September 2, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

All right this works. All right adequate notice has been given. Good evening everyone let's stand and say the pledge.

I will open our city council meeting as well.

All right. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda as posted. Second. Aaron? Yes. Meade? Yes. Ben? Yes. Leo?

Yes.

Pam? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jason? Yes.

June, would you mind calling the roll, please?

Here. Here. Here. Great. Bridget, you want to...

Yeah,

so the first item on our agenda is recognizing our great new group of MIAC students, which is a collaboration between the city of Clayton and the school district of Clayton. The program is designed to encourage high school students to become active in the community by participating in local government and building a greater capacity for civic participation. The high school juniors and seniors meet with the mayor of myself monthly, attend city board meetings, take tours of city departments, and work on a community project. This year's youth advisory council members are, and so I'll just announce you all. And if you could stand when you announce your name, when I announce your name, that would be great. And I know not everybody's here, so Adam Watson. Aditi Amberker. Alexander Kilbridge. Amelia Henderson. August Beinfeld. Ava Wilkinson. Christopher Braden Langhorne. Cole Beard. Danielle Angelides. David Kirchensteiner Soto. Jessica Oh. Keegan Snyder. Landon Waldman. Layla Lee. Lily Goldman. Luciano Perman. Mahika Dokkar. Manu McDowell. Nancy Percy. Oliver Kelvarski. Olivia Lin. Owen Brown. Parker Gamlin. Renia Adam. Sabrina Pern. Sandy Martin. Saritha Rakinkindi. Stella Talski. Tucker Ables. And Zoe Shook. I would also just like to recognize Jenny Ablees and Darcy Kearley, who are our wonderful faculty and parent coordinators. I definitely could not do this without their help. So I'm very grateful for their help. I also wanted to let everybody know that Darcy and Jenny and I decided to do something a little bit different this year. We had a lot of conflicts in the evening last year, so we're meeting during Greyhound time. So we're trying something a little bit different. So maybe half the meetings are being held at the center, and then the other half are... kind of field trips where we take different tours of the fire station, the police station. We'll go to the public works building when it's finally completed. So I just thought I'd let everybody know that. Hopefully we'll be able to kind of alleviate some of those conflicts this year. And the students, I'm sure, will be able to give us some feedback on how that all goes. Thank you all for coming here. I really look forward to our year together. And maybe we could all just give a round of applause. All right.

Great.

Thank you.

And you guys are all welcome to see and listen, or you are also welcome to go home. And I'll see you next month.

What are they going to do?

Thank

you.

All right. We'll keep going. So this is the one year we have the formal Board of Education and City Council meeting, first year we're calling it City Council. So because of our joint commitment to the CRSWC, and it's always nice to have the full team here together to talk about things and just get together. And so with that, I will turn it over to Toni and her team that's going to give us the update.

Great. Thank you. I think I know almost everybody here, but if I don't know you, I'm Tony Searing. I'm the Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Clayton. And tonight we're going to talk about the Center of Clayton and really the budget for FY27 is the final act. But before that, we're going to be talking about the impact to the community and the people that we serve and how many people have really come through the facility. So thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you for the My people that stayed, now you'll know a little bit more about the center. So I appreciate that. Am I doing this?

Thank you.

Awesome, thanks. Great. Okay, so a little bit about who we serve. These numbers are also from July 1st of 2025 until September 30, 2026. So it's pretty much on the school district's fiscal year, but not necessarily the city's or the center's, but it's the easiest way for us to gather the information to give to you all tonight. So in this past 12 months, we currently have 8,330 members, which I'm pleased to say is up 4% from this time last year, so that's great. Those people visited the center over 272,000 times, almost 273,000, which is, again, up 13% from the year before. So we really like that because it... Shows that our members are active. We want people to be engaged. We want them to use their membership so that when we send communications to them, they're not thinking, oh, I never used the center. I should probably cancel my membership. So we like increased visits. Our resident, non-resident and corporate memberships do not differ a lot from their previous years. And you'll see those numbers off to the left hand side about And a little bit later, we'll talk about this to about 36. I think percent of our members are residents. So that's great as well During the school year, you know that those high school students have access to the center of Clayton And so do also the seventh grade memberships a few years ago We started a seventh grade membership program similar to the National Park Service fourth grade pass for for the seventh graders here because we wanted to get them active and engaged in the center and so that when they became high school students, they would know how to use the center, they would know what was going on there, and then hopefully they would encourage their families to take out family memberships as well. So those numbers, again, also really have not changed a lot since last year. We had about 810 students 196 seventh grade students um come through the center last year but what i really think is exciting is that the seventh grade student visits were up about 10 from the year before so again they're using the facility more as well too they tend to be there a lot of friday nights which is great because it's not a heavily used night by you know our young adult population so it does give the center some some good usage on times that we're not particularly busy We do have quite a few seniors that come through the doors as well. You might remember that we have what we call Renew Active Program. It's similar to Silver Sneakers. Seniors can get that through their health insurance, and then we're reimbursed from Renew Active per visit for those seniors. And so there are 450 active Renew Active members there. that come into our facility on a regular basis. And that is actually up a little bit from last year as well, too. So the visits, again, we get paid per visit. So we also started some programming this year to bring those folks into the center. We started some lunches, some bagels, bagel and coffee discussions so that they come in, they swipe their card, we get paid for that. So we're trying to, again, increase those as well. We also had an increase in non-members who came and paid a daily fee to the Center of Clayton. So we sold just over 9,700 day passes last year, which is also up 3% from the year before. So we are seeing increased usage, which we really like as well. And then on the bottom, you'll see the breakdown. of the people who the age group of the people who have memberships at the center of Clayton and we are pleased to report that there is one member that is 100 years old who comes to the center so Jeff actually had a great idea we should do a highlight on that person as well too so maybe with one of our younger members too so I think that would be a great idea with somebody he uses the center on a regular basis so yeah sorry I'm on clicker duty too. We also had 39 children this past year participate in our scholarship program for financial assistance That's actually up 26% from the year before you might know that both the CRS WC and the Parks and Rec Commission Actually revised our scholarship program this past year we increased the dollar amount per family that each family could get allocated and And then we decreased the financial contribution that the families would have to pay. Previously, they paid 50% of the program fee. Now they pay 25%. So that was very well received by those families as well. And then it also increased the scholarship number that was provided, the full dollar amount of just over 6,600. So that's been really well received by the families that participated and we were able to increase that program as well. So we're happy about that. We also offer 292 hours of adapted swim lessons this past year. We are also keeping some new statistics so that we can report on those moving forward. So those swim lessons are provided for people with disabilities, and those all go through, are counted as part of the scholarship program as well. And then we work with the CCF for reimbursement on some of those scholarships as well. Our Kids Center participants were a little bit down from the year before, but they used almost 3,000 hours of Kids Center services. So those are things that we always offer. It's included with your membership so you don't have to pay extra for nursery services while you're working out. We want to make sure that that is always advertised. We're always looking for ways to increase the value of our memberships, in particular the family memberships. So we want to make sure we're including free land and water fitness classes. We include free climbing wall, free nursery services. And we're always looking for things to add more value to that membership so that families really feel like they're putting a good value in with their membership. Um, we also had 135 student athletes come through the doors in the last year. That's about the same as it was in previous years. Um, we did have more campers come through this year, um, about an 8% increase. We had 614, uh, different children participate in our programs during our summer camp. We do offer, um, if you don't know, we don't offer full day daycare, traditional summer camp day camp. Um, we offer, um, enrichment camps that are half day. either sports Sometimes we'll have chess camps swimming camp things like that We'll do from 9 to noon in the morning and from 1 to 4 in the afternoon And then we offer what we call a lunch bunch program for people who want to be here the full day we do a much longer season that a lot of other rec departments do. We usually start camps the week after school ends, and we will go right through the week before school starts. So a lot of other req programs around the area, they'll just do like an eight-week or six-week time frame, but we want to make sure that if people need care, they have that for the entire summer. So We were able to increase that, and then there was about 37,000 hours that kids were in our summer camp programs as well, too. And one of the things that we've done over the last couple years is we've partnered with Subway, who provides the Lunch Bunch meal. Parents pay for that, but then it's a standardized meal Monday through Friday. On Monday, I think they get pizza. Tuesday they get chicken strips, things like that. So it was much easier than individualized orders and sandwiches for kids. You know, if you wanted a meatball sandwich and he wanted the ham sandwich, it's much easier. And it works out really well with our staff as well too so we can hand out all the lunches for that program as well too. So we've really had a good turnout with our summer camps the last couple years, and we're always looking for ways to add more camps. Like I said, we have chess camp. So we have camps for kids that um don't want to do sports all day as well, too So so that's part of the fun fun of the summer um And one of the real highlights, like I said, we include land and water fitness with our memberships. We had a 35% increase in our fitness class program participation this past year. Molly Troy, our fitness supervisor, Brandon Collins, her assistant, they've done a really great job of getting a lot of new and different classes onto the programming schedule and classes that start as soon as 5.30 in the morning all the way until 8 o'clock at night. So they've really done an amazing job with that. So the number of participants increased as well as the number of class offerings, so that was really great. We are a little stagnant right now with our aquatic fitness programs, but we did, you know, the pool was closed from the beginning of July through, it will reopen on Tuesday if anybody asks. It will reopen on Tuesday. So that is one area we know we have room for improvement as well and looking for some new instructors that can bring exciting classes as well too. Personal training has also been a really great highlight this past year. We're up 15% from the year before, and I can tell you this is probably looking to be one of the highest grossing just as far as the revenue goes for personal training, I would say in at least 15 years. So we have a couple of really great really engaged trainers. You may have seen their videos on Facebook or Instagram. I know that Rick does a lot of videos describing how to do exercises. Frank does those as well, too. So we have a few really great dedicated trainers, and they've really put in a lot of hours and really increased that participation as well. Our daily visitors, just for... Daily fees and membership fees, that increased about 3%, up to 553 people per day is about what's coming through. We also had an increase in our volunteers over this last year, about a 10% increase. That also not only includes youth sports coaches, but it includes anybody else who would want to come. I know that sometimes we'll have people who volunteer in the Kids Center. All those folks go through background checks through the police department. So all of those people also enhance the center of Clayton as well too. We have about 143 part-time staff right now. That can fluctuate just depending on how many programs we're offering. If we offer some of our summer camp programs, are those in-house programs? Are they contracted service providers? Or also, how many basketball teams? So as far as youth sports, the two major sports that we participate inside are youth volleyball leagues and youth basketball. And if you've ever been to the center on a Saturday during basketball season, it's organized chaos, I like to say. So if we have more teams, we'll have more volunteers and more staff for that as well, too. But it's really great to see all the kids at the center. And like I said, it's organized cast, but it's fun. So any questions about any of those numbers before I dive into the budget? Okay. So first you will see a fun summary of where we're projecting we're going to be at the end of this fiscal year, which ends for us on September 30th. If you don't know, we did have one of our skylights in the competition pool came off of the pool roof during one of our bad storms this past year. It's actually the second time it's happened in the time that I've been here. Unfortunately, what that meant is that we not only had and will have a larger expenditure for the repairs for that, and then we also did get some reimbursement already from the insurance company. So first of all, our deductible for that is $100,000. So that has already been accounted for in this year end projections. The skylights have not yet been fabricated. It takes them about 20 weeks to be fabricated. So we made the conscious decision. We knew that we already had the large capital project this year of redoing the floors in both the competition pool and the leisure pool. We did not have enough time to have the skylights fabricated and then have them be done in time to have that repair done when we already had planned the closure this summer. So we talked to Jim. And we talked to the people who did the board up of the roof where the skylight was, and they ensured us that it would last until next summer. So we made the conscious decision to delay that actual replacement until next fiscal year when we could do it during our normal pool closure. We didn't want to inconvenience our members any more than they already are being inconvenienced this year with the new flooring installation. So what that means is that there is some expenses in the end of the year for FY 26 for things that we've already incurred and there's also been some preliminary or pre payment on our insurance claim they paid out what they thought very quickly you know they did an estimated amount for what they thought it would cost for us to do this repair and they pay that out very quickly so there's Extra revenue that we weren't expecting and extra expenses that we also were not expecting with this with this Repair that will have to happen and it's about a hundred and seventy thousand dollars net So that's why we felt it was important to break that out for fiscal year 26 and show you what would we have estimated it as is with the extra revenue from the insurance claim and the expenses from the repairs and What would it have looked like if that would not have happened? So where we are estimating that we will end the year is about a total of a negative seven hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars with without, I'm sorry, with the parent contributions. If you took the parent contributions out, which include operating fund and IRF and capital, it would be about a 79.76 cost recovery. So I hope that makes sense. Now, one of the things I should note is that we will continue to submit any expenses above and beyond what we've already been reimbursed for to the insurance company for reimbursement, but we did have quite a large deductible for that as well too, so. I hope that makes sense. Okay, I am going to let Valerie talk a little bit about capacity. So when we talk at the Center of Clayton about capacity, it's really how many people can we fit into the building?

