December 4, 2019 — Meeting Transcript

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Layla Hall, the president of Clayton High School's Black Student Union, would like to, on behalf of the Black Student Union, thank Dr. Doherty, the superintendent of our schools, the committee, the families, and the members of the Clayton High School community for recognizing our efforts to positively change the lives of others in and outside of the district. I've truly enjoyed serving as the president for the past two years alongside with the help of Dr. Powell Walker, who took the initiative to take over BSU, Mrs.

Young, the activities coordinator, and with Dr. Waynes who stepped in this year as our new assistant superintendent. I'm looking forward as well as the rest of Black Student Union to this year's upcoming events, where we have a lot of agenda items planned. Thank you for your time.

So we would like to take a picture of all of you guys in the back and recognize you and we'll publish it. But I do want to just recognize first off, we do have Mr. Sankey and Ms. Paul Walker, Dr.

Paul Walker, who are in the audience, and I do want to recognize them. So we're going to go take a picture. Okay. Please, with the students.

Yes, right now. Spervantage of the Spervantage of the Education Committee. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Spervantage of the All right, thank you everybody. I know sometimes it takes time to take pictures, but I think, you know, look, it's all about students, so it's important that when we recognize students, we take pictures too, right? So I just want to honor that.

So we have another recognition. So hopefully you put your tennis shoes on. So in the School District of Clayton, we don't have a Teacher of Year Award, but we do do one award for our educators and it's called the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award. And it a really incredible award One because you nominated by your peers And so oftentimes the people who are nominated by this do not even know that they being nominated And then the other thing is is that you selected by your peers after a pretty intensive review And so we have our Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award winner here tonight.

And it's Patty Kasue, who is a kindergarten teacher in Maramango. She's already started. I will tell you that I've done this for many years, for the last couple of years, doing the Emerson Award and going to schools and giving this award. It's usually a surprise, and this was probably one of the most amazing surprises because the whole staff was hiding in the gym.

They thought that they were, she thought that the Stanley Cup was coming. And then when she realized it was about her, everybody was crying. So, Patty, I'm going to read a few things about what your colleague said about you. And just so that way the board gets a gist of who you are as an educator.

It says, over the course of the 27-year career at Merrimack Elementary, Patty Kasue has built strong relationships with students, parents, staff at Merrimack with enthusiasm, welcoming smile, and a love for learning. Everyone at Merrimack is drawn to Patty's heartfelt, energetic, and genuine spirit. And that is so true. Her loyal and trustworthy nature make her someone people turn to for listening ear and advice.

Patty's work ethic is an example to all. She constantly pushes everyone's thinking to bring the best outcome for students and has a strong knack for problem solving and overcoming obstacles. She has high expectations for students and achieves this through structured, playful, loving environment she creates in her classroom. And it's, you know how when you walk into a Thank you.

And just really appreciate all that you do for our students. You have a systemic impact on our kids. And it's really amazing. So I want to just recognize Patty Kasue.

She is here tonight, supported by her principal, Patrick Fisher. So, Patrick, do you have anything? No, I was just reiterating everything you just said. I mean, I told her later I was sleeping, and I was just saying, I have another teacher that I need to talk to who's visiting me today.

I was hoping you had a chance to come see it. Thank you. So, do you want to go get a picture with Patty? We should go get a picture, yes.

We'll go get a picture. Come on. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you You guys coming? Okay, so we are moving on to our public comments of the meeting. And we have three public comments.

Just a reminder for folks, time is limited to three minutes. And the board won't respond to the public comments, however the administration will reach out and respond as appropriate. So the first person is David Gulick. Hi, good evening.

Good evening. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Chris Wynn. Good evening.

For those of you who don't know me, which I think all of you do, but for the audience, my name is Chris Wynn. I have been a resident of Clayton since 2013, and I have four children in the district, all of whom started at the Family Center, and now who are at Glenridge and Whitehouse. Over the past six years, I've been very much enjoyed my role as an active member of the community, and I've frequently volunteered in the schools where I've seen firsthand the importance of education in a child's life. I'm here tonight to let you know that I, too, am going to run to be a part of this board.

And if elected to this board, I will do everything I can to ensure that every Clayton student has access to a high-quality, equitable education. And, in the words of Elsa, my daughter's favorite Disney character, to always be willing to do the next right thing. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. Okay, and then the next one is Robert Whitman. Clayton School District Board Members, I'd like to address you tonight on the proposed protocol, communications with the superintendent. The proposed protocol has the stated goal of maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness I reviewed the protocol carefully and it seems to me that it leaves out a key stakeholder in the process, the voters, parents, and students of the Clayton School District.

Each member of the Board of Education is elected individually by the voters of Clayton to represent the Clayton community in the governance of its public schools. The proposed protocol seeks to increase efficiency by limiting communication between board members and the superintendent. Whatever the policy might offer an increased efficiency, it will subtract in the ability of individual board members to gather information to effectively perform their governance functions. The policy requires board members to communicate in writing to the board president when they want to speak with the superintendent.

Board members are asked to refrain from telephone or in-person communication with the superintendent. This is not inclusive and does not respect individual differences in communication styles. Written communication with a multi-day response will serve to sharply limit the ability of individual board members to gather information or share their constituents' concerns. The complex issues the district encounters are more likely to be understandable in conversation and in-person interactions.

The present communication methods allow board members to solicit information and form the independent opinions on decisions their voters elected them to make. The policy even makes responses to these written communications optional at the discretion of either the board president or superintendent if the question is Who decides what is an acceptable communication? Board members are not elected only to ratify the decisions of the superintendent and board president. Each board member is elected by the people to represent them, and each member has a right to have their questions answered directly.

School board members cannot properly exercise their responsibilities to their constituents Thank you, Robert. Okay, we don't... Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Giving an update about our current reality of where we are with our strategic plan. And wanted to give the board an update about that. So I want to start off by just kind of thinking about talking a little bit about, of course this is not, just the term strategic plan. And I think that all of us kind of have a mental model about what that means.

And I have tried to challenge myself in thinking about, we want to think differently about this. And so I have been thinking about what that could actually be in terms of what it's actually called. Because I think sometimes even having that name, I haven't come up with anything too creative. But as I think about it, when we're doing strategic planning, we're doing strategic thinking.

We are creating our roadmap for where we want to go. We're also making sure we have a strategic focus and making sure that we don't have many, many, many initiatives that we're working on. But we're really narrow with that. And so what I keep thinking about is that this is an opportunity for us to be future focused in our planning.

And for us to ask that question, what future are we trying to create for our students? And so as part of this work, we have, as part of the, so when I'm talking about this, I'm going to use the term strategic plan, but it's more than what we, more than what we maybe have in terms of a mental model. And I really want us to try to challenge that mental model of what we've done in the past with our strategic plan. So when we're thinking about this, the way we've been approaching this is like, what questions do we want to answer as part of our strategic work?

The other thought is, what are some real-time dashboards we're going to create to monitor our metrics and making sure we're coming back to the table on a timely basis to make sure that we are doing quarterly reviews of our strategic plan and a yearly reset of it. So that way we have an opportunity for us to constantly come back to the table and make sure that this continues to be a focus for us as a district instead of just being one time a year. And then ultimately making sure that we're focusing on student growth as part of this work. So when I think about this, we've used the term great to greater, but really I really think about that we as a district have an opportunity as a highly academic environment to think about how we can move from excellent to transformational.

I think that, and I've shared this with in the past, is that we don't want to be complacent on our excellence. We want to continually examine and think about how we can be better and make sure we're evolving so that way our students are getting what they need to be successful, not only in school, but in the classroom. A little bit in life. And that's why we had this conversation over the last year in terms of what we want for our students as the profile of the graduate.

And I will remind you of something I said at the last meeting. We're not going to ever use this as these are soft skills that our kids need. These are critical skills our students need. And so we use this as the basis of the foundation of the work that we started.

And we started this work last year in developing the profile, but we had a launch meeting in October. We've had several small meetings after that with administration. We had our communications lab with another set of teachers focusing on strategic plan. And what we've done right now, we're at the point of trying to narrow down what we've heard through that work.

And what did we hear? Some of the things that we heard was that we need to make sure we're taking care of the social, emotional well-being of our students. We need to think about providing our students with authentic experiences, relevant experiences. There needs to be some opportunity for personalization and inclusiveness and equity, innovation, and individualized instruction.

And so when we're thinking about, when you look at that list, you might think to yourself, What's the difference between individualized and personalized? And when I think about the difference between individualized and personalized, it's that when you're thinking about being individualized, it's like how are we differentiating for students based off the content that we're providing? How is the teacher actually differentiating for the students with the content that they're providing? Personalized is that the students are driving the content, And they're using their passions and their, you know, their desires in terms of helping them reach our standards.

And so it's very subtle, the difference, but it's very powerful. And it's harder to be more personalized. But I think that's what we need to move towards. So the questions that we've developed in draft form is that these are the questions we want to answer over the next one to three years.

And the questions are, how will the School District of Clayton provide the most equitable and personalized learning experience for its students? How will the School District of Clayton best support the social-emotional developments of the students? Now we're still working on the wording of this, but you get the gist of this. These are the things that we want to answer for ourselves.

And by doing that, by looking at these questions, we were going to get into smaller work sessions to think about if those are our questions we want to answer, We need to develop the priorities around those. And then we need to develop action steps. And the process for developing those action steps is highlighted here in this draft form that we're going to use. And I've been doing so much reading around strategic planning over the last few years.

And one of the things that really stood out to me recently in somebody that I was interacting with and who actually referred me to a great article is that when you're thinking of an action step, An action step doesn't necessarily mean that you're implementing something new. An action step could be under, it could also be, it could be something like, we're going to take time to research and study something. And then the other thing is that we could be implementing a new idea, or it could be the refinement of a current structure. So it's important to define that when you're thinking of an action step, where does it fall underneath those three?

And then we're, then it's really important that we not only as a district have fiscal health, but also that we have, are aligning our resources to whatever action step that is. We have to make sure there's responsibility on this and then we also have to think about what are those potential challenges and barriers that we might face as part of that as we move forward. And also the thing that we always, the board always has us holding, hold us accountable to is the The accountability. What's going to be the evidence of the metrics?

