November 11, 2020 — Meeting Transcript

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

They were very creative, very thoughtful, and I wanted to bring Tom here so we could recognize him as a representative of all the librarians and library assistants. So, Tom, could you just talk a little bit about what you all did to make it such a meaningful experience for our students? Yeah, Sean, absolutely, and thank you for the recognition. So this summer, before the district made its decision about our learning models for the school year, there was something that was really apparent to our district librarians, and that was we needed a method of distributing books to students that would work in any learning environment.

In the spring, we relied really heavily on Sora, our e-book and audio book service for digital access to titles, but we got a lot of feedback from students and parents, and that told us that for some of our students, there was a desire to hold physical books in their hands, and for others, our growing but new e-book and audio book collection could not compete with the thousands of titles in our print collection that we have carefully curated over the years. And so the librarians knew that we needed both print and digital resources to meet the needs of students in the upcoming possible learning environments. So in mid-July, the librarians and the library assistants began to meet and make plans that had two really important goals. The first one was to get the right books to the right students, regardless of format or learning environment.

And the second was to do this while prioritizing the health and the safety of librarians, library assistants, students, and staff. And so we look to leading information from the American Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians and some real critical tests that focused on the COVID-19 virus and its lifespan on books, specifically done by the Realm Project, which stands for Reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums. And then these expert viewpoints were then coupled with the guidelines that were coming out from the district, and that led us to a clear way to connect our students with information and literature. Librarians and library assistants began the year in all of our libraries with curbside pickup services.

Student and parents could request specific titles or librarians could help match books up with student interest and print books were distributed safely and quarantined before going back out to other students. Funds allocated from last year's board report were dedicated to continuing to improve our district's e-book and audio book offerings. So before the kindergarten classes arrived back into our building in early October, over 2,400 print books were checked out, mainly through that curbside pickup service. And at the same time, we had over 3,300 e-books and audio books checked out through Sora.

And with all of those we had just for through Sora, we had over 2,500 hours of reading taking place through the digital service by hundreds of Clayton students. And I think that those numbers are important, but equally important are the connections that were made. Students were able to find comfort in revisiting a favorite book, continue with a series that they love, find new and fascinating information, or dive into that new story that helps them escape from the world for a moment or maybe make even a little more sense of this world. As we have classes full of students returning to the school building, that same system continued as students requested books online and have had them delivered to classrooms or a common pickup spot, as well as continuing with our curbside pickup service for our learning at home students.

And students continue to read and listen to books online as well. We've been able to be nimble and supportive when students find themselves at home for extended periods and need and want books to read for curricular needs or for enjoyment. So I can't emphasize enough the group effort from the entire library staff, both in conceptualizing the large and the small details around this plan and implementing those details on a daily basis. Additional time to help students digitally browse, to select books that are going to be meaningful for them, to pull books ourselves, to safely quarantine books, adds hours cumulatively to the work that the librarians and the library assistants do on a daily basis.

So again, thank you, Sean, for this recognition, for this team effort that we do for the students. Thank you Tom And on behalf of the administration and the Board of Education we really do appreciate all that you and the school librarians and the librarian assistants did And it is what you said was really important how to be nimble And you knew how to pivot and set an example for how to adjust in a time of need And I also going to just take a few seconds to recognize you Tom because you don know that I was going to recognize you this but I just found out yesterday that you were selected as the second vice president of the Missouri Association of School Librarians which is a huge honor Thank you, John. Thank you, John, and thank you, Board. And then, Joe, I just also want to just take a few moments to recognize that today is November 11th, and it's Veterans Day.

And so I want to just take an honor, take a time to honor the men and women who have served in our U.S. military. And we know that we've had teachers that have served in the military. We know that we have had lots of community members.

And we know some of our students have gone into the military. And just want to take that moment to recognize all of those people who have served in the U.S. military. Thank you, Sean.

Thank you, Sean, and I certainly, on behalf of the board, want to give thanks to the librarians and library assistants, but also to all the veterans and those who have served, and including you, David. So, thank you for your service. So, we are going to move on to superintendent communications. So, handing it back to you, Sean.

Okay. So as part of my superintendent communications, there are a few things that I want to do tonight. I want to give you some general updates about some things that are happening within the district. I also want to give you an update about our return to returning to in-person learning.

I want to also just talk a little bit about our district strategic plan, which is part of our action items tonight, and then give a quick equity update. So just a few things for general updates. I want to recognize our varsity boys soccer team who won the district championship last week and just wanted to make sure the board was aware of that. They played against Ladue and won, and then they went to sectionals and beat Webster Groves on Saturday night, and so it was a really exciting game.

And so they did play in Cape Girardeau last night and did not win that, but we are really, really proud of our boys varsity soccer team. And then the other thing I just think it's important to remember, and I shared this with the board, is that just like our librarians, our teachers have learned how to pivot and try to do things differently in a creative way. And this past weekend, we had our Poe in the Park, which was the theater performance in Shaw Park. And so we had students who were putting on vignettes from Edgar Allan Poe.

We had dance routines. We had music. We had skits. We had our orchestra playing.

It turned Shaw Park into something that I've never, never experienced. It was truly incredible. And it's just like we've talked about is that this experience of the pandemic and being in a different type of learning environment has caused us to think differently. And thinking differently is going to potentially influence how we're going to do things in the future.