Basically what we wanted to do was look at at what point are we maxed out that we cannot sell Any other memberships that it will just be at this point when we hit this capacity number for units That the only way maybe to increase revenue is just maybe strictly by a membership rate increase Or when do we need to start looking at maybe other creative revenue streams for that? So this just kind of helps us keep an eye on where we need to be. So our goal for capacity is, it's kind of an industry standard that you're either 10 times your capacity, which means if your building was completely maxed out at one moment in time, every lap lane is filled, every basketball court has the max number of players it can have on the court, every piece of equipment up in the fitness center is being utilized. You want to be at either 10 times up to 20 times is kind of the industry range for capacity that's the target that you want to hit so when we figured out that number we kind of created a formula based and converted that to units so not people because capacity is really people but we do our revenue and our memberships based on a membership unit which could be a family of five so we don't consider that five people we consider that one unit So when we look at this, we decided quite a few years ago that we would try to hit a 12 times capacity. So be it around 3,600 units is where we would top out as membership. And so right now I'm happy to say we are above 10 times capacity because our current goal for FY27 is basically 3,200 units, which is well above the 10 times capacity but not quite yet at the 12 times. capacity. So that just kind of gives you an idea of the target for units that we're trying to hit for FY27.

And at some point, I think if we approach or surpass 12 times capacity, I think that's where we're gonna have to start looking at some other adjustments. Are we gonna be using more towels? Are we going to be using more paper towels? Do we need more people at the front desk or more lifeguards or more people in the fitness center as well too? So I think with those increased capacity numbers could come increased expenses if you got further over that. But those are decisions that we could certainly do not have to have right now. So as Valerie mentioned, we do have some numbers up here for your units, membership units versus the number of members that we have. As of July 1st, we had about 3,132 membership units. So as Valerie mentioned a unit could be a family membership, an adult membership and then we actually had just over 8,300 total members. That's actually a little bit more than last year but not quite as much as we had in 2024 so what that tells us is we have a few more individual memberships right now than family memberships but that's okay and we need all of those to keep the center's revenue coming in on a steady stream as well too but i mean our goal is to always grow family memberships whether they're resident corporate or non-resident we want them as many families as possible to come into the center so that's what we'll continue to focus on as we move through the budget So when you notice residency or memberships broken down by residency, by type, the majority of our memberships are resident memberships, but we do have a pretty good balance between corporate and non-residents as well. Obviously, you know that just on the other side of 170, those folks are non-residents. Just over by Gay Field, those folks are not residents. A lot of those people work in Clayton, so they get corporate rates as well too. But we do have a the family memberships along with the adult and the senior. The youth memberships has always been a smaller category for us, but it is a category that we really would like to grow as well. So even if we know we don't have a full non-resident family, we still want a non-resident youth, especially if it's so close to some of the homes in the area as well too. This is really tiny from back here. But when we talk about membership rates, really this graph just indicates we have had a slow, steady growth in our membership rates over the last 10 years. And that is really across the board. There have been incremental. There have not really been any significant or what I would call like serious rate increase that are not significant. thought through and are really jumping from one year to the next at not a consistent rate. So there really has been slow, steady growth in the membership fees. And when we talk about comparison, so every year when we do our budget, we look at what we would call our competition. or any places around the area that are also looking for membership dollars. So the Center of Clayton does tend to be higher than a lot of other rec centers. The one rec center that we're not higher than for the family resident rate is the City of Maryland Heights has their new facility right next to Aquaport. I think it's off 270 and Dorset in that area. They are a little bit higher than what we're even proposing per month. So I would also say that I think the Center of Clayton is quite a bit larger than some of these facilities. And in my opinion, it's quite a bit nicer than some of these facility. I mean, they don't all have two pools. We have two. We have four gyms. I do think our facilities are a little bit larger as well, too. But we do look at that every single year because we want to be cognizant that we're not pricing ourselves out of the market. So we make sure we look at that every year. You will notice that when we talk about the YMCA, obviously they just have rates for family, adult, senior. So there's no resident or non-resident. And we just put that under the non-resident category. We look at everyone that we would consider our competition that we can get membership rate info from, too. Some other places don't necessarily want to give it out to us. Okay. So I guess some of the highlights or things we want to touch on for the FY27 budget is so the membership fees, we do have in here a proposed rate increase of 4.8%. Except for the youth categories, we did lower those because we are trying to attract additional memberships for the youth. So that is expected to generate about $160,000 in additional revenue from the end of this fiscal year that we're in right now. We also, like I mentioned earlier, are talking about targeted program participation, targeted classes, things that we want to make sure grows, again, not only the participation but grows the value for the membership that you're paying for. We have seen some decreased program participation in the climbing wall. And in aquatic fitness classes, and we want to make sure that we're trying to get people back into those programs. So we will be doing some additional efforts there as well, along with the martial arts program. We've had a martial arts instructor who's been with us for probably 20 years, and he probably is getting ready to retire here shortly. So we're going to need to make sure he has a turnover plan ready. for his class as well, too. But he's an amazing instructor and has been around a long time. So we will make sure that that is one of our focuses as well. As a lot of people are in their business and in their home, we're struggling with rising costs for services, commodities. Again, while our revenues are only projected to increase 3%, our expenses are expected to grow about 8%. Two of the things that I think I feel like we should note this year. We are adding a time clock system We currently do all of our part-time payroll by hand and on paper timesheet So we are going to move into the 2000s and we will we've added that for the next fiscal year And then it does renew at a lower rate after that so that's good It's just a little bit higher for the initial the initial setup. Um And then we also are struggling. The pool chemicals have been really volatile, I would say, as far as their price. They've really gone up and down a lot this year. So we'll need to keep an eye on that moving forward as well too. But that is one of the areas that also did have an increase in expenses. And then as we talked about the skylight replacement, Really, we're just going to need to keep an eye on that. Jim and I have talked about how we're going to implement that. We'll be able to hopefully sign the contract, assuming the budget gets approved for that, October 1st. Then they can start fabrication. We've already told them when we need them to install that. So again, we'll make sure that we're really keeping an eye on the The expenses, any additional expenses that we have, again, will be submitted to our insurance for that as well. And then we did not budget any additional revenue because we weren't really expecting any. So if we do have additional revenue for that insurance reimbursement, that would be above and beyond what's listed in the 27 budget as well, too. We only included the expense because we had already been reimbursed in 26. Hopefully that makes sense. So when you look at our budget overall, the vast majority of our budget of the operating revenue is gonna come from annual memberships. It's about $2.5 million. After that it's programming. That includes personal training, all of the basketball and volleyball revenue. It also includes any fitness programming, like I said karate, that is not free, and all of our summer camps as well too. And then it's just followed up by rentals. We do try to rent the facility. Whenever we can obviously our meeting rooms same goes with the pool and the gymnasium But we want to keep make sure we have those available for members and for the high school PE and athletics So those are smaller rental revenues, but we still do plan for those Our operating expenses, you'll notice that the biggest part of our operating expenses is contractual services. About 40% of our contractual services are for school district personnel and MPM lifeguarding personnel too. So of that... $2.5 million, 40% of that, about a million dollars is for other personnel services with the district and MPM as well. And then the other contractual services are really utilities and maintenance and repair of not only our facility but any fitness equipment. We make sure that we have all the fitness equipment operating correctly. And then also contractual services. When we do some of our summer camps, we have contractual service providers who provide those camps. So that would be included in this line as well. And then obviously the second largest charge is personnel. And that's all the full-time staff that are charged to the center, not all the staff that work in Parks and Rec. Some are charged to the city 100%. Some are charged to center. So this is only the people that are charged to center and all their related benefits and expenses as far as full and part-time employees as well. If we talk about IRF and capital moving forward, we do have planned to spend a little bit more in IRF this coming fiscal year for 27, but not as much in capital. That was a conscious decision because we knew we were spending so much this year on the pool flooring and some of the related expenses there. But you will notice that I would say the meeting room tables and chairs, and in particular the gym scoreboards, those are things that we have pushed off for the last couple years. So we felt like we could fit them into the FY27 budget as far as IRF items. But we do look at that. Every year we sit down with our staff when we talk about what it is they think we need, and then we go back and Valerie and I meet with Jim Burnell. And then we all say, okay, what can we wait on? Are there things that have to be fixed sooner? That's when Jim tells me we need to replace the fire panel. And then we'll include that in the budget as well. So we have a large spreadsheet. We know the expected useful life of most of these items and we'll plan for that out. So the next slide or I'm sorry, it's a couple slides away, but we do have plans for that Going out at least I would say 10 to 15 years and then it does expand after that as well too for larger capital items And we'll talk about that in a couple slides But our tenant update Oasis continues to be a great partner for us. Oh, sorry Thanks Did I go ahead?

