August 29, 2019

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

Thank you. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Proprietary, and Proprietary. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you.

So this is the exciting start of our new school year, kind of our first meeting. And what's really cool is we get to welcome officially Adam Jaffe, who's our new student representative on the board. And so what we're going to do is actually swear Adam in to start. So we're going to actually go over there, Adam, and swear you in.

I, Adam Jaffe, do solemnly affirm that I will support and uphold the constitutions of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and that I will actively seek input from district students, represent their voices, at the Board of Education table, Provide a student voice to the Board of Education and will faithfully conduct myself as the student representative to the School District of Clayton Board of Education. Congratulations. Thank you. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality.

Thank you. I'm just going to say a couple things real quick. Okay. So before we get to recognizing our own, and we have lots of students to recognize this evening, I just want to say a couple things.

So we're very excited that we are starting to video our meetings. So this meeting will be videoed, and all of our meetings will be videoed, which is exciting. Superroportionate, Proprietary, and Public. Superroportionate Proposition O levy agenda motion carried It works for the camera So if you wonder why we a little bit of a different it was more difficult to video So and then finally what I want to say we did talk about our norms right Our norms is how we treat one another.

So I'm just read those at the beginning of this meeting and then I'll hand it over to Sean. So and we're working on, obviously, our norms, how we work together, both at the meeting and outside the meeting. But just in terms of how we treat one another, five norms to remind us as we go through the meeting. Demonstrate respect for one another, our mutual learning, and individual contributions.

Number two, actively participate, contribute, and take risks. Number three, demonstrate collegial relationships with one another. Having collegial dialogue and discussion allows for the group to push one another's thinking in a respectful manner. Number four, meeting with purposeful, organized, and include adequate time for processing and debate.

And then finally, listen with the intent to understand, share the airspace. So having said that, I'll turn it over to Sean. Okay. Thank you, Joe.

So we are going to be recognizing some students tonight. And we have revamped some of the things that we've done with our new teacher induction and also the professional development that we did at the beginning of the year. And we went and made sure that students were part of that. And so I'm going to have Milena Garganigo come up, and she's going to talk a little bit about the why behind some of the work that they did with the new teacher induction, and then recognize some students that are here tonight that really helped make this a very special occasion for our new teachers.

You can sit at either one. Good evening. This year with Robin Wiens and Tony Arnold coming on board, we had a lot of conversation about different ways to consider our new teacher induction, first of all, and then professional development within the district. And so Adam actually was part of our first meeting that we had where we were talking about what we wanted to accomplish with new teacher induction and what we decided pretty early on was that because students are the reason we exist as an organization, that we should have students introduce the new teachers to the district.

And so we started with just sort of the simple thinking about having two students start the first day and welcome the new teachers and just kick some things off, just talking about their experience within the district. And then pretty quickly got to a point where we needed to start every day of new teacher induction with student presence. So it reminded us and kind of grounded us in our work. So there's two students here, Sarah Centeno and Shrey Vedantham.

So if you guys want to come up first, these two students, Sarah started, she introduced on the first day, welcomed all the new teachers, and then Shrey was a part of welcoming the group but then had to leave early. But what I thought was really awesome about him was he actually videoed an introduction for us that then that was actually what helped us to think about we should have students at the beginning of every day. So we used his video on the second day. So it wasn't even something that we asked for.

Like he did it on his own, but it was amazing. And so it helped us ground our work. And then when we moved into thinking about our professional learning for our entire district, so on district opening day, we wanted to repeat that piece of having students as a part of that work. And so we did our focus on that first day really was around mental wellness.

So both mental wellness of our students as well as mental wellness of our teachers. And so if Liza Anzalotti can come up. Liza was one of the students, and then we had a recent graduate, Alex Good, who both ran breakout sessions for us. So Liza ran yoga sessions for us for both breakout sessions, and they were packed.

People were like sort of fighting to get in there. And then Alex ran a session about mental wellness for children and for students. So we just wanted to recognize these children, and then we had students helping us throughout new teacher induction. We have a pretty typical piece where we bring in a group of children to serve as like almost like a roundtable and answer questions for the new teachers and give advice.

So they also came with us. But thank you all for your help. Thank you. You guys can go over there and get a picture.

I do want to say something about Sarah. Sarah actually led an inclusion activity for our teachers as well, which I thought was great with another student for our new teacher So I wanted to mention that Thank you. Okay, excellent. Excellent.

We're moving on to, I don't think we have any public comment, right? Do we have? Nobody signed up for public comment? Okay.

So we don't have any public comment, so we're going to move on to superintendent communications. Sean. Okay. So, first of all, Happy New Year to everyone and want to welcome you to the 19-20 school year.

I wanted to do something a little different. I'm going to do a little bit of a presentation that would allow us to kind of give us kind of the state of where we are right now as we start this 2019-2020 school year. A lot of great things happening and want to just kind of give an overview from the superintendent's perspective. I think what Milena said in the, let's see, what's, of course the technology is, sorry.

Pull this out. Yeah. I apologize for that. Of course, as soon as I sit down, it stops working, but we're going to move forward.

So what Milena said was, you know, we really try to make what we do always come back to our students, and they are our ultimate why. And I think that that's really important that when we're making decisions, we have to understand that we're making them for our students and their learning. And so one of the remarks that I'm and my remarks at the opening day with the staff is that we will always come back to the why. And I said that our Board of Education also sets the tone for that because you're constantly holding us accountable to that why.

And we appreciate that. We want you to continue doing that for us. The other thing too is that this is our first meeting of the year, but this isn't the first meeting for our Board of Education. I think it's important for the public to know is that the Board had a retreat already this summer and is working on their collaboration and their collegial relationships in terms of running the district.