Spervantage of the year. And so maybe some of you were able to see that, but I just want to recognize Clayton High School for pivoting with our arts programs. And then on Friday, I wanted just to let everyone know that Dan Kaczewski and I are going to be attending the virtual online National Blue Ribbon Award. And Dan's going to accept the National Blue Ribbon for Clayton High School.

And again, that's a huge honor for our district and wanted just to make you aware that we'll be doing that on Friday. And then Joe mentioned that we are going to have, we had an added contract onto our agenda tonight, and that has to do with the informational item that was presented in the board memo this past week around safety and security, and so is the contract that we were able just to get today. So I wanted to make you aware of that. So in terms of the returning to learn, our in-person, returning to learn in our in-person learning, since October 5th, we've had our students back in schools.

Actually from the first day of school we had students in our schools and just have built capacity in terms of bringing in students on a gradual basis starting with our elementary schools This past week on November 9th we welcomed our middle and high school students back using a hybrid model And we still have maintained our learning at home students And then soon we going to be sending out communication about our second semester I want to just say that I recognize the emotion and I recognize the fear that people might have in terms of going back to school. Thank you. Thank you. I spent the last three days at Clayton High School just helping and standing in the hallways and directing students.

And it was incredible to see the students again and saw a lot of smiling faces. Not smiling faces. I saw smiling faces in their eyes. But I had a few students say thank you and how glad they were to be back.

And I also talked to a few teachers who were excited too about seeing their kids again. So I will say that we are going to continue to make sure that we are monitoring anybody who has contracted COVID and making sure that we're keeping track of that. We're also looking at our quarantines. Spervantage, Poverty, and So as I said before, there are definitely benefits to having our students back with us in terms of being responsive, being able to see the students' emotions.

I will say that we also have challenges to it. And this isn't an easy process. And so some of the challenges that we face this week is that, you know, again, kind of quelling those fears and anxieties that people have about being back in school. We have a positivity rate that is going up again in our region.

And again, I met with medical professionals. We met with Dr. Newland again, all the superintendent group with our superintendent group. And they said that the most important thing that we can do is put those risk mitigation measures in place to keep our students safe.

And our schools are actually the safest place for our students because we have so many different measures in place. The other challenge, though, is that we can't control what's happening outside. We are going to have to do some reminders for our students about when they're walking home or, you know, what they're doing outside of school. And we also know that there are varying perspectives on people feeling like we should be in school and we shouldn't be in school and we're managing that.

But overall, I will say that this past three days has been fairly smooth. And really, I know that there's definitely some challenges still and we're working to make sure that we're addressing those as best we can. We are going to continue looking at our data within the region and not within our school district. And so we are looking at data in terms of positivity rates within our area.

But the other thing that's most important is that we're looking at transmission and quarantines within our schools. And you probably have seen in the news that there have been some schools that have had to either close individual buildings or close the district. Most of them have been individual buildings, and it's because they might have seen an uptick in transmissions or quarantines within that building. And we will closely monitor our data to see whether or not we would have to do those same things.

We hopeful that we will maintain a low percentage within our buildings And the other thing too is that this data gets updated every Friday And so this is our current data from last Friday There are some changes we have had some changes over the last couple days But we are working to make sure that we're monitoring this data to determine whether or not we would have to make some changes like other school districts. At this point, we do not have to do that. So I wanted to stop right there and see if anyone had any questions before I moved on to strategic plan. If you had any, I can raise their hand and I can.

Amy, any questions? David, any questions? Stacey, any questions? Yeah, just a quick one.

Sean, have we worked out all the transportation issues for kids midday? Yes. And so we added two bus lines in the midday for Wydown Middle School, so that way our students could get back and forth from school. And so we had initially our first, on our first day, we ran the run and we noticed, we found out we needed to add some additional stops.

And so Mary Jo, her team and facilities added a few more stops to accommodate students who needed that. So, yes, we've been able to do that. Good, thanks. Jason, any questions?

No questions. Okay, thanks. Caitlin, any questions? No questions.

Thank you. Kim, any questions? Okay, thanks. Gary, any questions?

Real quick. Thanks, Joe. Sean, obviously, we know that we're operating in a very fluid and constantly changing environment with new data coming from lots of different sources. I just wondered if you could maybe talk about what is the best place for people to monitor in terms of information that's actually going to affect whether we have to make any kinds We hear lots of different things from lots of different sources.

What's the best place for people to stay tuned to know whether a change is something that might affect what we have to do in the school district? So we do have our data website that has the different charts that have the positivity rate, looking at the age bands. And so we are really going to be seeking the guidance from St. Louis County Health like we have done in the past.

And so St. Louis County Health, they right now are, continued that recommendation that we could have our schools in place, in session. I will say that there was an announcement on Friday, on Monday, that, you know, that things might potentially change. And so we have to, if they're noticing that they're feeling that the data is telling us that we need to make a change either at all of our levels or at one of our levels.

And I'm suspecting if any of our levels would be at the high school because that's where we're seeing some increase in terms of positivity rate. But our website does have that information, but we are going to be really seeking the guidance from St. Louis County Health on whether or not we would need to change again to remote learning. What I would say is that because we're putting in, as some of the medical professionals will tell us, is that because we're putting, we will see a positivity rate that's in the region.

