November 13 2019 BOE Meeting

so Thanks so before we get into public
recognition
I just I do want a mouse it's not on the
agenda though where's Mary Jo its Mary
Jo's 50th birthday today so we're going
to see her happy birthday that's a big
one okay all right well good evening
everyone as part of our work at the
board table we have been building and
recognizing our own it's an opportunity
for us to recognize our students and the
work that they do but it's also an
opportunity to recognize the work that's
happening within our schools with our
administration and teachers and so we
have made it we made a decision to start
having some of our board meetings in the
schools and so it might feel a little
awkward and uncomfortable just because
it feels a little different but we're
leaning into that discomfort and we're
just doing something a little different
our hope is that it gives more people to
come to the board meetings and see what
great things are happening within our
schools as part of that there's
sometimes some transition and so part of
that transition is having the right
system in place so we're going to ask
everyone to make sure that they're using
a strong voice tonight when they're
presenting because we don't have that
amplification system the microphones are
really here so that way we can
livestream our board meetings and to
record them
so tonight we're here why down and we're
very excited to have some students who
are going to give the board some
information about something that's
happening here and why down at why down
and then we also have some teachers who
are part of who are our teachers of The
DaVinci class and then afterwards
Jamie's going to give us an update about
some of the great work that they're
doing and connected to their school
improvement plan and then that'll be it
so I'm going to go ahead and turn it
over to Jamie to do introductions hello
everybody thank you so much for coming
tonight and coming to wite-out I love
even that we have the wide-on webpage
back there I'm going to share some
information with you through these
wonderful people here about our DaVinci
class and DaVinci is actually a class
that has been on the books at my time
for quite some time but this year we
took a little bit different spin of it
it started a little bit last year and
then we kind of expanded it this year so
da Vinci is this year being taught by
teams of teachers
so mr. Novik and mr. crook are this part
of these different teams of teachers
that teach this class and kids that sign
up for it are all different types of
students with lots of different
interests so I have three expert
scholars here with us Chloe and VIN and
Elijah and they're going to share with
you a little bit about that but first
Barry and Franky are going to kind of
jump into sort of the curricular changes
and why we think this is so important to
our school because these types of
classes really focus on
individualization teaching kids how to
be creative thinkers teaching kids how
to pursue their own interests and
passions and that's where we want to see
our school grow too so this is sort of
our first step into into some of those
pieces so Barry and Frankie I'm gonna
turn over to
The DaVinci classes is designed to allow
students to pursue topics that they're
interested in at the same trying time
trying to get them to find topics that
they are interested in and so like what
if we allow the students the time the
support and resources to study things
that excite them so what skills do they
need to be able to do that and how does
that those skills didn't transfer to
other classrooms another thing but
that's at the heart of what we're trying
to do and so some of the questions are
the challenges that we have are how do
you pick a topic or illuminate a topic
how do we determine what's true in our
research when is your project or your
the work that you're doing publishable
what is it good enough to share with
everybody else and like what's worth
teaching to other people like those are
some of the things that the hard part of
art and some of what we've done with
that is ask students how should we
evaluate this work what are the skills
that you're really working on and how do
we kind of say where you are working on
these skills so you've delved into the
profile of the graduate work as well as
some library standards really looking at
big things that you're working on not I
can add in subtract fractions but I can
communicate my ideas with the world or I
can think creatively about a topic and
students have come up with their own
rubrics and ways to measure that growth
and then be able to communicate that
through their individual projects so
it's been a really fun adventure
so we're gonna turn it over to the
students that said a little bit about
what they've been learning about so in
DaVinci I research drop fishing because
that's the topic that I'm passionate
about and that's what you can do in
DaVinci you can research anything you'd
like and answer questions that you want
to answer there are no guidelines for
what you want to work on in DaVinci is
always flexible in this project I was
able to go fishing for a school project
so I could convince my mom to take me
fishing since I could say that was for
school I fished at different streams
lakes and ponds for my data I found two
spots to fish
I also found new spots to fish out
through this project a project that we
are currently working on is about where
we find a problem whether it be in the
white zone school or the global problem
and I decided to focus on animal cruelty
and I chose animal cruelty or animal
abuse because I believe that it is a
real problem that we should be like
paying more attention to because there
are millions of animals out there that
are suffering and so how I start with
this process is I did lots of research
and asked the basic questions like who
what where when hi how because I needed
to get the basics of what animal abuse
and why people do why people are mean to
animals and then so I figured that like
people are means animals because of past
trauma or like disabilities with like
abuse in their past so a solution that I
came up with was a more creative
solution because I thought what if that
people could get help and animals can be
used as therapy so that they can that
animals help them so that they learned
that like Oh animals can help me get
better and I decided that I will present
this the research that I found and a
slideshow that I'll present to the group
in DaVinci and so the teachers helped me
with my process they helped me organize
and figure out what time like I need to
tie myself for my research and getting
my project ready and then practicing for
my presenting so it was really helpful
in DaVinci I researched about the top
five greatest players and I looked on
seven different websites have found that
the top five greatest players where
Kareem Michael Jordan
LeBron Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson
in DaVinci you can also listen to music
or research so you can enjoin your
attending class so one of the things
that we love about this class or and
when we think about where we're kind of
moving forward is the idea that
sometimes and it's kind of great that
it's paired with that gifted
presentation today because sometimes in
our gifted classes and explores or even
different things there are classes that
allow kids to learn about themselves as
learners think about deeper critical
thinking and have their own passions
what I love about this buses is open to
any student at wide out to come and
participate and be a part of as a
semester so they can learn their own
passions whether it's which kind of
lures work best
right and I learned it was the crappy if
you also learned that I didn't never
caught a fish in my life change or
really setting up how do you really tell
which basketball player is the best you
know what I mean like which is the scale
that we're going to use and get diving
deep into that so while some of the
topics may be something that our team of
middle school the depth of what they're
learning and the questions that they're
pulling out has been really cool to see
that so this is our first kind of
semester push and one of the things
we're excited about is it really does is
everything else take the the feeling of
the teachers that are in the class so
miss Beeston and mr. crook teach the
eighth hour class miss Simon miss Mooney
and mr. Novak T to the ninth hour class
and they have the scale of the
curriculum but they really work with the
kids that are in front of them
what they need to do so we're really
excited about that so one of the things
that we are dreaming about is looking at
taking the DaVinci students who are
interested in going to a expeditionary
learning experience one of the things
that we hope to accomplish this year is
going to the Great Smoky Mountain
Institute at Tremont for this trip we
will explore while thinking like a
polymath that's what da Vinci is about
thinking like a polymath but the twist
is we'll be in the Smoky Mountains so
the kids of this group are actually
thinking about designing their own
experience at Tremont and Tremont is an
experience that why don't has taken
before but it was an experience just for
some of the Exploratorium students and
we're really trying to expand that now
as we know expanding it comes with
challenges one being funding and
different things of that nature but we
feel it is so important for kids to get
out there to get into Tremont to have
these experiences and then next year
they're actually going to start
designing a field trip for the to go
somewhere a different place to so if the
kids are a part of the design model and
where they're going and what they're
learning about when they go there which
is pretty cool so that's that sort of
enterprise
[Applause]
[Music]
so thank you we are we are really
excited about DaVinci and we think it's
something that we like I said is where
we're trying to look and grow and move
towards so I think all of everybody
knows Doug and Sarita but we work very
very closely together so there's no way
I could have given this presentation
without our team here one team one dream
is what we said here try it out as we as
we go together so we all know that why
not has many many wonderful things that
they do and they focus on and they're
working towards but there are some areas
of improvement that we need to work
towards and go forward with one of the
ones that came up as we were looking
over the last couple years was the
achievement gap very specifically was
the achievement gap between our students
so we started kind of diving into the
numbers a couple of years ago and have
come up with some school improvement
goals that kind of flush out where we're
going and how we're going to work on the
