February 19, 2020 — Meeting Transcript

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Thank you. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Right there, I guess, right? Yeah, right there.

All right, let's stand for the pledge. All right, we'll start. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, so we are going to start with recognizing our own.

There's a bunch of folks to recognize. Yes, so I'm going to go stand over there by the microphones because we're going to be announcing some names. So first of all, thank you so much for being here tonight. We are, we always at our Board of Education meetings build in opportunities to recognize students.

And tonight we have a little bit more of a larger group than we normally have. But tonight we are very excited about recognizing some of our students at Clayton High School. And before we get started with the recognition, I just want to say that one of the things we talk about in our district is the importance of having a growth mindset and focusing on effort and making sure you're working hard towards your goals. And I just want to recognize that first with our students, is that I know that in order to get here tonight, you put a lot of effort towards these goals, and it just says a lot about you.

And so I want to say thank you first for putting towards that effort. And then the other thing too is it was just so nice to talk to parents tonight and to be able just to get to interact and I want to say thank you to our parents because our parents set the tone for our students and also want to make sure that they're supporting that effort and encouraging their students to do their very best. So I just want to say thank you for being here tonight. The other thing I'm just going to clarify is after we're finished with the recognition, you are welcome to be dismissed and leave after that.

I had some parents asking about the agenda and wondering about like how long was that going to be? I was like, no, you get to leave after this part. We do ask that all the students gather in the back corner so we can do a group shot. Yes.

So, 14 Clayton High School seniors have been named semifinalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Competition, while seven CHS students were named commended students in the program. Nationally, about 3.1% of students who take the PSAT qualify for recognition. The 21 students from CHS represent 9% of the senior class, nearly three times the national average. Nationally, less than 1% of all students make the cut to become semifinalists.

CHS, Clayton High School's 14 semifinalists represent more than 6% of the class in 2020. So what we're going to do is recognize the students and we're going to ask the students to come over here to Dr. Kaczewski, who's here to represent Clayton High School. And also just on behalf of the Board of, the administration and the Board of Education, we really want to say thank you for the work and effort that you put towards this and congratulations.

So, first student, Richard Chang. So one of the things that we're going to ask you to do is just recognize your parents who are here tonight. Just let us know who's here. My mom actually isn't feeling very well.

Oh, okay. All right, so the rest of you are going to recognize me. All right, Danielle Koop Chang. Thank you.

Did you congratulate me? Yeah. Dana, can you tell who's here? No, I'm just wondering.

Ashley Chung Do you want to introduce your parents? My parents are over there. And what are their names? Okay, Borna Dianati.

Borna is not here tonight, but his parents came. Peter Humphreys. My parents are Ben and Lisa Humphreys. Cicely Crutch.

My parents are Joe Crutch and Lucy Nolthauser. Nicholas Lenz. Nicholas Lenz. I'm joined by my mother, Tracy Lenz, and my father, Ken Lenz.

Leah Levinson. Miles McCarthy. Hold up. Krish Sarasai.

Krish is here. Okay. Mary Snelling. Thank you.

My parents are mad names. Charles Steinbaum. Eric Thomason. Okay.

Bridget Walsh. So all the students are recognized for semi-finalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Competition. Now the commended students as part of this are Samuel Bernstein, I'm here with my parents, Judah, and my first name. I don't see him.

Tucker Hall. Wynn Havernack. Emilio Rosas-Lenard. I'm here with my parents, Diane Monterey.

Yes. Sanya Suh. Ju Yi Su. And Tyler Sucker.

I'm here with Kraken Beggar Sucker. So we're going to get one picture and we want to say thank you tonight. After we get the picture, you're welcome to be dismissed. Yeah, let's go take a picture too.

Come on, with them. And he like yeah Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So, the other part of our evening is we've been very intentional about Making sure we have been having board meetings in the schools. And it's an opportunity for us to recognize the great things that are happening within our schools. And so we dedicate a little bit of time each meeting to talk about something that's unique to the school. And so we have Dr.

Dan Kaczewski, who is our principal, and a few representatives from Clayton High School to talk about something innovative that they've started here at Clayton High School. Thank you. Well, good evening everyone. Thank you all for coming to Clayton High School tonight.

It's wonderful to have you. We're just going to talk for a few minutes tonight about Clayton Conversations. And Clayton Conversations is a new structure that we put in place this year that kind of helps us with a couple of our student leadership and social emotional The background of Clayton Conversations is that in surveys and student focus groups and principals advisory, students are always looking for more ways to have their voice heard actually in school decision making and in school conversations. As part of our work, we're always looking for ways to incorporate student voice into the things that we do at Clayton High School.

We do some really great things, particularly in journalism, and we have principal's advisory and a couple of other structures, but we wanted to kind of make it all-encompassing in a way. And so we started looking at ways of doing this, and then we were always also looking for ways of incorporating student leadership opportunities. And we developed this structure with the idea that it provides student leadership opportunities in a couple of ways. One, for For students to actually be part of the planning of the conversations and for two for individual students to have the opportunity to facilitate conversations within an actual classroom on a regular basis Also going back a couple of years when we look at some of our structures and one of the things that really made me think Superroportionate Proprietary and Proprietary Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Sperexpensive, comprehensive high school, build in time for building wide conversation. So what we did, we started planning last spring after our visit to Naperville. And we created this structure where the last Wednesday of each month, we have a 30 minute special period built into the schedule.

And then every student and faculty member is assigned to a family group. And so what we did is we mixed our third hour classes. And in all honesty, it was actually by proximity in the building, which gave us mixed grade level groups. The kids didn't have to travel very far.

But basically, that resulted in about a little over 50 family groups that consist of 15 to 20 students each and at least two adults. And when I say adults, it's not just teachers. We invited every adult in the building to participate, whether they be an administrative assistant or a campus supervisor. And anyone that wanted to participate was allowed to participate.

And the reason we had more than or we have at least two adults in every room is, you know, believe it or not, Even though we have some really great teachers, the different teachers have different levels of comfort leading conversations with kids. And so when you do that, there's a little bit of giving up control and not knowing what's going to happen. And the different people have different levels of comfort with that. So we were very intentional about the partnering of the adults to make sure that they were kind of a pair that complemented each other and that someone in the room would feel comfortable having that conversation or helping lead the conversation.

So that was the basic structure. Then what we did is we solicited any student in the building that wanted to participate to help plan the conversations. And so I have three students that are going to come talk to you in a little bit. So we have a student planning committee that is led by Barb Dobert and Katie Cooper and Amy Doyle, who we're going to speak to you in a little bit here.

But they plan each month and then get out kind of the lesson plan and then the kind of the structure for everyone. Then what we do is we train individual facilitators in the group. So we ask for volunteers from each of the different families to facilitate those conversations. And so basically what we've got is, you know, we literally have dozens of kids having leadership opportunities every month, facilitating conversations and students really, you know, kind of guiding the conversation.

Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Can you stand to this side here because otherwise your backside is just being strangled. Not my best side. Alright, where is this one?

Alright, well, we want to thank you guys, right? So we're really excited to kind of spearhead, I call it the, the thing is like the Clayton Conversations reboot. So during the fall semester, we got with our families, we did some community building exercises, And really, I think the second semester we really started like the heart of Clayton conversations, like really hearing student voice and students being the facilitators. So Katie and I, we've met with our advisory board that first, the kickoff of the The second semester was with the homework, Clayton conversations, and they really like, they had the great ideas and we just kind of molded it into a plan.

Do you want to? And really what we used to spark that plan was we did a thought exchange in one of the Clayton conversations in November. So we took all of the feedback that the students had given us in that thought exchange and used that with our advisory board to kind of filter through and see what was a conversation that needed to happen in January. So we use that data that we ask the students for to spark the ideas for the conversation.

And kind of like our mantra, I think, for second semester or all Clayton conversations is like, we've asked you, we've listened, and now we're responding. And so because of that, that's how Clayton conversations, the structure began. And now we're asking our students, what are important issues to you? So our next one, which is next week, and we invite you to come join us.

Would that be okay? Sure. Okay. I don't know.

So it's about, the kids took a panorama survey in fall in their science classes, and so we looked at that data, and from that we saw something that really we wanted the kids to take a look at. So that's how we kind of planned that. And then, what else? Oh, then so we trained them.

So we had, I don't know how many, like 40 kids in the auditorium, and we gave them all the Google slide presentation, we gave them a script, and said, you know, here's what we want to get out of the Clayton conversations, Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I think it's going to make this really powerful. And so we do want to have Gabby and Layla and Rosie come up. They're members of the advisory board.

So with Clayton Conversations, not only is it great that we're able to have our voices heard, those who signed up to either lead the conversations or form the conversations, We can also see that everyone who's actually participating in clading conversations and having these conversations with their peers are able to effectively change parts of the school which they see need a sort of change. So, like Ms. Dobert and Ms. Cooper pointed out, when we got feedback back from the first Clayton conversation and different surveys, we're actually able to effectively change certain parts or have proposed new ideas of how to fix problems with homework or even just ideas of what we want to talk about at our next Clayton conversation.

So, in order to do this, it lets us become, like, it lets the students really feel like their voices Okay, so adding on to what Rosie said, it not only connects students with other students, but it also kind of opens up a line of connection with other students. Students with faculty and staff, because I know that some students are uncomfortable without this being here, with talking to their teachers or their staff members, in fear of judgment from the staff members themselves or from other students. So this, or having Clayton Conversations, it doesn't force students to speak up, but it kind of motivates students and faculty members to speak up because they're placed in this intimate setting where they are motivated to speak and the objective is for them to connect even further. So I want to kind of talk about the big picture of Clayton Conversations, and I realized in the beginning of the year that a lot of people were kind of resisting some change that was happening.

Superexpensive, Boredom, and Thank you I think this is really important and in future conversations students are now motivated to really speak up about what they think because they know that it will make a change And so as a sophomore I know that as I'm a part of this advisory group I can keep leading this and kind of growing this for the next few years of the high school and really allowing students to create the change they want to see. Thank you. Does the board have any questions? No.

Thank you so much to our teachers and to our students for really articulating what it feels like to be part of the Clayton Conversations and seeing that this is a change systemically that you're making that is definitely going to have impact. And so thank you to Dr. Katuszewski for helping lead that change and being here tonight to represent it. So, yeah, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you all. It is, you know, we've made an intentional effort to go around to different schools, so it's great to hear what's going on at Clayton High School. Thank you all.

Right? We've heard from some other schools, and we'll continue to hear from others. So do we have any public comment? Okay.

All right. So we're going to move on from public comment to superintendent communication. Thank you. So, well, good evening, everyone.

Thank you so much for coming early to spend time with our families for the recognition. I know that meant a lot to our families. Before we go into our presentation tonight for our world language study, I think it's also important to recognize something else that happened over the last couple weeks here at Clayton High School. We learned that Clayton High School was nominated as a National Blue Ribbon School by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

And it was nominated as an exemplary high-performing school, which I think is incredible. And I just want to read to you a description of how they defined a National Blue Ribbon School, which I think really speaks to some of the work that's happening here. National Blue Ribbon Schools are public and non-public elementary, middle, and high schools that are producing outstanding results for all students. They have demonstrated consistent excellence and made progress in closing gaps in student achievement.

The National Blue Ribbon Award Recognition Program is a larger part of the Department of Education's effort to identify and disseminate knowledge about effective school leadership and promising instructional practices. So, I just think that it's important to recognize that while we're here in Clayton High School. And this is just the nomination because they look at our data over a period of time. There's a whole process we have to go through and actually to get the award, but we're going to follow through with it and continue towards it.

So, I was here at Clayton High School today as part of a book study. I was asked to be part of a book study with a group of three students, and as part of the English program, and we read the book Gang Leader for a Day. And I just wanted to say it was just incredible first to read this book and also then to have a substantive conversation with our students about it. And I loved how the students were making connections with the book and to the context of living in St.

