May 3, 2023 — Meeting Transcript

So Gary, we're going to

adopt the

agenda.

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

Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? OK. Motion passes. And is Carter giving an update today? No. OK. All right. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Patel.

Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. Before we get started, I thought it would be good to just do some introductions. You obviously know the board members, but our panel here. So I'm going to start with Doug, if you don't mind just stating your name and your position.

Sure. Hi, I'm Doug Wehner, acting principal of Whitehound Middle School. Good evening. I'm Mark

Smith, chief of police for the Clayton Police Department. My name is Jack Boger. I'm a Clayton police officer assigned as the school resource officer for the district.

I am Jim Brunel. I'm the director of facility services for the district. Thank

you. I am Sheila Powell Walker, and I am one of two district social workers. I am assigned to Y-Down Middle School and Clayton High School.

And I'm Robyn Wiens. I'm the assistant superintendent of student services.

And I'm Robin Wiens. I'm the assistant superintendent of student services.

So thank you, everyone, for being here. Much appreciated. So I think what we want to start off with just to kind of talk to you a little bit about the purpose of tonight which is obviously to engage our community and in a dialogue about something very important, which is safety and security on our campuses and our buildings. And we can also address what happened at Y down middle school a couple of weeks ago. But before we do that, I thought I would just give you like an overview of recent safety and security updates and enhancements that we've done in our district. Starting, I will go back to April of 2019. So that's before the pandemic. So April of 2019, the School District of Clayton went to the community and asked to approve Prop E. Part of that, when it was approved, part of that investment was going to be in safety and security of our school system. So basically any kind of physical enhancements, reviewing the safety protocols, and anything else that we decided we needed to do to improve the overall security in our buildings. So that happened in April. In October of 2019, we ended up contracting with Tier 1 Tactical Solutions and Bond Architects to really look and do a safety audit. And so basically their purpose was to look at all of our campuses, look to see where are areas of growth and what are things that we're really doing well. So even looking at our policies, our procedures, and our practices. So they started all that work. And then the following spring, they came up, came to the board and made their recommendations on things that we can do better, right? And part of that could have been improving safety security like the front entrances of buildings. Part of that was even the addition of gender neutral bathrooms. Part of that could have camera systems, et cetera. So based on those recommendations, we then divided it up into two phases. The first phase was summer of 2021, which included, if you've noticed, some of the secure vestibules that were built in front of the schools. So phase one included Glenridge, it included Captain, it included Y-Down, and it included the high school. And that was the summer of 2021. Then last summer, we ended up doing the enhancements, the front entrances for Merrimack, which was still left, the family center, the admin building and facilities. In addition, phase two included something for all the campuses, which was the camera system. We already had cameras throughout our buildings, but we wanted to enhance that and provide more. So that was something that we started working on for all the buildings. Another thing that also was part of phase, part of the end of phase one and phase two was the badge system, like our visitor management system. So if you notice sometimes when you come into the buildings, not sometimes, you always should be when you come into buildings, you give your ID and we put it through the badge pass system and you get a sticker. So that was part of phase one and phase two. And then also the last part was the intruder panic buttons that you can see, actually there's one over there as well, that were placed throughout the buildings in all the buildings. So the panic buttons, they usually do three things. They alert, the recording goes off and the alert comes up, contacts 911 and the fire doors close. So that would be fully operational. Obviously, when the incident happened at Y down middle school a couple of weeks ago we were trying to get it fully programmed so things that we didn't do right and I've mentioned that in the email we shouldn't have done it during the school day because that's what triggered it also we should have made sure that we knew who was entering the building went and that was another point that we that was a mishap and we need to get better at it so since then we've done we've had a lot of conversations obviously that was a traumatic event for so many of our students and our staff and our parents and from every experience we try to learn from it and be better from it we did a lot of conversations with our students we had a lot of conversation with the police department With that event, the things that did go right is basically everything that we were supposed to do is what happened. All the training that we have in terms of options-based training, if there is an intruder in the building, what do you do? Our students and staff did that. The police department was here within two minutes. So those are the things that went right. But we also found things that were holds, right? And that was probably the best scenario we could have had in terms of finding areas that we need to get better in. But unfortunately, it shouldn't have happened to begin with. So, we're trying to learn from it. Since then, I've met with Officer in Chief Mark Smith. We've met. We've talked about adding an additional SRO. How do we enhance the security in that portion of it? I know the Board is very supportive of that as well and wants that to happen. We've contracted with Tier 1 Tacticals again to do another safety audit, which they're going to start within a week, which means interviewing 10 percent of our entire staff, looking at what we have in place, How can we improve with that? And we went with them because they're the ones who did the original recommendations. So, it makes sense. They're familiar with our campuses. They can come back and say, here are the recommendations we made. Where are you guys at? So, we've done that. We've already contracted to start putting like additional, security enhancements in different buildings as well. So I'm not, I'm going to not continue talking because I know that there may be questions and dialogue where we can continue to answer some questions. But I do want to say if there are specific questions you ask, we may not be able to give you specific details in accordance to law just for safety security reasons. Because this meeting is being recorded and we may not be be able to give too many details on certain things, I think. We can all understand the why behind that. So at this point, let's talk. If anybody has any questions, thoughts, just wants to share their viewpoint, I think we have two mics set up here and just feel free to come up. Or if any of the board members even want to say anything. There we go.

All right, is it three minutes?

No, you can go for it. We've put it at three minutes, but we'll, it's fine.

yeah all right well i'd like to thank all the members of the board tonight for inviting me to speak that's such a wonderful opportunity and i'd also like to thank everyone else for coming to this meeting as uh for showing your support for school safety so i know that tonight's meeting is very special and very important over the past few weeks at clayton high school we've seen two incidents that happened back to back that put our school safety in the question And immediately after these two incidents occurred, I immediately went to a school counselor and I addressed these incidents and I'll keep their identity private. We had a very long discussion about these two incidents. And one of the things that I brought up to the counselor was an interesting observation that both of these incidents involved objects that were designed to look like firearms. The first incident had a person carry in to the school a fake toy plastic gun, and the second incident involved an air-stopped weapon. Both were fake, but they were designed to look like real weapons. So I asked a counselor, How do we know if people are carrying concealed weapons into our school? Like it's so easy to put a gun into a backpack or a knife into a pocket or a lighter into a pocket. How do we know of people are bringing concealed firearms into our school? And he said, we don't. We don't really know because we don't have metal detectors. I believe we don't have x-rays. We don't have these systems in place that can detect, and we don't search people's backpacks either, so we don't know whether or not people actually bring concealed firearms into the school. And so the main strategy that our district uses in order to detect concealed weapons is by relying on our students. We want our students to be vigilant and we want our students to observant of their surroundings and use their eyes to determine whether another person is carrying a concealed firearm. But a question I have for this board is that since we don't really have, I don't believe we have metal detectors, since we don't have x-rays, since we don' search people's backpacks, what are we gonna do when someone carries a concealed weapon into the school and nobody else sees it? What are we gonna do in that instance? And another question I want to ask is instead of relying on our students, instead of relying on the eyes of our students, what methods and what strategies can we implement into our school systems like more technologies, more strategies, and more methods to better detect whether someone is bringing a concealed weapon into the school or not, whether they have a gun in their backpack or a secret knife hidden in their pocket. How can we know that? What can we do to better know if people are doing this or not? And these are questions that we definitely have to consider because school violence It's something that it can happen to – it doesn't matter whether your community is wealthy, whether your school is safe, or whether you have a wealthy school or not. But school violence, it can happen at any moment, any time, and at any place. And these are questions that I hope the board can consider tonight as they're very important for our school safety. Thank you.

Thank you. Tell me your name again.

I'm Wayne.

Wayne. Okay. Okay. That was great. Thank you, Wayne. So can I just ask you a clarifying question? Oh, yeah. So when you're talking about the – is your concern that students might be bringing in weapons?

Yeah, mostly students because the past incidents at Clayton High School, they were – I think they were involved – they were students who were doing that.

Yeah, we worry about that too, so I'll let the experts address that.

You know, I think one of the big things is education of the students, of talking to the kids on what they are allowed to not bring in and expressing to them the penalties that might come along with it. I believe at the beginning of the school year, they do have a speech directed at the students to let them know, hey, you know, what is allowed and not allowed. But again, I think education would be a big part of that, just letting them know. As far as metal detectors, scanners, That's probably going to be an issue that the school district is going to make on their own. You know, yeah, and I would leave that up to them to maybe discuss that issue.

I would say with metal detectors, right now we have a court going on in Clayton, and it creates a big delay in getting people through there. It would take a long time. If you've ever been to the county courthouse in Clayton, you'll see it every day. There's lawyers backed up trying to get in there because they're all going through the metal detector. So it would... be quite a task to pull that off. But you're right, we do rely on information from students, but we also rely on information from parents, teachers, our school resource officers. We do take part in a program throughout the metro area with other school resource officers. It's actually led by federal law enforcement where we assess threats, whether those threats are through social media, you know, Alarming social media posts, information gained from parents. We take a look at that and intervene when necessary. So a lot of information does come. I mean, not to make light of this, but we find out about parties going on in Clayton through social media and parents telling us. The same goes with threats. We hear about it from the parents, and then we intervene. But a lot of that information comes from the school district itself.