And how do we connect that to our profile? So if you see up here, this key right here, what we're going to do is after we develop those action steps, we will have a very transparent key that will be shared with the community on our website, shared orderly with the board, that will be an opportunity for us to color code our action steps and to show you where we are with those. And then it'll be an opportunity at the end of the year to say, is there anything we need to do? We need to change anything that we need to revamp.

And that's part of what that evergreen model means, is that there's going to be constant board oversight over it and input. We also are going to make sure that the evidence is informing our direction. And just like we do in our schools all the time, we plan, we do, we revise. And it really important for us to make sure that we coming back to the table and coming back together as a leadership team deciding is this working or is it not working I really firmly believe that this is the direction we need to go as a district because we do great things for our children and we do have academic excellence but we have the opportunity now to think about how can we set the standard for the way education can look and the potential of the possibilities that we provide and I think that we are doing great Spervantage, Pursuit, and But we also need to start challenging ourselves to say, you know, this is the way we've always done it.

We can't just continue to say that. We need to say, maybe we need to think differently so that way our students are saying, you know what, this is more relevant to me and my learning is enhanced. The other thing I think is really going to be important as part of this work is that I want to initiate a new initiative protocol. And the reason I'm sharing this with you is that we have amazing educators and amazing people in the community who have great ideas.

But what often happens is that we have a tendency to take those ideas and say, okay, let's add that, let's add that, add that. And then we end up having initiative overload. And we tend to do too much. We need to make sure that we're narrow with our focus.

And when we're thinking about a new initiative protocol, it's having sometime a system in place that when a new idea comes to us, let's put it through a protocol and see whether or not it fits with the direction that we're moving with our current strategic plan. And if it's a great idea, where it could potentially fit later on, maybe down the road, or if it could be added to what we're doing. But we want to make sure that we're being purposeful about not adding too much onto our plates. The other thing I want to share with you is that the timeline is that my goal is to have a draft to you at our first board meeting in March.

So we have two months to finish up getting the drafts of those initial action plans and that chart I shared with you. And so in January, I'm working with Joe to get a working session together for the Board of Education to have a deep dive into this work. So that way you can ask some questions, share your thinking, share some ideas that maybe you've heard from other districts. So that way we can incorporate that as part of this work.

And then that would also give us some time to say if there's any budget implications for anything that we want to look at for next year. So this is just a quick snapshot of where we are with this. I feel really proud of the work that we've done so far. I think that we're moving in the right direction.

I think we're going to be building on the work that we're doing around educational equity, making it even stronger. I also think that that personalized learning is the direction to go and the social emotional well-being without compromising our academic excellence. And I just want to make sure that's stated, that I want to state that too. Because sometimes when people think about personalized learning or social-emotional learning, they think that we're not having high expectations for academics, and I'm not saying that.

We need to hold ourselves to a different standard and maybe think differently about how we're teaching. So that's where we are. So, go ahead. I was going to say if Adam wants to do a check-in.

Do you want to do a check-in? Hello everyone. So first I want to say that the District Advisory Council had our second meeting. Dr.

Doherty came by and talked with everyone for a little bit and it was a good meeting and we're just still laying the foundations and things have been going really well with that. I also wanted to talk about we, CFC, which is the Clayton Fall Classic, which is our speech and debate tournament that we host, was a huge success. We had 500 competitors. We did end up having 350 judges and over 20 schools and things ran really smoothly.

And we've heard a lot of great feedback about it, so that was great. Our Globe, so our school newspaper, was just in Washington, D.C., and they received a ton of really cool awards. So this is for all high schools around the country. They won the Best Multimedia Story of the Year, which is Why Do We Still Play Football?

That story also won the Sports Story of the Year. And then also there was the Photo of the Year taken by Michael Mellinger. So, just wanted to highlight that, that they're doing some really neat stuff over there. Finally, the last thing, which I don't know, Dr.

Doherty, did you talk about the thought exchange that we, I don't think so, because I think it's been since the last, anyway. Well the high school did a thought exchange where we talked about what are some things that the administration can do to help students out at the high school And I wanted to share a little bit some of the feedback with you so you could hear about that Something the biggest thing the theme the biggest running theme throughout it was time And really focusing our time at school to the learning that we're doing. And so a lot of folks have been talking about flipped classrooms and how that's been, especially with technology coming into play, that that has been a little bit detrimental for them as a student at the high school, Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thought Exchange.

And so as we talk about our calendar today, I personally think it's a really neat idea. And so I think it's just, you know, as we talk about going from excellent to transformational, I think that it's something that we can always keep in the back of our minds that there is, you know, we can go push outside the box and at least think about some of these really interesting and innovative solutions. So just one. Sure, go ahead.

Are we doing flip classrooms? Is that why? It's up to the teachers. So some people are doing that and you're getting some I have multiple classes that will do videos at night and then during the day we'll come in and do practice problems.

And so it really depends on the teacher. It's very, you know, it's up to them. Thank you. Thank you.

So we're going to move on to 6.01, which is a draft of the 2020-2021 academic calendar. That's Chris. And again, this is an information item as much because Chris is going to kind of give us a heads up of where the calendar committee is and then kind of, I guess, share more from there. I figure since I'm up here for three items in a row, I'm going to take up as much of this table as I possibly can.

Let me pop this up real quick. Okay. Good evening. I hope everyone's doing well tonight.

So this is a draft of the 2020-21 calendar. And what makes the calendar a little unique this year is that our good friends of education in Jefferson City passed legislation kind of issuing a mandate that school districts could not start school any earlier than 14 days before the first Monday in September. First Monday in September is always Labor Day, so it's essentially it's 14 days before Labor Day. The law actually used to say that we couldn't start 10 days before Labor Day, but if we had a special board meeting and an agenda item and went through, you know, the steps that we typically do to publicize our calendar, then we could essentially waive that mandate.

This year, there is no, in the new law, there is no option or no workaround. You are locked into starting 14 days before the first Monday in September. So, for the 2020-21 calendar, that magic day is August 24th. So, that kind of becomes the start of school for, and every district in St.

Louis County, save one, is starting school on the 24th. There's one starting on the 25th. And then, Sean, do you remember who that, yeah, I know there was one, there was one district that kind of went against that. So we knew that the calendar was going to present some interesting challenges this year when we went into this development process.

One, trying to get, you know, the number of days and hours that we need to get in and, you know, not end up going to school through the middle of June. Two, trying to look at this in a way that will let us maintain the practice of having final exams, first semester final exams before winter break at the high school. And it also gives us an opportunity just to look at how we organize different components within the calendar. So we went through a process that worked with our central office administrators, our leadership council.

We had a calendar committee comprised of teachers and parents and other administrators throughout the district. Dr. Tony Arnold, by the way, Dr. Tony Arnold is watching the live stream at home.

He's recovering from shoulder surgery. I know he really wishes he could be here with me because he's heard how much fun doing the calendar in this district actually can be. So I wish I had a picture of him or something to put up on the table. So hi, Tony.

So we even met with the principal advisory council over at the high school and got feedback from that group And you know surprisingly I mean obviously we heard very loudly from our students at the high school that we needed to really you know any calendar solution that we entertained needed to be one that kept finals before winter break Especially with, you know, the conversation that we're having about just mental well-being and stress and all that, that that was very important. We also heard it come very loudly from the parents as well. So even our parent population recognizes that that is a good break. We also looked at, based on some feedback that we received, ways in which we could reduce the number or increase the number of five-day weeks that we have throughout the calendar.

So we tried to kind of look creatively in the way that we arrange early release days and looked at opportunities where we could take the time that we use in three early release days and turn that into, instead of having three early release days, kind of a full release day for professional learning for our staff. So that let us build in more five-day weeks throughout the calendar. The other interesting piece about the calendar this year that I should have included in part of my introduction is that school districts now are only required to build a calendar based on hours. It used to be days and hours.

It used to be 174 days and 1,044 hours. So it's now only 1,044 hours. And DESE puts some limits on what has to be a minimum and what can be a maximum amount of instructional time you can have in a day, but they basically have given you the flexibility to say if you can go, you know, as long as you get your 1,044 hours or the number of hours that you feel that your district needs to deliver curriculum instruction, then we're good with your calendar. So, and that, what Adam said earlier, is kind of the flexibility that some districts have that have gone to a four-day school week.

There are districts that do that in the state of Missouri. The majority of them are rural out-state school districts, and they've done that to reduce transportation costs. But it is, you know, there are districts out there that are making that type of calendar work. So, obviously not something we're going to look at for next year, but certainly something that if, you know, if there's enough momentum behind it, we could look at exploring.

So that's, I mean, that's really kind of the key things that went into this year's calendar development. Our plan is at this point to put this out for our parents, put this draft out for our parents to look at in this Friday's e-news. We're circling back one more time with Professional Relations Council, which is our teacher group, next week. And then we will bring this back here for approval on the 18th.

And then assuming that we don't make any major changes between now and the 18th, probably in the spring, start working on a 2021-2022 calendar kind of based on the template that we've developed here so we can get back to our practice of having a calendar approved two years out. Any clarifying questions? Go ahead, Stacey. Thanks, Chris.

I know from being on the calendar committee this isn't easy work. Could you tell me what's the difference in the number of days first semester versus second semester now? Is first semester quite a bit shorter? Yeah, first semester.

So the difference, so there's two ways to think about this. So in this proposed calendar, first semester is six days shorter than it is this year. So there is, right, so there is, so in the proposed calendar, there's a 16 day, I'm sorry, it's five days short, there's a 16 day gap between first and second semester. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

They all feel like, you know, that this, what we've got is still a very workable calendar for them to use, you know, especially given the goal of trying to keep those finals before winter break. Thanks. Lily? The exact same question, so a follow-up question on that.

Chris, did you, did the committee so far like consider, because of the difference between the two semesters, and that sounds like that's going to be the most that it's been for a while or ever, I guess, with 16 days? It was 15 or 16 the very first year that we moved finals. Before winter break in 2003 or 2004. Okay, so I guess my question is, did you guys consider not having early release days or the election day off for semester just so that it increased the days the first half?

So an early release day really only reduces instructional time by two hours. So, you know, not having, for example, not having three early release days in there while that grants, you know, while that gives you back the equivalent of a day's worth of instruction. It really, you know, you really don't get that time. You're adding, I guess you're only adding back the time that you're taking off of classes on those days.

You're not really gaining additional days of instruction. And in terms of the election day, I mean, that is the that's the presidential election in 2020. So I think that that is a day that we definitely, you know, we kind of developed a practice of not having students in school that day and using that as a professional learning day. So it's definitely a day that we don't want to have students in school.