But again, if we're keeping the risk mitigation measures in place, that will lower the possibility of transmissions with actually within our school setting. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thanks, Sean. And I don't have any questions.

Thanks, Sean. I guess maybe just a quick comment. Just want to thank again you and the administrators and the whole staff. I mean, I know this is very, very difficult.

And you guys are working tirelessly. So thank you for all the work you're doing. Thanks, Joe. And I would say, too, is that if people are listening out there, I think that if people, you know, some of our parents, Our students, a quick thank you to our teachers and the handwritten card or something like that goes a long way.

And just letting people know how much you're appreciated, how much they're appreciated. So tonight, I also want to talk to you a little bit about our strategic plan, which is up for an action item tonight and really excited about what we've been able to do with our district strategic plan. Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

Action steps are those things that the administration and the staff has to do to reach those objectives. And so those are going to change on an ongoing basis based off the data that we're seeing. And in the document you have, it doesn't have all the action steps listed. And that's on purpose because the goal of the work that we're doing is going to be fluid.

And I think where we have actually, in our previous strategic plan, we weren't able to be as flexible with the work that we were doing because we said that every single action step was already in the strategic plan, which made it like a 70-page document. Proprietary. So, we're going to be looking at the data dashboard. And I want to just share with you that the data dashboard is something that is going to be on our district website.

Can you see that? I just want to make sure you guys are seeing that. Okay. So, our data dashboard, and this isn't up yet.

We're not going to put it up until after the We're not going to put it up yet. We're not going to put it up until after the board makes the final approval. But the data dashboard is going to be interactive. And so people can actually click on these and the numbers will pop up.

And we also have benchmarks that are set on here as well in some of these charts. So this is something that we're still going to have to add to because we have some additional action steps, actually, and objectives that need some additional measures. And so we are going to be adding to it. It's part of this evergreen model that we've talked about.

But this is something that we are going to be holding ourselves accountable to. I want to just to share with you, these are the goals that we have in place. And, you know, our subcommittee has worked really hard to make sure that we have had, we looked at this, we've actually had students look at this, we've had other teachers look at this. And I really love the way how we ended up with a catchphrase of a place for everyone to grow as learners in head and heart.

I think that's really easy for us to remember, but it's connected to our goals. So a place for everyone is goal one. We ensure all learners, regardless of their identity, feel safe and valued. To grow as learners is about the personalized growth, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

And making sure that it includes a background of how our strategic plan came to be, and including that profile, the graduate that's grounding our strategic plan. And so hopefully you had an opportunity to look at that. And I just wanted to guys give you an update about that strategic plan before we did that for approval tonight. And the subcommittee will talk a little bit about that later, about some of their contributions to that.

In terms of our equity update, I just want to let the board know that Cameron Poole has been working really a lot around the development of our committee. And so he has been contacting individuals and talking to them about how they could potentially be a part of the equity committee that we going to be forming And we'll be sending more information to you about that soon. But Cameron has been doing multiple jobs in terms of professional learning, personal coaching. And I will just say today that we were short some staffing over at Y-Down and he was teaching art.

So he is multi-talented and wanted to say thank you to him for his work lately. And then I'm going to turn it over to Caitlin to see if she can provide an update to the board. Yes, so we are on our third day of in-person school. So here are some observations from being inside the building.

I'm going to break this into three topics, sanitary measures, schedule, and teaching. So as you all know, the desks are being sanitized after every class and a seating chart is being used. Some effective measures that I've noticed are that some teachers with smaller class sizes are arranging their seating charts so that students don't have to sit in the same seat in classes that are back to back. I've also observed that teachers are making dividing lines on the floor to ensure that they are socially distanced from students.

And I've heard from students that they think the six feet markers are effective, although they would like them in more in areas like the commons. As for the hallways, they're separated into two lanes, although students do tend to get a bit crammed together during passing period, and especially when entering through the front entrance and exiting the building. Overall, students felt nervous at first, but are more comfortable now with the safety measures that are being taken by the teachers and the administration. Some of the biggest worries of students are other students not enforcing social distancing measures, also how long in-person school will last.

As for the schedule, a couple students are concerned with how we can get through the curriculum in time, with the lower time in class we have now compared to regular school and online school, especially for those taking AP classes and who have to work on a national AP curriculum. Students have also noticed that class sizes can be disproportionate with the alphabetical divide. Usually there's a few less students in some classes in the afternoon. In addition, morning students felt like they needed more time to adjust to the early schedule after the online schedule and some of them don't feel like the schedule is productive for them with the early time and then after.

As for teaching, I just want to say a big thank you to our teachers who are Thank you. As it occurs, teachers are zooming in from home with the substitute in the room, and students have found that when class is under these circumstances, it's most effective when the teacher is displayed on the smart board, rather than every student opening the Zoom on their own, which can get a bit clunky and echo around the room. Thank you, Sean, and thank you, Caitlin. Appreciate both reports.

So we're going to move on to study items. I do just want to note for the board, some of you may have gotten texts or noted that the live stream, YouTube apparently is having challenges nationwide with their live streaming. So I'm not sure that we're recording this meeting, but we are having some challenges with the live stream. So I just want to kind of note that as we move forward.

And that's a YouTube issue right now. So we have two study items, and Tony gets the pleasure of having both. And the first one is the 5.01, the first reading of policy GBEBB, employee alcohol and drug testing. Tony.

