May 12, 2021

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

All right, we're live. Good evening, everybody. Adequate notice has been given, and we are going to get this meeting started. It's nice to see everybody here around the board table.

First time in about a year. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Doherty. Okay, so like we normally do, let's go ahead and 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, well, good evening, everyone. We are starting our, this is our first board meeting in person. And so for those of the people, for those people who are watching the live stream, we are not able to have public here because we're not able to fit people in this room.

But we do have all of our board members and our student board representative. And so we really appreciate everyone's flexibility because we're a little late. But yeah, we're very excited that we're all here together. And tonight we're going to start with our recognizing our own.

And our first recognition is around National School Nurses Day, which is today. And so we want to say thank you to our nurses. And so, Robin, do you have anything that you want to share about our nurses? I want to see if we can, Chris, if you can let in our nurses into the meeting.

Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Great. Well, I just want to give a very deep, heartfelt thank you to our incredible health services team who have been covering all of our buildings, including the Family Center, for the last, gosh, over the last, you know, 8 to 12 months, just making sure that our community, both our staff and our students, have stayed safe and healthy.

Spervantage, P.D., and P.D. Traditional role here in the school district. And we are so thankful for all the hours that they have put in to make sure that our community is healthy. And just a really brief overview.

When we started planning for risk mitigation strategies and what the contact tracing was going to have to look like, so much time and effort goes into the details behind the scenes to make sure we've done a really thorough exploration of the different Spervantage, Poverty, and Poverty. And I am so thankful for each one of you. So I want to thank Jodi and Corliss and Heather and Lisa and Gail and Mary Frances. Wait, did I get everybody?

I just said it really fast. And Lisa and Gail, Susan, Susan, that's it. Okay, sorry. I just want to thank all of you for everything you've done.

And I also want to give a special thanks to Heather Chrisman for transitioning into our role as nurse coordinator. Thank you, Robin. And again, on behalf of the Board of Education and the administration of the district, Thank you to our nurses We are so appreciative of everything that you have done for us this year and for our students And we know that it goes well beyond the walls of the clinics in each of our schools I know some of you have even done home visits of students And so I just it amazing So thank you You truly appreciated And so nurses, now you can have the rest of the night. You can go ahead and log off.

So it's good to see all of you. We have one more neck recognition and so this past week we conducted interviews for our new student board representative and so just wanted everyone to know that all we had we had students apply through an application process and then we had an interview process that students went through to be selected. I want to say thank you to Jason Wilson. He was part of the interview process.

We had a meet a couple mornings, 730, with all of our students. And it was really great to hear the students. All of our candidates were amazing. They were incredible.

All of them could have done an amazing job, but we had to narrow it down. And so tonight, I want to introduce you to our new student board representative for the 21-22 school year. And her name is Atana Rosas-Lenard. And she has been, I actually have known her for a very long time.

She went to Captain and I have just, it was just really exciting to see her through this interview process. And so, Atana, I just want to welcome you to the Board of Education and just wanted you to just say hello to the board so that way they can actually see who you are. Thank you. I'm really excited to be working with everyone in the next year.

So, yeah, thank you for this really amazing opportunity. So, we're having a little hard time hearing you, but that's okay. We just want to make sure that we are able to see you. And so over the next couple weeks, we are going to spend, I know that Caitlin's going to spend some time with you, and we also know that we'll have an opportunity to meet as well, and just want to welcome you to the Board of Education.

All right. Tana? Hi. Thank you for being here tonight.

I also want to welcome you on behalf of the board. We're so excited to have you and to get to work with you next year. And we look forward to hearing your input and for you being able to sit with us at the board table. Thank you.

Thank you. Are you okay with me going forward with my superintendent communications? Okay. No, we're all good.

All right. So, again, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. So, one of my mentors told me that you always should approach May as like it's August, because during the month of August, you are setting up new systems, you're having lots of reminders Spervantage, It's amazing how far we've come since last May. And even that we're in this room together today says a lot.

And I am just so appreciative of where we are. And I just want to say again, thank you to the Board of Education for all of your support over this last 14 months during this pandemic. So May is like August. I want to come back and just share again our data.

And we are still tracking data. And just because we have a lot of people who are getting the vaccinations, it doesn't mean that we are relaxing all of our risk mitigation measures. And there is still spread. And we are still seeing quarantines.