achievement gap as well as moving
forward and oftentimes when we're
looking at these pieces we are focusing
on making sure that we're improving the
entire school as well as focusing on
what we need to to make it all going
forward so we have looked into specific
areas looking at our discipline as well
as looking at our academic achievement
and so we've set some very specific
goals and this was a work in progress to
get some very specific data-driven goals
we know that data does not tell the
whole story we know that data is a
jumping off point but we also believe
that they have to have some measures so
we started looking at referrals and
trying to figure out what kind of who's
getting referrals and we were
disproportionate our amount of referrals
there are more referrals that were
giving for students of african-american
students that work for our white
students or for our white non-hispanic
students and then the same sets our
academic achievement there were some
very specific gaps we look specifically
math test there's a lot of assessments
we give but we are really looking at
measurable targets that we can move
towards so as a leadership team we start
with our subject managers and then we
move towards our leadership team to
really look at what we are going to do
to make some improvement on these goals
and set some specific targets for
ourselves so in doing that then we one
of the things that we also found out was
we the rates of students who had six or
more referrals was also fairly
significant for the amount of students
who are students of color and so over
the summer we really started working on
what we were going to do to try to work
towards that and what policies and
things that we were going to do
differently to try to work towards that
so we've developed different types of
strategies that went across so we looked
at relationships we looked at effective
pedagogy empowering learning and
intervention strategies and those are
things that I think are abroad that they
really focus on really lifting up the
whole school and where we want to go now
so making sure that we're pointed enough
to do what we need to do to meet our
goals because as we learn like we spend
a lot of time in this summer and feel
free to jump in we spend a lot of time
this summer really reading and
researching and meeting with people
about what we want to do around
culturally responsive teaching and
that's it some so we we looked at
treating him as work we looked at
Holly's worried look right and say
Muhammad's work we looked at mara
Sandra's works we looked at Fisher and
Frank we read a lot of these different
kinds of books to look at and met with
different people and said who have had
success and said which witch did you
pick up or which did you do and they
said you can't just pick one and it
needs to be a comprehensive look at all
these different pieces so we also worked
with Jamie almonds on last year and he
gave us some feedback to around what
were some pretty important pedagogical
strands that we need to be
like that so over the summer we looked
at three specific pedagogical strands
that we are trying to work towards one
is student talk versus teacher talk one
is around questioning of students who's
you know what types of questions are we
asking and then the other one is
learning objectives what are the
learning objectives that are being used
we started this work last year and those
teachers were got to pick which one they
wanted to learn and work through and
then we did some work around you know
the strands and how we're implementing
them and then we did some walkthroughs
in the spring over the summer we kind of
switched gears last year we asked some
teachers to help lead this over the
summer what we talked about was as the
instructional leaders of the school that
leader that development should come from
the three of us so we worked hard to
create syllabuses and documents to
actually leave that that work so Doug
works on Weston and 3d does learning
intentions and learning intentions and
and I work with the student talk versus
teacher talking so we've actually
structured all of our professional
learning so that half of the time of the
like early release days at the time that
we have is spent where the teachers have
chosen which of those they want to work
on and they they stay with that all year
and they stay with that group all year
and then in between those professional
learnings we have walkthroughs Janak
crews as you know has been working with
us as an instructional coach and she has
been amazing at really coaching the
three of us as well as murkly in the
building in terms of walkthrough so we
actually this morning just had another
round of walkthroughs where we go in and
everything is very transparent but we go
in and we take data on all of these
three strands so we can really
specifically see how our learning is
impacting the instruction because we
really believe as Whittaker says it's
people not the programs so like it's if
we want to change the pictures if we've
got a really change what's happening
inside the classrooms so and that's a
lot harder change to make that's I mean
sometimes the program is kind of you
know like it's flashy and it's there and
it's good but to really change
instructional programs program
instruction is what's really going to
make a difference for a kid's long term
so it's been really great though and
what we do is we actually pair a wideout
teacher with an instructional coach from
around the district so I pull favors
from all the other building principals
and they oh so like Eric and Niles comes
from captain and Kerry Larry comes her
mayor back in Jensen or getting into
control you know and milena and
everybody comes together and they
partner with the white on teacher and
then they spend the day walking through
the building and taking data so it
becomes a learning experience for the
teachers that are in the you know doing
the walkthroughs and then we also have
the data portion and what was even great
about today is we're already seeing like
where we're accomplishing things and
then where we need to go next
you know like we've got kids talking now
are they talking on top you know like
that kids talking over there working in
groups is everybody equally working on
groups we're asking good questions but
who is getting asked questions and what
kinds of questions are they getting
asked so like we're able to kind of take
that step up to the next level and so we
do call these accountability
walkthroughs because we are accountable
to our kids and so that's what we feel
like that so on that same vein duggan
street and i have publicly shared with
the teachers our intention of really
being in classrooms much more this
school year so we keep track of we have
a little chart my office and we keep
track of which bus rooms are in each
week whether it's most of them are
either like a five or ten minute drop-in
or more formal observation and then we
go through each week and look and see
which teachers haven't been hit and you
know been in their room
and then we kind of make a priority
chart because it's important that we're
in there enough so we can see really
what's going on in the classrooms and
then we share those with the teacher so
we're holding ourselves accountable as
well to really working all together as a
goal because it is really about what's
being in the classroom
we also are still continuing to look at
this idea of empowered learning so
thinking about you know I just got to go
with the gifted team out to the d.school
and Stanford and it was awesome we
learned so much and it was so much fun
so now taking that back like how do we
actually make that design thinking
something that's accessible for in all
of our curriculums and insured
experiences and how do we make sure that
that happens everywhere we go so I said
to Megan and Frankie while we were out
there and I said so we're going to come
back and maybe do this for the subject
managers who are our department chairs
and like start doing some of those
things also through professional
learning grant Adam Alana's office we
were able to get some money to go visit
some schools on the coasts to look at
some design thinking schools that are
really doing some cutting-edge things
and seeing how we can put these into our
curricular experiences so that they
become a staple of what we do all the
time I'm still working on PLC stuff
still trying to develop common
assessments and coming together to see
you know what do we do when people
aren't learning and moving forward
intervention strategies and I we've
worked a lot on we've worked for years
and continually trying to perfect our
idea of what we're doing for our
strategies classes because we are really
lucky about the amount of full-time
employees we have and compared to the
amount of need we have so we are really
should we should be seeing some really
great results and so we've really kind
of been trying and trying and trying
different things this year we've
redesigned the math strategy structure
so we have tiered it and then also given
some really specific resources you want
so we met with all our math teachers
around plcs and destructured their their
time with the students so it's not spent
just on homework not really spent on
homework at all but it's been on some of
the skills that they need more help on
and then things from the classroom and
then we've just got a new software
program that children will be working on
as well and they can work on at home and
at school and so we really structure our
math strategies class and they're
smaller as well and so and then with
reading me we really looked at who is in
reading strategies class and we're lucky
to really try to minimize those numbers
to like one student with or two students
with one teacher or one student with one
teacher to really get to the heart of
the read as much time on text reading as
possible and that's what you know the
much time interacting and reading with
text as possible to try to pull that
together we also started a like a
Learning Center which is just more I
need some time for executive functioning
and doing my homework at school you know
like I just need some of those executive
functioning skills so we've really tried
to tear out so those interventions to
see and make sure part of that is also
some real clear communication with
families about wire child's in the class
how to get out of the class how do if
you want to keep your child in the class
because it is you know it is something
that we want the trust from our families
and also from the students like here's
here's you where you are here's how we
want to get to because one of the things
we know from working and learning from
like John Hattie is that idea of the
students really understanding where they
are in the progression of their learning