I think in addition to that, one of the top protective factors is trusting relationships with adults. And so I know we have quite a few students here. Do you mind raising your hand if you are a student at Clayton High School? Great. I'm so glad that you are here. So you probably recall that during this school year, at some point in time, you've been asked either in the Panorama Survey or directly from your teachers about telling us like the names of the adults that you would feel comfortable contacting if there was an issue that either you were personally experiencing or a concern that you had around safety or anything related to your teaching and learning experience in our buildings. And we know that is one of the biggest protective factors in keeping our community safe because even before a student is found with a weapon, we need to figure out what's the function of bringing the weapon to school and how do we do more preemptive work to prevent that from happening. I think the other thing, too, is that all of our community members are empowered and able to use many of the different reporting functions we have. So in addition to obviously going to a trusted adult, all of us have access to the quick tip line that's available through the website as well as the Missouri-based Courage to Report. And all of those messages that get received are immediately pushed out to whichever building has been tagged. Or if it comes through Courage to Report, they contact the school district directly related to students who may be in direct threat of safety to themselves or to others, or a variety of other concerns that adults and community members and students can share. So those are other options if students don't feel comfortable telling an adult in the building that we have a variety of ways for people to share important information.

Okay, so I think that's great. I'll also add that as a board, one of our probably our top priority right now is social emotional wellness of our students and we are in the process of really doing a I don't want to say revamping but there's going to be some new I don't know how much I can say reimagining of what that looks like and I think that it includes having social workers or psychologists on staff that, you know, maybe might be able to identify high-risk students and making sure that we're taking care of our kids from a social emotional standpoint as well. And I don't know, I'm sure Sheila might have more on that as well.

And I think, Wayne, you mentioned the idea of metal detectors at the high school. A few parents have actually reached out and also brought that up. But at the same time, we also have parents who worry about, speaking of mental wellness, right, the idea of having that in a school in terms of social-emotional. I think that's also something that we need to consider as well. It sounds like why wouldn't we just put metal detectors, but I think there's a larger impact that happens there as well that we need to consider. Thank you for your question. Great questions.

Hi, I'm Marisa Johnson. I have students at Whiteown and Glenridge. And I actually have three questions. in no particular order. But first Dr. Patel, I wanted to thank you for your, the email that you had sent out the night after the incident at Whiteown. It was clear and specific. It was actionable. It took accountability. It was as a parent, the first communication that I'd received that conveyed any sort of confidence. And I'm wondering what is the communication plan when an incident like this happens? What do families expect? My second question is, will there be implementation of intruder drills so that students know what they're supposed to do no matter where they are in the building? And then my final question is, you had said at the top that all of the students and the faculty did exactly what they were supposed to do during the intruder drill. alarm, but my student did not report that to me. I've heard from other students and families that that was not their experience either. And so can you explain what follow-up there is with the staff and also what kind of continued training and accountability that they have for any future incidents that might arise? Thank you.

You bet. So I'm glad you said that about what I said, that all the students and staff did exactly what they were supposed to. I have heard that not everyone did. So one of the things that did come up from this incident was specifically our subs, right? In terms of the training that we provide. And so our HR department action steps, what we learn is every year our subs that we hire go through a specific training. Part of that is in the intruder drill training. So what we've done is our HR department is now going to regroup all the subs, have in-person training again before the end of the school year, and also implement it the following year in a more systematic way and more frequent way. In addition, on Friday, all the buildings had like faculty meetings where we reviewed the processes and the procedures. If there is an intruder drill, what do you do, et cetera? Another gap that we found was in terms of large spaces, do we practice that enough? And the answer to that is right now we have not. So that's something that we want to already start to implement in terms of it needs to be developmental as well, right? Just the trauma from going through a drill like that can be hard at the elementary level. So what does that look like? Could it look differently in the classroom where you're sitting with a teacher and you talk through, hey, if you're outside on the playground or if you're in the cafeteria, these are the things you do. So it depends on the level I think as well. But those are action steps we've already started to take in like how do we continue to have these drills that are effective and that they help our students and staff. So the answer to your question is we've done a few things already, and then we're gonna continue to do it better for the next school year. Your question in terms of what was the other one? Oh, communication, yes. So when an incident like this happens, typically I will be the first one to get a call I then send out a text or a phone call to our central office team like, hey, this is happening. In this situation, the principal is usually the one that calls me. We're trying to manage everything that's happening at the building level, at the same time trying to send out communication as quickly as we can. The Y-down incident, I know Doug sent out a phone call as well. We tried to send a text and an email as well. there's just a lot of different things that are happening at that time. But what we try to do is get information out as quickly as we can, especially to the parents. And then after the fact, try to give you follow-up, like this is what happened, this is what we did, which is more detailed. One of the things that we've also recognized is our staff and even their families, because we had families of even the staff members saying we didn't know if they were okay. And that's something we recognize hadn't considered. So now we've put up like a email, like messenger chain that we're going to try and hopefully get even our staff members emergency contact numbers out. Some of the things we also found out that not all the parents got the text or not all of them got a phone call. And that goes back to our system and how we entered the emergency contact number. So is everything perfect? No, absolutely not. But we will try and get there for sure.

The only other thing that I would add is I have a son at the middle school and two children in the high school. The intruder alarm system obviously was not fully operational, which is a huge gap. But what they did find when it was improperly triggered is that it wasn't audible in all parts of the middle school. And I think that's another reason why, in some parts of the middle schools, the training was followed to a T. And in other parts of the middle if you couldn't hear it or if you were in a bathroom and you couldn't hear, there was no awareness and anything was happening until it was all over since the Clayton Police Department showed up within two minutes. So I would say that's another reason for you know, why there was a mixed response to the alarm going off.

And so since then on Saturday, right Jim, we have fully tested all of our buildings and we made sure that everything is working the way it should be.

Yes, we tested every building Saturday to identify gaps. similar to what we found here, if there were any at all buildings. And similarly, we noticed bathrooms aren't typical places for speakers. So that will allow us to figure out how we get the message in there and also supplement our training for those type of scenarios. The positive is We didn't find anything unexpected based on what happened here at Y down. So, you know, while there are uniform gaps, there was nothing unexpected and all things that we can work to fix.

Yeah. Good evening to everybody. I'm Doug Wainer, acting principal of Y down. And I appreciate this comment because I wanted to make sure one of the things I got so much feedback within that 72 hours, number one, thank you so much because what it did is it helped us see the whole picture of everything. Because to Kim's point, one thing I want to make sure everybody knows is the picture of what that day looked like. So like when it happened and I'm forgetting the exact time sequence, sixth grade lunch was going on. So we had about 206 graders in the cafeteria in Main Street. So at that time, the administrators and counselors were in there with the kids, right? So it's very loud because it's Main Street. So, at the time, everybody tells their own experience, right, in this. So I was in the cafeteria and all of a sudden we heard this sound and we were like, it didn't sound familiar but we didn't know what it said either. So it came once and I was kind of like this And then it came twice, and then the kids sort of said, hey, Dr. Wehner, what was that? And it almost sounded like a tornado drill. You know, like if a tornado happens and somebody says, you know, please take cover, please take cover. But we couldn't hear it. So it happened twice. And so at that point we said, okay, sixth grade, sixth grade was great. We got quiet real fast because we were like, let's get quiet so we can hear what it said. What happened, though, the rest of the building, depending upon where they were, heard it in its entirety, right? So it basically said that there was an intruder in the building. and that it was not a drill, okay? So you had half the building who started to act. So we had a lot of our teachers who decided at that moment whether or not to bunker down, right, and shut the door and block the door and keep the kids away or to leave. So we did have a couple teachers who opted to take their kids and actually left the building. but it did depend upon where you were in the building. So I would say from the outside point of view, it would look chaotic and people's experience was very different. And just to let everybody know, sort of the sequence that I experienced was, so we were in Main Street we couldn't figure out what it was. We quickly had walkie-talkies, so I walkie-talkied the other admin, Officer Boger, and we were immediately like, is somebody testing the speaker system? Because that was our first instinct, because we hadn't heard it. It was a weird sound. And so we're waiting, kids are dead quiet. At that time, we started moving. The doors, you could hear the doors upstairs close, right? So you could hear, because automatically when, like Dr. Patel said, when that is working properly, keep in mind at this point it wasn't, but they were getting there, those doors shut. So we heard the doors shut. At that part, I started to move down. We did get confirmation that there was someone working in the building. So a company called Tech Electronics was working. So at that point, I had started to walk towards the main office to let the staff know, right? But keep in mind, at this point, we still didn't know what was said. So we're walking towards the front door. But then by then, we had caught wind from the office staff that other people had heard other things. So at that moment that I was walking to give staff comfort, to say everyone's safe, there's someone here, That was the police were already there. They were so quick and they were entering the building at the time. So I just wanted to tell everybody that because the sequence, all of this happened in about two minutes. So there was a lot of quick decision making that was done. What we did immediately after it happened was we circled back with staff immediately that afternoon. And then we found out what the staff needed to feel safe. what they felt the kids needed to feel safe, and then what immediate steps we needed to take. And then the next day when we came back, we circled the kids up first thing in the morning. And what we did at that point was checked in with each kid individually. We had the counselors from all the different schools in Clayton over there to help as well to identify children who were in a place that they weren't comfortable. But they also, the teachers went through with the kids and sort of got a holistic picture of what happened. So by the time, I think it was on a Wednesday that it happened, by the end of the day Thursday we had a really good picture, and we still have all this data, that the kids had compiled. And the kids were wonderful. You know how kids are. They're so great. So they basically said to this point here, what are we going to do about the hallways? What if we're in the hallway when it happens? What if we are in the lunchroom? What if we were in the bathroom? So the kids told us all of the places in the building by which we need to think collectively as a staff, and this is what we've done. Where that we need to do it. Kids are now mentioning, you know, we're in discussion about how we're going to roll out exactly where every kid goes. We've been asking the kids what they think about next steps. Some kids have suggested that we take, this is just an example, they said, hey, Dr. Wayner, take a whole day And then during the day, just take five minutes of each class and say if the alarm were to go off during this class, this is what we would do. So kids are giving us different ideas about how to rethink this. In terms of the general areas like the cafeteria, the adults, we already know now one of the benefits of this was really to think about the main areas which we have now done. The one big epiphany that we had was this notion of the door shutting, right, by the thing. It limits the flow of children, not just in the main areas, but also in the floor areas as well. So you hate to say that there's such a thing as a silver lining in something that was as traumatic as this. That being said, it did allow us the opportunity to take a look at all the different scenarios. And so we do have a pretty good data set that we're working off of. But I did want everybody to know sort of what it looked like on the ground. And I also wanted to thank all the parents, one who got in touch with me right away and told me exactly what their child had reported that helped us recreate everything correctly. and also all of the notes of support that you all sent to staff. Staff really struggled and still is struggling in many ways as our parents because, as you well know, this is like everyone's, I mean, this is kind of everyone's worst nightmare, right? Some of you got texts from your children that you never imagined you would ever get, right? And teachers were put in positions where for two minutes They really did believe that there was something going on in school. So I just want to say give yourself grace in the healing process, and I just want to thank you all too, those parents too that reached out to either me or to the teachers, and were so kind to say thank you. We know how hard it was. And I just want you to know that on behalf of the White Island staff, we too know, parents, how hard it has been on you as well.

