February 24, 2021

Board of Education · All meetings

Video & transcript

This is a transcript of the School District of Clayton Board of Education meeting held February 24, 2021. Excerpts show opening procedures (Pledge of Allegiance), recognitions of students and staff (including social workers and members of an “All In” coalition), discussion of student-led activities and prom planning, a study-item discussion about legislative advocacy with small-group reports, and routine board business. The excerpts record that agenda items including “Proposition O” and a levy appeared on the agenda and that motions related to them were carried; no specific levy or rate figures are given in the provided excerpts.

Chapters

Full transcript

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Okay, we're live. Great. All right. Welcome, everybody.

I had a quick notice has been given. And as always, we are going to start with the Pledge of 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.

Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Sean to start with recognizing our own. Thank you, Joe. Good evening, everyone.

Tonight, we have two recognitions, and we're going to be starting with some student recognition. And these are students who have been serving on our all-in We are a coalition. As you remember, our all-in coalition is our coalition that was formed many years ago. We were very fortunate to have a grant, to have a position, a full-time position in place to lead the all-in coalition.

We had Kim Schrony, I think, a little while ago to learn a little bit more about the all-in coalition. She's here to celebrate the students who are giving a lot of voice to this work. I'm going to turn it over to Kim Schironi and she is going to talk a little bit about how the students have impacted the work of the All In Coalition. Kim, can you see us?

You want to go ahead and tell us a little bit about the All in coalition and who we have here tonight to recognize the students. We're not able to hear you. Are you able to hear her? No.

So how about this, Kim? Why don't we do this? Why don't we have the students who are here tonight to introduce themselves so that way we can see who is part of this group? And so, Zoe, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you?

Hi, I'm Zoe Hall. I'm a sophomore and I really enjoy being part of All in Coalition and I'm following my sister's footsteps. Thank you, Zoe. Nicholas?

Hi, my name is Nicholas and I'm a freshman at CHS and I'm also really enjoying being a student rep and I'm really excited to help out in the future. Gabriel. Hi, I'm Gabriel Toski. I'm a sixth grader at White Island.

And I think all in question is a very fun and something very different than I would have done in the past. Rafael. Hello, I'm Rafael Rodriguez. I'm a seventh grade at Y-Down, and I'm very happy to be part of y'all and coalition.

And Sean, I can jump in while Kim is continuing to work on her audio. We had a couple other student representatives. We have Kira Hoisington, Sydney Hellwig, Camille Matlock, who are also part of the all-in student representatives. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Our all-in Clayton student representatives try new things in our community to further the mission of the organization, in addition to all the amazing things that they plan for Red Ribbon Week. And I don't know how many people watching have actually had a chance to participate in one of our all-in Clayton coalition meetings, but you will quickly find out that our students have brought tremendous energy and new thinking and creative ideas to the coalition's work. We have a couple of other events that they are contributing to in this community and are just bringing so much creativity to really help us reach the youth in our community to prevent substance abuse Kim, I don't know if you want to try to jump in. I think your audio is working now.

I'm not sure if I may have accidentally left something out. No, you did a great job, Robin. Thank you. OK, can you all hear me?

Okay, good. Sorry about that. Yeah, like Dr. Wien said, our student representatives really have just breathed a new life into the coalition.

They have been so dedicated this year, which is really impressive, especially considering that this year has just been so challenging for everyone, especially our students. Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. Students, I didn't know if you had anything that you wanted to share in terms of what it meant, means to you.

And I didn't know if you had anything to contribute that you wanted to add to this about your participation on the all-in coalition. No pressure. I'm just really happy I was able to be a part of this coalition. And I'm just really, you know, as I said before, really excited to do everything that comes in the future, especially when we're out of this pandemic.

And of all the things I've done so far, I'm really happy and I've really been enjoying it. Thanks, Nicholas. I have to agree with Nicholas. I was very surprised how much we actually got accomplished in this virtual realm.

So I'm very excited to see what's going to be happening in the future. Thanks, Zoe. So if we don't have anything else, I'm going to again say thank you. And on behalf of the administration, the Board of Education, we are so grateful for your voice in the Olin Coalition.

And we just also just appreciate you just being such great leaders and taking initiative to think about how you can make change. So thank you. We also have some really important people that we want to recognize who support the district in so many ways that often goes unseen in terms of how they support. They're kind of unsung heroes in our district, and that's our social workers.

And so I'm going to turn it over back to Robin Weins, and she's going to talk a little bit about our recognition of social workers. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. Tonight, I have the privilege of recognizing our outstanding social work department.

I'd like to start by recognizing Dr. Sheila Powell Walker and Kay Burkhardt in honor of National School Social Worker Week, which is coming up on March 7th and celebrated through March 13th. This year's theme is Beacon of Hope, and in their role, our school social workers are able to light the way, emphasizing the whole child, collaborating with other professionals, linking students and families with needed services, and advocating for the profession. So Dr.