Louis. And it was just an incredible experience. And I mention that because we have wonderful things happening within our high school and throughout all of our schools. But one of them is our conference English program.

Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage curriculum review, and I want to commend Milena because she's not only serving as the assistant superintendent, but she's also serving as the coordinator of the world languages this year, and so she's going to be the only presenter tonight. And so I also just want to recognize the world language teachers who are here to support this and really appreciate the work that you put towards that.

So in a few moments we going to start that but first I want to go to Adam and see if he has any updates that he wants to share with the board Yeah so I wanted to talk a little bit about next steps with the student representative process and the district advisory council So at our meeting on Tuesday because we didn have school on Monday we talked a little bit about what are the next steps moving forward And so there are two ideas, and we've been talking about them. I've talked a little bit about it with Dr. Doherty and with the district advisory council. And so for the District Advisory Council specifically, we'll probably start elections coming within the next month or two is what we're going to try to do.

And our guess is that most of the students will probably want to continue, but the application will be open to anyone who would like to apply. And hopefully students will want to continue and go throughout their years. Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Hopefully we'll have a student representative chosen by mid-April is the goal that we've set in mind, the District Advisory Council.

And we have two ideas for continuing this process that we're still working with and talking to some folks about. One is the idea of having two student representatives. So one would be a senior and one would be a junior. They would alternate board meetings, which would mean that they would serve the same amount of time.

But in the end, the benefits for this would be continuity. The other would be more time for relationships and building a relationship with the board. And then the last would be an immediate alternate position. And so in all honesty, most likely the senior representative as moving into second semester would really step off the gas and have the junior representative take more of that leadership role and continue to work their second semester of junior year.

That's one idea. The other idea would be to have the student representative. So next year I would serve as a past member, a term that we would use, and that the student representative would then move over to the district advisory council to help lead that, which would then create separation between the district advisory council and the student representative process. And then we also think that the benefits of that will want to separate those processes a little bit, and then also to really have maintained one voice.

So those are the ideas that we're throwing around and completely open to suggestions. So let me know. That's what we're working on right now. Awesome.

Thank you. Okay, so I think we're going to move to the World Language and Cultures Curriculum Self-Study Year 2. It's an information item, as I remind everybody. And what I will also remind everybody, and I've told some of you as we were coming in, this is a packed agenda that could make us go very long if we talk a lot.

And so there may be some times where I'm going to facilitate the conversation to be a little more directed. Just telling you that. Please, Melaina. Hi.

Good evening. I wanted to acknowledge the world language teachers who are here. Sean acknowledged them. Gwen Hutchinson is the Spanish teacher at Glenridge.

Heather Moody, the Spanish teacher at Merrimack. Elizabeth Caspari, French teacher at the high school. Vicki Ferris, Spanish teacher at the high school. Pamela Skater, Latin teacher at the high school.

I think that's everyone. Oh, and Janelle Dansky serves as assistant principal at the high school and also department chair at the high school for the World Language Department. So when we came to you last year, at this time we came with three proposed areas of focus. One was around increasing student engagement and proficiency, and at that time we were really thinking about centering primarily around really one pedagogical structure, comprehensible input.

Another one was around long-term study, so both the idea of start early and stay long, but also the ideas from our enduring understandings that are listed there. So thinking about learning about other cultures and how it benefits us as individuals as well as our society. And then strategies that are used to acquire a language or transferable to other areas of learning throughout life. And then our third big area that we were looking at at that time was what we called at that time a program audit.

But so thinking about sort of a deep dive into what we teach and the focus of our courses all the way from first grade through 12th grade. So when we came to the table at that time what we heard from you While there was an appreciation for the focus on linguistic and cultural competence, there was a lot of question about how would we measure that. And then an appreciation for our focus on proficiency in language but a wondering about what was our place and our role within district curricula So as a whole were we considered core or were we considered electives And how did we fit within the bigger picture So we took that information and feedback from you and generated then these three goal areas that we feel like the feedback from you was really helpful to us in being able to sort of center more on what we were planning So the first thing was we were able to zoom out from comprehensible input and really consider our current pedagogical practices and our desire to explore other pedagogical practices that would empower students to play with language and help them to use language in purposeful and meaningful ways. So where I think we were too far zoomed in on one strategy, pulling back out to say really what are the ways, like what are the best practice ways to help students to interact with language and use language in purposeful ways.

The idea of an increase of linguistic and cultural competence. As a department, we decided to commit to awarding students the seal of biliteracy. We asked you for the endorsement of that seal. This endorsement for students allows them to be recognized for their proficiency both in English as well as another language.

And it's recognized by colleges and universities as well as future places of employment. So within that endorsement, students are assessed using the Apple assessment. So that was an easy, like the linguistic assessment piece was kind of an easy fit for us. The map is used for their proficiency in English.

And then as a component of that endorsement, students are required to complete a cultural competence piece, which could look like further study of another culture. It could look like further study of a culture, its people, its communities, etc. Or it could look like community service within community service. Thank you.

And to recognize their competence in other ways. So not just what we see within a classroom and within a traditional classroom setting, but thinking about ways to expose children to language, expose children to culture, and then thinking things like dual credit, different ways of being able to acknowledge their proficiency. And then our third goal is really continuing to be a deep dive into the curriculum that we offer, but really this goes hand in hand with that first goal. And really thinking along with the pedagogy comes the content that we teach and looking at how we can live our philosophy of start early and stay long while also holding students to high expectations.

So then when we think about how we're going to look different, this slide might look familiar to you because it's similar to the slide that we used with the library. Thank you. These communication skills need to be evident in all areas of communication. So when you think about world language instruction, we focus really in three areas.

The interpersonal, the interpretive, and the presentational. And those are all important to us. The linguistic and cultural competence will obviously in the profile allow us to focus on cultural competence, so cultural competency. And then learners will better understand their own world view, appreciate diversity of opinions, and demonstrate positive attitudes towards cultural differences.

Also, there would be a focus around empathy. So by demonstrating compassion, kindness, respect, and understanding for others in the work that they do within our classrooms and beyond our classrooms. And then within the world language standards, you really start to see it within connections and communities. So connections is that idea of making connections between my culture and my understanding and the cultures of others.

And then communities being able to understand the workings of other people and other communities. And then our last goal around curriculum, we really feel like this is going to encompass this idea of personalized learning. So the idea of focusing in the areas of intellectually curious and creative thinker. So as we get to a more personalized learning approach, we can really focus on that.

And then this one actually encompasses all of the five C's. So it's a much more comprehensive look at those world language standards within our classrooms and beyond. Thank you. Does anybody have any clarifying questions?

From Melaina. Hi. Okay, go ahead, Stacy. Thank you, Melaina.

So, a couple questions. I know that teachers would probably agree with this, and it's mentioned in the document, but that early instruction of foreign languages is so important to the learning, that have we ever, I'm sure we have, but I don't know the reason behind it, discussed either starting In kindergarten or even bringing like some program to the family center for world languages. I know like LeDoux Early Childhood has Spanish and several other early childhood programs too, so I don't know if that's been considered as part of the program. Right.

I feel like the different iterations of looking at programming have, like yes, we have explored those. I think any one of the people sitting here would say yes, let's do it. It becomes, you know, a little bit more complex when we think about staffing, when we think about programming for kindergarten children, etc. But I think we would continue to want to explore things like that.

Yeah, and I don't know, like, we do also start in our own town, but Ann has it in kindergarten. I don't know if maybe then in elementary their total minutes of weekly minutes aren't as much because the same teacher's being stretched or, I don't know. And then I had a question about the seal of biliteracy. Do we determine the qualifications or is that a state?

So the state sets some parameters around it, and there's actually two levels of it. So there's like a traditional seal and then there's a distinguished. But the levels are essentially set by the state. Except for the cultural competence piece, that piece, they give us some guidelines, but we determine sort of how we approach that.

Kristen? It's following on that. The cultural competency portion of that, did that, was that where you talked about the service? It's a possibility.

In the place of what the way the language is spoken. I love that, because I think that goes to our strategic plan. And I think when we think about, like, as we were thinking about branching into the seal of biliteracy, we were thinking, what's the first initial step for us to take with it? And then how can we grow that over time?

So this first group going through, that's probably not going to be an opportunity for them, So we're looking at ways to handle the cultural competence piece within the classroom this first year, but I think we are open to ideas of ways to grow that for children as they can start to think about it sooner in their career. Amy. I just have a quick question. Thank you for the presentation.

It was great. So with respect to the cultural competency, for some of the, sometimes we offer the opportunity that kids will get to go, like a teacher will take them to another country, right, wherever, I don't know exactly where. Do we have a mechanism in place for our free and reduced lunch kids so if they want to come to the I'm not sure if you want to be able to participate in something like that. Yeah, so some of the trips in the most recent future have done some fundraising kinds of efforts.

And so, like, working as a community together to figure out how are we going to get ourselves there. Amazing. Thank you. The District Advisory Council was curious about why Chinese and Latin start in seventh grade and not sixth grade, and just what the difference is.

Right. So as a department, we've had some conversation about this most recently. And one of the things that we talked about was like the number of options that children have and when do those options open up as well as like an age appropriateness kind of piece in the way that we teach some of the languages. So Chinese, like the Chinese teachers talked about really wanting to wait until seventh grade to be able to like have a solid foundation just in school in general before approaching, because that's a pretty complex language.

Yeah. So they felt pretty comfortable with sticking with the seventh grade start for that. It is something that Jamie, Jordan, and I have been in conversation about. Like, what does the future of language look like at the middle school?

And what are the options to students as they come in? Yeah, I think, yeah, the big thing was just if, I know a lot of, one of the things that a lot of the members brought up was going into French for one year and then switching out. Just wondering about what's the, you know, if there's a way to reduce that. So that is changed for next year.

There is an option that, like, if you know coming into sixth grade that you're going to want to start in Chinese in seventh grade or whatever, that Jamie's put some things in place to allow children to not have to do that, like, one year of French and then move in. Awesome Any other questions Thank you Melina Thank you Okay so we are going to move to our first study item which is the Board of Education onboarding So yeah everybody Barb put it your seats should actually have a printout You can look at it electronically but the latest and greatest as of 5 or 5 today right everybody should have a printout So you may want to get that Just to, for reference, I want to say a couple things about this. So I am quite certain that this is a topic that we could talk about for hours. I'm going to actually limit our conversation to 40 minutes.

So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to, and this is how we're going to structure it. We're going to start, and each of us is going to spend two to three minutes, if you want, right? I'm literally going to keep time here. Superroportionate, explaining what it is you did in your section, right?

So if you want to just say, hey, I left it the same, or you want to say something, great, but in your sections. That's how we're going to start. So that'll be the first about 20 minutes. The next 20 minutes, we're going to get through as much as we can, but we may not get through it all.

And it's okay if we don't, because I'm going to ask you to do two things. One, if you have comments that we don't get to, and you want to submit them to Amy and I, please do. And second, as Amy and I really thought about this, the reality is we're going to have a new board, right? We're going to have a couple new board members.

So we're going to take it back up, right, with the new board. So we're going to have some kind of, so that's kind of going to be our structure. And so I'm going to, and so the order, by the way, is going to be Joe, Kristen, Jason, Amy, Gary, Stacy, Lily, just as I look at the colors, right, of kind of who's going to go in terms of their sections, okay? So I'm going to model.

So the sections I had were the introduction, the board introduction, the communication with superintendent, and committee expectations. So I'm just going to speak to just give you all highlights of what I put in there. And actually, Sean put in a little bit, too, so I'm going to cheat and incorporate his piece, too. I want to make sure you don't go over your time.

Yeah, please do. Thank you. I appreciate it, Amy. Good.