is one of the most critical factors of
achievement so that's another thing that
we're really trying to develop is this
sort of idea but the kids really know
where they fall and where they need to
go towards those learning
the other thing we're really working on
is relationships so the why down ways if
you want to yeah so we started a
committee it was about a year ago a year
and a half ago and actually Stacy and
Kristen you were on it so basically it
was around the idea that the elementary
kids if they're go to Merrimack or they
go to Glen Ridge they all have this set
of values that the kids hold near and
dear and things like that and so the the
sort of the driving force at the very
beginning was what what do we stand for
here at wideout so we started backwards
we sort of started out with what
characteristics do we want kids to have
when they leave us and did some work and
basically came up with perseverance
compassion integrity and respect and so
we piloted it very willingly with sixth
grade core they just said let's just run
with it and they did a great job and you
saw down there earlier about they just
run with it and then last year we threw
out to the building as well and there
was huge interest you know so it's still
in its infancy and we're gonna reconvene
the committee pretty soon and start
asking staff about how we can support
their work in the classroom and along
with the wet on reason that character
committee we you know we've been working
on they're sort of circles and
developing this we're sort of circles
and Doug and Jason actually just took
the group of student leaders down to the
student the counselor conference down in
Center and they presented yeah so that
the restorative practices just so you
all know I mean so much of it is around
the community building they talk about
restorative practices about being
repairing harm in a disciplinary
situation right and having the kid
really reflect on what who was harmed by
what they did and have
but about 80% of it is just having the
community building circle in the
classroom so you have all 25 people
really just getting to know one another
who who are who are we as people who are
we as a class and so we train the whole
staff it took about two years process
and we we decided that we wanted to do
it in-house rather than send people to a
conference a 10-plus but in order to do
in order for people to feel the impact
of the community building we thought it
would be best if it was with your peers
so with 14 other teachers and then you
you feel their impact over two days and
that feeling will then say oh I want to
do this with our kids so we did that
over four semester sequence and then the
next step was to take it to the kids
so through pursuit days we trained to
groups of 27 kids on running them so
they can actually run them and we took a
group now over to the elementary schools
with the 5th grade so that the middle
school kids run circles with the 5th
graders on the transition we had a lot
of success with that and then the next
step is some of the kids presented at
antara to the adults that was
fascinating yes so they they took
teachers who hadn't been exposed to it
and in a circles like train them so that
was those fascinating so we've had a lot
of positive another program we did this
year to build relationships as we redid
our sixth grade orientation program for
the web program which is where everybody
belongs it's attached to the link crew
at the high school that's the same
we had three extraordinary dynamic
awesome web trainers in Frankie and
Christian and Jason Thompson and if you
would have seen the sixth graders in the
eighth grader because the eighth graders
are leaders and then the sixth graders
come for that day it was an amazing day
and it has really had an impact on our
year here is how we even kicked off and
then we invited all the sixth grade
families to come up for lunch and really
had a good start to the year but it was
a lot of hard work at the beginning of
the year with everything else going on
but they did a great job so that was
also another thing that we did the last
thing I want to mention is one of the
things that became important through our
PDC and we've really built into our
professional development plan when it
comes to relationships and specifically
around making relationships with
students and families of color is we
looked a little bit for deficits that we
had and that was actually through
different kind of conversations we've
had with our in our own building
listening to the conversations that we
had through the equity committee and
then just looking at data and other
components but we realized that we
really need to step up our game and
really do a great job around high
expectations and academic achievement
for all students high expectations for
behavior for all students how we deal
with microaggressions when kids are
using or seeing microaggressions and
then how are we doing with student and
parent communications home and so what
we did was we used a model out of Jenny
Nadi whose collective efficacy where we
had our teacher leaders who do great at
this they planned PD on each of these
topics and so when we do one hour of our
PD is around the pedagogy that we lead
the other hour is this assured
experiences where these teachers lead
them so the by the end of this year
everybody will know the expectations in
our building are on those four topics so
that we have some common language around
it we have how we're going to work
towards it and we're going to do
comes to those things and so like with
the microaggressions they actually like
practice interrupting microaggressions
and not just with kids but when you hear
adults say those things are your
colleagues say those things or we
practice and we heard from some parents
or on how to do parent communications
more effectively and like how do we work
on culturally responsive when it comes
to high expectations for behavior you
know how do we work with high
expectations for academics and all of
these things as I as I'm sitting here
and I look out in the audience and
sitting here we have just amazing
teachers I know you know that
and Doug Trina and I are really lucky
that we are here and we get to present
to you but nothing happens without the
amazing hard work of all of our teachers
and as I think of each of these things I
can see faces that attach to each one of
them and and how they've really pushed
for it and pushed me and pushed us to
really keep on this path to continual
improvement and where we can see us
going next and so I just want to say
that publicly to everyone that can hear
that why that would not be what it is
without its teachers and its parents and
of course of students so thank you so we
really appreciate your presentation the
is really important for us in the board
to come around to all of the schools and
so it's great about the opportunity to
go the other schools too but we were
thank you for because the work happens
at schools and it doesn't happen in
central office right where we meet often
so we appreciate the opportunity so do
we have any public comment I think we
might have one yes
thank you thank you
so just as we do public comment just a
reminder just for everybody for public
comment so we asked folks to limit it to
three minutes the board doesn't respond
although somebody from the
administration will reach out and
respond so just it's not that we don't
hear you it's just that we have a
practice that we don't respond so thank
you do you mind standing up just here in
little bits the microphones can pick up
there you go perfect okay so my name is
Leo Taggart I'm an eighth grader here at
wideout middle school and my topics
today is school start times just
yesterday the district did start one
hour later and that was a huge impact
and that really it worked really well
and I think that I'm gonna give you
seven points on why we should make that
permanent what number one it could
reduce the time kids are left home alone
many kids are left home alone because of
parents schedules and they get really
stressed because of lack of sleep
because of homework because they have a
test on Tuesday and they need a support
group to really help them out and cope
with that stress and because because
school times start so early and then an
earlier many parents their schedules
don't really work around that so they
don't have teens don't have this er the
support group to help them with the
stress my second point is that it could
reduce health related issues that come
with lack of sleep being sleep-deprived
can cause a number of different
bothersome symptoms in kids of any age a
loss of sleep disrupts attention span
focus on their environment sensory
inputs it can also create a delayed
reaction time irritability depressed
mood forgetfulness clumsiness and
Trumble learning new concepts my third
point is that it could reduce caffeine
dependence many teens
as we've heard complaints go to
Starbucks Starbucks on Friday and a lot
of people go to Starbucks every single
day after school because they're
exhausted and they need energy to stay
up to the night to do their homework and
then some people get coffee in the
morning because they need to get energy
to go through the day so that's really
important and teens should not be
relying on caffeine this at this young
age my fourth point is that it gives
students a chance to eat breakfast
breakfast is huge many people and
students don't get chance to eat
breakfast because they're falling asleep
really late and then they have to wake
up really early breakfast is really
important it gets them energy to start
off the day and then end the day with no
breakfast you won't you will have less
energy and you will make their attention
span be bad my fifth point is that it
could reduce the number of new changes
teens experience many teens experience a
ton of mood changes because of stress a
lot of stress is caused because not many
hours of sleep so like I get mad at my
parents a lot it's our mom because I'm
really stressed out because I have a
test or I'm not getting the grade that
they want because I'm not sleeping very
well another point is that it could
reduced car accidents for teens many
teens and especially if clean in high
school drive themselves to school and if
they wake up too early then they don't
have the energy and their attention span
is terrible so they can't really see
what's around them and could get in car
accidents my last point is the circadian
clock schedule teen circadian clock
schedule runs later meaning that teens
that the same brain stays up later and
sleeps later pushing school times later
could let teens adapt to their sleep
schedules that they can't even control
at school times art Bush later the class
schedule makes teams extremely tired
