April 29, 2020

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Thank you. All right, so just as a heads up for everybody that's already on the call, we are live streaming now. Thank you. Hello, everyone.

Hello. Hi. Hi, Katie. Hi, Karen.

Hi, Beth. I'm going to go ahead and mute. What's up? Can you hear me?

There you go. Hi, Sean. Can you hear me? Yes.

Yeah, so we can hear everybody. We are live streaming. We started that about two minutes ago. And then I have gone through for people who are part of this meeting but not presenting yet, I have turned off their video.

And, you know, we'll either have them turn it on or they can turn it on as they get to their relevant specific parts of the meeting. All the board members and Sean will be on throughout the whole meeting, though. Yeah, and we're still, we're going to give it another minute or here so we can get Gary and Lily and Jason, no Jason's on, I'm sorry, Gary and Lily on, is what I meant to say. And I will warn everybody when we start, I am going to have a stand up and do the Pledge of Allegiance.

So I'm just telling everybody. FYI. I'm moving. Okay.

Okay. Just give Gary another minute or so here. Okay. Okay.

Okay, I think we have everybody. Board members, will you just give me a thumbs up if you can hear? Everybody can hear? Okay, all right, good.

Jason, you can hear? All right, okay, fantastic, all right. Okay, I think we're ready to start. So adequate notice has been given for this virtual meeting We are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance to that flag that's in Sean's background.

So I guess we'll start, I'm gonna put my thing and stand up. All right, I pledge allegiance. 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.

Great. Thank you, everybody. Do we? So we're going to move on, Sean, to recognizing our own.

Yes. Thank you. So as people were walking by the window outside, they just saw me do the pledge standing up. They're probably just wondering what I'm doing by myself in the office getting the pledge.

So good evening, everyone. As part of our board meetings, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We are going to talk a little bit about some of the work that they've done. I just want the board to know that next week we're going to be celebrating National Teacher Appreciation Week.

And so I just thought it's very timely to be able to bring a few teachers on to our call tonight to recognize them for their work and for them to speak about what they've been doing so far with our continued learning. So I'm going to turn it over to Beth Scott and she's going to give you a little bit of an overview and then have our teachers talk. και Thank you. I wish that you were at Glenridge School, and so an alternative plan has come forth.

Our teachers have worked tirelessly throughout the school year, in fact, to bring forth the best teaching environments that they can for children. And now, in this last quarter of our school year, they've been turned on their heels a bit. And I can't tell you just how very proud I am of the response that I've witnessed, just really overnight, literally. Thank you.

We have stepped up as strong teammates and are representing their team this evening to talk about the children in their care. So without further ado, let's start with Katie. She'll talk from the kindergarten perspective and they'll be followed by Kara. We'll talk from the fifth grade teaching learning perspective.

And if you have questions, you can interrupt if you'd like or we'll take time at the end. OK. So on to Katie. Good evening and thank you so much for inviting me to speak tonight about our kindergarten journey with continued online education.

At this time, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen with everyone as I talk a little bit more about the journey that we have launched. Let me just get to presenting. All right So our journey with online education really the thought process started at the beginning Oh excuse me Okay I practiced this to make sure that this wouldn happen I so so sorry I actually practiced this several times I'm just running the slideshow instead of, okay. Okay, I'm going to stop for a minute and see if I can get this back.

You have my utmost apologies. All right. I don't know. I'm so sorry.

Oh, there we go. Okay. Take two. All right.

At the start of our continued learning, we talked as a team and determined that the two most important goals that we really thought that we needed to focus on were, number one, to maintain So, we're going to talk about the first goal, which is to maintain our community connection. That social learning piece is so vitally important to our kindergarten learners. And the second was to make sure that we had platforms that were easy for our families to navigate due to the fact that, of course, our kindergarteners, especially at the beginning of this journey, would not be able to demonstrate much independence. And so in thinking about that, our first goal, those community connections, what we decided to do was to establish a daily morning meeting.

Every day at nine o'clock, we have a Google Meet set up. And this provides the opportunity for our kindergartners to share and to talk with each other each day. It gives us a chance to do kind of an emotional check in. Sometimes it's a quick, you know, thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs in the middle.

It also gives us an opportunity to continue some established routines, such as our calendar routines that we do on a daily basis. It also provides opportunities for our kindergartners to continue to practice those really important skills, such as turn taking, such as listening when others are sharing, and such as sharing their own thinking with each other. And then also some fun opportunities for body movements such as GoNoodle breaks. And those are things that were part of our morning meeting when we were physically at school and we're thrilled to be able to continue that daily with our kindergarten learners.

So, in thinking about that second goal, those platforms that are easy for families and that would start to encourage independence with our youngest kindergarten learners, we decided that working off of one main document each day for parents would be easiest for them to navigate. And that document would contain all of the learning activities for the day. So it would contain the link to our morning meeting. It would provide optional activity choices for families who want a little additional activities and things for to do.

And also, any video links to direct instruction that we as a kindergarten team are providing. This is an example of what that document looks like. Embedded in the document, as I said, links to our daily morning meeting. And then the objectives for the lessons being presented that day.

There would also be any links again to direct instruction that the families could click on to access that. And I will show you some examples of that in just a moment. If there are any tools that we think would be beneficial Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. The direct instruction is provided by one of the kindergarten teachers.

And so I'd like to show you some examples of those. We are fortunate in kindergarten that our kindergartners really, even prior to this new type of learning, had established relationships with all of the kindergarten teachers. Spersuspense P and E We had launched a project learning unit in writing And it was all around the idea of how to learning And it was given our students a chance to teach next year's kindergartners, since they're current experts in kindergarten, teach next year's kindergartners some things about kindergarten. Such as how to hang up your backpack, how to go through the cafeteria line.

And the students were able to demonstrate that either by writing books, by making posters, by producing a video. And so depending on what they wanted to do, the kindergarten students were mixed up and in different classrooms. So the fact that each teacher is now delivering direct instruction, I think, still feels very natural to all of our kindergartners because we were fortunate that they do have established relationships with the entire kindergarten team. And so just a few examples of the work that's some of the direct instruction, some of the videos.

This is my colleague Jen Riley, and she's this is a very early kind of launching point for our kindergarten writing. And I'm going to play just about the first minute of her video for you. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Turn up the volume on your computer because it worked this afternoon when we tried it.

Okay, now I can't hear. Did that help at all? It did not. So you need to turn up, so unplug your ear pods and turn up the volume on your actual laptop and that should work.

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

We've been learning a lot about syllables and word work lately, and you guys are all doing an excellent, excellent job. I'm so proud, and Mabel would be so proud, too. Some things we've learned about syllables is that every word has at least one syllable, and every syllable has at least one letter. But did you guys know that you can use syllables to help you spell bigger and better words?

If I wanted to try to write the word excited, but I wasn't quite sure how to write that, I can use the syllables to help me. Watch and I'll show you. I'm going to clap them out first. Excited.

Okay, I hear three syllables in the word excited. So I'm going to start on my board with my first syllable. Okay. Well, from my vowel power, I know that sounds a lot like.

So that's just a brief snapshot of how the direct instruction is, the students are able to access direct instruction. And so we know that there are a lot of platforms that students are able to use to share their learning. And what we found is that Seesaw is the most user friendly for our youngest learners. We find that it's easy for the students and families to navigate, to show their learning, and also to get feedback from their teachers.

And I just wanted to show you a few artifacts. So, for example, you know, this still provides the opportunity for our kindergartners to practice writing their numerals, which is really important for our kindergartners because, as you can see, there are still some backwards numbers. So being able to still provide those practice opportunities while working with team members and delivering content and then being able to provide the feedback both on Seesaw, you can type in. So written feedback, and it could be something like, you know, great job with your counting, you know, be careful with your number three, you know, to being able to deliver oral and verbally give feedback to our students.

This is an example of a learning artifact for writing. Seesaw is a nice platform for our kindergartners. They can do activities directly on Seesaw. They can do work such as a writing piece and then take a picture and post it so that the teachers are also able to offer feedback.

And there also is an opportunity for them to record themselves so that we can hear their thinking and their learning. This next slide is an example of a kindergartner who has recorded some syllable work that they were learning about, as you heard from the lesson by Mrs. Bosch. Oh, why it keeps...

Star, door, bread, clock, fish, car, apple, rainbow, flower, snowflake, turtle, balloon, Elephant, unicorn, octopus, umbrella, volcano, banana. Yay! And so the nice thing is that, again, we can also provide both written and oral feedback to our youngest learners as well. And so I do want to thank you for your time, for your continued support of both our students, Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

Sorry, could I find my mute. And then we have Kara, do you have. Yes. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. Thank you for this opportunity. Let me show you what fifth grade has been up to. So I think you're going to see some similarities with kindergarten.