So in the introduction and background, I think what's key here is putting in some of the governance core stuff, right? So you would see that from what the other, you know, the book that we read, right? There's some governance core pieces in here in terms of you can't function, we can't function by ourselves, how we act, et cetera. So what's on board docs right now, right, that people have access to is not the newest version.

It's not? Okay. But it should be in our Google Docs. It is.

It's in the drive. That was being edited. Well, because I pulled up what's on the board docs. So we need to be in the drive to see what's in the docs.

Yep, yep. Thank you. That's a good point. And I will change it tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.

So that's one piece. I think the second piece, right, which would be under kind of the board orientation is, I think that it's important not only for the board, but quite honestly, we have some of the candidates, right, as I look out in the audience. It's important for the candidates to pay attention to this stuff, too, because as you run as a candidate, when you come on the board, it matters how you act, right, as a candidate. So I would just say I added a bullet about that too, suggesting candidates pay attention to this onboarding and the behavior here too.

The communication with the superintendent, if I skip to that section, which was my next one, because it's a board protocol, I didn't change it. I think we all talked about that at some point we could loosen it up a bit, but I didn't do that. I'll just share with you. And then the final piece that I did was around, it said committee and expectations, but it's really committee expectations.

You know, the role of a board member on a committee is to go and represent the board, not necessarily their own personal opinion on a committee, and to come back and report back to the committee. So that's kind of what I write. And we have various committees that between the board president and superintendent, each person gets assigned to each year. So that's my piece.

Okay? So next is Kristen. You want to speak to your pieces? Sure.

So my first was the board member roles and responsibilities and just tried to reiterate some of the things that we've talked about as a group. You don't want me to read all these, right? I just want to highlight some of them. So, mainly the idea that we hire the superintendent and he's responsible for the day-to-day operations.

We're responsible for helping to set the vision and holding him accountable. So those big picture responsibilities that we speak as one voice And so when we directing work we have to reach a majority consensus when directing and clarifying for information research that would require more time One of the things I thought was important was that we have an opportunity to tour the buildings to see what's happening in the classrooms and seeing the curriculum in motion and that that I think is a responsibility for us to take advantage of so that we aren't just sitting around talking around a table, but we're actually able to see the work in the classrooms. And I don't know if this was the right place to do this, but I did talk about that board members are really not allowed to just go into buildings on their own and to meet with teachers or to meet with administrative or staff just on their own. And unless it's specific to their own child's need when you're acting as an advocate for your own child as a parent, not as a board member.

So really being clear about that, because I think maybe there's not a misunderstanding of that when we first come on to the board about that. My second one was executive session. This really goes to just the idea of the confidentiality and recognizing that it's our responsibility to know that when we have those meetings Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. Aren't just a simple majority in executive session that you have to have a five-two, like for real estate, and that may not be apparent to people when they first come on.

Oh, and, a big one, that the content has to stay within the executive agenda. The content, we can't just talk about whatever we want. And then I had a discussion during meetings. Are we allowed to ask each other questions?

I want to do them first and then we'll come back because I think otherwise we'll just get caught up in them. Okay, okay, that's okay. Yep, yep. Okay, sorry.

So then, oh, during the meetings, somehow it's not in here quite right, is it? Oh. Oh my gosh, well there's a lot in that one. I think the biggest thing about this is the idea of being professional and modeling Robert's rules of order.

Spervantage, Pursuit, and How we facilitate the meetings with the board president leading ideas about being prepared and actively engaged in meetings. And then the email communication to the entire board, we already went over that. That was a really good answer. Great.

Nothing to add there. Great. Jason. Yeah, so my section was board members listening to concerns from the community.

So, I was, first, my first objective was to see where the inefficiencies were in the bullets before I started adding stuff. So, I consolidated a few things, as you can see. I'm going to roll one, sorry. And then, of course, I was looking for, like, just minor edits, like, you know, language, words, et cetera.

Okay. And then, let's see. Yeah, I mean, that's really, I don't want to read each one, but then. Yeah, that's it.

So, I mean, yeah, I mean, you all can read it. We'll go through it by detail. I don't want to go through too much detail. And then, another section was, get to it.

Oh here it is Eight right Yeah Yeah so in speaking with one voice I was trying to wrap my head around what that meant exactly So I want to make sure I understand what the team had put together on this as a lot. So I struck out a few things and consolidated like the last two points. We can go through that in detail. But I mean, just in particular, one bullet reads, we recognize that the superintendent is accountable to the school board individual, school board individual, school, I can't even read this stuff that I write.

Thank you. I did board interactions and behavioral expectations and I didn't add a whole lot. It's pretty self-explanatory what I added. It's highlighted in red.

I added, you know, we can talk about it. I even put a parenthetical, let's discuss, that we will not push our own personal agendas. And I also added that we will not disparage other board members or discuss personal disputes in public. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory.

No surprises at meetings. I didn't really add anything. And the same with preparing for board meetings. I added just a few little tweaks, but nothing earth-shattering.

So, if anybody has any questions, we have to wait on them. Yeah. Yeah. So, Gary.

Okay, so number eight, request for information slash questions. A lot of the language here was, I was actually trying to make it consistent, like starting with board members rather than we, which I realize now isn't consistent throughout the entire document. Yeah, I made that note too. So, we've synthesized that.

I also realized, I think the way I did this shows my lack of sophistication with Google Docs because the strikeouts aren't here, it's only the new. But this is what I mean for it to say in the end, it just doesn't show you what I struck out. Board members will direct questions, I think it was just a little bit more passive voice, I think that was the last point there where it's adding if significant resources are required to provide a response. I think that was just sort of reiterated from one of the points above.

I think I made that so it wasn't duplicative. But I tried to bring a little bit more focus to the balance of the process between when the superintendent receives the communication and deciding how much time can be devoted to it in the context of the current work demands and needs for the district. So that's number eight. The other one was number 14, board member voting or action on agenda.

I think this also doesn't show any strikeouts, but I think it was actually not any. I added unless otherwise dictated by policy or statute to this reference of when a vote is taken upon measure with the majority of votes cast determines. As Kristen alluded to, there are sometimes in statute of policy where we require essentially a supermajority vote, so I just thought it's helpful to have that reference there. And I think that was the only change.

Okay, awesome. Stacy? Okay, my first one was protocol for placing items on the agenda. I really only changed here some semantics and not anything of substance.

But to Gary's point, I did want to bring up when we finalized this that some of these are in first person and some of these are in third person and we need to be consistent. Yep. So my other one was to add a new one about, which is at the very end, number 20, advocating for your child, that we recognize that many of us may also have children in our schools and that we may need to or want to advocate. For our children's needs at school, but like any district parent, we need to go through the chain of command.

And that it's inappropriate for us to ever use our board position to intimidate or pressure any staff member we're meeting with when we're advocating for a child. I thought that was a good starting point. Yep. Lily?

So I have engaged the community. All I did there was add, we commit to attending and participating in our district liaison board representative positions, to which we are assigned so that we remain informed and accessible to the community. Make sense to everybody? And then the other one is continuing education.

What I did there was added National School Board Association as well as MSBA was already in there. And then some, we can reword the way it's written, but the idea, the last point is, no, I'm sorry, the second to the last point is that the idea of us being able to share with each other relevant information like articles, books, videos, Which will be made available. I think what we've been doing as our practice is, well, it's more recent, but sharing it with you and then you can put it on the Friday memo so everybody has it. So you just want us to go through our two things right now.

Yeah. Okay. So thank you everybody for going through that. I think, I don't, I read it again at about, I don't know, 5.30 myself, and I actually think the document is coming together, so I thank you everybody for everybody's work.

I mean, I understand it's not perfect, and we're going to go talk about it more, but I will say I was impressed, right? You know, having looked at it, I don't know, over the weekend, and then looking at it again today, I was like, wow, it's really coming together. Again, not perfect, but I think it's made a lot of progress, so thank you for everybody's input. So I think what I'd like to do now is literally just go by section by section and see how many we can get done.

I know that we're not going to get to 20 sections. This is not going to happen, right, because I'm sure. And maybe what we can try to do is not get into the, we know we need to clean it up and do some punctuation, put it in, you know, the right tense and the right, you know, kind of person. Maybe we don't have to focus on all the words there to take our time, more the concepts.

So let's just start. Does anybody have any? Yeah, go ahead. Just a big picture.

Thank you. So I was just wondering, I know that we sort of started this from scratch, but I know that Barb has an orientation booklet, and maybe you guys already did this, and so I'm backtracking here, but just double-checking with some of the things that are on there that we may have missed. So we took that, and we actually didn't start this from scratch. We stole from other districts across the country.

So it's a blend. So it was taking some of those pieces and some things that other folks already do and then kind of put it in there for a starter. That's what we did. Now, did we miss something?

Like, so for instance, I think there's, like on the summary sheet, we had referenced the board ethics document, but maybe it's not in here yet. So, I mean, there's some things I think that we need to incorporate still. But to the extent that we found them and didn't make a mistake, they are in there. So, are you referring to online when you could click on the link and it would take us to the...

No, there was a binder that we had and I actually went through the whole binder today because there are things that are missing out of here that we would. So an example with like in the binder, we had all the policies that were related to the board. And then there was also information about Sunshine Law. And so there is a lot of other documents that we're going to have to cross reference that are with that binder.

I think that when we're thinking about protocols, these are like maybe like actionable things, but there's a lot in that binder that we still need to look at. That is going to be important. And so the other thing is that we're having MSBA come for the first night. And so they are, when we have our orientation, and they're going to take items out of that document.

You will get another binder with some of the information that's in there, but they also going to cover some of those things that are more legally related What I want to say that I think is really awesome is when it electronic and you have some of these things that are linked into the verbiage, and when we were able to go on, I'm not sure where it was, but I went on and clicked on things, and it took me to the curriculum maps for our different curricular areas, and it took me to different documents. And that kind of quick access will be so helpful when new people are coming on. So we're going to do that. We're going to move it to an electronic mode.

Because the other thing that happens is it makes it easier for us to update it when you don't have to print a new document. Really, when a binder is, it's overwhelming and scary. And I would be surprised if board members have actually read it. We're going to take it to the 21st century.

Yeah, thank you. That's my big picture. I read the whole thing from front to back five times. Of course you did, but you're the anomaly.

Lily, did you have a process? Yeah, go ahead. So I added reference to the binder in there, so we'll get to that. But I have a question about, and I didn't think of it until today when I was thinking of the comments.

I really have a question about, maybe this is for you, Sean, whether we should or can even do things on Google Docs. Because it seems like we're, it seems like it might be not working with the Sunshine Law because we're actually sharing, you know, especially with comments. Oh, like seven people at a time. Yeah, we're doing something that's not public.

I mean, we're talking about it now, but I looked at your comment, you know, I don't know. I didn't look at anybody else. Sometimes we're all on there at the same time and you can actually chat through it and stuff. Well I saw, Sean was on that I could have chatted with him.

I just don't know, I think we've got to find out whether Google Docs can be used by everyone. That's a great question. So one thing to that point, remember that there are rules about public open access meetings Are there rules about documentations and Sunshine Laws that govern documents? So documents include emails, the same reason an email between us as board members becomes subject to Sunshine Laws and record retention laws.

It's open meetings. I meant open meetings. So open meetings, I think, is, you know, you're having a meeting if you're meeting more than three people and making decisions about things. Exchanging information and communication needs to be documented and recorded.

And certainly we want to check this with MSBA or with the attorneys. But I think there's two buckets. There's open meetings and there's communications and documentation. So that's it.

I think it's a fair question. Anybody have any broad picture things or can we just dig in? And then I added one other broad that you all might have seen. I mean, I suggest we add a section on agenda setting meetings so that people know who's there and what the purpose is.

And maybe even within that, saying something about, I hope that you guys do this, is that sometime at a retreat, the whole board talks about the agenda for the year. So that the entire board has some input into what's going to be on the agenda. And then the president or president and vice president actually go to agenda setting meetings and what happens there. Yep.