We actually saw a little jump in some of our quarantines. Spervantage, and so I think it's important to know that we are still being vigilant. And even with all the changes that we made for fourth quarter, we're not seeing the spread happening within our schools. And so we've changed some of those risk mitigation measures, but they're still working.

And so I feel confident at the start of next school year, we will be in full days at all levels and we will still have risk mitigation measures in place but we feel very confident that it will feel similar to a typical type of school year And I really appreciate all the work of our teachers and our students. I know there's been a lot of flexibility, but it's it's exciting to see the progress that we're making. You know, as a learning community, academic achievement is always going to be our main focus. And we have continued to have high expectations for our students, making sure that we are assessing them and making sure that we know where they are with their academic achievement.

We're continuing to look at our standardized test data that's holding us accountable. But we also look at other measures of success. And we have to go beyond just one standardized test point to determine if we're successful. And so tonight, as part of our strategic plan update, we're also going to be hearing some different ways we are approaching success and how we're measuring success.

And so that's going to be a part of our update. So the other thing is part of our academic success is our robust curriculum and our effective pedagogy. And we are a district that focuses on educational equity, and that is something that is really a critical component of our work. That contributes to our excellence as a school district.

We're focusing on having a curriculum that is a window and a mirror to our world. So our students are seeing themselves in the curriculum, but they're also seeing others. We want to teach historically accurate representations where students have a deep understanding of contributions of varied races and cultures, while also understanding that our history still has implications today. I know there's lots of conversations happening in the region, but I want to make sure that we are adhering to how our history is still impacting our world today and being able to be brave, create brave spaces to have those types of conversations.

It helps our students just be more culturally competent and leaders of change, and it also helps us avoid repetition of injustices that we have seen in the past. And so we're committed to that in our curriculum. We're not perfect with it. We're not perfect with having everything just right, but we're working on it and we want to be able to be leaders of that.

Do we use resources like the Learning for Justice standards? Yes. Do we use some of those resources that you hear about in the news? Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. What we learned from this past year can create meaningful change in the future. So we are going to be looking at some new schedules at the middle school and the high school.

We're also going to be looking at how we use our devices. All of our students are one-to-one right now, and we're going to be continuing to look at a model that looks like that. So I feel very confident, even though I'm not going to be here, but I feel very confident about the start of the 21-22 school year Spervantage, and working with Dr. Patel to make sure that we are ready to go.

And we wouldn't be here if we didn't learn from this experience and implementing some changes that I think are actually going to be really beneficial to our students. And when we talk about data, too, earlier when I talked about measuring success, we are going to be implementing something new at the end of this year, is a profile to graduate survey. SuperBry we have a survey that we have connected to our profile graduate and we are looking at the survey as being a tool to see what do our graduates actually feel have been the things that have impacted them while they were here What are those things that we did that contributed to them to be self actualized or to be a collaborative creative thinker So that survey data is going to be another data point that we going to use as part of our strategic plan and continuing to come back to that because we talk about what it means to be a profile graduate, so we have to ask our graduates. Hopefully that will continue to be a point of informing how we move forward.

The other thing is that we had our nurses here tonight and very proud of the work that they have been able to do. Someone mentioned Heather Christman, who's our coordinator, and Heather has been working in collaboration with our communications department to be proactive about vaccine clinics. We've had clinics for our staff. We've had clinics for our students.

And this week, we were proactive in getting prepared for our clinic for our 12 to 15 year Spervantage, Bord of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Bord of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Thank you. Thank you.

Spervantage, and how she's going to have such a positive impact on our community. And so it's just been a real true joy to work with her. And then finally, we have our student rep report. And so Caitlin is going to give us a report.

And so Caitlin, I just want to again say thank you, because Caitlin was part of this whole process. And Caitlin, you had to be a student rep during the middle of a pandemic and you've had to be flexible. I just want to say thank you again publicly for who you are and the types of questions you ask. And I just want to recognize Kaitlyn too.

It's because we did some professional development for our staff with educational equity and Kaitlyn was part of an affinity group that helped with that. So I just wanted to say thank you for your leadership. Thank you very much. So for my student rep update today, I will be starting off with AP testing because that's a main thing that students have been focused on.

