March 5, 2020 — Meeting Transcript

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Thank you. They were just running. Superroportionate, I want to call the meeting to order, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, one and only, for all of And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Okay, so we're actually going to start with a student presentation before we do recognition. Yeah, this is actually part of our recognition. For those of you who are new to the board meeting, what we do at the board table is really invest time making sure we're recognizing our students Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Make sure we get a flag next time, so we'll be ready for that.

So, yeah, we like to learn from these things as well. So I'm only going to talk real briefly because, mainly, this isn't about me. This is about this fantastic group of kids that are up here to share a lot of what they've been working on throughout this school year, and I think you guys are going to be more than impressed. So I'm going to turn it over to Skyler, who's going to lead our events for tonight.

Good evening, and welcome to Merrimack Elementary. We're so proud to have our school board here at Merrimack Last year, as part of the district's process of creating a profile of graduates, we are active to step back and work with our school community to think about our mission as an elementary school. As part of this feedback was collected from staff, students, and families about what they wanted from their school, at the end of this work, it was clear that We need to start to look at in a very different way. The skills our students will need to succeed in the future go beyond just basic math, reading, and writing.

And we can't wait any longer to start thinking about how to get them ready. To be prepared, we will need to be able to solve unique problems. We will have to be creative, critical thinkers, and collaborators. We will have to have an understanding of people who are different than we are, This will mean understanding our own unique identities and strengths and how we can best apply all we are able to do.

We must be active citizens in our community who are also working hard to make the world a better place. Ultimately, our students and our communities need a major shift from traditional practice. And to answer beginning work towards meeting this need, we created a new mission for our school. Our mission moving forward is we strive to create global citizens who are empowered to better themselves better the community and better our world In order to ensure we can meet our mission we have focused our work on a vision built around working to find ways for students to better themselves better the community and better our world Tonight we're going to share with you some of the ways that our students are already making these shifts by giving a few examples how Merrimack is working to help us move beyond just improving our test scores into how we can work to improve the world around us.

To get started, I'm going to invite some of the students from Mrs. Landgraf's class to share with us some of the unique ways in which they were able to learn about who they are as they work to truly better themselves. Hello, my name is Gabrielle Chalsky. I'm Zoe Shook.

And my name is Elias Lani. And we are all fifth graders at Parramatta. We started off fifth grade talking about identity. So, what is identity?

The definition of identity is who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world, and the characteristics that define you. An example of identity is personhood. At the start of the year, we talked about what this meant for us as fifth graders. We talked about our cultures, hobbies, likes, dislikes, religions, etc.

We started off making our where and from poems, which are poems that represent our favorite parts of our identity. We, all fifth grader students, dropped in an artifact that represented the biggest part of our identity. We also held a museum to invite students and parents to showcase our artifacts and learning. Since then, we have addressed identity in many ways, especially through reading.

The first rule of punk by Celia C. Perez was read aloud to all fifth grade classes. We made an identity map for the main character, Malou, and looked at how her identity was shaped by her grown-ups, but also how she viewed herself. Malou is a mix between Mexican-American and punk and couldn't decide who she was.

Throughout the book, she finally learned to embrace all parts of her identity. While we read this book, we also discussed what impacts how we feel for ourselves. Such as those around us, values that can be passed on through family, and finally, through the experiences and decisions we make for ourselves. Thank you, Ms.

Landgraf's class. Much of traditional education has focused on only improving people as individuals. But what makes our mission special is that we also want to look for ways in which we can be active in our communities and work to move them forward as well. Up next, we have some students from Mrs.

Hander's breeding class who will share with us how they work to better their community by showing compassion for some of the most vulnerable members of our society, stray animals. Hello, my name is Giselle Anderson and I'm a fourth grader at Fairback. I made a difference in my community by going to the Humane Society and giving the dogs and cats some toys that I made. We donated 200 toys.

I enjoy making toys to help keep the animals from being bored. I gave money to the Humane Society so they could buy food, treats, and medicine for the shelter animals. I really like giving treats to the dogs. My favorite part was reading books to the shelter dogs.

By reading to the dogs, I helped them feel comfortable and less worried. I wanted the dogs to know that I cared, so I gave them love and company. Calming the dogs down will help them get adopted by families, people like calm dogs, not wild dogs, or dogs that are scared. I really wanted to adopt one of the dogs that I read to, but my parents said I had to wait a little bit.

If I make a difference, the dogs are happy, and I'm happier because I want every dog to have a forever family. Wouldn't it be great if every pet was adopted? I help my school community each and every day by sharing my bright and happy smile with everyone. This is me reading to the dogs that I wanted to adopt.

This is me and my friend petting a cat Good evening Good evening My name is Alex Smith Helping others can make a big difference. It can start with only one person and grows bigger from there. Everyone needs help sometimes, including animals. My class and I recognized a need and decided to help the shelter animals at the Humane Society.

We brought in fleece, socks, yarn, and used t-shirts and made lots of dog and cat toys to donate. We had a lot of fun doing this. This service project was important because the toys helped keep the shelter animals busy during the day and hopefully made their lives more pleasant and fun. Shelter animals are often scared and anxious.

We knew these toys would help the animals stay calmer, which should help them get adopted by a family. I am proud that my classmates and I helped the shelter animals. What I didn't expect is, by helping my community, it would change my thinking. I used to think animals at the Humane Society were adopted quickly, but now I know often it takes months or even years to find a family.

Now I also understand that there will always be animals or people that need help. I can be the person who will make a difference. Change begins with me and you. Thank you.

I also have some pictures of us making the toys and the toys finish. So this is me and some of my friends making some toys for the animals. And this is me standing next to the 200 toys that we made for the dogs and cats. Thank you, Mr.

Sanger's class. With the powers of technology, social media, and improvements in so many other things, our world is constantly coming closer together. And because of this, we have to be ready to operate and act as global citizens. In order to do this, we must look for ways that we can not only be active in our local community, but in our global community.

Up next, Mr. Baker's class will share how they have been partnering with our high school to better our world. Oh my goodness, I just learned in our own backyard in the country of Haiti, thousands of kids like me lack the resources for clean water, education, and a future job. Whoa, Tucker, what's that awful stench?

I'm trying to learn about economics here. Injustice for the children of Haiti. That is awful, but there's another older couple from Clayton High School. What could it be?

OMG, it's teenagers! Intelligent and sneaky foundation campus students. That smell of hard work and perspiration boys leaves her playing in Chokelunky Town. But what can anyone do about it?

Well, we are learning about planification and install about chemistry classes. So planification and the chemical processing coming soon. And we're learning about social justice and economics. What if we join forces building the social movement in the city?

Better ourselves, better our communities, and better our world. It's a dirty job, but someone's going to do it. And you can too. You've got a game plan.

Free the ocean, our shenanigans flash. All proceeds go to Hope for Haiti, to grow clean water, health care clinics, teacher salaries, and better lives. Sober Hope for Haiti, coming to a high school near you. Thank you, Mr.

Victor's class. As you all know, school takes place from 840 to 340 each day. But what makes our mission special is that our work to do great things doesn't have to stop there. In fact, I've already been able to carry some of my own entrepreneurial spirit out into the world and already have work to make a difference for other kids like me.

My company is Skyland Wishes Naturals for Kids. It's an all-natural hair and body line formulated to assist a diversity of cultures in managing their own natural hair and skin issues. I use my business not only to make money, but to use Skylicious Naturals as a platform to empower all kids to success by letting them know if they can dream it, they can achieve their goals. I recently visited the Genius Slaves Boys and Girls Club, where I was honored to speak about empowerment and entrepreneurship.

I was also featured on the district's website highlighting my achievements. Please visit www.scottalicious.com to view my products and my community after the break. To make our time together tonight I just want to say thank you to the Board of Education and thank you Dr Dory for all of your support We still have a lot of work to do, but even steps we have made wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for your support. And as this work continues, we look forward to sharing many of the great things we know that we will go on to do.

So on behalf of everyone at Merrimack, thank you and have a great night. Thank you. I want to say thank you one more time. If we could just get a big round of applause.

Thank you. Thank you. So I would like us to put the Board of Education, take a picture with these awesome Merrimack students. We just do it over here.

So please, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So, we also have one other recognition for this board meeting. It is National School Social Worker Week and I'm going to ask Dr. Robin Weems to come up and she is going to do a recognition for our social workers. Good evening, Bord of Education and our constituents here in Clayton.

Tonight I have the privilege of recognizing our outstanding social workers, Dr. Sheila Powell Walker and Ms. Katie Burkhardt in honor of National School Social Worker Week. This year's theme from the School Social Work Association of America is Beacon of Hope, School Social Workers Lighting the Way.

In their role, school social workers are able to light the way, emphasizing the whole child, collaborating with other professionals, linking students and families with needed services, and advocating for the profession. Dr. Paul Walker and Ms. Burkhard, thank you for being beacons of hope to our students and their families.

In my short time with the district, I've seen you connect with our students who have had a variety of needs, and you were able to bring stability and support to them during times of uncertainty. I also appreciate the ways I've seen you support our parents and families when they face unexpected circumstances. Lastly, I want to thank you for the expertise you've shared with the district staff, Staff, your efforts to help us become a more trauma-informed team of educators are truly valued. So thank you for all you do.

I also wanted to acknowledge the important contributions of Deb Levin, our SSD social worker. Deb has a unique role in supporting our students across our buildings. I want to thank her also for all the ways that she helps our students thrive. So to celebrate this Appreciation Week, we have a little something for you that I actually would like to thank you.