When fifth grade met to decide what are our priorities for our fifth graders. We had two goals. One was to build community with teachers and students, but also with each other. You know that fifth graders are so social.

So, and being the spring term, they're definitely, they've got Y down on the brain and they want to spend time with each other. So we wanted to embed that. And then also our goal for this year has really been empowerment, taking lead on their learning, growing, and we wanted to infuse that into our distance learning as much as we could. So to build community, we scheduled lots of Google Meets, small group, big group.

We had been using the tool Flipgrid. I not sure if you familiar with it where the students can record videos to a prompt But this time we changed it up a little bit so that they can respond to each other So we gave them something to complete on Flipgrid and then we asked other fifth graders to give them feedback So that's been a really popular choice. And then Jamboard, which is a Google Suite feature. It's like a virtual bulletin board where you can quickly throw up post-its or images or links to other things.

And we've created those across the grade level so that they can all have access to it and just collaborate with each other. They're very familiar with Google Docs and Google Slides. They already know how to share that. So we've tried to infuse that into some of the things we do, just so it's not just teacher and student, but it's a lot of student and student communication.

And then the empowerment, we're trying to get them excited about their learning, even though they're at home and they really want to be at school. So offering a wide range of choices. And then we've also kind of dangled this carrot about students as teachers. So this has looked different in our classes, but people that are kind of rocking it, They can mentor a friend or they can come up with actually the lesson idea or be part of our teacher video, but stepping up as a leader, as a fifth grader to show what learning looks like.

So here's our menu board that we push out every Monday. So this is a week ago. We decided that we would push out our work on Monday and have it due on Friday. And we've told the kids, this is your menu board.

There's four corners. Those are the must-do tasks. So there's tasks in reading, writing, math, and building community. Those are non-negotiables.

You have to get those things finished. But you're a curious, empowered learner. We have lots of can-do choices on the menu board. We started this menu board the very first week, so we've really worked to kind of keep the format the same so it's predictable for our parents and our students.

They know what's expected. So here is writing. So this is the must-do slide. It tells them the three things they need to do.

Everything's hyperlinked to either videos we've created, documents with, you know, like our non-negotiables about editing, links to Google Classroom or Seesaw or Flipgrid. So we want, they're pretty savvy with all the links. We've gotten a little bit smarter about, you know, questioning them. We're putting little Easter eggs in our videos just to make sure that they're really watching them.

So they're getting the teaching points. But when they do this work, they get to manage themselves. We are each having office hours every day so we can check in with them and say, hey, you had three must-dos on writing. Where are you and do you need support?

How can I help you? Things like that. But most of our kids are having no trouble getting through these, so then we're offering something like this. So this is the can-do slide for writing.

There's eight choices. Some are online, some are offline. We've got some feedback from parents and kids that they don't like being tied to their Chromebook for so much of the day. So we're offering them some suggestions that gets them off the computer.

They've enjoyed that. And this is just to grow themselves as an empowered learner. We're doing that for reading. So this is the reading must-do slide.

And then the reading can-do slide. And we ask for feedback every Friday from the students on what they liked, what they explored. Sometimes our can-do choices change every week. And we always know it's popular if they want it to stick around.

They're like, no, Wonderopolis is so fun. Keep it there. So some of these choices have been there a few weeks. And then here's math.

I've been part of the math planning and we're actually meeting as a district. We started solo and then it was decided that we really should collaborate So I meet weekly with a fifth grade teacher from Captain and Mayor Mack with one of our math coaches And we identified the concepts that we didn get to in the classroom that are kind of essential for fifth graders So we're all pushing out the same content, but in our own style. So right now, all of fifth graders are focused on geometry, 2D and 3D geometry. It's one of the goals we didn't get to before school closed.

Here's our can-do options. We have some social studies, and then we're really working hard on building community. So we're offering some community options. The biggies have been Flipgrid.

Flipgrid was a tool that we used a lot before school closed, so they were comfortable with it. The one thing that we changed was that we allowed students to respond to each other. So here's an example. The students are working on a five paragraph essay that is one of the big writing assignment, writing units of fifth grade.

And normally they would get feedback from each other in the classroom, but we decided this way they could present a video and share it with the grade level and get video feedback. So. So she's a great writer, dramatic. But then what's been great is she gets feedback from other fifth graders.

Hey, Deloney, so I really like your thing, but maybe you should, like, tweak it so you're not actually directly addressing the students, since it's about your CLEMO moment. And I'm wondering, what is the climax in the problem story? So, bye. Hey, Pippa.

I really loved your story and how many details it had, like the part about being loud and, you know, how many people that are out there. I think maybe you could talk more about the experience, like how it went, and some suggestions for them when they're up there. So, well, you did say some, but maybe more. So that's it.

Bye. So that's been pretty popular choice. They really, every week they're like, are we going to do Flip Grids? Are we going to talk to each other?

So we've also explored with Jamboard offering. It's that virtual bulletin board. This is just one of the choices where we popped up a social studies video and we wanted to get them thinking about the Revolutionary War. And then boom, all these questions and comments and connections.

So it's not only connecting with us, but it's connecting with each other that we see has been a powerful choice for them. In addition, we also use Seesaw. What as a teacher I love about Seesaw is they love recording themselves. You know, fifth graders, it's the selfie generation, so they don't mind doing audio.

And it's a great way to show understanding and give them feedback in a really simple, easy way. I can just type a comment. And all our parents are linked to their student Seesaw account, so it's all a shared platform. But that's been the biggie.

I did share with my team that I was presenting tonight and what they wanted to get across is that it's kind of ebbed and flowed. We found that some weeks we need a lot more community time and the kids just need to see each other and hear each other. And other weeks they're more open to, okay, I'm ready to dig into this content of writing or math. So every week it been a little bit different but it been fabulous and they courageous learners They been really pushing themselves so it all good So I just want to say thank you to Katie and to Kara Your work is just incredible It intentional.

It's student-centered. It's about continuing our learning in a new platform. And what you came up with was so organized and just incredible. And what I love is that you're basing it on community and relationships because relationships are key.

And I know that you Thank you. Thank you. I have, I'm going to ask Robin to come up really quickly to talk a little bit about someone, some other important people that we're celebrating next week. And that is our school nurses.

All right. Oh, asking me to start my video. All right. Good evening, everybody.

Well, it's a great privilege to recognize a really special team of people in our school district. I wanted to take a moment to recognize our team of district nurses in honor of next week's National Nurses Week, led by our nurse coordinator, Heather Christman, who's based out of Glenridge, Karen Etling at Miramac, Gail Falarski at Captain, Mary Frances McCarty at Y-Down, Lisa McDade at CXCHS, and Jodi Tomczak, our part-time nurse. They see on average just one day in our clinic in the Crosston district. So our nurses play a lot of roles in our students' daily school experience, above and beyond handing out ice packs and bandages.

They're often a great source of encouragement on a really tough day. They're also a calming spirit when our students' nerves get in the way of confidence, and they are some of the greatest cheerleaders when our students hit milestones. And so we're so grateful for all their efforts to ensure our students and staff are safe and healthy. We're also really grateful for their willingness to further the future of the profession by hosting nursing students from St.

Louis University. I also wanted to highlight that Nurse Heather was recently nominated as one of the top nurses in the region by St. Louis Magazine's Excellence in Nursing Awards. The recognition is presented by BJC Healthcare and the Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College.

And the program honors nurses who have consistently exhibited selfless care, compassion, and service. So at this point, I believe Nurse Heather is with us virtually, and I wanted to invite her to say a few words about our health services team. Hi, everyone. Sorry if my dog barks in the background.

I first want to say I am completely honored to be recognized by St. Louis Magazine. It's a great privilege. I also want to say I'm very fortunate to work in a district that we have a nurse in each building.

Taking the lead nurse position this year, I've been to a lot of meetings and it's really nice to work in a district that you're recognized and you have a lot of help for. We're currently working on some policies and procedures and making sure everything is up to date if we need to change things. Spervantage, working on immunizations for next year for students. And we've also done a lot of connections with families right now with COVID.

In Glenridge, I am proud to say that we've written a note to every student in the building. I'm still working on doing birthday cards for our students that are still getting them for the rest of the year. I stopped in with the family that the mom asked me to stop by and check in with her student because she extremely missed me. Mom was afraid she was going to run down the steps and give me a hug, but she didn't.

So since that happened this week, I've offered it up to a few of my other families. And so next week I'm going to be doing a few more standing at the street and saying hi to some of the students. Thank you. Resource with everything that's happened and you have been amazing and a calm force across the other nurses.

So thank you so much. So Board of Education, on behalf of the Board of Education, the administration, we want to say thank you to our teachers. Thank you so much to our nurses. We truly appreciate you and all that you're doing, especially in these unusual circumstances.