So the first administration of AP testing was held starting last week and has continued to this week, and that first administration is in person. And the second and third administrations will be continuing until the first week of June. And the second and third administration are online tests versus paper tests. And students did have a choice in which administration they wanted to take each exam in, which allowed for greater flexibility that students were really appreciative of.

And I know that with shortened class times, students taking AP tests were worried about covering all the course content in time. We're worried about covering all the course content in time. However, the students I spoke to upon taking their exams felt that their teachers were able to adequately prepare them for the exam, albeit with more rapid coverage of material. I really want to thank our teachers for being able to go through all of the material in a very quick manner and also hosting additional review sessions outside of class to be able to prepare their students for these exams.

Following AP tests, there will be finals, so I'll speak briefly about that and about some of the plans that teachers have been having for finals. So similar to last semester, some classes are hosting finals, but most that I've heard of are not having finals or having like a chapter test or a project instead of a final. So we can see again that like similar to last semester, teachers are starting to move towards different ways and different approaches to taking finals. And that's something that we should look toward in future years.

To see about the necessity of finals, especially for certain classes. In addition, moving on to some events that are happening, the outdoor orchestra concert that I mentioned at the last board meeting has a date now. It is happening next Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the quad.

So that's exciting and some community members should come out if they want to hear some nice orchestra music. The CHS boys varsity tennis team won districts and they'll be competing at The CHS Girls Track got first at conference and both Boys and Girls Track will be going to district soon. I also just want to say a couple things about our new student representative, Itana Rosas-Lenard. So I was part of the interview process for the next student representative, and I've also worked with Itana for the past two years because she was a freshman on the District Advisory Council and is now currently a sophomore in the District Advisory Council.

So I just wanted to say that she's shown a lot of commitment over the past few years, and I really could not imagine a better person to be taking over my role. So that is my update for this evening. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Caitlin. That was great. So our next item is our study item which is goal two of the strategic plan to grow learners and so we're going to invite Milena Garganigo Does anyone want to go into the room? She is so excited about being in the room.

She said she couldn't wait to talk with her hands. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so to get started, again, we are looking at goal number two.

And this is an opportunity for us to give the board an update about our strategic plan. And we, again, just so that the public can hear, is that we divided this up into three different sessions. We just recently did our first goal and tonight we're going to be covering goal two. And so I just want to remind everyone that as we look at our strategic plan, we are always going to make sure that we are focusing on excellence.

But we want to make sure that we're looking at how we can be transformational and really, truly be transformational in our approaches to learning and our approaches of what it looks like in the classroom. We are going to hear more about how we are approaching that and how measures of success will look different. As a reminder, we have developed a strategic plan that we feel is learner-centered, aspirational, innovative and equity focused. We talk about a learner.

We are saying it is not just our students, but the adults as well. And it also comes back to our profile of the graduate. Our goal is going to be focused on to grow with learners. And that goal is to commit.

We will commit to the educational growth of our learners through an equitable, personalized and individualized learning experience. And tonight Milena is going to be providing us an update about the work that we have been doing There are many objectives that are connected to this goal We won be able to cover every single one of those tonight but she is going to give an overview of an update and then give the board an opportunity to answer any ask any questions and try to see if there anything else we need to process Thanks, Sean. So the three objectives that we're going to focus on is personalized learning, individualized learning, and then changing the barriers or disparities of access to our programs. So when we developed our strategic plan, one of the first things that we knew when we used language like personalized learning and individualized learning, Sean, can you flip the slide?

One of the things that we knew was that we were going to have to come up with shared language and definitions of that within our system. So there's a lot of, a pretty big body of literature related to these terms and we needed to sort of synthesize them for us as a district. So on this slide I've kind of highlighted for you some of the things that are most important about these terms. Our curriculum coordinators and our professional development committee, the leaders within the district, And then Sean and I did some work to show sort of the interconnectedness of these terms.

So they don't operate individually from one another. They're interconnected. Go ahead, Sean. So what we're looking at is the fact that all of these terms, and we added differentiated learning into this also because it's a term that we've been using for a long time and it's a way of a pedagogical structure that we've been looking at for a long time.

And so we were looking at the interconnectedness of the three. So all of these are grounded in standards and objectives. That's what guides our work. But they have differences and they have similarities with one another.