Thank you again for everything you've all done for me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we are now going to move to public comments. And we have five public comments. Just a reminder that we ask public comments to be three minutes each, or a maximum of three minutes each, and the board's not going to respond. However, you will, to the extent you raise an issue, we'll get a response from the administration.

So the first person is Aretha Whitaker. I wanted to thank you all tonight. Thank you to the board. Thank you to Dr.

Doherty for allowing me to address you tonight. I am a parent with two daughters, one in the high school and one in middle school. As I think about this school year, and you guys are going to be discussing equity conversation tonight, I wanted to pause and really thank you all for all your efforts in allowing my daughters to continue to grow here emotionally, socially, and most importantly, academically in the district. As a family, we look forward to our daughters graduating from the school district of Clayton where they can feel included, where my husband and I know they will be challenged beyond our expectations.

Again, I just wanted to give a big thanks and appreciation for all your hard work and efforts. Thank you. Thank you, Aretha. So next is CeCe Tompkins.

That's a drop the mic moment. My name came up and then it was a big blank. Oh no, they don't want me up there. Thank you.

Let's get pretty close. Okay. Hi, my name is Cece Tompkins. I want to start by thanking you for your time and your service on the board.

I am an alum of Clayton High School and I also work for the Children's Education Alliance of Missouri. I want to start by thanking you for being such a forward-thinking district with serious concern for all of your students. And a dedication to diversity. I'm happy to see that racial equity is on the agenda for tonight's meeting.

I saw in your SWOT analysis that your top thread is decreasing diversity within the district. That's what brings me here tonight to advocate for the continuance of both of your transfer programs. I know I've told my story here before, but as a quick refresher, when I came to Clayton High School in 1991, I came from a private all-girls school. I honestly didn't know how sheltered I had been until I started here at Clayton.

When I talk about my experience at Clayton, I say that the academics were on par with the level of education I was receiving in private school. But what I learned at Clayton prepared me for life in the real world, where not everyone looked like me. This cannot be taught in a book. It's one of the driving reasons I work for SEEN, seeing the benefits of the VIG program firsthand, And in great fundamental belief that all children, no matter where they live, should be able to access a quality education, even if they choose to find that outside of their neighborhood.

Last year, I worked with families in several districts to extend the phase out of the statutory program. And I'm proud to be able to say that my alma mater is the only district that found a way to extend their agreement with Normandy. This was an historic moment that showed me what can be accomplished when a community, a school board, and superintendents all come together to rally behind an issue to do what we know is best for the children involved. Now that you have found a way to keep your Normandy transfer students in Clayton schools, I am hopeful that you will continue to be proactive in continuing this program in a timely and fair manner This program has been life for the families that I work with and knowing that their students can continue on in your schools will provide them with peace of mind and confidence that their children have a clear path to success Continuing your great work and ensuring diversity through these transfer programs is also vital to the success of your residential students, who I hope will learn as much about the diversity of the real world as I did when I was a student at Clayton.

Thank you for listening. Thank you, Cece. Okay, next is Susan Buse. Hi everybody.

I don't know if this is working or not, but anyway, I'm Susan Buse, and as you know, I was on this board, not this building, but the other building, when the board crafted and adopted the racial equity initiative. And I was very pleased to see and encouraged to see it on tonight's agenda. Especially given your timing, I have gone on with wearing different hats now and the city has formed its own equity commission and its first meeting is Monday night. So again, seeing this on your agenda now, it gave me a lot of hope.

As the city adopted its commission and figured out what direction it was going, it hired outside consultants. The consulting report was fairly thick, but in there was a handful of four or five recommendations. The second recommendation in there was to piggyback or tie into the community conversations that were being done by the school districts of Clayton. At that point in time, that report came out last spring, at that point in time, we had put together a conversation after the stoplick verdict to address tensions within our community, and that was held at CRC.

After that, Dr. Doherty arranged for us to get screening rights to the Blue Streets presentation, and we had the presentation of the movie and discussions on that. In the spring, we had the founder of WeStory speak at CAPTN. She's a member of the community, and she actually is now on the City Commission for Equity, and she spoke at CAPTN.

And then last January and February, we had our three nights of Brown vs. Board of Education Community Forum. And each of those events, different degrees, drew from across our community. Not only did we have district families, at some of them we had members from our surrounding university communities, as well as our city police officers, elected officials, including our mayor, and our now mayor as well.

So it was exciting to see this, and as the commission comes on Monday, I know that you all have asked John Doherty, Dr. Doherty, to be the liaison from the school district. And there's a lot of promise in us working together and doing this and continuing this good work. And thank you.

Thank you, Susan. Suzanne Whippin is next. So the district has produced a report on educational equity and then a summary that refers to the report. And from the content of both of them, I worry that the district administrators seem to be confused about what equity means.

So educational equity means outcomes that are undifferentiated by class. And since we specifically refer to African American students, it's clear that we're talking, at least in part, about outcomes that are not different by race. But the report is clouded by things that have nothing to do with equity. So putting on an event or hiring a speaker is not racial equity.

Administering a trusted adult survey is not racial equity. Focusing on empathy and kindness is a nice thing, but it's not racial equity. And renaming a diversity committee is definitely not equity. It's not participating in a diversity recruitment fair or restructuring diversity recruitment that's your goal.

It's hiring qualified people of color. But this report doesn't tell us what percentage of the current teaching staff are white, what percentage are people of color, and it doesn't tell us now that you've restructured what your roadmap is for getting more diverse hires. So we don't know where we're going, and we don't know how we're going to get there. Becoming familiar with authors, working on your mission statement, doing project-based learning, these are all really worthwhile things, but they're not racial equity.

Social-emotional learning also is not the same thing as racial equity. Now expecting the results of a panorama survey should be equivalent by race is an anti assumption But we need clear specific data to show what the survey outcomes are by race Just having a tool is not an outcome Now, one other point relating to equal outcomes by race is that you have to say the word white. Comparing African American results to the total population of students, which includes African American students, is misleading. It portrays the data as better than it is.

If we're going to be able to tell whether we have equivalent outcomes by race, we have to have good data for both sides of the equation. Our goal is not what you put as a strength, increasing the number of black students in the gifted program. That is not our goal. Our goal is to have equity, equivalent percentages.

So if, say, 10% of the total white population is in the gifted program, then 10% of the total African American population, or Asian or Latinx, should be identified as gifted. Increasing the number of African American students from 3% to 6% of the gifted program sounds good, but I have no idea, and this report doesn't show how close that is to educational equity. This report does not interrupt the status quo in this district, which produces outcomes that are differentiated by race. Instead, it buries our current status under a confluence of unrelated, misleading, and missing data.

Sean, I can't think of the word. Astounded, appalled, dismayed that you would accept a report of this poor quality from your staff. And ensuring that neither the school board nor the public knows what's really going on. I'm almost done.

And school board members, if you are willing to just accept a report and summary that don't give you the data that you need to make good decisions, that don't tell you where we are now or where we're going, then what are you doing here? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, the next speaker is, it's Janelle Lamarck. I can help you out. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's okay, it's a tough one.

It's Janelle Lamarck. Thank you, sorry. Sure, no problem. Hi.

Okay, I'm going to read. Hi, my name is Janelle Lamarck, and I'm the parent of a high school student and elementary student in the Clayton School District. We've been here since 2011 and love this district and our community, and I thank y'all for your work in it. I'm here tonight to share my comments on the educational equity mid-year update dated December 2019.

It looks like there has been some very positive personal work being done on the part of staff. I, too, have spent many years educating myself on racial injustices in this country and in my own implicit thinking. I am happy to hear that staff are doing book clubs and that kind of thing. For white people, this personal work is a lifelong journey.

For educators, this personal work becomes critical to their jobs, and I thank you for your support of them in that effort. That said, this report fails to adequately report on racial equity in any specific or meaningful way. First, it reports on actions without listing very many outcomes. For example, what was the result of attendance at Harris Snow Career Fair earlier this fall?

Two, it in fact lists very few data points and none are consistently or systematically reported across all six of our schools. In fact, actions by schools are not even clearly reported. So, for example, what consistent data points about student achievement can we look for each year? What goals do we have for hiring more African American teachers and how are we doing?

Perhaps most alarming, it lists actions unrelated to racial equity. This dilution of equity to something broader, away from a focus on race, is a surefire way to ignore and fail to address problems of racial equity. So what does administering the Trusted Adult Survey have to do with racial equity? What does the parenting speaker on happiness have to do with racial equity?

What does the provisioning of essentials in a school-based food pantry have to really do with racial equity? I could go on. And as valuable and important as these explorations and these services are, their relevance to addressing educational equity by race seemed pretty indirect to me. I would rather honest clear reporting than this kind of filler It seems like a filler So is there another different report perhaps that we can look for for this sort of honest and systematic tracking that an assessment of racial equity deserves?

If not, if this is the report that is supposed to provide us with these critical insights, I must ask Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our public comments. Thank you, everybody.

We're moving on to Superintendent Communication. So good evening, everyone. Over the last few weeks, we've been working to maximize learning before we get to spring break. And so, and what I've seen in the classrooms has been very substantive in terms of learning.

But I also know that when you walk into a building, sometimes you can feel that need for a break. And so you can also feel that as well. But when I've been in schools, I feel like there's been a high-level engagement. Tonight's presentation gave us a little bit of a segment of what's happened in our high school today.

Having fourth-grade students work with our high school students as part of a chemistry and entrepreneur social justice project was just incredible, and some of our board members were able to see that firsthand this morning as well. I also appreciate how the schools are thinking differently, such as the high school being able to be creative on testing days. That's allowed students to have seniors do a day of service. And then also our freshmen having opportunity to do college visits.