Yeah,

sorry. Oh, there I am, sorry. I hit it too hard. OASIS, if you don't know, OASIS is on the second floor of the Center of Clayton. They provide senior activity programs for now they consider a senior 50 and older, which is somewhat terrifying. Yes, oh yeah, oh yeah, yes. When I first started at the center, it was like 60 and older, and I'm like, how did this happen? Yeah. Not only when we did our renovation did that block off a cutoff that people would often use to try to sneak into the center of Clayton. Now it's used for the Clayton History Society, and they pay us a small rent fee every year to use that facility. So they have some of the Hanley House materials that are up in the lobby right now. They're going to display some more materials later. They have some groups of people that are coming in, getting all of their archives stored and organized right now. So it's nice to have them on site as well too. Now we're back to fund summary. So the FY27 proposed budget, when we met with the CRSWC earlier this year, we were told to devise a budget that got us with a rate increase and then to about 82.5% cost recovery for FY27. So I'm pleased to say that if you look at the bottom chart, the proposed budget, the total cost recovery is 87.14%. And then that does include the skylight expenses for this upcoming fiscal year. And then the operating fund does have about an 84.13 cost recovery number. And again, that is with the 4.8% fee increase for this fiscal year. And the next slide talks a little bit more about the cost recovery. So we track this every year, and it's something that we're always paying attention to. If you look at the operating fund, again, proposed for FY27 will be 84%. Again, the estimated cost recovery for FY26 of the 90%, that does include that insurance reimbursement for the Skylight. So if you looked at that without the contributions from the parent organizations, because we do get $300,000, $150,000 from each parent organization this fiscal year, then it would be proposed at about a 78% cost recovery. And this year, again, we are looking at about an 84%. If you look at all funds, so not just the operating fund, but operating, equipment replacement, and capital funds, We have a proposed 87% cost recovery. And again, though, without the parent contributions, that looks more like 81%. And then the parents also contribute $50,000 each annually to the IRF fund and $100,000 each annually, to the capital fund as well too. You might or might not know this, but years ago both the city and the district decided they didn't want the CRS3C to carry a large fund balance moving forward and they would rather fund that at the parent organizations and then fund the deficits each year going forward as opposed to the center building its own reserve fund. So we make sure that we zero that out every year. And as I mentioned earlier, we do long-term planning for capital expenses by fiscal year. And I did just want to point out to everybody that we are expecting in 2030 a larger expense that year, which would include the full replacement of the air handling units. Those are over the gyms. In particular, those were not done when we did the center renovation. That was by choice. We couldn't afford it at the time. And that is where we're thinking we'll be replacing them. I don't know if Jim is back there. But if we look at that every year and we say right now, yes, let's keep it, or if we think we can push that out, we can push that as well too. But we do evaluate that each year. But I did want to point out because it is going to be such a large capital expense in a few years. I think that was my last slide. So I'm happy to answer any questions. I know I talked a lot and I talked fast.

Who has questions?

I figure somebody's got to start. Thank you for the presentation. It was great to hear how many numbers are going up. It's very exciting. I am glad to hear that the focus will be on trying to increase youth membership, and I want to go back to something that I've said at this table before several years ago. Think about our seventh grade free membership, and I'm wondering if we as a group can think about what I've Wondered is if having it in eighth grade instead of seventh would help transfer some of those kids more there You know if they go in seventh and then they can't go in eighth unless they get a membership, does that make them less likely to then get a membership at all going into high school? Would there be a difference if we did eighth grade be the free membership or even seventh and eighth? Whoa. Then be more likely to get those youth memberships I'm throwing that out there as an as a possibility and something for us to talk about and I don't really understand Why we chose seventh you can maybe there is a good reason for it. But in my eyes that eighth grade year is another great year to capture those kids before they then transfer to the high school.

That's a great question. The reason we chose seventh grade is because that's the age that kids can come into the center and use almost everything unaccompanied by an adult. That was the minimum age. The

first eight, the minimum.

Correct, yes. That was why we specifically chose seventh grade.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'll add one of the things that we've talked about as a commission is how to pull those kits in. And one of the things we talked about was designing some teen-specific programming so that there is some sort of... incentive for them to come and be in a class together or something like that but what I'm wondering too is can you pull out like I know that we do units and so a family unit is different but like do we know how many youth Or, you know, like my family has a membership and we have some youths. So I'm just wondering. Youths or whatever they say. So I'm wondering, like, do we know how that shakes out or does it matter?

We can pull that information because. You're supposed to scan everybody in. So if you came with your three kids and all four people scanned in, it's by- By visit. Got it. So we can certainly pull that information and say out of this family or a youth family member came

Okay, that makes sense. And that's why, yeah, if anybody asks, that's why it's so important that we scan every single person from the family in because it also gives us an accurate portrayal of how many people are really using the facility. I know sometimes people think that, you know, we're trying to be difficult, but we're really not. We want to get good numbers.

I do think it's a great idea, though, Betsy, to think about programming for the youth. I mean, True Fusion is around the corner from me, and it's become a very hot place for older teenagers to go, but I think you have to be 16 in order to go there. So thinking about classes for our... 13th, like 7th graders, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th graders, whether it's yoga, Pilates, you know, something that thinking about classes for that age, you might really get a draw.

That could definitely be something we could look into. We could, you know, try to survey some of those participants and see what they're really interested in. And then we do have that classroom that's right off the lobby that would be high visible and, you know, kids could see other kids in there working out. So that is something we could definitely look into. Yeah.

We have looked in a little bit a couple years ago to esports as well, just to see if there's a good... We're a little limited in space,

but

that was another thing we've been thinking about.

I would just say, like, I... I'm in similar mind for seventh and eighth grade. It's like, yeah, we all want to make sure we get cost recovery. We all make sure we want to pay for it. But at some point, if our goal is to just get kids moving and keep kids fit, and that's, I mean, the school district city is like we're, I don't, I mean, you guys can tell me, but I don't think we'd lose much money by making the eighth grade year free. But now you basically built two years of use. There's no longer the limit to use it other than getting there. And when they get to high school, they already have access to it During the day, I mean, again, unless the number's really the best we can tell or otherwise, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to break it up.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we could do that. We would have to look at what we thought the financial impact would be, but we can do that. I mean, we can get those numbers.

That'd be great. For the same reasons that you're saying, Jeff, is we do want our kids to be active. So giving them that and then taking it away does seem odd. And then the other thing is, like you said, that's who's using it on Friday nights, which is fantastic because then they're there being healthy rather than who knows where doing whatever else. And it's also a safe

space too. Exactly. We want

kids

to realize that as well.

Exactly. And I do, I see youth enjoying it. So the more we can incentivize them being there, classes, et cetera. And then the other question I want to ask again that I've asked before is how much communication goes out to our schools directly from you guys about what is offered there?

Do you know that off the top of your head?

So I know we, last year fully started, we have a marketing person And she's come on board and she has worked with, I'm very sorry, your communication, Gina. Great, okay. Yeah, I think she's really trying this year to make that a focus of really trying to not only, you know, promote the high school, but even to tell the parents of, you know, of the elementary schools that, you know, we have this great facility and we want it there. So it's, yeah.

Okay, wonderful. I think that's a great way to do it.

And also communicating with the parents, like this is the time that your kid gets the free membership. So if you want them to come on evenings and weekends, here's how much it costs. Exactly. You know, whatever. So making sure it's not only student but also parent

communication.

Beautiful.

I'd also like to add as like from a parent perspective, one of the things that we've talked about is And I think from a PTO leadership perspective, I remember doing open houses at Captain and there was like some conflict about what messaging could go out in, you know, on the... school district platform. And if it's not a school district affiliated thing, then it can't go out. But I think there's, I'm not sure if the leaders in the schools know that the center is a school district asset. And so like for volleyball programming or basketball programming or the climbing wall or summer camps, like that is a school district Yes, like we have to produce the material for them to send out. But I wonder if that is still the case. I mean, it's been a minute. And if we can sort of ramp up the leadership in all the schools to have an understanding of like this is our shared thing. This is not just a city thing. Exactly.

In particular, that's a captive audience for youth sports. Sorry to interrupt you. And the district has been very great in allowing us to put out yard signs to remind people that youth sports registration is coming up because we really had a serious problem with late registrations. So anything that we can do to help that I think would be helpful for us.

Yeah, that's just what I was going to say. There are a lot of kids that I know miss the sign-up window or families that are new to the district that also don't get plugged in until the following year, and that's an opportunity for the kids to bond with their classmates. So I would agree with you that that's a super important place to increase communication.

I'll say, Betsy, this week I sat in for Jason at the PTO council meeting, and I made sure to, you know, I was sort of giving them what's going to happen at our upcoming meeting, which was this one, and I made that plug to all of them. So I had all of the PTO... as many of them as possible were in that room and I made sure to let them know that this is a relationship that we have and that it is a joint asset for both the city and the schools. So yeah, I think that kind of continued communication about our partnership and that it is an asset of both could be really helpful for membership.