So we really appreciate you. And Board of Education, we probably will be asking you next week to help us with a little secret project that we are working on for Teacher Appreciation Week as well as Nurses Appreciation. So thank you. So we are now going to, Joe, go to public comment.

So I'm going to turn it back over to you. So we're going to go to public comment, but I just want to offer my thanks too. We're so lucky as a district to have awesome teachers. So, you know, thank you, Katie.

Thank you, Kara. Awesome nurses, awesome staff. So we're really blessed and we really appreciate great presentations. We appreciate all of you.

So we are going to move to public comments. And I think, like we did last time, we are going to ask Chris to read them. People submitted them. And Chris, you're going to read them, right?

Absolutely. Thank you, Joe. We had two public comments submitted from or submitted prior to the meeting tonight. The first one is from Elizabeth McAnufo, and her comment reads, although this has been a challenging time, I hope the district and community will use this time to reflect on possible lessons learned and even positive outcomes from this experience.

For instance, my children have expressed relief at having more time to eat lunch, as well as the ability to pursue interests on their own timeline and to go deeper into subjects that pique their curiosity. In addition, I hope that the district would reevaluate before and after school expectations and events to encourage more family time together. While these offerings are beneficial, I believe that we, as a community, could support fewer activities and more downtime for both kids and parents to reconnect. Finally, a huge thank you to all the district teachers and administrators for supporting our children at this time.

Our second and final comment tonight is from Kimberly Hurst. Her comment reads, we've been impressed by how the district has responded to the challenge of distance learning and amazed by many individual teacher efforts. We're certain that no matter what the future holds, teacher stock has gone up big time. No one should ever take a teacher for granted again.

They are rock stars. And that is it for our public comment this evening. Awesome. Thank you.

Thanks to Chris for reading those public comments. So we're going to move next to Superintendent Communication. Sean. Thank you.

And so, as part of my superintendent communications, I want to do a similar to what I did last time as a brief update about what's happening now and how we're planning for the future. But again, I just want to echo what I shared, you know, what's been said is that the work that we're doing right now is because we have such quality people doing the work and our teachers and staff has been incredible. I was speaking to a parent yesterday, and she said she was talking about how she really appreciates, she now has a greater appreciation for what happens in our classrooms as she's been working with her children at home. So I think that a lot of people feel that way.

So what I want to do is talk a little bit about where we've been and where we're going next. And so we started our continued learning on March 25th. That's a little over a month ago. And when we first started, we really were trying to get into a routine and thinking about reviewing content.

Again, I really think that us being very proactive about the situation allowed us to get started very quickly after spring break. And you can see that the detail that our teachers are putting into this continued learning and into this distance learning is incredible. On April 9th, we made the collective decision across St. Louis County and City with other superintendents to close our school buildings.

And I'm intentional about saying school buildings because our district is not closed. We are continuing to teach every single day, and we are not stopping the learning in our district. On that same day, April 9th, our Governor Parson decided to put out an order for closing schools across the state so it aligned. Since that time we been teaching new content We established new grading system that I believe takes into consideration the work that the students have already completed but also holding our students accountable to a fair expectation for their work during the fourth quarter We also worked on some new reporting systems for Y and the elementary schools for report cards because they going to be a little bit more active Thank you Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

The reason why we do Zoom for these meetings is because we want to live stream them and it goes outside of our network when we are able to use Zoom. So if it wasn't for that one thing about live streaming, we would still be using Google Meet. We have continued to provide meals for our families on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and we have continued to have deliveries of food for those families that have used our food banks. Our Clayton Education Foundation raised about $25,000, and they have been able to provide gift cards to families throughout our district, which is incredible, and they have continued to do that and use those funds.

Our counselors and our social workers have helped families that are in need beyond academics. Our interns, our educational interns have been working with individual families and students who may not have as much support at home, who may have parents that are still working. And so they have been providing individual support to students who are needing someone just to help guide them through the work. Our Kids' Own Staff for After School program have been providing enrichment videos and have been continuing to do connections with our students through that.

As you know, we're not going to have spring sports, but we are thinking about ways that we can allow our senior athletes to have some type of connection, get on the field, maybe during the summer. We don't know what that's going to look like. Graduation has been postponed until July, but we are thinking about some creative ways, and I'm not going to talk about right now, of celebrating our students, our seniors, and I'm really excited about those. This week, we filmed the award ceremony at the high school, so that way our students are still going to have an award ceremony.

We have canceled our Summer Quest programs in the Family Center camp over the summer, and we've modified what we're doing for summer academies. We're still going to continue in June with our summer academy for the high school, but have gone completely virtual on that. And then we are going to do jump starts for our Y down for Y down and for elementary. And we're still considering to do virtual in case we're not able to do that.

I have been meeting weekly with superintendents across the region. And today I've been, I joined a group of superintendents that are actually across the country and into Canada, and just problem solving and brainstorming with one another, virtually that allows us to brainstorm ideas for next year. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

Superroportionate Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried We are going to get some feedback from our community and sending out a survey or a thought exchange in the near future so that way we can hear from them And that would be some data to inform how we move forward And we are continue to have timely communication So our parents feel like they're informed of what's happening in the district and feel like they are staying connected. As I said before, I feel like we will become stronger because of this experience. And we are going to, like similar to what someone said in the comments, we are going to look at what are the positives that we can gain from this situation. And I think that we will be stronger.

So I wanted, I don't normally, we don't normally have questions for the board during superintendent communications, but since it's a little different, I was going to see if the board had any questions pertaining to anything that I shared with you. Thank you. Okay. Lily, any questions?

Nope. Thank you. So, Gary, any questions? Well, now I feel like I'm going to stick out a little bit because I did have a question.

Thanks, guys. Sean, I wanted to kind of follow up on what you said about, well, I guess first it's more a comment And then follow up the question about thinking about how we know that school is going to be different in the fall, regardless of a lot of things we don't know. We know it's going to look different. And I think that's something that I've been thinking a lot about, a lot of different contexts.

But are there any examples of things that you can talk about that are maybe possibilities for that or things that you're thinking about that we can, while we may have buildings open in some way, things that we're thinking about, whether they're going to be different or there's going to be a different approach? I just, not to put you on the spot, I'm just curious about that concept. So ultimately, we have to go by what guidance we're getting to from the Department of Health. And so if there's not as many restrictions, I still think that we might have to put some different behavioral or structural types of systems in place in terms of education around hand washing.

It may be that we have some different procedures about people coming into the buildings, assemblies, just we may have to put some different type of practices in place if we don't have like social distancing guidelines. If we have social distancing guidelines and we can only have small groups of students in our classrooms at a time, I mean, I'm not married to any of these ideas I'm sharing with you, But we may have to think about like, what if we had a different schedule for the day where we might have one day is one group of students, the next day is another group of students, and then they do continued learning at home the next day, half days for students. So we have smaller groups of students. Our ultimate goal is to get the students back into the buildings and we will work around those guidelines.

But we know that it might look a little different. When I was talking with one of the superintendents in the meeting I had today, they're thinking of plans where they have groups of students in for two weeks, and then they have another group of students in for two weeks. And the most important priority we're thinking about is how do we get our youngest students back into the schools? Because they're the ones that will need the most supervision and they will also need the most guidance with their learning.

And so we've been trying to think, be thoughtful about making sure that that's a priority. So those are just a few examples. Schools and just to give you an idea that we, you know, there could be engineering types of things that we have to look at. Like, do we need to think about, you know, like plexiglass or things like that that become barriers in our schools.

So those are the kinds of things that we're thinking about now. And we want to make sure that we have a solid plan so that way everyone knows that. But those plans can change based off guidance or what's happening in the community at the time. Does that help?

Yeah that great Thank you And I know we don it hard to be sort of talk about it in hypotheticals but just wondered about what some of those the areas that you were thinking about were It a great challenge to even kind of imagine what some of the possibilities are I appreciate that We will be up to work. Sorry. May I ask a question? Okay.

Okay. You know, from the little I know about kind of how virtual learning and some of these changes might impact, I'm hearing like that it, we're most concerned about the kids that were already struggling. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superroportion O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Yes, I will say it's not the same as it would be if they were in school, but we are cognizant of those students that were struggling before this and continuing to see what we can do to support them. And I think that that's also, we have to be thoughtful about what does that look like in the fall when we come back and are there any other strategies that we need to put in place? But also, most of those students that might be deemed that they were struggling before will probably be part, they've probably already been recommended for our summer academies.

And so those summer academies will also be a jumpstart to the school year as well. But we are cognizant of that. Thank you, Sean. We appreciate your update.

We're going to move on to student rep. Adam, do you have anything, any updates you want to give us? Yeah, sure. So the other day I was driving with my mom up to Azick Field to check it out because now that it's finally done, we don't get to use it.

And I just wanted to see it. And I got in contact with Dr. Doherty and I said, if you want to come have a little chat outside, I'd love to see you. And so we were outside talking.

