on this?

We are going to vote on it next meeting. Next week. Next meeting. Right, I just didn't

know. I should have said when are we voting.

Yes, next meeting, so December the 4th is when we, just like we're going to vote on the board agenda one, this meeting. It will become an action item next meeting. Okay.

Okay, so for checkout, we have the only checkout that's coming from the policy gifted is that we're going to add the designee to the assistant superintendent. So that way it's clarified in there. There are no comments about the graduation requirements policy. And then for the education, the protocols with the board, we're going to remove and administration because we will move into having a protocol that is specific to the other district administrators. And then we will add another bullet around superintendent about reaching out. We'll also inform the board president when reaching out to other board members. And then I do think it's a good question around, and this is not, this wasn't said, but I do think we need to think about where these are going to be housed on board docs so that way they're really evident to everyone. And then I think it would be good to put in a systematic way of coming up with reviewing the protocols So we can kind of think about what that's going to look like.

Okay. So we're moving on to action items. 8.01, the approval of policy IGAEB.

Motion? Yes,

please.

Move that the Board of Education approve policy IGAEV as presented.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded. Are there any questions or comments about this one? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously, which in this case is 6-0. Okay. All right, so we'll move to 8.02, which is to approve policy GB. Please. I move that the Board of Education approve policy GB as presented.

Second.

It's been moved and second. Any questions, comments? Joe, maybe

just for the benefit of our audience, since we have a lot of people here, we should just point out that we go through this review process and then we vote the second time. So all of these things have been reviewed before so that we're not skipping them. A couple times. Why did they talk about some of them for ten minutes and some of

them don't? Thank you for saying that. Yes, thank you. That's great. No, that's exactly right. Thank you for saying it. Any other questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously, 6-0. Okay, now we're moving on kind of to your earlier point, Stacy. We're moving on to 8.03, which is the Board of Education protocol for adding items to a meeting

agenda. I move that the Board of Education approves the protocol for adding an item to the board meeting agenda as submitted.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Are there any questions or comments? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, also passes unanimously 6-0. Thank you. Okay, so we are now moving on to

8.04. I move that the Board of Education approve the resolution authorizing and directing the issuance, sale, and delivery of general obligation refunding bonds series 2019.

SECOND.

IT'S BEEN MOVED AND SECONDED. ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. AYE. ANY OPPOSED? OKAY. ALSO PASSES UNANIMOUSLY, 6-0.

OKAY. 8.05? I move that the Board of Education approve Missouri American Water, a single source provider, to move a public-owned water line outside the profile of Advoc Field as described above and authorize an increase to the budget to pay for the additional expense.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Are there any questions? Do you want to give us a quick... Yeah, I want

to give an update on this.

Yeah, sure. Give us a quick update.

Tim and Jim. I got my friends.

Crystal.

You know, Tim Wanus, Director of Facilities, and Jim Brunel, the Assistant Director of Facilities. They're going to join me. Thank you. In the executive summary, I discussed the need to move water lines from under the field profile. So I'm providing a map that will give you an idea of what we're going to be talking about. So there's a yellow highlighted line, and that represents existing water lines. And then pink highlighted lines are the proposed relocation. And I'll go into a little bit more detail as we move forward. There's also a blue highlighted line representing electric lines. And I've highlighted that line because as I discuss the water lines, I want to address other pending issues we're continuing to work to resolve. So prior to construction at the time of the project approval, we discussed how the sewer lines ran under the field profile and it was recommended to move the lines, both sanitary and septic, around the perimeter of the field. This was a cost of approximately $150,000. These were known costs prior to construction and what we discovered during construction is the field has been layered over and over resulting in a layer of dirt so thick that where we were trying to identify manholes we couldn't find them because the field profile has just gotten thicker. As a result of that, water locator tracer tapes that are on the water lines also were not getting picked up, and so we've discovered water lines under the field. Further changes have been made to the original design that have resulted in the water retention basin going deeper than the existing depth of the buried electrical utilities, so that's why that's highlighted on there. They're basically about three feet down, and the depth of the water retention pond is eight feet. So as we start at the bottom of the diagram and move up, you can see the water lines that run through the field by home plate. These are public lines, so if there was a break in those lines, Missouri American Water is just gonna come out and start digging. So they'll dig up the field profile, they'll drive out onto the field, and they will damage a lot of the field. So it is best practice to get the water lines out from underneath the field and into the roadway. So since this is a public line, Missouri American Water must move the line at an estimated cost of $70,000. Their costs are much more substantial. It's about 100 feet of line. So when we talk about the next line, it's about 500 feet of line that is less than that because it's a private line. But unfortunately, we're kind of stuck with that. So we presented that as an action item for the board because it's not something we can bid. And if we just do it ourselves, we don't have a markup from the existing contractor. So we just thought it was the best way to move forward. So then when you look at the second water line at the top, that's a private line that was not marked in any of the drawings. And there's a sewer line that runs right along there. So when we were putting the sewer line in, that was discovered. And... Since the line is near the water retention basin and the sewer lines, we have to have so much space. So the anticipation is that we will move that around the water basin, but we are looking at other options that might make it less movement and cheaper. So we haven't presented that as an official change order yet, but currently that's an estimated cost of $59,000. So with those two costs... of those water lines, our contingency now is $100,000 over budget. And so further, those electrical lines that are needing to be moved, we've been working, or these guys really, have been working extensively with Ameren to determine the best option, and we don't have an estimate on this cost yet. He's actually hoping by the end of the week, but...