throughout the day making their focus
levels go down thank you for your time
thank you thank you so I think Jamie is
still out there
I Jamie mentioned tonight that the
teachers that are in the building are
really helping making the work move
forward and I also want to recognize the
administrators who have to lead that
work I mean you set the tone for the
district for the school and want to just
recognize you for always thinking about
how I can evolve we talked about
complacency and that we don't want to
become complacent in our and our high
achievement we want to constantly think
about how we can be better for our
students and then always thinking about
how we empower and the other thing that
I've really appreciated about your
presentation tonight is that when we
talk about our work around educational
equity
it's not about something that is a theme
that we're working on it becomes part of
our practice and that's what Jamie is
doing with making this part of our
practice and party part of the system so
when I just recognized you for that so
for the last three days I have actually
been at the national superintendent
forum and it is it's a it's a different
type of experience than I've ever had in
terms of professional development
because it was by invitation only it was
a small group of superintendents about
70 throughout the across the country and
we we address topics ranging from
social-emotional learning
equity innovation and transformational
leadership and some of the speakers were
George Curos which he wrote the
innovators mindset which is a book that
we really loved in the district and then
another speaker was Jamie Casas who is
the global education evangelist at
Google and that is his job title and
they spoke about the skills that were
necessary for students to be successful
and when I heard all of the speakers
throughout this these last three days
they have been talking about how it's
really important that we have high
academic expectations but it has to be
coupled with opportunities for problems
creativity collaboration growth mindset
where students have an opportunity to
fail forward and then being managers of
stress and I and I really thought that
was interesting that it did align really
with our profile to graduate and what
we're working towards as a district and
Jamie also encouraged us to stop using
these as softs calling them soft skills
because often times you hear those being
called soft skills and when you say that
you're actually not you're not putting
the importance to these skills that our
students need so I must I won't say that
anymore and I'm gonna encourage you not
to do that either but the other thing
that was said during this was how we
have to help our kids be self actualized
which I thought was interesting too
making sure that they are happy and kind
people and they're one of the speaker's
definition of kindness is kindness is
loaning someone your strength instead of
reminding them of their weaknesses and I
thought about an in Adam just think kind
of the name connect came together Adam
brought me an email this week and he
sent me an article from the Atlantic and
it was called it said stop raising try
and stop trying to raise successful kids
and start raising kind ones and it was
the article about how the importance of
having to teach our kids how to be kind
and so I shared that with you is because
we are grounding a lot of our work
around the strategic plan around those
skills but it's not about lowering
expectations it's not lowering academic
the focus on academics it's about giving
them skills that are going to carry them
through to a world that we don't know
what it's going to look like so I just
wanted to emphasize that and really
appreciate it that the district gave me
that opportunity to be a part of this
one of the practices that we have in our
district is a model called plan do and
revised this is when we are looking at
that PLC model it's like when we're when
we're saying let's try this based off
the data that we're using let's plan
something let's do it let's revise it as
we look at data again
and evidence and I wanted to bring that
up because I I'm thinking about the
report that you're gonna be here tonight
that you're gonna hear tonight around
gifted education over the last couple
years we've been planning and we've been
doing and then by looking at information
and looking at data we've had to revise
and then start planning again and
implementing new strategies and so
tonight's gonna be an opportunity for
the board to get an update about where
we are with our gifted education program
and I believe it's important for our
public to hear the the work that we are
doing around this program but I also
think it's important for the board to
hear this at a governance level because
you might need to make some decisions in
the near future about items pertaining
to resources that we might need to put
towards the gifted program potentially
in terms of human capital and so I think
it's really important that we all hear
that collectively in order to make
decisions I'm gonna just check in see if
Adam has any kind of report from the
high school or anything that you want to
share before we get started with our
study I'd our information item yeah
pretty quick I just wanted to say we had
our first district Advisory Council
meeting where we talked about a few
things one of the things was what we
wanted our official name to be and it
it's gonna be the district advisory a
little bit so we got that done we talked
a little bit about the process that
we're gonna go through which is I get
the definitely you know on Friday I get
the documents and then I'll take time to
read that over the weekend and then
we'll be meeting on the Mondays before
the Wednesday board meeting and so we'll
talk about specific things I'll pull out
specific you know for example the gifted
presentation today with something that
really relates to students so we talked
about that for a little bit and then
they'll the last me if
if they have any questions or anything
else and then we make time at the end of
the meeting if they want to have
anything else brought up to the board
adding items to the agenda or just
specific questions that they might have
about certain things other than that
fall sports across country was fourth in
the state which is pretty cool and we
have four swimmer is going to state as
well and the last thing we've got a
speech a debate tournament coming up on
the 22nd and 23rd so not this weekend
but the next where we'll have 305 judges
29 schools and over 500 competitors so
that's pretty awesome happening at the
high school
thank you so we're gonna move on to 6.0
which is a information item on gifted
and I just want to again remind her
right this is an information item so
it's an update it's not a study item
it's not an action item so we're not
being asked to vote nor are we really
asked B to dig in this is really an
update Robin
so I'm going to introduce obviously this
is superintendent of student services
and then Meaghan Mario is our new
coordinator in education then I'm going
to ask Megan to introduce her team who
is in the audience yes so we have all of
the gifted specialists from the district
in the audience with us tonight so from
captain we have Lara Winkler from
Glenridge wave Susan Carter from
Merrimack Rainey Schweitzer from
lie-down
Frankie Cinna Beck so the way that we
are planning to organize this is that we
submitted a report to you that we feel
like it's a pretty comprehensive report
of where we are with our work and if
you've been on the board for a while you
will hopefully have noticed within that
report kind of a significant change to
some work that we had presented to you
starting two years ago so we wanted to
hit a few highlights of that work so
Robins going to talk a little bit about
identification and some changes that
we're thinking that we've been
implementing through identification
Megan's going to talk a little bit about
curriculum and then I'll talk a little
bit about next steps but the intent of
our presentation is not to be a
comprehensive overview of what we've
done here but just a couple things to
highlight
and then so over the summer we conducted
a pretty deep data review of the
students who were currently identified
in the district's gifted program and we
determined that several of the existing
structures within the current districts
gifted identification process we're
actually excluding students from
traditionally underrepresented
populations and we found that subjective
measures such as grades and then test
scores such as the NWA map assessment
and the s RI were heavily favored of
data points there were actually
precluding some of our most
underrepresented students from moving
forward into individual evaluation and
for further testing more specifically we
recognize that the identification of
african-american students fell well
below the state's 20% equity threshold
so in Jesse's guidance related to
identifying and serving traditionally
underrepresented gifted students deci
outlines what we call the 20% equity
index which basically means that the
total percentage of students receiving
gifted services should really mirror our
subgroup percentages within the district
by more or less 20% and so while
african-american students make up
approximately 15% of our general
population in our school district they
only currently make up about 4% of the
students receiving gifted services which
falls well outside of the 20% equity
index so in order to meet Desi's
recommendation we really should be
seeing a representation of
african-american students in our school
districts gifted program closer to 12 to
18 percent so for that reason we started
modifying the identification process for
the 2019 2020 school year first of all
we started with removing grades and
historical standardized testing data
from the universe
screening process and transitioning from
national norms to more localized norms
so additionally that means students from
traditionally underrepresented
populations will actually be compared to
their racial peers as opposed to
national norms in addition this is going
to increase our ability to screen more
students so Dessie actually recommends
that you move about 10 to 20 percent of
your student population into individual
evaluation we are actively and
intentionally casting a wider net and we
are actually moving 33 to 40 percent of
our students into individual evaluations
so we can make sure that we are catching
students who have previously been
overlooked due to some of the structural
pieces of the identification process so
the test that we have transitioned to
some were already at use and some are
new to the school district we are
currently using the cognitive abilities
test the Torrens tests of creativity as