Great, thanks Joe. Good evening everyone. So this is the first read of each of these policies that I'm presenting tonight. The first one like Joe said is policy GVEVB, employee alcohol and drug testing.

So the way the policy is written, there are a few revisions and essentially you'll see what the highlighted changes that were outlined in the policy is that the drug testing rules really have not changed, but what has changed is the way that the Employers will find the information So currently employers contact previous employers to determine whether a violation has occurred And we will need to continue to do that by law for three years while the clearinghouse database becomes populated with the updated submissions because that became that went into effect January of 2020 So after three years employers may rely on the clearinghouse from that point moving forward And the way that everything is in the updated policy we comfortable with the way the wording is presented Thank you, Tony. Gary, any questions? No, I don't have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Kim, any questions? Okay, thanks. Caitlin, any questions?

Thank you. Jason, any questions? No, no questions. Thank you.

Stacy, any questions? Thank you. David, any questions? No, no, thank you.

Thank you. Amy, any questions? Okay, and I don't have any questions either. So thank you, Tony.

We can move on to 5.02, which is the first reading of policy GCBA, which is professional staff compensation. Great. So this policy is being updated to reflect the new legal requirements that were outlined in House Bill 604, specifically in this one regarding teacher externships. Sper immens, essentially with HB604, a requirement now is that districts will allow teachers to move on the teacher salary schedule through a teacher externship.

There are certain requirements with the externships that Dusty has outlined. And to sum it up, the externship is an experience in which the teacher supervised by the teacher's school or the district gains practical experience through observation, interactions with employers or employees at a Missouri business. So DESE has clearly published requirements for the externships. It has to be district approved.

And then they also give an equivalency schedule to help provide guidance on how to convert the externship experiences into movement on the salary schedule. Additionally, in this policy update, it outlines how a salary freeze would be when it's lifted in a case where if there were multiple years where there were salary freeze. So this is really just verbiage in here to be proactive in the rare situation where a district would have to go to a salary freeze for multiple years. But really what it outlines is if the district was to reinstate salary after the frozen salary, it would go to the very next step.

They would not be required to play catch up with multiple years. Great. Thank you, Tony. Amy, any questions?

Nope. Thanks. David, any questions? No.

Thank you. Stacy, any questions? Thank you. Jason, any questions?

No, no questions. Thank you. Caitlin, any questions? Thank you.

Kim, any questions? Thank you. Gary, any questions? No, thanks, Joe.

Great, thanks, and I don't have any questions either. Thanks, Tony. So we're moving on to information items, and we have 6.01, which is Safety and Building Improvement Plans Update, and this is Chris Tennell, I think. Yeah, thank you, Joe.

Appreciate that. So we came last to the board, I believe, back in toward at the end of May when we were wrapping up the safety study that we had put together. And throughout most of 2019 with kind of a general overview of what we're doing. I know Mary Jo's on here too.

She's been a great partner with me and And helping work through kind of identifying the next steps. And that's kind of where we are tonight, bringing you that update. And as Sean mentioned earlier, we are bringing a contract for approval that Mary Jo can talk about with the board to actually start implementing all of these items. So we've had, made some pretty good progress in working through all of the different items that we've identified that we want to tackle as a result of the safety study and safety audit that we did.

And done a really good job of actually separating those out into things that our folks are able to do in-house, whether they're just reconfiguring door locks or installing additional security cameras, that sort of thing, and things that we would actually need to work with an architect and a contractor to do. So we've got that scope separated out into two pretty clear buckets. And then actually put together a timeline for implementing these projects, which will actually start this fall and work into next spring with the bulk of you know the work that would be most disruptive being completed during the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2022 Obviously, because we're talking about building plans and security issues, you know, we don't have a whole lot of detail to outline about the type of improvements that we're going to do in this type of form, just because some of those improvements identify Okay, some vulnerabilities in our building that the safety study honed in on, which is actually why we wanted to do that safety study. But the types of projects that we'll be doing in all of our different schools are adding and replacing security cameras on all of our campuses.

I'm looking at how we have door controls and monitors to better have a sense of the type of security that's in those buildings. Reconfiguring the way that visitors and parents come into our schools during the school day to really, really account for a single point of entry and control in all of our buildings and to make that point of entry even more secure than it already is. And also looking at the way that we can control security in some of our outdoor spaces, specifically over at Gay Field and Adzick Field and the field there up on Y-Down to try to make them spaces that are not only harder to get into when our students are there, but also allow for safe and efficient egress if there's ever a situation where there's a lot of individuals that need to leave that area. That's kind of just a highlight of some of the safety projects.

As you know, we also took a look at gender neutral bathrooms in all of our schools and have put together solutions for addressing that and renovating some of our existing facilities into gender neutral bathrooms at all of our different school buildings. And doing those, I think, in an age-appropriate way. So trying to make those changes that are appropriate for a high school, a middle school, and an elementary level. Thank you, Chris.

So this is an information item, but I want to make sure if the board has any comments or clarifying questions, their address. So Gary, any comments, clarifying questions? No, thank you. Great, thanks, Kim.

Great, thanks, Caitlin. Great, thanks, Jason. No. Thank you, Stacy.

No, thanks. Thank you, David. Yeah, so Chris, this, on board docs, we don't really have a breakout here. So is there, do we have like a written outline of kind of where we carved up that work, you know, internal versus external?