They're supposed to get back to us just with an idea where they want to run them, you know. Maybe they'll have a cost, but she wasn't able to tell me that on the phone yesterday.

And there's actually a second existing issue that actually we found a savings of about $23,000 that we can apply towards this. Because of this issue, we realized we could actually move something from the boiler house to the other side and make some changes to actually... have a cost savings to it. So that piece we got the savings to, but we don't know the costs of the other. So I just want everyone to be aware this is one cost that's coming forward and then there'll be a second change order and then also the electrical lines once we get those. And so we have already put costs of this project for Atzick Field into the capital plan that these guys administer. So initially on the onset, there was $140,000. There was some other electrical things that we were doing with the high school that was $70,000 that we put into their budget that kind of was part of this plan. And so we just feel like... Trying to continue to tap into this and then we want to present some items that are going forward with The Maryland building that we would just like to leave those funds to do different projects rather than to continue to tap so $100,000 with the additional funds that we're going to be getting from the tax levy this year We would just like to present this as a budget increase as well as the electrical costs when they come forward At that point in time. I'll have a pretty good idea of with the final numbers, with the tax rate, because we'll have all the time of building numbers. And I can give the board a good idea of what the potential fund balance will look like. But regardless, we projected a $2.6 million increase in the fund balance, so this would be 100,000 approximately from now. And then when all of the numbers are exact, we'll bring the official budget revision forward at that time. So this would be approval to move forward, and then the official budget revision will only be for the actual costs. So they come in less. This was Missouri American Water's high-end estimate. So it could potentially be less. Anything else you want to add?

You covered it pretty well. Questions from the board? Anybody

have

any questions? Joe, I'm actually, this is going to be a little bit annoying, but I'm going to move to amend the previous motion and I can explain why. Because just the wording, I tried to read this before so yeah. So I'm going to move that the motion be amended as follows so that the word above be deleted and replaced with in the report presented to the board.

Replaced with?

In the report presented to

So you will put that amendment forward? Yes. Does anybody second it? Second. Okay, so we need to vote on that amendment. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Opposes? That passes unanimously. Apologies for not catching up. That's all right. So then we will... Does anybody have any... It's still open. Does anybody have any other questions before we vote on the full amended motion? Okay, so we're voting on the amended motion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, passes unanimously. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thanks, Gary. That's a good catch. Nope, that's a good catch Okay, so we are moving on to our consent agenda. I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda. Second. Any comments or questions about the consent agenda? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Passed unanimously. All right. We are now moving on to 10.0, which is board communication. Does anybody have any board communication?

Yes, Gary. I'd love to talk about the professional learning event. No, you. Please. I was really glad to attend the St. Louis County Professional Learning Community event on Saturday that Joe and a number of other district board members have been planning. It's our third event now, I guess. And I was... Just come back from a trip on the West Coast when I was really tired and I didn't want to get up, but I was really glad that I did on Saturday morning. And the presentation that we had from the organization called Alive and Well was on trauma-informed. I cannot believe how much I learned and needed to learn, I guess, because I've heard a lot of you smarter people talk about it for years and didn't realize how little I understood it. But I thought that was really good, and we also had some really good interactions in breakout groups after that and getting together around topics that we were interested in. kind of brainstorming and talking about ways to continue our learning and our work around different topics. And I think, did you say it was 17 different school districts? It

actually wanted to be 19 different school districts, 17 from St. Louis County, St. Louis Public, and then actually somebody from the State Board.