And then I also would suggest that this came up in one of our retreats, so we can think about this. We have something about communication between ourselves at the meeting, and what about discussions in meetings, discussions outside of meetings. And, you know, whether and how we want to do that. Okay.

Or not do that. Yep. Can I ask? It's big picture.

That's fine. And also a little bit of detail. Can you state the picture and then we'll start with the sections? No, no, it's just kind of a big picture.

So one thing I was thinking about was, I mean, I think we can, some of this stuff is, as you know, redundant. So I don't want to get into like, I know you all put together this document and you're like, yo, don't go into like how we wrote third and first person. But what I do want to say is I think that some of this stuff could be in a summary. Right, so let me just, this is like the, we're going to manage expectations about what you should know up front, how you should operate, and then kind of go into the sections, right?

And then that also will also minimize some of the sections. But I was also thinking from a bigger picture as well, which was, I want to make sure we're all on the same page about what onboarding is. Because I think my perspective of what onboarding is might be a little bit different So what I thinking about is it kind of a cheat sheet to get the new elected official ready for the first day right That's kind of how I was looking at it. So some of these things are standard operating procedures.

I know a lot of this stuff is cultural as well. But then we start to get off into the micromanaging side of the things. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. What do you mean when you say bicultural?

Oh, so like, um, like, sort of the one voice thing, but even more so than that, but like, um, for example, um, let's see, um, I'm just looking because I don't really remember every part, but like, um, I don't remember exactly. Well, I can answer your question while you're looking. Well, sorry, while thinking or looking. I think it's some of both.

And I think one of the realizations I will say I had is I just happened to have board-oriented sections I had was it's actually not when you start as a board member. It's actually when you start a campaign. It's relevant even because as you run a campaign, it will influence how you sit at the table. So I think it's actually before you get to the table, I mean, there's stuff in here that's relevant.

So I guess I would say. And I agree. So philosophically, I get that. I just want to make sure we're not conflicting because what happens is this can end up being a broad document.

It goes back to what I think some points you all have made early on about some of the documents that have been created. It starts off as X, and then we start to expound into something really, really large, big, and encompassing almost everything that we're all thinking. But we're trying to get it down to one thing. I just want to make sure we're on the same page.

Our goal is to make sure that if there are three new board members, right, can they, on the first day, the first meeting that is, will they know the protocols? Will they know how to engage? Will they know how to, how, what's the little thing? Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Did a pretty good job. How do we narrow it down to a document for onboarding? I think to me it seemed like it, because I remember what you said why we were doing it, you know, that this let's back up from the protocols and just kind of talk bigger picture and not have this be too long. And I think what I noticed over time, because I started doing it a little, you know, whatever Saturday or whatever, but to me it started that way and I think it's gotten a little bit more micro Micro, and I do question, I think it's good to reference where we have protocols, because this isn't a protocol, right?

This is not a protocol. That's right. Okay, so where we have protocols, yeah, we could be really specific, maybe repeating it or not, but I think it does jump from, like, the micro level to the really, really general, either philosophical, kind of the spirit of what we do and how we should do it. And that's what I just noticed happened to it, that it got a little bit, and some areas are very specific, and we could be specific in every area, but it's just only those areas where I, my guess, from what I read, is areas where people have had problems.

Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried know It just started to get that kind of behave right micro kind of stuff So, can I speak to that? Yeah, please. I would say that, what I would say is that when we think about the orientation part of this and how we're, you know, what are the biggest priorities that we need to focus on when someone comes on to the board? And those big pictures, like it's almost like the funnel.

Spervantage, Pursuit, and And so that is going to be part of that. I think that right now you sometimes have to go through this part to make sure we also have the resources that are going to help people be successful down the road too, where they're not going to overstep or do something that is going to maybe be a misstep or something. But I would agree with you. We have to make sure that we think the positive aspect of that and think big.

And one of the big priorities when someone's being onboarded. I think you just made a really good point. So you're saying like the philosophy should, a little bit of how we, or what our goal is as a board should be in there, philosophically. How we're going to move forward, how we're going to engage one another and create policy and directives, right, for example.

I think that is true. So I think maybe you're right, not maybe you're right, I think you're saying something that's very true. And it does have a little bit of that in here. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Confidentiality and things like that. There's going to be some certain priorities. I think some of these that do focus on behavior really could be protocols instead of onboarding. But I actually think another immediate thing, if this is like a true orientation, is a section on just like meeting structure alone.

Like what's the difference between a study item, an information item, an action item, and in which of those do we have discussions versus voting or do we Just ask clarifying questions. That would have helped me. I still think that's murky sometimes. So just definitions of some of that I think would help with an orientation too.

Go ahead. So I agree. I mean, I totally agree with what Lily's saying, and I understand. I was viewing this as a document also that was kind of a guide for people that are interested in running, And that's why, and so for me, that was kind of with some of the behavioral expectations.

I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, a lot of people don't know what we do or what is expected. And so I thought that it would act as a resource for just a big overall resource that we have that would explain kind of who we are, what we do, what our expectations. And to the extent that it's micro, I mean, it might be in some respects. I don't know.

I'm certainly not opposed to making it a bigger picture and adding some stuff or deleting some stuff at all. I don't think that, I'm not saying we delete. I think there are really good items in here. I just think that we have to think about what are the biggest priorities when someone's being onboarded.

Right. And then I think that this document really is coming together as a resource. Well, and I think, too, that what the, you know, the challenge of having a lot of voices is that it's also, I mean, so that's good in terms of being as inclusive. But when you have a bunch of voices in a document, obviously it's not going to be consistent, right?

Obviously, some are going to go high level, some are going to go low level, some are going to use we, some are going to use the board. That, that's, so that is going to happen. And remember where we started. We started because we had some problem behavior.

I mean, we didn't, just hold on a sec. We started with this, right? We were trying to go big picture, but we started with a couple of protocols, right? Because we had some challenges, right?

We're also maybe trying to mix too many different things, right? Because we started in the micro, like we've got to address this, and then we've tried to incorporate that in. So maybe we need to separate it. Yeah, and that's what I gathered.

That's what I gathered. It started from one thing, and then we're trying to create this document, and then we're all trying to think about, because we're all influenced by whatever's happening in our world. We've got friends who are running. We're getting questions that are being asked about what does it entail.

We got the problematic issues that were taking place. We got a lot of stuff, how we do board meetings and the feedback that we're getting. All is happening in this first draft. But I do think that we kind of need to all make a decision without even having to go deep dive into this.

Because actually, like you said, like Kristen said earlier, that she noticed that she was enamored with, which is the hyperlinks. Some of this stuff can actually be put into a hyperlink without having to even delete it. So if we want to go into this other part about the do's and don'ts, then hit the hyperlink and it will expound. And then you can read that and then you can go from there.

But it can still be that first day I'm ready to hit the scene because I know rules of engagement. And I think this is what that document can provide us if you are on the same board. So what I will say is what's going to happen is, so we've talked a lot about the process in the big picture and we haven't gone through any sections and it's 823. We spent 45 minutes, by the way, talking about this.

And so I'm going to make a suggestion that people send their either make or note within the notes or send your comments to Amy and I because we're just, we're not going to be able to go through 20 sections. It's not going to happen, right? If you want to spend another five minutes talking about the big picture, fine with that. But I don't, quite honestly, I don't think it's worth getting into three different sections or whatever we get to and take another half an hour or 45 minutes and then have to cut it off.

I think what we've done is great. This has been very valuable, and we've all had an opportunity to get input on things. I didn't think we were finishing this tonight anyway. The only other thing I would want to add is that just from my years as superintendent, We've done different things for orientations over the year, and I don't know if it's fair to different board members.

Like one year we're going to do something, a real intense orientation, and then one year we're like, oh, let's do it individualized. And I think that having that consistency, it's fair to the board members so that way they feel like when they come to the first meeting, they feel like they have the, they know their role, they know they feel more informed. And I just want to make sure we're setting people up to be successful. You know, I think one of the things you talked to a few board members about is that idea of you guys considering having mentors.

Yeah. I think that's a great idea. That it really, it really, you know, whether it's a current board member, a past board member, a few, two, you know, so they don't get bogged down in the content and the perspective of whoever's their mentor. But, you know, that might be really helpful to people.

I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Me too. I think that's a great idea.

Okay, thank you. Again, you could go into the document or you could send, if you wish, anything to Amy and I and we are going to have another go at it. So where are we going? Google Docs or are you going to wait to get a response?

I'll find out about it. I think we're, what Gary said, I think we're okay. We're transferring information. If anybody wanted to request this information, we'd have to provide it to them, but I will double check with them in eternity.

But you're thinking about more than one person being on it at the same time. And if there is like three or more people, does that become a board meeting? So don't go into Google Docs yet until we get the answer. I'll tell you what I'm thinking.

And then we'll figure it out. But I do want to compliment the board again and thank you. I really think it is a good step forward. Not perfect, a really good step forward to that level of consistency Thank you.

The next item that we're planning as a study item is policy JHC. Again, as you all know, MSBA periodically releases updates. With JHC two of the major highlights are that it is asking for school districts who do provide information about influenza or influenza vaccinations that they provide information that identical or similar to the information published by the CDC It also adds in a provision allowing for staff to share information about how a family can access health insurance. Since the time that this was posted as a study item, I got additional information from MSBA regarding the Health Advisory Council, which is mentioned at the top of page three.

And for some of you who are familiar with our wellness policy, the wellness policy includes another committee that's focused on wellness, and that particular committee is required by federal law. In contrast, the School Health Advisory Council is actually not required by law, but is a recommended entity to have in place. So based on that new information, one additional edit I would suggest is that at the top of page three, adjusting the word will work to may work. Anything else for us on this?

Anybody have any questions or comments on this policy? This being J.H.C.? Okay, thank you very much. So I think you might be up again, yeah?

Yes. I'd like to move on to policy JHCD, which talks about Narcan being available as an emergency medication in our school buildings, as well as some more specific language related to products that include CBD oils. You'll notice that our additional edits are in green. And I would like to, in our editing process, I just wanted to bring it to your attention.

On page six, we've struck a paragraph there, and actually that last sentence, the when applicable sentence, that should have also been struck in the editing, because it's a little bit confusing the way it's currently presented of kind of a mixed message around CBD-based products. Anybody have any questions on this one? Interesting color choice. And I feel like this is not super easy.

That is fair feedback. And in the original posting, some of the edits did not get, yeah, got erroneously presented in the scan. And so we have corrected it since then, but that is absolutely fair feedback. And we will be working on that in the future.

Yeah, I just want to, one of the things I just think it's important for the board to know, and we're working, trying to work through this system, is that when we get these documents from MSBA, they're not in Word or like Google, they're in PDF. We have to then turn them into another document, and what happens is the formatting changes, so it is not the most, it's not the easiest. So we are, our staff is really working to be thoughtful about making sure all these highlights and strikeouts are, so we are working with them to try to see if that can be improved. Because the amount of policies that are coming, there's...

It's a policy service. I mean, like, that's actually kind of the point. Right. So we're working with them, but I just want to, sometimes, like, this time when we were scanning it, it scanned black and white versus the color.

And so we replaced that with the color version. It looks like it's off on a minion. There are other services out there if we don't want to use that. Are we concerned about the legalization of marijuana?

CBD is becoming more prevalent. In this document for example it seemed like it was very complicated around that with the school and talking about it Did you have any complexities having to deal with that around Yeah I did consult with our attorney to get feedback on it And I think I would summarize it as, you know, medical marijuana, while legal in the state of Missouri, is not legal federally. And so to be allowing that type of product on school property would actually be in violation of the Drug-Free Schools Act. That's a federal crime, right?