Because what we reviewed in the fall were a pretty healthy number of blueprints with a lot of work in there. And I would like to just kind of wrap my head around what's in scope versus what's out of scope. And I know we've got an action item here for an AIA contract, which is fairly boilerplate, generally speaking, but it's, you know, we just got it an hour ago, so it's hard to extract that work from a 40-page document in 25 minutes of multitasking. And Chris, if I can add on the contract, the scope of work is not included because it does provide more detail than we want to have posted.

But every contract that would come forward with every contractor would be approved by the board at that point in time. So, David, back to your original question, though, we do have a pretty detailed, not a budget and scope of work at this point that that lines out exactly. What are the things that we're moving forward with bond architects and that are going to be implemented by a contractor? And then what are the projects that we're going to be able to do on our side and kind of a timeline and implementation calendar for actually accomplishing those by the summer of 2022 is kind of our end point.

Yeah, if you would be so kind as just to share that with us. I mean, I'm fine with offline, but that'd be a big nice to review. Yeah, and we were working on the documents today and finalizing everything. And so we're supposed to get the final documents hopefully by the end of the week.

So the contract, if I can just say this now, is based on a percentage of construction costs, not budget. So we're working with a budget, and what we'll pay the architects what's in that contract is a 10% fee Thank you. Fee is based off 10% of contract costs. Thank you.

And can I just say something, Joe, too? I think that we wouldn't normally be providing a contract this late in the game. I'm going to say sorry to the board on this. One of the reasons why is because we wanted to move forward with the work this summer.

And we, and having this contract approved earlier is helping us stay on a timeline. And normally we wouldn't be doing that. So we apologize to the board and we'll get you all the information that you need. So I just wanted to say that.

Thanks, Sean. Amy, any questions, comments? I'll just note that, I mean, it looks like the costs of work are around three and a half million dollars. So it's pretty substantive.

Are we, did a lawyer review the architect's agreement? Yeah, and as David mentioned, they're pretty boilerplate, so it's pretty standard revisions that we have to it. And the $3.5 million is basically the funds that we have available from the sale of the Maryland building. So we're trying to stay in that budget.

So those are funds that are set aside. They're not part of the operating budget, and they've been specifically earmarked for this project. Sure. Well, yeah, I mean, the AIA forms are boilerplate, but a lot of times the lawyers make changes because there's a lot of things in that form that are pretty geared towards the architect, especially like who retains ownership over the plans and specs and some stuff like that.

And then there was also, I know, sections in here and like what's included in their scope of work. And then, you know, do we end up having to pay that 10 percent on all these additional items? So I was hoping the lawyer had had negotiated all that. Yeah.

And I mean, you can tell from that form, the edited sections, they have lines to the left side of it. And then at the bottom shows the revisions. So all the detailed revisions are kept at the bottom. So just one thing.

I mean, I don't know, Amy or David. So David, I kind of had the same reaction you did with the length of the contract. But the reason I didn't have too many questions, and Amy, maybe you and Gary can weigh in on this from a legal standpoint, is if you look at articles 9-4 or 9-5, it's got a termination by either party, and we can terminate within seven days with written notice. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

It's in the document, and that's what they're basing the scope of work we're trying to stay within that budget. And if you notice in there, Amy, we did make revisions to that, is that they know they have to stay within the budget, and if the bids come back and they're not, they're responsible for making the revisions, and that's on them to keep us in budget. Awesome. Does this, would it be all right if we just had a day just before we approve everything?

Just one day to read this through a little bit, scan through it ourselves. Would that, would that, would that, would that slow us down at all? I think that, I mean, I'll speak for Mary Jo, but I think the concern is, is that we don't have a, the next regular board meeting is December 16th And with the timeline that we're working with them to have any work completed this summer, we need to have construction documents complete and be bidding projects by end of January, middle of February this year to be on that timeline. So, for us to really be able to leverage the next two summers to do, again, what will be the most, you know, the more disruptive pieces of this work.

And a big piece of that is the gender neutral restrooms because to do that work, we're doing a lot of major construction and taking restrooms in our schools out of service. So, we would not want to do that during the school year. That type of work is generally better to be done over the summer. So, a lot of this, as Mary Jo said earlier, is just really trying to maintain that timeline.

We could hold a special meeting if we need one for this I mean I say that I not planning on looking at this thing any further because if we already have hired counsel and they already redlined it and negotiated it I not going to I mean these things are really hard to get through and really technical And I negotiate these quite frequently and I'm not looking to get in the middle of this one. Well, and Amy, to Kim's point, I mean, we have seven days notice, and quite frankly, we're not going to have billable activity for at least a week or two, I mean, under the best of circumstances. So, you know, what I'm happy to do is just kind of peel the onion back on this a little bit personally over the next few days. And if something jumps out at me and I go, holy cow, then I'll shoot you guys a note.

But I would be fine. And I know we're kind of jumping around on the agenda a bit here, but I would say I'm fine just letting this go through knowing that we've got such, we've got the wiggle room to back out and with little cost or implication. So, but I'll give it a peek. It's just that the way they redlined this is kind of a booger to read through quickly because they struck a lot of lines and then it's an addendum at the bottom.

So I have to kind of piece it back together to flow through the document. It's a little bit of a pain in the arse. But it's not, you know, AIA stuff is pretty well structured. So I'll give it a read.