And one of the things he asked me was, what have you been doing to stay and to stay talking to your friends? Superroportion O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Spervantage, P.D., and the other one is the And she also talked about playing Scattergories with her family. And I thought that those were all great things and ways that they've been staying involved socially. And for me, it's been a lot of Xbox and talking to my friends on Xbox. That's how we've been staying in contact.

And my family's been playing a lot of Rummikub. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. From students perspective.

Stacy, any questions? No, thanks. Thanks, Adam. Lily, any questions?

Thanks, Adam. Kristen, questions? Thank you, Adam, for sharing and for reaching out to your fellow classmates . Amy, questions?

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

First one is staffing requests. So, Sean, who is that one? So I've asked Tony Arnold to come forward with the staffing request, and he's going to give you a little bit of an overview. Again, this is an opportunity for the board to hear our staffing request.

It's not a vote tonight, but I think Tony's done a nice job of organizing the request. So I'm going to turn it over to Tony. You're on mute. You're muted, Tony.

There you go. Is that better? Can you hear me now? Good evening, everyone.

So tonight I'm going to be coming to the board regarding our staffing needs for the upcoming year. Each year we have several meetings with building administrators to review our staffing requests. And as we look at the various requests, we deeply analyze them by reviewing the enrollment numbers, determining best ways to support student learning and other specific needs to make a recommendations that we believe are essential. So while we had to prioritize staffing requests and also deny several, we feel strongly that the ones being presented tonight are necessary.

So this year we do have a very different set of recommendations from previous years, and this is really due to our large incoming freshman class for 2020-2021. The upcoming class will be our largest group of freshmen in history at Clayton High School, and also make enrollment at the high school the highest that it's ever been. So we're recommending an increase for a full-time English teacher. This would be to accommodate the large freshman class that we just talked about.

We have applied for fellowship subjects before this program. To effectively filter out those Reverb Scande and Schedule Cast classes, we are aplicating these scholarships for B curricula as a part of this program. The podcasts, and especially the officialListen experience courses are in place. Chamber Orchestra course at YDAL.

We believe the Chamber Orchestra course is necessary, the School District of Clayton Values or Fine Arts program, and we have the enrollment numbers to justify the recommendation. Next, in Social Studies, we're recommending an additional .4 FTE. Similar to what I shared with the recommendation for English, our incoming freshman class will significantly impact yet another required course of Social Studies, which creates the need for additional sections Thank you Particular request we be able to continue with our co model that is currently in place at the high school This model helps ensure detracking additional one instruction and differentiation for all students And the maintenance of the detracking is supported by best practice and supports our equity work at the classroom level. So several years ago, the district had to make a difficult decision to reduce the choir position with the goal of growing the program and bringing the position eventually back to a 1.0.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. This will be a reduction to the budget, but I wanted to share the information to show that we're being cognizant of our staffing requests. We're making hard decisions by reducing positions and really only asking for what we believe to be essential to accommodate our student enrollment. So with all the recommendations, of course, we'll reevaluate annually, reviewing our enrollment and other needs, and really take a close look to determine if the allocation remains a need.

Overall, with the recommendations, it would be approximately a 0.8% increase to our salary schedule. Do you have any questions or any comments at this time? Thank you, Tony. We're just going to go around again.

So, Stacey, any questions? I do have a question. Thank you, Tony. So, like you mentioned, that this incoming ninth grade class at the high school will be the largest one, Okay, so we have a question from the audience.

I'm just wondering if you're considering any, or if you anticipate any further staffing requests to accommodate not just freshmen classes, but because the overall population of the high school will grow, that will affect all kinds of electives and specialists and other kind of staffing needs. So I'm just wondering if you're anticipating more of that To accommodate the large number of kids that we'll have. For 2021, I don't think that we're going to have more at the high school based on an enrollment. That will probably be more of a constant need.

So like the following year, we'll probably need to maintain that. So I don't see it as a one-year fix. Like sometimes at the elementary, if you have a bubble population that's, you know, fourth or fifth grade, that'll be a sort of a short term at the elementary. But we do see this as the long term.

But as of now for 2021, this is what we're bringing forward to our staffing needs. Okay, thanks. Jason, any questions? No, I think the questions I would have would be the adjustment for what's happening now, what might happen in the fall.

But I think only time will tell, so we'll just wait and see what happens. Great, thank you. Amy, questions? No, thank you for the report.

Thank you. Thank you, Kristen. Questions? Pushed on the wrong button.

Thank you, Tony. That is, it's really great to see that you're being responsive to the needs and the current realities, and that you're also being thoughtful about reducing where we do have reductions instead of just holding on to teachers thinking that it might change. So I appreciate that deliberate decision making on that. And I actually, I was thinking the same lines Jason was, and I'm thinking that if there is this back and forth with online learning versus in-classroom learning, that we may need to maintain the numbers of teachers that we currently have.

But I don't know if that's, I'm assuming that's been part of your conversations. I was just curious if it has been. Yes, and those conversations continue to evolve. It just sort of, it's the unknown of what might happen in the fall, but I think we can be creative and we'll have to just sort of monitor the situation as we have more information throughout the spring and early summer.

Thank you. Lily, questions? Yeah, my question is along the same lines as what Jason and Kristen brought up. I guess, is there any other way that you haven't spoken about where the COVID, sorry, where the COVID crisis has impacted your thinking at all or made you kind of pull back and say, let's not do this one right now, or we still need to do that?

I guess I just wondering about how it impacts because there just there really is so much unknown about what school and other places are going to look like Right, and that COVID-19, all of this is part of our regular conversations that we're having at least twice a week as a group of administrators and really just looking at our planning for the fall. So we really are at the preliminary stages of what it might look like, different versions of what that might look like. So I do feel with what we're bringing forth tonight for our staffing request, our essential request that we have at this time to be able to maintain the quality education program, whether it's virtual learning or having students physically coming into the building, I do feel like this is what we're going to absolutely need to make that happen. Thank you.

Gary, any questions? Thanks, Tony. I wanted to ask about one thing that you mentioned with the social studies teacher. You used the term detracking.

It allows us to detrack, I think. Not detract, but detrack, I think. And how that impacts our equity work. Could you just maybe just so that we all understand what that concept is and how you see that connected to the equity work?

Sure. So what we have currently in place at the high school in the co-teaching model is there's two teachers in the classroom at the same time. So that allows for more one-on-one differentiation, individual support, meeting students where they are, and not having different levels of different classes. So I don't know if someone else can speak more to that, but that's the part that I know about the co-teaching model.

So it also helps contribute to our goal of getting more students in our AP and honors classes. And so the theory is that when we're working with our students at the beginning of when they're coming into freshman and sophomore year, that we will be able to students will be more prone to taking a AP or honors class in June, a junior year. And so we have seen some tremendous gains with how the teacher's been able to, and it's not every class in social, I want to make sure not every class is doing this. We're really focusing on freshmen.

And so it has seen some real positives to it. And we feel like we want to make sure we're continuing that traction of that work. And so in order to do that with the expansion of more students, we needed to have the additional staffing. Thank you.

Great, thanks. Adam, any questions? No, thanks, Tony. All right.

Thank you, Tony. We appreciate it. Okay, so we're going to move to a bevy of policies now, like about 12 of them. So the first one is 6.02 policy FED selection of construction manager at risk.

I assume that's Mary Jo. Yes. Yes. Basically, that's just a mandatory state change.

And it kind of just aligns with the previous one where we increased the amount for the prevailing wages and for bidding up to the $50,000. This is just a policy I didn't bring forward at that time because we don't have any construction projects as construction manager at risk. So I just didn't bring it forward at that time. Great.

Thank you. So, again, Stacy, any questions? No, thanks. Jason, any questions?

No. Amy, questions? No, thank you. Kristen, any questions?

No. Lily, any questions? No. Gary, any questions?

Adam, any questions? No. All right. Thank you, Mary Jo.

Appreciate it. So the next one is 6.03, policy GBCB, which is staff conduct. So good evening again. So this is the first read of each of the policies that I'm presenting this evening.

The first one is policy GBCB staff conduct. So MSBA has updated the policy to reflect the new changes brought by Senate Bill 1007, known as the whistleblower law, and to clarify some policy language. In addition to the changes proposed with the policy update, I did have one more suggested change that should have been updated on your electronic copy. In consulting with our attorney we would like to propose that item 10 be modified So it should be highlighted in your version your electronic version After the last sentence employees must not leave students unsupervised except as necessary to handle an emergency situation We added on, however, this requirement shall not apply to the supervision of high school students while they are away from the premises during the school day for non-school related purposes as authorized by the high school student handbook and related document.

This new language really just helps clarify and protect the district with their students having the unique open campus in Clayton. So with that proposal, that would be the only other suggestion that we had for the board to review. Great. Thank you, Tony.