Paul Walker and Ms. Burkhardt, I just wanted to thank you for being beacons of hope to our students and their families. You've really kept us all grounded and focused on the hierarchy of school needs that all of our children face each day, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. From every phone call, email, student check-in, bag of food or toiletries that you've packed, gift cards you've gone to pick up and distribute, and then a few more phone calls, a few more emails, and a few more student check-ins, and leading professional development in our district, your efforts to help us become a more trauma-informed learning community are truly valued, and I'm so thankful for everything you do.

I also wanted to thank you for hosting Catherine Ingersoll, who's our Social Work Practicum student. We are so grateful for Catherine's time and energy as we support her in developing her professional expertise. And then lastly I wanted to recognize the important contributions of Abby Gutman our SSD social worker Abby has a very unique role in supporting students across all of our buildings And I wanted to thank her for all the ways she helps our students thrive particularly in the face of the social emotional challenges of learning remotely and in person Abby joined our team this year and she brought hopeful energy and creativity to the group and to our students And so, Abby, we really appreciate your collaboration and new thinking here in the School District of Clayton. So, again, thank you to all of our social workers for the amazing work you do with our students and with our staff every day.

We wouldn't be here without you. And I'm very honored to be able to work alongside you. Thank you, Robin. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Much appreciated. Thank you, everyone. Thank you all.

And I just want to say on behalf of the board, thank you to each of you, too. We appreciate it. And also on behalf of the board, thank you to the all in coalition folks, too. So, Joe, do you have another recognition that you want to recognize?

I do. You know, we have like a snap 2.03 that's a recognition. It does happen to be Stacy Seawalk's birthday. And we rarely happen to have a birthday on a board meeting.

And so I just did really want to recognize Stacy for her birthday. So happy birthday, Stacy, on behalf of the board. I would sing to you, but I don't know that that would be good to be recorded. So happy, happy birthday.

Thank you. I'm happy to spend it with you all. Thank you. Joe, go ahead and sing.

No, no, we can't afford to have time. I'm going to spare you and we'll move on. It wasn't on the agenda. Yeah, right.

We'll move on to superintendent communication. And I was going to just let our social workers know you can go ahead and log off so you can go ahead and enjoy the rest of your evening. Really great. Thank you again for the recognition.

Have a good evening. Thanks, guys. All right, Sean, Superintendent of Communication. Okay.

Okay. So tonight I wanted to just give us some updates about our fourth quarter changes and some vibes behind those changes. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So I just wanted to point out our dashboard again.

And as we keep coming back to our dashboard, and I share this every time we have a board meeting, and this is on our website. And I want to share it because it's important to know that the percentages are very, very low in our schools and in terms of transmission. And we have been able to implement risk mitigation measures that have been very successful. Spervantage, risk mitigation measures, and we know that we've learned more about the risk mitigation measures as we've looked at other school districts and we've done some more research.

And so that has helped inform directions how we've moved forward for the fourth quarter. I will say that we've had an increase of some quarantines this past week. And again, I just want to remind the board that a quarantine is actually part of the risk mitigation measure. So if we do find out about a positive case, those quarantines are the ability to keep children safe and staff safe.

And what's been fortunate is that we've had very few transmissions from when we found out about other cases after we've done quarantines in the past. Some things I wanted to share about the fourth quarter changes. Last week we let the community know that we are going to be extending our time for instruction at Y-Down and doing that right after spring break at the start of the fourth quarter. Spervantage, the teachers and some of the leadership team at Y-Down has been really creative in creating a new schedule for Y-Down so that way we can be responsive to the students' needs and thinking about how we can implement new structures at Y-Down to keep students safe, minimizing transitions within the schools.

So that's why we do have a new block schedule. We are currently collecting data from both elementary and middle school around any families that are wanting to change their status for the fourth quarter. So students that are in learning at home have the option of moving back to school and vice versa. You know one of the whys that we really looking at making some of these changes for the fourth quarter are one we should always look at ways to maximize student learning if possible and the safest way possible So that one of the reasons we doing that The other thing is that we seen data within our schools Superroportionate Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superroportionate, Proprietary, and Proprietary. things that we're doing in our schools every day. I am super proud of our staff for what they've done. And a lot of people don't know that from the very first day of school this year, we have had teachers working directly with students, even when we were in remote learning.

We looked at students who had the greatest need and provided supports. So our teachers have gone above and beyond for our students this year, and we really, truly appreciate them. And we implemented a new program where we We have peer recognitions and we can't see everything that's happening within our schools. And so we have engaged our staff to say, if you see something happening, that's really great.

Let us know. And what we've been doing is bringing a film crew in and I we've been taking turns. I've been doing this. Central office administrators have been doing and we we surprise the staff member in a very safe way with all of our risk mitigation measures.

And we then recognize them and we share the write up that has been written about them. And we also are giving them a handy dandy, really cool thermos. But it's a small way for us to recognize our staff. And then we share that video with the rest of the staff in the district.

And it's it's it's gone over really well. And I share that with you is because it is important that we recognize our our our staff, because they have done so much in terms of adjusting, similar to what our students and families have done. They have been doing an incredible job, and that's why we implemented those recognitions. In terms of a vaccine update, I will say that I really wish I could be sharing some really detailed information about vaccines, but I don't have any new information.