So with differentiated learning and personalized learning, the idea of student voice and choice is really important in both of those. With personalized learning and individualized learning, there's varied outcomes. Things look different. The products that students develop look different.

And then with differentiated learning and individualized learning, It's based on learner-centered needs. One of the things that I wanted to talk a little bit about was to try to give you sort of some concrete examples of these three terms. So when I think about personalized learning, one of the things that, an example that came to mind is actually something that Sean referenced recently, which was a third grade class that was focused on a project-based learning activity. Project-based learning is this idea of students learning by actively engaging in real world and personally meaningful projects.

It's not just about doing a project at the end of something, it's the project being the part of the work that you're doing. And that they're meaningful to the students, so that the students have ownership and agency in deciding that. In a third grade classroom recently, students were studying economics as a part of their social studies curriculum. And the driving question that they came up with was, how can I, as a third grader, use global trade to create my own business?

So the students created their own businesses, thought through it, worked with high school students to get feedback. So thinking about like supply demand, thinking about those kinds of things. The high school students helped them to refine that and then they ended up with a shark tank kind of approach that adults came through and heard their pitches and then we decided which companies we would want to support. So that's sort of highlighting this idea of learner driven and varied outcomes.

So there were 20 different projects that came out of that. From the individualized perspective, recently you all approved a policy, IKE, which required us to develop a new acceleration plan within the district. So Dr. Wiens and I developed a new process that we're currently using throughout the district.

So teams are gathering data, looking at this information about individual students to make determinations in the best interest of the students. And those determinations can be anywhere from some kind of differentiated instruction within the classroom, Classroom, grade level or subject acceleration, curriculum compacting, so testing up front and then deciding that we only have to teach a certain amount of the content, or this idea of telescoping, so completing sort of multiple years of content in a shorter amount of time. This standardized process has allowed us to approach all situations in the district similarly, but to be able to address students' needs based on their data. And then differentiation is a practice that we've been using within our classrooms for a long time.

So it could look like choice boards. It could look like open-ended assignments for students or something similar that allows for different kinds of products, different kinds of processes to approach the work. So on the slide now one of the things that we have talked a lot about is the profile of the graduate and how to measure the competencies within the profile of the graduate So some work that has really resonated with us recently is work from Michael Fullen and Joanna McKechn that called Deep Learning And so I shared with you a hard copy of a learning progression from their work And when we've been studying this work, the reason, first of all, the reason why it resonated with us so much was what they call, their competencies, they call the six C's. And we felt like they really paralleled our profile of the graduate competencies.

So I tried to sort of equate those on this chart for you. What we like also about their work is that they've developed these learning progressions, which is what you have in front of you. And so almost like thinking about it as like a rubric or a way to report back on students within these competencies. So all of these are really difficult to sort of like, you can't assign a number to them.

They're kind of difficult to assign things to, but within these progressions, it gives you a sense of like starting from somewhere. So our youngest students as they come in, starting from somewhere and then progressing along so that by the time they graduate, they're falling within that rightmost column. The last part that I wanted to talk about today was access and removing barriers to particular programs. And this right now, the way that we're looking at this is particular to honors and AP enrollment within our courses.

So social studies has had an open enrollment process for, you can go to the next one, yeah. So, the College of Studies has had an open enrollment process for AP courses for the past couple of years that has allowed students to make the decision about registering and attending an AP course. This year, starting this year, the movement into freshman English has been an open enrollment process. So we talked with our eighth grade students about the difference between the two courses, between College Prep English and Honors English One.

We talked to them about the differences, had them talk with their families about what they felt like would be the best fit for them. We also targeted some different students to have conversations with to say we feel like this would be a good place for you. And having the administration at the school and the teachers having those conversations with the families to help them make those decisions. We also had gotten some feedback that our process for placement for math moving into the middle school is not a particularly transparent process.

And so we did a lot of work this year to make it more transparent. So similar to what we did with the College Prep English 1 and Honors English 1, we did the same with Math 6 and Math 6 extensions, giving families much more upfront information about the two courses, the differences between the two courses. We made a recommendation based on data and then provided an opportunity for all families to engage in conversation with our teachers if they felt like they needed more information about that or they wanted to ask questions or think differently about the course that their child was going to be placed into. So our goal there was trying to be more transparent as well as to look at providing opportunities to families to share with us information that they knew about their child that maybe we didn't know about their child as maybe a better placement for them.