Yeah. Any other clarifying questions? Thank you. Appreciate it.

So we're moving to your next thing. So, yeah, don't get up. So now we're moving to study items. And the next one is also on the academic calendar, but it's policy, 7.01, policy IC.

So policy IC essentially just takes the changes in legislation that impact the school calendar and updates our academic calendar policy to reflect the new law and the legislative changes. So there's nothing really controversial about it. I mean, it's the law that we have to follow to build the calendar, So it makes sense that we would have a policy that also follows that law to put that into practice. Any questions or comments about this one?

Yes, Jason. Can you just tell us, state, why they made this policy, this law? Well, I mean, I would never try to speculate what's on the legislator's mind when they actually vote that. I've actually been to Jefferson City and testified on similar bills in the past.

And historically, it has been the tourism lobby that has brought this type of legislation forward. Quite honestly, it all revolves around the state fair and not having public schools in session during the state fair in late August and trying to get two more weeks of tourism down in Branson and Lake of the Ozarks. Those have historically been the senators and representatives that have led the charge on legislation to regulate the start of school. And what happens if you were to vote no on this?

Just ask me, like, will you be sued or what's going to happen? You know, I'm not really sure what the teeth are for having a calendar that's not compliant with the law. I would imagine that might affect your state funding. I mean, we'd have to go back in and ask that question.

I would like to get some information on that. I just want to know, you know, what the repercussions are if we don't accept this. Don't accept the policy or don't approve a calendar that's... Don't approve a calendar that's in line with state law and if we don't accept the policy as well.

Well, I think the, I mean, the law supersedes the policy. So whether or not we have a policy in place that is in line with the law, you know, The umbrella there is that there is a law that we're expected to follow. But we can certainly... You're wondering about what if we don't...

What if we have a calendar that starts before what happens to us? Because it seems like this is problematic to me in more than one way. More than just us trying to figure out, now we've got to shift our whole entire lives around. Teachers have to cut, a bit of sacrificing here and there.

But also, I mean, from what the reasoning is behind it is problematic. You know, trying to create more business for a certain demographic, a group of people in a certain area. That's problematic to me. If that's the case, we should shift all types of things around to make sure I'm doing well.

Well, and then the further challenge, which we'll have to watch this legislative session to see, but because school districts have essentially pushed later into June, So now the legislature is actually talking about legislating a mandated end date as well. So they're going to really, really tie you into, no, probably earlier. Short of the year? Yeah.

Yeah, no, for earlier in the year. Yeah, so we would end up with, well, you wouldn't necessarily end up with a shorter, I mean I sure that I don anticipate even if they legislated an earlier end date to the school year that DESE would change the amount of instruction that we required to deliver So then we would be able just to you know we have our bookends and we just have to kind of rearrange things to figure out how we going to fit everything in the time that we given I mean, you know, I agree. I mean, there's an element of local control that this law completely takes away. And I think that, you know, any time I've been up testifying against that, I mean, all of Sean and his colleagues have said that, I mean, this is a...

Calendar is a decision that should be made by your local school board because that gives you the flexibility to set a calendar that works for your community, your curriculum, and your priorities. But, I mean, that's not where the law is right now. So we'll put in the executive summary for the next meeting. We'll get some information and see what would be the ramifications.

Awesome. I appreciate it. Thank you all very much. Other questions?

Adam? Yeah, I had two quick questions. The first one was about, they're both about wording, but one of them is, it talks about that the student attendance, the board approval for academic calendar designed to maximize student attendance that is aligned with the district's student achievement goals. I was wondering if we would want to change that to like the profile of a graduate because that is our student achievement goals or something that's a little more concrete because we have some of those things in place.

I mean, generally, you know, generally these policies are just written with generic language like that. I mean, we can certainly do that. I think the thing that we would have to do is then just put a pin in this policy so if in eight years it's not the profile of the graduate, we're using different language, then we'd have to go back and revise the policy. I think that's why it's written just in general terms like that.

Sure. The other question was about the sentence, attendance hours will be counted only if the students are under the guidance and direction of teachers engaged in the teaching process. I didn't really understand what that meant. So the high school has a 6.42-hour day in terms of instructional time.

But you're probably actually, if you're there from the start of first hour to the end of eighth hour, you're actually there for more than 6.4 hours. So there's points in the day, lunches, free periods, those types of things that don't generally count towards instructional time. We actually, I mean, one of our technology folks, Chris DeWile, is our core data guy. So there's people that have to go through and comb through every day to figure out what our instructional minutes are and actually report that out to DESE.

So that's why. It's just the difference between what the state considers to be instructional time versus the time that you're actually there at school. Thank you. Any other questions?

Yes, Gary. So this is a bit in the nature of commentary for me, but I just would add that, well, one, thanks, Chris, for doing all this work to try to bring us into compliance with what is a pretty frustrating legislative process. But also, throughout the legislative session last year, the legislative advocacy group that's a combination of several St. Louis County districts, at a number of our meetings, they tracked this issue.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. This was kind of, you know, what everybody, I assume, just swallowed hard and voted on to get that bigger bill passed. Yeah.

Any other questions or comments? Yes, I'll make sure. So, Gary, you're saying there was a lot of protests against this, right? Did we protest against it?

Were we down there? Were we? So even though there was a lot of protest, you think we should still not protest? Is that what we're saying?

I'm just asking, what do you think? Not protest. Should we just let it go and just accept this or should we continue to push back on this I mean I would certainly advocate for asking legislative members to change it I don't think they'll be successful in that, based on just the numbers of the way the votes were. We always talk about, Joe and I always talk about the largest elected body of elected officials in the state are school board members, correct?

I'm sure if we got more school boards on board, maybe there's a way to then overpower and cause even more of a pushback. So MSBA was very much against it, and they spent a lot of time actually organizing folks against it, and they still were not successful, just to that point about school boards. But I do think that since we're probably going to have to follow this. I'm going to suggest that we probably follow this law for this calendar, but I do think that if there's an opportunity, because I think what's going to happen is that people are going to feel the reality of this next year, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

As smoothly as some people think, I think people are going to really feel this next year, and then there's going to be a groundswell of people who might say, let's get together and start thinking about how to strategically look at this, because I think it's going to really impact people hard next year. Do you know if any district is not doing it, is not going to follow it for their calendar next year? You're not aware of anybody? No, we actually met.

All of the school districts met, and we talked about being consistent with the start day, trying to be as consistent as start day, and also trying to be consistent with our spring breaks. And so every St. Louis County school district I know is following this. I don't know any other school districts in the state that are not.

Any other thoughts, questions? All right, Chris, for the trifecta. So we're moving on to 7.02, Communications Foundation and Central Office Staffing, New York. Sean, am I starting?

Yeah. Okay, great. All right, so thank you, guys. I'd be delighted to continue the trifecta here.

The chair's just getting comfortable. So this is, we had some staffing turnover on our communications team here within the last about month and a half. And that gave us the opportunity to really look at how we're organized to provide the services that our communications team has. And are there any other things or programs within central office that could be supported differently and work more effectively if we were to look at reorganizing our staffing?

So, Dr. Dorey and I sat down and kind of brainstormed a different communication plan, you know, a different way to organize our communication staffing, as well as we took this as an opportunity to have a conversation with our education foundation about, you know, them seeing this as an opportunity to bring their own staffing on board, something that they've been talking about for quite some time. And I think that all the stars aligned to do this in a way. And in thinking about how we really wanted to restructure our communications team, you know, what really drove kind of my thinking behind all this was just the way that our communication is evolving and continues to evolve.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. If each of you were to think about what is the way that you probably receive the majority of your news content and your information, it's probably usually from something that you're holding in your hands and looking at that. So looking at a way that we can be more focused on digital communications I think will really give us an opportunity to communicate more effectively not only with our parents and with our staff but with the community abroad It will also give us the opportunity to be a little more effective with the way that we support our staff throughout the district with our website. There's a lot of districts that have comparable communications programs to us at Clayton that have dedicated resources to supporting their website, whether it's a full-time or a part-time webmaster.

But that is just a direction that everyone has moved over the last three, five years. And quite frankly, this gives us an opportunity to go there as well to allow us to leverage that resource. In looking at all of this, we also found a need to support our OASIS program a little differently than we've been doing it right now. So bringing in the additional administrative assistant, which is the only increase in budget that we're actually seeing through this proposed reorganization, lets us provide some dedicated resources to helping with the OASIS program, to helping manage volunteers.

So we've seen kind of increasing needs and increasing requirements for the way that we're going to register and screen our volunteers throughout the district over the last two or three years, and we only anticipate that to continue growing. It also allows us to support the Clayton Education Foundation, so it gives the Clayton Education Foundation access to a support personnel to manage their day-to-day communication and correspondence, as well as track donors and that sort of thing. And that model tracks back to a number of different things. One, when we first envisioned how we wanted to set this model up for the Clayton Education Foundation way back in 2008, when we sat here with the board, it was set up that there was a part-time development director slash executive director, pardon me, and then part of a support person, administrative support person to work with that.

And at the time, those of you that were, I think you might be, you were here. Were you on the board of that yet? 2008, 2009? So, if you remember, we actually got together a group of fundraising and development professionals to kind of help figure out what kind of staffing models and everything that we needed to look at.

And the biggest thing that they said to us is, you know, the person that you want to be going out there knocking on doors and asking for money can't be the person that's updating the donor database and sorting through the mail and doing that sort of thing. You have to have somebody to kind of take care of those day-to-day tasks so that your development person can be focused directly on development. So that was kind of our original model. We moved away from that over the years for a number of different reasons when we were looking to, you know, trim $20,000 here or there off the budget.

But I mean, a lot of people, when they talk about our foundation, look to Ledoux's Education Foundation and the success that that foundation has had. And this proposed reorganization aligns with the staffing model that they've had, that they've been able to be successful at. And quite honestly, if I have to look back at what the foundation has accomplished over the last year, and I think there's been a lot of growth there, that's only been since the foundation has hired administrative assistants. So we've actually had more than just a halftime person being able to work on, you know, being able to do that work and move the foundation forward.

So with regards to the foundation, what this proposed reorganization does is essentially flips the responsibilities between what the district and the foundation were funding. So the foundation ends up funding what is essentially the leadership position or the development position, and the district takes over providing a portion of an administrative assistant to support them. I think that's questions. Did you want to add something?