So, Stacey, any questions? No, thanks. Jason, any questions? Yeah, not necessarily any questions.

I was just reading where it says, like, on page four at the bottom, so leaving work area. For some reason, I just thought that it was interesting that it read, a district employee may not leave assigned work areas during normal work hours to discuss district operations or to make protected disclosures under the policy. I guess I wasn't really sure why that was an emphasis. But it might not be a big deal.

I think it's just really making sure that we're being really clear that the teachers are always supervising students that they're assigned to. Gotcha. Okay, I got you. You know how when you're reading this stuff, everything's like line by line, super literal.

Okay, I got it. Awesome, thanks. Amy, any questions? No.

Thank you. Kristen, any questions? I just want to say thank you for acknowledging that. That was one of my questions that I had actually sent earlier to Joe and Sean about the high school campus and the uniqueness that we have as an open campus.

And I think that wording covers it. So that's great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Lily, any questions? No. Thank you. Gary, any questions?

No. Okay. Adam, any questions? No.

Any other questions? Just one thing in the first sentence that says to his or her position, can we change that to there? And I was going to ask about the high schoolers too, so thanks for the open campus. Great, thank you.

Awesome, thank you. So the next is 6.04 policy GBCBB, protected staff communication. Correct. So MSBA has written this new policy to reflect the changes brought about by Senate Bill 1007, again known as the whistleblower law, which made significant changes to the ability of public employers, including school districts, to discipline or even prevent public employees, teachers, volunteers, staff members, interns, and any other persons working or providing services to the district from discussing operations of the district or reporting alleged prohibited activity.

So essentially the policy states that district administrators may not prohibit an employee from discussing the operations of the district with anyone investigating misconduct listed in policy. So administrators cannot discipline an employee for disclosing information they believe to be in violation of any law. It restricts employees from representing their opinions as those of the district, and it allows employees to be disciplined for reporting false information. Great.

Thank you. Stacey, any questions? No, not on this one. Thanks.

Great. Thanks. Jason, any questions? Okay.

You know what? My question was actually for GC, for this current one. I think my paperwork was out of order. That's mine too.

All right. So I guess the answer is still the same. Awesome. Thank you.

Amy, any questions? Nope. Thank you. Kristen, questions?

No. Thank you. Lily, any questions? I have a, just, if there's a brief answer to this, can you, do you happen to know what kind of the backstory is on this?

That, how did this particular policy come about? Well, it's all regarding Senate Bill 1007. So the whistleblower law has really just changed. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

So it's really just making sure that we're being very transparent as a public entity and be able to bring things forward so they can be investigated and not being disciplined for doing so. Does that answer your question, Loli? I just wondered if there was more to it, like if there had been some incidents or if it was a national kind of thing or, you know, just wondering. I think it's great, but just wondering.

Gary, any questions? No, I don't think so. Thank you. Adam, any questions?

No. Okay. Thank you. So thank you, Tony.

We're moving on. You get to continue at 6.05, policy GBEBC, which is criminal background checks. That's right. So if you recall, I brought the earlier version of this policy to the board in the fall.

So I hope that you have the most recent updated version to review this evening. It should be dated 12-19 at the bottom. So because of House Bill 604, we're required to revise our policy to align and ensure our district is in compliance. In regard to volunteers, it's really what we discussed in the fall, ensuring that any screened volunteer, which when we use the term screened volunteer, that means anyone that may be periodically left alone with students or that may have access to student records.

So any of those screened volunteers are required to have a full background check conducted. Superroportionate, background check conducted. That means fingerprinting, it's everything. So it specifically states that we may accept a background check conducted by another Missouri public school within the past year.

And there have been a lot of different messages around in the past six months or so. So this is really great clarification for us to have. It also allows the district to require that other volunteers, meaning those who are not considered screened or unsupervised, to undergo a background check or the district may conduct a search through the family care safety registry or the child abuse and neglect databases. Superroportionate, Proprietary, and Proprietary.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I thought about like, it says, so on the second paragraph, third to last sentence, it says, however, not all arrests lead to charges or convictions. So districts should be cautious about how this information is used.

I thought about how it's not accurate, how it's subjective about misuse. Privacy, accuracy, security, I just thought about it could really ruin someone's life. This rap act, because to me it's so open and gives the FBI and gives whomever so much autonomy to do whatever they want with private information. Constantly checking on someone to see if they've violated the law.

And then you go to page two. Well, not necessarily page two. It's actually called page three. It talks about driving records and getting tickets, for example.

And that also is something that can pop up on someone radar and could possibly get them fired Or one could start building a case against somebody if they wanted to You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying that that's going to happen, but we live in a world that we do stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? People do.

And then I went on to say, I think, I think it's the same thing as GBE. Yeah, so it's the same thing. I'm on page four now. It says payment.

And it's paragraph, you know what I'm talking about? Are you familiar with where I am, everybody? Where are you exactly on page four? Where it says payment.

I'm on like a second sentence. And it says, well, actually it's the first sentence. It says, I'll read the whole sentence so you all get the context. It says, in general, applicants for employment and volunteers are responsible for the cost of the criminal background check.

But the district may, may, may not, may later reimburse the person at the district's discretion. I'm thinking maybe that should be more definitive. Are we going to reimburse? Are we not going to reimburse?

That kind of language right there is so broad. It just puts us in a position where we have to argue or debate somebody about, you know what I'm saying, reimbursement. Does that make sense? Yes, that makes sense.

I mean, this is just, you know, reading through it. Go ahead. The current practice has been that for employment, the applicants do pay for their own background check, and that's pretty standard and pretty typical. So that wouldn't be anything new.

But yes, we can look into that language. Well, I thought I read later on down the line in a couple, I haven't marked this yet, but later on down the line in a couple of different policies, it talks about where the school district actually pays for these background checks. The school district pays for the background. So the school district pays for the other level of background checks for like the family care safety registry and the child abuse and neglect database search.

So we also we often refer to that as the name search. So those the district does, we do pay for those. And we've been paying for the OASIS tutors because they have to get the full background check, meaning the fingerprinting and they get everything. And we pay for those.

All right. So I think the overall point about this policy, which concerns me is that the FBI has this file, right? That the state and federal government have a file on someone. And it just seems it can be a detriment to someone's life, even if it's these are mild cases of things that are happening.

And they're constantly checking this, checking your background and access to this. You know, a case can be filed, can be can be built against somebody and the information can be misused. And that just concerns me. And my other question is, is this something that we have to accept?

Do we have to accept this policy? Do we have to accept the rap back? It sounds kind of weird. I almost want to say rap black, but I had to look it up and make sure I understood what rap back meant.

But the policy just seems a little bit odd to me. I want to make sure that we have to accept that policy. We have, we want to continuously, I mean, I know, I know, I know we want to protect ourselves again. You know, someone who could possibly be doing a crime, but then again, there's a lot of people doing a lot of stuff that we just don't know.

They're just not getting caught. So I want to make sure we are, this is a fair process to teachers and administrators to whomever. Right. Yeah, I understand your concern.

I think, you know, we would be negligent if we did not follow this policy as presented. I understand what you're saying regarding to privacy and things like that. So when we do have things that do pop up, either on, let's say, an employee or a volunteer, those are handled with, you know, those are handled with strict, as a strictly confidential issue. We address those on a case basis Typically they minor things that are on there If there was something that was more serious I know that you had mentioned maybe tickets and things that with the driving It usually like reckless driving It usually things that are not misdemeanors It would be more like arrests So it's not just for speeding ticket.

Those things do not come back on a wrap back or show up on the criminal history report. What about what about issues of domestic domestic violence where there isn't where like I think our state is where like police officers called them. I think the mail ends up going to jail no matter what. Right?

Yeah, if someone is arrested, then it shows up on the report. Right. So even so in a situation like that, where it's, you know, it's a dispute of battery, you know, or, and it wasn't even what, what was written in the report and what actually happened isn't what the report isn't indicative of what happened, for example. But now that person has it on their report.

It just seems to me, it's just a little bit, I'm concerned. I'm not saying I'm in a position like that, but I know there are people out here in this world that may even work for the school system that have issues where things happen and it can totally be misconstrued. And it's on that report. And now, as a decider, someone who makes a decision about employment, I have a biased perspective towards that person.

Something happens, I mean, immediately think, yeah, I remember that on their report. I knew that could happen to them. So I just want to make sure we're thinking about stuff like that. But I digress.

So all of our applicants are required to disclose that information as they're applying on the application. So typically when we do get a report back, it's something that we're already aware of because the applicant has already disclosed that information. If they did not disclose it or it does not match, they're not disqualified. Because of that, what we do is we invite them in and we go through a form so we can go through and give them the opportunity to either explain the arrest or defend what happened.