well as a new behavioral scale called
the hope rating scale that is completed
by classroom teachers these different
assessments represent by Dusty's
guidelines measurements of general
mental ability creativity and
problem-solving and then Jessie has
another category considered other which
would include teacher observation data
the tools like the hope scale and then
portfolios that students or teachers
could also consider so we feel like this
combination of assessments has a
stronger emphasis on nonverbal
assessments as well as a stronger mix
between qualitative and quantitative
measures and really to improve the
alignment between the identification
process and the actual programmatic
outcomes that are being delivered into
all of the school buildings so the hope
rating scale is new to our district we
actually have normed that locally
collecting data on students who have
both been identified and not identified
in our school district
and then moving forward we are now in
the phase where we have established
review teams at every building and we
are all meeting to look at the data
together and are really looking at
students whose data falls in the top
Tuesday nights so essentially we're
looking at students who are falling in
the about the top 10% of students as
compared to their Clayton peers in
addition to that and we'll talk a little
bit more about this in the board policy
that was first study is a stronger
building advocacy process and a clearer
review process for parents who want to
request a review of their students
eligibility if they have been determined
to be ineligible for gifted services
after going through the individual
evaluation process so from a curriculum
standpoint kind of in line with what
Robin was saying about our
identification so we're identifying
students who have strengths and creative
creativity problem-solving and critical
thinking and so in recognizing that we
went ahead and modified our curriculum
to make sure that the services that we
provide in the gifted classroom are
matching those that were identifying
students for so we created a cohesive
vertically aligned curriculum over the
summer all gifted specialists got
together they wrote curriculum for about
18 hours over the summer and develop
this curriculum map for grades 2 through
again this is aligned kind of to our new
identification process but beyond that
what it does is it really creates those
targeted areas where we know gifted kids
are known to struggle and so I love that
Shawn kind of brought up those quote
unquote soft skills because those are
the ones where we tend to see our kids
find the most difficulty and so we
really tried to Center our our
curriculum map kind of around those
areas and kind of not necessarily trying
to purposefully like create a target
area around like anxiety but trying to
create opportunities for maybe that to
bubble up in an area that is safe
for students where we can then kind of
directly coach them so we built our
curriculum map around three kind of
areas called creative confidence design
thinking and purposeful play and so the
idea here is that with these three areas
our students will be allowed to confront
failure frequently which is not
something that gifted students are
necessarily accustomed to and so
allowing them to kind of know what it
feels like to fail hard fast and often
and not feel afraid of that um and so
also it's going to help them to limb
build some resiliency to not necessarily
being afraid of trying to step out of
their box and try something new to take
advantage of an opportunity that's out
there that maybe they don't necessarily
know how it's going to end um it also
helps them to create to increase their
risk taking we're really trying to push
innovative thinking for our kids and
getting them to just share ideas wildly
and unabashedly additionally with those
directed opportunities for coaching it
allows gifted specialists to use the
skills that we've been trained in which
is really getting at that metacognitive
skill for kids and so using utilizing
specialists in the ways that kind of we
were trained and then finally like the
curriculum map also offers an
opportunity for really clear
expectations at every grade level for
what kids are supposed to be able to do
and how much coaching is going to be
needed and so for like our second
graders obviously it's a lot of directed
instruction but by the time that they're
you know in sixth and seventh grade we
really want to see that independent
transition of those skills and so how we
get there but then that also allows a
window for parents and community members
to be able to see what gifted kids are
gonna be working on that year what
skills we're gonna be working on that
year and gives them like kind of a
window into the classroom an additional
kind of component of our program this
year is that at the elementary level
they've also organized their report card
according to that curriculum map so
that's coming out and will be something
that goes with our first quarter our
first semester report cards but they
also have started a kindergarten and
first grade cushion and what we're
trying to do there is just allow the kid
allow students an opportunity to work
with a gifted specialist every student
in kindergarten and first grade gets the
chance to sit to work with the gifted
specialists in a time like a free choice
time and that allows the gifted
specialist to be a station for for
critical thinking problem-solving the
things that we work on in the classroom
they get to that bring in to our
youngest learners by doing so it allows
the gifted specialists an opportunity to
really identify those students of
promise and then when we have those data
review meetings like she was talking
about during identification those gifted
specialists are an added voice at the
table who know kind of what that kid is
like as a learner and can advocate for
them if necessary another kind of final
piece to what the elementary gifted
specialists have added to their kind of
plate this year is that they have a flex
time which is really responsive to the
needs of the building and so in some
buildings it looks like a gifted
specialist going in and working with
teachers to support them on maybe
enrichment or differentiation
opportunities within the classroom but
it might also look like in another
building that it is about creating like
a support group for students who maybe
have anxiety and helping those kids work
on that in a in a way that feels safe
and comfortable in a small group setting
to really develop those coping
strategies so what that's allowed is our
gifted special student not only being
like really responsive to the needs of
the building but to also integrate
themselves into the building a little
bit deeper so as we think about next
steps I think Shawn in early nice job of
starting this with
you know a plan to revise cycle and so I
think this is a really clear example of
how we do our work and when I say that
like curriculum writing is never done
and our work is ever-evolving like I
think this the gifted program right now
is is a really clear example of this so
when we think from the identification
process in our study and look at that
that that we determined some pretty big
gaps our next step there is to to really
look at that data and information to say
have we resolved what we identified as
gaps so we'll continue to do some pretty
deep data diving to really get a sense
of what what is it telling us and how
are we like is our program starting to
mirror better our population when we
think about curriculum and next steps
with with curriculum the when we when we
went into like they took on a lion's
share of rewriting of cohesive program
two through eight over the summer and
really revising a lot of different
things starting to really think very
cohesively between the buildings between
the elementary in the middle school
level so as we come out of the first
year of that a lot of our work is going
to be to review that and it is that
really accomplishing some of the goals
that we had put forward and then to look
at some articulation pieces that might
be that that have presented themselves
so thinking about like students who take
a course at the middle school for a
semester versus students who take the
course at it for a year how are we
making sure that we're meeting those
needs to like the foundational skills
that we put in first semester how do we
help students and second
with that so really looking at those
pieces thinking about the kindergarten
and first-grade pushin piece that's a
new piece for us this year we tried some
things with that last year but we've put
a solid commitment into that this year
and having exposure to for all children
and so really revisiting that and
looking at what are the structures in
the pen both the pedagogical structures
as well as just sort of instructional
pieces with connecting with children and
then how does that help influence our
work as we move forward through
identification pieces the the flex time
is the piece that probably is the kind
of the biggest question for us right now
because as we as we looked at that and
as we envisioned that piece we were
really looking at it from a perspective
of what our needs of children so
children who are identified as gifted or
not just gifted for the hundred and
fifty minutes that they're pulled out
but so what are the supports that we
need to put in place for classroom
teachers so that could look like
side-by-side coaching with classroom
teachers it could look like work with
with children and so that piece it feels
to me like it's really in its infancy
and evolving but we intentionally wanted
it to be specific to the needs of the
as well as particular people within the
building students as well as teachers so
some of that will probably come out in
professional learning pieces that we
identify with in the building
or just what that side-by-side work
looks like Shawn alluded to like some of
some of our update will indicate maybe
some need for some resources and that's
a place that like when we look at the
the way that our gifted specialists are
sort of they utilize throughout the day
like we're tapping them out at this
point and so it's it's like looking at
how - right now what we've prioritized
is direct instruction to children both
through the pullout program and then the
Kaline but then what does that mean for
the support of them in other places and
so we're trying to explore that
Thank You milena Robyn and Megan we
appreciate it and we really appreciate
the opportunity for you to give us an
update we understand that it's not fully
baked but you're coming back to us and
telling us how you're doing so thank you
this was great it feels like me real we
were responsive to a need and that we're
really making great headway so thank you