So we're in a little bit of, not just the school district of Clayton, all public school districts are really kind of in uncharted territory as it relates to CBD products. And particularly what makes it complicated is the quality control as it relates to CBD products. Right. And so it's a little unclear at this point, but it's certainly something that we have to take into account with this type of policy as well as the influence it has on other policies.

It also, it says in here the district will not administer any medication that is not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And I got to say that there's got to be things that, like the essential oils, I mean, CBD, all that stuff can't be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. So that seemed like, I don't know, the way I read it seemed like we can't do it, but if it's been prescribed by a physician, then we can.

Yeah, and there's currently one medication that is FDA approved that does have CBD included in the ingredients. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I did, but I can't, I had a note that I wrote that I wanted to change from page four. There would be use of word required, and I thought we should change it to permitted.

But then I couldn't find the word, because I, so. Okay. Anyway. Other district, it says other district personnel may be required to administer medications.

Is this what you're talking about? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I thought we should change that word to permitted. I think there can be situations where it's hard to require that, and so I just think that's a really strong word to use in that context.

Sorry, Amy, can you help me? Which page are you on? I'm sorry. Page four.

Nurses and other personnel. The top paragraph. Yeah, it says other district personnel may be required to administer medications to a student as long as they have been appropriately trained and are supervised by an RN. So I thought that we should change the word required to permitted.

Okay. And then the other thing that we should look at, Robin, is that so there was this like indemnity language down here in accordance with the law. So it was, the way this reads right now from a legal standpoint, it's like we're in, the school district can't really be sued if the nurse is administering medication in good faith, but then it's a little bit fuzzy if that, yeah, if like the nurse that designates somebody. So, I think that conceivably we can still be subject to litigation if, you know, the nurse appoints somebody else or the nurse's trained appointee.

I don't think that that indemnity language covers that situation. Okay. Or that it should, maybe. Right.

So, I think that's just something we need to flush out. We either need to go with just the nurse administers it or the indemnity language should specifically cover both situations. And the indemnity language I'm talking about is, it says in accordance with law, any trained or qualified employee will be held harmless and immune from, that's the language I'm talking about. Which what that really means is that those people will be held harmless by the district.

So we want to define that pretty carefully. Right, right, right. Sorry if we're being nitpicky. No, that's what you're supposed to do.

That's why we're here. Just to process maybe a little bit Jo Thank you lawyers Correct me if I wrong but this is not a policy that we have to change on any prescribed time frame It not in response to a change in the law that requires it to be implemented by a certain time right Yes, this one was not. Maybe with respect to the denseness and some of the formatting challenges, we may not be done with this on first reading. That's a good point.

Great point. I'm not sure we need to come back and I'll be comfortable. If we wanted to take a little bit more time. Like that language where it says any trained or qualified employee will be held harmless.

So conceivably, the person that the nurse says give this child the medication, that person, because that is not really a trained or qualified employee. That person doesn't fall within that language. Do you see what I'm saying? And that has to track with other indemnity language.

Right. Yeah, this reads like it's going to be a problem going forward for MSBA as we start to go through this iteration of legalization and what's permitted and what's not FDA approved, so, yeah. Well, it is a little mess right now. Yeah.

The different elements say well, no doubt about that for everybody. So can I make a suggestion that, if the board is available to that, is having us put a pause on this one, take the suggestions and questions that you brought up, go back to it again, and then see if there's, and we can bring it back for another reading, and then making sure it's really cleaned up. So long as keeping it the same isn't a problem. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we're going to hold off for a long time. We're going to have to bring it back. Any other?

I don't have many policies that are 10 pages long to start with. That's right. Yes, I agree. All right, anything else on this one?

Thank you, Robin. Are we over the strategic plan? We are. Can I go?

Yeah, all right. Yeah, let's take a three-minute break. Can we take a bio break real quick, and then we'll come back and do strategic planning? Because that's going to take another 40 minutes.

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

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

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

Thank you. All right, Sean, it's your show. All right. All right, so this is an opportunity for me to give the board an update about where we are with the strategic planning process.

And it's also an opportunity for us to just remind what we're doing with the strategic planning process. Again, we're a district that does many excellent things. As you can see from the students tonight, the recognition that we did, and also just some of the things that you heard that's happening at the high school, our world language program. There are many excellent things happening in our district, but we still have the opportunity to be transformational about what we do for our students, and we can never be complacent about our excellence.

And so what I'm going to do tonight is give you an overview about where we are with the strategic planning process. And then I going to give you guys some opportunities to talk a little bit about some input in those next steps around action And so I want to just there going to be some redundancy because there some things that you seen before but I think it's also important for us to make sure that we have a common context for this work and also just see how your input has influenced how we move forward. So again, here's kind of a roadmap. We started with our profile of the graduate because we wanted to make sure that we were starting with the student in mind.

And then we collected input and data from the community. We developed our questions and developed theory of action and goal statements. And we're now at that point where we've taken those goal statements and looked at developing a collective understanding of them and then also developing action steps. So one of the things that I've been doing is conducting focus groups with groups of stakeholders.

I've been going into every school and leading meetings with all the faculty members so that way they have an opportunity to get input about, give input about this and also have collective understanding about where we're going. And also, I have a few more groups that I'm going to still meet with. So we're going to be meeting with students, a couple more parent groups, and stakeholders groups, but really trying to get input from a large group of stakeholders that allow us to kind of think about where we're going next. And again, ultimately, our last step is coming back to the profile, so it's full circle.

So in our work, we have determined that we are thinking, in order to be transformational, we have to think about making sure we're providing an equitable, personalized, and individualized academic experience for our students. And making sure that we're taking care of the social-emotional development and physical development of our students. I presented goal statements to the board in January and you gave me input about those goal statements and I took your input and revised them that I think captured what I heard that night. What I heard that night is that you felt comfortable with the content of them, but there could have been some ways that we can communicate them a little differently.

So we will ensure that each student feels safe and valued. We will commit to the educational growth of our students through an equitable, personalized, and individualized learning experience. It will be dedicated to the personal growth of each student and their social, emotional, and physical well-being. And one of the things that I think is really important is that as I've been going around to different groups and going to different schools, I want to make sure that people understand the difference between what personalized and individualized means.

When we're talking about personalized, giving students opportunities to make sure that they have their voice and agency in the work, making sure that we're looking at different pathways for students to learn the standards, Making sure they have agency and efficacy over their learning. And that means that we may have to be flexible in our instruction. Again, I'm not saying that everything that we're doing is not personalized. We have a lot of personalized approach.

We're doing some things in terms of personalizing learning for students. But we could take it to another level. And again, coming back to being more transformational. When we talk about equitable, we talk about making sure that all students have access to opportunities, support, and tools.

They need to succeed and grow no matter what. That means no matter their race, no matter their zip code, no matter their socioeconomic status. And when we talk about being individualized, is that that's when teachers are modifying learning based off students' different needs. And I was very purposeful including this as part of the goal statements because that was some input that the board gave me, is that it's not just about the students and their own learning, it's about what are the teachers doing to make sure that they're providing a differentiated experience in the classroom.

And now we're to the point where we're starting to develop action steps. And again, I just want to share this with you is that when we are coming back to the, when we're developing our action steps, we're not going to try to create a document that's 70 pages long. We're really going to be concise with how we're launching this and being thoughtful about what funding sources we're putting towards every action step, who's going to be responsible, what measures and evidence we're going to include in there. And then we're going to have that color, that progress color key that is going to be easy for the community to see where we are with each of those steps.

And as an evergreen model, those action steps can be completed and then new action steps can be added on based off the input of the Board of Education and then also other stakeholders in terms of the administrators, faculty, and envisioning kind of a team coming back together to review these each year. When we talk about what it means to be a board member part of your responsibility is to drive this and also influence how we moving forward And this is why we want to be very intentional about coming back to you every year on a regular basis to give you updates about where we are with our strategic plan. And I think that we could be way better about that versus how we've done this in the past. The question I've been putting out to groups is what is a potential action step the district should consider connected to our current goal statements?

And I forgot to give this to you. I actually have this whole presentation printed out for you. So you have this. I want to make sure everyone has this.

So you have the goal statements. I'm sorry about that. I forgot to write this out. So what I have been doing is going into our schools, meeting with different stakeholders groups, and they have actually been completing a thought exchange.

And the thought exchange is an opportunity for them to provide ideas and then people to rate what ideas have been that they would like to really for us to put some energy into. So the thought exchange tool has been very helpful. And what we've been doing is disaggregating, looking at that data and saying, what are some patterns that we're seeing? Not only just in the thought exchange, but just in the groups that I'm meeting with.

So I want to share with you some potential action steps and how they might potentially look as we launch our new strategic plan. And I'm sharing these with you because they're not actually the ones, they may be just, these are like draft form. And they may, they need to be refined. But I wanted to kind of summarize here the things that I'm hearing as part of this work.

And so, for example, one of them is to make sure that we have a systemic definition of personalized learning and making sure that we're educating our community around that. Parents need to know what we mean by that. And so sometimes parents might say, well, you know what, why do we want to change things? My students are already learning and they're being successful.

There is an opportunity for them to actually have more ownership of their learning, and we need to make sure that parents understand that. Develop and get priorities on initiatives and practices that support equity in schools. So one of the things that I just recently looked at was a continuum focused on equity. And sometimes as part of that continuum, one aspect of that is building awareness.

And that is a component of our equity work. But it can't you can't stay there. You have to get to the point where it becomes systemic. And so we can't be just doing a series of activities that say, OK, we're doing well with our equity work.

We have to think about what is actually working and where do we want to put our priorities. And so we have to be very clear about what that looks like. One of those might be that we revise our standards of professional practice. And what that is is those are the standards that we hold our teachers accountable to.

And so if we're thinking about ways that we're really going to make systemic change, we have to actually put some things in our standards of professional practice That are going to align with pedagogies that we know that are going to have impact on all students. So holding people accountable to that, not just that we're talking about it, but there's an accountability measure to it as well. Another one is integrating social emotional learning into the curriculum and instruction. Making it taking a deep dive into our curriculum and saying, is there a way for us to teach these skills, not just in isolation.

But how do we integrate it into the work that we're doing in our classrooms and through the curriculum? Evaluate and refine our curriculum with the standards-based lens in order to make connections to equity and personalized approaches. And what we mean by that is that we go really deep with our standards. And we have to think about when we start looking.

And one of the things we're doing is a lot of our teachers are being trained in problem-based learning and project-based learning. And what we find is that you have to make sure that you truly know the standards that are required that we have to teach. So that way we can go in-depth with those, not that we're trying to cover many, many, many standards. We probably teach way more standards than we really need to.

And so we have to make sure that we refining that and saying if we are really refining this there will be more opportunities for students to have personalized opportunities and to maybe do more of those project based learning opportunities as well And then the other thing that has become kind of a theme in some of the work is explore expansion of access for early childhood education So what are some ways that we might be the leading district to say, let's look at how we're doing early childhood education and thinking about how we can expand access to that across our region. And in Clayton, and then thinking about even students who might be part of our voluntary transfer program. Now, I share these with you is that I want to kind of give you an idea about this is the kind of direction that we would launch our strategic planning, our strategic plan with. Some of these specific action steps.

And then, so those are just overviews, but this is where we feel like we have to get started. Making sure we know our standards, making sure we know what our priorities are. And then we would be coming back to this again to say, okay, what are going to be the next action steps? Because this has to be a living document that is going to be refined on an ongoing basis.

But we're not going to just, we don't want to just add 100 things to a strategic plan and feel like there's a laundry list of things to do. So what I would like, oh, and then the measuring success is a critical component of this. Because we're focused on, if we're going to be looking at personalized learning, that doesn't mean we're not looking at academic performance. We still have to hold ourselves accountable to the state in terms of the way that we're being held accountable.