And I agree with that and I think when you're explaining to this group reminding all of us here that in addition to all of those great things we're doing it's also just serving a core function of our schools in being the second gym and the natatorium for the high school. And understanding the nature of that relationship makes a lot more sense when you, the setup, when you put it in the context of that. And that's value that it provides to all of our constituents. And I'm going to continue to encourage you to point that out.

Yeah, when when I first started 25 years ago We marketed the center as a high-end fitness facility. We have moved away from that and we market it now as a community recreation center and that is by specific choice of Because we want people to understand that the center is the primary PE and athletic facility for Clayton High School as well. Because sometimes people are like, what are these kids doing here all day? Are they skipping school? Why are you allowing that? No, we are part of the Clayton High School campus. And we do try to make that evident. And yeah, maybe we can do a better job with that as well too.

I don't know if that's a marketing thing, but for people who want to understand the relationship and our community's relationship with this asset. That's why it makes sense. I mean, that's why it makes for all of us to be sitting at this table talking about it.

So I hear the reasoning for it being seventh grade. I would love to push us to consider it being sixth grade instead of seventh grade or in addition to. Sixth grade is when these kids are coming together and meeting each other for the first time from the entire district. And they want to hang out together, but they like, I'm also a big proponent of having more of these third spaces, like places where these kids can go on a Friday night because they can't go to a movie and they can't go hang out at a mall. And so I think if we could open this up to our sixth graders as they're meeting each other and they need more spaces, it would be really an incredible asset for our entire community. So I push that.

I mean, we can certainly look at the age requirements. And I know we did that a while ago with attorneys looked at it with the tender age and things like that. We can certainly revisit that. That's what they called it. Yeah. Right.

Well, or we could look at if it's not maybe a free membership that we really try to focus on programming. So maybe we can't because we can't let them be in the facility by themselves. But maybe we could offer some Friday night programming or something that gives them the opportunity that's free. Yeah.

That was going to be my follow-up suggestion, is that if you can't have it just open for the age limitation purposes, but think about what are some of these programming opportunities to allow for that. Yep, that's certainly possible.

I would love to see more advertising for the nighttime rentals now that alcohol is allowed. It's just like there's so many PTO events that still don't use the center. Oh, yeah. It would be such a great...

Yeah. It has significantly increased our evening rental and after-hour rental opportunities significantly. So, yes, that was a great change. And, yeah, we love those because those people are also invested in Clayton. How do I want to say this? We know that they'll operate within the parameters of our rental agreements. Is that so?

Yes. When I think, you know, because I've often wondered, Pam, but a lot of times the size, because our rooms, while it looks big, like the Heights is significantly larger. So when you're looking at like a really big group, sometimes our rooms, even though they're all together, are just not big enough for the group.

That is true. The Heights rooms are bigger.

Yeah. Even when they're all.

Um, so I was thinking, um, it's not exactly CRSWC, but could you maybe talk a little bit about the new parent council advisory council we have with our, their leagues? Thanks.

Um, so, uh, in response to some issues that happened last year in our youth sports leagues, um, this year we did, uh, form a youth sports advisory council. Um, and it's, uh, uh, It consists of parents and coaches that have children in not just one league, but soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball, t-ball. And they convened recently. They had their first meeting. And really what they're going to look into is One of the things we charged them with was the registration process. Candidly, we were getting about 25% of our overall registrations were coming in late. So we said to them, how can we get people to come in on time? They're going to look at if there are issues during games that we think perhaps may warrant additional response after the game. We'll look into that. This group will look into any other, I would say, overarching issues issues with the league or changes that the league may present. One of the things we've also had, we've had a decreased participation in our coaches meetings over the last few years. One of the great suggestions was could you do one meeting for new coaches and one meeting for returning coaches because the returning coaches a lot of times will have a lot of the basic information that we're already going over again and maybe won't have as many questions so we're looking at things like that. So really just kind of overall when things aren't going according to plan, maybe this sport, this group will help advise us on, on where they think we should go. And also they have the, hopefully they have the, the, feed on the community and they know what's being said. And it also includes, if you don't know, we provide a lot of youth sports services for, I would say, the whole mid-county region. So they're not all Clayton teams. So this group does also include coaches that have been with us a while or also coordinators from teams that are outside Clayton, are outside the Clayton School District. But yes, thank you.

All right. Well, I'll ask out of respect for our retired colleague here, Kim Hurst, I'll ask the question she asks every year. Okay. On the CapEx spend, is there any delayed CapEx besides the error system that you brought up that's being delayed or pushed out?

Not to my knowledge. Okay.

I do think, I said this last year, and honestly, this is not a big deal, but we ought to consider funding depreciation again, especially considering if we have a huge expense coming down the line within the next 10 years. Starting to get a handle on that now might, you know, the commission can work with that through the finance committee, but it might be worth starting to think about that now. So just a comment there. On the capacity piece, the 10x versus the 12x, how close are we to hitting that 12x? Do we have a sense of that?

Well, I would say on average we grow about 3% a year, 3% to 4% in units. So, I mean, I think we're still easily – Okay, all right because it just feels to me like that's a potential issue that if we were like five or less years away from that you know this group probably needs to think through that a little bit because that means

our net loss is going to start escalating pretty quickly. And so I think the concern would be if that starts escalating faster than our overall budget, and that becomes a problem for all of us. So that's why I asked the question.

Yeah, no, I think we still have a few years. And you're right because once that happens, the only way we're generating additional revenue is fee increases.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the only thing just based on the conversation before for programming, it sounds like you'd have a strong Mahjong group here if you guys were able to start Mahjong. But no, beyond that, this has been a great presentation. Just the progress that's been made with this facility and with this group for the past few years is just, it's really great. So I really appreciate the work that's gone into this. So thank you.

Well, thank you to Valerie and to Jim. I know he's back there as well, too. So all of their staff, and they all work really well together. And like I said, I think when we can have conversations that are easy to have with each other, then it's easier for us to move forward in our work. in a cohesive manner.

Anyone

else? I'll just say, Tony and Valerie, thank you so much. Great presentation and great discussion.

All right. Thank you. All right. With that, we'll adjourn this part of the meeting. So thank you to our colleagues on the city council and the board will take a bit of a commercial break and we'll come back after that. All right, let's focus. Let's pay attention. This year just feels a little bit different. I guess adequate notice has still been given. We've already said the pledge. All right, any public comments? No, okay. We'll keep it going. Dr. Patel.

great thank you everyone for being here today and thank you to our globe crew for being here again we're going to give you a shout out every time you're here just so you know um so start of the school year was great it's been about what eight or nine days into the school year so we kicked it off the first day with the senior sunrise which is one of my favorite events to go to and it was great to see like Our class of 2027 gathered at Gay Field. The morning was beautiful. It was not like last year where it was like 110 degrees, it felt like, at 5.30 a.m., but the students showed up and it was a wonderful event. And then from there, the day continued. I got a chance to visit every school building. I felt there was great energy. Everyone was excited to be back, staff and students, which is important. But it was a great day overall. So we're looking forward to keeping the momentum going in the next month and lots of months to come ahead. Another celebration that we can definitely highlight, I know many of you have already seen this, but we are so excited that Clayton High School has once again been recognized as the top public non-selective high school in Missouri by U.S. News and World Report. It ranked third overall in the state. Yes, we can clap for that. It ranked third overall in the state behind two schools with selective admissions and climbed 42 spots nationally to number 308. This reflects the hard work of our students, of our staff and the support of our families and community overall. So congratulations to everyone at Clayton High School. And we will be formally recognizing them at our November recognizing our own ceremony that this is the first year we're going to be doing that. And we'll do it in the auditorium and make it extra special for them. So congratulations to them. And then speaking of the high school and recognitions, another huge achievement that we had was that Clayton High School was awarded the St. Louis Suburban Conference Commissioner's Cup, recognizing the high school as the top overall – this is impressive – athletic program out of 31 schools in the conference. With strong seasons across a number of sports, this is a great reflection of the hard work of our coaches and our athletes and our students. And this has been – truly one of those recognitions that I know that the whole athletic department and Clayton High School has really year after year been trying to achieve. They usually end up being second or third, and this was the first year like we got it. And Steve Hudson, our athletic director, we all know how outstanding he is, and he's so passionate about what he does, and he's a great human being and a leader. And when he got it, he texted me and he's like, are you around? And I said, yeah. And he's like, can I come to your office real quick? And I'm like, sure. He's like, I just need to talk to you about something. I'm like, great. So he comes in and I see from the corner of my eye, he's like running with something in his hand. And I was like, what? And I look up and he brings the cup and he puts it right in the middle of the table. He's like look what we got. And then he mentioned that our neighboring school, a neighboring school district did not. That was just the cherry on top. But again, we will recognize them as well at the recognizing our own ceremony in November and we know that success just doesn't happen in the classroom and we believe that the classroom is also athletic fields. So with that, we're making strategic investments in also our athletic fields which leads us to our presentation for tonight, and that is going to be from our Long Range Facilities Master Plan. We have our design team, we have BSI here, our CFO Matt Nord will be at the table, but they are going to give us an update on where we've been, where we are, and where we're headed. So I'm looking forward to that. And with that, I'm gonna hand it off to our student board rep Manu's presentation. Can't wait to have your first one.

Yeah so the district is off to a great start at the high school level freshmen are getting acclimated to new environment. We've had great fresh we had a great freshman turnout at the club fair last Friday and while schoolwork clubs and extracurriculars can be kind of overwhelming for freshmen I'm confident that they'll be able to adjust especially with our counselors and across all levels of the district students seem to be adapting to the addition of iPads pretty well. And I'll be looking into any issues that we have with them. But so far, we haven't encountered very many problems. Additionally, a recent problem among Clayton youth residents, like we talked about earlier, is declining youth membership at the center. And the center offers so many resources to its members. We're currently looking into what the root of the issue is. I'll be investigating in the coming weeks. It could be an issue of cost, quality, or a different reason. I'll just be asking students around the school and even in focus groups at Widown what they think and whether or not they have a membership and why. So just expect me to report back on it at the next meeting. And next, focus groups at Widown, Glenridge, Merrimack and Captain. I will be getting the opportunity to meet with students in focus groups starting this quarter. And I hope to gather their perspectives on possible issues at their schools. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what the younger populations of our district are thinking of their educational experience. And right now I'm working with all four schools besides the high school to set up focus groups for September and October. I plan to meet with Merrimack Student Council on September 29th, and also White Owens Student Council later this month too. And finally, we already have some examples of elements of the profile of a Clayton learner in classrooms. Now, this is from last year, but as part of Ms. Kearley's Honors English 2 curriculum, students must write an interview reflection based on the three chosen components of the profile of Clayton learner. And last year, I chose collaboration, creative thinking, and intellectual curiosity. And I'm hoping to see more aspects of the profile of a Clayton learner in curricula in the future. So yeah, overall, we've had an amazing first week and a half. And I just can't wait to see what the rest of the school year holds.