for paying attention to that need I just
have a quick question on so it said that
we there was like a a personal or an
individual evaluation in grades 2 and 4
and then it looks like we do it the next
year in the spring of 2020 we do it in
1st 3rd and 5th grade did I get that
right so what is there anything in place
for I guess my question is twofold so a
if we don't identify a kid in first
grade then art do we also may be
reevaluated 3rd grader as they okay and
then can they still get identified like
it what about a fifth grader or a sixth
grader or seventh grader are we still
looking at that point or could there be
possible identification
so that those grades are how does that
work so the goal is that when we were
starting the identification process this
year like looking at like kind of
starting the process for like our first
third and fifth graders for
identification in sixth grade and so
we've looked at like sixth grade is kind
of like kind of that last like year of
like us going through this process with
them and trying to identify so then what
do you do for kids though that when you
know the light ball maybe goes on a
little bit later for certain kids so how
do you how do we make sure that we're
capturing those kids that might need
something extra
once they that freshman year or graders
so we don't currently have a step in our
identification process after sixth grade
however any new students who transfer
into this into the district in the
middle school grades we do screen them
for the gifted program and we just don't
have a program that runs through high
school so identifying for a freshman
year they would just take
the questions thank you very much and
you know having seen the evolution and
over over time some of what I really
appreciated about the update is that
you're paying attention to the
accelerating the enrichment as well as
kind of accelerating some of the
curriculum for students I think that's
that's getting at something that's been
really important and then addressing the
underrepresented students and seeming to
really be
some progress in that so thank you very
much for that and the adaptability and
so a couple of questions one is very
specific do you have an idea I saw that
when I think it was in this report and
not see that the way you're using the
whisk or no next if somebody appeals
right it would be an additional tool
that we would consider using if we
needed if we felt like we are in
position that we needed to do further
testing so if you do have a cutoff in
mind that you're going to so that it's
not kind of ambiguous and like do you
guys have a score in mind that you will
that it will help you decide yes they
should go into the gifted program have
you not we have not had to use it yet
this school year I think just like any
identification process its strength is
really looking in the body of data
that's available for students so looking
at multiple data points and how that
data point complements or fits together
with our observational data with the
problem solving and creativity data and
looking at all together so we're really
getting a full picture of how that
child's presenting right and I know you
have all that data I guess just
something that I was wondering about
and to think about is whether or not you
do want to be before you use that kind
of have something in mind
that there over 130 or whatever it might
be that that might make it less
subjective I guess that's my point then
a couple much more general questions
that I have is I'm wondering about what
efforts are being made to ensure you've
looked at you know our african-american
students but any efforts to make sure
underrepresented twice exceptionally
students are something you're gonna cast
a wider net and have ideas about how to
do that you know we've talked about that
so Jessie allows providing for us to
like they have a provision where we can
create an additional alternative pathway
if needed before that it's something
that we're gonna have to look at the
data and just see but we started with
african-americans because that seemed to
be the most glaring need that was
present in our app in our program and
we'll have to approach that for sure
okay great and the other question I have
is since we are having additional
testing with creativity and nonverbal
tests do you have thoughts about how
then your we may end up with students
with all kinds of I guess a broader
definition of gift
geom ideas about how to tailor then what
kind of services we're providing based
on it this is the super creative student
or if this is a very you know a student
that's really good at a particular area
like how we're going to individualize it
yes so we've been working a lot on just
kind of for lack of a better term like
kind of rebranding our understanding of
gifted because what we've previously
been identifying for were we were
identifying under these like largely
academic pieces but our services were
provided more along what they gifted
specialists are trained for which are
more of those like metacognitive pieces
and so we're working our way toward like
kind of an understanding like more like
developing a better understanding of
like what giftedness is in our district
but also working with and trying to
provide resources for classroom teachers
in areas of like academic development
and academic acceleration and things
like that because we we can we're happy
to be a resource and a support for that
but our our skill set is set in those
kind of metacognitive skills and that's
really what we're trying to get after
with the kids that we identify is making
sure that when they come to us is those
kids that really are in need of that
creative or probably creative problem
solving or critical thinking need
q and then my last question is
do you have are we receiving or seeking
parental input as we
so we we have been working with a with a
group
the parents of gifted learners so
Jessica dubler and Chris win have been
meeting with us in meeting with Megan on
a pretty regular basis
yeah but parent nomination is not a part
of the gifted identification process
because we utilize a give Universal
screener
so really the stuff that pair for
parents to get involved in the process
is really that final kind of review
process where if they get a receive a
letter indicating that their child did
not qualify for services and they want
to kind of it like request a further
review of that then we we've got a
process built in for that thank you
questions the Advisory Council had two
quick questions one of them was looking
at the name I know that we call it
Exploratorium in the middle school but
in the elementary schools the gifted
program and just wondering to see if
there's any way to check in with
students who maybe aren't in the gifted
program to see how you know that
narrative comes across to them and then
something else that they were wondering
was if those I so like we talked about
too earlier today which is a
great opportunity for students who may
not be in the Exploratorium program to
go do some work that kind of works on
some of these skills that you know we're
working on finding that
individualization I'm wondering if
there's any like I know you talked about
the flex time for the kindergarten 1st
graders but is there anything else for
other students to get some of these
resources in the elementary school in
the elementary schools yeah our gifted
specialists are really kind of at max
capacity at this point we're just trying
to meet the needs of the students that
are identified and then also
kind of getting into those classrooms
they are working with teachers through
those flex time and the flex time isn't
limited to just get our first grade it's
for any grade level um still like one
like the teacher Merrimack is working
with the 4th grade teacher and so they
don't have to be like just like Ken
Turner 1st graders the camera no first
grade is more of a pushin program thank
you thank you very much yes so in 2018
Senate bill 743 were start requiring
school districts that had a gifted
program to create a board approved
policy establishing a process that
outlined procedures and conditions for
situations where parents or guardians
may request a review of a decision that
their child was ineligible for the
district's gifted education program so
if you flip to the last section that is
the part that is new the way that we've
outlined our sacct or are suggesting the
board approve this policy that sets up a
procedure for parents to reach out to me
the district assistant superintendent of
student services to request a review of
their child's eligibility and after
receiving that review that I would
convene a multidisciplinary team to
review the existing
related to the student and that the team
would determine whether the student does
qualify does not qualify or further data
collection is needed in order for the
team to make a final decision I was I
was just wondering just because policies
clear on that I was wondering about we
use interchangeably I think one time it
says that it's gonna be the
superintendent will designate a district
administrative staff and then on the
last page it says the district's
assistant superintendent of student
services should we be consistent
just say that it's I don't know either
either making it general in case it
changes from being in the Student
Services you know I'm saying or let me
show you yeah yeah I see what you're
saying because it's food yes because the
the first part on the bottom of page
three designates the superintendent will
designate a member of the school
district an admin staff in this case I
have been the one that has been
designated we could adjust the language
to say by contacting the the district
administrative staff designated by the
super-ego I think being consistent in
that doesn't matter to me which way we
do it if you think it's always going to
be this we're going to have an assistant
superintendent of student services and
make sense just call us at it behind the
assistant superintendent if everyone's
okay with those changes
you do testing for emotional
intelligence
I'm sorry we typically don't take
questions for the audience
any other questions okay all right
thank you very much appreciate it so
we're moving on to something r2 which is
policy okay so policy ikf is about
graduation requirements most of the
changes that are being recommended our
wording changes and because of Senate
bill 603 related to virtual education so
they wanted language within the policy
related to to that so my recommendation
is to take the changes as proposed
questions
thank you okay so we are moving on to
some point of three which is the Board
of Education protocol around
communication with the superintendent
Amy that she okay so Joe and I draft