And what's very interesting is that we just, if you look at the new MSIP standards And the way that we're going to be measured, this is pretty aligned with the way we're going to be measured in terms of social, emotional well-being of students, equity and access. And so it's going to be aligned with how our state measures are going to be changing over the next few years. The other thing is that we have opportunities for measuring student well-being. Panorama is just one way of doing that, but there are other rubrics and opportunities where we can get student input.

I think just the example tonight is the data that we're collecting at the high school through the Clayton conversations. That's data that we can use to inform the direction of some action steps. And then the other thing The other thing too is that we need to make sure that we put a monitoring process in place to say if we're going to do something like a close examination of our curriculum, we have to put a timeline on that and then we also have to think about evidence of that being complete and then the potential impact of it. So tonight, my goal is to give you an update about where we are, but it's also an opportunity for you to include some I wonder statements that you might be thinking about.

I've been sharing these articles with you. I've been sharing these goal statements with you. And there might be something that you're thinking, wow, has the district thought of this? And I wonder if this is something that we should consider as part of this work.

And I'm going to also share with you this, and you can see this on your sheet. That is a QR code you can scan, and that will take you to the thought exchange that all the staff is filling out. And you can actually see their input and see some of the ideas that they are having, and you can put your rankings in there as well. So I wanted just to take some time to get some input.

About one, any reactions of anything that I shared with you tonight? But then two, are there some action steps you think that we should be putting some energy into as we launch this new strategic plan? And I'm going to chart some of these at that time. Go ahead, Stacy, go ahead.

First of all, thank you for that. And thank you for changing the goal statements. I think they are, I really like the way they're worded now. And I just wanted to say as a compliment to you and the district that I really like seeing that every department that's presented to us, they all always present to us how everything's tied to the strategic plan already.

So I just see this general continuity across different subjects and departments that everybody's on board and everything comes back to this that centers them. So I've been impressed with that already, that even though it's new, since we launched, every curriculum presentation has drawn connections to the profile, which is great. Thank you. Other thoughts, comments?

How big are the action steps? Are they more, like the ones that you gave us were just very general? I'm wondering how specific they should be, because I know we've talked about some ideas, This is like a plan, you know, That goes from year to year, the teachers will write on. Would that be a part of an action step?

Yeah, so these are more broad in terms of kind of the overall, like some direction we might be going, but we will be having some more specific action steps. And some of them might be actually sub-steps underneath those. So is that how it'll look? Will there be an action step and then like underneath it more next steps?

Yeah, I mean it could be more specific than that, but yeah. Formatting-wise, we don't know that. You said something about the student owning their learning process. What was the quote you used?

Students having ownership and voice. Yeah, I like that a lot. So, two things. One is, I'm slightly disconnected from this, I have to be honest.

I was like, I'm a little disconnected from this. I'm really not involved how we were early on, I think. I'm kind of hands off now because it's a bigger project. What's more inclusive with a lot of different aspects.

So I'm a little disengaged from it slightly. But also, but I do think it's got me thinking because it's also done in a different format also. Through a thought exchange, it has me thinking about this differently. And I like the language you just used.

I guess my question, though, is how do we, because that's like the overall summary is getting the kids to own their own. Say it again? Sorry. For students to have voice and choice and ownership.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So my question is, how do we allow that to happen, though? You know what I'm saying?

So we want them to do it. In theory, we love that. But the format in which we teach, is it restrictive? Is it conflicting, I guess, but more so in this way, is it restrictive to getting the kids to own their own?

And I think that that's why we're working towards that, because there are ways that we can do that, but sometimes we feel like there's too much that we're doing things the same way over and over again. And so could we ask that question, is there a different approach to the way we're teaching? And so it may not be that everything is changing, but that's why we looked at standards. Like if we look at standards and say, you know, this is absolutely what we need.

This is absolutely, these are the priority standards for us. If we really prioritize that, that would then, you know, make sure that we are, students know those standards, but then it would allow us then to have time for students to say, you know what, I have been wondering about this. Like, this is some way that I really, this is a question I've been wondering about. Or it could be connected to that standard.

And then building in that time, it might mean that our school day looks different. It might be that pathways for students at the high school might be different for students. It might be that, you know, the way that we're doing assignments with students. So we don't know the answer to that, but we know that students need that.

And it can't just be about us delivering content. There is a need for us to deliver content, and that's important, but that's not our only need. We need for students to be able to do something with that content. Right, right, right, right.

Okay, makes sense. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean, for the first time, I think we're a little bit, this is a bit, I may use a different descriptive word later on, but this is a bit progressive. I like it.

I'm trying to be. Well, I'm saying that to say, I'm eager to see the outcome, but we're a little bit on uncharted territory, and this is going to cause a lot of friction, a lot of conflict, which could be great, or it could be a debacle. But I think that it can be great, you know, if we are, if we're really allowing what you just said to manifest. And some of those, some of the things that we're going to do might be, you know, more micro in terms of like approaches that we have in our classrooms.

Some of them might be that our district is going to say, let's look at a different approach in terms of how, like I mentioned, early childhood. How do we have, could we look at an approach to expand the way we provide early childhood and do we go beyond? Just what students come to us when they're five years old. Could there be a way for us to do that differently?

I think that that's more of a systems change. I think that there's probably some things that we need to do in terms of, we've had conversations at central office around the social emotional wellbeing of students making sure that it not just the counselor responsibility to teach that How do we all have ownership over that And if it embedded within the curriculum then we need to think about ways that teachers know that Other thoughts? Okay. And the other thing I want to just put out there is that if you guys, you know, this is putting you on the spot in terms of you may have some ideas you're pondering, and I will put something in the memo this week that will give you another opportunity to share your ideas.

So don't feel too much pressure. I appreciate that because I think it's hard to come up with the specifics on this one. But I really want to say that I like that we've gotten to a place with this, and it's part of what makes me kind of excited about the future of this work and where we are in the strategic plan process. My natural reaction to the words strategic plan is not necessarily, Not that it's a negative one, I just don't necessarily, if I'm being honest, already immediately think of ways that I can contribute to that as a board member, because it sometimes sounds like, well, let me go write a policy and procedure manual or something on a real detailed level.

But I really like that we've gotten to a point with this where all of these action steps that you've kind of drawn out here, Or sort of examples of the action steps process. They're systemic and they're holistic and kind of structural in nature. It doesn't mean that there don't need to be more specific steps under those, but it really actually does sound more strategic than one right after the other because we're looking at the process. We're going to develop priorities and we're going to revise standards of professional practice, There is no one standard.

We're going to revise standards and things like that. And there's some aspirational things in here, too, in terms of what would it look like to be a leader in early childhood education, things like that. So it actually gives me a much different feeling than the word strategic plan normally do. So I think that's great.

A question that I have about the action steps process, and I think I understand this, but I want to make sure that's right. Will there be different groups or constituencies that necessarily have kind of ownership of defining action steps in different areas? Is that right? Yeah, and so one of the things we're thinking about is once we're clearly defined, I can, we've, I've talked about this before with Joe, but like, how do we have advisories that are linked to that and then board representation on that as well?

So it's, we want to look at systems that are put in place to make sure that we're holding ourselves accountable to them. And also thinking about what actions, like you said, like Adam said, like what is the detail of how do we get here? And then also how do we make sure that we're keeping the board informed on this? Create a system to create the specific detailed step, right?

Right. And the other thing too is ultimately it's the administration and the teachers Thank you. You know, I think of us as having such wonderful teachers and community and resources and all that great stuff about Clayton. And I guess I'm wondering, like, what, you know, I know some of the educational stuff that's out there.

A lot of these words seem like ones that so many districts are doing. You know, personalized learning, individualized learning, equity. This is social emotional learning. You know, all that stuff is happening regionally and written about.

So when you look at those, what do you really feel like, wow, this is cutting edge or this is, this, maybe it's not the words of these, but how it's going to manifest. What of this gets you really thinking of us as being leaders and standing out, or not? Or is that just my kind of way of thinking of how you do it? No, I definitely think that we should set the standard.

And it's interesting, I just had a conversation with someone else around this. We were talking about this the goal statements And it was another superintendent and they were talking about like yeah We been talking about that too but we just don know what that looks like And so what I think about is that we define what that looks like in our schools Like if we're talking about a personalized approach, like we may we might challenge the notion about like grade levels or how are how we are approaching the actual approaches to teaching. Like right now, like just having these conversations in the schools, it has inspired teachers to think differently about their approaches to teaching and thinking about like one of our schools is saying some teachers would like to do a co-teaching model next year, not adding another teacher, but them taking the two classes together. I mean, so thinking differently about our approach, but we have to make sure it's also having impact on the students.

And that's where I think we have to keep checking in with the students. Like, do students feel like, well, I have more ownership of my learning now. I have more opportunity to have choice in my learning. And I don't know exactly what that's looking like, but I want us to set the standard for like, wow, Clayton is really having a personalized approach to learning.

And we need to go over and look at what they're doing. And I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but that's part of this work. Well, and I wonder maybe as we go along, thinking about adopting language that's not even just the buzzwords, the educational buzzwords, you know. Yeah.

I mean, I know it has, we might define what personalized learning means, but we might also want to call, you know, just more equity or whatever. But it's like to Gary's point, it's like I have thought about a hundred other ways to call the strategic plan, strategic plan, and I went back like, I'm calling it the strategic plan right now because I don't know what else to call it. But we're going to define what it actually looks like. Yeah.

So I appreciate what you're saying. I'm just kind of piggybacking on that too, Lily. I wonder if there is this idea that you can all use the same words, but it comes down to execution. If we can execute well what these words mean to us, then we might find the words that actually describe them better, or we might just actually not just talk about it.

So it's kind of more like it's easy to use the words. It's harder to execute, I think, is really where our challenge would be to me. So one of the things that might be helpful to you is that because I know it's hard to be thinking of ideas. What I'm going to ask you guys to do is to go online and look at some of the ideas that are on that thought exchange.

And you can kind of see some things that might spark some thoughts for you. And then I will put a mechanism in place for you to share your ideas about like those I wonder statements like, wow, I wonder if we should be thinking about this. Or have you, has anyone said this? And so I think that you'd be kind of inspired by some of the ideas that are out there.

So we're not talking about that right now? I just want to make sure I'm reading the room well and making sure I'm giving you guys time to think about it. Other thoughts? There are two that I was just thinking of really quick.

One was the idea of we have like creating a definition of personalized learning and educating the community on it. I was wondering if we could also look at defining academic success and what that means in Clayton, because I think it's starting to like that means different things to us. And then also one thing is one thing that you just touched on was the first thing I wrote down was giving students time to explore. I don't know exactly what that, how that can be shaped better, but I, the idea of not having some unstructured time where students can choose to work on what they, not like a free period, but what project do you want to go explore and what do you want to, I think that that's something that we should look at.

So one of the part of Michael Fullen's book, Deep Learning, talks about how as part of this work, you really need to make sure that you're defining what success is, academic success. And that's where we also need to start thinking it beyond just the standardized assessments. And so there might be some different measurements or tools we're putting in place that's beyond just what our normal standardized assessments. And some of the work that Patrick's doing with the consultant from deep learning is really pushing that.

Like, what can it be? And I really felt inspired when I saw some of the work that's coming out of the state with MSIP is that those measurements are going to be different in the future. And I think that we're going in the right direction. Okay, thoughts?

It seems like the current way in which we measure academic success in the context of personalized learning would change. Then it could become obsolete, right? Just because if someone's setting their own goals for what academic success is. That where we have to keep the conversation always going I mean it just not setting something and just staying with it But also we have to make sure it research and viable Right So all right Chris or Amy, anything?

Just want to make sure I get your voices. I think it's great. Well, I had two thoughts and one went away. Uh-oh.