And so we, I just want to say thank you to the Board because we know that this is a time commitment. Our summers are a little different than the school year and hopefully you enjoyed some of those Wednesday evenings during the summer, but we're back in gear and I want to say thank you first and foremost for all of your time and energy that you give to the board. The day 11, we have 2,615 students. And when we look at our mission and vision of our district, we are responsible for 2,615 students, each and every one of them.

Each of them walks through our doors and our responsibility is to make sure that they are reaching their potential. Making sure that we're actualizing that vision, everything that we do. And I said this to you before is that we are a district that's really great. We do great things in this district, but we can never be complacent in what we do in this district and never say that we're already doing great things.

We have to always say, what are we doing to become even better? And that that growth mindset, that continuous improvement is going to constantly focus, that it's going to constantly make us better for our students. And we are evolving. So when I look at this year and thinking about, you know, where we are right now with the 2019-2020 school year, we still focus on academic achievement.

That's our big focus. Besides, you know, our ultimate priority is the safety and security of our students. But our students are coming into our schools to learn. And as we look at this school year, we have continued to show that our students are, they do really well.

We just recently got the niche rating of number one in the state of Missouri and number 14 in the nation. We continue to have high graduation rate for our students, and we still have a high average ACT for our students. We continue to make equity and excellence a part of the conversation and what we do and makes it a through line in all that we do with everything that we do with curriculum, learning spaces, instruction. And I think it's really important to say is that sometimes when we think about equity, sometimes people think it's about lowering expectations so students can be successful.

And that is actually opposite of that. It's making sure that we're raising expectations, making sure we're giving students every opportunity to reach their potential, and making sure that we're doing what's right in the classrooms to make that happen. So that means that sometimes we have to change the behaviors of the adults and looking at culturally responsive teaching, which is good teaching for all students. And so we don't want to ever give the impression that we're lowering expectations for our students.

The other thing is social emotional learning. We are making sure that we are developing the whole child. We have academic achievement, but we also want to make sure we're taking care of the social emotional well-being of our students. This year we're introducing our panorama survey, which is going to give us some really good concrete data that's going to allow us to decide what are some things that we need to do to improve.

We have been looking at other school districts and seeing what they're doing to embed social emotional learning into the curriculum. It's not something that we want to just teach in isolation. We don't want to say today we're going to teach you about perseverance or today we're going to teach you about grit. It's about how do we embed that into our curriculum and making sure that it is just something that we, it's part of the regular conversation.

Mental wellness, thinking about how we are making sure that students are taking care of their, not only their social emotional needs, but also their mental wellness. And that is definitely something that is really important. We have heard that students feel really stressed. And we have been thinking about ways to make sure that we are providing the right Thank you.

So we have excellence in all areas within our district and in our arts programs and in our classrooms. But we also want to make sure we have excellence in our athletics and thinking about some changes that we need to do to make sure that we're having excellence in our athletics. Looking at our facilities, we have some new leadership in our athletics program. And he's really thinking about different ways to create a spirit that starts not only when the kids come to high school, but when students are in elementary school and get them to be supporting what's happening in our district.

And so I think it's important to mention that. And the last thing I just think is that we always are thinking about ways to have students give real-world application with their learning. So an example of that would be some things that we're doing around the entrepreneurial program at the high school. And we've been building that, and this year we've truly expanded that to a different level.

And now we have, we're partnering with four different, three other districts, so four districts all together, and we have a site that's off district where those groups, that group of students are coming together for two periods a day and are doing real world work. We thinking outside of the walls of the school Last year in the spring we were able to pass Proposition E with the support of our community And that has been a great, it's kind of a historical event for us as a district. It's part of our story now. And I will say that as the superintendent, it just doesn't stop with the passing of the Prop E.

We still have to make sure we're focusing on the fiscal health of our district. That means that we have to continue looking at where we're putting our resources. Are we aligning our resources to our goals? Are we making sure that we're prioritizing in the right way?

Are we asking ourselves, what do we need to stop in terms of where we need to stop spending and examining that? So we still have, we've been very, if you look at the historical perspective on that, we have done a really great, we've done really well in terms of our fiduciary responsibility and we need to continue to do that and make sure that we extend this as long as possible. I do want to point out that our fund balance at the end of 18-19 was around 24%, and the projected fund balance for 19-20 would be around 31%. And thinking that I wanted to share this with you is because we were getting to the point where we were going below that threshold of 18% where we don't want to fall below.

And if we didn't go out for property, we would have fell below that balance in 19-20. Having the proposition and thinking about long-range planning, we're now able to move forward with some capital improvement projects in terms of learning spaces and then just some of our facilities. So obviously you've seen some of the things we've done with Adzick Field, and it is starting, and the Center of Clayton. I do want to point out with the Center of Clayton that we have been, our Board of Education has been very conscientious about making sure that our students are continued to get increased time as part of the Center of Clayton.

And then we've also been able to make sure that we have dedicated space for a workroom for our students, not only for classes that we're offering, but also for our athletic programs. And so we're continuing to provide again for the whole child. The other thing, too, is you're going to hear some later from Mary Jo that we are looking at our long-range plan for capital improvements. And one of those is safety and security, as we mentioned, is one of the greatest priorities.

And we are in the process of looking at ways to make sure that all of our buildings are safe and secure. And if there's anything that we need to change, we will be bringing that forward. So that's another priority. This past school year, we did some work around developing a profile of the Clayton graduate.

And when we developed the profile and got input from the community, we wanted to make sure that we were, you know, when we looked at this, is that, again, overall, our goal is academic excellence for our students. But we also want to make sure our students have the right attributes to just be happy people. We want them to be self-actualized and being able to demonstrate a belief in themselves and to be resilient and be happy and just good people. We wanted to make sure our students were intellectually curious and able to take their learning to a new context, being problem solvers.