The other thing that we looked at with math is to say that historically kind of coming into the middle school where the courses bifurcate, there wasn't often opportunity for students to move within those pieces. So, we've designed what we've called summer bridge courses. So, between each year, fifth grade, sixth grade, and seventh grade, allowing an opportunity for students to take a course that would allow them then to move into that extensions course, if that's something that they want to pursue. And with the families in partnership, we've decided it's the right movement to do.

So, it allows for some different kind of movement that has not historically been a part of our programming. So the focus on the strategic plan supports our focus on academic achievement. Shawn, you can flip again. Michael Fullen talks about how a more personalized approach appeals to all students, but most of all attracts students who are typically less connected to traditional schooling.

It provides them with better purpose for learning and provides them with agency in how they approach their learning. So the last thing is just about so how will we know How will we know if we successful with this We will continue to monitor our achievement data So the same data that I present to you in the assessment report we continue to look at that and study those pieces of data But also by focusing on the development of learning progressions so the things similar to what you have in front of you we looking to develop those for ourselves not just adapt Fullen work But by developing those learning progressions we also feel like we will have ways to report on the competencies of the profile of the graduate Okay. So that is a brief overview of the report that we sent you. And so this would be an opportunity to see if we had any questions or any clarifications that we could potentially help you with.

I think I will just go around the room, just starting with Gary. Is that okay, Gary? Okay. Fair enough.

David? No, I don't have any questions. Thank you. Jason?

I don't have any questions. Thanks. Kaitlyn? Caitlin?

I don't have any questions, but can I make a comment? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so I just wanted to say that I think it's really great that we're allowing open enrollment because I think that students, especially at the age when they're going into high school, need to have like the ability to be able to evaluate their own skill set and know if they're ready for a course or not. So I think that that's very important.

And I really like that the school district has begun doing that, especially because I know in my grades years, The bridge to get into honors English for ninth grade was pretty, the bar was pretty high. So I really like that we're now having students evaluate themselves and having their own conversations with their families. And I think that students really know their level of what they can handle and are able to take that into account when deciding for new classes. One thing that I would also add is that I know I'm very big on accessibility for immigrant parents.

I know that immigrant parents can sometimes have some difficulty when talking to administration, especially if they want to advocate for their student on things like taking a higher class, for example. So I think that just making sure that there is still communication with immigrant families or ESL families and really, I guess, prioritizing and making sure that you're communicating mostly with the student in that sense. Sorry about that. I do have some questions.

Joe, ask away. I will, thank you. So, Melaina, thank you. I think it's awesome what you're doing.

But I do have two questions. One is, when I look at the data disaggregated by race, you know, our black students are still pretty significantly behind. So can you just talk a little more about what we're trying to do more specifically to address that difference? Sure.

So I look at these data that I provided in this as our baseline. So it's our sort of initial attempt to start to look at having to rectifying disproportionate numbers. And so as we, some of what I would say specifically that we're looking at is when we look at data profiles of students, particularly black students, is having those conversations with families and engaging in conversations with families to say we think that this would be a good placement. So we think an honors course would be a good placement for your child.

Let's talk about what that means and us initiating those conversations where I think in the past we were waiting for the families to initiate those with us. We're initiating those with families. Thank you. And then one other question, which is, so I think, so this is great as we think about kind of the access and the curriculum, but I also want to harken back to the strategic priority number one, right, our goal number one, and think about some of the panorama data and the fact that we have as much as 50% of students, right, which, you know, And when they talked about relationships with a trusted adult, there was some challenge there, especially at the secondary level.

And so to me, those are linked, right? The curriculum can be as great, can be perfect, and the opportunities can be great. But we know that if you don't have an adult that's working with you that you can trust. I just hope we're continuing to integrate those two because I do think that this is great work, but without that relationship, the biggest success factor for a student is the quality of their work.

I think that's it. Thank you. Stacy. Thank you.

I actually had the same first question Joe did about our black students. So thank you, Melaina. And then just one other quick question. You mentioned that for Y down with the math courses that you're creating these like bridge courses over the summer so that kids could go from regular math to extensions.