And I will say as the leader of the school district, I'm disappointed about being able to say that. And a lot of people Thank you. We expect that some things have to change and we need the vaccines for our educators. We have expectations to be in in-person learning.

We have expectations to have our students in school. And so we'd expect that we'd be supported by vaccines. And the vaccines aren't an end-all be-all resolution to this. It's another risk mitigation measure.

But we are really, I wish I could share more information with you. But tomorrow, we're also going to be sharing with the media that we are disappointed about this, and we want to, collectively with other districts, to say that we really need to see some action around this. So I wish I could be saying I have an update around the vaccines, but I don't. So in terms of creating memories, I met with some students last week who are planning some different things that we could do for the end of the year for a prom.

And then when people think prom, it's not the prom that you think about your mental model. Our students have been really creative in terms of applying our risk mitigation measures and to the context of what a prom could potentially look like. District of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Thank you. I've been working each, again, I work each week with Dr. Patel around our transition plan for our new superintendent. And last week we had the opportunity to go into schools.

This is the first time that she has been able to see some of our schools. And I purposely brought her first to Captain because I thought it would be interesting to walk into a school. And she, of course, asked that question, where are the walls? So it's an interesting space.

And so it was fun to go over there so she can see it and then also start meeting with staff. And so we're going to continue to have those transmission transition meetings every every week. And then I am going to turn over this to Caitlin, our student rep, and then I'll set the stage for our conversation around legislation. Yeah, so good evening, everyone.

I'll be starting off today's student report by talking once again about something that online school has taught us. So this is what I've mentioned a couple of times in the past, but students do appreciate the greater flexibility that teachers have, especially the greater chances for retakes during COVID-19. And especially if the grading system is moving towards something being more assessment focused. Retakes would allow students to reflect on what they've learned more and also be less punitive.

And then following up on the block schedule that I mentioned last board meeting, I've talked to some students about how the high school may be moving on a block schedule. And although there are long periods, the opinions that I've received from students are generally positive. And the biggest benefit that I've been hearing is that there's less homework to worry about from less classes every night. And in addition, because third quarter is coming to an end, a lot of the district and regional competitions that students are participating in are also closing out.

So Science Olympiad Regionals is this weekend. Speech and Debate has mission districts next weekend and then NSDA districts the weekend after that. So I've been talking to students about their general experiences with virtual competitions and the things that they've learned from it. So obviously, students are looking forward to having in-person competitions again whenever that is safe.

But they have had a common learning experience, which is that they've had to learn how to be adaptable, which helps them as competitors in general in future years. As for our own district advisory council, Mental Health. We have a recurring conversation that we have been having throughout the year and that we found time to highlight right now. In addition, it is something that is being talked about in the building as GLOBE has covered mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic recently.

For some Last additional events, a few students, Mariah Lotsoff, Maya Goldwasser, and Alexandra Hagemeister set up a CHS hygiene product drive, and that's at the front desk of CHS from now until March 18th. And as for testing, the SAT for juniors is coming up on March 3rd. Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you, Sean, and thank you, Caitlin.

So I think we are moving on to our study item, which is the legislation impacting schools 5.01. And I think, Sean, you're going to start it out, right? Yes. Okay.

So last week we had you know I want to say thank you to the board members that had invited our legislators to the board meeting Actually it was two weeks ago I thought that was a really informative way for the community to learn a little bit more about legislation that is impacting the district. And it was great to hear firsthand from legislators. And one of the things that I picked up from that conversation was that our legislators need to have opportunities to talk to elected board members and also administrators within Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

We have a lot of questions about what can we advocate for, what can't we advocate for. And board members and administration can't advocate for elected officials. We can't advocate for ballot initiatives such as a tax levy or a bond issue. But we can advocate for legislation around that that could potentially impact the district.

And we need there is a difference. It's important for us to make sure that we look at our roles as informing others so that way people can inform be informed about their own decisions. And so we should talk about legislation. We should be thinking about how do we inform our legislators about what's happening within our schools.

And so what we're going to do tonight is that we created kind of a worksheet almost, and we're going to go into breakout rooms, and the breakout rooms are going to have board members and administrators from the central office. And this isn't the administrators at central office leading the conversation. This is supposed to be a flowing conversation. I am going to ask that the administrators use the Google Doc that we created to take notes.

And we have a series of questions that we're going to be asking you to be thinking about. Like, what does legislative advocacy look like? What are some innovations that we might be thinking about? Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So, I wanted to stop there and see if anyone had any questions before we got into this work. Okay. Now, the real challenge is we have breakout rooms, and I'm going to see if I can get you into your breakout rooms.

Actually, Sean, I've got that already. You do? Okay. So you're going to be able to push them out into the breakout rooms.

I'm going to do that right now. Okay. Thank you Oh, sorry. Okay.

Sean, sorry. Yeah, it's okay. I've got three computer screens, so it got buried in one of my other screens for some reason, but I think I have it now. Okay.

Okay. So Sean, I'm gonna screen the graphic and then join the other breakout room. Okay. And will I have the ability to join them?

Jump in or not? Good. Okay. If not, text me and we'll work through it.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.