I'm sorry. I think that in developing this model, it wasn't just about what we thought was, we needed to look at what our needs were. And so we did an analysis of like what are those needs that we have. And right now I think the other thing is that we're doing some outside, we're paying outside consultants to do some of this work already for us.

And if we had someone that was in-house, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. You know, You could support teaching and learning. So, I mean, there's other ways that this is going to be able to support and technology with using, having someone who's really a webmaster. And I told Chris, I said, the thing that I want most of anything is if we can get the person who can figure out our calendar on our website and to make sure it coordinates all together, then that's worth every penny that, so.

Any questions? Go ahead, Lily. I have some questions, and so I guess one of mine is I don't know that I want to have to take the board time to do these because I just want to make sure I understand it. So I can do that outside of this meeting because there's just some questions I have about, like, I'm just not getting exactly how much we're adding and that stuff.

So should I just do that outside of this meeting? No. Well, I don't want to take everybody's time because it's kind of getting into the weeds, but I just want to make sure I understand. So it would be, so the staffing would be an adding of, so the person who is the community relations person right now, which is a full-time position, that would be a full-time digital media specialist.

And then we currently, the Clayton Education Foundation is currently paying for a part-time administrative support person. And so that would become a full-time person that is provided by the district. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Pursuit, and Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I actually think it would be anything but problematic. I think Sean and I have had conversations for a little while about that the board needs an executive director or development director that reports directly to them. I mean, the Clayton Education Foundation is its own separate 501c3 that it needs to operate at arm's length in the district.

So having a position that was supported by the district, evaluated by the district, but still kind of quasi-worked for the board, in my mind, really didn't create the reporting lines and the lines of control that I think could really benefit the foundation and its work. I think that giving the foundation the opportunity to be more heavily invested in an employee and the type of employee. I mean, the person that you're going to bring in to be director of development is a very different type of person that you would bring in to be an administrative assistant. So to have the ability to go out and recruit that person and hire that person, I think is going to give them a chance to really have someone who understands fundraising, fundraising planning, giving, that sort of thing, that's reporting directly to them as opposed to someone who works for the district that is just helping them out.

Basically Jason just so you know historically when the Clayton Education Foundation was started the district paid for the position for the Clayton Education Foundation They did not have enough money coming in to even pay for a position So we took that on because we wanted to build that program It has now gotten to the point where it built up so much that they now have the income to pay the salary for their employee So that what happened So now they are employing their own person and we are now having administrative assistance that helping us with a variety of other things Questions? I guess, thank you. So my feedback, maybe you guys can make that just a little bit, it's clear on the first, you know, the one for one thing, it just gets a little unclear there than what you guys described in my opinion. And the other thing, thank you for responding to the question over email.

And I would find it helpful to also know if this isn't too much work, kind of the difference, not just in the comparison with neighboring districts, Staffing, but also just the funding. I think that would be helpful to know how much other districts are paying for their communications department. Okay. Some of that is easy to get, some of that is not.

So, I mean, the salaries for, generally the salaries for the top administrators in communications departments are readily available through Education Plus data that we have. But in terms of kind of digging into all of that, digging in deeper than that, I would have to ask Sean or Tony. Well, whatever you can do easily, because I know these questions have come up in the past about being a smaller district and how many personnel or how much we're spending on communications. What you're describing makes a lot of sense.

But I think for our responsibility, just to at least have a comparison, If we're spending comparable to Leduc or whatever, I understand the difference in size and that we still have, we have to provide the same things even though we're a smaller district. I get all that, but I think I would find that helpful to have that information. Anybody have any other questions or comments? Okay, thank you very much.

So we're going to move on to 7.03, which is policy update for DH and DI. And I think that's Mary Jo, right? Yes. Chris, sorry, you can't have four.

Only three, bud. Mary Jo, can you start by just giving a... Can you start by just giving an overview of the policies? So, the policy was to allow the bridge to be on the ground in two weeks.

So, you still would be planning on putting it up in November, but you don't have to. Now, it's actually a . Then, in addition, it talks about . What are your actions on the side of ?

. So it just cleared up the policy. And then DI is on a reporting system, and now we've got effective 9.19. And that is .

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So questions or comments on these two either of these two All right thank you very much Mayor Joe Okay so we moving on next to the 7 which is the Board of Education Protocol on Responding to Concerns from Constituents And I'll speak to this one. What I basically did is took what we did, what we all put together from when we were at the lake at a retreat, Superroportionate, Proprietary, and Look at the legal ramifications that we certainly speak as one body, right, that we're not kind of, you know, that we're a board, right, that there's the appropriate follow-up and follow-through, and then if we see trends, that we address it accordingly. So does anybody have any questions or comments on this one?

Yes, Lily. Okay. Okay. If there's some other more efficient way to do it, I'm happy to consider that if it's sitting down and kind of going through that.

So, do you like me to begin? Well, you can certainly write it down and send it to the whole board if you want, or you can, I mean, I don't know where your comments are, so, I mean, if you can go through them, I mean, it's really up to you. Okay, so the way it will work is that, would that mean we'd have another time we'd look at it before we vote on it? Okay, so we would just extend the time.

So this is a study item, so we're still going to be, it would come back next as an action item. Right, so I think I better say it then. So my first point is I would rearrange the rationale. I think that, and this is what I would suggest, is that we start with the rationale for this and really focus on the community rather than us kind of managing each other or our board's behavior.

So I would say, and I'd make some slight tweaks to some of those, but I would say that, first of all, this protocol is based on number three, the community. And it's not that they need to feel listened to, it's that we are actually, you know, they are being heard. So I would say it like that. I would say the second one is that the issue goes to the right place.

I really like that idea that we're making sure that they get hooked up with whoever's going to answer the question and that it ensures a timely response. And it's driven by the best interest of the students. Okay. And then I would say, then group together at the last part is sort of what it's doing for our, you know, working together as a cohesive body.

That the board is a collective body, we don't want to undermine the district work or create legal issues, and I don't think we need to repeat the one, there's avoiding long-term damage, I don't suggest that's in there. And that we create consistent, uniform approach. So that's my suggestions for the rationale. Okay.

I'll just say that I would support that. I do think that it's always good to start with a positive reason why we're doing what we're doing. And I do think that we were all in agreement that we want to do this because we all had an understanding of how we were doing it. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I was trying to reflect what Lynn put, so not to change, but I think. But I think driven by the best interest of our students, and I would say, and our Clayton community. It's not just our students. And actually, to me personally, incorporating the human element seems a little odd.

I don't even know that I would say that. I would say that we're driven by the best interest of our students and our community, And I think we are intuitively empathetic people that can respond Yep Then I'm really struggling with the, not really struggling, but I am a little bit confused about whether or not we want to send the protocol. I'm not sure I like that idea of sending our protocol attached to whatever response. To me, I think what's important for community members to know, and that sometimes makes me uneasy, even when only the president responds, we hear from...

We talked about this at the retreat, that it would be like a small byline at the bottom of the bed that says, you'll be hearing a response from the board president on behalf of the board. And it's just like a generic stamp that's on all things. Because I think it's really important to communicate to whoever that the reason I'm not writing my neighbor back, which I probably think I'd give some informal response to, is not going to hear from me. Exactly, and they should know that.

I think they should know that. I'm not entirely in favor of it, but I know it's a protocol that we all put together. But that would make it more comfortable for me when I don't respond to, you know, the band director telling us some award. I would love to be able to say, that's great, I'm so happy for you, but, you know.

So do you, because I'm agnostic about it, do you, in terms of including the protocol, do you all not want to put the protocol with it? Because that's what we talked about, and that's great. I think we did talk about doing a one-liner on the email. We did talk about that.

And then talking about setting the whole protocol, I don't remember when that came about. I thought, I forgot. Okay. It was in LensV.

So, okay. Well, that could be a part of the, that's a part of the human element, right? Right now. They get an automatic response that something will be forthcoming from the board president on behalf of the entire board.

And then you have your, within two days. Yeah. Okay. So no disclaimer, right?

No disclaimer. We can have a disclaimer? Well, we can have the clear... whatever.

I'm just messing around, but I mean, it's kind of serious. No disclaimer. All right, go ahead. What else?

Keep going. Keep going. All right. And then I just want us to consider.

I know why we're doing this, and I think uniformity and not confusing community members with different people's opinions or thoughts on something. I get that. I think to think a little bit deeper on this, to me, I think we also have to think about, and I think it reflects something that the gentleman said earlier, Spervantage, that we are each elected, and we're elected by our community and by our neighbors. And it is a little, it is a little, we're giving up something by making it only be from the board president.

And I think we should just think about, maybe we'll come up with protocols where we have some other ways of reaching out to people. Talking to our constituents, and I think our constituents, especially if we say it, if we say, you know what, I am not, and I do this a lot, I am not speaking on behalf of the board. I know I'm a board member and I'm not saying that what I say might not have more weight, I get that, but I am not speaking on behalf of the board. I think people can understand that.

I mean, I went to the Board of Alder, people had their coffee, and two board members were there kind of speaking and answering questions, and we've had coffees before, and Kristen, I liked when Kristen used to say at the board table after public comment that feel free to call any of us. I think we're losing something in this protocol, and I just want to comment. I don't know what the answer is, but I think we're losing something. I do have a comment to that.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but this doesn't prohibit anyone from just reaching out to you and you respond. This is only if we get a collective email. So any constituent could call me and I could talk to them. Right, but just to clarify.

But if they reach out to the whole board and then call you and say, did you get my email, what did you think? That does say you're going to hear from the board president, right? And it does mean that we're going to hear from the board president. We won't seek additional clarification as an individual, and we don't, and I'm just thinking through it.

But the thing is when it comes to the whole board, we have as a board elected the president to lead us, and so I do think if something got sent to the whole board and then the person individually reaches out to me, That I would have to say that following our protocols and because the whole board is aware of the situation, you'll be hearing from the board person on behalf of the board. And only because of all, like we talked about before, any kind of legal ramifications. Me as an individual person doesn't know what's happened. So I think it's a little different than...

And I want to jump in too just to say that I think... We have had situations where we could have been put in legal jeopardy by somebody reaching out, right? So, I mean, I will say we have to be very careful, right? I mean, and so, you know, if there's a bid and somebody then reaches out after, I mean, that's the kind of stuff that becomes lawsuits, right?