Good evening. So I want to start off, I know that a lot of us have said thank you, but I have no idea, my husband and I have been discussing, if there were shots right now we would run. And so without ignoring in any way what we know are systemic issues and the problems that we sometimes have in our nation, I want to thank the officers that ran in. on behalf of my kids, right? So thank you for that. That said, and it's so good that we're taking all this time to really look through the lens of everything that happened and learn from it. But I do have a question as to my understanding is there was a false alarm, a very similar situation at the high school the week before with a vendor who was testing the situation. And I do wish that we had learned from that experience and avoided my kids being in the lunchroom when officers arrive with weapons drawn, right? So if the board could speak to that. And the second thing is I've thought this for some time and researched it. There are, and perhaps the officers could speak to this in chief, there are people who might be concerned about teaching children to sit still when and behind a desk or that's not going to stop any kind of AK-47 bullet or any other type of caliber. except for like maybe a teeny tiny, right? And so there are training companies that are actually training students and teachers to fight back. And I just want to say that if my kid were in that situation, I would rather them not be sitting behind a plywood desk or something that's not going to stop anything. And if they could be taught to actually effectively, or the teachers, the adults, And I know this is a huge topic. So that's the first thing is why didn't we learn from the false alarm the previous week? The second thing, what about like actually training our kids if this is the reality that we are living with in this country? And the third thing is about the gun detectors. My understanding is Stoneman Douglas, Sandy Hook, all of them had security measures at the front door. And what we know is that resources are better spent on the social-emotional. So that's like prevent the need. that any child might have. So as a parent, I would vote for more Liz Tuckers. Is she here tonight? Can we have like 17 Liz Tuckers, please? And less gun detectors. Thanks much.

Thank you. Jim, do you want to talk about the incident that happened at the high school? Because there's misinformation from that. It wasn't actually a company that triggered that.

Yeah, sure. So the incident at the high school was a student by some means touched a button and depressed it. And the action from that was for the doors to close. No message, no anything because the system was further from operational than when we were here. The officers, Officer Whitaker, knowing what he knew about the system, recognized that, okay, this is what happened, allowed us to then go to our notification panel for the fire system, see what happened, review footage. We did determine that it was a student that pressed it and, you know, that was the situation. We reset it. Very different from here where it was, you know, it mishappened uploading the message. So we weren't even working on the system at the high school.

But the

connection

to

that

was that what happened at the high school is what triggered us to then go and immediately check all the systems in all the rest of the buildings, and in doing that in a way to get it done quickly, we did it during the school day, which we should not have tested it. So that's the connection there for sure. Your second question, what was that? Oh, um, do you want to take that? Okay.

First of all, thanks for acknowledging our officers quick response. Um, you know, that, that validated our training last year when we did the training at Clayton high school last summer, our objective was to reinforce into our officers heads that you need to go in there right away. We need a rapid response, whether that's a solo response and officer by themselves or, um, a team of response. And that was all based off of what happened in Uvalde, Texas, when you had those officers wait in the hallway and they didn't respond. They waited for an hour and 15 minutes. There were some reasons for that. I think it was just poor leadership. They were stopped from going in there. But we wanted to make sure our officers knew the expectation was to go in there, and so we trained for that last summer. And so we were glad to hear that our officers responded in a quick manner because, you know, we have a multilayer approach, and, you know, the first layer is a quick response for our officers to end a threat The second layer is working with the school to train the staff on how to respond to these incidents. And the school district, and in fact, there was a state statute passed in 2013, I think it went into effect, 2014, correct, where schools are mandated to train their staff on how to response to this. So we've partnered with the Clayton School District since 2014 on providing that training. In fact, our officers, in fact, I was one of the first ones to go through the Tier 1 tactical training instructor course so we could train the officers. SRO Bulger has been through there as well as Officer Whitaker and several other officers. So we provide that training to the staff, and part of that training is to – and you may have seen the video from Homeland Security called Run, Hide, Fight. It's essentially the same thing. And with Tier 1 Tactical, they're teaching our staff – to first evade, hide if they can. And that includes barricading the doors. And we know that we had teachers do that during this false alarm a couple weeks ago. Another good option is to escape, to run if you can. If it's clear, you can run. And we had classes do that. They went to the rally points like they were supposed to. And of course, there is the option to fight back. That's the last option. But that may be your only option if the threat's already in the classroom. And so part of that is for the teacher to have a response ahead of time, figuring out how they're going to corral those students and where to put them when they're barricading the room, how to get them out of the classroom. So you want to have your options already preplanned because if you don't, you're going to freeze in place and probably do nothing. And that's how people get hurt. So that training is taking place. And we've been doing it every year since 2014. We'll continue to do it. Actually, I was talking to our training coordinator today. We were planning on doing training for our officers here at White Island Middle School in the summertime. So we're going to respond that we're going to have a similar type of training as we did last year at Clayton High School, but we're going to make it more dynamic. We're going to have the Clayton Fire Department involved. And part of it is not just ending the threat. We talk about stopping the killing. We also want to stop the dying. So when you have people who are wounded, we want to be able to provide medical aid to them. Our officers are trained to do that. We've got We just completed some training in that, but we're going to do it in a dynamic situation in a real-life scenario with the fire department this summer.

So I just wanted to follow up on one of your questions, which and a couple points there one thing the question that you had about the incident at the high school um and then why we didn't learn from that or what the connection was i just want you to know that those are questions that we have asked as well and that we have been really digging into with the staff and the administration so um it's a it's something that i appreciate your focus on that and that that's something that we are really paying attention to and we want to learn more about On that note, I do have a question about what Jim said because – and I do think there is some misunderstanding or maybe different – different accounts of that because they're not being any announcement anywhere in the high school. Is that confirmed? Because that is not consistent with some of the stories that we have heard. I'm talking about when the button was pushed inadvertently or by a student, the auditory part of that, yeah.

So at the high school, when the button was pushed, the actual recording of there is an intruder in the building, please follow procedures, was not the recording that played. It was a backup that they had about your call is important to us, please stay on the line. Your call is important to me. Your call is to us, please say on the line.

So in some places that was heard in the high school. It may not have been everywhere. That is correct. Thank

you.