some protocol around communication with
this is run attendant and the reason
that we did this was to attempt to
provide some structure and put some some
mechanism in place for how boards this
board in future boards are going to
communicate with the superintendent of
the school district and the reason we
thought that this was an important thing
was because typically the super
superintendent is busy doing a lot of
things and in order to preserve and
protect his time or her time whoever the
superintendent is at during any given
board we feel that it's important that
there's some structure in place so that
the superintendent can then in turn
ensure some maximum student impact so
that's that's really the reason why we
did this and
the board protocol was attached to it
was in board Doc's so hopefully
everybody's had a chance to review it
and if anybody has comments we would
love to discuss yes Jason thank you for
doing for your time - I just had one
small thought so in the rationale
statement it says to maximize the
efficiency and effectiveness of the
superintendent and administration to
ensure optimal student impact I wonder
if we want the and administration in
there efficient specifically vina
superintendent yeah or if you mean that
if this is about communication with the
superintendent that then will trickle
down and so I like the effect with the
efficiency of the administration
so I think I actually started to cut a
red line mine I think what Joe and I
intended was this for this just to peds
communication with the superintendent
and that we were to do a separate
protocol with respect to communication
with administration so as to not confuse
the two but that was as good as he
actually suggests either deleting that
from this or adding it throughout but if
this is specific to superintendent we
shouldn't really take that
other thoughts
the similar question about that as far
as how you think about folding in the
other staff and I think maybe one reason
to have a separate protocols because
presumably communications with the rest
of staff might include the
superintendent at some level you may
want to specify that but I do think this
is really helpful and as I think about
my own practice on other boards and
other groups and feedback for me from
our district than administrators I think
it's I think it's helpful to think about
particularly the longer we longer we
work together and as boards you know we
only have a one year as one set board
but it changes every year and you have
different lengths of time people have
worked together and with each other and
I certainly find myself it's easier to
be informal and sometimes the Attic
protocol
with more experience and more and if you
work together and it's just it's good to
be reminded of there are still the
process and there's governance and I
think this is a good way to put some
that structure in place and just help us
to remember that so I found this the
helpful reminders and procedures
you think you're saying that I will say
that this we talked about this last
frame right as a board this is not
something we haven't talked about right
if the idea is we need to put this in
writing because because of that you know
sometimes it's easy to forget so we want
to document it right written governance
they're just sure so I just I don't want
to forget what one of the board members
did send an email suggesting a few items
be added so I thought that I would bring
those up and if anybody has any comments
to those we can add them or not add them
as as people see fit and the first was
to add a statement that this protocol
will be reviewed annually
ideally sometime after the April
election so that was the first comment
so is that something
you think so this means it's specific to
this or is that some things like do we
want to call it for all you know the
every new board needs to go through
right as kind of as muted either or
active
and a reminder of what they are
okay and the second one was that the
superintendent with the notification to
the board president may reach out to
individual board members for input to
provide information
comments or
I guess my understanding was that that's
always like the superintendent can reach
out to any of us I think this is more
about us reaching him
or maybe maybe we need that I'm ready
yeah I mean I think that the protocol
speaks more to how board members are
going to
communicate with the superintendent so
I'm not sure that we necessarily need to
add that but people feel strongly about
it
do you think that it's a
jump around so much better
there have been criticism in the past of
that happening
to clarify this is because we have a
procedure with how we
so do you want to add a statement to the
effect of nothing here in Chile but the
superintendent from
reaching out to individual board members
is that what you're saying yeah I mean I
think that that that seems very
appropriate to me that the included I
wouldn't have
questions
I would just say again I think it's
really I mean to emphasize what a me
start out by saying the whole point of
this is to make our superintendent the
most efficient and effective
administrator on behalf of students and
we need to not unnecessarily take up in
this case Shawn's time okay awesome
thank you
we are gonna vote on the next meeting
next meeting yes next meeting so
December will become an action item next
week okay so for checkout we have the
links checkout that's coming from the
policy but gifted is that we're gonna
add the designee to the assistant
superintendent so that way it's
clarified in there there are no comments
about the graduation requirements policy
and then for the education the protocols
with war we're gonna remove an
administration because we will move into
having a protocol that is specific to
the other district administrators and
then we will add another bullet around
superintendent about reaching out will
also inform the board president when
reaching out to other board members and
then I do think it's a good question
around and this is not this wasn't said
but I do think we need to think about
where these are going to be housed on
board Docs so that way they're really
evident to everyone and then I do think
it would be good to put in a systematic
way of coming up with reviewing the
protocols so so we can kind of think
about what that's gonna look like
okay so moving on action items 8.01 the
approval of policy IG a DB this place
that the Board of Education approved it
has been moved and seconded
are there any questions or comments
about this one okay all in favor any
post passes unanimously
which in this case is six oh okay
alright so we moved to 8.02
which is to approve policy GB let's move
that the fourth Education approved
policy it's been moved in second is your
questions comments
Joe maybe just for the benefit of our
audience in sable a little here I should
just point out that we we go through
this review process
second time so all these things have
been beautiful why did they talk about
some thank you that's great
no that's exactly right thank you for
saying that any other questions or
comments all in favor all right
any boast passes unanimously 6-0 okay
now we're moving on kind of to your
earlier point stacy we're moving on to
8.03 which is the Board of Education
protocol for adding items to a meeting
agenda I move that the Board of
Education that proves the protocol for
adding an item to the board meeting
agenda as submitted it's been moved and
seconded are there any questions or
comments on favor any opposed
it also passes unanimously 6 0 thank you
okay so we are now moving on to 8.04 and
we have that the Board of Education
approved the resolution authorizing and
directing the issuance sale and delivery
of general obligation
series 2019 it's been moved and seconded
are there any questions or comments all
in favor aye
can you post it also passes unanimously
0 ok 8.05 I move that the Board of
Education approved Missouri American
water a single source provider to move a
public water line outside the profile of
added field as described above and
authorized an increase to the budget to
pay for the additional ok it's been
moved and seconded there any questions
do you want to give us a quick yeah sure
give us quick update
you know Tim wine instructor facilities
and Jim Brunel Assistant Director of
Facilities you're going to join these
in the executive this summary I
discussed the need to move water lines
from under the deal profile so I'm
providing a map that will give you an
idea of what we're gonna be talking
about so um there's a yellow highlighted
line and that represents existing water
lines and then pink highlighted lines
are the proposed relocation and I'll go
into a little bit more detail as we move
forward there's also a blue highlighted
line representing electric lines and
I've highlighted that line because as I
discussed the water lines I want to
address other pending issues we're
continuing to work to resolve them so
prior to construction at the time of the
project approval we discussed how the
sewer lines ran under the field of the
field profile and it was recommended to
move the lines both sanitary and septic
around the perimeter of the field this
was a cost of approximately $150,000
these were known cause prior to
construction and what we've discovered
during construction is the field has
been layered over and over resulting in
a layer of dirt so thick that where we
were trying to identify me in holes we
couldn't find them it's because a field
profile has just gotten thicker as a
result of that water locator tracer
tapes that are on the water lines also
we're not getting picked up and so we've
discovered water lines on there to feel
further changes have been made to the
original design that have resulted in
the water retention basin going deeper
than existing than the existing depth of
the Buried electrical utilities so
that's why that's highlighted on there
they're basically about three feet down
and the depth of the water retention
pond is eight feet so as we start at the
bottom of the diagram and move up the
water you can see the water lines that
run through the field by home plate so
there happen to be these are public
lines so if there was a break in those
lines Missouri American water is just
gonna come out and start digging
so they'll dig up a few profile they'll
drive out onto the field and they will
damage a lot of the field so it is like
the best practice to get the water lines
out from underneath the field and into
the roadway so since this is a public
line Missouri American water must move
the line at an estimated cost of $70,000
their costs are much more substantial
it's about a hundred feet of line so
when we talk about the next line it's
about five hundred feet of line that is
less than that because