Great. Thanks Manu and welcome. It's your first official meeting here with the board so we look forward to working with you this year. And Dr. Patel it's always a good report when we can beat a neighboring school district at two different things in the same meeting so keep it up.

All

right. Matt and company.

Thank you all for the opportunity to speak this evening. Just as a quick introduction, we're going to be going through our team that's currently representing the school long-term facility planning. We have Paul Sharamataro next to me with BSI. We have Stan Hampton with BLDD. I'm sorry, we have Mike Younglove. Brad and Mike are not sitting next to each other. Mike Younglove is next to my left, Stan Hampton is next with BLDD and Brad Irwin with Paragon as well. We'll be presenting the long-term facilities plan as it applies to our utilization of Prop O and our capital investments through our capital projects fund.

All right, yeah, so thank you. Just good to see everybody. Yeah, just some key topics for discussion. We'll do a schedule update on the projects, discover some updates on the projects as well, touch on the capital improvement projects, the modular campus, and the future phase. As we mentioned, we've got Paragon Architecture here, BLDD, Perkins & Will. Amy and Steve were not able to make it, but they wished her best in PSI.

Good evening. I know you've seen versions of this slide before, but just wanted to give you an update of where we are at currently. So that big red line down the middle, you can see there's a lot of design activity both on the phase one bond funded projects as well as the budget funded projects. And those orange bars represent different phases of design. So for example, at Glenridge, we're at the completion of one design phase called design development and working into construction documents where the high school, for example, the learning lab, we're at the end of the construction document phase. So that's why you kind of see some staggering there. And then, as we work with the bsi team and the district on the appropriate times to go to market for bidding and for construction for all the different facilities, based on the occupancy of the sites, the construction duration. is major difference obviously between something like at the performing arts Center where we're doing a lot of interior renovations compared to the extensive. reconstruction and renovation of Glen Ridge. So that's why your, your duration bars on the construction timeframes are significantly different. Um, and then if we go down there to the bottom, just to, just to note that the items related to Merrimack and captain are really based on future bond votes and the debt reduction and, um, property value assess valuation in 2029 but we want to make sure that we kept those on there keep kind of the eye on the target at the end there because we are making a lot of decisions holistically based on the master plan that we completed last year and how that relates to propo the fate you know this phase one as well as the budget funded projects And to explain a little bit more about the construction document phase, because that's what a lot of the design projects are in. So when we talk about design, there's actually kind of three phases, the schematic design and the design development, which is already completed, and construction documents. And the best way to describe construction documents is we take a design and we turn it into a set of drawings that can be bid, permitted, and constructed, and a lot more detail underneath that. But that's essentially what the phase we're in across multiple projects right now. There's a little bit of some of the work that we've already completed. There's been a lot of design refinement based on the interaction amongst the design teams, the district, and the feedback that we get both from constructability, feasibility, and pricing with BSI, and a lot of coordination within the mechanical systems, your technology, structural. Even, for example, when we talk about Glenridge, just a lot of coordination there of marrying new construction versus existing and retrofitting that existing and constant design decisions based on budget alignment. And that's what's really great about having the BSI team involved here with the CM at Risk process early on in the design phase is we get that constant interaction with them about design decisions and budget alignment, but also at the end of each one of those major milestones of schematic design design development, and then usually twice during that construction document phase, they do a deeper dive within the documents that we prepare for them to give us that feedback. And so we hear about market conditions. We hear about availability of materials, which again helps us make better design decisions that then impact them during construction. So a lot of that will then be coming ahead as we've got some bit openings scheduled here in the future near future on a couple of the projects and we'll start to have some of that information back to present to the board.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Okay digging into the proper abundant fraud projects we still have the renovation of Glen Ridge Elementary the addition to Clayton High School for the learning lab and the gay fields improvements taking a look at Glen Ridge Elementary just a process update so kicked off the design development phase in April and wrap that up at the end of June. did do some budget updates for the month of July and met beginning in August and reviewed that with the district and BSI and did some reconciliation to align with the scope and budget. And we started CDs the construction document phase a few weeks ago. So that and then as you can see on the bottom left there we've completed a wide range of meetings throughout the spring and summer and will continue to do those throughout the construction document phase but we have regular meetings with the district Arkansas Design team in the construction manager, but also that user engagement notes on our meetings and coordinating with the hj and those estimate review meetings as well. Looking at some exterior renderings of Glen Ridge elementary this is looking at Wellington avenue along the existing South facade so just being very mindful of the existing architecture, it looks a lot like what it does today. But really the big change is the bringing that main entry back to the south elevation there so we've created a Plaza entry in the middle. and created that new main entry at that lower level there. And this is along Oxford, another exterior rendering looking at the addition of the building. So in the center there is actually the gymnasium addition portion. Along skinny windows, it'll be storm rated. And then we do have large glass facades on the left and right side there to let a lot of natural daylight into the Learning Commons area. But again, just being very mindful of the architecture of the neighborhood and the existing building. And one more on the corner of Oxford and Glenridge. This is looking at the addition as well on the classroom wing. You can see the gym addition in the back along Oxford, and then on the right side there along Glenridge is the existing building. So just tying those two together, and again, just being very mindful of the architecture in the neighborhood. Some interior renderings. This is the main entry vestibule. So on the left would be the reception. The doors in the back is a locked down vestibule door. It's the main corridor. Griffin branding a little waiting area for seating patrons come in some shelving just for deliveries and screen for messages and events. Gymnasium rendering a much larger gym than what Glenridge is used to so this would be and more of your p mode. I've got a divider curtain coming down. We've got bleachers on the left side. The gray area on the right is an operable panel partition that separates the multi-purpose stage and some large windows to let a lot of natural daylight in. But also the gymnasium could be used for large assemblies as well. So looking on the right now, the operable partition's open. We're using the stage. You can gather a lot of people in there and use the bleachers on the And then on the upper level of the third floor, we have a Learning Commons area. So all the regular classrooms open up to a Learning Commons area, so there'll be large glazed openings open into here. It creates that flexibility of collaboration. We have a large vaulted wood ceiling with some cove lighting, Large amounts of glass to get daylight in monumental stair doing the Griffin branding and some are private settings just a little seating booth there in the back just for different types of environments and settings. And then, on the second floor very similar to above another learning commons rendering. A big difference here is just we can't do the vaulted ceiling because of the floor above, so just doing a different look with the ceiling with the wood slat ceiling just to give it a nice look. And then we still have that monumental stair with some cove seating in the back for a more private setting as well. And then one more interior rendering, just of a typical classroom. So on the back of the image there would be your large glazed openings that open up to the Learning Commons area. On the right side is your learning teaching wall, some marker boards that are on panels that slide around. So behind those would be a lot of storage shelving. We've got some casework there in sync, using some different types of furniture for different types of setting, and then large tackable wall surfaces to play and display a lot of school work. And then the Clayton High School Learning Lab. So this project we did kick off design development in April and wrapped it up in May. I did a DD design development budget updates over May and early June and reviewed that with the district as well. We've launched CDs over in June and we're close to wrapping those up. We also did do another estimate update during the CD phase here in August, so aligning that scope of work with the budget. And again, very similar to Glen Ridge, we've held a lot of regular meetings and user engagement and went through the planning commission and site plan review as well. Updated rendering for the learning lab here. It's similar to what you guys have seen before, just some refinements. We're still doing the white aluminum composite metal panels, brick to match the existing. In the background there is the 2010 edition, so just similar architecture to that. We'll have a large glazed opening into the STEM learning lab, some sunshade devices, and a covered entry vestibule. And then interior rendering of the STEM lab, just a large open space with drywall paint on the ceilings and modern lighting doing the Greyhound logo branding in the back there. I did make some refinements to the orange band there with the lighting just to align with the budget a little bit better and showing the robotics course and some workstations there on the right. Then one more for the rendering of geometry and construction, just a large, open shop space. More white walls and white ceiling to keep it light and bright in there, modern lighting. We've got some blue acoustical wall and ceiling panels just for acoustical treatments and storm-rated overhead coiling doors. There'll be a trolley beam going down the middle just to hoist large sheds and heavier materials and then more of the foreground there and just some lab stations and more of a teaching area.

Okay, the gay field improvements as far as our schedule currently we just wrapped up our 50% construction document phase and BSI is going to start taking those drawings and updating the estimate on that We started CDs in mid-july and And we anticipate early October having a review of that updated estimate with the owner. What we've noted here is just, again, some of our meetings and processes that we've taken during the last few months. Bi-weekly design meetings with the design team and the construction manager. And user design review meetings where we looked at specific spaces for instance the training room We've got some of the drawings of that space where we met with the trainer that developed the design of that space We've submitted to the city of Clayton Planning Commission And I guess last on here again as the design team and CM will review the estimate before presenting that to the district And here's just an exterior rendering of the gate field press box concessions and restroom area showing the new turf on the field, bleachers, and the plaza area for the concessions. And what we've got here is a More of a concept rendering of the locker room. The existing field house building has some areas with sloped ceilings in it, which allows us to get a nice high ceiling space in there with some natural light you can see coming in on the right hand side there. But mainly a locker room with the space for kind of the team together and get some coaching on the whiteboard and the monitor there on the left hand side.