The other topic that has permeated through our work over the last few weeks has been the coronavirus. And so we have been dedicating much time to developing and enacting plans to keep our schools and surfaces clean within all of our buildings. That includes technology. We have a plan to make sure that every piece of technology gets touched as well.

We have also been thoughtful about new systems for increasing cleaning efforts beyond the great job our maintenance workers do. We're also thinking about ways that we're monitoring families who have traveled and how we educate our students for good habits of staying healthy. The other thing we're trying to do is to be proactive in case there would ever need to be a closure of schools for a short or long-term basis. We're asking ourselves the question, how can we maintain some continuity of learning for our students if that would happen?

So our administrators, coordinators, and technology team have been working to develop plans in case there was a pandemic. This requires creativity, thoughtful planning, and strong communication. Do we know what that looks like now? No, but we are in talks about what that could possibly be.

We plan to send some more updates to our community. We sent out a few communications already and have a section on our website for that communication. And we plan to send some additional communication to our community. But I know for the Board of Education, for the community, this is something that you're seeing in the media, you're seeing each and every day.

So we just want the board and the community to know that we're working to be proactive and sometimes reactive to the situation. Tonight we have an information item and the board is going to be presented an enrollment report. And this is an opportunity for you to get to see the status of our enrollment. It also encompasses a great deal of data that is just disaggregated for you.

And after looking through the report, we probably have to take a different, we probably have to take a close look at this report again to make sure that sometimes the data is overwhelming in terms of what we're providing you. But we're going to work at ways to best communicate that data to you. But we also think it's important so you know where we're going in terms of our projections. And those projections help us look at potential staffing and building issues.

So, for the first part of tonight, we have an information item where Mary Jo is going to come up and give some highlights of that report. And then we do have our study item tonight around equity, and we are going to have a discussion with the board around that. And then I am going to turn it over to the student representative, Adam, to see if he has anything that he'd like to share before we get started. Yeah, thanks, Dr.

Dorey. So, the first thing I wanted to talk about was just that we're transitioning again from winter sports into spring sports. So we had our basketball district games, which were a ton of fun and a great time, and now we're getting started with spring sports, and we're really excited about that. Something else that, an amazing event, we had our dance marathon, our second ever dance marathon at the high school, where we raised over $29,000.

Our goal was 20,000. Last year we raised 18,000, and so it's really going well. And so that one-year increase of around $10,000 is really not very cool. So we're going to continue with that, and we're getting excited for next year.

And we've been fundraising. We'll start fundraising pretty soon. I mean, it really kicks back up pretty quickly. And then the last thing I want to tell you about is that there is a new Greyhound app.

And so I'm going to tell you what it's called because I think you should all get it because it's pretty neat. It tells you about all the events that are going on within the district and it's called CHS Greyhounds. So if you look it up on your phone, CHS Greyhounds, you can, Kristen's already got it. She knows what's up.

And so if you, and Stacey. So it's a great way, it tracks points. If you go to an event, you can check in and while you're using the app, it's only, there's a big, you know that the data only goes to the district and so if you're worried about that. So it's a great way to get students involved, and don't be surprised it's involved.

But, yeah, that's what we've got going on. Thank you. Thank you. So we're going to then move into our information items, which are enrollment projections.

So I think that's Mary Jo, right? Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Please. The methodology of the report is based on live birth records, so is where we start.

And those records are provided by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. We take the live birth records and then historical data, and we analyze that historical data through the cohort survival ratio method, which is a statistical method. So as I mentioned, the report is all formulas. We look at it over a three, five, and ten year increments for our resident enrollment, board grant, and VTS students.

We analyze these populations with this methodology because there's a large enough population of students to do that. A couple years ago, we switched. We used to only do a ten year history, and because of the bubble that our demographer told us we were in, we decided to look at different ranges, three year, five year, and ten year ratios. So right now we've been working on for our five year because it had enough fluctuations in it to make it seem more normal.

However, we are on the tail end of a bubble and so we're still projecting a little higher than actual right now. Then the rest of the categories, because personal tax credit and statutory tuition student populations are much smaller, we just use standard grade regression. So we just kind of run the students through the school and the student that made the stay. When looking at placement for non-resident students, most of its consideration is given under policy.

So our district class size policy, IHB, defines what our class sizes are. And then we also have an established district procedure for placement of board grants, statutory tuition, VCS, and tuition students. And that's in policy J and CA. And priority is always given to siblings and students in order to stay in the school with their other siblings.

When you look at the projection highlights, this is a summary. Overall, all of our categories of resident or board grant, which is also considered resident, are increasing, which is what our demarcator told us we would continue to do. And the personal tuition we are anticipating to include three They are siblings so that why we were looking at them and there were spaces available Tax credit we do have a student graduating And then our statutory tuition we also have a student graduating We look at revising the MOU in order to keep those students in And then our VTS students we have students graduating and then seven students being accepted which puts us down to 187 students Our challenges we have experienced large class sizes at the middle school over the past three years that everyone is pretty much aware of Our highest is like 251 students, I think, right now in the eighth grade. We see that trend moving back to normal.

So once those students graduate this year, we're getting into the more normal 200 to 250 student ranges. And we see that staying until about 2023. And so we currently have a third grade class that's very large, and that class is going to be back into the middle school, and we'll kind of be at another level. We have a few years of that running back through again.

So we're watching as progression through the grades will hit middle school to make sure that we're not adding too many non-resident students at the elementary school that will make that middle school too overcrowded. So monitoring of those cohorts, survival at specific buildings and grade levels. And then also our challenge is to maintain diversity within our schools as our resident population grows. So we'll recommend that recommendations are to continue to monitor those shifts in enrollment, monitoring current and potential developments.

In the fall, I gave a report of enrollment in those developments, and we're not seeing their transient students. We see about an average of 30% of the residents in those buildings stay within three years. We're going to be looking at the Thank you. Any questions?

Comments? Then thank you. We appreciate it. Oh, no, I have to sound out.

I was just giving other people a chance. This is an information item. It's an information item. That's right.

That's right. I need to put it in the form of a question. Clarifying question. Thank you very much.

I actually didn't find it to be too much. Whatever that says about me. What's that? The summary's great.

Yeah, summary's great. So I have a question about, okay, the first one as a question is, Do we have a sense of when we are going to renew the MOU so that, as was brought up earlier, so that our students, it looks to me like we have six students that are continuing from that, that were okay, that would have transitioned out last year, and six new students that would have to transition out. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So we're definitely, when we've talked, we've contacted all families and we're saying that we're doing everything possible to keep students in our schools.

And I would say that probably in April we would do a renewal of the MOU and it may look different. And so there may be some different things that are attached to it and we'll work that out. But our ultimate goal is to have educational continuity for those students. And just for the purposes of that.

And so? So the projections show the students continuing, but the financial projections only do revenue based on the assets and the monies and funding. So there would be no funding attached to them on the monies. Right, I could help you.

Thank you. That makes sense. And then I guess my other question is, do you have thoughts about the recognition of the declining diversity, Racial diversity African American racial diversity in our district Do you have thoughts about I know a couple years ago the board talked about having a diversity group work on the various ways in which we could possibly increase racial diversity through housing through continuation of VIX through making our environment even more feeling very welcoming for people African American families and students Do we have any plans about how or what we're going to do? Are you thinking is that on the radar to work on?

So the VIC board has continued to have that conversation about what's possibly next. And so right now we're currently in the last part of the last extension. But there is a group of superintendents and a group of community members Thank you. Captain is fostering a partnership between Dewey School and Captain.

And so we're looking at developing those relationships where we can have different opportunities for students to be interacting with one another. So I think that one of the things that I'm excited about is being part of the commission for the city, because I do think it's important for the city. The district in control, it only has so much control in terms of how we get students in here, but I would love to be part of the conversation about how do we increase diversity within our city where it's insular and not just always feeling like we have to pull students from different areas. So I think that that is more of a systemic change versus a solution versus just different mechanisms.

I mean, we're definitely going to continue those conversations, but I'm glad to be part of that conversation as well. And have you considered, as we work on that, having, we have just an amazing community that really cares about this. As we saw it with the Brown versus Board of Education, we had 100 and some people show up most of those nights. Have you considered kind of ways to harness that energy and interest?

Because you really want that, especially if we're going to do it within the city or if we're going to figure out some creative ideas. I mean, we might be underutilizing community members for those efforts. We can think about that. Other questions?

Gary? So I have just a question about the kind of process of how you do this. I know a couple years ago we had the demographer come and I have a, I think, rough understanding of what demographers do to get some information. I'm just curious, when you describe the methodology, who is actually doing this work and this calculation here?

Where does that come from? I'm just sitting with a spreadsheet. That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure if there was something more to it than that. These are formulas that you just run with, repopulate the data.

That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure about it. Yeah, in the executive summary, you had to explain the actual formula. Right, right. I don't understand that still, but you say explain, I say maybe.

As layman, you can get rid of the statistical formula. Any other questions? Stacy? I just had a quick comment about, like, I noticed through this, and you mentioned it too, that bubble of students like this current 8th grade class that's maybe bigger than we've seen in a really long time.

And you mentioned that it's going to pass and the classes at White Island get back to normal, but that 8th grade class still has to go four years through our high school. So I just, of course I know we're going to do this, but I just wanted to mention that I hope we're being mindful of staffing and our class size guidelines. As those, that large class, you know, moves through the high school or the third grade class, if that stays large, and pay attention to if we're allowing, you know, board grade teachers, students, or tuition students, and being careful about that because I do know the community cares really deeply about class sizes. And so that class does worry me.