Yeah. Just an even more diverse and similar number of total people, I thought, when we've had these before. And it feels like a real energy around... working for a lot of common goals and regional goals and growth and support of education. And it was genuinely inspiring and glad to be able to be a part of it. Thanks. Other? Yes, Stacey.

While we're here at Y-Down, I just have to mention that I came to see the play Puffs, which was last weekend. And I just want to say I'm always continually blown away by the theater productions here. So whether you have a kid at Y-Down or not, or even if you do and they aren't, whether they're involved in theater or not, I would encourage everybody to come see the shows because they put so much work into it. And just to think that middle schoolers are even building the sets and the costumes and the lights and the sound is really... Really impressive, and we're really lucky to have this here. And second of all, I went on a walkthrough with Sean to the offsite catalyst program. to see the space that we share with Brentwood, Ladue and U City. And the space itself is so cool. Like these kids are really in a real office environment, complete with like an auditorium and conference rooms and smaller offices and a kitchen and like a lounge area. They can really feel like they are working, you know, in a business. And we were lucky enough to catch a couple kids who had just come from their first practice pitch of their business. And so they gave us their pitch, which was so fun to see, and to be able to ask them questions, and they were getting feedback from the two of us. Anyway, and Mr. Hildebrand then came in to kind of give us a tour, and it was really cool to see. And I just not only loved... Meeting these couple students that gave us their little business pitch, but seeing the space was really neat to just To get a tour of and see and the collaboration that we have these other school districts to share the space It's really cool, and I know we hear a lot about catalyst all the time, but to see where they work was great So you guys should all go see

it

It's like a page in 170 Yeah,

if you schedule a walkthrough with me and with Barbara, I will take you over there. It was really neat to

see. And they have security in and out like you would in an office building, and it's really neat. Really

neat. Other board communication? Lily?

Yes. I attended, for me, the first meeting of the Sustainability Committee in the city that the city holds on October 24th. And a couple of kind of key points that came out of that is one, we reviewed or we talked about kind of what our past achievements by the sustainability group and what kind of brainstormed about initiatives for brainstormed about ideas for the 2020 action plan. And then we also talked about within that, one thing is promoting the city's success with energy benchmarking in both kind of residential and for businesses. And then the other part was we're going to be working on... coming up with ideas as the city is embarking on their creation of a new comprehensive plan that to make sure that the sustainability group defines and creates their own kind of vision statement and advises the elected officials about work that we think is important within the sustainability domain. And then I would say one other thing in light of the PLC last weekend that I will submit to you, Sean, if you're willing to put it on the Friday memo, that NSBA's, it's a talk on safety versus or and trauma-informed schools, some things that we really need to pay attention to be a truly trauma-informed. It was nationally done really, really good. I think might be an even deeper dive into what that means for us and our work.

Any others? I have just two real quickly. One, we did have the city board breakfast, and I would just share just a couple things going on in the city's world. They're obviously looking for a city manager, which we know, and so that process is underway. They did say there are no internal candidates, just for what it's worth. So it will be an external, and that's what they told us. Second, there is certainly a number of public comment and even some concern about a potential development in that parking lot that's right across from Starbucks at Y-Down and Hanley. So they were speaking about that. And then finally, and forgive me if I'm forgetting the name, but their equity commission, which is not called an equity commission. It's called something else, right? But you all know what I'm talking about. They're actively seeking members, and I think last Friday maybe was the deadline for kind of getting applications in. So they'll be naming those folks soon. And then the only other thing I did want to say is that it is certainly dawning on me that the sign-up for new candidates would be December 17th. So I would be remiss if I didn't say that out loud because we are sitting here November 13th. And so we only have one board meeting. in between now and December the 17th, which means, yeah, so December 4th is our next board meeting, and then we have one on the 18th, literally the night after. So I just want to give Kristen and Lily and Gary the heads up that during this time, on December 4th, I will be giving you the opportunity to declare if you're running again or not. You don't have to, but I just wanted to say that for you all. Thanks very much. You're welcome for the warning. So, and we have just three candidates, right, for the public. Three positions, three seats, right? There will be three seats that are open up this time. Anybody have anything else? A movement to adjourn? I move that the Board of Education adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you all.