May I ask a question, Mary Jo? Timeline-wise, if the board approved this next week, I just want to just throw this out there because would we still stay on timeline? And the reason I ask that is because the board is still doing work around the superintendent search and might have to have an executive session next week. And so if they're meeting together, I mean, how, how, if they were doing that, how, how much would that impact the timeline?

Are you saying what day, Monday, Tuesday, or Monday or Wednesday? Yeah. Would that impact the timeline too much for them? I don't think so.

I think that would be fine if we could get it approved next week. December 2nd, we were a little concerned because basically they can't, we have to get drawings in order to get a bid package out and we really need to get it on the street in December. And so it's just making a really tight crunch. So, but next week.

Let's throw that out there in case the board was, because of the timeliness of this, we were hoping to get this to you earlier, but I wanted just to provide that as another opportunity. So. What's the board's pleasure? We do have an executive session that we had talked about per kind of search next week, next Wednesday.

Joe? Yeah, go ahead, Gary. I don't mean to jump back in after saying I had no questions. I was kind of looking ahead to the action item section here, but we've kind of blended these.

I guess, I mean, just to be very, very pointed and very specific, I would like to hear, you know, how much time our council had to look at this and if they've had sufficient time to review it, suggest revisions, negotiate revisions, that kind of thing. I'm with Amy. I don't want to pretend that I can look at this and dive into every paragraph of it and understand it, but I want to know that our actual hired counsel has done that. So that's kind of where my focus would be, and that's the only thing that would affect my decision today versus a week from now.

So Mary Jo, do you want to talk about, our attorneys did look at the contract today? Right, yeah. So did they get it today too? No, no, no, no.

We got it last Friday. So we've had, basically we had two days to review it. And then did Bond, did they redline it and then they sent it back to Bond with some redlines? And did Bond, did they accept all of our changes?

They accepted every change. Okay. So do you know who retains control over the drawings? The drawings?

I think, if I'm not mistaken. Let me see. I'm just trying. I was trying to.

Hold on. I'm looking at my red line. That is in... Hopefully we have some ownership rights to them.

We always get all of the drawings afterwards It in Section 7 if you want to look at that I think it's in Section 7.4. Or maybe... It's in Section 7. So...

Okay. And there wasn't very much, I don't think there was any changes in Section 7. It's all done in Section 7.3. 7.3.

Yeah, copyright. 7.3. Yeah, it's in Section 7, Article 7, sorry. Yeah, and you look at 7.2%.

So, so rather than, I mean, you know, so we've obviously skipped to 7.02 here to the action item, our discussion of it, which is okay, because it was last minute. So I just want to go back. I mean, what's the board's pleasure? I mean, do you want to consider that?

I mean, do you want to wait? We have a, we could tack this on next Wednesday, right? Well, I mean, it sounds like we've already negotiated. I don't know, though, at this point, we can.

It sounds like the contract's been negotiated with bond. So I don't know if we can, at this point, go back with additional revisions, even if we have, right, Mary Jo? I don't know. I'm sorry, say that again?

Any other thoughts? Any other thoughts? I'm fine voting on it tonight if Amy and Gary think it's okay. Amy seems to probably know more about this than the rest.

I mean, I will say this, it's on the agenda. And so, yeah, we need to, if we, you know, we decide if we're going to make the motion or not. And what Amy was concerned about was the rights and in Section 7.2, you know, it shows that we've retained our rights. So, upon completion of the project, the owner shall retain all rights to the drawings for their use in the maintenance of future upgrades or addition to the systems put in place under this contract.

So, And we can get out in seven days at any time. And David, did you, I was thinking, did you have something else you were concerned about? No, I, you know, retention of the drawings, I actually hadn't even gotten that far, but that would be the key for me. And, but like I said, I'm fine with the seven day and we've got the seven day out.

So, I mean, I can dinker around with this over the next few days. And, you know, if we need to kill it, then it's no big deal. So, I just don't know that we're, the seven of us are going to find anything that's materially a problem that our attorneys didn't already grab. So I don't know that it's an effective use of time.

So I'm going to suggest that we fast forward to our action item 7.02. We're going to come back to 7.01 since we're on this. And I'm going to ask Gary for you to read the motion. All right, here we go.

7.02, I move that the Board of Education accept the safety and security contract with Bond Architects, Inc. as presented. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Any other questions or comments? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Okay it passes unanimously Now we going to go back to 7 So thank you Mary Jo Thank you Chris We know that, you know, it's safety stuff is tricky because you there's certain things you don't want to share publicly. But of course, we want to be as transparent as we can and we want the information. So we understand there's a balance.

So 7.01 is the, of course, our strategic plan, the School District of Clayton strategic plan. So you want to read that motion, Gary, and then we'll kind of have some comments. All right, 7.01, I move that the Board of Education approves the goals and objectives of the district strategic plan as presented. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded, and what I want to do before I open it up to comments or questions is just because we had a subcommittee, and certainly Sean gave us a kind of a summary of the strategic plan, but I just want to give kind of an opportunity for the subcommittee to speak to kind of their work. And in this case, although not characteristic, I'm going to start and just speak to goal number one. And then I think Gary's going to speak to two and Stacey is going to speak to three. So what I just want to say about goal number one is I think it's a it's a really a nice balance of kind of the quantitative looking at things like disparities of discipline.