OK, my turn. This slide indicates the good news that the project has remained on track as the design advanced from schematic design to design development and into the construction document phase. You can see the estimated value is still well within the initial expected range that was established at the beginning of the project. The one change you'll note if you look at the two orange boxes, the schematic design shows 114 million, the design development estimate shows 114 million plus market conditions contingency. And so let's discuss that with the next slide. You're probably all very familiar with the data centers in the region that are dominating the news. Over the past several months, we've begun to see the impact that these projects are having on the local construction market. Historically, the St. Louis market has capacity to do a few mega projects at any given time. There are things built concurrently, new hospitals, projects like the NGA, the Lambert Airport project. However, it's unprecedented to have multiple hyperscale data centers, which means it's $1 billion or more of construction cost, dropped into the market on top of each other, more or less all at the same time, while the market is still trying to do those other projects like the airport project. So what this has led to is some labor shortages and some material escalations that are contributing to higher than normal costs in some aspects of the construction. So what does this mean for the district? These are unique circumstances that are not factored into a typical contingency or escalation percentage that we have been using. So right now, the team has recommended we add a market conditions contingency to the overall budget to account for these unknown items. The idea is that this market conditions contingency would be available to address cost impacts on labor or materials due to this increased demand and still allow the projects to proceed as expected and maintain the schedules that we've been discussing. So the big question is what value should be allocated for this market conditions contingencies? Based on what we're hearing from subcontractors, they anticipate the costs are going to be increasing more than your typical inflation rate. But the reality is in the St. Louis market, they are just beginning to see some of these impacts and it's too early for them to know exactly, you know, give us a firm number on this is how much we think it's going to be. The next scheduled update that we have with this group is in November. At that point, we will have taken bids on a couple of these early projects and we'll have a better understanding on cost impacts and how they're impacting the bidding markets specific for this project. In the meantime, though, if we think about potential cost impacts relative to these historical inflation factors, that might give us some idea of what these impacts might be. The $114 million budget includes roughly $3.7 million of anticipated escalation for the construction completion in 2029. That's the Glenridge project, that's the farthest one that it went out. And that's based on a typical annual inflation factor of about 3%. So if the current market conditions were to cause that inflation factor to double, it could increase the project to around $118 million. If it were to be triple what we've seen, That could push the budget a little bit above $121 million. And it's certainly possible it might not be as impactful as predicted. The project might not need to use much of a market conditions contingency at all. That's why it's a contingency if a contingency is meant to address unknown items and help manage the overall project budget and project risk. The good news at this point is the district is in a much better position to address these concerns than many other clients because of where the prior budget was within the overall expected range. All other aspects of the projects have remained on track since the prior estimate, we'll look at those numbers, and the budget still includes appropriate contingency factors to address other unknown topics outside of the market conditions. The next slide is a reminder where we were in February. The estimate number 114 million, the pie piece consists, that's 114, so it's got construction costs, all of the soft costs, which are design costs, testing costs, furniture, and some of those types of things. It also includes estimating contingency and owner's contingency and the typical escalation factors. The next slide shows here we are at DD, and we've added this yellow pie piece with a question mark on there that says what value might those market conditions be? But the sum of all the other five components is still $114 million. This next slide breaks down and shows that not only has the overall program budget remained on track at 114, but if you look at each of the individual projects, they've remained on track. And some people would say this is great news. Other people might say this is unheard of. How can it be exactly the same as we move from one phase to the next? And I would tell you that's exactly how it's supposed to be. It doesn't always happen that way, but I think it's a pretty good indication how the collaboration between the client, the design team, and the construction team on keeping things on track as we move from phase of design to the next. So down there at the bottom, it says the next step is the bidding and development of the guaranteed maximum prices for each of the project components. And this next slide has a lot of information that you've seen the slide previously, but the most important thing I think at this point is the anticipated schedule down there at the at the bottom. And so it just says the high school projects are the first ones that will start to go out to bid in September, followed by some of the athletics projects in October. And then Glen Ridge, the largest project, is the last one to go out to in early two thousand and twenty seven.

Okay I'm taking a look at the capital improvement projects so we have five of those we've got the Clayton High School auditorium and performing arts center as a press box and dugouts the wide down middle school play surface upgrades and walking track captain elementary school play surface in the temporary elementary break bridge campus. For the Clayton High School auditorium and performing arts center we still have the school store at the main entry that we're adding renovations to the auditorium lighting carpet and seating restroom renovations adding a lift to the backstage there and HVAC improvements to the band choir and orchestra. So we have completed the construction document phase for that one with a few owner meetings and done a budget update on that one as well, and have released an early release bid package on the seating that is about ready to be received.

For the Adzik Field project, we are constructing the press box and the dugouts as part of that scope of work. It's on the same schedule we talked about earlier with Gay Field as far as the CDs being complete. mid-october We also went through a 50% DD cost estimate review with BSI and with the owner And then during September again that will be updated and then bidding During the fourth quarter of of the year here with construction scheduled there for June through November 27 At Widown Middle School, the upgrades include the new artificial turf and a walking track around the perimeter. Again, CDs being complete mid-October. Again, the DD cost estimate review has been complete in September, updating that estimate based on the 50% CDs and then bidding that also in the fourth quarter of 26. And construction for that project is scheduled for April through August of 27. The Captain Elementary School is receiving a new turf area there to take part of the existing asphalt area. We met with the owner, I guess that's two weeks ago now, to get a better idea of the scope of that and we're starting to develop cost estimates for that. And then just looking further at the design to determine exactly where that new turf should go. We're looking at doing the design process of that, the third and fourth quarter of 27. And then the construction for that is slated for June through August of 2028.

We continue to work through negotiations with the Washington University team. We believe that we are still working toward an agreement for the previous Fonbon campus. We're working through, we have weekly updates with their team every Tuesday morning. We have an ongoing agenda and we're narrowing down to a list of items that are must haves by both teams in order to bring this across the finish line. We believe that we both, both of our teams have a mutual benefit are occupying the space obviously for Bridge Campus and then also their utilization and renovation of that space. The current presentation is where the modular campus would be positioned on the font bond campus where the play surface would be, we also will be utilizing the. cafe space and the dunham Center and p you'll also notice that there is a purple walkway those are intended to be covered walkways to go to travel to and from the dunham Center in the modular campus. The modular campus in the middle is the current proposal. This has been updated from a previous presentation to reflect the interactions and the feedback from our elementary principals. Then there's some example spaces that would be included in the modular campus to the right.

Regarding the budget on this, the last time we looked at it was in the $17 to $20 million range. We've updated those things. It's still tracking in that same range. It also has potential market conditions, contingency factors, but based on the size and scope of these projects, we think it is somewhat less susceptible to some of those things than some of the larger projects such as Glen Ridge, which would require larger-sized subcontractors to do some of the bigger scopes of work based on the project size. is something we will be tracking and monitoring. And the other aspect of it is the Bridge Campus cost. Those are still being refined as the design and additional information is learned about the Bridge Campus.

And then the future bond-funded projects, kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, that those are dependent upon the scheduled debt reduction in 2029 and the assessed valuation you know permitting the zero tax rate increase similar to last time but we want to just keep those on the radar for everybody

all right and then i believe the district is uh still got a qr code and keeping everyone up to date on their website so that i'll open up for some q a

great thank you guys appreciate the presentation uh who has questions

Leo. Thanks for the presentation. Welcome back. Has any more refined analysis gone into how this these contingencies and these market conditions developments affect what we're thinking about Merrimack? I mean, that's the concern that I have when I hear that is that Merrimack, the timing or the availability of bond funds. And so what can you tell me about that?

So currently, based on the budgets on these projects, we have meetings that are scheduled with Bond Council in the next week with the inclusion of the proposed budget that was earmarked for the Meermak project. This is the initial budget that we were using. It would not be inclusive of the escalations associated with the market conditions. That is something that we can add a placeholder for it right now because we don't have a clear idea of what these dollar amounts are. We're working with the understanding that they may not be in place, but we should work with the BSI team as far as an estimate as what would be a good placeholder with a three-year escalation.

It just seems to me that that's a really important piece to keep in the picture as we're dealing with these escalations. And I know I appreciate your bringing it up and I'm reinforcing that that keeping that next step in mind and not just the fact that we have some room within Proposition O but that we need to meet our commitments as best we can on the next phase.

Anyone else? Pam.

Thank you so much. I mean, I got tears in my eyes watching those Glenridge ones. I mean, it was just, thank you so much for sharing. I think it was the first time we've like really seen images of this updated. So that was awesome. I did have a question on one of the Glenridge pictures. There was a wellness space and I'm just wondering what that is. or at least what we've been told its purpose will be. Is that what that is?

Yeah, the wellness space. I think that's like the mother's room.

Can we go to that picture?

Not sure if it's on this. What is the word?

Like a diagram.

Oh, okay. Right here.

Okay, that's the nurse counselor area. Gotcha.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Oh, I have just a couple questions. I didn't think there was on there about the timeline on the auditorium work capital project. Is that any sense of timeline on that work?

So we're bidding it out this fall with the Learning Lab Edition, bidding those two together to create those efficiencies. But it's planned for summer work of 2027 for construction.

Oh, awesome. Perfect. On the captain field, how far along is that design? May I

ask? Well, we really just met with the district to get an idea of the scope a few weeks ago. And since that's not slated for construction until summer of 28, we really haven't. It's not as much the priority at the moment. Correct. So we'll get into that next year, more of the design phase on that.

I'm curious, just theoretically, there's quite a bit of slope to that surface, which I'm sure is somewhat by design for water flow. Is it standard to do a turf field that has a slope of that nature to it?

Well, that's some of the issues we need to look at is how that's going to drain. That's why we need to determine if that location was shown on that diagram that has basically asphalt on each side, parking on one side and a player on the other, if that's the correct location. Or should it move uphill next to the existing grass area? and you know maybe it drains in a different direction so that's yes one of the issues we've got perfect to look at as we start developing the budget for that project

can i ask a question while we're are you moving away from captain i am can

i ask that mean never but yes i

didn't want to laugh at this song um So the timeline on that is in the future. I don't remember. I know we saw pictures of it. So that's late, and it is being built in the same place where we have planned to rebuild the new captain. And I just wonder, is that an appropriate use of funds? What is the time that we would have that turf field built I guess maybe 2032. Construction

happens much later.

Right, that's what I'm saying, like is that 2032? So it's like at least four years of that field?

Yeah, I mean, someone who's much more knowledgeable about me about the plan can jump in here. But I think when we talked about this in the facilities planning process, it was the captain renovation, whatever you want to call it, rebuild, whatever, is so far into the future. This is something that's needed to help that current facility, and it will get good use out of it because the other part is so far off. But Brad can set that up.