So one of the things that we do is we have a meeting with the high school and we do an analysis of all the requests that the students have for classes And so at that meeting we look at the enrollment projections and then we also look at whether or not we need to hire different additional staff And sometimes it's a matter of shifting staff, like we may. And so we really do take that into consideration as part of those conversations, looking at what are the requests, making sure that we have appropriate class sizes. And then if we need to ask for additional staffing, we will bring it to the table. We've done that before.

That happens, that's happened a lot at Glenridge with the bubble that we've seen, and we've been pretty straightforward about bringing that to the table for a request for additional staffing because we feel that's important as well. Other questions? Yeah. I know that Lily brought this up, but something the District Advisory Council brought up this morning was the idea of equitable housing at Clayton.

And I was wondering, I don't know, I know that we have partnerships with the city of Clayton, But is there any way that, I mean, whether it's lobbying or in some way, do we have any way to contact them to work on equitable housing specifically? I don't know if that's possible or what, but that was something that they brought up that I don't know. You know what, as part of that commission, we can definitely bring that up, but I'm sure that's part of the conversation. Students can go to the meeting.

Yeah, and it's open to everyone. Any other questions? Thank you, Mary Jo. Okay, we are moving on to our first study item.

We have six study items tonight. And the first one is educational equity. And so I think that's by Milena and Robin. And Sean.

Oh, I forgot. Let's just do one more. Yeah. Sorry.

I'm just getting my presentation. Okay, that's good. So while they set up the presentation, I'm going to do a quick introduction. So, and I want to say thank you to Melaina and Robin for being part of this.

Clayton is an excellent school district, and we work to educate, inspire, and empower all of our students. We expect excellence, not only, we expect excellence, and now we're working towards more of a transformational approach with our new strategic plan, focusing on personalized learning. We have high expectations for our students and our educators. What contributes to our excellence is our willingness to examine where we need to grow.

And part of that is just having a growth mindset. So in 2016, our district, in collaboration with the administration and the board, saw that we had to grow in the area of achievement for African American students. And I don't know if Susan's still here, but I want to say thank you to her because she was integral to that work. After looking at the long history of disparities in our data and previous initiatives, we needed to do something different.

Since then, we have remained relentlessly committed to this work. The board initiative had three guiding statements that gave direction to the work. The first one was no decline in subgroup performance or district overall performance. This was also rising, the other guiding statement was rising subgroup performance and overall district performance.

And it also talking about proportionality in all of our areas. So if we have 10% of our African American students that are, we want to make sure that we have a proportionate in our gifted program, our AP and honors classes. And so we were, that was part of the initiative. And then the last one was increased knowledge and effective practices that extend beyond the initiative.

So what we're actually doing about it, what's happening in our classroom. This also led to different dimensions that we developed. And those dimensions became our guideposts, focusing on school culture, data, parent partnership, Community engagement, HR personnel, research and best practices. And we have been looking at action steps that have been aligned to those dimensions.

So I want to just take a moment to emphasize that sometimes when we talk about equity, people think that it's, and we talk about equity and removing barriers that limit success of students, that we're lowering expectations. And it's exactly opposite. We're actually raising expectations for all. Zaretta Hammond, who is an expert on culture responsive teaching, says that our teachers should be warm demanders.

Meaning that they should know explicitly our students and build rapport. She says that relationships are key and a sense of belonging. Making sure that the students trust the teacher. Making sure the teacher shows personal regard for the students and earns the right to demand engagement and effort.

And is very competent in terms of the technical side of instruction. Holding high expectations, offering emotional support, and providing encouraging productive struggle. So when we talk about equity, it's not about lowering the expectations for others so we minimize the gap. It's about raising expectations for all.

And so we all need to become warm demanders. The difference in the initiative that we did in 2016 versus a lot of the other initiatives the district did previously was that it was not completely focused on the students. It was, this is, there was a paradigm shift is that we had to start focusing on the adults in our district and making sure that we were putting the right training and professional learning in place and expectations for the adults. So that way we can ensure that all students have access to opportunities, supports, and tools.

They need to be successful no matter what. In the executive summary, I referred to a continuum of educational equity. And this, I think this continuum is very telling. I will say that we are far from status quo.

It's thinking that we have no need for change. And I will say that we have been in the land of just building awareness. You can't just stay in the land of building awareness. It has to be action and what we're doing to change systems, to remove problems, to remove problems.

I'm going to talk about the barriers and to make sure that everyone's equipped with the right teaching strategies and pedagogy that's going to help students be successful. But I can assure you that we're moving to that systemic transformation. So tonight I asked Robin and Milena to be part of this conversation because a lot of their work is pertaining to the initiative. We're going to talk about what is the reality of our data.

We do still have work to do and we also need to question about whether or not we're using the right data. We are making systemic changes and looking at processes that are limiting our students, such as our gifted program identification process. And we are looking at a sense of belonging, because we do know that when students feel like they belong, they're going to feel like they have the ability to take risk, and we feel that relationships are key to student success. And then we're also talking about how our practices are changing in the classroom.

So I'm going to turn it over to Melaina and she's going to talk a little bit about the data. And then what we're going to do tonight is to frame the conversation around a SWOT analysis. We provided the SWOT analysis to you and we're going to give the board an opportunity to do that SWOT analysis at the table. And it's a way to organize our thoughts and thinking tonight.

The original board initiative asked us to hold ourselves in our work to a measure of no decline in subgroup performance, and African American students being the subgroup that was named in the initiative, and then no decline in our overall district performance. Due to the changes in testing and standards in the state over the past several years since the initiative was rolled out by the board and the district, the two years of state data that we're able to make comparisons are with the 2018 and the 2019 data. While this is only one sample of data within the district, it's the sample that the state has. When we look at these data, there's evidence of places to grow and evidence of growth.

On the English Language Arts Assessment district-wide, our total population, Asian students, Hispanic students, multiracial students and white students scores fall within the state range of on target Our super subgroup which is comprised of African American students brain reduced lunch students IEP students EL Hispanic and specifically our African American students are within the approaching range. These two groups are also the two groups that have shown the largest gains between 2018 and 2019. We see a similar picture for math collectively with those same groups being within the target range, And our super subgroup in 2018 being in the approaching range and our African American students also being in the approaching range. In 2019, the super subgroup moved into the on-track range.

And our African American students in the super subgroup, again in math, were the groups that have shown the most growth between 2018 and 2019. So when I assumed the role in student services, one of my first action steps was to examine the gifted program. More specifically, the demographic representation in the program and the identification process. In my analysis, I found that the 2019 racial representation did not mirror the district's demographics.

In particular, the representation of African American students in the program was below the representation in the greater district and below DESE's recommended equity index. For that reason, I worked with the district's gifted coordinator to revisit the identification process and the programmatic outcomes and bring them into alignment. Both the identification process and program now focus on creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking, and our identification process has transitioned to localized norms instead of national norms. So our initial results of the new process are moving in the right direction.

We were able to double the percentage of African American students in the program from 2019 to 2020, and we're going to continue to refine and monitor our local norms closely over the next several years to ensure that we're continuing to make sustained progress in this area. Our hope is to meet or exceed the equity index goal for African American students, which would be at least 12% representation by the end of 2022. We're also going to be monitoring data for our students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, and for students who receive services for disabilities. Also, some new data that we have started collecting has been through our social-emotional learning surveys from Panorama Education, And that data has been helpful in deepening in our understanding of how our students feel when they're in our buildings.

Our September data collection, which we're using as a baseline, showed that our students are experiencing the teaching and learning environment differently, particularly in the area of sense of belonging. Students' responses vary between elementary and secondary levels, and we've been able to use this data to inform our decision making at both the building and district level. So we are administering the survey again this month, and so we will be able to compare the results over time, and we hope to gain some insight on the effectiveness of our initiatives this year and identify opportunities for continued improvement so that all of our students are thriving while they're at school. When we think about increasing the knowledge and practices of our teachers, I want to highlight some of the work in our professional learning that has had a big impact for us.

So we've created a systematic way of throughout a teacher's career within the district, devoting professional learning time to this work. Our initial focus with a lot of that work centered on the area of building awareness. This work has included conversations and book studies around topics such as oppression, bias, microaggressions. As we continue to work around building awareness, we've begun to examine the need to change classroom practices, and in turn give feedback around these classroom practices.

Based on the work of Zaretta Hammond, who Sean initially talked about, we've begun to focus our work on culturally responsive teaching. Using Zaretta's language, culturally responsive teaching is different from multicultural education that celebrates diversity, and it's different from social justice education that's about building a lens for students to be able to look at the world and see where things aren't fair or where injustice is intense. Culturally responsive teaching is about building the learning capacity of individual students. Hammond argues that these three approaches overlap in practice but cannot be entertained.

Learning Partnerships. Hammond describes a culturally responsive teacher as a form commander. One who puts energy and effort into building relationships with all children and holding all children to high expectations. Community of Learners and Learning Environment.

Students often come to us, especially at a young age, as dependent learners. So we provided a SWOT analysis in our executive summary And what we wanted to do tonight was to frame the board's discussion around that SWOT analysis. As we were looking through potential strengths, one of the things I would encourage the board to think about The next slide, please. I think our new strategic plan is an opportunity for us to have different learning approaches.

And I also think that some of the work that we are doing around the recruitment of African American and people of color has actually, we are actually seeing the results of that in our hiring. And then it was mentioned tonight around our threats, the decrease of diversity within the district. We know that it's important for our students to have a diverse learning environment. And there are so many things that we can control, but there are things that are out of our control sometimes too.