We've had situations where there have been false arrests or we look at the severity of it. And if we feel like it's happened 10, 15, 20 years ago, and we have a whole checklist that we go through that we determine if this is a person that we should move forward with, or if this is something that we feel would not be an appropriate decision to be working with children. So trust me, we go through it very carefully and with a lot of detail and with a lot of care. So I wanna make sure you advocate that we do need to accept this policy.

I do. I think we would be negligent if we didn't because things could happen. And if we did not do this, we would not be in compliance with the law. And I think that it could cause a lot of problems.

Good. Okay. Thank you. Amy, any questions?

No. Thank you. Thank you. Kristen, any questions?

No. Thank you. Thank you. Lily, any questions?

No, sorry. Thank you. Gary, any questions? Thanks, Joe.

Yeah, I didn't have some questions about this, too, and I know we've talked about this one before, so I hope that we're not, I'm not asking some of the same questions because that'd be embarrassing, but Tony, I wondered if you could help me because there are some things that were a little bit confusing to me in terms of the timing of some of these things. And it may be related to what you were talking about in terms of the name check, what we commonly call a name check versus a full criminal background check. But under the first mention on page four of volunteers having a background check, the second paragraph of that section says that the background checks will be updated each year for all volunteers. And then on the next page, on page five, under like the second paragraph on that page, it says that the district may update all criminal background checks required under this policy at least every five years.

So are those different checks we're talking about there? Is that why it's a different time or is that just an inconsistency? I was just a little bit confused about that. Sure.

So once the fingerprinting, the fingerprint background check is in the system, if you subscribe to, if you're part of RATBAC, which our district is, that's good for five years. So any arrest that may happen within the five years of the time the fingerprinting was conducted, then all of that information comes back in a report automatically to the Human Resources Office. So that's what the every five years is, is that the subscription is good for five years. And what we what the policy allows us to do is to go back in and then renew that again if we wanted to for an additional five years.

And to keep that that subscription going for the ongoing records The other one about the annual is the non background checks So the name search if you will So when it goes to the family care registry the sex offender all of that information needs to be done annually Okay, that makes sense. And I realize this is MSBA's writing and not yours, so I'm not criticizing your own choice of words there, but I think it might make sense to maybe clarify that wording because they're basically using background checks, same phrase to mean two different things, to me anyway. And maybe I'm just not, it's just a different enough subject that I wasn't used to the way it was used. But I thought that was a little bit confusing and that it seemed inconsistent when I wrote it the first time.

And then, so with respect to the first one where it says that we will update those each year, do we in fact actually as a matter of practice do that every year? Is that consistent with our practice? Yes, with our volunteers, we do. Okay.

Yep. I think the other stuff we've covered. But yeah, I would give that some thought as to whether there's a way to clarify that. Or if you read it again and think, well, this actually makes sense.

You just didn't read it carefully enough. I can accept that point as well. But those are my thoughts. Thanks, Gary.

Adam, any questions? Yeah, I wanted to go back. Jason, I'm glad that you pointed out the payment. It's on page four.

I'm just wondering, as we focus on equity as a district, I'm just wondering if it's fair that only applicants that can afford the background check are able to be reviewed. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I'm sorry, I just was thinking about one other thing that I didn't write down when I had this thought. But is it correct that when we use the term volunteer in these policies, does that include like if a parent is going on a trip or something like that?

How does that actually, does that fall under this definition? Is that what we're talking about? So yes, yes and no. It kind of depends.

So you can have two different types of volunteer. When they talk about the screened volunteer, that's what we talk about with the volunteers that could be left alone. They're the ones who are going to have to get the fingerprinting fingerprints done and the other searches, the name search, if you will. So if it's an overnight field trip, absolutely.

Depending on how the teacher structures the field trip. So if the teacher has a parent volunteer in charge of a group of students, and they go off away from the teacher for the field trip and then meet back up at the end of the day, that person would have to have fingerprinting done. If you're a volunteer and you're going in to be a guest speaker or to read your child's class, they're to help with reading inside the classroom, but you're not left alone with students or maybe left alone with students, then you just need the regular background check done, not the screened. So we're going to clarify some of that language too with the change of this law, with our volunteer process too, so we can really streamline that so they understand which category they need to fall in based on what they want to do.

Okay, thanks. Okay, thank you. So 6.06 policy GBLP references. Okay, so MSBA has revised this policy to comply also with House Bill 604.

MSBA has made some changes to the policy to simplify and clarify it. Please note that the policy previously addressed only references given by the district, but now it also addresses references requested by the district. So under this revised policy, the district is now required to contact DESE to determine the most recent public school district or charter school that employed the applicant. So we are then required to get a clearance from at least the most previous school district on the candidate's performance.

Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Stacey Freedman, ECA-S, of sexual misconduct involving the applicant must be asked of the former district and disclosed. So in the past few months, nearly all of St. Louis County public schools are using a standardized form to request this information regarding allegations of sexual misconduct before formally making an offer to a teacher.

So again, the district is currently following the new guidelines that are required and recommend that we move forward with the policy as presented. All right, thank you. Stacey, any questions? I do.

How do we handle this if an employee is coming from or going to a private school? So everything would be essentially the same. We would still go ahead and what we've done, we've had that happen already this year, and we just, it's best practice. We're going ahead and contacting, we do contact Dusty just to see if there have been other districts that they've worked at that have been public schools in Missouri, and then we contact the private school Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Yeah, I can look at that verbiage and get back with you on that. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you.

Jason, any questions? Yeah, just to pick up where Stacey left off. It did mention private school, like in the latter part of the policy. But the question is, do private schools Do private schools have different agreements with teachers when it comes to private information?

Can they withhold? Are they subjected to the same rules that public schools are subjected to when it comes to administering information about teachers? Can a private school withhold information if they wanted to? Yeah, the private schools will not have the same policy necessarily in place.

I don't know if withholding that would be legal if they knowingly had that information and did not share it if we're asking them, but they would not have the same exact policies in place as a public school district would. So we need to be careful about that, about the public school, private school, a teacher coming from a private school and being so excited to hire them because they came from John Burroughs. And we may not know that they have some previous or prior offense with the child. They may not be disclosed.

All right, so that's one. The other thing is, I noticed that it talks about, so on page one of the policy at the bottom, it says knowingly exposes his or her genitals to a child less than 15 years of age or under. So it seems like that seems to be the consistent theme, that if you're 15 years of age or younger and you expose yourself, there's a problem. But if you're 16 or older, it's okay.

It's okay to expose your genitals to a 16-year-old. Is that what this is saying? I don't think they're saying at all that it's okay. I think that it's a classy felony with that age of a minor.

Okay, because we need to be careful about that. I think, I think, okay, so that may be the case. It just reads differently in the policy. It just reads that if you're 15 or younger, we got a problem.

But if you're 16, okay. Like it's not, it's frowned upon. But, you know, and that goes on to item one. On the bottom of page one, to item two at the top of page two, to item three, so on and so forth.

15-year-old is the age. It leaves the 16, the 17-year-old, the 18-year-old who was in high school slightly unprotected. So is it a felony to expose yourself, your genitals as an adult to a 16-year-old? Is it a felony?

I would have to look into it My assumption would be that it a felony but this is a Class E felony So I think it just a different category and how we have to respond initially So these sorts of things happen Law enforcement is going to be involved as part of the investigation Right. If they, if they, okay. Gotcha. Okay.

All right. This is, all right. This is just, yeah, I guess this is confusing, but yeah, that's fine. Okay.

Okay. Okay, thanks. That's all I have. Okay, thank you, Jason.

Amy, any questions? No, thanks. Kristen, any questions? Nope.

Lily, any questions? No, but I'm just thinking about what Jason brought up. I wonder if there's some way, because I understand what you're saying, Tony, about it being, you know, certain crimes being classified differently. I wonder if there's some way, I don't know, to footnote it or to address that it would still be of concern to us now, regardless of the age of the child.

I don't know, just something to think about. But otherwise, I didn't have anything. Thank you. Adam, any questions?

No, thanks. Gary, any questions? So, Tony, real quick, on the section of this on page nine, where there's a pretty specific section about prohibitions against any employees of the district helping someone who has been Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Any of those district employees conduct seems to kind of create some liability on our part here.

So I think we need to think about just in practice, how do we, how do we manage this? How do we communicate these things with our employees? And really a simple, simple answer, but just some of it jumped out at me. It's something important to think about as we go through this.

Something that we need to communicate out to our staff. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think, I mean, or in some way communicate to them because there are some prohibitions that extend to their, you know, each employee's conduct. So I just think we need to think about how we're managing that.