Hi, I'm Jenna Schomburg. I was at the high school's PTO meeting last night, or two nights ago, and I just wanted to share some of the things that the parents shared there. For context, personally, we have a second grader at Captain, a sixth and eighth grader at Wyandown, and a tenth grader at the high school. something that someone shared at that meeting that they wanted to make sure was put before you, was asking about what measures are taken or will continue to be taken to ensure confidentiality of a student who sees something and says something. wanting to protect those relationships and not have that be a concern of a student who's worried. The second is that we would have liked to see a district-wide discussion about this with the students, particularly since so many of us have students who are in different buildings. The other incidents that happened with the fake guns at the high school, thankfully I thought to mention that to my second grader so that she had the context that it was fake. Um, you know, you hear things on the playground, you hear things from older siblings. And there are a variety of reasons why that story wouldn't be an intact story by the time a young kid who maybe doesn't have a framework. So I would like to see in the future if there are these incidences, understanding, of course, that I'm not trying to traumatize an elementary school that doesn't need to know, but we are a smaller district and we are kind of a mesh district. So I do think it's important for them to hear the right story from the right sources. So just to think of a way to contextualize that so they know for real what happened and whether they should be worried about an older sibling or a younger sibling. And then the last thing is if somebody could speak about the restorative nature for students who do the wrong thing, I think of course I do not mean to imply that we should go lightly on that. I think it's the right approach to treat a fake weapon as a real weapon, not only in the response but also in the follow-up. However, I do not want for any student to be worried about making the wrong call and to see something happen to a peer that feels non-restorative. So I think the language we use when we're trying to protect our kids from sexual predators could maybe be a good starting point, which is that if something happens to you, we want to help that person. We want to get that person help. And we understand as adults what that looks like if a crime is committed. However, I do think that really over-communicating the restorative nature of a response so that a child isn't trying to figure out, I know that person, I know they wouldn't do anything, but I still see this. Am I going to be who ruins their life? And that's a heavy decision to make. It's heavy as adults, and I imagine it would be heavier as a teenager. So if you could just talk about sort of the framework that we could use to discuss the measures that are taken if someone is held responsible for something they've done. Thank you.

Thank you. So in terms of measures with confidentiality, that is something we take very seriously. Even if it's a minor infraction that happens at the high school, middle school, elementary school, we only share information that impacts that family and that student. And I know a lot of times parents do get frustrated that we do that, but I think that's obviously the thing that we have to do. So I want to assure you that confidentiality is always at the front of every decision we make And I appreciate your comment about the district-wide communication. You're right. Even in this situation, there's different versions of what happened. And that's something that we always, when we're about to hit send on an email communication that impacted one building, we always consider, is this something that needs to go to the entire district? Is it not? But I do understand from your perspective, in situations like that, I think we can get better. Absolutely. And maybe now that I look back with the high school gun incident, We probably could have sent that to all the parents and even if it's just an FYI for the parents and the staff as well. So I do appreciate that comment. Um, Robin or Sheila, you want to take the restorative one?

I think with any disciplinary incident, um, we have to individually evaluate the situation because every student's experience is unique. The relationships they have with the adults who are most directly responsible for supporting their success, as well as the peers that are involved. So there's not really a cookie cutter approach because part of the restorative practices is one, there has to be relationships previously in place to be restored and also thinking about what are the leadership moves and student moves that will actually restore the harm that has been committed. I think that, yeah, every situation has to be treated a little bit differently, thinking about what are the unique needs of that student and then also what is the nature of the relationships to the people most directly around them and who relationship to the people who were most directly impacted by their decision. And that can look like a variety of things from individual conversations to adult support to, you know, we've explored a lot of different things. And so I think the most important thing to think about is just what did the ripple effect look like for that particular student?

I don't know if there's anything else. Oh, and I'm Sheila. I'm a social worker, so I think something that I would probably add is Sometimes when there is a disciplinary action with a student, um, Robin was just talking about the plans that get put in place. Sometimes I'm a part of the plan. So I might be a part of that adult support. I might be a of providing some individual counseling to the student. My orientation to working with students tends to be to try to get at the root cause behind the behavior. What's the reason that this is happening? So even if the child did something that they weren't supposed to do, where is this coming from? And so I find that trying to do that with students allows us to get into the prevention part of our work. What can we do to create an opportunity for this not to happen again? What can we do keep the students safe? What can we to make sure they understand the harm that was caused but to also make sure that they know that they are a part of the school community that they're not going to be cast out, and that we still want to make sure you're going to be okay and you're going to come through this just fine. So I see it as an opportunity to teach a lesson and to make sure students can make better choices going forward.

Can I just clarify? I'm not positive if your last question was answered, and maybe you could speak, maybe it was, but I think one of the things that she was saying is that if we can have our students know that even if they report somebody else having a bad behavior, that they know they're going to have some disciplinary action because of this behavior, how can we make sure that these students still feel comfortable doing that? You know, and that she was, I think you were mentioning making sure that students know that there will be restorative actions that happen for that student, that their life won't end, you know, everything will change because they've spoken up. I think that's something that wasn't addressed that maybe we could, I can't speak to that, but maybe someone else could.

Thank you for that. One thought that I can just put out there is I think that one move that could potentially be made is making sure students understand what would happen as a result of something like that, so that you just kind of walk students all the way through from the incident to the intervention that was provided. Because at the end of the day, the restorative work is around embracing everybody. You have an opportunity to repair harm. How are you going to repair the harm that was caused? Making sure you understand how other people were impacted by the harm that you caused but that there's also room for grace. There's also room for growth, for you to make a different choice in the future. So I think some of it could be around providing education to students around what discipline could look like in the school. When something does happen, here's what that looks like.

I'd be interested in that as a parent. Sorry, I don't want to speak again, but. I would be interested in knowing what the discipline process is like as a parent.

Hi, so I'm at the high school. And so we talked a little bit about the thing with the lockdown alarm going off. And so like we said, it didn't go to the intruder alarm thing. It went to a hold thing. And so me and my friends in my French class thought it was a senior prank. And we didn't even know that this had anything to do with the lockdown alarms until like after the event had already happened. And I can't help but wonder, like at least as a student, I'm sure others are feeling this way, that like why didn't we know that like Our security system wasn't fully functioning. And so my questions are, how are we going to make sure students are informed about what's going on with safety in their schools? And how do we make sure that they feel like they're not being left out of the loop?

I think the question of why didn't we know they were fully operational is where we should have known. But, you know, we should have known. We should have tested. And so that's why that recording that you heard was on. It wasn't fully operational. And we didn't realize that it was partially operational. So that was a misstep on our end. And that's something that we need to stay on top of. in terms of student voice and getting them to understand when things happen. I know Carter is here as well and always has ideas on how we can continue to be better in involving our students when situations like this happen, as we did in Y-Down, and really getting their voice in this in terms of the impact it had on them, as well as here's things that you could do better from a student perspective and really amplifying the student voice. Carter, did you have any other thoughts on that?

Yeah, I would definitely echo that. It's super important coming out of all of these situations that we always focus on how were students impacted? What do they think needs to be done moving forward? Because really, we're all just here to make sure that they have a safe place where they're comfortable learning. So I think moving forward, as always, it's really important to bring students into the loop.

Well, I'll just add that in response to your question, that is something we are all taking responsibility for getting to the answers as to why the situation was the way it was and how we can improve it. This is not something that we're putting on any one person. I think we all are taking this very seriously, and... We're going to get answers to this, and we're going to have improvements. I think we all would say that. So I just want to reassure everyone of that.

Yeah, I mean, the only other thing I would add is, as Gary said, the Board has been asking the administration these questions for the last couple weeks and asking for accountability measures to be taken. And that's really all that we can say about that. And what I'm hearing loud and clear, and I totally agree with as a parent with kids in multiple schools, school levels, is that there needs to be district-wide communication about this so that, you know, there's not students or families or anybody really trying to fill in the blanks of, because they don't have the details, because the communication only went to the middle school. And the first communication was inadequate. Second communication is better. The third communication is even better than that. Some of that's just the way that these incidents play out as you learn more information, which is explainable. But I mean, what I'm hearing is that we have to have better district-wide communication. Hey,

I'm Jason. I couldn't speak as well as Wayne. I had this played out all in my head before I came here, how this meeting was going to go, and I was angry and ready to scream and stuff. I couldn't have been more wrong. I've been so pleased with the way you guys have answered the questions and all the questions from the audience. So thank you. I appreciate your service. You talked about additional SROs. It's my understanding there's only one between the middle school and the high school. Will there be two? SROs at each of the schools moving forward, including the elementary schools.

So that's something that we had a conversation with our chief about. So at this point, we have two full-time SROs. So one at the high school, who also goes to the family center in Merrimack. And then we have one at Wydown, who also goes the elementary school. So at this we are going to move forward with an additional one. So that would be three total. And our conversation has been can we get more? Um, and that's something that the board obviously would be a board level conversation as well in the investment of that. I didn't know if you wanted to add anything.

Sure.

Um,

so we are planning to, to add a third, uh, SRO as well that would handle the elementary schools. Um, and as you noted, there's three elementary schools. The, um, we are looking though, if we're going to add additionally in the future, maybe do it in a, um, it is timing out better because, uh, Right now, you may be familiar, see on the news, there's a nationwide labor shortage in policing right now. We're very fortunate that we're only down two officers in Clayton. Many other departments are down 10%, 20%. In fact, we're down two officers. We have two officers. We're actually doing background investigations on two candidates right now, and they should be sworn in in the next month, and that will get us fully staffed. But most police departments around the country, as soon as you get fully staffed, you're losing officers. So it would be difficult to provide additional information uh, SROs without decimating the experience on our, on our streets and for the community. So, uh, but it's something that we're going to definitely look into and hopefully is the, can the labor conditions get better as something we could, we could provide in the future.