Have you thought about something similar in the high school to move to an honors class if you hadn't been in honors before? Because as it stands, if you didn't start in on honors math, you really can't get into honors math. Yeah, so part of the math is currently in review and part of what they're looking at is their progression, like their course progression and looking at, so I anticipate that when we come back to the table with the goals for them next year, that that's going to be a part of our work is that we're looking at making some changes to the progression. Okay, great.

I will just say briefly that I, thanks for the report. I love that, I love our focus on the individualized and personalized learning because it, you know, they all, all of our kids learn differently and they all need something different. So it's great that we're taking a deep dive and really considering that. I think it's super important.

As far as questions are concerned, I was wondering if I noticed in your report that you said that the gifted identification process, I guess that's more at the elementary level, that we're still, we don't have a report on that. Is there, I mean, is there discussion that that would become like an open enrollment type of a situation similar to how English is, how the Honors English is, or is there any discussion like that, or I wonder if you could... I would say we haven't had discussion about it in that way. We have changed the identification process to remove some of the academic components in thinking about standardized testing and those types of things and thinking about it more from a creativity lens.

But we haven't necessarily had a conversation about it being an open enrollment kind of process. Can I add something to that? I think it's also important to remember when we're thinking about the gifted program, There are aspects that happen within the program that I think that we are looking at how can we apply that to the classroom. But we also have to look at it as an intervention for students as well.

And so we have to make sure that it's not, you know, that we have to look at it as that is actually a support for students. We are learning I'm going to turn it over to you, Melaina. Thank you, everyone. I think it's really important to think about ways that we can incorporate some of the things that might happen in that program into like a classroom.

And I think that the example that Melaina gave was a really perfect example about giving students some choice. And the other thing is that I got to be in that classroom. But if you think about, you know, she said that was a social studies unit. It's also writing.

It's also creativity. There's a lot of integration, but I also just think it's important when we're talking about gifted that we also know that that's a support. It's like an intervention for students, too. Yeah.

Perfect. I will thank you, Milena, for the report. And I think with that said, we can go ahead and move on to the action items. Thank you, Milena.

Our first action item is the second reading of Policy KK and it is visitors to the district property. And at the last meeting you gave us some feedback and some input around some changes that we want you wanted us to implement and so Robin's bringing those back for a second reading and also for approval. Good evening everyone It good to see all of you in person I just wanted to highlight some of the changes that were made since the last time we brought Policy KK to the table for your review Under student visitation we did shorten that paragraph related to the superintendent or designee prohibiting a visit. Now that I'm revisiting this, we did strike perhaps more than what was discussed, but I welcome any feedback related to that section.

We had a discussion about the changes in the feedback you provided. Under classroom observations and service providers, we replaced disruptions with distractions or interference with school operations. And then lastly, under prohibited items, we added some more specific language related To the prohibition of certain substances on campus, which were listed through from one of our other policies related to substances on district property. So I just wanted to highlight those changes.

In addition, I wanted to just revisit that MSBA released this set of suggested changes to this policy based on requests that they had gotten from districts across the state. Not specifically from the School District of Clayton, but obviously they work with many districts across the state that are many different sizes. And many of them have reached out to MSBA about refinements to policy KK. And so a lot of that feedback is reflected in this policy as well.

That sounds great. Thanks for making those changes. Stacey, should we, do you want to go ahead and read the motion and then we'll see if there's any discussion? Sorry.

I move that we approve policy KK, visitors to district property and events with the proposed changes as outlined attached. Second. Great, so it's been moved and seconded. Are there any comments or discussion?

Any other comments or discussion? Yep. Go ahead, Stacey. Thank you, Robin, for the changes.

I think you really captured all of our feedback. The only thing I would say is in the student visitation, the new paragraph, just to keep the language consistent, like in classroom observations and service providers, we called it school operations. I didn't know if you'd rather say that instead of education program. Or did you mean something different?

I don't know. No, I did not. So you're right. Those are synonyms and used interchangeably in this.

But yes, that can be replaced in terms of the – to bring it into alignment with the other two sections. Right, right, right. But otherwise, I love how concise you made that. I think you really captured everything we wanted out of the original and into that.