And so we're looking at that as a potential threat down the road. So tonight, I'm going to turn it over to the board. And actually, can you go to the next steps? Tonight, we're going to hear your SWOT analysis in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, or threats that we need to be thinking about.

But in long term, I want us to be thinking about how we are making equity an intentional part of our strategic plan, and I think that that's really important. I think it might be important for us to revisit the initiative. After we do this work and get some of the input from the board, it might be great to get some additional, see if we need to revise and change anything of that. And then make sure that we have a common understanding about what we mean around equity.

So, I'm going to turn it over to the board. And we're going to try to, Melaina's going to try to keep track of information, but we just want to kind of hear your input so that way we can be informed in terms of how we move forward. Does that sound good? No, absolutely.

I think that's great. So I think just given that we have a SWAT, maybe what I would ask people to do is try to frame your comments in either a strength, a weakness, an opportunity, or a threat, right? I mean, we don't have to start with one and then you can speak to them all or some of them, but I think it would be important to... I have a clarifying question.

Yes, please go ahead. My clarifying question is that there was some mention by community members that this was a final report that was some kind of, and I just want to be clear, I wasn't here at the meeting when it was decided to put this on the agenda, and I just want to be clear that my understanding, and I'm guessing I'm asking for confirmation, this is not a final report. This was at the request of having a conversation about equity as an ongoing conversation. This was not a final report.

So I just want to make sure there's no misunderstandings from our community that this is something that you were presenting as a final report. It was a combination, though. It was on the agenda in December and taken off. And we also then right after that got an update.

And then when I asked to have it put back on the agenda, my hope was that we were going to talk about the update. And talk about whatever else without you guys having to compare a lot of things. And I'd like to speak to that too then to clarify that also. When we set an agenda for the whole year, I just want the community to understand that the agenda is not set in stone.

So those things can be moving parts. And that it's the superintendent and the president of the board that makes the determination. So every time that they're having a meeting, they are deciding whether or not something's going to be, it's used as a placeholder. But every time they're meeting, they're deciding are we prepared to have the conversation?

What other things have come up? What do we need to be doing? So it's a placeholder, but it's not, it wasn't taken off of the agenda. It was actually never on the agenda.

It was only in a, a formal agenda has to be formally public, public, and it was not formally publicized. So that's just, I mean, that's a clarification that I think is unfair for people to think that we actually took something off and we're intending to talk about it when we weren't. I think we can argue about that because it was on the public document that it was on the agenda with the caveat at the top that it could be changed. So rather than argue about that, why don't we start talking about it, right?

Because that's what we're here to talk about, right? We have a process at the end of a meeting. We can put something on. We put it on.

Let's talk about it, right? So let's start with people's comments. Again just a reminder if Malene you capturing right kind of in the you know the SWAT So if we could just frame them strength weakness opportunity or threat And that's how you see it, right? So anybody want to?

I'll go ahead and start. Please go ahead. Go ahead. So I would say that I think that our strength is that we have an amazing buy-in from our administration, Spervantage, But I think it's a strength that we have amazing buy-in and that we're working towards who we are, which is a world-class district that always is looking at how we can continue to improve.

Others? Other thoughts? Are we just doing strength? I mean, I can't approach it from a strength, weakness, opportunity, and friends.

That's not how I'm going to approach this. I want to approach it like this. More than ever before, black students are being educated by people who are not of their racial or cultural background. So, according to the U.S.

Department of Education, number four, reports that almost 87% of the United States elementary and secondary teachers are white, while only 8% of those teachers are black. So what that says is, it says we need to be looking at what our teachers are doing and what we're doing in the classroom. I know we use the word warm demanders. But I don't think that really is a suffice word for what we need to be doing.

There's a lot of biases in the classrooms. How we look at our black students, right? For their potential versus what they lack. You know, we always go to what they lack.

I mean, when I got on the board, I heard a lot of conversation about kids being from backgrounds and communities where they were poor. Superroportionate, Proprietary, and Proprietary. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Because as of right now, that's not what's happening.

So, going back to the strengths and the weaknesses, right? We talk about our math scores and compare it to everybody else in the city and everyone else in the state. Like, we're the best of the worst. And we're slightly above everybody else.

And that's not anything to hang your hat on. If you look at this, look at this data. We are failing as a district. And knowingly, we're not doing the right things.

I guess the question is, is how are we going to hold our teachers accountable? To make sure our teachers are treating these black students fairly. Our black and brown students fairly. So that they can be productive.

I think a year ago I wrote a little memo about a policy that we had with IGBC. You remember that policy? Some of you all who don't remember it. It was IGBC and KC.

So KC is our policy, right? Is that right, Melina? Is KC our policy and IGBC is the other policy? The, is the MSBA policy, the one that, so we have a policy for the, for the Clayton and we have a policy that came, that comes down from the, from the state.

All right. And, and I wrote something about it. So it talked about my interpretation of the IGBC policy, which is, compared to the KC policy, that the former policy assumes a low expectation of students who receive Title I funding. The KC policy assumes a higher level of expectation for students.

As a board member, I encourage us to consider the impact of us being guided by the IGBC policy. And then I went on to talk about, like, specifically, right, so it said, well, in the policy, the KC policy, for example, it talked about, like, the people, the parents who live in the community have so much to offer. We encourage our parents to be involved in the district and to be involved in everything that's going on. But then the Title I parents and the kids from them that were transfer students, we looked at them as kind of like, you all have nothing to offer.

And that kind of policy speaks to the idea of this deficit model. We look at our black students as lacking something. Now, if you look at it, so if you turn it to a different perspective, if you look at why haven't we hired that many black teachers? Well, it's the same way.

We look at black folks as not being smart enough. Now, you can say that's not true, but the data suggests it. The data suggests that black folks aren't looked at as smart as, and it starts at this young age. This is nothing new.

This has been going on for years. And I'm not demonizing us now because this is a systemic issue, right? However, we have to be able to break that cycle. And so my energy is like I wanted to stop now, but I'm also trying to say that what are we going to do about, as a team, what are we going to do to make sure that these kids are on the same level as the white students?

And these black students are performing. Because I think we said last meeting, at fourth and fifth grade, we started to see kids who were performing all on the same level in third and fourth grade, you started to see this shift in white students taking off in education academically on these tests. And black students, like, literally, like, it's a slow, slow increase. Or some of them go down, or some of them go sideways.

Kind of plateau a little bit. It doesn't say that they're not smart enough, but it says something's happening where when it gets to fourth and fifth grade, these kids, something's changing. And that data is very, very interesting. So I'd like to address that.

And once again, I'm not beating up on my administration because this is something we all have inherited, right? But what are we going to do as Kristen said, like the best, the top dog of all dogs of school districts, what are we going to do differently? How are we going to make that change? In three years, how can we say that most of our black students are on par?

Right? Are on par and we're not having to shift anything around to make sure that these kids are getting into the Excel programs and all of these things. Like, how do we do that? I'm sorry, I'm yelling.

I'm yelling. I just want to make sure, does the administration want to address it before you just add? No, I mean, I guess, no. I mean, I agree with the statements you said.

I just, there's, what I would say is that we don't have all the answers yet. I don't, I don't, I omit, we don't know all the ways to do that. But I will say that we are taking steps to, I think that when we're talking about, when you're, like the gifted program or the AP and honors, Sometimes it's not about shifting numbers or anything, it's about giving opportunity. So the shift in the gifted was about that we used to just only allow students to be recommended by a parent or teacher.

And so we changed our screenings and say this allows us to capture students differently It not students are just getting in just because It because now we able to see them because we looking at different data And so it's not just shifting numbers to make that happen. It's about making sure that we're removing barriers that are allowing us, that we're causing us not to even look at them. So, no, but I don't have all the answers to that. And if I did, we would do it.

So I wanted to say something about when I was looking up, because I wasn't sure how we were going to frame the discussion tonight, I thought it might be the SWOT analysis, and you had it in there, and I did a little bit of reading on SWOT analysis, and one of the suggestions is making sure that you have the customer, the input, the point of view of the customer. So, as I mentioned at a prior board meeting that I had talked to several of the students from the Black Student Union and I wrote up notes on what they said. And a lot of what, this was 12 students in our Black Student Union, all girls, and I think all but one had been in our school district since kindergarten, or kindergarten or first grade. So these are students that have, you know, been around it, and they were very eager to talk and want the board to know their perspective on this.

And so I have it typed up if you guys want your own copy, but I'll just highlight a couple of comments. One is that, first of all, they think we have great teachers, and they've had great teachers since kindergarten. And they expressed an appreciation for those white teachers that are really open to correction and feedback around kind of race sensitive sorts of things. They said that oftentimes they were placed in the wrong class or kind of lower expectations, the wrong class or wrong reading group in elementary or middle school.

And cited even like in high school, they'd be getting an A or an A-minus in a class and a teacher might suggest to them, you know, take them aside after the class. Do you want an easier book to read or do you want, you know, some supplemental information? Sort of making what they felt like were assumptions about their intelligence or that they might struggle in the class. They want more opportunities to be in certain classes, and sometimes white students are informed about a class that they haven't heard anything about.

This broke my heart. Many of the students related that when doing group projects in classes, they're often left without a partner or not selected for a group, whether it's because of where they live or some other reason. They have ended up doing projects by themselves. Teachers will call students the wrong name, like mix them up with some other African American student and they're, you know, saying to me, we don't look anything alike.

And the teachers think we're sisters or whatever. And then by mid-semester sometimes, or by mid-year sometimes, the teacher still doesn't know their name. And their ideas for improvement are things like more black teachers. Spervantage, the the the the the the the the the White and black students to be pushed equally.