It might help to explain, um, just to make sure everyone knows like how, what SROs are, like how they're staffed, like who, who pays for it, like how this, it's a sort of a Bit of a joint situation. Sure. So

the school district pays for 75% of the SRO's salary and benefits. The city of Clayton pays for 25%. And so the selection process, typically we like to have an experienced officer who can relate well with parents, students, and the staff, somebody who's capable of providing safety. I think we have two of the best SROs we've ever had in Officer Boger and Officer Whitaker. They do a great job of building trust, and that's an important thing. We talked about, you know, there was a question about confidentiality. Our SROs are also here building relationships, and they're available to provide information. I know they've intervened quite a few times with students just giving confidential information. They're able to act on it and prevent things from happening. So yeah, it's a very important role for our department, and In the selection process, we would look for people just like Officer Boger or Officer Whitaker, and we would interview them. Then we would actually send them over to the school district and let them meet them as well and get their approval from the school district.

And I'll just add on to that that from the board's perspective, this board as it exists today, we certainly support the addition of any and all SRO officers.

Female Speaker 1 Yeah, and I just also want to echo that I agree, Captain, that the current SROs that you have assigned in your schools are fantastic. And they're not only there during the school day. I've seen SROs not dressed in uniform that go to away games for the high school basketball teams when they're, you know, concerned that there could be potentially in the, you know, very minor potential but something could happen so that they can escort our teams back out. you know, to the bus or to their cars. I mean, they go above and beyond just the normal school day. So you guys are great.

They also attend very late board meetings. They do.

Yes, they do.

On patrol, one of our priorities is to have our officers visible around the elementary schools, especially during the drop-off morning hours and the pickup in the afternoon. You'll see our officers either driving around near the stop signs. We get a lot of complaints on the stop signs on Davis Drive near Merrimack School. So you might see them watching those stop signs as we have students walking to school, but they're also out doing foot patrols. And we track that, and that's an expectation for our officers to be out there, be visible during those times. You might see them. So that's one additional thing we've been doing.

I also want to add that Officer Whitaker and Officer Boger are incredible partners in our daily work. It's not just about emergencies, but so much of it is about prevention. And they are great partners even on the SEL side. Last summer, they joined us for behavioral risk assessment training, which is an important component of school safety. Same thing with it goes alongside with suicide risk assessment, but they joined us for that training as well. And so they can be another teammate with a different vantage point on the different ways our students are experiencing the teaching and learning environment. So I just want to thank both of them for all of the ways they've supported me and the way we've been able to have a very productive and cooperative relationship. And I've worked in a lot of other school districts, not just in Missouri, but outside of Missouri. And the relationship we have here with the Clayton Police Department is truly remarkable.

Thank you for being here. It shows that you take this seriously. Thank you. And I'm sorry if I miss about this learning, but we do know that the Wi-Fi coverage here in White Island is really poor. I was shopping here that day and my phone went to SOS, zero sign up, and some others said the same. I don't know about technology, but What's the plan to solve it?

Great question, because that came up a lot from our staff and our students and our families in terms of just the self-service in the building. And really, it may be even, I know even Captain has some of the similar issues, and it depends where you are in the building. So what we have already done is Jeff Polz, who oversees all the technology, and John Brazeal, our CFO, have already tried to figure out what is the right next step. And really, the next step is to get basically a company to come in, and they're already working in conversation with that, to really test out where it is, where the pockets are, and then they would then come in and adjust what is needed to be adjusted. Obviously, it can't be done overnight because it's such an intricate process, but we've already started the work on that to test out all the systems and areas in the space. Jeff, did I miss anything? Okay.

Great question, because that came up a lot from our staff and our students and our families in terms of just the self-service in the building. And really, it may be even, I know even Captain has some of the similar issues, and it depends where you are in the building. So what we have already done is Jeff Polz, who oversees all the technology, and John Brazil, our CFO, have already tried to figure out what is the right next step. And really, the next step is to get basically a company to come in, and they're already working in conversation with that, to really test out where it is, where the pockets are, and then they would then come in and adjust what is needed to be adjusted. Obviously, it can't be done overnight because it's such an intricate process, but we've already started the work on that to test out all the systems and areas in the space. Jeff, did I miss anything? Okay.

Good. Thank you. Please come back and substitute. We're short of substitute teachers.

Hi, I'm Shannon Carroll. I have two kids at Y-Down, one of which is in sixth grade and got told to sit tight in the cafeteria and watch the, they thought it was the SWAT team after it was all over, thought it was pretty cool. But a little scary at the time. I have two questions. So can you put some, and probably not today, but deadlines around when there will be solutions for open spaces, cafeterias, transition times, things like that at all the schools, and deadlines around when you'll know when these systems are fully operational? And then kind of part two was... Can you help me understand why or help us understand why the administration at Wiedown didn't know tech electronics was working on the system? Because if you don't know they're in there, who else is in the building? Thank you. You're

welcome. Um, so a couple of questions. So your deadlines? Yes, we will try and get that done as soon as we can. Part of that is the work that we're doing with tier one tacticals that we are going to be partnering with and want to make sure that they are looking at our processes and our procedures and making sure that from their lens, it's the right way to do it and the right timeline. And I know we'll also rely with amazing. Thank you so much for being here tonight, but with our Clayton Police Department and get their thoughts as well. And then we, our hope is to at least do some sort of talk through review of this situation. We may not obviously with Y-Down and that idea that it just happened and the trauma that's still there. We may not do like a full simulated drill but we could at least start talking through it with all the buildings with some of the students. And then in terms of just the admin And yeah, Jim, if you want to go ahead. Because that's a failure point on our end about not knowing that someone was here.

I guess the original statement was unclear. Tech Electronics was escorted into the building. The front office staff wasn't aware that they were working because we did not check in at the office. They may have come through the front, but we bring contractors in a lot of times during the day as facility staff and escort them so they're never alone. you know, my people took them downstairs in the basement. That's one of the things that we have since reviewed is regardless of what you're there doing, we need to let the office know whomever may be in there so that they can spread the word that someone is in the building because as Doug's first instinct was correct, is there somebody working on something? If they know a contractor's in the building, that's where your mind goes and you check that out and you're able to eliminate very quickly the possibility of something else. So moving forward, the protocol has changed. Anytime even an escorted person is in the building, they will go through the front office and check in there. So we avoid these incidents in the future.

Does check-in also mean driver's license in the machine, the badge

reader? Yes. That particular tech electronics Y down was the last of our buildings. So we had been through every other building and they get a sticker. If it's a contractor, they typically come to the facilities office and they will check in there. So they have a sticker that says you're okay to be here. Then they're also with one of our staff.

And so since then we have reiterated the fact that our one point of entry is the front entrance. If you're a district employee, you can use the side entrance, but you still, if you're traveling, for example, now let's make it a habit. You go to the front office and say, Hey, I'm here when you leave. Hey, I'm going away. If you're a non-district employee, you have to come through the front. And so the conversation even happened, you know, well, what about when we have some class parties at the elementary level or any kind of events will be coming through the front? and we'll have the badge. And so, sometimes, you know, it's inconvenient, but it's the right thing to do.

Female Speaker 2 Shannon, so I just wanted to thank you for that question was also as a board one of our first questions and most important questions. And I just want to reassure you that in addition to moving forward what the plan is only using the front door that there has been disciplinary action taken. So, it's not something the district is just saying, okay, from now on, we're using the front door. It was taken very seriously and action was taken in response to that. That was something on all of our minds as well. So, thank you. Female

Speaker Bates- Yeah, I think it's important that everybody here knows and should spread the word that the Board recognizes, as does Nisha, that this is a totally preventable incident. And that's really, you know, horrible in hindsight. right after we talk about all the trauma, the kids and the teachers and the families and everybody else has gone through. I think we recognize that it was totally preventable. So let's make sure it doesn't ever happen again.

Hi, my name's Angela Flotkin. I have kids at three schools, Merrimack, Widown, and the high school. And I have to say that while what happened at the middle school was traumatic and awful, I am glad it happened because had it been a real incident, the consequences would have been far, far worse. i have heard some amazing things tonight and i'm so grateful for all of you but it hasn't been clear to me what the actual timeline is for students staff every administrators everyone in our building to know what to do should that same God forbid scenario happen tomorrow. And to me, it's unacceptable that there are students and staff in our buildings that don't know what to do. The safety and security of our people is more important than anything that goes on in our schools. And it's something that, in my opinion, needs to be addressed immediately. So I really want to be clear on what the timeline is. The mass shooting has happened. I believe the stats like every single day, more days than we've had in our year. And who's to say it's not going to walk through our door tomorrow? Unfortunately, I have very detailed accounts of what happened in Nashville because some of my dear friends Well, we I know people impacted and I know that so many lives were saved because of the training that was done in those schools. And if you watch those cameras of those police officers coming through, you couldn't see a student. You can see a staff member. It was unbelievable. And I just want to make sure that that same training is given to to our people. Can you please be more specific?