Superroportion of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Definitely affects their experience in school and quite honestly, how they perform. And so I think it's a good mix. So that's what I'll say about goal one.

Gary. So with with the introduction. You know, as follows. Before I get into goal number two.

I mean, I think the first thing that I want to say is I just really appreciate how much time. Sean and his staff took with us as a subcommittee to go through this. This was not a short process. We had I don't even know how many meetings or how many hours.

They were very patient with answering questions from us and accepting challenges to things and coming up with ways to explain and present things. I appreciate that. I felt like I learned a lot about a process that, if I'm honest, I was probably a little bit cynical about going into it. It's like, what are we really doing here?

But I think we covered a lot of really good ground. I just appreciate their patience with us and their hard work and their input on it throughout this process. But specifically focusing on goal number two and why I was kind of glad to be able to talk about this one in particular. I think as we look at the language of that, we'll commit to the educational growth of our learners through an equitable, I think those three words, equitable, personalized, and individualized, I've asked for explanations of what the differences are between those more than once or twice.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. A little bit what Gary said and just thank the administrative team for working so hard on this, but also Joe and Gary for working, also spending a lot of time with me on this.

We spent a lot of time together with Sean, but also with the admin team. And so I want to reassure the rest of the board that it was time, you know, we spent a lot of time on this, but it was time well spent. All of our discussions were very productive and I too really enjoyed the process. I also wanted to point out that we spent a significant amount of time discussing how each of these goals and objectives would be measured.

So as you've looked through it, hopefully you've seen under each goal, there is a measurement under each statement. We will know we have achieved this goal when. And we were very intentional and specific about making sure that each item in this document could be measured, Which is what ultimately will hold us all accountable for achieving these goals. So hopefully you noticed that.

Goal three specifically is about social, emotional, and physical well-being. And we talk a lot about social, emotional well-being at board meetings and just in the district as a whole. And so this goal, I find I was happy that this became a priority as well, and also include including physical well-being. And I love the statements of this one because it's about advocating for and taking care of yourself, but also the students learning to demonstrate kindness and respect for others and learning habits that foster lifelong physical wellness.

And also what I think is so important, especially when we think of the profile of a graduate, is them, students, our students' learning choices that build a more inclusive community. Because ultimately, we want our graduates to leave our school district and be productive members of our society and, you know, be global citizens, really. So I think this goal with social, emotional, and physical well-being encapsulates a lot of what we've been talking about for a long time, you know, on the school board. And a lot of these points in this goal are measured by our panorama surveys.

So you'll see the emotional and physical like well-being survey data, social emotional survey data. That's a lot from our panorama surveys that we've talked quite a bit about. But we also added in there community service hours, which are required at the high school for honor society and some other things. And that's a way to track that our students are becoming inclusive members of the community.

So we felt that part was important as well. And hopefully you've had time to look through it. And if not, you will soon. But I'm really pleased with the way the whole document came together.

And I think Gary and Joe and I worked really together, worked really well together with the administrative team, too. And I'm happy with it. So that's all. Thanks, Stacey.

Amy, any comments or questions? No, other than I just wanted to thank the team, Stacey and Joe and Gary, for all their hard work and working on this strategic plan. I know that they had a lot of meetings that the rest of us weren't involved in. So thank you for your commitment to it.

Thanks, Amy. David, any comments or questions? Really just, I guess, just to comment, I, and I don't know if a lot of you guys know this, but I think probably the first time I really got exposed to a handful of you was at an early days strategic planning kind of foundational workshop, an offside on a weekend, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

Thank you Caitlin Jason any comments or questions No, no questions, no comments. Thank you. Kim, any comments or questions? No, just a couple.

I mean, I want to reiterate the appreciation for all the time I know that the subcommittees put into this, and I, too, kind of journeyed from the sidelines along with you guys in the past when you first started talking about it as a board, gosh, well over a year ago. Thank you. I think how Sean set it up at the beginning of the meeting where he talked about these are the goals and then these are how we translate the goals into action. And then we're going to see and the community is going to see, I truly believe, when it goes down to the curriculum reviews and into the individual departments, where this translates, not just into the academic excellence that we're already used to and accustomed to, Spervantage, Pursuit, and Promotion.

This is a great way to bring you to a place where you can get involved with the community, and you can get involved with the students. I think that's what's great about it. The only question that I have, and it comes from a place of ignorance, is what's the difference between a creative and a critical thinker? Is it the same thing?

Is it an evolution of, is a creative thinker an evolution of critical thinking skills? So, you know, Sean or somebody else could comment on that. That'd be great. So when you're talking about the difference between a creative and critical thinker, I think that what we want to do is we want to be able to have, there's a lot of similarities.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of overlay with creative and critical, but if that's something that we think we may need to define a little bit more, we can definitely do that. Thanks, everybody. So we have a motion and a second on the table.

Everybody in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, anybody opposed?

Okay, it passes unanimously. Thank you. So we're moving to 7.03, which is the second reading and approval of Policy JHCB, which is the immunization of students. And this is Robin.

Go ahead, Gary. Do you want to go ahead and read the motion first, Gary? Okay, thanks Joe. 7.03, I move that the Board of Education approves policy JHCB, immunization of students with the proposed changes.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Robin, do you want, did you want to make any comments before we, before I ask the board if they have any comments or questions? Just if there was a typo in the version that MSBA had provided us that we just corrected that, that was the only change in the policy since the first reading.