I was thinking about how, where the service aspect of this is, like the idea of the kind of, and their interests. So when you're talking about personalized learning and your interests, think about what's impactful and what inspires us and what makes us motivated to do something is that it has meaning and it has worth. And so real life opportunities of giving back or engaging or like, you know, and I know they've done on some smaller scales in our schools with different kids, but creating a brochure about Clayton and all the different elements of Clayton to take you on a historical tour. I don't know, something that gives them, they're actually making something that's going to be used by real people in the real world, and it's going to make a real difference.

And so you have a different engagement with that and a sense of purpose than if it's just... Well, I think about, you give that example of, like looking at our assignments. And the assignment that was done last year in one of our English classes is that rather than do an assignment that was, you know, a paper, what the students were actually doing is writing copy for nonprofit organizations. Yes, exactly.

They couldn't afford to have people do that work for them. So our students were actually writing copy. They learned what that meant, and then they were doing it for the organizations. So I think that there's definitely opportunities like that.

And I think that even went a step further, so not even just core classes, but even design. And they were designing spaces and interacting with the needs of a certain group of people, and I think that's really great. And that's the kind of thing that sets us apart, and it could set us apart, is how we give back. And how we, and Simon giving back too, because it could be, I mean we do some of that already, the entrepreneurial work and stuff.

How do we make it sustainable? One of the schools that we went to visit is, every student as they come into high school have to take a design thinking class. And I think it was high school, it may have been middle school, I can't remember. But just so that way all the kids have a common understanding.

Right. Did you have something to add? I did. When I think about kind of the intersection of equity and personalized learning, and for our small percentage of students that have kind of that opportunity gap issue, I hope that, you know, because you all will be doing this, I really hope that somehow you figure out how to ensure that the students I'm going to ask you to come up to the stage.

You know, to, because I remember seeing a student just going on the internet because, you know, he didn't have all these things to pick from. I know I'm really interested in, you know, Antarctica, whatever. No, I agree with you. So I really, I know that the personalized learning stuff shows some success with different groups.

We have to really figure out how to not lose that very small percentage of kids that aren't going to feel as confident or actually have the exposure. And I think that that speaks to, you know, in steps that we're taking in terms of the training that we provide our teachers and thinking about that equity intersection of making sure that as the adult in the classroom, you're responsible for making sure that that doesn't happen. And I think that that's a really good point because that does happen. So, Sean, I have two things that I wonder, even to that point.

So the largest effect size for a school is the quality of staff and the second largest effect size is the quality of the principals. And so when I think about measuring success, and I know we have great staff, but how are we known to have the very Best, awesome, most place to work, right? I mean, you know, I think that needs to be part of it, right? We need to have, because that's the biggest impact for students, is the teacher before them or the staff before them, and after that it's the principal, right?

Those are the two most important things. So I just, I wonder how are those incorporated into that, because we have to have rock stars. And we have a lot of rock stars, but we need more rock stars. We always need more rock stars, right?

And once we get them, we need to keep them. And so that's one. And two, I wonder, about specifically culture and climate at the secondary level. And I know we just heard a great presentation from the high school, and it's improving, but still got work to do, right?

I mean, Clayton High School is known in some places to be kind of shark tank, to not have a great academic. I think maybe you're beginning to allude to it, Adam, in your question. But, you know, in terms of that mental health, well-being, we're not known for that. As a matter of fact, we're known sometimes for the opposite.

And so I know there's lots of progress, so I'm not knocking anybody, but I think that's pretty important, too. Question of the week. Sorry. Do you think that some of that comes from, I don't, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.

So when we're talking about the academic success component, I think that's what you're getting to. Are you kind of getting to this pressure that we put on our kids to, you know, to excel academically at a super high level Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So, Clayton High School and the Clayton School District is known for its academic excellence in the whole region, in the country, right? I want to be as well known for having truly a well-rounded student, well-being, social-emotional learning, right?

I want to be as good at that, not give up the academic, but I want to, I think, you know, the life skills, the relationships, all that stuff that we're quite honestly not as well known for. Couldn't it be juxtaposed or the reason why we are having these conversations about social emotional well-being in this particular school, because we are really good at what we do, versus a John Burroughs is doing the same thing, is because there's a lower expectation because of the word public school. Because we're a public school, like we're supposed to be a lower tier in terms of how we teach or the rigor in which we teach. But we're actually producing at a higher level, if not the same level as some of your better private schools, which is allegedly supposed to produce a better caliber student, has a better academic rigor.

So could it be that, like there's just like this perception of what we should be? Versus what we're actually putting out isn't really necessarily stress. It's just that people have a lower expectation of what public schools should be doing. Could that be, could that be a, well we can, we can, we can ponder that in a second.

My other, my other point I wanted to make was, the first point, what was the first point you made? The teachers and the principals. Quality of teachers and principal staff. Yeah, I had something good to say.

Well, I have something on that, actually, because I do think that, I think if you asked a lot of the high school students, we're talking about secondary, they have teacher experiences that are outstanding. They end up connecting with and having these great experiences with teachers, and then they want to take a class from that teacher again. You know, these are people who have engaged and excited them, and they want, so that's the kind of teaching, we want all of our kids to have an experience with a teacher and be like, I have to have this teacher again because this is so amazing. Superexpensive, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Thank you What you just said I not sure if this was your train of thought here but the first point you made was teachers So how do you inspire the teachers right How do you inspire the teachers to get on board in that manner to actually produce this outcome that we're trying to create, right? This goal, this outcome that we're trying to put together. Because it sounds, now I'm saying, I'm answering the question, but I'm really not trying to answer it. I'm just trying to say, do we have a plan for that, for how we're going to inspire the teachers to get to that level and actually start trying to reach those goals and those heights?

Can I add on to that real quick? Because I remember, Joe, when we talked about the strategic plan, the working session, that you brought up something similar. And I agree that, you know, I know the three items that you have currently are all kind of parallel when they're about the student. But I do wonder if we should have a separate one really about that.

Because I think if you don't have it, I know it fits under those, that you have to have these high quality teachers and principals to do each of those. But if you don't have it as a specific item, I think it might get more diluted within those three versus just having it explicit that we want the highest quality teachers and principals. I don't know how to word it, but I wonder if there just should be another item specifically about that. And whatever measure we want to have, whatever.

One last thing. All right, to that point. I'm just going to wrap it up. Wrap my points up.

So going back to ownership, I'm kind of stuck on the word ownership. I think that point you made is huge. I don't want it to become a buzzword. But there are, the origin of ownership, right?

Say it again, how you said, owning your. So students have voice and choice and ownership of their learning. Right. So there's an origin of that, and there has been success for that.

And then people have started to try to make it applicable in different mediums, like we're doing now. My question to you is, do we have examples of that, of success, not just knowing the buzzword, but now what examples do we have of that type of success that we can then extrapolate, maybe examine, And restart and figure out how it's going to be applicable and weave it into this plan. Or better yet, have you done that already? No, I think that's going to be part of the process.

But I think there are examples within our district where students have more ownership over their learning. So, I mean, we've talked about it a number of times, but the catalyst program at the high school, Those students who are in that class are going to a different off-site workspace. They have ownership of what they're learning in terms of entrepreneurial skills. And it's incredible about how they feel.

They have such efficacy over the work and what they're learning. Questions that we might have is then how can you use a model like that and transfer it to another content area? Are there different areas that we can go with science in a way that allows students to have more ownership and choice and experiences like that? So, yeah, I would use that as an example of how that could be transferred to another content area.

Anybody got anything else? Thank you, Sean. Thank you. And I'll send something out this week.

So we're actually moving to check out. So the only thing I would say about the checkout is with the policies, we're going to, there's not anything that I was going to say changing with the first policy that we looked at. But we are going to take a deeper dive into the second policy that we looked at and spend some more time on that. Not that we're going to delay it for many, many weeks, but making sure we're bringing it back to the board really tight.

And I feel like I was able to check out with what you just shared with the great strategic plan. Awesome. Okay, so we're moving to action items. We've got six action items.

So the first one is 8.01, personal tuition and tax credit tuition rate for the 2020-21 school year. Motion. 8 a move that the Board of Education adopt for the 2020 school year an elementary personal and tax credit tuition rate of and secondary personal and tax credit tuition rate of Second It been moved and seconded Any questions or comments? Yes.

I don't know that I am, I guess I'm wondering why, you know, if we've thought about why we're still doing this and participating and that we still have this policy that we're doing this to have the, taking the tuition. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. Why are we still doing the program?

Why are we still? Why are we still? Why are we still participating in it? And if we are, why are we charging these numbers?

Okay, so there's two different things. Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm wondering.

Okay. Other questions? Go ahead. We were talking casually about that.

You know, I think if you decide to do that, it's worth looking at historically why we started it back up or, you know, put more energy into it. And that was because it was around the time, 2005, 2006, where the VST program was not fully funded. And we had room in our schools for more students. And you do want to have a certain number of students in order to offer certain programs and to have economy of scale and all that kind of stuff.

So there was lots of reasons, and there was mixed, you know, it took some effort to continue in VST. For the whole board to be behind that and the loss in funding. So I think that was something that got really promoted and beefed up. And we are at a different time, you know, in terms of the room we have in classrooms and whatever.

So anyway, I think historic, you know, it is different times. And I will say in terms of, and Jason, you spoke to it earlier about, you know, comparing us to boroughs. I think Clayton is just as good as the private schools, so if we're going to have it, we actually, it's a deal. What a great deal to pay only $23,000 at Clayton High School when you pay $30,000 at Burroughs.

I agree, I totally agree with that. The problem that I have is that I think that we charge, and we're a public school, we're not a private school, so we can't necessarily, we can't pick and choose what kids come. So I guess the problem that I have with the numbers is that, like, while I like having different kids, I also want all sorts of different kids to be able to take advantage of it. And I think the numbers are so high that it prohibits kids that I'd like to be able to see come to our district from being able to come to our district because these numbers are so high.

And that's, I guess, why I'm conflicted with, like, I don't want us to lose the money. But on the other hand, it would be so great if there was a way that, you know, especially as our voluntary transfer is being phased out, if there was, I don't know, a way that we can, I just think the numbers are so high that it's prohibitive except to, it's only, it's cost prohibitive except for a certain type of family and a certain type of student to be able to take advantage of. The great services that we offer, and that's why I feel, I don't know if I'm articulating myself well, but that's why. And I do think it probably does go to a larger conversation, because you could also say that children who are parents that choose to send their kids here, their child might actually have higher needs, and the $23,000 isn't enough that we end up incurring a lot more expenses from certain students.

No, that's a good point, too. So I think it a real bigger discussion so if you wanting to put that on an agenda for the future thank you But this motion is on the table so for this to be voted on tonight but then to have a further bigger conversation about it is reasonable to me So I would, to maybe address that, I would ask from staff, what is the timing around us needing to approve this rate? So currently, it is, what was happening is we're just maintaining the same rate we had last year. This has been something that we've brought back every year, but I don't know if there's any implications by not.

People are asking what the tuition rate's going to be. I mean, people who are currently in the program are wanting to know so they can plan. So, I mean, if we're going to make that decision, I'd want us to make sure that we're doing it timely so they know. Because we still have a number of people who are in the program.

And we still have people who call every day wanting to be. Yeah, I think it's two different things. One is the tuition rate and voting on that. The other is this bigger conversation, which has not to do with, in my mind.

So maybe we should vote on this, but then in communications time, suggest it as an agenda item to discuss for after next year, you know, for the future. Yeah, and this motion has been made and seconded. It needs to be voted on at some point. We can agree to, we have more that we want to do here, and we can vote no and have another motion later.

There's a number of things that we could do procedurally if this is something that we want to do, but we need an agenda item to have a bigger conversation. And I apologize. I should not have surprised. You're doing your job.