Yes, thank you. So we have done, and I apologize if I wasn't clear, we have done, every building has done two intruder drill trainings this school year. And we scheduled that out, and Wiedown actually had it the week before. So they actually had the drill. What we haven't done, and done a good enough job, is an actual scenario like hallways, large spaces in the cafeteria, what happens. So our goal is by the end of the year. So in the next four weeks, at least have a talk through type of scenario. Obviously we wouldn't want to put the kids through it at Y down specifically through that again. Um, it's too close. It's too near, but at least have a conversation about if you're here, this is what you do. Um, so all of our staff has been trained twice a year. At least this Friday, we went, we reviewed the processes again. And then starting next school year, we'll continue the same thing at least twice a year, but adding in the whole idea from the student's perspective of if you're in art class, what do you do? If you're in this theater, what do you all the different scenarios? So we'll have that plan solidified over the summer to implement next year. But to get us through the next four weeks, it will be more of a this is what you do if this happens type of scenarios. And so I do want I apologize if I wasn't too clear on that one. I didn't know if you were going to say something.

I would like to think that if this was a real event, the staff would react the way they were trained. I think there's a lot of confusion around the fact that this alarm, they weren't ready to hear this alarm and they didn't know what was going on. But from what I understand, and I was part of the training for several years, and I know the SROs do it now, we trained the staff on how to run, hide, fight, essentially. And some of the staff did that because they didn't know it was a false alarm. So I'd like to think if the circumstances were different, they would react in the proper way.

My name is Emily Balestra, and I have a student at both the middle school and the high school. My question, I guess, relates more to high school. I'm a clinical mental health therapist, and so speaking to the restorative practice piece. With the incident that happened or incidents that happened at the high school with the gun, I am certainly all for pretty strict disciplinary policies and I know that's all on an individual basis understood. My son came home and we both sort of said okay so you know most of these incidents come out of retaliation. So speaking to the restorative piece on the with respect to the perpetrator. Is that being followed, and how do we deal with any kind of aftermath resulting from disciplinary action with that?

I just had a clarifying question. Were you referring to the students who report or the students who make choices that lead to the disciplinary action? The choices.

And who had disciplinary

results from it. OK. So I will do my best to answer the question. I just really want to be thoughtful about the obligations around privacy. And because these situations were so high profile and involved such a small number of students, I'm going to have to purposely speak in very general terms. So I just want everyone to understand why I am talking in that way. You know, bringing a weapon onto campus or even a replica weapon is considered a level three misconduct and it would be eligible for anywhere between suspension of one to up to 180 days. And similar to what I said earlier in general terms, we are going to look at the relationships that that student had to the people who were most directly impacted. That's going to include students who may have been witnesses to said situation. and if there is something that can be possibly restored there. I think the other piece is thinking about the adults who are impacted, particularly the adults who have to do the investigation and who have to engage with a student first because they don't know what they're walking into. And just like our law enforcement and our teachers and our administrators, those are really complex and difficult situations to be walking into. Um, we do our best to be student centered and to then to figure out, um, based on those relationships and having to go through the investigation and go through the interviews of what are the opportunities for the individual conversations between a student and those adults and those students. Um, what can happen? Some happen organically, and then some need to be facilitated at a later time, uh, because people need time to heal, need time to process. And so, again, it's very difficult to approach each one with kind of a blanket. And the decisions that go into what the next steps look like are very, very difficult. And we do our best to maintain dignity of everyone who's involved.

So just to clarify, I guess part of what I'm asking from a mental health standpoint and for the safety of the... students at the school because the concern would be that as a result of disciplinary action the student would then seek revenge which is what often is the case in these scenarios where somebody does bring the gun into school it's because they're angry at you know someone or something that has happened so my question is is there follow-through on that end to make sure not that you can make sure of anything, but to try and reassure or do some therapy work related to preventing a student coming back and seeking revenge.

Yes, we have employed other adult support measures. Some of it Sheila spoke to where we have scheduled time, or if the family needs assistance in getting an outside referral, doing that. We also would employ a behavioral risk assessment if we felt like in the investigation it revealed additional information that we didn't know in the initial piece to follow through with that as well. I am very grateful that we have been able to build our capacity in that area as a way to better understand the function of certain students' behaviors and how can we support their family and how can we work with law enforcement to ensure the home is safe, the kids are safe, and that we have a good plan to put in place for that student in terms of their own safety at school.

In additional add-on, we also do like when the student does return, if they return, we do intake meetings, and we do a thorough make sure the counselor's there, administrator's there, and also follow up with that as well.

I was just going to add to that. I think another opportunity that we may have, and I mentioned it just because I want to be transparent and say that this isn't something that I have done yet, but it's something that I've been thinking about when we had the incidents at the high school, getting the names of the students who were the ones who brought the weapons, and looking at what other data we might have that helps us understand where that child is socially and emotionally. So, for example, the panorama survey has been mentioned. Are there some connections between the behavior that we're seeing the child exhibit and what their ratings are on panorama, if that makes sense? Because I think that helps us build a profile that may better help us understand the child and what their needs may be. So I think along with the other pieces, the risk assessment and any sort of therapy that may be done with the child to kind of probe and understand better, I think that we could utilize Panorama to help us better understand the child. And sometimes there is observational data. Sometimes we might have a student where one of the English language arts teachers has reported or maybe a social studies teacher that through a writing assignment there are some concerning things that have been written. And so when all those pieces get put together, it may let us know that a student is in need of some additional intervention. And so I think there's more work that we are doing around that, but I think we're still trying to build capacity in that area.

Hello, my name is Charlie. I am a sophomore at Clayton High School, and I have two questions. They're both regarding just logistical information on these kinds of instances. My first more general question is, I mean, just to consider the political climate in which I think we all live. know we live in in our state is there have been discussions regarding you know teachers carrying weapons in school learning how to being trained to carry a weapon in an instance to fight back or maybe keeping us safe in their classroom to keep a firearm or a weapon And I can speak on behalf of myself that I do not support that kind of intervention of using that kind of weaponry in an instance to fight back. I can infer that the district probably doesn't support things like that. And so just looking at the kind, so my first question is, looking at the ways that staff and teachers specifically are trained in these kinds of situations, in which a student may have a weapon or a firearm. I'm just curious as to what goes into that. My dad's a teacher in the district. I know that he goes through medical training to know you know, if a kid has an allergy reaction, how do you use an EpiPen, you know, things like that. And so I'm curious as to what the training looks like for teachers specifically. And then my more specific logistical question, my second question, we were talking earlier more about the doors that, you know, automatically lock and when you press a button they trigger. And I'm just curious as to all of your consideration to the logistics behind that considering that there are unfortunately, in a hypothetical situation that could be very real, that there could be students that are trapped in the building with the intruder or with the person that carries that weapon. And so I'm curious as to your thought processes behind that. So yeah, thank you.

Jim, I'll have you talk about the locks area, but I can start with the training that goes for the staff. So the staff undergoes the same level of training in terms of what the students have So it's the 4E training that our chief talked a little bit about as well. So the 4E standing one is educate, you know, know the drills, know the processes, know how to do things when certain situations occur. The second would be escape if you can. Third would be evade. And then fourth one would be to engage in it. So those are it's called options based training. And that's what we use in terms of staff and students as well. So that's the drills that we do twice a year, and we're going to continue to do more, but in different scenarios throughout the day. And then as far as the locks closing?

Yeah, so one of the things that Tier 1 Tactical recommended, and I think our SROs and the police department supported, is to put as many barriers as we can between a potential intruder and our students. The doors that operate in that manner are stairwells, the main street doors here. So it's to segment off large areas of the building and try to isolate that individual from as many people as possible. So once you get into the stairwell, you're stuck in the stairwell and the only way is to go out of the building. So it creates barriers, confusion, and buys everybody in the building time. And that was the genesis of what we did based on their recommendation.

Can I ask a follow-up question? So do the doors in the bathrooms lock? Is there a way to lock those doors?

So presently, it's anything that is a fire door. So stairwells, you know, your main corridors through the building because that's the most protected area of the building in any type of situation. So they have magnets. Like if you look when you go through the building, you'll see a magnet on the wall. And in any type of incident, those magnets release and it shuts the door. So it's just those doors and they're propped open. They don't physically lock. They're propped open in the locked position. So if they close, there's no additional action. There's no electronics that can malfunction. It's just the door's locked, open all the time, and they're allowed to close if something goes on.

Hi, my name is Melissa Marquardt. I actually have a daughter at the Family Center, so not any of the other schools. So I did want to ask about the communications because – so I get obviously just communications from her school and then I get communications for the district. So I appreciate some of the conversations about more district-wide communications because when I got – The second communication from the district, it referenced earlier communications to the high school, which I didn't receive. So I found that somewhat confusing. So there's been several conversations around incidents at the high school that I'm not fully aware of. So if there could be some explanation I've heard about a student either accidentally or purposely, I don't know which, you know, touching the alarm and then perhaps weapons brought or fake weapons or things that appeared to be weapons. And since I didn't receive those communications, I was wondering if there could be some clarification around that because they were referenced in previous emails that did go to the district. And then you had mentioned a risk assessment. That's my second question. Was it just around intruder risk assessment or did you do risk assessments around things like if there's a gas leak or a tornado or other types of things that could happen around the safety of students that don't necessarily imply an intruder in the building?