Gotcha, thank you. All right, does anybody have any, well I'll just go through. Amy, any comments or questions here? No.

OK, thanks, David, any comments or questions? Thank you, Stacey. Any comments or questions? Thanks, Kaitlyn, any comments or questions?

Thank you Jason any comments or questions Nope Thank you Gary any comments or questions Yes sir Thank you Kim any comments or questions No. Okay. I don't have any comments or questions either. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All right. It passes unanimously. So I need to recuse myself from this next one. So I'm going to leave and somebody can text me.

Thank you. Please text me when you guys are done. All right. This is for the part-time temporary employment of Sarah Miller, and we are at 7.04.

Gary, can I get you to read the motion, please? 7.04, I move that the Board of Education approve the part-time temporary employment report as submitted. Okay. Okay.

Are there any questions or comments? Okay. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Motion passes. I texted Joe. Okay, so we're moving now on to the consent agenda.

Can we have a motion, Gary? 8.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda 8.02 through 8.04. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Any comments or questions about the consent agenda? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, it passes unanimously. And I do just want to note that there is a donation in there, and so I certainly want to recognize the generous donation by Ms. Penny Inglesman, who donated $8,000 to the English Department Scholarship for writing. And her husband, Alan, was an English teacher in our district.

Okay. We're moving on to public comment. Do we have any public comment? There is no public comment this evening.

Okay. Then finally, we'll move to board communication. Does anybody have a committee or a liaison report? Go ahead, Stacy.

Hi, so I attended the PAC-Ed Executive Committee meeting, which is the Parent Advisory Council of Children with Educational Diversity. I'm the board representative on the Special School District Governing Council. So Christina Blankenship, who chairs that committee, asked if I would also be on the PAC-Ed Executive Committee, which I agreed to. Thank you.

For those students. And let's see, they are inclusive school week, schools week is actually coming up in December, the 7th to the 11th. So I think we'll be hearing more from them at one of our December board meetings, some updates and some like promos they'll be doing for it. So just to draw attention to inclusive schools week in December.

And let's see. That's pretty much it. I mean, went over a lot more detailed stuff, but I really was impressed with how well organized they are and the committee they've formed and have a lot more parents involved than they have in the past. So I think that will help all of our students with educational diversity moving forward And I happy to be a part of it too Okay thank you Stacey Any other committee or liaison reports from anybody Yes, I have one from the Clayton Education Foundation.

They had their meeting last night, and unfortunately I was unable to attend, but I got in touch with the head of the Education Foundation today to get an update, and I know, Sean, you and Chris were at the meeting, so So you can fill in any blanks I don't cover here, but I'll just start off with saying that it's always nice to report on what the CEF is doing because it's always great news, which we can all use during these pandemic times. So I think one of the best things that I heard today is they actually received a $10,000 donation. It was a bequeathment from Mary Louise Frey-Hickman. She was class of 44 at Clayton High School.

And she left the donation as a scholarship endowment for her most influential teacher, who was a teacher at Clayton in the English department. So I thought that was awesome. They also got some additional money from the class of 1951 because they are not holding their typical reunion this year and they thought the best way to Spervantage, Pursuit, and Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. They'll be combining the class of 2021 with the class of 2020, where they've already identified the Hall of Fame inductees.

And I think one of the things that's really great that they are doing is they are working together with Cameron Poole, who, of course, is our director of equity, on putting together, and they have put together a diversity committee, because one of the things that they actually have trouble doing is getting nominations to come in, And the diverse are getting nominations to come in that are fully complete so that they can make the appropriate awards. And so this committee will be actually seeking out people instead of just waiting for nominations to come in that are deserving of the awards. I think that's great because it will really be a much broader representation of people that should be recognized for their service and for their work, either within or outside of the district that have in some ways been associated with the district. What else did I miss, Sean?

Oh, the food drive. So the pantry food drive, they raised close to $10,000. It was great. They let us use that.

You know, their nonprofit taxable status in order to raise money for the food pantry. So in addition to the physical donations, which I know probably many of you participated in, certainly a lot of members of the community participated in, The Clayton Education Foundation raised an additional $9,360. And what the social workers within our district also do every year is they usually do kind of a food drive on behalf of the families that they help directly. And this is not something, you know, good work often goes unappreciated and unnoticed and sometimes for a reason.

And this is one of those areas where social workers and the teachers participate in a food drive for families. Thank you. That's wonderful. That's all I have for my notes, Sean.

You and Chris will have to fill in the blanks. Sean Hogan, For not being at the meeting, you covered it really, really well. So I appreciate you sharing all that. I don't think there was anything else that I would add.

So thank you. Sean Hogan, Thank you. Any other committee or liaison reports? Anybody?

I will just say, just for the sake of the public, that just a quick note about the superintendent search, that the position is posted. We're getting in, I should say, our search firm, McPherson and Jacobson, is getting in applications. I know they're actively out there talking to people, too. So we'll have more on that later, but that people can actually submit applications all the way until the beginning of December.

So there'll be a lot of activity and more to report here in the next few weeks slash month. Anything else? Any other committee reports or liaison reports? All right.

Can we have a motion to adjourn? All right. I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Second.

All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? All right. We are adjourned. Thank you all.

And noted that it's 825. Good night, guys.