And so, or if there's a claim of some kind of mistreatment or discrimination. So the legal stuff is real, and I think we have to be very careful. So I hear what you're saying, and we have to be very careful about the legal, And also the efficiency and effectiveness of our superintendent, because we don't always all know, right, you know, if Sean and team are dealing with it, because some of this stuff moves very quickly. And so part of the challenge, right, if we're individually reaching out, right, that can really, in essence, inhibit the administration.

And so I think, and well, and has. We have examples of both. And we're making it broader than just the legal ones. And we're choosing to do that.

So my last, I think this is my last part that I would also want to think about is, can we all be informed, as long as we don't all respond, or shouldn't we all be informed? Not just what's sent back to the constituent. We will all get that as we would your email. But also, can we also know whatever additional information Sean is providing to the president to kind of give the bigger picture?

Is there any reason why we shouldn't all be informed about that too? That's a bad idea. And actually, that's why we have a lot of those memos that come on Friday, those executive memos with those issues. I've been trying, I will always try to give that additional information to the board.

Excellent. Yeah, I'll just make a comment. I mean, I, Lily, I hear, I totally hear what you're saying, and I think that, especially to the public who is in on the board, It seems like there's a lot of, you know, it seems somewhat maybe rigid and controlling. But behind the scenes there's been, you know, and I thank Joe for all the work that he's put into this.

And I don't think, you know, I don't think that this is Joe trying to manipulate situations. This has, you know, occurred over the course of several years. You know, occurrences of not intentional, but board members, I think, unintentionally undermining what Sean is trying to do or undermining what admin is trying to do. And like I said, it's nothing intentional.

And inconsistent messages getting sent to the public. And I hear you. Like, I agree it is a little bit rigid. But I don't, like, with that said, I don't know what a better answer is in order to try and make sure that inconsistent messages aren't sent to, you know, when Sean is doing something and then he's also got a board member that's talking to the person on the side.

I'm not saying, I'm not looking at you when I'm saying this. I'm just trying to, like, think of situations in my head. So I don't know what the answer is to try and structure it with, you know, more flexibility yet still accomplishing what we're trying to accomplish. So, I mean, if there was, if there's a better way to do it, I'm all for it.

But it was certainly I think in response to too many occurrences that have happened over the past several years that I think you thing Yeah so I think this is in theory I like the idea of protocols especially coming from the business world. If you don't have protocols in place, you're going to get sued, or things happen, or whatever the case may be. So you want to make sure you have protocols. Superroportion O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Just the idea of training. Onboarding, as we discussed early on, right? So, there should be some standard operating procedures that we need to teach each individual who comes onto the board about how to communicate under these types of circumstances. Or just in general, right?

Just general, and they should know this. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. A major issue, for example. So.

Comments or questions on this one? Yeah, Gary? So I appreciate all of this. I will say that this is something that we need to remember, that seven of us sitting at this table got sued last year.

This is real. Like, twice we got sued. And there are communications that have gone out by email during my tenure on the board that if there was a lawsuit over one of those issues, those communications would have been exhibits in the lawsuit. And because of that, if God forbid you all ever put me in charge, we wouldn't use email.

We would not, as board members, have access to communicate with people through email. I would eliminate that. Because it's one thing to talk to a constituent. It's another thing to create a record which, by law, is a public record and cannot be disposed of or hidden.

And when you do that, that can be used to, in some cases, create or, in other cases, enhance liability that the board and the individuals, including anybody who might ever be on this board, may have. So while there's certainly a balance here, this is serious. Any other thoughts, questions? Okay, thank you.

So, yeah, that would be great. That would be great. Yeah, please. That would be great.

That would be helpful. Thank you. Check out Sean. So thinking about the calendar, going back to that topic, we're going to include in our executive summary what could be some potential ramifications if we did not follow the law.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. In comparison to other districts and then also making that chart clearer so you can see how the positions are being reallocated. So, appreciate the feedback. In terms of the number three around the communication protocols, what I'm going to suggest is to think about maybe, again, taking the input because I know that I didn't collect everything from here.

Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Did this work with us She was you know she was saying how the importance of developing these protocols But I think that with going back to what Jason said is that we need to have these protocols so that when we onboarding we have something solid to give people when they coming in Because I think sometimes when it comes when you come into the board you do you get a lot you get a lot of information And we trying to make sure that this isn just work that you doing for the seven people who are at the table right now It for people who are moving forward So I think that your point about the onboarding Boarding needs to be something that we need to do. And I think that it's also important for board members to know that you are elected officials who people are going to come to you and ask you questions. And it doesn't stop you from being a listener and knowing that sometimes just being a listener and understanding that, but still also being consistent with your message like, and someone will get back to you about that. I think that's important to know.

And it's not keeping you from being good listeners to the community. So that's my checkout. I just want to say one more thing. I want to make sure people don't walk away with the wrong impression of what Gary's trying to say.

You're right about the email becoming a public document that can be used against us as an exhibit, definitely. So we're not trying to say, he's not trying to say we want lack of transparency. We're just trying to say we need to be very careful about how we communicate, which goes back to what Sean just said about onboarding and understanding how to really communicate effectively with constituents. Because this is all new to anybody who's first time running as an elected official.

And it's just good to have that kind of training, the language on how to communicate it. Thank you. So we're moving on to action items. So 8.01, approval of policy IGBB, gifted.

Motion? I move that the Board of Education approve policy IGBB with the recommended changes as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded.

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

Any opposed? Passes 7-0. Okay, we're moving on, thank you, to 8.02, the approval of Policy IKF, graduation requirements. Motion?

I move that the Board of Education approve Policy IKF as submitted. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions?

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, passes also unanimously.

Okay, we're moving on down the road here to 8.03, the Board of Education Protocol, communication with the superintendent. Do you have a motion? I move that the Board of Education approve the protocol for communication with the superintendent as presented. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions? Yes, Chloe? I'm going to read, I sent an email to Sean and Joe several days ago about this protocol, and I would like to read what I said and then invite, you know, what you can invite.

Do we want to bring that up? That's the other one. I don't know if we want to bring that up on the screen. Chris, do you want to pop that up?

That's Barbara. Let me put the other protocol up. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead and read your piece.

That's okay? Okay. Okay, I think everybody remembers this is the protocol on communicating between the board or board members initiating communications with the superintendent. Dear Joe and Sean, I want to let you know ahead of time that I am unable at this time to vote in favor of the proposed communication with superintendent protocol.

I say now because I think if I had a wider context and we generated a more comprehensive picture of additional communication and board superintendent administrator protocols that we are going to be developing and the subcommittees that we may be attending, I would feel more comfortable supporting it. At this point I am concerned it may be too constricting and may inadvertently jeopardize constructive flow of information such as feedback that we hear or that we want to give to Sean sharing new ideas or new learning It also seems to concentrate the communication flow Rather than equalize and ensure the flow of information to all board members, it concentrates that communication flow to a single board member. And then I just threw out kind of ideas or thoughts that I have, because I'd like to make it kind of a win-win, or that we come up with something rather than just voting against something. Ideas that I can think of that would be improved this would be perhaps we could discuss the overall plan that we have for protocols and those for communications that are going to facilitate our board learning and our feedback.

And identifying and committing to those additional protocols that we're going to be doing. So for instance, that we're going to be having working sessions and this is what they're going to be. That we're going to, that Sean's going to meet with each of us, you know, reach out to each of us. I don't know what they would be, but to have an idea of the big picture that's going to ensure our learning and good communications.

Two, another idea is perhaps all the board members could be CC'd on what is requested and whether that request is granted or rejected. Like if you two decide, no, we don't have the time for that, or if you decide that it's not appropriate for us to meet with Sean about a particular topic. That all board members know, so-and-so is reaching out to Sean to talk about whatever that is. And then a third idea is that we revisit and vote to approve a protocol as is each year, or tweak the protocol each year.

Not just when a new board is created and new officers are elected, that it's not just going over the protocol, but it's really saying, is this what we still need, or is this working, and what do we want to do? Or at some future point, maybe it's not that meeting. And then a third thing that I want to just throw out for us to think about, and that was in the book that we all were given, is that we haven't talked about whether votes for board protocols should be unanimous, but in that book it suggests that. And so I think we should think about, because they're the things that we're all, I mean, obviously if it passes, all of us have to follow it.

But there's a reason to have all of us, like, to come up with protocols that we all can stand behind and that we all feel comfortable with, and that might mean compromising on work. Yeah, so those are my points. So I just want to, because I sent a response to Lily, so I just want to share with you all how I responded, which, and I won't read it. I'll just summarize it, which is, so I think those are important points.

However, I do think this protocol, a couple things. One, we talked about, you know, we referenced the book, and I referenced, and we in the spring agreed, I thought we agreed, kind of to how we were going to work. And quite honestly, not all of us have followed it, right? We're not all following how we had agreed to, and so it clearly needs to be written down.

And I will say, you know, speaking of this book, The Governance Core, right, I think there's a great, you know, it says effective trustees, which is school board members operate from a strategic context rather than a tactical or administrative context. They understand that they are not on the board to administer the organization, but rather to govern it. And I think we've had some challenges with folks in the weeds, in the administrative level, not the governance level. And I think the idea is to support our staff, right, specifically Sean.

And I will say that of the protocols, Sean asked for this one to be created because it was important, because there's a challenge, right? And so I guess I feel strongly that this protocol needs to, you know, maybe we can tweak it, but we need to move it forward because we're not, we're compromising. A board member can be a facilitator, right, which is what we should be, or an inhibitor, right, to the staff's work. And I think we want to be a facilitator.

And, you know, we are not the staff. We don't do the work, right? Sean and his team, right, or whomever is superintendent of the school district does the work. And I guess that's my concern.

May I say this? So, the origin of this document, it came by way of our training that we had, right, with Flynn. And I think the training didn't, wasn't the best in the world. I think, um, I think we all were there.

I'm sure some of you all might know. Harman? Not everybody was there for either of us. Okay.

But a lot of us witnessed it. We were all experienced it. To me, I think the outcome, I don't think it was complete. And so...

I can stop for a second. It didn't come from the training. This protocol actually has been what the board has generally followed, right? And what most boards follow, right?

And so it was really codifying with some added stuff from governance core or whatever what most boards follow. I mean, it wasn't provoked by the, you know, remember we had that whole packet of stuff that we kind of had snippets of this and that. So that's really more work. Can I add something really quick?