We want students to be culturally competent, being able to embrace diversity around them, understanding and valuing differences in others and also looking for commonalities. Being empathetic, just a kind and respectful person. A creative thinker, someone who has the opportunity to look at complex problems in varied ways, not just in math and reading, but also in the arts. And also someone who's going to be a good communicator by being able to collaborate with others and being able to value others' opinions so that way they can be problem solvers together.

So we developed that profile and continue to work at that, look at that profile of the Clayton graduate. So that way it serves as a basis for our strategic plan, which is going to be launched on October 5th. And I'm mentioning that to the board today is because we have been working with finding a consultant who is going to help us with that launch and help us actualize what are the next steps for our strategic plan. And last year, some of the work that we wanted to do with the strategic plan got postponed because of some of the energy that we put towards Proposition E, but we are ready to go in developing our new strategic plan and look forward to what that brings for us as a district.

I do want to point out that when we thinking about strategic planning I going to encourage us to think differently about the traditional way that maybe we have done strategic planning and maybe not saying where we want to be in the next three to five years We want to constantly think about our vision and thinking about the possibilities but we also want to say that we want to also be responsive I think that sometimes when we have a strategic plan, especially the way things are changing in education, we need to make sure that it's going to be flexible and is able to change periodically while we're implementing it. So we're going to be focusing on setting goals and having experimentation in that. We're going to make sure that we have real-time dashboards that report progress and metrics of the Board of Education during this process. We're also going to think about having this evergreen model, which is kind of what I said, reimagining that traditional strategic plan and coming back yearly and saying, what do we need to reset?

Not because we said we started the strategic plan and said we're going to stick with it for five years. We might have to say, you know what, after a year, we may have to readjust this. And then ultimately, we want to focus on student growth. The other thing is your superintendent.

I took out feedback from you last year and have developed goals that I'm going to be presenting to you at the next board meeting and then eventually coming back to you for approval at either one of our retreats or another board meeting. But I just wanted to kind of give you the overall general areas where I'm focusing is going to be around leadership effectiveness and capacity. The next goal is going to be around strategic plan development and implementation because that will be a big focus for us this year. And then the fiscal health of the district.

Because again, as I said earlier, is that we can't just rely on passing Proposition E. We have to continue thinking about what structures or systems we need to put in place to make sure we're extending that as long as possible. And what are some things that we need to do to make sure our resources are aligned with our goals. And then the other thing is that when you look at these goals later on, is that you'll find that equity is a through line in all of that.

And so you'll see that it's, and we can talk about that again at the next meeting, but that is going to be a through line in each of these goals. So again, we're coming back, we always are coming back to our ultimate why, which is our students. And so tonight we are starting with our why of having a student at the board table. And so what I want to do is just also part of my superintendent communications just to check in with Adam and see, you know, you've spent the last 11 days during your junior year here.

So is there anything that you want to report to the board before we start our board meeting? Okay, so hello everyone. Hi. So some things I wanted to talk about today going off of that idea of mental wellness and that through line that we've seen through some of the work that you've been doing, Dr.

Doherty, and going back to that and seeing how that's been implemented in the high school. One thing that we've started is greyhound time. So last year we had four minute passing periods and this year now they're five. But in between second and third period there's an additional ten minutes.

So in total it's 15 minutes so that kids if they want to they can go use the bathroom, they can get a drink of water, talk to a teacher. Really just a time for a little break in the day. Something else that we're going to be starting during the year is called Clayton Conversations or C squared where we'll have time to meet with the same group of students throughout the whole year and they will be able to talk about issues that the students want to talk about. So the students will choose the issues with two faculty facilitators and so they will be talking about whether it's current events or something pertaining to the high school the students will get to kind of choose the direction of where that group wants to And then the last thing, I just had a meeting with Dr.

Gachewski, and this goes a little bit away from the mental wellness, but just talking about the District Advisory Council. So I just wanted to give you an update with that, which is we will be sending out the application and announcing it to the student body on Friday the 28th, and then we'll be collecting them before around September 13th, which will give us a week to do interviews. And then we should have everyone picked and ready to go before the third board meeting. Thank you.

This is an item for information. This isn't a time to grill Mary Jo and crew with questions. This is really her heads up There will be other times when we can kind of ask questions So just so thank you Mary Jo So I don't have a formal presentation. I did provide a summary to the board, and if anyone wants a summary of what I, but I wasn't really going to go through much detail.

I was just going to update the board of the potential capital improvement projects. And I just want to give credit to Tim Wanisch, our director of facilities, and Jim Brunel, who's his assistant director, who do an amazing job maintaining our facilities that enhance the learning environment for our students. Always, like Sean said, going back to that why of our students. And I will say Tim always is putting that first whenever you have a discussion with him.

So, fortunately, as Sean mentioned, the successful passing of Proposition E has allowed the district to move forward in many ways. So, as he mentioned in his report, the additional revenue generated by Proposition E will be used to maintain and strengthen the district's fiscal stability by eliminating the gap between revenues and expenses and rebuilding our reserves, as he showed with that fund balance percentages. So, in addition to that, though, we're wanting to address facility and maintenance needs that cannot be funded within the current five-year capital plan. So that capital plan, or as we call it, the CIP funds or capital improvement plan, addresses general building maintenance needs as well as educational needs.

And it is constantly, as they will tell you, changing. Something we might have given you last week is going to change because if something breaks, we just shift funds around in order to reprioritize. So as the needs of the district changes or the needs of our district students change, that plan changes as well. So as a result, some projects get deferred sometime over a period of years or sometimes never even get prioritized on the list.

That doesn't mean that they will not provide necessary improvements and enhancements to our facilities. It just merely means that there are limited funds and we just have to prioritize what projects can be completed within those funding limits. So funds from the sale of the Maryland building, though, provide a unique opportunity that they can be reinvested into these deferred projects and into our district. So as I mentioned, that list of deferred projects, I wasn't going to go through them in detail, but they include facility safety and maintenance needs, as well as enhancements to various district spaces to improve functionality and flexibility of use.