In terms of the situations that happened at the high school, I do recognize we only sent that email to parents of the high school students when the intruder button was accidentally hit by a student. So that's why there was confusion in terms of that. Prior to that, we had two incidences where students brought in replicas of real guns. And so we addressed that and we sent out an email again for one of the incidences to the only high school parents. And so hindsight, we probably should have sent it to the entire district so that everybody knew what was happening. So that's something we will definitely get better at and work on. And then, remind me again, the risk assessment? Yeah. So when we do the study, when we've hired tier one technicals, they're going to look at all of the assessments. So if there happens to be a tornado, what do we do? If there happens an earthquake, what do we so it includes everything, not just the intruder drills or the intruder alert system. Thank you for asking that.

And just to clarify for fact pattern, that button at the high school was pushed on the same day later that day when the fake firearm was found. And then it was a week later that there was another incident with fake firearms around the periphery parking lot area of the high school. So those are the three, I guess, if you, the alarm and then the two fake gun incidents that happened after the alarm.

What a day. My name is Megan Cerrito. I have a son at Whiteown and one at Merrimack. First, I just want to agree with Charlie that I don't think more guns make our students safer, and I am heartened to hear how much discussion there is around restorative justice and social and emotional learning and skills for students and staff, and I think Parents can also be a part of that as well. I wanted to say that if there is a school district that is out there right now in the U.S. that is kind of leading the way, and if Clayton is reaching out to other school districts to develop some best practices, I know that we're very data-driven here, and I certainly appreciate that. And this is certainly a chance also for Clayton to lead if there is not a district that is a leader in best practices. And the third thing is just I wanted to flag that, you know, the after school programs, actually, I've been able to just walk into Merrimack through the after school area. So I know we're thinking in terms of the school day, but I think there needs to be some consideration of the afterschool program because I know parents don't go through that vestibule. Those doors are open at Merrimack in any case. So that should be something to consider, I think.

Thank you for that. We have had conversations actually about the afterschool programming and As of right now, we are doing the visitor management system during the school hours. When you think about after school hours, the number of events and activities that happen, right? It could be a football game. It could be a sports banquet that happens at the high school, this event right here. So those are things that we're trying to figure out how to make it more safe and secure without having someone at the front door having to go through the entrance. So I don't have a... complete answer for you on that but it's something we're looking at because it's just so vast now we could start with our kids zone programming for after school that happens in each of the buildings and how do we make that more secure and what would be their main point of one entry point for them so that's something that we're starting to talk about as well um your other one Oh, yeah. Modeling for looking at other districts. So one thing that we do, obviously, safety and security is paramount when we're talking about it. So all the superintendents in the St. Louis County region in Missouri State, we're always at the forefront. We go to conferences. Everyone highlights their best practices. So we share and we collaborate with that. I wouldn't say that there's a school district that's leading the charge, that everyone uses different options-based training. They use different mechanisms. They have different relationships with their local police department. And I think that's the key. Having been in two different districts, large districts, one with 11,000 students and one with 21,000 students, I can tell you that the relationship that we have with our police department is by far superior. And so I think that's for us. That's what really helps us in our district. And that's something that I talk to our superintendents about in terms of how do you continue to foster that relationship because that's what's crucial in a lot of ways.

I was going to add, you know, training the staff is just one aspect of security. But in regard to training the staff, though, with Tier 1 Tactical, They provided training for a lot of the school districts in our metro area. In fact, when I was trained by them, I went out to Parkway. Parkway School District hosted it, and I believe they also provide training for Rockwood and a lot of the other bigger school districts in the metro area. So that type of training for the staff is standardized around here for the most part.

I was just also going to add that we – I don't know if people know this, but we also, to the extent that after-school events, prom, homecoming, the police officers are there more than one. And I don't think that's a new thing. I've never been to prom, but I know that they are there. I

was kind of thinking more of the kids' own after-school zone.

I just want to add in response to you asking about looking at other districts, there are many times when we look beyond St. Louis County and Missouri for examples. I think you bring up a really good point that we could be looking way beyond locally for examples on safety and security. We have, for example, we mentioned earlier when we talk about students' mental health that Amy mentioned that we're reimagining how we handle wellness at least starting at the high school We have hired a consultant out of California in San Francisco, and she has brought us examples of what she's done with some schools out there. So we are open to and always trying to look even beyond St. Louis County and Missouri for examples. And I think you bring up a good point that for safety and security, that's a good opportunity to do

that as well. And I forgot to mention that I also am part of a superintendent's group with superintendents from the East Coast as well. other areas where we talk about that as well. So thank you for reminding me of that, Stacey.

So just to piggyback on that thought, my anxiety goes right to the Captain Blacktop because I feel like we're spending so much time and effort thinking about the inside of our buildings. And then they kind of just go outside. And I wonder what the protocol or training is for that. And Dr. Weiner, you had mentioned earlier that we never thought we were going to get that text from our kids. But I worry about that every single day. And when they come home, I'm so grateful that today wasn't the day. And I was almost like, oh, today is the day it's happening. So it's sad. way of thinking and I think our kids are trying to think that too and it's I look forward to the day and we don't have to worry about it anymore thank you

and that is part of the training that we're also looking at like what do we do in situations when the students are outdoors whether it's in the playground and even just the idea of egress if something happens out outside what's the process of coming into the buildings so that's part of the training as well

Hi. Eric Wilson, for those that don't know me. You know, I've been in 20 different districts around St. Louis County looking at safety and security. Clayton is probably a leader in a lot of aspects of the safety. But I do have a couple questions. So I have four kids in the district. The communication district-wide would be good because they do talk to each other, even though they fight a lot. The question I have is as an adult who frequents many of the buildings, I've been in three different buildings this week for different activities. When we see something that is a safety concern, who do we contact? Who do we tell that to? Because I feel like In the past I've mentioned things to a board member or to someone in the admin building and I don't always see follow up on it and I wonder how people that don't have direct contact with some of you guys, how do we do that? Second thing is SRO officers at each building would be great. I know Clayton has a super fast response time compared to other districts but I think it's probably one of the top things we could do.

Thank you. As far as if you see something in the buildings, I would say your first point of contact would be the building principal, because they are the ones who are in the building. They would know how to actually address it, and then they would know what level to take it next to. So it could be something that they talk to the SRO with. It could be something that bring it up to the facilities. It could be that they bring up to me. But your first point of contract would be the building principle, because they know the building the best. And they also know who to contact for what. So that would be the best approach. And then the SROs, yes, we agree with you. We are definitely looking at that and we've already started the conversations for that. So thank you.

Can I ask, Nisha, can parents use the anonymous tip line or is that just for students? Because that just made me think if a parent didn't feel comfortable saying something,

is there

that...

I think right now it's only for the students, but I'm sure we could open it. A

quick tip can also accept submissions from community members. That's actually how we found out about some of the things that were happening on the turf in a couple different places and some of the things happening on the weekends on different properties were community members sharing information. An encouraged report is also an option, but again, to Dr. Patel's point while he's starting with the building principle, but Yes, those are resources to report things as well.

I will just make the comment that I think maybe something that we need to take up is making sure that people do know who on a district-wide level is the person that if you have a question about security, if you have a comment, if you have like that 100 percent agree the principal any school is a great first contact but we should we should make it better known who's in charge of safety and security on a district-wide basis in case people need to know that i just think that's i think that's something that we need to we need to talk more about are

you saying that no one is in charge no what no we're not saying that at all we do we do have someone in charge um And we're working on making sure that that person is, you know, I cannot expand on it, but we do have someone in charge of it.

Well, I mean, I will say one thing that you said. to us, and right now the person in charge of safety and security 100% is Dr. Nisha Patel, so that would be one person that you can always assume that, but in terms of specific roles across the district, we need to talk about that, we need to communicate it. I think to

follow up to Angela's question about the importance of deadlines, can you tell us when we'll know that person?

I would say for right now it is me, Nisha Patel. I am in charge of safety and security for our district. And as soon as the role is, if it's someone else, we will absolutely be communicating that out.

Hello,

I'm Stella Pline and I attend Clayton High School and I have several topics so I'm sorry if I'm being sporadic. So first in regards to what Charlie said, I would agree that we need to be careful with the thought of Introducing training of, like, teachers with statistically introducing more weaponry into schools causes more violent accidents in schools. And additionally... My dad taught at a high school for around 20 years. He recently resigned. And any time he would have training in regards to if there was a school shooting, he would be greatly emotionally impacted. And so I'm not saying we shouldn't train teachers. Obviously, we need to train teachers, but we need to think about how we go about it. And then also when... In the high school, we had the basically hold line repeating. My English teacher thought one of us was playing a prank. She had no idea what it was, and I would like to know if the teachers were informed that if you hear this hold line, it's because we're working on this, or if they're informed beforehand that... you were working on the line. And then also, when you were saying in Y Down there are places where it's hard to hear the alarm, Y Down in the band room, they couldn't hear the alarm. They thought it was a clarinet. And similarly, whenever there's an announcement and we're playing in band, we can't hear anything, and we're not necessarily stopping what we're playing to hear because we're just assuming it's some normal thing. And then Two more things. One, I would say one thing I've noticed the transition from middle school to high school is sort of high schoolers view counselors as more of a resource for colleges and classes rather than an emotional support. And I was wondering how we can create a better environment And then finally, I would say my main concern is how we have an open campus during lunch. So let's say we had an incident during lunch. How do we know that students are missing versus just left campus?