Yeah, go ahead. So I skipped that. I said that I've been researching board protocols throughout the country, and there are some great examples of ones that I'm happy to share. Pueblo Alto has their protocols.

They put them all together. They don't have individual ones. And they have a whole comment on the importance of a strong relationship with the superintendent. And there's not, it isn't part of, I mean, there isn't that kind of restriction.

I'm not, I am not saying that there hasn't been issues at all. But I think there's examples of ones that aren't as tight as this. So, oh. I do think the point around making sure that there's an anatomy and support process.

And I do wonder about, you know, we want to make sure that we have strong relationships with the board table and the superintendent. So I don't know if there's questions about a protocol that I would want to check in and see if that was a question. I will say that I did say that this is something that we need to talk about because I do think it's important because there's some types of inconsistencies. And I feel like it isn't fair to some board members who are following that protocol that we established on that part.

And so I just want to make sure that we're being consistent. And I think that that's what our ultimate goal is, to be efficient and consistent, but not without compromise. I don't want to compromise relationships, but I want to make sure that we're being protocol. I don't want to compromise relationships.

I'll say that. I would go with that. Well, I have a lot more to go. So, if I may.

Yeah, go ahead. All right. So, I do think the document is restrictive. I think it puts a lot of power into one space.

And Joe may be the most ethical person in the world, but the next person who comes along may not be the most ethical person. So, I want to make sure that we're thinking about the now and the later, right? Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

So, yeah, that's what I want to make sure we're all on the same page about that. Yeah, so, again, I think looking at the big picture about this, I wholeheartedly agree that it would be in our best interest to have everybody supporting the protocol as a board. But, and, I shouldn't say but, and I also feel very strongly that, and I think we all believe this, Thank you I think it a little bit more extreme but again we don want to be vindictive We don want to be exclusive of anybody We don want to have that happening And yet we do need to have an understanding that the superintendent job is to run the district and if he trying to manage all seven of us coming to him weekly or Multiple times a week with requests or ideas or needing feedback on things that that could get very overwhelming and would take away from his ability to run the district. And so, I mean, I'm being redundant about this, but my feeling is that this is meant with the best of intentions.

We can't account for everything. Of course, we want us to have a positive relationship with each of the board members, and yet we can't have one board member or two board members having undue influence and making requests and having input without the collective seven of us Having an understanding of what's happening. I just wanted to say, and obviously I'm the newest board member here, so I kind of came in, I don't know any different. But I don't feel like following his rules has impacted my relationship with Sean.

Like if I have a question for him, I still email him, I just cc Joe. And Joe never responds, but I just, I think it's maybe, I've always taken it as a way of that Joe's just protecting Sean's time, so that if I start emailing him three times a day, that Joe could step in and say, Stacy, like, you know, lay off. But I don't feel like I don't have access to you because of this. I just copy Joe, that's all.

So I don't know, like, again, I don't know any different, but I haven't, it hasn't had like a negative effect on how I feel about my relationship with Sean. I don't know that I'm not emailing him as often, I mean, I think I'm still contacting him as often as I would otherwise. I just, I just know that I CC you and, you know, hear from Sean, but I don't know, for what it's worth. I want to also add a little bit of context regarding the idea that this would be unanimous.

I mean, to be honest, I don't know why this wasn't on the consent agenda because when we first talked about it, nobody spoke against it. I thought that it would be unanimous. That said, I mean, to be honest, if we spend any more time talking about our internal protocols or regulatory processes or whatever, instead of thinking about the big picture job that we're supposed to help do here, I will be very disappointed and frustrated. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I think that this is a communication coordinating strategy. We need to make sure that someone other than the one board member and the one employee knows that communication is happening. And when you elect an officer, when you elect a president, that has consequences. And part of that consequence is you're putting someone in charge of managing the communication flow.

That's structurally healthy and provides for efficiencies. So it's not requiring anybody to abdicate their elected responsibility. Rather, it's empowering the entire body only to make decisions, not one person. So, I mean, I guess just to summarize, it's not as unanimous or uncontroversial as I would have thought, but I do think it's pretty important.

And, yes, we have failed to do this properly as a whole, and we need to make rules saying we're going to do it. So I will support it now or whenever we will I just going to build on what Gary said just a little bit I mean I think that we have spent a whole lot of time talking about you know I thought that this was an action item because I know that last week this was a study item. So we talked about it. We all talked about it last week.

So, and I mean, I'm starting to get a little frustrated because we're here as a board to be talking, I mean, I understand, I don't mean to say that governance isn't important because it is super important, but it's more important that we're sitting here talking about kids and we've got real issues like dyslexia and equity and other things that we should be focusing our time on instead of bickering back and forth about this. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. The basis of how we're going to function. If we don't have this in order, then it's going to be hard to go forward and really focus on the things that we're saying are most important, right?

So if our foundation isn't straight, then it's going to be tough to really be effective at our jobs. But I also want to make sure, now I wasn't here last week. So if I was here last week, I would have said this. I would have said that, you know, Sean's our boss.

I'm sorry, we're Sean's boss. Edit that tape. So we're Sean's boss. I'm not trying to pull rain, but I'm just saying in the theory of how this operates, we're the board and we're Sean's boss.

And I would expect Sean, in any case, to be able to manage any relationship he has or any communication with any board member. If he feels like he's getting too many emails or frequent visits, I think Sean's going to have to, or any superintendent will have to say, hey, I understand, and manage that expectation with that particular board member. I think before I even jump to having all these protocols, which I think, I have to say, I like the protocols. I like that.

But I just think in this particular instance, when it comes to boards, in my experience, there's always a free-flowing dialogue and a lot of latitude that I have with talking to any board member, whether it's the CEO, some team, whatever. If I'm on that board, I can talk to them and communicate with them any time of the day I want to. I think that there is an understanding when you're hired to a board or when you're appointed to a board on how to operate. And I think, once again, this would be eliminated going forward if we had the proper onboarding and training that needs to happen so that we can all function appropriately.

So I just want to make sure we're on the same page about that. And once again, we always talk about spending time on things. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Before that, which is, I do think it's an important point to note that at least the way I read this and the way, I don't think this, and I think Stacey said it well, I don't think this says that a board member can't communicate with Sean.

It's just, and I think Gary made an important point, it's just that we're, sometimes you need to have a quarterback because if we had, if we all, right, if all of us seven times, right, communicated with Sean every day about something, Every week, call them every week, whatever. It could start to be a challenge. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking about you can't.

We're talking about that we're trying to, as a body, be careful that we're not overdoing it, right? Because we might only think of our own one, but if it's times seven, that's to me what gets the challenge. I have a couple of things. One is as I think Jason said something about the president is going to change and I think there has to be for sure then consideration insurance that there not bias on the part of the president or whoever you know that there is a fairness about the okays and the whatever for each board member to have that contact The other thing that I think we haven gotten to and it going to be a longer discussion I don mean for it to be tonight but the other point I was trying to make is that we focused our two first protocols are probably stemming from issues that people have had And I remember Lynn saying protocols shouldn't be all about fixing problems.

And so we haven't talked about the protocols about how we're all going to learn, how we're all going to whatever it might be related to students. We're not even yet focused on those. And so, as I said, if I had a bigger picture that we're actually going to build in protocols so that we ensure, I don't know what it is, that we have working sessions, Whatever it is that, because I really do think that our board meetings this year have been pretty light, you know, and we've done a lot on policies and other things, and we haven't had a lot of learning and a lot of kind of looking at curriculum, whatever it might be. But I would like to see the bigger picture of where, I don't know if you guys have that in mind or if we're having Lynn come back, but I'm not clear of, I'm not even clear if Lynn's coming back.

I'm not clear of what the big picture is with the protocols, and that would be super helpful to me. Really quick, should we put in writing in this protocol whether or not this applies to the student representative? Like, does this communication apply to the student representative as well? Like, when we say the board, we're including him too, I guess.

I don't think it's as clear as it could be. I mean, it should probably be... I mean... It's not the same position.

Right. That's why I'm saying it either maybe should be clarified if it does or doesn't also pertain to that spot. Something we should discuss. Other thoughts?

Adam? Yeah, just on that, I think that it'd be nice to have a separate protocol in general for the student representative concerning a lot of these topics. And so I didn't feel the need to go into any of that now because I think that that's something that can be more encompassing. And I do think on this note in particular, I think that there is a different relationship between the student representative and the superintendent between the elected board officials.

And so I think that that is something that we can work on later, but I don't think it would necessarily work wonderfully for this. Yeah, and there's certainly a lot of other policies that are already existing that predate having a student representative use it. I mean, I don't read board members to mean that because that would mean all of those other instances now mean that. So I would not read that into that.

I haven't thought about it. Other questions or comments? We do have a motion and a second on the floor, so we do need a vote. Other questions or comments?

So all in favor? Maybe we ought to do a hand raise just to make sure. So all in favor, raise your hand, please. Opposed?

Yeah, it's a vote for it. We have to vote one way or the other. So we have to either vote it down or vote for it. So vote for.

We just said there are five yeses. Are you a yes or a no? Okay. Any opposed?

Okay. It passes five to two. So motion passes five to two. Okay, consent agenda, moving on, 9.01, motion to approve consent agenda.

You're right, that we should probably think about this a little bit, but we're all saying that we're going to pass it anyways. I think people wanted to have that conversation, but once something is voted, they would have to vote it down. So, we're going to try to move forward. All right.

I just want to make sure going forward, this is how we're operating. We're just going to be ramming stuff down the road. Well, to me, hold on, let me just say this. I just feel like, you know, I mean, I think we have some really good points we made tonight.

I know some of you all felt some of those points, and yet still we're going to run this through. So I just want to make sure, this is how things get real dicey going forward with relationships. Now, I'm cool with this, but I just want to make sure you all are okay with it. That's not a threat, oh, Jason's going to come here and start threatening everybody.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that this is how it looks. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. What happens if we don't, what happens if I don't abide by this rule?

What do I do now? What's going to happen to me? Yeah, so there's no protocol. I just still email Sean.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, we didn't even think this through. So what's the repercussions? This is what I'm saying. So we're so fast to vote stuff through on a status quo.

To me, this is all status quo. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Do you have a discussion?

It wouldn't have mattered anyways, right? Because, I mean, everyone here was like, hey, I'm at it. I'm voting for it. All right, so just let me show.