So, as I mentioned, they're not always prioritized because we can obviously function and operate without it, but we would function and operate better if we did have it. And so when the funding is available, we do like to bring those up for discussion. So the district administration does recommend that the funds generated from the sale of the Maryland school be reinvested into these, what we do consider necessary improvements and enhancements to our facilities. And so we're currently right now in the process of determining actual costs for some of these projects.

A few of them do require architectural services, so we would like to issue RFQs for architectural services. I did ask in the spring for an RFQ for architectural services for the safety and security. Two of the projects on the list, one's very minimal amount of cost to get a conceptual design for. The other one we actually got for kind of free, a conceptual design.

We included that. That was for the library. We don't have a costing on that, so we would have to pay for that piece. So we know what, got an idea of what it might look like, but we don't have an idea of what it would cost us.

So that's what we would like to do is move forward with getting some estimates and conceptual designs for some of the projects. And then once we get that and we have an idea of how we can prioritize the remaining funds from the sale of the Maryland building, then we would bring that forward with a formalized plan to spend those funds. Because if you recall, those funds do have to be released by the board in order to be spent. So we can't spend them without your approval.

So that is the plan. Thank you, Mary Jo. So any clarifying questions on this? I mean, again, this is more general information, just more as FYI.

It's not at all meant to be fully baked. Does anybody have any clarifying questions? I do. Jason, go.

Thank you for this. Question for you, though. Has anyone thought about school libraries? And like how we're using them and how effective they are in our daily lives.

I know, and the reason why I'm asking that question is because I'm thinking about the delta, right? We've evolved a lot over the years of how we used to use libraries. I mean you watch Barnes and Nobles, they've gone on a bit, well, right? Some of these big bookstores have gone out of business.

So this tangibility aspect of books is kind of like dissipating. My question to you, is there a plan in which we can now, Better utilize that space. It can still be a library, maybe make it smaller or maybe make it more, I don't know, just something that might be more beneficial for students. And I'm going to defer partially to Sean, and that might even be a question from Lane, because there's a lot of guidelines from the state on what we're required to have in our libraries.

But I know, Sean, that's part of the reason why the high school library is on the list. Yeah, so I would agree with you, Jason, is that we have to look at how we utilize that space. And Mary Jo's right, we do have guidelines from DESE in terms of, you know, amount of books. I don't remember what that is.

But we, our spaces have to be used differently sometimes than they are currently being used. And so when we're thinking about library spaces, we want to make sure that there's areas for collaboration, students having opportunities to, you know, work in mobile spaces where it's not necessarily something that we're going to be able to use. Everything is just, you know, static where it is. Thinking about the technology that's available to the students.

And I think that what we've done with some of our libraries is done some really amazing renovations. I think with the library at the high school, what we've tried to do is try to fit in new technologies and to make it fit for our students, but in a really dated type of space. And so we're now starting to ask questions and we've engaged stakeholders such as Spervantage, Other questions or clarifying questions? Yeah, Luly.

I think I have maybe four clarifying questions and one more general question. So one question I have is on the building security and safety, will we be getting kind of a preview of some of the details of that before we move on to the next slide? I don't have the details of that before, at some point. I've expressed, will we be getting that, I guess that's the question, because I do have some concerns about there's a lot being promoted to, for safety that they're finding is unnecessary additional expenses.

And I just would like to be able to see what it is that we're thinking of doing. I think things about the access into the school seem to make a difference and then some things on threat assessment and other stuff. But I would be curious about that before we have to approve it. And it looks like we might be doing it on the same night.

Are we going to be? That would just be approving the architect. So we have asked for each architect to, we've required them to walk through every building And give us just some ideas in their presentation when we interview them. And then we also have asked that once we select the architect that they will come and do board presentations.

So, yes, it would be, and anything that they would present would go through board approval just like any other day. And we'll be able to ask questions about kind of what the evidence of that making a difference. Excellent. Can I follow up on what you said?

So when you said, you just said they're finding that certain things are not necessary. Who's they? Well, that's some of what I have read on, I'm trying to think if it was the FBI report. I don't know, some of the reports that I have read recently on violence.

Okay, I just didn't know if you meant like this. Oh, no, no. I mean like they're saying things about doing things with windows isn't really making a difference, but doing it's more. You don't mean Clayton is saying that.

You mean that your independent research is saying that. I don't mean that Clayton is saying that. I don't know what Clayton, I don't know if we're questioning some of those things. What she might be saying is that when they present their list of items, if we would have a time to go through it and vet it and see whether, My assumption is it would be prioritized.

So what we feel is of value to Clayton and what's prioritized within Clayton's value. I think you were asking me where, right? Yeah, I just didn't know when you were asking your question, because you had said they finding that some of these things might be unnecessary costs or not really things that are worthwhile costs So when you said the word they, they're finding, I didn't know who was. Yeah, I can pull it out.

I think it's some of the reports from, I think it's FBI and then some of the things that they've been looking. No, I don't need it. I just didn't know like where the information was. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Thank you. The learning space in the buildings, the enhancements, is that in all of our school buildings that were?

Yes. That is more some of the, like, here's a good example. Say the common areas at Y-Down. We took out the computer labs because we've gone to more one-on-one initiatives and mobile cards.

And so how can we change learning spaces that sometimes might be used in a common area or maybe a certain classroom area? We've made changes to different classrooms in the high school for different learning needs instead of just your standard desks and chairs. So that it's kind of more general because it's going to be evolving as our curriculum evolves and as we move forward with our strategic plan. And perhaps there might be something in strategic plan that might show that this type of learning configuration would work well for that goal.