I just wonder, is it possible to move it sooner? For that purpose. It is a lot of money, I'm guessing-ish. It's going to be a lot of money to spend for four years or whatever. Can we pull it up so we get more use out of it?

We did have that conversation, Pam, about the timing of it. So do we do it? Right now, it's slated for the summer of 2028. So the only other option would be could you do it next summer? With the multiple projects that we have going on next year, that was a question that we were trying to see if we could get that on there as well. And then there was also a budget conversation, correct me if I'm wrong, Matt, where we had discussed There was something that you had mentioned about the budget portion of it. So we discussed

the timing of how we use our operating tax levy and how we move our operating levy into the capital projects fund to produce the funding for the capital projects that are district responsibilities. We have the ability to perform both transfers and tax levies. we can discuss that if that's of interest.

I'm gonna agree with you that I think that only having it for four years is, you know, that's a large expense for four years and it means that the captain is without that field for these two years, right? So I agree, this is tricky but it's not ideal the way it is now and I don't know if it can be adjusted or not but it's definitely not ideal.

I just want to be clear. I think we're both saying we agree that this project should be done, and we just want it done sooner, not saying it's not worth it. Correct.

Let's see here. Another tactical question more. The Glen Ridge gym with the window design, does that mean that none of those lines require like the metal shutters that can come down? Those are not required.

Yeah, correct. We really prefer not to rely on human interaction related to tornado savers.

That's going to be a lot of mechanical stuff. We're still

working, coordinating with the team and the structural engineer to get those sizes exactly right. but they are as strong as the concrete wall next to it. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay,

perfect. And then I guess just more broadly speaking, you know, obviously seeing the news with all the data center, all the borrowing, all of the available capital is getting sucked up by the tech industry, I guess. Any concerns there? I mean, obviously it's like a I can't imagine a better investment than our district, but anything in terms of like when we go to shop these bonds, anything that could be a factor?

So there's two things that right now we've been having conversations with BSI regarding how do we manage the consumption of labor and the consumption of frankly raw materials. So one is how do we manage making sure that we have the labor in place? And that's where part of the contingency conversation has been laid out. Then the other piece is, is there an escalation in solely the labor and the materials themselves? So those are two different conversations and tactics that we're working with. With bonding capacity, Currently, we feel that we have a AAA rating. We feel that we're going to have a very marketable product, our general obligation bond. Also, our recommendations are going to be a refunding of existing debt and an issuance of a portion of new debt. We call it tranche, but it's just the first issuance. We'll be bringing that up in a future board meeting pretty shortly, just basically asking for approval to proceed. That information in certain unit, basically breaking it up in two parts takes advantage of the market that we have now as far as interest rates and they're in a favorable market rate right now. We will also be investing those funds which we're working with a third party on how we're going to invest those funds in a competitive manner so that while we're holding those funds we're getting the best market returns possible. and also working with draw schedules with our BSI team and our architects as far as what we estimate in a regular construction draw and how we can invest those in longer term maturities in order to draw more rate of return on those investments.

Can I ask a question that piggybacks on that since we're talking about capital markets here? Are we still working with Piper?

Yes.

Are there any conversations about the timing with Piper if we think that interest rates are going to be going up by the end of the year, that we want to accelerate this earlier rather than later?

So our current plan is – and we've been in conversations with both bond counsel and Piper – as far as how the market conditions are assumed to increase. Right now, they're working under the assumption that market conditions shouldn't increase as far as rates or treasury changes. I believe there are more meetings this year that could cause that change. In a smaller meeting, we can discuss what those assumptions are as far as how market would be. We have had those conversations. The current proposal is to bring a sale to market before December 1st. Okay. All right. We're fine-tuning that calendar actually right now. We have meetings scheduled next week as part of that. Our plan is to bring together the underwriters, the bond council, and the investment team at one meeting to see how much money we need to borrow. And part of that is to avoid arbitrage. So districts have been experiencing what we were, we never talked about arbitrage. So if we invest and we get more return on our investment than what We're legally allowed to. We have to return those funds to the IRS and the Treasury Department. So we're working to try to not borrow more than what we would need in a two-year period, and there's some specific rules that we work within. So we have a couple moving parts that we're trying to make sure the cash flow comes in, get the best rate of return that we can safely

keep. And sorry, we can take this offline if you want. But the concern would be that if interest rates, let's say, are going to go up by the end of the year, the interest rate that we would get on the money that we collect from the issuance is going to outstrip what we need over the couple years and we'll have a payback.

The other piece is how much are we comfortable drawing in premium? And how much we draw in premium is a function of what the coupon, what the total coupon rate is on the bond sale. So if the market's selling at one rate, typically you have a higher interest rate that covers, that creates the amount of premium. Okay. All right. Thanks. We're targeting about nine, nine and a half percent premium right now. Okay.

Did you have other questions? All right. Who else has a question? Go for it.

Hi, thank you guys. So I just, real quick, there's a guaranteed max amount that will be established, correct? Will that be established after we have a better idea about the escalation contingencies and will that, so that number will include, the guaranteed max amount will include

these

market contingencies as best they can?

The guaranteed maximum amount will include all of the scope that's defined on the construction documents developed by the team. We put that out to bid. We get bids back from the subcontractors and that will include, our GMP will include all of those subcontractor bids. The thing that we have seen with bids in the past three to four weeks. Some of the large bidders on HVAC and electrical, they are submitting qualifications with their bids that basically say that they are subject to some additional escalation. And if we tell them that they're not allowed to do that, they might just drop out and not bid the project. So that is something we've engaged in some conversations about different strategies of how we might deal with that. So the recommendation of the market conditions contingency is that we get as much as we can wrapped up within the subcontractor bids, basically get them to agree to everything they're willing to take the risk on, and then the pieces that they're not willing to, figure out how we manage that as a team between the SI and the client.

okay thank you that's a little more clarification um and then just switching to the the modular campus um on the design that was a little it's you said that is a more accurate design than has been presented to us previously is that correct

so it's

We're careful

with the term accurate. More refined, updated, I guess. So this is a reflection of the input and the needs that were assessed when we surveyed the building principles at the elementary level. So this space was built with... both elementaries in mind. This was also built with a growing need for SSD spaces, and then also some of the classes have been moved from where they were previously to basically take advantage of laboratory spaces. There was also added room for conferences and some needed office spaces. So those are reflected in this. The majority of the changes I believe we added six classroom spaces and a conference room and an office space. And then the flex space was necessary because that's in the upper right-hand corner at the, I'm sorry, it sounds weird. It's the smaller module at the upper right- hand corner that says flex. That's really a reflection that each one of these modular units is really one piece. So when you buy one, you can't, it comes as basically Legos.

And that's one Lego piece.

Yeah, that's one Lego peace.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I just noticed that there is no bathroom in the bottom right.

So there is no bathroom and the bottom right hand corner. The part of that was to keep the space of the total square footage of the space within fire codes. Then it was also to, some of it had to do with pricing. The other was that we moved the SSD rooms to be more adjacent to the restrooms to hopefully align the needs of the students to the access to those laboratories.

Okay. So there's not an option to put a restroom in that bottom right?

at this point we have pr we have pricing that has been built around this

okay

our fear is that if we don't move continue to move forward with this project that we will not be able to secure these units there's a maximum capacity of the manufacturers right now we're pushing that threshold to where if If we delay the purchase of the modular units, we may not be able to get into the window where these could be manufactured by the April window that we're looking to have them delivered.

Okay. Okay. And then is this about the ratio of the number of classrooms that service a bathroom, for example, in our buildings?

So in our buildings, we would typically have bathrooms in each corridor. We knew that we needed to keep bathrooms next to the grade levels because the student population are adjacent to them to the entire day. The flex spaces, I would call them specials. Okay, thank you. The specials usually are a limited time occupancy in those spaces, so that's the reason why the rationale was used to come to the conclusion of If we had to pick a space that couldn't have a lavatory, that's why we aligned it in this fashion. Okay.

I just want to keep in mind that the amount of going outside, you know, in the months of the year that are not favorable weather, and particularly our littlest kids, kindergartners, if they are in Spanish – well, they don't take Spanish. If they're in music and they need to go to the bathroom and then they have to go outside and it's, like, freezing cold, do they have their coat with them? Yeah. All of these are not massive issues, but they are things to consider. And I think they're things that we have to communicate. Make sure we communicate with the families that we are aware that this is going to be a little bit different. there's going to be adjustments to the habits of the teachers in the classrooms and things. And as we kind of get closer and closer to the point at which the kids will move out of Glen Ridge and the families will have to really come to the kind of reality that this is where their kids will be in school, I think I would just encourage all of us to make sure that we're really communicating with them Listening to their questions that they might have about this space Maybe holding like open house like or an evening I know that there's the website that does have good information But just really making ourselves available to them For the kinds of questions that they might like this like is my kid gonna go out like do they carry their coat with them all day? Do they you know when they go so? You know It's one thing if you're in California and you've got these campuses or they're high school students and you've got this campuses, but we're going to have really little kids and parents that are also worried about their really little kids. So just something to keep in mind.

And one of the things, that's why we're trying to make sure that we get this on campus so that the month of May, ideally we'd love to have tours where the families go through it, walk through it. We're available for Q&A. And also just one more thing, even though like the labels are on each of these boxes, We may still move further and say, move it around, right? Like the tech, can it come over? Can the library come over? Like we're still moving some of those jigsaw puzzles. So as you pointed out, we can keep that in mind too. Yeah. Yeah.

I had one follow-up question. Have we thought at all about the kind of transportation flow, vehicles and drop-off and those kinds of things? I've actually had a couple questions around that. I'm sure it's part of the plan, but I was curious.

Yeah, so the image there on the left, you've got that large bluish box, that's where you're modular units would be located, but you would enter off Big Bend and then those orange arrows that you're seeing come all the way down to the southeast of the site and we'll utilize that southeast corner for drop-off and pickup. Cars would circulate around, do a right hand drop-off. We're looking at doing a bus access from Y down to kind of keep the bus and the parent drop-off and pick up separate so buses aren't getting stuck behind cars getting queued up. Essentially, you could queue up in that parking lot, keep the cars stopped, have it properly staffed to where they're unloading and loading, leave a section at a time, and then the next group could stop, load up. And then once you leave, you're leaving on Big Bend, and it's ride in, ride out. So just looking at the traffic flow as well.