So, and that's, I'll just leave that for you to consider, I think. I don't think there's much we can do about the policy language, but in practice, I think that's important to consider. Sure. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So now we're moving on to 6.07, which is policy GDC, support staff recruiting and hiring. Okay, so MSBA has updated this policy to clarify that employee transfers and reassignments that change compensation benefits or the contract of an employee must be approved by the board. This change is not a result of a new law, but it's based on concerns shared with MSBA that reassignments and transfers may be used to bypass the board's legal role in hiring.

So essentially, it now requires board approval when a reassignment results in a change of the employee's compensation benefits or contract. It's not new practice for us in Clayton. This is part of how we've been doing things all along. So this really isn't anything new for us.

So I suggest that we move forward with the way it's presented. Great. Thanks, Tony. Stacey, any questions?

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

Amy, any questions? No. Thanks. Kristen, any questions?

No. Lily, any questions? My dog made part, but I have no questions. Adam, any questions?

No. Thank you. Gary, any questions? Okay.

Awesome. Thanks, Tony. So now we're moving on to 6.08, which is policy GDI, support staff reassignment and transfer. Okay so MSBA has updated this policy to clarify that a reassignment of an employee that changes the compensation benefits per contract of the employee must be approved by the board This change is not a result of a new law but it based on concerns shared regarding that the reassignments may be used to bypass the board legal role in hiring So again revised terminology of the policy to better reflect current usage The way the policy is written not anything new We comfortable with the wording the way it presented Great.

Thanks, Tony. Stacey, any questions? No, thank you. Jason, any questions?

I don't think so. Nope. Thank you. Amy, any questions?

Nope. Thanks. Thanks, Kristen. Any questions?

Nothing. Thanks. Lily, any questions? Nope.

Thank you. Adam, any questions? Nope. Thanks.

Thank you. Gary, any questions? No. All right.

Thanks. All right, Tony, you're having fun with this stuff. 6.09, policy GDP support staff resignation. Got it.

Okay, so House Bill 604 has modified the district's obligations to provide information to potential employers regarding former employees who leave the district due to various allegations of sexual misconduct. These obligations are described in detail in policy GBLB. That's the one that I just presented a little bit ago. So disclosing these types of allegations may be stigmatizing.

So the district may be required by the due process clause of the United States Constitution to first offer a departing employee a hearing before the board prior to disclosing the information to another party. So that might also address some of the questions I think you had earlier as well. Gary. Great.

Thank you. Stacy, any questions? No. Thanks.

Jason, any questions? Yeah, just for clarification. So on page three, it says termination. Last sentence talks about giving the employee an opportunity to discuss or rebut the charges.

So is that – for some reason, I didn't read that early on. I didn't think that was even an option. Wait, can you repeat where that is again, Jason? So it's page three, where it says termination, and it's the last sentence.

And it says, am I on the right one? Is this GDP? No, GDPB. Yeah, it's 6.09.

It's the resignation. We're getting to the termination one here in a minute, which is very similar. I'm out of order, man. That's okay.

All right. Sorry, man. No problem. Amy, any questions?

Okay. Kristen, any questions? No. Thank you.

Lily, any questions? Yes. I'm sorry about my dog, but I do. Actually, on this one, this is my most involved question or concern.

Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superroportionate, Proprietary, Responsive, and Responsive. I would be really concerned about the fairness of that process. Right.

And we would definitely be working with our attorneys anytime something like this might ever happen. And let's hope it never does. We would definitely involve our attorneys and get their advice along the way to how we would best facilitate this in a fair and consistent manner. So everyone's being treated fairly.

Yeah. I think, Lily, what I'm hearing is something a little different. Like you are more about the subject matter. And like, I think it's a good question because I think that there might be some common understanding that we may need to have or somebody else that might have to come in.

It's not about the process for hearing, but having a common understanding of what we mean about sexual misconduct. I think that always the board purview too is that if they want additional information we can provide that training But I hear what you saying with that And we can think about the best way to include that Yeah and I happy to Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried A fair determination. And boy, that is just, because, you know, we probably have had situations where this might have come up, you know, had this been part of, already been part of a policy. So it could potentially come up and, yeah, I would just think, you know, just even if it's like you have this consultant or this resource out there, if the board were to need to kind of get some background information.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Essentially, everything is exactly the same as just presented with the addition of if the employee violated a board policy and the violation was related to sexual misconduct, that the district may be required by law to conduct a formal board hearing prior to disclosing that information. Great, thank you. Stacy, any questions?

Nope. Great, thanks. Stacy, any questions? I think this was the one you were talking about before.

Jason, you're on mute if you're talking. All right. So it's termination, last paragraph of the first, I'm sorry, last sentence of the first paragraph. And it says that we are, you know, if you're not, if you're support staff, you're subject to the same policies.

But we're willing to give them, give the support staff an opportunity to discuss or rebut the charges. Is that consistent with how we do things? Do we give everyone an opportunity to rebut charges? Surgical misconduct, is that how we do it?

Yes. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Just want to make sure it's clear. All right, that's it.

Thank you. Amy, any questions? No, thank you. Thanks.

Kristen, any questions? No. Thank you. Lily, any questions?

It's just a repeat of the thing I said on the last policy, but thank you. Great, thanks. Adam, any questions? Thanks.

Thanks. Gary, any questions? No, I'm set. Great, thank you.

All right, so we're moving on to 6.11, Policy JHG, Reporting, Investigating Child Abuse. And this is Robin. Good evening. Yeah, so policy JHG for its first read.

Similar to a lot of the new policies that Tony just discussed, JHG also has some changes related to House Bill 604. I think the three major things for you to know about this new proposed policy is that it requires board members to receive several hours of training on identifying and danger signs of relationships between children and adults. It also requires school districts to provide trauma-informed developmentally appropriate training on sex abuse to students in grades 6 through 12. And the details of that education are in policy IGAEB, which the board recently approved.

And then House Bill 604 also amends the state child abuse and neglect law, which basically states that school personnel and contractors and volunteers who are adults can be investigated for child abuse if they established a relationship with the child through the school or through a school-related activity, even if the alleged abuse or neglect happened outside of school hours or off school grounds. So this policy updates the definition based on the changes in that law. I also wanted to note that I had worked on this With our attorney, because there was some clarity needed around the policy in its original suggested version in terms of the interpretation of board members' roles as mandated reporting. And so some of that language was struck from the policy based on the attorney's work with MSBA.

Great. Thank you. Stacy, any questions? Yeah, I was actually going to ask because between the time we received paper copies and then I saw it electronically, I noticed that board members were struck out of a lot of it, like as a mandated reporter.

And so I was just curious if that was something that we chose or MSBA chose. And I wanted to make sure everybody saw that, you know, the new version of that electronically, not as the paper versions we got originally. Yes, thank you, Stacey, for bringing that up. I should have mentioned that at the beginning that the copy that was initially provided when the policies for study items were sent out in early April, we had not yet received the updates from the attorney's work with MSBA.

Okay, so the newer version does strike that language because there was some concern about the way MSBA's initial interpretation of board members being considered mandated reporters. There was some concern about that, being that board members are often, you know, community members may share information with them, but at times, particularly in the context of child abuse and neglect, sometimes that information might be third hand. And the things that get set into motion as it relates to mandated reporting could be problematic and have some unproductive outcomes. And so this particular version outlines that mandated reporters are school staff, administrators, and school officials and school employees as mandated reporters.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks. Jason, any questions? No.

Great. Thank you. Amy, any questions? Yeah, my only question is, have we given any thought to what type of training we would provide for board members since it's required by the House bill?

There are some resources that are already available to us that we use as part of the onboarding process for all of our new district employees that I think might be relevant in the training for board members as well. I can also look in to see what other additional resources would be available and might be a good fit for the roles that you play in the school district. MSBA also gives, we have to do that training through MSBA as board members. Now, Joe and I had to do it this year, right?

Which I think is new. Everybody has to do it, actually. It's mandated. Everybody has to do it, by the way, by June 2nd.

If you haven't done it, do it. It's a mandate. Okay, anything else, Amy? No.

Okay, thanks. Kristen, any questions? No, I don't have any. Thank you.

Lily, any questions? No. Thanks. Adam, any questions?

No. Thank you. Gary, any questions? No, thanks, Jeff.

Great. Thank you. Thanks, Robin. So the next is 6.12, Policy JO, which is student records.

So for this one, the main modification that MSBA has made is that it has removed place of birth in the list of pieces of student information that are considered directory information. I would say in our daily practice in the school district, you know, this particular change doesn't really impact what we are doing. It would just require some updating of some of our documents and materials. But we actually don't even collect place of birth right now on our enrollment form.

But it is considered in other in general usage that place of birth is often listed as directory information. And one of the pieces that could be part of directory information. So like I said it really doesn change our daily practice Great Thank you Stacey any questions No Thank you. Amy, any questions?

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

Thank you. Lily, any questions? No. Thank you.

Adam, any questions? No. Thank you. Gary, any questions?