So it is kind of generic. And then as we move forward, we would see what would fit our goals. Each of the six buildings. Okay, great.

And what do we mean by signage, the family center, our district branding standard? I don't know if anyone's noticed the sign at the family center or gay. It's just this kind of basic wooden painted board. And so it is, the family center kind of operates a little bit as a business.

Yeah, it's over 30 years old. When they're bringing more people, will you pay more money for this? Well, the goal is to at least have people see it and be able to identify the building. I will say I send at least once a week.

There's someone out here, they do not have any idea. They've driven by it and they can't find it. Looking for Gayfield or something. So it is kind of tucked away if you don't know what you're looking for.

And then my last general, more general, I guess it is, I need to word it as a question. When are we, when I see things that kind of outline this amount of money that we're going to be spending on whatever it is, it brings to mind for me the question that we talked We talked about before approving the tax levy and that is that we're going to be looking at our overall expenditures and I appreciate, Sean, that you mentioned it tonight in your introduction. So I am interested in kind of getting an update on how we, not necessarily now, but I would like to know that we're continuing to do that promise and how it's looking for what we're going to be talking about over the year and who's going to be involved Thank you. Anybody else have any clarifying questions?

Thank you very much. Mary Jo? Were you looking for a response to that? No.

Were you? Not given the way that this is going. I think it's important to have a clear understanding of the I think it's important to know is that when you're seeing the expenditures that are on the sheets that we're showing, is that that was done with a study that Tim was charged in doing in terms of looking at the needs, the five-year needs in each of our buildings. And I feel very confident that Tim's going to bring forth items that we know we need to do.

What I hear you saying, Lily, is that you're wondering about like what system and structure we're going to be putting in place to examine the overall structures of our expenditures within the district and similar to what we've done with our long-term financial planning. And Mary Jo and I have talked about what that possibly would look like. We don't think it would necessarily look again like the long-term financial planning. It might be more in-depth in terms of what we want to do in terms of examining certain aspects of the district and determining what our priorities are.

But our goals, I think what we need to do is when we develop our strategic plan and think about what type of advisories we want to have connected to that, We feel like what we are what we want to do is make sure that that's connected and just not just a one off. Yesterday Mary Jo and I met virtually with another district in Kentucky and we looking at their structures for how they examine expenditures and how they they call it investment spending And it about how we really truly determine how our investments are really ended up paying off paying off in terms of dividends for students and making sure that those priorities are set and that there community involvement part of that So yes we have we have ideas about what we want that to look like but we don have it solid yet And we be asking board for input about that Yeah, I think that's what Lily and I were talking offline about a little bit, which was the spending that we do, will it yield a return on our investment with the children? That's why I was asking about the sign. It may sound a little funny, but I'm saying, is that sign going to yield any return for our kids?

Is it going to make us any more money for the district? Those are the things I'm asking about. So I'm glad you brought that up. That's a great point.

We discussed that earlier, though. Good. Awesome. And with the sign, I mean, that is what it was asked for is because people can't see the building, and they do have a service that they provide that we are, everything in that building is a fee-based service.

But just regards to that school district, they actually won an award through our Association of School Business Officials. It's called the Pinnacle Award for their method of analyzing investments and having champions that bring those investments forward and how they prioritize them. So that was why we reached out to them. Okay, thank you.

So next is actually a study item at 6.01 and it's really three policies around the board. And this really is for any discussion. We can certainly take them one by one or do you want to speak to them? Do you mind if we, so what I thought about doing with this is going back to our policy worksheet, and I want to kind of set the frame for this, is that ultimately this is one of the major responsibilities of our Board of Education, is that we have to make sure that we have oversight of the policies and making sure that if there's potential revisions, I think some of the policies that come to the table are going to be more procedural.

Spervantage of the school board. Sorry, I'm losing my, and one was around the school board ballot issues in terms of timing for that. And so what I wanted to do is give you just a few moments first to review, and I thought what we would do is look at BBB first, which is about school board elections. And so when I was looking through this again, there isn't anything that I felt like was really anything that stood out in terms that I would recommend.

I feel very comfortable with the changes that MSBA made, but I wanted to check in with you in thinking about those questions. We have, you know, is there anything, is there simple language? Is there anything that we need to, does it seem too repetitive? Is it current?

Looking at that equity lens, is it, are any individuals or communities that are disproportionately affected by this? Any questions or suggestions? And so what I thought we would do is just go through BBB first, see if you had any suggestions or ideas, and then move to the next one if you're ready. Anybody have any questions or comments on BBB?

Well, are any of these changes in here, like, significant? I don't know it BBB prior to this moment outside of what I see here. But like is there anything that's different? Like because I mean it's – so it's – I thought some of the rules like for getting in the – like if I wanted to run, I thought I had to file by a certain time.

But it's like you can almost jump in like a week before is what it says, right? That's what it seems like. So the policy that is written here, this is the one that's the current policy, but just the strikeouts and the highlights are the additions. So the timing hasn't changed on this.

The only thing that is changed on this, and Barbara, I think that is the withdrawing of the. Yeah, no notary, you can just send a letter. But jumping in at the last minute, like a week before, when it was like the 10th week or whatever. You still have to go within the deadline.

There's a deadline that you have to meet. Gotcha. Yeah. Right.

So does the district have a different set of guidelines No we use these Okay right Gotcha Okay If you going to come in later as part of the last minute your name will be further down on the ballot. I just thought it was some different stuff. I guess I never read this. I feel bad for saying this.

No, it's okay. I should know this. So anything else on BBB? Okay, we'll move to the next one.

So for this next one, I would like to tell the board it's BBBB. Yes. And this one's around school board ballot issues. The only thing that I am going to ask the board for me to, I'm going to go and look at the expanding the college community district into the school district boundaries, and that is around the community college and boundaries around that.