They know countless whites put in classes that they don't belong, like an honors class, whereas they're discouraged from doing lower rights to get into classes. And that they really like teachers to be able to know how to handle microaggressions as they take place in the class. And I think if I read through these, knowing what we're doing, I know I thought, this is what we're working on. You know, a lot of it is like, great, this is what we're working on, that, you know, helping teachers to know how to deal with things, working on higher expectations.

But I thought it was very interesting, because it had been in our school district for this long, to have these experiences. And if anybody wants, you know, I'll pass them around. I know they wanted us to do these things. Can I?

Yeah, please, go ahead. Can I piggyback on that? Go ahead. In all seriousness not to discredit at all what you said but I wonder too as we talking about equity if we also were to talk to a group of like 12 of our Asian students would they have some of the similar like you saying about like their names you know they have foreign names Are teachers always getting that right Are they feeling included in groups So I was also thinking like would some of that apply to all of our subgroups which isn a which just means in equity we should be you know looking at other subgroups as well I just started thinking as you were saying that might even apply to some of our other groups as well Which is one of the things I one of my notes that I put as you know Actually, as a threat, that we're not having a lot of these discussions about other subgroups in such stuff, and because we did get those results from the Panorama survey, I found it very alarming that our Asian students were so low on that for having a trusted adult or feeling a sense of belonging.

When we do so much talk about social, emotional well-being, I think we should be paying a lot of attention to that group of kids and what are we doing to help those Asian students based on that survey to feel a sense of belonging. So I actually wrote that as a threat, that are we paying as much attention to some of our other subgroups. But I did, and also I wrote as an opportunity, like you mentioned, some of the partnerships we're doing with Catalyst and Captain on the Dewey School. I'm sure there are like infinite other opportunities there.

I did in this report though list a lot of strengths. Like we do worry about and talk a lot about African American achievement gap, but I did notice, and Elena even pointed it out, that for example, like our African American students showed the most growth in our English and math scores, right? Did I understand that right? Which I think is a huge strength.

Now, they're not on the same level as our white students, I recognize that, but they showed the most growth of any of our students. Thank you. I just want to say that we don't just have these narrow goals, but it's such a wide net that we're casting in every department at every level and every grade of this district. So I wrote that as a springboard.

Other thoughts? Go ahead. I just have a comment about, well, thank you for the report. I also will just echo what everybody else has said about some of the strengths.

I especially like that we're looking, that we've changed our mindset to be looking more introspectively and looking at the behavior of the adults and what adults might be doing to perpetuate implicit bias. I like that we've changed that since 2016. As far as the threat, the biggest thing that stood out to me when I read the report were the panorama results. And that was really disheartening to me that kids not feeling good about themselves and not feeling included.

Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Making sure that we are celebrating all of our kids, not just the high flyers and not just the merit scholars or whatnot, but making sure that we're acknowledging other groups of children that are also excelling at whether it's academics or sports Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion and proportionate representation in different groups whether that be Excel gifted AP classes and different ways of comparing that or counting that or calculating percentages I think if I had it right I don't know if that is a, I didn't have that in mind when I read the report, but I don't know if there's anything that we can do to talk about that and clarify what are we talking about with some of these percentages, what would be different ways of comparing it, is that, are we talking, I'm not sure if you know what the different methods would be, but I'm just not sure we have a common understanding of what the different methods would be. This is why we're doing it this way or this is why we're not doing it another way. Yeah, and I think that the easiest way to kind of explain it is, so if we look at our white population and like for the gifted program, we would look at how many students are actually being identified for, what percentage of our white students are being identified for gifted.

So then we would compare that to our African American students. That number should, so the number should be very similar in terms of if we have a certain percentage of our white students that are being identified, then it should be the same for the percentage of our African American students. The number wouldn't be the same because there's fewer students, but that percentage. Robin, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit.

Yes, so the optimal situation is that the identification and representation in the gifted program reflects the demographics of the school district. And so DESE refers to an equity index, which refers to, you know, looking at your general population and then basically 20% less that amount would be kind of the minimum threshold in terms of representation in your school district. Obviously, again, the optimal situation is that the statistics mirror each other, but they strongly recommend that school districts use a lens of using this equity index to kind of measure the representation of their program. And so that's what that column in the far right in the slide deck is representing is looking at our current demographics in the total population less than 20% within that group.

And that's what generates that equity index percentage. We could always write another report that would explain that. So is there a way, other than the equity index that we're talking about, is there a different way that we used to do it? Have we changed that?

Is there, has that been? I do not know the historical application in this school district of equity index as it applies to the demographics. So when I got here, I immediately dove into the data to see what does the representation look like currently in the program? What did the identification process look like in the previous year, and how did it possibly contribute to the current representation?

And then I went back to look at where students, for lack of a better description, were falling out of consideration. I found that grades were a big factor in eliminating students right away, so we didn't even have a chance to look at them individually because they didn't meet that criteria. Another criteria that separated students out of the process right away was the achievement data and using national norms around that. And we found that to be problematic because the outcomes of the program are not related to academic acceleration.

The outcomes of the program are actually related to creativity and problem solving and critical thinking. So we needed to come up with a better combination of tools that met the DESE guidelines but better aligned to those outcomes. And I think in the past we've looked at data, but I don't know if we've actually changed anything. And so I think that's where we're looking at using the data to say, okay, we need to do something different.

I want to just jump in here real quick and make a comment. I think on the data, it's really important to note, so I hear you, Jason, that we're not far enough, but it is important that when we look at our subgroup, right, our overall subgroup, that our data, our subgroup overall is higher than any other school district in St. Louis County On almost everything except for there's like one district in math and one district in ELA, right? Overall subgroup.

That's important, right? Because we need to understand why, right? So part of it is not just the gap, but why is that, right? Why are we performing at that level?

And then when you break it down to the African-American subgroup, and we look, I don't, we didn't see it by all the school districts in St. Louis County. We saw it by our peer districts, you know, so think Ladue or Kirkwood, those kind of districts. We still performed very well compared.

And so I think that data is important. And then you look at Captain in this report, right? Captain had a 5% increase, right, in terms of literacy, a 10% increase in terms of math. Why?

Right? Part of this is understanding why is that? That's good. We're not far enough, but we're making progress.

And, you know, to your point, we inherited something. And so why are we doing so well, relatively speaking, right? I think that's important to know. Maybe just to pick up on that, I'll get to the SWAT stuff, I promise.

One thing that I have found in doing some work on this, and part of it is talking to people in the schools and digging in a little bit more right now because I'm talking to more administrators and stuff like that. I think some of that, why are certain things working and why are we seeing progress in certain areas, comes out more the more you talk to people and get more and more examples. And maybe I'm just a slow learner. I don't necessarily get all that from this report, I will say.

But the more I ask questions and the more I talk to principals or talk to teachers or whatever about what are the things, what are the specifics? I need examples of how this has worked. I can think of one thing that I've heard one principal explain at least three times. I feel like I missed it the first one and a half times as to why it mattered that that had been changed.

That's not a criticism of the report necessarily, but I don't think you can get all of the things that are working well or not working well from this. That's just a comment. Is it okay if I do my thing now? Go ahead.

So the two things that I thought about in terms of in the threat column, and maybe I'm just, I think like a lawyer, so I don't think of the strengths and the objectives and whatever, but there are two things that I think I recognize as threats that aren't specifically put in place. And Jason actually touched on one of them. There is a historic, I don't know if I would go so far as policy, but some culture, yes, in Clayton, of more tolerance of some of this at status quo than is what it should be. I will tell you that the comment about certain families needing to sign a contract was something that I heard long before I was on the board.

It was made by someone who is not on this board anymore. But I'll tell you personally, it's something that motivated the hell out of me to get involved because I thought it was a horrible thing to say. And I just want to make that point that that is not something that I think anybody would accept right now on this board. I certainly hope, and if I heard it right now, I would absolutely say something about it.

So if that has historically been something that as a community, as a board, whatever else, those kinds of things, if they were tolerated too much, I apologize. And we have to overcome that if that's something that we did in that historic legacy. So that's one thing that's a threat that we have to think about. The other thing that I think, as I've been really thinking about this and talking about it, is that most of this in this report is stuff that's done by the administrators, by the teachers.

I don't think we can have too much of a voice at the board level on these issues. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We can do to increase that voice on this issue from the African American community and the communities that we're talking about. And we can, I just think that's something we should be thinking about.

And I'm kind of looking forward to continuing to try to figure that out and bring those ideas. Because I think that is a threat. Go ahead. Yeah.

Yeah so this is a difficult topic to talk about because it gets convoluted real quickly We can say like Stacy says you know what also perplexed me was the Asian students who had issues with fitting in These things are very complicated to talk about and get convoluted real quick and then we're off on something different. There's nothing wrong with focusing on the issue of race and anti-blackness and how it's infected our system and how our kids are highly affected by it, black and white. So, you know, we talked about identifying gifted children. We mentioned, you know, we mentioned we had to change a few things on how we looked at things, right?

Which is a good thing. We had to acclimate a little bit. We had to change some things. And that is deficit perspective.

That's a deficit perspective. We're saying we got to fix some things to make it work for other people to get in. How do we, so my question is, is why are we all of a sudden identifying more black kids? That's rhetorical.

But I'm saying, why are we all of a sudden identifying more black kids for the gifted program? So it's like, because we're focused on it, because now we're actually looking for them now. We're actually saying, oh, crap, it's showing some signs of giftedness. Is that what this is?