but unfortunately we're kind of stuck
with that so we presented that as an
action item for the board because it's a
it's not something we can bid and if we
just do it ourselves we say we don't
have a markup from the existing
contractor so we just thought it was the
best way to move forward so now when you
look at the second waterline at the top
that's a private line that was not
marked in any of the drawings and
there's a sewer line that runs right
along there so when we were putting the
sewer line and that was discovered and
since the line is near the water
retention basin and the sewer lines we
have to have so much space so the
estimate is that we are the anticipation
is that we will move that around the
water basin but we are looking at other
options that might make it less movement
and cheaper so we haven't presented that
as an official change order yet but
currently that's an estimated cost of
fifty nine thousand dollars so with
those two costs of those water lines our
contingency now is a hundred thousand
dollars over budget and so further those
electrical lines that are needing to be
moved we've been working are these guys
really have been working extensively
with Ameren determine the best option
and we don't have an estimate on this
cost yet he's actually hoping by the end
of the week but they're supposed to get
back to us just with an idea where they
want to run him maybe they don't have a
cost
tell me that on the phone yesterday and
there's actually a second existing issue
that actually we found a savings of
about twenty three thousand that we can
apply towards this because of this issue
and we realized we could actually move
something from the boiler house to the
other side and make some changes
actually you have a cost savings to it
so that piece we got the savings to but
we don't know the cost of the other
so I just want everyone to be aware this
is one cost that's coming forward and
then there'll be a second change order
and then also the electrical lines once
we get those so we have already put
costs of this project for adzick field
into the capital plan that these guys
administer so initially on the onset
there was a hundred and forty thousand
dollars there was some other electrical
things that we were doing with the high
school that was seventy thousand dollars
that we put into their budget and that
kind of was part of this plan and so we
just feel like trying to continue to tap
into this
and then we want to present some items
that are going forward with the Maryland
building that we would just like to
leave those months to do different
projects rather than to continue to tap
them so $100,000 with the additional
funds that we're going to be getting
from the tax levy this year we would
just like to present this as a budget
increase as well as the electrical cost
when they come forward and at that point
in time I'll have a pretty good idea
with the final numbers with the tax rate
because we'll have all the time
what the petition the potential
but regardless we projected a 2.6
million dollar you know increase in the
fund balance so this would be a hundred
thousand
so and then when all of the numbers are
exact we'll bring the official budget
position forward this would be approval
to move forward and then the official
budget revision will only be for the
antis the actual cost
so they come with less this was in
mr. waters high-end us
and you covered it pretty well yeah
questions anybody have any questions
okay I'm Joey I'm actually it's gonna be
a little bit annoying but I'm going to
yeah so I'm going to move I'm gonna move
that the motion be amended as follows so
that the word above be deleted and
replaced with in the report presented to
the board in the report presented to the
board
actually
so you will put that amendment forward
yes
anybody second
all in favor
any post those this that it passes
unanimously
that's right no so then we will does
anybody have any it's still open have
any other questions right on before we
mow we vote on the full mandate motion
okay so we're voting on the amended
motion
all in favor say posed okay passes
unanimously
thanks appreciate thanks curious good
catch okay so we are moving on to our
consent agenda I move that the Board of
Education approved the consent agenda
any comments or questions about the
consent mentioned
okay all in favor zero which is
communication
does anybody have any board
communication yes no you please please
was really glad to attend the
professional st. Louis County
professional learning committee yes
community yeah event on Saturday that
gel and a number of other districts
members have been planning it's our
third
just come back from a trip on the west
coast was really tired and I didn't want
to get out but I was really glad that I
did on Saturday morning and the
presentation that we had from the
organization was trauma-informed and
cannot believe how much I learned and
needed to learn I guess because I've
heard a lot of you smarter people talk
about it for years and didn't realize
how little I understood it I thought
that was really good and we also had
some really good interactions with in
breakout groups after that and getting
together around topics that we were
interested in and
kind of brainstorming and and talking
about ways to continue our learning in
our work and around different topics and
I think it was 17 different schools it
was actually want to be 19 differents
our school districts 17 from st. Louis
County sin was public and then actually
somebody from a state board but yeah
just an even more diverse and similar
number of total people I think I thought
before feels like a real energy around
working for a lot of common goals and
regional goals and growth
and supportive education and this
genuinely inspiring
oh there um while we're here why don't I
just have to mention that I came to see
pop the plague puffs which was last
weekend and I just want to say I'm like
always continually blown away by the
theater productions here so whether you
have a kid at wideout or not or even if
you do and they aren't whether we're
about the theater or not I would
encourage everybody to come see the
shows because they put so much work into
it and just to think that middle
schoolers are even like building a sets
and the costumes and the lights and the
sound is really really impressive and
we're really lucky to have this here and
second of all I went on a walk to rashon
to the off-site catalyst program to see
the space that we share with Brentwood
LeDoux and you city and the space itself
is so cool like these kids are really in
a real office environment complete with
like an auditorium and conference rooms
and smaller offices in a kitchen and
like a lounge area they can really feel
like they are working you know
in a business and we caught we were
lucky enough to catch a couple kids who
had just come from their first like
practice pitch of their business and so
they gave us their pitch which was so
fun to see and to be able to ask them
questions and they were getting feedback
from the two of us and anyway if mr.
Hildebrand then came in to kind of gave
us a tour and it was really cool to see
and I just not only loved meeting these
couple students that gave us their
little business pitch but seeing the
space was really neat too just to get a
tour of and see the collaboration that
we have these other school districts to
share the space is really cool and I
know we hear a lot about catalysts all
the time but to see where they work was
great so you guys should all go see
it's like a page in 170 yeah if you
schedule walkthrough with me with
Barbara I will take you to see and they
have like security in and out like you
would in an office building and it's
it's really
another board communication really yes
I attended for me the first meeting of
the sustainability committee in the city
but the city holds on October 24th and a
couple of kind of key points that came
out of that is one we reviewed or we
talked about kind of what our past
achievements by the sustainable
sustainability group and what kind of
brainstormed about initiatives for and
brainstormed about ideas for the 2020
action plan and then we also talked
about within that one thing is promoting
the city's success with energy and
benchmarking in both kind of residential
and for businesses and then the other
part was we're going to be working on
coming up with ideas as the city is
embarking on their creation of a new
comprehensive plan that to make sure
that the sustainability group defines
and creates their own kind of vision
statement and advises the elected
officials about work that we think is
important within the sustainability
domain and then I would say one other
thing in light of the PLC last weekend
that I will submit to you Sean if you're
willing to put it on the Friday memo
memo that an SBA's it was a it's a talk
on safety versus or an trauma-informed
school some things that really need to
pay attention to be a truly
trauma-informed it was nationally done
really really good probably I think
might be an even deeper dive into what
that means will hurt us in our work
I have just to real quickly one we did
have the city board breakfast and I will
just share just a couple things going on
in the city's world right they're
obviously looking for a city manager we
know and that's how the process is
underway
it did say there are no internal
candidates they told us second there is
some certainly a number of public
comment and even some concern about a
potential development in that parking
lot that's right across from Starbucks
at why down and handling so they were
speaking about that and then finally and
forgive me if I'm forgetting the name
but their equity Commission
which is not called an equity Commission
and it's called something else right but
but you all know what I'm talking about
they're seeking actively seeking members
and I think last Friday maybe was the
deadline for and then the only other
thing I did want to say is that it is
certainly dawning on me that the sign up
for new candidates would be December the
17th so I would be remiss if I did say
that out loud because we are staying
here November the 13th and so are we
only have one board meeting in between
now and December this heat which means
yeah so December 4th is our next board
meeting and then we have one on the 18th
literally the night after so I just want
to give Kristen and lily and Gary the
heads-up that during this time on
December 4th I will be giving you the
opportunity to declare if you're running
again or not you don't have to but I
just want to say that
so and we have just three candidates
right for the public three cap three
positions three seats right there will
be three seats that are open
anyway have anything else movement to
adjourn all in favor
thank you