No. Jason, any questions? No. All right.

Thank you. Okay. Drum roll, please, for our last policy in the study item 6.13, policy KB, public information. Chris, bring us home.

Hello, everybody. So the change in KB is just one line, and it changes it to align with updates that Missouri made to their whistleblower law, and essentially just reinforces the idea that certain employee speech is protected and prohibits the district from disciplining public employees for commenting on matters of district operations. So it's one sentence that's been changed in this policy. And again, it's just to align with changes in state and federal rules of law.

Great. Thank you. Stacy, any questions? No, thank you.

Thank you. Amy, any questions? Nope. Thank you.

Kristen, any questions? No. Thank you. Lily, any questions?

No, thanks. Thanks. Adam, any questions? No.

Thank you. Gary, any questions? Yeah. Thank you.

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

Thanks, Chris. Sean, you want to do checkout? So I know that Tony probably took some notes and Robin and Chris took some notes during this, but just to highlight some of the things that we're going to follow up on and just kind of make sure that we heard the board. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. There was also some question around the training as part of the policy JHG. And how are we going to make sure that the board is doing that training?

So that's what I've captured. Awesome. Thank you. So I just want to do a quick check.

I actually think that once it goes over about an hour and a half on Zoom, it's not best practice. And we're two and a half hours in. So does everybody, my guess is we can finish the whole rest of the agenda in the next 15 to 30 minutes. Do you want to push through or do you want to take a five minute break?

What's your pleasure? Two minute break. I was going to say push through and if someone needs a two minute break to go do it. I'll just go do my two minute break.

I'm fine. Any other thoughts real quick? I just don I don I mean I know our energy is low because again it long Two and a half hours we been at this two and a half hours with our exec It too long Can we push through Is that okay Yep Thumbs up if it okay And if you need to take a break just do it Right Okay All right Okay. We've got four action items.

First one is 7.01, social studies, year two self-study. Gary, do we have a motion? 7.01, move that the Board of Education approves the revised social studies review goals and financials as outlined in the report. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? I'm just opening it up. Anybody?

All right. I've seen none. All in favor, make sure you're off mute. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. All right.

Any opposed? Okay. Passage unanimously, 7-0. Thank you.

All right. 7.02, EL's year two self-study. Motion, Gary, please. 7.02, I move that the Board of Education Approved the EL review goals and financials as outlined in the report.

Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion?

Okay. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Passes unanimously, 7-0. All right, 7.03, approval of policy JHCD, administration of medications.

Your motion. 7.03, I move that the Board of Education approves policy JHCD, administration of medications, as submitted. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Any questions, comments? Okay. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, it also passes unanimously. Now, for this next one, I have to recuse myself, and I think the only way really to do that is to leave the meeting.

So I'm going to do that right now, and somebody needs to text me to tell me when I can come back, okay? I'm leaving. Second. All right.

So we are on 7.04, part-time temporary employment for Sarah Miller. Gary, can you hit us with a motion? 7.04, I move that the Board of Education approve the part-time temporary employment report as submitted. Somebody say second.

Second. Okay, any comments or discussion? All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Aye. Motion passes. I'll text Joe.

Thanks. Thank you. He's back. I'm back.

Thank you. Okay, so we're moving on to the consent agenda then. 8.01, motion to approve the consent agenda. Gary, do we have a motion?

8.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions?

Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? All right, passes unanimously, 7-0. Awesome.

Okay, we are now moving on to the financials, 9.01, the financials. Do we have a motion? Second. 9.01, I move that the Board of Education approve the payment of current expenditures and investments as submitted.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any comments or questions about the financials? Okay, seeing none.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed Okay also passes unanimously 7 All right board communications Does anybody have a board communication Yes Stacey go ahead I just wanted to thank all the teachers and say that from my point of view, I've been so impressed how many of them are checking in on their students' mental health.

And I know we talk a lot about that, but I've seen teachers that are leading their classes in meditations and doing things like playing relaxing music in the background of their lectures and even sending surveys, checking in on kids and how they're feeling, not even just about academics, but how they're feeling. And I'm really happy to see that. And I also wanted to thank Sean and the administrators and the teachers that have been joining the fire department and the police department in the community parades because those have been so much fun, I know, for all the neighborhoods. And I think it is like extra special for these kids to see their teachers and administrators and principals and it helps everybody feel connected to school still.

So thanks for that too. Awesome. Thank you. Last meeting, I think it was, Joe, you had talked about the idea of moving Sean's evaluation until later in the summer sometime.

Spervantage, and I was wondering about maybe thinking about that a little bit more about whether or not it might make more sense to keep it on track and have the current board do the evaluation. Spervantage, evaluation, and I think some of the reasons that I thought of that might make sense is that I know for like doing evaluations, the fact that I mean, you typically it would be the new board and we may have two or three new board members. I know that there's a lot of things that you all are going to be dealing with in the summer for next year. And I know being a new board member and doing what the superintendent evaluation process is, and there's a lot of new learning that comes with that.

I think there could be some benefits for having Kristen and I still be on the board. We've worked, you know, with Sean this whole year to see both in terms of performance and have familiarity with the evaluation process. So I guess I was just kind of throwing that out there. If you decide differently, that's fine.

But that might be something to think about actually getting done on schedule. And I would hope that I know a lot of us are freed up. I would hope that this wouldn't be too much of a burden on you, Sean, because I think we're spending less time doing some other things. And hopefully that wouldn't be a burden on you to have to do it on the usual schedule.

But anyway, so I'm just going to throw that out there. So it's not really adding an agenda item. It's just rethinking kind of the schedule of the agenda. Okay, yeah, we'll consider that.

What we had talked about is removing May 18th, which was the time to do that and doing that on June 10th. But, yeah, I mean, we can talk about that. We can discuss that. Oh, you guys were going to do it at your first meeting?

Mm-hmm. First meeting of the new board was going to be the evaluation of Sean and onboarding? Well, the first meeting, no, the first meeting is June 3rd. It's a little bit, it's a little interesting.

So we created a new, we created another meeting. So this, because of the election is June 2nd, it's a little bit strange. So we have literally a meeting the next day, June 3rd, election June 2nd, then a meeting June 3rd, which is onboarding. And then we had created another meeting, which is a week later, which would be, which would be the evaluation.

I mean, that's what we had done. And so, but I mean, we can talk about it again, but I mean, just so everybody's aware, that's what we had talked about and that's where we're moving towards. I do have a question about that, about the timing of an evaluation. I think when I came on, the evaluation for Sean was right when I came on as a board member as well.

Didn't have as much experience and didn't have as much information. More fruitful to have it with the old members before they leave, or is it better to have it with new ones who have no experience, really, with Sean and Sean's leadership in the board? Just a question. Yeah, the reason, and I think you could do it either way, and you could argue it either way, because, you know, there's something to be said for a board that has more experience.

There's also something to be said, though, for really setting the stage for the new board and then really understanding the superintendent's goals. You know, and maybe even Stacey, you could speak to this, right, because you kind of as a new, the newest board member kind of experienced that. But I think there's really an important learning for even new board members when they go through the process that I think is very positive. Cool.

Since you kind of threw that to me Joe I would say that if we did do this I don disagree with Lily I think it would be beneficial for Kristen and Lily to have input here because I did feel like as a new board member I didn have much to add But I think if we did do that that doesn prevent us from still of course sharing the goals with any new school board members You know, when they join us, we really could do both. But I mean, we could potentially have three new board members. So that's that's a lot of new people that haven't worked with Sean. So we might want to think about it.

So Amy and I will talk about it, right? I mean, and then kind of decide how we move forward, right? I mean, in terms, yeah. So we appreciate it.

So any other board communications or thoughts? Joe, I just wanted to say another word about our student rep, Adam, here. Students are doing and keeping up with his own activities as a student Stacey thanks for sharing that article and Adam thanks for writing that article about what happening with elections in our state and around the country and just being so focused on things that are beyond what on your own desk as a student but a much wider world out there I was just I was just really I was just happy to see that you done that And I felt like I got smarter by reading it So thanks for that Thanks, Gary. Appreciate that.

Awesome. Any other board communication? Can I just say that I know sometimes it feels a little tedious going through the policies. And tonight, probably maybe having the Zoom made it even more tedious.

Thank you Thank you Sean to you and all the administrators who stuck with it for a lot of policies too Thanks to everybody I will say just one quick thing for you all. On May the 16th, remember we would have had a board PLC on May the 2nd. We won't have a board PLC, obviously, a meeting on the 2nd. Second.

However, we will do a Zoom gathering of regional board members on the 16th. So just, you know, look for an invitation coming out soon to that, just so everybody knows. Anything else? All right.

Motion to adjourn. All right. I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Second.

All in favor? Any opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you.

Thanks all. Appreciate it. Thank you.