As opposed to before, like a year before, we weren't looking for those things. Or we discounted that. Or we're just adding more stuff in there to get them involved. All I'm saying is we need to be thinking about how we're going to hold our culture to another level.

That's more accepting and more understanding. And teachers who don't fit in, they can't be a part of the program anymore. That sounds absolutely egregious. And Jason, some of my fine teachers that don't see black people as equal.

But it's just as egregious to say that these black kids are underperforming. This is a toxic environment for black kids. So look, black kids who come from families like, say, Jason Wilson, whose wife went to Yale, right? Whose wife was a professor and husband went to Wash U.

That's me, right? We are kids still are underperforming. Living in Clayton, still underperforming. Or slightly above.

We might do well on tests, we might have all As, but when it comes to these specific things that we're talking about, these benchmarks, we're not making it for some reason. And we also feel ostracized, and we also feel these certain things that these other kids are feeling. It doesn't matter where you're from, because when you're black, no one's really trying to decipher where you're from. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

But this happens to be a big problem when we look at our numbers. So, in the nation, right? I don't care about the rest of the nation right now. I care about us.

We aren't performing at the level we need to be performing at. So what are we going to do different? I'm not saying, Sean, you didn't have an answer tonight. I'm saying, like, I would like to have one soon on how we're going to make this priority number one.

It should be priority number one. We are failing black kids, making them feel bad. And some of you are happy to be here. I'm happy to be here.

But you get here, it's a bunch of other stuff. You know, it's hot. I don't like how I look now. I don't like my hair.

I want to talk differently. I want to be like this. I want to fit in. On top of the normal stuff that human beings have to go through, now we got to do a lot of other stuff.

We walk out of here with a lot of misunderstandings of who we were going through an all environment A school that all Not being told you were great Not being selected for anything that you thought you should be selected for Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried We actually focused on some really key issues, like origin issues, like origin issues, so that we can start trying to build on our base. So I was just thinking about that, Jason, and building on that. I hear what you're saying. I'm also wondering about the idea that the gifted thing is a distraction.

Right. I hear that. I was just wondering about, like, when we look at our performance of students on our local assessments and how that looks and what are the achievements that we see in our students on the local assessments? Because I think that a lot of times these maps or these assessments that are biased, you know, innately, they're not a good predictor of success in life.

They're not a good predictor of success in the future. And they certainly do a lot of harm for self-esteem and that kind of thing. So I think that's been our distraction. We're getting distracted by focusing on the things that aren't going to change or make a difference because they're innately biased.

So I actually feel like we have done some things that have been transformational in my mind, and yet they're little, they're not big enough, but like at White Island Middle School, the learning strategies, that we're moving kids out of that, and we're giving opportunities for ways to shine and celebrate, like being able to be successful in a Da Vinci class, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Council was talking about was looking at what we're calling equity. And so when we're looking, I mean, this report was an equity report. And I think that one of the things, and the District Advisory Council all read it, and they came back and we talked about it.

And one of the things that they mentioned, a lot of them was, why are we calling it an equity report if it's specifically looking at racial equity? And so looking at, if we're going to call it equity, that needs to be a broader topic. And so that was something that the students were feeling, that if we're looking at racial equity specifically, we should say we're looking at racial equity. And if we're looking at racial equity specifically in our black students, then we should say that, and we should explicitly say that so that the public knows what we're talking about.

And so that idea of being honest in what we're looking at and what we're trying to assess I think is really important. And so as we talk about an equity report, well, is it an equity report or is it a racial equity report? I think we need to clear that up and what is the goal of what we're looking at. I think that that's the first thing, and it seems to me like we're looking at our African American students in the district and how we can help them the most.

And I think that we need to say that, and that's what we're fortunate to call it. And then moving on to my personal experience along with other district advisory council members and folks who I've talked to is that going through school and a lot of district advisory council members, Some of us were in the gifted program, some of us weren't. Some of us were here in early childhood, some of us were not, and then some of us are taking lots of AP honors classes and some of us aren't. And there is a difference in your experience at Clayton based off of the classes that you take and the gifted program and moving throughout.

Am I taking honors classes? Am I being pushed into those accelerated courses in middle school? And then in high school, am I taking honors and AP level classes? And there is folks feel, at least anecdotally from everyone that I've talked to, the teachers that are looked at as the teachers that you want to have are usually the honors AP level teachers.

Those are the teachers that are really pushing our students to be the best that they can be. And so when you look at teaching it looking at our teachers as well and those are our honors and AP level teachers So as much as it you know not the end goal to have our African American students in our AP and honors level courses that is true Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Where are our students connected? Are they taking honors and AP classes? Because most likely the students that are taking honors and AP classes are only connecting with students who are taking honors and AP classes.

So there's a lack of diversity within there. And then as we look lower into our students, there are three sections. One is they're purple dots, green dots, and our blue dots. Blue dots are students who are taking our honors and AP courses.

Green dots are more in the middle, students who are taking a mixture of classes. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We accelerated English classes in middle school and leading up. So I think in high school it's a great way to encourage our students to take honors AP classes.

That was one thing I noted. And then the other thing that I wanted to talk about really quick. I'm sorry, I'm going on for a long time. But one of the things that I've looked at in cultural leadership is the cycle of socialization and how institutions play a role in how we view ourselves and how we view our society.

And so the report talks a lot about how We're going to look at cultural responsive teaching and learning for our teachers. I think we need to do that for our students as well. And I think that we need to look at microaggression for students. We need to teach equity for our students because it makes a difference in recognizing they're, you know, going through a program like cultural leadership helped me understand when I walk into a room to see diversity.

And that's something that not everyone sees and it's not something that everyone notices. I think that we have a really unique opportunity with the resources that we have that we can create an opportunity for students to be able to see those things that are invisible for most people. That we can be leaders in equity, and I think we need to teach our students how to do that. And the cycle of socialization says that to break it, to break the status quo, which is something that we've been talking about, you have to raise the consciousness and interrupt and educate people.

And I think that that's something that we can do. And so I'm hoping that we can look at, for students, how can we teach our students about equity and make it better for them? Lily. That's great.

And that overlaps with some of the whole microaggression things when I heard from the students, too. So I'll try to just give some that fit into the categories. I think people touched on strengths. I think we're pretty good at knowing our strengths.

I think opportunities that we have, I think we have lots of opportunities. I mentioned this in the discussion before on enrollment, but we have a lot of community members that really care about this and that would do work. If we want to look at data or we want to actually do a policy review, which I think would be great. I know we're getting to them.

You guys will be getting to them policy by policy. But, you know, maybe get some volunteers or a class, you know, to work on looking through an equity lens in our policies. And the board, I mean, ultimately be up to the board to make the changes, but somebody could, you know, earmark those ones that need change. And then we have community that are ready to be, ready to do action around equity and diversity.

We have opportunities in our early childhood center to have African-American students. We had openings and we haven't gone through and actually made it happen. And I hope you all hold administration to that because we can do that if we want to. Weaknesses, and I just, I'm not going to, I'm just going to be blunt about this.

I thought the report, you guys have written some excellent reports over the years that I've been on the court, and I've told you that. This report was not one of them. The report was somebody, I wished somebody would have, I think about Kati, what he, who did some training with us and me at my work. Somebody needed to look at that report through an equity lens and say, this is not about equity.

Now are we calling it, you know, when you say is this racial equity or is it educational equity? We need to figure out, you all need to figure out, are we working on racial equity? Because there is a need, and it can't be diluted. If we're going to work on racial equity, it cannot be diluted with other kinds of variants where there's a need for looking at disparities and, you know, people being treated wrong.

I mean, it just, it has to be laser focused on racial equity, and that's what you choose. And so this report, and I'm not going to go through all of that, but I marked all over mine, and I would love an opportunity to sit and talk with you guys about how does this fund fit under equity, or what about putting this data in there, because there's lots of ways that it could really be. I know we're doing some of the work that wasn't, I don't know, and some of it just doesn't need to be there. So what?

It's a four-page report. At least it's honestly reflecting what it is that we're doing and where we're headed. And I think we're missing another weakness, and we're missing some of the data points. You mentioned that you think we're making improvements in the hiring and the whatever.

Get our numbers out there. Maybe you had that planned for the last report, but have that in there. Have it in there. We need to be looking at our discipline.

I mean, I know that's not part of the initiative, but we all saw a report that showed the disparities in discipline, and we know regionally that's an issue, especially for black boys. Let's find out how we're doing with that. And then another weakness, again I'm just going to be blunt, is I've been a part of and gone to every one of the courageous conversations that we've had over the past three years. And what we did this year, which was no longer driven by community, board, parent, group, was had the lowest turnout.

There wasn't feedback asked after those. And what I heard and what I experienced was it didn't match where the people that show up were at. Board members didn't show up at these ones. I mean, it wasn't something that brought in, there wasn't a lot of African American parents showing up.

It was, what I saw, it was kind of a nice, nice kind of practicing some conversations and getting closer. I mean, I'm not saying it was bad. I'm just saying it didn't meet where these people that show up for equity things are ready. They're ready to go, and what can we do?

Spervantage, Pursuit, and I really worry. I hear, I know the panorama data and where we're not meeting certain subgroups' needs is important, and I'm not sure where you all are going to figure out how to do that or where you all are going to figure out how to address that. I think by having, if we, if you all choose to broaden this to educational equity or equity for all different, you know, I don't know how you're going to do it, but I'm worried about being diluted. And then I also think one of our threats is over the years, now that we've changed definitions, we've changed data point, I think we have to be aware of when we're looking to post and when we're changing definitions.