And our system is already one St. Louis Community College. And so what I'm going to do is ask whether or not that policy, that part of the policy has to fit in here because it wouldn't really pertain to us. And so that's the only recommendation that I would have in terms of some changes.

So I'm just going to get some more information about whether or not we need to have that actually in there. And when we bring it back for approval, I'll let you know what changes are brought to that. That was my question. I didn't even know how that related to us at all.

Right. Some communities have a district for a community college. Some districts have an actual community college district, I guess. I'm assuming that there's a community college that may not be part of a consortium like St.

Louis Community College. And it has to be within a... And their boundaries may change in terms of where their taxes are coming from. I got it.

Okay. That confused me, too. Okay, thanks. Any other questions or thoughts on BBBB?

Go ahead. It's just because I couldn't find it easily, and I thought it might be helpful. I wanted the explanation for the restriction on use of funds, eliminating that. It says you go back to policy DCB, but it might help to, I didn't go back to it, but if you could explain that and maybe also include it on the writing.

Okay. So what is the reason that's being eliminated? I don't have that answer. I can check into that.

Okay. Any other questions on quadruple A? Okay. We'll highlight it.

Okay. So we'll move to the next. BCC. Sean, you want to move to the next one?

Yes. So the last one is, it talks about the duties of the Board Secretary and the Board Treasurer. And the thing about this policy is that there's been some things that needed to be updated in this policy that are kind of archaic. And so if you look through these, an example of having our board secretary be present with two board members to burn the bonds and those kinds of things that needed to be updated.

And so I just, if hopefully you had a chance to look through this, but I felt pretty comfortable with the changes that they made. The other thing, too, around making sure we have steel cabinets for our metal cabinets. We store everything on board docks, so I feel very confident that we're up to, yeah. What about being bonded?

The idea, it's because I think it said like the treasurer and the secretary have to be bonded, almost like personally bonded. Like we need to have our own insurance, is that what it's saying? No, that's school district. School district.

I want to make sure I was, yeah, gotcha. Okay, that's cool. So I think of all these policies, I think this is the only one that MSBA is making recommended changes to Thank you. There are also some inconsistencies in our policy while we're looking at this one with some of the other policies.

I don't remember what it is. Couple of places where we reference when officers are appointed and they're not, the timing isn't consistent necessarily. So when we, if we're getting more input from them about this, I think we need to ask their opinion about the other one as well. And even though we usually update these kind of cyclically, it probably makes sense to update both of those at the same time.

So that was the only one. And since this is really based on their recommendation, I think we have a little more latitude whether we do it or not. Yeah, Kristen. So on this one also, we've had conversation about Secretary and Treasurer and even having those positions on our school board.

And I don't know when we might have a conversation about that. But obviously, the majority of these responsibilities actually fall to Mary Jo and to Barb. And so I'm not sure how we can maybe clarify that or make that more, or if we want to have a conversation about how we want to continue with our board makeup with that. And I will say on that, different school boards do it differently, right?

Some have elected and some have the appointed folks do it. We go either way. Go ahead, Gary. Does anyone know just historically if we have any record or just know offhand of whether, like how long Clayton has done that?

Have we always had the secretary and treasurer positions been sitting board members as opposed to staff? Or is there any history of that? Or sometimes if there was a change made, we might want to know why or when. Yeah.

So kind of along the same lines as Kristen, that paragraph about the delegation, I kind of question because it said like the board secretary or treasurer basically needs to make sure that the paid employee is doing their job, which in my opinion seems silly and redundant because we're paying them to do the job. And not actually happening. And it's not happening. So that might be something I think we could look at deleting or changing.

What page is that on, Stacy? It's the 7, the very bottom of 7. I think that goes to the whole point of the responsibilities of the treasurer and the secretary that's listed on here really do not fall to our secretary and treasurer on our board. So if it's, so we've talked about this before.

This is not the first time this has come up with this board that what we're practicing and then what it says, if they're two different things, can we try to And we try to make sure the reality. Okay. And I'm sure, sorry, I'm sure this is the case with most boards who adopted this MSDA policy, that it's not actually what's happening. They can't be unaware of that fact.

Any other comments or thoughts on this one? So would it be helpful if I wrote this as if what the current reality looks like for us And then submit this to MSBA and say, can you take a look at this? And then we may not be able to bring it back for the very next, but we'll see if we can get that done in a timely manner. But I'll try to make sure that this looks like what the current reality is for our board.

And I think that's within the policy service that we subscribe to, right? It's not just we subscribe to their – we pay them to do policy updates, but I don't think it's just the only thing we get is their board of play recommendations. We get their advice on whatever changes we want to make as well. I wanted, since we're ending on the policy section, and this is the first discussion of policies this year, I was wondering if I could ask some really general questions on policy reviews and the process that I'm hoping is really easy for you to answer, Sean.

And that is, are we, the first question is, whenever MSBA recommends a change, are we, are you then, are you and Joe then bringing it to the board? Or are we, like how are we deciding, how are you deciding when to bring it to the board? So what we've done is looked at all, we've had a number of policies that have been sent to us for review. And so what we've looked at, what are the priorities?

Is there any timelines or deadlines on any of those? And so we'll definitely bring those first. We thought we would start with things that were associated with the board at our first board meeting. So some of them we've even tried to connect with what was on an agenda.

So if it connected with something that was closely related to an agenda, we brought that revision. But we really look at the timelines and look at where we can actually fit some of these policies in. And then what we also do is some of these policies are associated with different departments at central office And so our central office staff as you know if it a human resources Tony will have to look through those and make sure that he gets those updated And so we will try to look at agendas that maybe he doesn't have something that's presented. And so we try to be cognizant of that.