You should not have apologized for that. That's exactly what you're supposed to do. Well, I feel bad I didn't send an email before. I mean, just as an example, if we wanted to consider some kind of change, but we needed to have some stability for current funding, the board could consider a motion at some point that set a tuition rate for people who were already enrolled in our schools, but pulled back and evaluated whether we wanted to make any change beyond that.

That's something we could do. Well, and I think as a part of that, right, If our cost per student is roughly $20,000, I understand it's not perfect, but it would be hard to have a tuition rate below that when you have residents, in essence, at $20,000. So that's also the balance of messing with it that much. It's not that much higher than what our cost per student is, at least at the secondary level.

And you average it with the elementary. That's right. Mike, I think that's for the future cameras. Yes.

All right, so any other questions on this? Because we do have a motion on the table for... Well, yeah, we've got to answer the motion. Vote.

Vote. All in favor? Aye. I vote no.

Okay. I vote no also. Okay, so two no's. Any other no's?

Okay, so it passes. Five-two. All right, thank you. All right, so approval of policy JHD.

8.02, I move that the Board of Education approve policy JHD as submitted. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded.

Any questions or comments about JHD? I didn't get it. Is that the one I wrote? No.

Okay. This is the one about the counseling. Yeah, yeah. Any questions or comments about that?

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Passes unanimously, 7-0. 8.03, approval of policy DJF. 8.03, I move that the Board of Education approve policy DJF as submitted.

Second. We move and second it. Any questions or comments? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. 8.04, approval of policy FEF.

8.04, I move that the Board of Education approve policy FEF as submitted. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments about policy FEF?

No. I think it's the next one. I don't know which letter. Tell me when it's the next one.

I'm pretty sure it's the next one. Thank you. Okay. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, it passes 7-0. 8.05, approval of policy JECC.

8.05. Should we say the title of the policy as well? So not only the letters of it, but also the title so that the people know. Yeah, so we're saying JECC, it's, for example, it's...

Assignment of students to grade levels. I'm sorry. Assignment of students to grade levels. Oh, I see.

The explanation. Thank you. Yeah. So, okay, so let's just read it.

That is the one. Let's read that and get a second, and then we can talk about it. Yeah. Go ahead.

So you're going to read? You want me to read the title in the motion? No, no, just for you, I'm sorry, 8.05. 8.05, I move that the Board of Education approve policy JECC as submitted.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments on JECC, which is the assignment of students to grade levels, classes K-12 districts. That's your point.

Yes, Bill. I had written an email, but haven't checked back with you. I know you were going to talk. So what essentially I asked in light of what Jason had brought up when we first reviewed this for consistency or the difference in how we were approaching kids that came from unaccredited schools versus the other students mentioned.

And I had noticed there was an inconsistency with the students from military families where it added a sentence about, like if they had honors classes, AP classes, whatever. And so I just asked that could we make sure we have that same consistency, either that statement in with the other students or else eliminate it for the students from the military so that they're all the same. And were you able to do that or have a... Yeah, so what we talked about was what I heard Jason say was to make that change between the accredited and the unaccredited to parallel that.

So that's the piece that we asked the lawyers about. If the board wants to add that sentence into the accredited and unaccredited, being more specific the way that it's written with the military piece, we can move forward with adding that in all three places. Because MSBA said that was... Right.

So the way that I looked at that statement, like when you asked for the piece about making sure that they were parallel there, The general sort of nature of that statement, I think, in the other spaces doesn't get to that level of specificity with military. It gets to that level of specificity with military because of children of military families, there are some things like within legal statements that are more specific. There's not a problem about adding that level of specificity to the other two. Instead of taking it out.

Right. I would rather not take it out. I would rather add it to the other two. So what's the, what do others think about that?

Because we should either amend the motion or shoot it down and then add it. One of the two, right? We've got to do it, right? Yeah, because we can't really.

Right, yeah. We can't vote. Yes. We can't edit it anymore.

Yeah. Yeah, so we should. So before we move to vote, what do folks think? Is that okay?

Does that make sense? Does that still maintain, and I'm sorry I wasn't here for that conversation, but so by putting those wording in, is it still maintained that students still would have testing if applicable or something like that to make sure that they're, okay, yeah, all right, thank you. Okay, so we're going to vote on it as is. If you want to amend it, you should vote no, just as a reminder.

Don't vote yes because it won't have that amendment that we just talked about. So, all in favor? No, no, no. All opposed?

Aye. Aye. Everybody opposed. Okay, anybody?

Anybody not opposed? All right. Yeah, it's all right. You just said vote no, so I said no.

Yeah, so did I. I don't know. Well, all in favor, don't say anything. Any opposed, say something, right?

Let's do it again. I don't know. All in favor? All opposed?

Aye. Okay, sounds like everybody is opposed. Okay, great. It fails.

7-0. So, yeah. Yes. Do we want to offer then an amended motion?

Yes. Please. I would it seems a bit hard to track the changes to it without having it written So why don we rewrite it Okay We rewrite it and resubmit it Okay great Great Great We do that Done All right. 8.06, bid award for IFS Integrated Facility Services.

8.06, I move that the Board of Education approve the bid from IFS Integrated Facility Services Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Very long motion.

Any questions or comments? We're just fortunate to have that much money. I guess we put all that stuff in there for a reason, correct? You can just stay from back there.

And a port, the Merrimack piece comes out of the borrowed one, is that right? Right. Okay. Any other questions or comments?

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It passes 7-0.

Okay, the consent agenda. 9.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded.

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

Passes 7-0. All right, we are moving to the financials. 10.01, the financials. 10.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the payment of current Expenditures and investments as submitted.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any questions or comments about the financials? Nothing about the financials in particular.

Okay. But I do want to say, is there any way we can get this a little sooner? Is there a way to get these financials a little sooner by chance? I mean, it may not be, but like, because I don't, I mean, I have to be honest, I couldn't get through it.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Gotcha, gotcha, okay. We're not closed yet.

So you're saying by... It would be the second meeting in March. It would be the second meeting in March. Okay, that'll work.

Is it okay if we just email it straight to you? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you want to call me in, summon me, I can come talk to you and just expedite the process. But yeah, whatever, whatever's easier.

We'll let you know when they're ready. All right, cool. Any other questions or comments? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, pass the 7-0. So we're moving to Board 11.01, Board Communications.

Yes, go ahead, Kristen. I know the PTO Council, and they have, you know, it's so amazing, like, seeing all the parents there who are super involved and excited about what's happening in our schools and the time they give back and how serious they take it. They run their meeting very efficiently and seriously. It's great, you know, it's, they're, anyway, so they, we got reports.

Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Last year Thursday February 20th which is tomorrow night is called Insight Night at Y and it a relatively new event I think they did it last year for the first time and then this year they doing it again because it was so popular and it really seems like a lot of people are going to show up, but it's where there's choice in sessions that are on different topics applicable to kids of that age group, including vaping, drugs, alcohol, anxiety, depression, stress. They're going to have a parent panel, and they're also talking, I think, about academic stuff, too. I'm not sure. But anyway, you have different choices of different groups you can go to.

And then this year, Captain's PTO is hosting the three elementary fundraising event, and the theme is the Kentucky Derby, and they're going to have it at the Marquee Lodge. So lots of exciting stuff happening. I think that's about it. Other, go ahead, Millie.

I'm on the Sustainability Committee and wanted to let folks know that we did receive an email from one of the members on the committee that did bring up some questions about the turf that's being installed, or that might be the artificial turf at Glenridge. Similar kind of concerns that were brought up about Miramac and Family Center. And that she also informed us that that information has been passed on, I think, to the PTO, but perhaps the district also having some of the information and the research that she did. Okay, thank you.

Yep. Here, Gary. Yeah, I was able to attend the Captain Buck History Night last night, which I just appreciated making that schedule available and that open to us. I wasn't able to go last year, which was, I think, the first year of the different format.

Yeah. And when I actually had a kid at Kaplan, I wasn't able to go last year. But it was really interesting to see the different approach to that, at least in that school, and what the kids, very interactive activity, five or six different activities in different rooms, and parents and students doing them together. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Last ones are two are landing on the same night and then one's on a Saturday. Yeah, I would recommend any, if you have a chance to check on it, that would be really good. Awesome. Others?

Stacey? Lily and I, coincidentally, both actually last night were at the Glen Ridge PTO meeting. And they had opened it to the whole community because they were giving an update on the progress of their fundraising for this turf field. They seem to have a really good plan, I think, in place.

But I was really impressed with the Glen Ridge Does a Merge of Cultures events where they celebrate all different cultures in the school. And every year they rotate which culture they are highlighting. This year I think it's the Indian culture, and they're going to be doing like a color run to celebrate Holi, I think. And they also talked about their Black History Month celebrations Spervantage, Proprietary, and I'm talking about the PTO and the fundraising project.

A couple of questions that have bubbled up just in terms of why PTOs are historically involved in those kinds of facilities fundraising projects. So I just spent some interesting conversations about that with the people what we ask PTOs or what the PTOs ask themselves to get involved in and what we don So we be surprised if we hear feedback about what the district funds and what they fund in the near future That reminds me of that. Yeah, and they explained last night how much they want to raise and how much the district's kicking in. But I think each PTO is kind of different about what they choose to take on.

And they don't know that there are differences until they get to at least the secondary level. Other? I have a couple of things just real quickly. One, the early childhood group that I've talked to you all about, one of the groups, Ready by Five, they're calling it, will have actually their campaign kickoff on February 29th.

We had actually even offered to have it at one of our schools, but it looks like it will be at a U City school. So, I mean, they're moving forward to put on a ballot initiative of half a cent sales tax on the November ballot. So it's real. I mean, I think it's moving forward.

So just to tell you that. Two, Sean and I had a nice breakfast with the city, just, you know, talk about what's going on. And those were, you know, we mostly talked about development and a little bit about the Equity Commission, which, you know, it's called something else. What is it called?

Equity. Anyways, you guys know what I'm talking about. And then third and finally, Stacy and Robin and Sean and I had a good conversation to start to think about proactively about how we might react to the panoply of charter bills that are in the state legislature and the likelihood that some are probably going to push through. So I don't know that there's anything much to report except to say we had a good first conversation and we'll be bringing more information back to you all.

And if you're feeling like it, you certainly could talk to your legislator, our legislatures, about opposing a number of the charter bills that are in the works. Is that the general consensus that we're opposed to it? Yes. It's a general consensus that the Missouri School Board Association is, and most public schools folks are.

So, I mean, we haven't taken a vote as a body that we are, but, I mean, you know, I think... Oh, that's one to know. That's one to know. Yeah.

Generally speaking, it's something that could certainly take revenue and students away from the Clayton School District, which might not be a good thing. I would just add that as a school board, we've each received a lot of emails from MSBA about it, so I would encourage you to read those because I think they do a good job explaining it, They also provide action steps to take, like who to contact and what we can do individually and as a school board. Yeah, absolutely. I think they've been very informative.

Yeah, I agree. All right. I'll put that as a link again on the Friday memo just so you know who our legislators are. And the next Wednesday back to the meeting, which I'm sure we'll be talking about that next Friday.

Oh, good. I do want to say one last thing about that. Is that the one here? We've got to be very cognizant of how this transpired in the city and how now we are, now MSBA is sending out, is actively sending out emails, all types of ways to get our attention on voting this down.

They may have been against it in the city, too, I think in fairness. MSBA, I'm not saying we were, but I'm saying I'm not sure they were for it in the city either. Just for what's worth. I'm just saying based on a little bit of research.

My quick Google search. It didn't seem as, you know, against it. But now that it's in the suburbs, it can be problematic in many ways. In many ways.

Because this is a different economics out here. And so I'm just saying it's interesting. We just need to be cognizant about how these things affect us in the region. We're all affected.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Cool. Do we have a motion to adjourn?

I move that the Board of Education adjourn. All in favor? Second. Second.

Second. All in favor? Aye. We're adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.