This is how we do it. I respectfully disagree. So let's move on to consent. Motion for consent.

I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda. Second. Any questions or comments on consent? All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, it passes 7-0.

I do want to note that there are three donations. So the first one was girls basketball, and that was for the Clayton Girls and Sports Booster Club for $500 for girls basketball shooting shirts. And then the second was from Ms. Penny Inglesman for $4,500 for the Clayton High School English Department to support the Allen D.

Inglesman English Department Scholarship Fund for a writing scholarship. And then the third one was from the Modestus Bower Foundation, and that was $3,500 in honor of David Tischler, the class of 2020, on behalf of Gene and Richard. Okay, so we're moving on to board communication. And as we go into board communication, just before we kind of do just a reminder, right, that we have filing December 17th, right, in terms of candidacy for the board.

And this is typically where folks, we give an opportunity for board members, I'm going to ask the panelists to kind of talk about their intentions. So Kristen, you want to start? Thank you. I wasn't, I was, you know, growing up I was taught the importance of education.

It was something our family talked a lot about, giving back to community, valuing others our differences and our similarities And I continue to embody these values and try to teach them to my children And it a big part of why I chose to run for a school board and why I have served for the last eight plus years So I do want to say that it has been one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences I've had by serving on a school board. Paying it forward with other board members, community members, and educators who believe in public education and the right for every child to have a strong foundation and a love of learning so they might reach their full potential. We are fortunate that our leadership believes in the art of teaching and encourages our teachers to take risks, encourages our students to step out of their comfort zones, to use their creativity and critical thinking to be innovative and inspired. Not only to be talented artists, competitive athletes, and true academics, but also to be empathetic, self-actualized, and productive citizens.

Our district continues to push boundaries and remains at the leading edge of excellence in education, and the board is the voice of the community, and it is imperative that new voices have an opportunity to be heard at this table. It is my belief that serving three terms is adequate time to make a difference, and for me, it is time to pass the reign to another committed individual. So it is with the greatest respect for our students, our teachers, and our community that I will leave this board in April. It has been my honor to work with each and every one of you and for those who continue to strive to see every student and to empower them for their future.

So thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve our students and teachers. It has been a privilege. Thank you for your service. Yeah.

So Lily or Gary, do you guys want to? Thanks, Kristen. That was very nice. And I was just going to say it is an absolute privilege to serve our children and our community.

And I look forward to making my announcement next meeting. So I'm going to pass tonight. Gary? I thought you were going to buy me a little more time.

I think as some of you know, I've been a little bit probably critical, maybe even harsher than that, about this practice of talking about what we're going to do during public meeting. So I guess it's best awkward for me, but that is what it is. So I decided that based on that, I would just kind of make my announcement early Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

The importance of this board and individual board members really having a big picture and, yes, strategic oversight and focus is just so clear to me and something that I'm really going to be emphasizing for myself. I hope that anybody who considers doing this or is doing it or thinks about doing it will think about that too and not think about what I think sometimes historically this board has done, which is get a little too in the weeds and tend to micromanage. But try to grow past that and really think about the big picture and the strategic value that we can bring and help with that oversight and long-term focus. So that's what I'm going to really try to work on, and I do hope that I'll be one of the three people that gets to do that and look forward to that process.

Thank you. So does anybody have anything that they want to report in terms of committees Are you dividing it up What's that? I don't have a committee thing. Just briefly, the Sustainability Committee met on November 21st, And Linda Goldstein, who leads that, is meeting, just to let everybody know, she's meeting with the Mayor's Advisory Council, and they're thinking of some work to do around sustainability, and that will be exciting.

And one other thing that was mentioned that maybe Tim or maybe you can answer for us. She also said that the city is being asked to be part of a case study in terms of energy management and that there's been some school districts, U.S. Green Building Council is doing this, and that Parkway, at least Parkway Schools, and she thought maybe another school has been asked to do that. I was just wondering if that's anything we've ever been asked to do or have thought of doing.

I can mention it to Tim and see whether or not we've been asked. And then the other question was whether or not there's still a sustainability club at the high school because she's wanting to have us kind of hook up with them and see what they're working on. Okay. As of right now, I don't believe that there's a sustainability club, Although we have many clubs, there's a green club, there is the Student Action Committee, which is working a lot around sustainability, so we have a lot of groups focusing on it, but there's not, at this point that I know of, a specific sustainability club.

Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to give briefly that at the last Clayton Education Foundation meeting, they said that nominations are open for the Hall of Fame, Clayton Hall of Fame. And I think it's maybe every other year, and this is one of them, where they also seek nominations for a distinguished educator, which could be a current or former educator in our district. So I believe that the nominations are online, and they're taking them through the end of the year, through December 31st, on the website.

I think those can be posthumous too, right? Yes. Yeah. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, so unfortunately, well, I did, not, this part isn't unfortunate, so I had a meeting on November 15th with CRSWC. The unfortunate part is I brought my vet receipt for my dog instead of my notes. So I'm going to, so I'm, I'll read you that. But, so I'm thinking back to November 15th, so Joe might need to help me here.

But I believe the main thing of importance for this board is that the renovations are going well, but I think we're over budget. And they're going to be coming back to this board because we need to. We're going to have to contribute some more money. And I don't think they know what that number is yet.

You can ask Mary Jo. Mary Jo, do you remember what the number was? And that was the main thing I wanted to convey from the meeting. So, no, they're not fully aware of what the cost will be because of unknowns.

So there's parts of the project that we haven't hit that phase, and one of the major concerns is the office renovation. So part of the desire to move the office into the new wing is because there's issues under the floor, Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality, and the Spervantage, Proprietor, and Proprietor. I just want to note that the Adam and the Advisory Committee so really the Advisory Committee had brought one forward so I just want to note that the Adam and the advisory committee so really the advisory committee had brought one forward So I just want to which is I think Adam spoke to it before which is really the idea of gender neutral bathrooms in the district I will say that Sean and I had some conversation about that and thought that maybe what we ought to do before we put it on the agenda is do a little research on it Like what are other folks I'm not saying that's what we have to do. I'm just saying maybe it would be helpful to get a little more information because we're, I don't know that we have a lot of information.

Is that fair, Sean? Yeah, I think it would be important for us to see what, not only just in the St. Louis region, but what other school districts are doing across the country and thinking about. I also think it's important for us to think about getting some input from students and taking some time to have some conversation.

I had some conversations with students last year around this topic, and I think it'd be a good idea for us to continue that conversation and determine what are the needs that we need to look at. And then that could be a potential conversation that we have as part of our capital improvements. What are your thoughts on that approach? On the approach of looking into it, getting some information before we just determine we're just going to put it on the agenda.

I think that's a great approach, and I would also look into any costs involved. Like are you talking about building new bathrooms or just converting current ones? That would be another question I have. I think that's a good idea.

Go ahead. I would say, I mean, we've been hearing ideas on this since my daughter was at the high school as a senior. A push for that at the high, you know, with the principal. And I think if we're going to study it, what I would like is to do it quickly.

I mean, there's districts, I mean, just go to Portland or Seattle, you know, you're going to find examples of how more progressive districts. I mean, this is my opinion. So that's how I would approach it, going to more progressive and not spending a lot of time researching it and overthinking it. Yeah, I'm looking at more of how you can retrofit the current situation that we have to suit our needs.

Adam, did you have a question? Yeah, I was just wondering, this might be my misunderstanding of adding something to the agenda, but wouldn't it be added as a form of some sort of study item first? Well, that's a good question, and we each have something. And we'll use that information that we want to play some kind of puzzle that we're decorated with.

But it can be pretty risky, most often, because rates go so high if you're autre displacement out ongoing homework to others. And that puts the things we like going into performance As a study item, it might fit is when we're having conversations around all the other projects that we're doing. So I think it's definitely be a study item. Yeah, I think what we're saying.

I'm asking that if we're adding something to the agenda as a study item, which I don't know. I'm understanding that that's not. So if we're adding something as a study item, wouldn't all that information that you're talking about and the study of it, wouldn't that be included in that report? So I don't understand why we need to do a study and then add that to the study.

If we're doing a study as a... Can I ask a clarifying question on this? Because I'm confused. I'm sorry if this sounds like a silly question, but I'm just going to throw it out there.

So when we're talking about the gender-neutral bathroom, are we talking about that kids can use the bathroom of the sex with which they identify, or we're talking about just a separate bathroom that says gender... Okay, so this is where we end up going into conversation. Yeah. You're right.

But that's why, like I... Yes, so we would study those kinds of and look at... That would be part of what you would... Correct.

So we don't have an answer to that question. Yeah, and so Adam, I think the answer to your question is we're trying to figure out where it best fits, right? I mean, potentially, right? Is it a capital?

Is it a zone item? Is it... I mean, I think that's what we're saying, right? We're going to go get some information and then figure out where...

Should you explore it? Yes. I'm asking... Yes, and it's not a capital improvement.

I believe this has to be an item because there's legal stuff with it. I mean, this... And I only brought that as part of our, you know, in the scope of our project. Right, I know we're going to have to consider that, but...

So I guess I'm saying I think it needs to be a separate item that we talk about. I definitely think it needs to be a separate item, yeah. So it sounds like, I just want to reflect, Back what I think I'm hearing, that everybody would like to put it on a future agenda. We're going to determine which one because we've got to get some information.

I do think, Lily, to your point, it's been talked about a lot, so this is not a one-year study, right? This is go get some information and figure it out, you know, with relative post-haste, right? Is that fair? Yes.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that now or have that been written out? No.

No, we're going to vote to put it on. Yeah, to put it on agenda. Yeah. Yeah.

So, all right. Well, I just want to make sure the discussion was done before we vote, right? Right. Are you guys ready to vote?

Are you ready to vote? Okay. Who would like, can we please, who is in favor of putting gender neutral bathrooms on the background? All in favor, say aye.

We need a motion. Oh, you want a motion? That doesn't count as a motion, what you just said. He can't make a motion.

He can, but I don't think he did yet. Okay. I move that we put gender neutral bathrooms on a future agenda. An agenda this calendar year.

How about that? Second. All in favor? I'm sorry, any discussion?

Any more discussion? Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, pass unanimously, 7-0. Thank you. All right.

I have an agenda comment. Oh, please go. Yes. So I was really disheartened that equity was taken off the agenda for tonight.