But we really try to look at those timelines and look at making sure that we're spreading those out throughout the year for updates. So that way it's not all at one time, too, because I think that we want to be, when we're looking at policies, we want to make sure we're looking at chunks and not just all of them all at the same time. Great. So that, I have two follow-up questions.

And from that, one is, are we, how far behind are we, would you say, on, like, when they've been sending those? So we had, when did we get the new policies that were sent? We got them sent over the summer. We get them all at once unless it's some statutory kind of, okay.

So how far behind? Oh, okay. Yeah, we spread them out through the next couple meetings. Okay.

And then the second question, or the second thought I have is just for, I think about sometimes we do things a certain way and if people move on, board members or central office staff, do you have something written down about how you just, I don't know, just something that explains that this is how we do it, this is how we go about. Like an SLP? I don't know what that means. Standard operating procedure.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, just writing something, yeah, if that's what that is, something so that others know that that's how we're going by things that have timelines, things that, you know, pacing them or checking them with the agenda, just so that's not lost, that process. Yeah, I can do that. Thank you.

I think that was it. Anybody have anything else? So, okay, so we're going to move to checkout. Sean?

So for the policies, what I'm going to do for the most recent policy that we were just talking about, I said we're going to go ahead and I'm going to try to rewrite this so that way it actually matches the reality of what we're doing within our district. What I'm going to do is for policy BBBB, we're going to look at the community college and possibly pull that out if it's not needed. And then I will look at writing some type of standard operating procedure to document, you know, what the procedure is and how we bring forth certain policies. And then the other thing I think I might add to that is I think what we'll do is we'll add, we'll create some type of list so that way the board has an overall big picture of the number of policies that have been sent to us.

So that way you can see the entire list of the policies that are coming up for revision this year. And then if you have any input about where you'd want to put those, we can definitely change that. And then that's it. So.

Okay, awesome. Thank you. So we're moving on to action items. I actually have to recuse myself from the first one, which is 7.01.

I am ready. I move that the Board of Education approve the part-time temporary employment report as submitted. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. He's getting Joe.

All right, so 7.02 is the approval of purchases that may exceed 25,000 CH Theater stage lights. So do we have a motion? 8.02, I move that the Board of Education authorize the solicitation of bids to replace four Verilights stage lights at Clayton High School. Second.

Okay, it has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Okay, all in favor? Aye.

Any opposed Passes unanimously Thank you Okay so the next is 7 specialized printing and mailing services Do we have a motion? 8.03, I move that the Board of Education approve awarding the specialized printing and mailing services to the designated vendors as indicated and authorize administration to negotiate and enter into a contract for the same. It has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

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

Thank you. Okay, the next is consent items. So for our consent agenda. So can we have the action there?

9.01, I move that the Board of Education Do you have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any questions?

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

Okay. We're whipping through here. Yeah, oh yes, thank you. Thank you very much.

Yeah, we do want to recognize that there were two donations within that consent agenda. Thank you for that, Gary. So the first was from the Melman family, and that was for $1,000 to Clayton High School, so thank you to the Melman family. And the second was from Robert DuPont, also $1,000 to Claymo.

So I want to both recognize those. Thank you for saying that. Okay, so we're moving on to the financials. So 9.01, the May 2019 financials.

Do we have a motion? 10.01, I move that the Board of Education approve payment of current expenditures and investments for May 2019 as submitted. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes unanimously. Thank you very much.

10.02, June 2019, financials. Motion? 10.02, I move that the Board of Education approve payment of current expenditures and investments for June 2019 as submitted. Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Any discussion? You may. I just did want to update the board on the taxes from the county that we did get $3 million of our 3.8 we were looking for. So just so you guys know that.

So the budget was adjusted so that we wouldn't get it, but then we did receive it. So when we do an update on the financials, we'll reflect all of that in there. So good news. Did they give us a reason why they?

No. So there's no reason? No. Silence.

Even though they denied, they were like, it's not our fault, we didn't do anything wrong. They never, they never. No. I was happy to get the money.

You know, since that was brought up, that's great news. Since that was brought up in a public meeting, I guess you said it here. I don't know. It just somehow seems like maybe that should have been on board, should be on board.

I don't know. Somehow. It was noted in the. Making sure it's.

Oh, I mean, it was noted on the report, but. It's publicly known that this has been resolved is really great. It was in the fluctuations we described it and said that. It was noted in the report.

Okay, I guess I didn't see it. With flashing head, yeah. Okay, that's excellent. Yep, all right.

Yeah, I just was polite in the report, so. Not in the summary, yeah. Okay, all in favor? Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that also passes unanimously, thank you. So we're moving on actually to board communications.

Just before that, what I want to say is obviously, Hopefully you saw in the Friday memo some of the board committees, right, the kind of standing board committees that were, so hopefully everybody saw that. And we're still working on the other committees. But does anybody have any committee reports that they want to offer? Go ahead, Stacey.

I have two. So first of all, at the last Parks and Rec committee meeting, we reviewed renderings from an architect for a park that will be going in land that the city purchased between the new library and the church. There a tiny house they bought that they tearing down It going to be like what they call a pocket park which I guess is becoming popular in larger cities across the country which will be great And we also looked at renderings for the new ice rink which will be starting very soon I believe November And they announced the grand reopening of DeMunn Park as well which is also great And then just last night, Sean and I attended the Clayton Education Foundation meeting, which was great. It's a really great, energetic, passionate group of alumni and community members who are really dedicated to helping this district, which was really cool.

And we reviewed the mission of the foundation and the budget, and everyone seemed to have, like I said, great enthusiasm and great ideas for how to move forward. Thank you. Any other committee updates? Speak to the center.

You want to speak to the center of Clayton? Yeah. So, that's right. So, we, Joe and I had a CRSWC meeting and I don't have my notes with me, so I'm going to try and go from memory.