Thank you for those questions. So the first question was Clayton High School, and did the teachers know what that alarm was when the music started and it said your call is important to us? The teachers at the high school did not know that because they didn't even know that the system was fully operational or partially operational. They'd never heard that before, so they were not aware of it. But after the fact, they found out what it was. Your second question about the band rooms that did come up, and that goes back to a lot of different areas where they couldn't hear it, something that we've already in conversation already with tech electronics. And Jim, correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of the idea of having like some sort of flashing light in the classroom, And we just need to work out the wiring of that and all the intricacies that go with that. So that's something we're already looking at. And then middle school, high school counselors relationship, that comes up quite a bit. And we hear that from all of our students. And Carter has brought that up quite a bit at the board table as well, being our student rep. And how do we strengthen that relationship with the counselors at the high school? And I know that there's a lot of... conversations that happen between the students and the counselors. And it depends on the relationships you have, but we can always continue to be better at that. And one of the things that we're looking at is I think we talked a little bit about it is the mental wellness and the idea of develop building a mental wellness center at the high school and possibly having someone there that's solely just for mental health. And so, cause students do sometimes think, oh, I can't go to my counselor. They're going to fill out my college application. They may not feel that they can go and be vulnerable with that individual. So we're trying to look at opening a wellness center that's staffed by someone that could help with that. And then lastly, open campus and the lunch idea. That's something that has definitely come up even with the fire drill. So we love the idea of open campus. That's who we are. We take pride in that, but with that comes the idea of at any given moment, you may not know who's in the building. So one of the things that we've already discussed is how do you tighten up that single point of entry and exit? So maybe when you exit, you have to actually sign out so we have a running record of who left the building at what time. But that would be extremely challenging. Not that it can't be done, but our students have to actually be um really wanting to do that and make sure that they're going through the front and then if they don't we'd have protocols to if we see someone using the side door when they leave or coming in through the side door that that would not be okay

but um

that's part of the communication that we did not have so yes they should because we did that came up too there were teachers even if they weren't in the building they didn't know they came here and they're like what what's happening

I just wanted to add, you were talking about the counselors at the high school. So along with being a social worker, I'm certified as a school counselor as well. And the training that you receive is the same. So the counselors at the High School do have the same background to address social emotional needs as an elementary and middle school counselor. So maybe some of the work is around marketing and maybe making sure that kids understand that these are reasons that you can go see your school counselor, that it is not just for scheduling or schedule changes, that making sure that students understand that the counselors are there for them in that role. I know the school counselors at the high school, and I can't imagine that any of them wouldn't be responsive to a student who came to them with a need. So some of that may just be about marketing And then the other thing I would add, I know there's been some conversation about the prevention work And I also recognize that in our nation there's these conversations about school resource officers being in the school. Some people feel really good about it. Some people don't. I absolutely love our school resource officers, and they support my work as a social worker when I have to go do home visits. They do that stuff with me, and I really appreciate them. But I want to mention that on the prevention side, I really feel like the wellness center that Dr. Patel has mentioned is a big part of that prevention work. That will give us an opportunity to connect with students, you know, how sometimes you want to do the early identification. You know, it'll be a space where kids can come in. There will be a record that kids have been in the space and I think it will allow more prevention work to be done which could deter some of the other behaviors that we are concerned about, things that have happened like people bringing weapons and trying to get at the root cause of why they're doing this or engaging in some other inappropriate behavior. I just wanted to mention that.

Stella, I just want to thank you. Those were great questions. And I think that there maybe could be some, I don't know if, Tier 1 is looking into things such as this. But we maybe could think of a way for students, like I know universities, for example, have a mass notify system if there's an emergency on campus that I wonder if students could be included in that. So even if they aren't on campus, they're aware of what's going on. I have a couple kids in college and it just made me think of that. But I think that's something we should look into and talk to as well. And maybe swiping an ID if they leave campus at the high school, just so we can keep track of who's there and who's not. So thank you very much for those.

Hi, my name is Lucia Zamora and I'm also a high school student. Oh, sorry. So this circles back to what somebody mentioned earlier, but someone on the board stated that one of the main ways that people come, like it's brought to the attention of the board or the school that there is an intruder or a weapon at the school, even though it might not necessarily be true, just like the suspicion of a weapon, I was wondering how exactly the school would react in the event that a student doesn't come forward. Let's say a student doesn't see it or there's no real threat that anyone's seen, but it's just like a speculation. What if that student doesn't come for whatever fear or they don't think it's real? How does the school react because now there's a weapon out in the school that nobody really knows about and that's a threat to everybody's safety? So I'm wondering how exactly Can the board or just the school in general expect children, because at the end of the day, high school students are majority just children. How is it that we can expect children to come forward and have that bravery to come and save, in a way, the entire school from a huge shooting or something? Thank you.

So I think to answer that, I'm going to start off with the positive in terms of In the incidences that we've had, it's always the students that come up and say something, so we teach them, right? If you see something, say something. See something, say something, so the majority of the reports that we get are from students, and I think it's because we create this environment of trust in that there's not going to be retaliation. Don't worry about someone saying that you told on me, etc., But if that's not the case, then that's why we have adults as well. Same philosophy, same idea is with the adults. If you see something, say something. And typically I would say at the building level, we have all our teachers, we have campus supervisors, SRO, who's always social workers, counselors, who are always on guard to make sure that if something happens or if they see something, we are alerted right away.

Hello, my name is Raina Everett, and I just have a couple questions and suggestions regarding if there were to be an intruder in the building. The first thing is when we're talking about what to do, I feel like our teachers don't go into enough detail. For example, when we're talking engaging with the shooter, we don't know exactly I don't really, like, I wasn't really, it wasn't really communicated with me what to, what, like, am I doing to engage except maybe, like, throwing stuff. And a lot of times when in a situation where there's a lot of anxiety, people tend to freeze up, you know. forget the things that they're told. So if we go into as much detail as possible, for example, suggesting specific things that should be thrown or different strategies that can be used in a variety of different situations, for example, maybe using earplugs when there's a shooter. to avoid the loud noises or using a backpack as a shield and just different strategies that can be used if you happen to be alone in a bathroom or in the hallway and you can't find your way to a classroom in time. Also, I just wanted to clarify whether the alarm not being heard by Dr. Wehner was part of the technological issue or if the alarm just goes off in one section of the building when the button is pressed. And also, I just want to bring to the attention that a lot of people feel that certain things that will happen as a result, for example, maybe metal detectors or searching could make students and parents feel like it's an invasion of privacy. And that's just a really big thing that we need to keep in mind when making these decisions because we don't want to induce fear and make people feel like... this is going to happen. That's why we're doing all this stuff, is because it is bound to happen, and they're looking through all of our stuff, and they are, you know, have cameras watching us at all times. Like, it can just induce a lot of fear and make people feel like they're not trusted or, you know, just a lot of things that could cause problems in the future, which are separate from you know, the invaders itself. Thank you.

Female Speaker 1 So the one thing I can address, I appreciate all the comments. Thank you. As far as the Y down incident and Dr. Wiener, like in terms of hearing part of it, that's because it was not fully operational at that point. So that's the reason. It's not because he it was one part that was only working. And yes, in terms of the drills and teachers giving more detail, that would be part of the training that we need to do and get better at.

Does anybody have any further questions? Well, we appreciate everybody coming out tonight. Hard topic. It's been a rough month. I can assure you that things are going to, as a result of this, things are going to be a whole lot better, and we will not be seeing any incidents like this in the future.

And before we adjourn, I think I want to clarify something Someone asked me a direct question, and I always want to be confident in the answers that I give. And so the question was asked, who's in charge of safety and security? And I feel like there was some sort of panic that no one is in charge. What I will tell you is the individual that had that responsibility no longer has that responsibility, and hence I have that responsibility. Once we determine who the individual will be that will oversee safety and security, I will be sure to communicate that out.

Thank you for saying

that. Go ahead. Just one more thing that, well, this is the reality we live in this country. Some of us are not from this country, but I understand this. And there's one student that I have from another school that told me, well, at home We do drills with my mom and my dad for tornado, intruder drill at home. So I just want to say something that I don't want to think but the family responsibility is also another thing because I understand you are responsible for our kids but this is a community so I don't want take any responsibility from you and I really want the dates. But I see that as a community, as a family, I have my own responsibilities. I want to make everybody understand that.

I know we're about to adjourn, but I just want to tell you guys that we picked our kids up. We offered them. We said, do you want to stay? They wanted to leave that day. We had a family debrief and we've had other conversations with our kids, two middle schoolers, and they were in the lunchroom. in main street and we offered them to homeschool again, which we did for the pandemic. We offered them crossroads, which is where we would probably go if we left here. And we offered them to leave the country. Um, and our kids chose to stay at Y down both of them. So this was a bad situation, but I just thought you guys should know that. Thank you for your service.

Okay. If nobody has any further comments, then I'm going to ask Gary to read us a motion to adjourn.

Moved that the Board of Education adjourn.

Second. All in favor? Aye.