And sort of figure out how to stay focused on what it is that you all are supporting. Anybody have any questions? I'm sorry. Lily, were you done?

I'm sorry. No, thank you for letting me say a lot. I just have one other, I think, I just wanted to say one other thing, because I think everybody said most of what I would say, but I do think there's an opportunity in terms of partnerships, specifically, I mean, even talked about. I think one of Clayton's strengths is to be able to partner and think about from a regional perspective about a number of things.

And I think you know there a continued opportunity in lots of ways including right as some of you heard you know we talked about early childhood right There an initiative around regional equity in early childhood that could raise million a year for you know early childhood right that could address not all but some right when you think about access and quality right And you know because part of what gets to impact around equity can be access quality and opportunity It doesn always work that way but those are often important ingredients Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. So I just want to check in with the board. Should we take a couple minute break?

Maybe let's take a quick bio break, three, four minute break. And we'll come back. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you.

Thank you. 7.02, policy GG, DJFA, federal programs. Federal programs. Mary Jo, is this you?

Okay, Mary Jo, can you give a brief update of DJFA? Mary Jo B.: Federal programs is very simple. Basically, the federal programs, the policies Stipulating, it kind of overrides the purchasing policy. The purchasing policy recommends that we utilize reserves and earnings, but for federal programs you have to, you can use any national income restricted by state.

Okay. So does anybody have any comments or questions on? And just in general, most of our federal program money is on salaries, so it really doesn't impact us. Any comments or questions on DJFA?

No? Okay. Thank you. We are going to move on to 7.03, which is policy DEA, which is revenue from tax sources.

Please. They're basically revising this policy to put a little more onus on the school district in following the law. So they're asking that if legislation is put through that impacts your major revenue streams, that you follow it and talk to your legislation later as well. Anybody have any questions or comments on policy DEA?

The only thing I would say is that this is, when Mary Jo talks about advocacy, when we're talking about legislative advocacy and things that are coming up that we may need to denote some things that we want to advocate for or against. Okay. Thank you, Mary Jo. So policy 7.04, which is policy IKE, promotion, acceleration, and retention.

I think it's Melina, right? Yes. So with policy IKE, because of a House bill and a Senate bill, it requires the school board to adopt a policy allowing students to be considered both for either subject, so like content acceleration, or grade level acceleration. So the way that this policy is written, our recommendation would be to go forward with how it's recommended.

And then what we are currently in the process, we do currently have a process for acceleration, but we're looking at it in a different, through a different lens and trying to expand it to really include all content areas in our thinking with that. So all of that stuff would fall within the procedure versus the policy. So we comfortable with how the wording of this policy is Okay Any questions or comments on IKE Okay Thank you I think maybe the next one is yours too which is IKF 7 policy IKF it graduation requirements Yeah. Hi, Kate.

The change in this one, and I actually had some conversation with the lawyers about this one, because the change in this is about allowing students to fulfill one unit of mathematics, science, or practical arts with a comp sci course. The direction that we have gotten from DESE is actually different than the statute. So the way that DESE writes their direction to us is that the district has control to make the decision as to whether a child Thank you. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Thank you. Dispensational Thank you. But we're in conversation with the schools right now about what that could possibly look like. Okay.

Any questions about or comments about IGAED? Adam? I know we talked about separating students by gender. Are we going to stop doing that next year?

So we stopped doing that. So we don't do it in secondary. We stopped doing it in one building this year, and then the plan is to stop across the board. Other questions or comments about this one?

Thank you, Melania. Appreciate it. So, checkout, Sean. I didn't hear that the board had any changes with the policies.

I mean, we have the educational equity checkout. I think that there was a lot that we captured during that. I think what we'll do is we'll capture those notes, and Melania took those notes, and we'll put those in the Friday memo. Okay, I think it would be better than going through all of them again.

Perfect, thank you. That's great. Okay, so we're moving on then to action items. So 8.01, Gary?

8.01, move that... Oh, wait a second. I don't have it. Move that the Board of Education approve policy JHC as presented.

Second. Moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Thank you.

Okay, we're moving to 8.02. 8.02, I move that the Board of Education approve the revised library self-study year two as presented. Second. Moved and seconded.

Any questions or comments? Just a quick comment. Thank you for We make revisions, highlighting those and letting us know that. Yeah, it's been changed.

Any other questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, it passes. 7-0, thank you. 8.03? 8.03, I move that the Board of Education approve the World Languages and Cultures Self-Study Year 2 as presented.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously, 7-0. Okay, we're actually moving to the consent agenda.

9-20-1, I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any questions, comments about the consent agenda?

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes 7-0.

All right, so does anybody have any board communication? This time? Anyway? Oh, I'll say something.

Go ahead. Okay. So I just want to thank John for that priority. Do you like to be a cultural entrepreneur, Dr.

Williams? Sure. Okay. I'll be asking.

What? Six years later. Six years later. For bringing up the coronavirus thing, and I didn't know if we needed to put it as a, I know that community members have reached out to me and asked what our plan is, and I think they want more information than just surface information, So I didn't know if we needed to put that as a study item or how you want to address that.

So what I might suggest is what we'll do is when the plans progress, we will send communication to the board ongoing so you have that information because board members will come to you. I think I would propose that if we have an update of information that we feel like is important for the board to know if you feel okay with us adding that just as an information item or at the last minute almost if we need to, we will add that. But we will make sure that we keep the board aware of what's happening. But it might not be a bad idea for the next meeting.

We just have like a check-in about it. Yeah, but I will say just you want to walk this line, right, between like adding to the fever pitch and the worry of everything. But I think we're probably in a stage, just given the number of people that have asked me things about it, who were meeting me for the first time, people want to know more, not less. Communication is definitely one of those.

So I wonder to that end if we should put it on the next board meeting as an information item. I'm just studying. No, no, that's what I mean. And then what we'll do is I'll have a memo, if we can get something in the Friday memo, so that way you guys have talking points if someone is saying something in the community that you know how to respond.

That's good. Thank you. Anybody else have anything on the board communication? Yes, Stacy.

I do. Parks and Rec Commission, we had a meeting on Monday night, And just to give an update on the Center of Clayton, it is 80% done. They are shutting down for 10 days, coinciding with our district's spring break, so that's good. The architects and Patty DeCouris are going back to architectural review work for the third time with the plans for the ice rink.

I shouldn't even call it ice rink anymore. Now they're calling it the Commons because it's an all-season recreation program. They're hopeful that ARB will now approve the plans because they've made the changes they requested. But it has pushed it back, so I think they're hoping to open fall of 2021.

All goes according to schedule. Anybody else? So just one thing, since we're here at Merrimack, it was great to be invited to the class of Merrimack students at the high school where a lot of the students are here today. And then especially being here tonight I just appreciate you including that getting to see that project I appreciate what they doing I should have brought more soap We have some soap.

I'm going to split this up and give you each a little piece of soap. But they were making a bunch more, so there will be more available. For a cost. For a cost.

Explaining this group that they're supporting in Haiti and what the money that they raise does, How little money was an incredible amount, it was pretty amazing. It was one of those examples of collaboration, real-world experience, having an impact, it goes from science to marketing, speaking, and our young kids are working with our older high school students, it was a real great example of what we do well. And it smelled good. Yeah, and they were making mistakes and learning from them.

Oh, and one more thing. Yeah, go ahead. Y Down, Spring Musical, Friday night, Saturday, these two shows up in Matilda. Tickets still on sale.

You can buy them online now. With a credit card. Yes, now it's like real theater. Reserve seating and everything.

Anybody have anything else? Okay. Go ahead. I know that we'll do in April another vote on if you want to continue the student rep.

I was wondering if you'd like me to do discussion or information item before going into the, I guess it would be a study item. I was curious. We do need it on the agenda, so we will need to vote it. I think it would be good to know, because I know one of the, I can see the positive parts.

I think one of the things that I don't know behind the scenes, like who's giving you guidance, how's it, you know, kind of what adult involvement. Like what are you meeting, not that you guys are adults, but, you know, like are you meeting Dr. Thorny's time for this? I thought that was one of the things that I wondered about, how that would be, and kind of just the guidance and direction you're getting and how it's going from your perspective.

Yeah, I'd be happy to give an update. I was just going to say if you have an opportunity to drive by Aztec Field just to see you coming together it is amazing to see it now And the dedication for Aztec Field is happening. Oh, it's April 25th. Yes.

April 25th. April 25th. Awesome. Which is the same weekend as the Hall of Fame.

As the Hall of Fame. Yes. Good night. I will say that we have, you may have heard me say this before, but on Saturday, May the 2nd, we'll be the next board PLC, so we've established a date for that.

It will be at University City at Jackson Park Elementary, so we've established a place and a date. And I think it's exciting that what we'll have is there's kind of these two proposals around early childhood. So we'll have them explain what's going on in the world of early childhood and this ballot initiative that you've heard me talk about. And then move on to kind of the discussions around equity and college career writing and social emotional learning, et cetera, that we have.

What time? It's from 9 to noon. 9 to noon. Saturday, May 2nd.

We'll be sending out a save the date very soon. I sent a Friday memo last week. It's in your event. Joe, is you sitting doing something in particular related to this?

Is there involvement? I thought I heard something on NPR related. Yeah, so they just happen to have the Ready by Five is one of the groups that's thinking about half a cent sales tax that would raise $84 million for early childhood. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

The school districts are doing lots of threes and fours, and in our case, twos too, but most are doing threes and fours. Anybody have anything else? Anyone want to move to adjourn? Move the board of directors.

All right, all in favor? Aye. We adjourn. Thank you.