And I have a little thing I just want to say about that because I read the explanation. I was contacted by several people that were unhappy with that and planned to come tonight to hear about where we are. And I've really thought a lot about Jason's question about the difference between equal and equity. And I think about equity, and that is the idea of taking whatever you need to do, resources, time, whatever, to get to the point where there's equal and proportional representation.

And we're not there with our African American students. And so I think at a board level, equity means that we need to be spending time at this table talking about issues related to our African American students. And so taking it off an agenda, I don't see it. I know it said we're going to have something in the spring.

I don't think that's soon enough anyway, but I don't even see it on there for the spring yet. And I'm, I'm, I, we need to be talking about issues of access, opportunity gap, achievement gap. We all know this. We should be talking about it more often, not less.

And one of the parents that wrote me cited Phil Hunsberger, who's been presented twice for our district on the Courageous Conversations. What he said to us last time was, the best friend of any oppression is silence. And she said, you know, and I was like, ugh. So I have two things.

One is as a process, I think something like that, maybe we should really think about that the board talks about. I know that you guys do an agenda planning, and logistically that might be difficult, but I would have wanted to talk about it as a board. Are we okay taking this off of an agenda when we have lots of people eager to hear how we're doing with this? And then the second thing is more substance, and I think waiting until spring is too long.

We want to hear about how we're doing with assessment and HR and the racial diversity ideas, what's happening there. And that even the idea that it's going to be communicated to us sometime in December and then we're having a meeting in the spring on it, that's not informing the community in December. So, just to, do you mind if I respond to that? So, I think that, you know, we work to really be transparent about our work.

And so, we did a very comprehensive report on this at one of the last meetings. And it was almost like a 30-page report on this in May. And so, a lot of the work that we're doing is in progress. And so, when, and this wasn't voted on to put this on as an agenda item.

It was something that was asked if we could put on there as an item to talk about. We felt like it was important for us to give a mid-year update about all the work that we are doing, but that is going to be public. I mean, that is something that would be shared and be part of board docs. It would be shared to everyone.

And then we would come back and give another comprehensive report that we would be coming back to and talking about all the things we're doing. So it was there was going to be a lot of things that were going to be redundant that we were talking about that we just reported in May that we felt like let give a mid update about all the things we doing And I would say that we are making progress We doing more around systems in the district especially around the gifted program We're looking at our classrooms. And so I just, we are going to give an update. And so that was the logic behind it because we had such a comprehensive report that was done in May.

And so... If I can say this. Yeah, so like... Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

It would seem to me that it should be on our agenda almost every time we have a board meeting just to talk about what are we doing to make sure we're on these scores. Now, I'm not saying a big comprehensive conversation about what you're doing, what the movement is, but more so just talking about it each week because we want to know how are we going to get these scores up. How do we reach these kids who are struggling in some of these areas, all that. So to me it's just, you know, I think it would be great to have almost every other board meeting where we discuss that because it's a big part of our evaluation of our numbers, of our testing, our scores, and our everything, right?

How we're number one in the state or whatever we are. So I think that it should be on our agenda. It should be on everyone's agenda in my mind. Do you have any thoughts?

Can you specify what was on the agenda and what was taken up? Was it the mid-year report that you were talking about or is it something different? So when at the beginning of this year, there was a conversation during the board goal, when I was establishing my goals. And so it was asked if we could put educational equity on an agenda item to talk about again as an update.

And so we had just found an agenda and put it on there. After looking at what we just recently did in April and May, and we thought we would do another update December with all the things we're doing. So we're getting reports from all the building principals. We're getting a report from all the departments and central office and writing a report to the board about that.

And so then we were putting, so we are still going to do a report around our education. We were planning on doing it anyway, but that was a request at the goal meeting to have. So we have a conversation about it. The community members knew for, so I guess it's because we have posted.

We have the master list. We have that kind of master list. Master list is posted. And so, you know, the master list is the best guess, right?

And so, in essence, kind of Sean and team decided that it would be better not to do it. Well we still had some information we were still gathering. Yep. So we weren't going to be prepared for it for this meeting.

So we had some data that we were still collecting. Any other thoughts on this? So can we consider having it on the agenda like almost every time, almost every other time? I'll leave that to the board to make that decision.

I can go a little more what you mean by that. Mike, we should have a conversation about what's happening in equity and equality and with African-American students in particular every time we have a meeting. If the results of these scores are this low, let me just ask you a question. If we had test scores that were low and something else, would we be discussing that all the time?

If that was a major part of, like, how we got money, for example, from the state, if it was a major part of something else. Not every time. No, not every time. You don't think when we discuss that, when we're trying to figure out how we get those numbers up, how do we improve these scores?

Well, we might ask the staff to figure that out, but we as a board wouldn't talk about that. But as a board, we would be like, yo, I know we got all this stuff we want to talk about, but this is really important. It would be like on the topic of our agenda like almost every other time. And all I'm saying is, if you look at the scores, it should be on the agenda almost every time we have a board meeting.

Even if it's just a matter of, let's look at the scores, where are we this week, what's going on. Yeah, I think the challenge with that is that you wouldn't see material difference in two weeks, right? I mean, so, I mean, if you're talking literally, if you go to what you're literally saying every two weeks, right? We meet almost every two weeks, sometimes three.

You just wouldn You wouldn have much to say But it does keep the ball in front of us right The focus is in front of us I promise it easy to go from May to next May One whole year Without even really talking about the severity of these test scores. Go ahead, Stacey. Go ahead, Stacey. I was just going to say that just because we're not talking about it at the board table doesn't mean Sean's not talking about it with his staff every day.

And I'd like to believe that he is. Right, but I'm saying I can't give that kind of latitude. Because history shows that that's not always the case, right? This is not, history shows that this is not always the case.

I mean, you know it, Joe. So we do give updates. If it was, it would be different. I would say that the data that we have, we only collect a lot of the test scores that we get for standardized test scores, we only get those one time a year.

And we try to give a report after we get those through an assessment report. And last year, if you saw, our assessment report really was focused on the diversity of our district. And then the other thing, too, is that we wouldn't have enough data that we would be producing to be able to give a report on every single time at a board table. We have formative assessments that we use in the district as benchmarks, but I don't know if that would be data that we could share an overview of that, but we don't collect that that often.

We would be looking at test scores every single time. I mean, we could give highlights of things that we're doing in the district, but I think that we wouldn't have that data for every other meeting. I'm sorry, it may not be just test scores. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

The exercise of dealing with statutory tuition was like, got that off our back. Now we can breathe a little bit, and then it's like the next issue is on the horizon, and then that's when we start to deal with these types of things. And I'm saying, if we are allegedly as progressive as we say we are, then it should be on our agenda every other time. Or we can treat it as, like this is kind of a bane of our existence.

Like, shit. Like, we have to discuss it every time. Thank God. You know what I'm saying?

So, I mean, that's what I'm saying going a whole year. So can I just say one thing here, which is, so I think what I'm hearing, right, lest we get into a discussion about equity, right, we have to be careful, right, because it wasn't on the agenda, is at least two board members saying that they'd like more information and a more frequent opportunity to discuss it. I mean, is that what we're, is that what I'm hearing? And you're, I think the other part is we took it off the agenda, okay?

I have concerns about that, that what that communicates, well, because it doesn't. We got additional communication, but the community doesn't necessarily. I think that's really not, I'm really uncomfortable with taking that particular topic. We did it with statutory once, and we did it now with this.

And so that makes me really think, it just, given the nature of the topic, that I think we should be especially sensitive to removing something that's so important. Can I just clarify in fairness, though, statutory was for legal reasons. So we just want to make sure that was for legal reasons because we had, that was my understanding. We probably should have had that figured out before that meeting so that we didn't even have it on the agenda.

And that might have been true with equity, too, that we, you know, you knew you wouldn't, it was too soon or whatever. But it also speaks to the point you're making, which is, it's kind of, I'm not trying to put us in a bad position, because we're all a part of this, but it's kind of like we just kind of like just did it. It's kind of like how we're treating it is like, let's just throw it on month four. I'm just saying, I'm just saying.

Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Somehow, secretly say, no, we don't care about equity or we don't want to. Yeah, I mean, it was really just, and so maybe we need to think about, we might need to communicate it better. But I think the intention was to, let's have the right information and let's have the right, you know, kind of report. I think that was it.

I think you're right. I'm just saying that it's not intentional. That's what I'm saying. I think it's more about, like, it's just, this is the status quo.

It's like we can kick the can out of the road. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. You know, maybe I need to do a better job of communicating about what that looks like, but I mean, it is prevalent in a lot of our conversations. And so, and I would also disagree that we're not doing, there's not change.

I mean, we are seeing change. And so, but maybe it's not as fast as we want it to be. And that's why on strategic plan, we made sure that equity still continues to be a focus, an intentional focus for what we're doing as a district. But I would say that this is something that is, you know, very, very prevalent in all the work that we do.

And it has become a part of every conversation that we have. And so... It has absolutely been on there. I mean, whatever preliminary data you have, that would have been great to hear about.

I hear what you're saying. I absolutely hear what you're saying. So... Okay.

Any other thoughts, discussion, comments? I'll just kind of follow up, and then I'll be quiet. Yes. It'll take a second.

My comment was, I just wanted to reiterate that my understanding was that equity was a through line in everything that we do, and that most of the conversations we have, whether we're talking about, you know, the gifted program or whatever we're talking about for the night, has an equity component to it. So that makes me feel better because I'm learning about, you know, what's going on with particular topics. And then also it seems like they're taking into consideration how it affects our African-American students too. So I've been really happy that in most conversations that we have, there's an equity component incorporated into it.

But I do agree that, you know, if there needs to be just like a universal update, that's great. But the other thing I just want to say to you, Jason, and I know that you and I have talked about it, is that the test scores, I don't want the community to think that we judge an African-American child solely on their test score. There's a lot more that goes into a well-rounded person than just what you see on the test score. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality.

I'm going to suggest that maybe we stop talking. I mean, I think point well taken, great points. We need to digest that. And, like, is there something else, like, that somebody wants to say?

Otherwise, I think we should adjourn. Sorry. No, it's good. Sorry.

It's all good. Yeah, one last thing. Do you really? It's about the same thing.

No, not about equity. I really, seriously, we're talking about equity. No, not about equity. It's not on the agenda.

No. One last thing. Not if it's about equity. No.

It's not about equity. Seriously? No, it won't be about equity. Okay.

Go. Thank you. Thank you.