So would there be coming south on Big Bend, would you take a left-hand turn into there? Is there going to be a... No, it's not. Okay, just curious. Yeah,

it's only right in, right out. So right in,

right outside. So I guess folks will be directed to come via Clayton Road or whatever. Yeah, we'll be doing some

communication and training for some parents to learn how to do that. Okay,

yeah. I mean, I think from experience, some of the folks that live around that area may have some questions, just generally. Sorry.

So we've been working with the traffic study to address a lot of the concerns that have already been kind of, we've been warned or communicated already. So some of the adjacent families, we've also even where the campus is, is to be courteous to the neighboring families to the east. So that was to create a separation where an educational facility might be a better fit than the construction parking. So a lot of this has been the design of this has been in coordination with Washington University the city of Clayton and the district. One other thing is our current drawing that we have proposed to the city It's actually bringing in the buses from Y down so that way they would not intermingle for drop off space with the typical parent drop off.

Any other questions. All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right. And up next we have a curriculum update. Oh, oh, there's no president. Okay, got it. All right, thank you. All right. So, Pam.

I move to approve the district curriculum changes as presented. Second.

All right. Any comments or questions?

Are there questions?

If there's a question, we'll . Would you like to have a seat? I think there might be a question. Does anyone else have a question? Nope. Just Pam. Me, it's going to filibuster until Pam finds her. What do you call

it? No, I was just going to say thank you for this work. And I know that just even doing one curricular area and updating it and everything is a major task. It involves more than just you and Angie. It involves teachers that are working outside of, you know. And I just wanted to say thank you because I know it's a big effort. So thank you.

I'm going to ask my question so that the public can hear Melina's answer. So yes, thank you. It was beautiful. Once I could open all the links, I loved it. So you outline or the document outlines a detailed process for the development and revision of this curriculum. And if you could speak a little bit to the outcome data that we can expect to see after this major curriculum revision regarding student learning and on what timeline?

Yeah, so typically when we write curriculum, particularly if it's like a complete rewrite or if it's a new course or something like that, there's usually an initial write the first summer implementation and then some kind of revision because we're writing with our best interest in mind and then we put it in front of children and we have to adjust it. So there's usually kind of a two year lag for us to start to see an impact on the data based on our theories of practice.

Okay. Yeah, go for

it. I thought somebody else was going to say something. I was waiting. Were the SEL enduring understandings and et cetera not in there at all until now?

Correct. So those are all new as a consequence of the work from this summer. So when Cameron's team and my team came together to write the Enduring Understandings and the Essential Questions for the SEL Curriculum in the spring, then any curriculum writing project this summer was to include those in there. So that was our first project. blush at putting those in there. So I'm pretty proud of the work, like it was a pretty heavy lift for us and I'm pretty proud the work that we did because now we have like 46 projects that have evidence of SEL stuff in them. And so that's like a good chunk of our courses and then it'll continue over the next couple of years that any project that's written will have that embedding piece. And then because of the professional learning that we're doing this year with all staff around the SEL stuff, it'll be easier for us to embed it within the curriculum documents because we're already starting to think about it within our practice. Exactly.

Yeah, we would be remiss if we did not sit here and tell you that our district having that as part of our curriculum is a huge deal. It means that our kids are going to be getting so much out of their education. Cameron and Mike's not here, but you know, they aren't just here to learn the capitals. They are here for so many bigger reasons. And with these, we see that on in paper and, and on the website and, The fact that it's public-facing, that our parents can go and see, it's just extremely exciting stuff. And we've already been doing it to a large degree because that's what we value, and we know our teachers, we want them to do that. But now that it's written out, I think it's just... incredibly innovative and Important work, so I really appreciate both of you for doing the work that you did and leading this Mike has obviously been a huge factor and it's it's gonna move our kids forward in all of the ways that we want for the profile of the Clayton Learner in incredible ways. So thank you. And

we had a K through 12 team help us write that. So it was a big team that worked throughout the summer to make sure that that was in place. Awesome. Thank you.

Can I ask,

sorry, one more

question? How different is our, you know, I was just struck by the really big questions that we have in even just your mainstream sixth grade literacy. How different are we in terms of the way that we really articulate these questions and particularly with the SEL sort of stuff incorporated? And the reason I'm asking is just when our new teachers join us, how much of an adjustment or what do we, how are we getting them on board with all this kind of like really big thinking? And I know that that work's being done. I'm just curious, like how much of a jump is it for them?

it depends a little bit on the kind of system that they're coming from so uh we are not a system that purchases curriculum and we don't purchase we purchase resources to support curriculum but we don't purchase curricular materials so when we're writing them a lot of our like if i think about the sel one is a good example of we spent meeting upon meeting writing enduring understandings and essential questions and where we landed is very different than where we started The stuff that we started with, Cameron and I would walk back to our offices and be like, I don't know if we're gonna get there. And then we're super proud of where we landed because they're intended to be big, meaty, debatable questions. We talked about one of the questions where it's like, that's actually a really good question because it's debatable. Like, why would we ask this question so that we have time to spend and sit and think about it? So part of our induction process for new teachers is a pretty significant amount of time with curriculum coordinators talking through what that looks like. And then within their PLCs throughout the year, working to really think about how they unpack those questions with children and then how they tie into, so like literacy is a good example of like how it ties into Everything. So like a big overarching question in eighth grade literacy for a long time has been like, am I my brother's keeper? And then every book that we're reading, we're thinking about like what's our commitment to others and it's beyond just us and that kind of stuff. So like really thinking about those kinds of things in the context of the literature that we're reading and the kinds of things that we're writing.

And maybe a lot of people might come to our district and that might be new for them.

Yeah, there's a lot of districts who will say that they use understanding by design as a framework, and there are a lot of people who do do that. When I do a lot of research of looking at documents and looking at essential questions from other places, there are some that I think are really good, and then there's some that I'm like, that's not actually an essential question. That's like an easily answered question. So...

Anyone else? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Thank you. And now we'll move on to considering the memorandum of understanding with St. Louis Community College.

I move to approve the memorandum as submitted. Second.

Any questions or comments about this?

Could we speak to the changes that were made in it?

Do you have a comment? Go for it.

Oh, you want me to be that one? Yeah, do it. Okay. So this, in the initial memorandum of understanding that was in the consent agenda when we first got it, were basically an MOU for two different pieces. One is what we've been doing for a long time, the dual enrollment program with St. Louis Community College. And the other was this new program called Workplace, no, Workforce Learning Connection Program. And St. Louis Community College was offering that for free for a year and then for a fee in the future and an unknown fee and unknown how they would charge that fee or determine the fee. We, I'm not sure quite how to say this. We decided to, since this is a new program, we wanted our district to be more intentional in how we engaged with St. Louis Community College and working with our students in like a school-to-career type experiences. And so we have removed that part from the MOU, and we're only voting now on an MOU for what we've been doing for a long time, which is dual enrollment. And we will... see how the year plays out for the other part.

The one thing that I would add about the MOU that I'm asking you to sign is that the early college is a program that we've been doing for a long time. The Make It Count is something that's new that we're asking to add on, and that's for second semester seniors to provide another opportunity for them to get into St. Louis Community College that would allow a dual enrollment kind of piece. but sort of at an accelerated pace for students who we think it would continue to help students to graduate and also have access to programming that maybe they didn't know they wanted access to junior year. and it would keep us within the budget that we've allocated for that. So there is like one new component of that MOU that I want to make sure that we know that we're voting on a new piece too.

Thank you. There was actually, we all got an email today from the NSBA, the National School Board Association, and the lead article is all about what helps students succeed in dual enrollment programs. I encourage us all to read it in our free time.

I do want to thank Pam for being scrutinous about this and raising the issue. And I think we got to a good place on it, so thank you for that. All right. With that said, all those in favor? Any opposed? Great. Thank you, Melina. All right. Consent agenda.

I move to approve consent agenda items 11.2 through 11.7. Second. All those in favor?

Any opposed? Great. Board communication, Leo and Ben, I understand there was a CRSWC meeting recently. Do you care to expand upon that?

Well, we've had two, I guess. Well, no, we had a CRSWC meeting, went over the budget. We just finished the public meeting going over that with the combined bodies. We talked about rate increases and how to target them and whether maybe, you know, we're looking to grow the youth sign-up and how those rate increases worked for that. And... talked a little bit about the idea of taking a strategic look at the center and you know what what that is for the long term. And that's kind of what I think happened. Does Ben think something else happened? What meeting were you at?

No,

I'm just kidding. Not exactly. I would only add, yeah, I think we're really focused and it's great that now we've enlisted Manu to help us understand what can the center be for our kids that's more attractive. We talked about youth programming that came up. Yeah, I think it feels like – I don't know. Feedback I've heard from Val and Tony and others is like the kind of – mechanisms that have kind of always been there are working better than than ever like they have these out these weekly operational meetings with you know their joint apparently it's like he's in fact I ran into Steve Hudson he had some things to say very positive about how everything is working much much more smoothly and and we got our we got our new scoreboard right it's not totally i think another week or something uh apparently it was something that was not right so had to be but so that's uh and that's yeah and then we talked a little bit more about the opportunities over the next over the year to um maybe have some more of these strategic conversations kind of with feedback we're getting from students and others as to uh you know um what can we continue to do to make this better

And I guess to refine what the strategic conversation is about, it's about a number of things. But one of them is that, you know, the school district's utilization of that facility and how we can get the most out of it and drive the most value for our community.

And then Chris covered for me last week at the PTO council meeting.

Yeah, and we... In our weekend update, we heard about what was discussed. So thanks for doing that. So instead of repeating what was discussed by them, I'll just tell you what I said, which was that I just sort of give us a plug for coming to our meetings and telling them that it's wonderful for them to be aware of and to encourage parents and families to be aware of what we do here. and that they don't have to actually come. They can go online and watch us and be more just current on what we're talking about as a board, et cetera. I also just said think about coming because you might be thinking about becoming a board member. Did a little bit of sort of PR work in trying to help Parents start to think about, you know, they're very involved audience of those PTO. Most of us were like PTO-ish, right? So anyway, I tried to do a nice plug for, you know, think about this in your future possibly and told them to come and talk to any one of us because we're friendly, nice people, and we would love to talk to them. So, yeah, that's it. That's

pretty

good.