We are, because of the capital improvements, The Center isn't making as much money as it usually makes, basically. And so they intend that that will remedy itself within the next few years, once the capital, once the project is done. But so for the next few years, the numbers are down. And they don't expect that they will come up any time this year.

Membership, memberships are also a little bit down, but I think the real reason The next thing I want to talk about is the capital improvements and people are putting their memberships on hold. That was really the main thing. Do we want to talk about the breakfast this morning? I have a question about the center.

The indoor pool is being renovated, so that's gone. It's not there anymore. Then the ice rink being renovated, are they allowing people to use some other pool? Thank you.

As long as the season will allow, weather will allow, they're going to hold kind of longer hours open for Shaw Park for the pool. In terms of reciprocity, because actually as a swimmer I just asked this question yesterday, they don't have reciprocity right now with the heights. Because they're hoping that the pool will be done by the end of September or the beginning of October. That's the hope, right?

I mean, you know, that's, right? So right now there's not reciprocity with the heights. They have done that in the past. And what about the ice rink?

I don't know about the ice rink, actually. Do you want to speak to the, actually, I want to say one thing else about the center, Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We had a really great conversation about what each of us is doing with respect to equity and how we could possibly collaborate together on equity-related issues. The city has some plans to have a committee.

I forgot what the name, what they're calling it. Do you remember what they're calling the committee? They're going to have an actual human rights commission. And they're really looking at some ways to increase diversity within Clayton.

So that was good. Am I not saying this right? No, no, I wasn't there. And then we, in turn, told them about what we're doing in the district and our partnership.

So it was a great conversation, I thought. Thank you. Lily. I was just going to return to something that we brought up earlier and let everybody know.

That there is a group that's working, that's really focused on school safety, a group of parents that, and they're there at each of the curriculum nights and talking about gun safety in particular. And I did want to get back because I don't like not being able to name my sources. So I want to tell you, and I'll send this to everybody because it really is a, this is a 2019, it came out after the El Paso shooting. That the National Council for Behavioral Health came out with, it's basically a review of all the research and literature on mass violence in America, causes, impacts, and solutions, but there's a whole section on schools.

And that's where they go over some of the things that schools have been spending money on that doesn't seem to be effective and where we should be spending money and effort. Thank you. It's 96 pages and I can't just take that section on schools because it's a PDF and I don't know how to do that. But I will tell you guys the pages to look at and if you care about or you know, if this is an area that you're also interested in, there's some really good updated information on school safety.

The Lily what I ask you to do is send it to Sean and then let him put it in the Friday memo because what we want to do is kind of create that We don want to send everything to all board just in case somebody responds right So we want to not do that. So, yeah, so send it to Sean. You'll be able to get just the second I'm talking about. Thank you.

Okay. Was there any talk at all about these recent shootings last week at the school, Solan and Parkway North? This came out just right after El Paso, and so no, but I can look if it talks more about different kinds of violence. Because it's really focused on the research related to mass shootings, which is four or more.

It's defined as four or more people being shot, not necessarily killed. Have we talked about it, the board or the administration at all, about what's happening in our city, Thank you, Chair. As a general, you know, overview of what we're doing. But we're also, when things like that happen, it's an opportunity for us to say, is there anything else that we can be doing differently?

And so I do feel pretty confident about the way that we have security at our sporting events. We're going to have a game this Friday at high school. And so Dan's going to send something out. So that way people feel confident about sending their kids to the game.

Gary. Real quick, Joe. I haven been to a legislative advocacy meeting yet but just something that came up a lot around the opening of school I think because it was there was some media attention on it and it something that I first learned about at a legislative advocacy meeting last year is that the dates for our school opening have to change next year So I'm sure you guys got, it's probably the thing I've got more questions about on any one topic than anything else that's been on the board. So I won't go into all of the background for how those bills moved through the house and what the different interest groups and things were there, but I think it's just probably important for us all to know that there's a pretty complicated history of why that happened and what it's going to mean for districts all over the state.

But it is, I mean, there's some change this year, which I can't imagine because they've been pushing for it for a long time. It's going to happen. So that group does have some research or some resources on what districts are looking at to comply with it and stuff. So if you get as many questions about it as I did, it might be something to turn to.

So one of the things that I want to just mention is that we've been spending a number of hours looking at the calendar and that eventually is going to come back to the board for your review too, just because we're trying to think about what we do for instruction and making sure we're not compromising instruction. And the other thing, too, is that all the districts are looking at that. And so a group met together at EdPlus, talked about the implications of this, and I've actually had other school districts sharing some of the ideas that they're doing. And so those ideas are all being kind of synthesized in conversations that we're having, and eventually we're going to be bringing some ideas to the board and thinking about what we need to do to make sure that we in compliance with that new legislation but also making sure we doing what best for our students And so yes sometimes it unfortunate Sometimes decisions are made without looking at the big picture of some of the things that we do for, like we're talking about mental wellness and thinking about we prioritize finals before winter break.

And it makes it really difficult to do that for our students. And so those are conversations that we're having. Well, just to put in perspective for everybody, right, that means that school could start almost two weeks later than it did. We started August 13th, and they're talking about August 24th is the first possible day, so 11 days.

It's significant. We have the calendar already approved for next year. We have to revise it, right? We sent a communication out to the community saying that we did not create a calendar for next year because of this legislation, We are going to develop it this fall and sending that out.

We have not developed one yet. Adam, did you have something? I was just wondering, do you know if it's based off of the number of days that we'll be going each year or is it off of hours now? It's based off of hours now.

And so it has been days right now? It has been days in the past. Okay. Any other committee reports or comments?

Can I have a motion to adjourn? Moved that the Board of Education adjourn. Second. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you for smiling for the camera today. Also, can I just say thank you to Chris and Jeff and their teams for making this happen today. And also Justin Seidwell at the high school who helped make this happen for us today. That's cool, man.

Thanks.