So thank you so much. Gary? Gary Briggs I had kind of the same reaction. I was trying to remember what exactly we had talked about shortening, but I think a lot of the other stuff that was taken out, it's almost like commentary or like in general we think kind of language that I think this is much more to directing what our actual practices are, which is what the policy is supposed to do.

So I think this language really does capture that conversation in the spirit Okay, anyone else? Okay, great. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes unanimously. Okay.

Robin, thank you. Thank you, Robin. I move that the Board of Education approve the part-time temporary employment as submitted. Second.

Great. Motion has been moved and seconded. Are there any comments? All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

I think we'll be on to the consent agenda. Is that under consent Okay I move that we approve all consent agenda items 7 through 7 Second. Okay. Any comments?

All in favor? Aye. And I'd like to thank, in that consent agenda, I'd like to thank Robert Criss for his generous donation to the Y-Down Middle School Theater Program. We really appreciate it.

Thank you. Terrific. Okay, and we are on to the financials. I move that the Board of Education approve payment of current expenditures and investments for March 2021 as presented.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Are there any comments? Okay, all in favor?

Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Public comment? We do have a few public comment and we have Chris Dental. Are you able to read those please? Yeah, absolutely.

We have three comments tonight. And the first comment is from Patrick Burke. He writes, Dear Board of Education, I'm writing to express my dismay about House Bill 1141, the bill currently under consideration in the Missouri House that would ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. I'm the dad of a ninth grader at CHS I'm also a university professor whose work directly involves critical race theory.

I find the false picture of critical race theory that its critics are painting to be both laughable and insulting. In the article I've linked below, my signature, for example, someone identifying herself as a Clayton parent denigrates critical race theory as a form of child abuse. It's important to me that Clayton students and teachers be empowered to have challenging and historically informed conversations about race and racism in the classroom, which is all that critical race theory really means. It's such conversations that House Bill 1141 supporters cynically seek to cancel.

I recognize that the board has no direct influence over state legislation, but if you agree with me that it's wrong for state lawmakers to suppress Clayton teacher speech, the statement to that effect would be encouraging. I'd also like to know if you have developed any strategies for how to continue teaching Clayton students to think critically and compassionately about racial issues if the bill passes, which I sadly fear it will. Thank you very much for your consideration and for all the work you do on Beyond More Kids. Sincerely, Patrick Burke.

Our second comment is from Jennifer Williams. Jennifer writes, Clayton School District made the news via the Rockwood School District Forum when a Clayton parent voiced her concerns Thank you. In times like these, it's important to remember that silence speaks and can be interpreted in many ways. The School District of Clayton should continue to distinguish itself within the St.

Louis community. Our final comment tonight is from Julie Shappley. Julie writes, I am the parent of a first grader. I believe it is one of the fundamental missions of public schools to teach students how to be good citizens.

Part of being a good citizen is being to honestly view the world, learn how to function in it, and do what you can to make it better. Learning to speak and talk about differences is part of how schools can prepare all kids, including white kids, for the real world where real differences do exist. I want my students to learn how to talk respectfully and honestly about differences, racism, so that she is prepared to do so when she is older. It seems that this is okay.

I know some parents have knee reactions maybe because they feel guilty or pigeonholed but that shouldn stop the school from doing what is right and honest And that all of our comments for the evening Okay Thank you Chris for reading the comments and thank you to the folks that made the comments. We appreciate your input. And I think we are on to board communications. So I don't know if anybody has had any committee meetings or other communications.

Over the past, yep, Till. Yeah, I just want to remind the board that we have the St. Louis County Board PLC tomorrow night. It's via Zoom.

It's from 7 to 8.15, and the topic is really legislative advocacy, which of course is a hot topic right now because the legislature is doing lots of interesting stuff. So again, Sandy sent out the Zoom link, but just a reminder, it's from 7 to 8.15 tomorrow evening via Zoom. Terrific. And Sandy did send another reminder out and it looked like we had over 50 participants already.

And we had PTO Council met this week. I had to bow out because of the conflict, so I'll defer that to Sean. Before we do, I do want to have the floor for a minute. So tonight I'm giving notice that I'm resigning my position on the Board of Education at the end of this month.

I've really valued the opportunity to serve the community and the school, and I really appreciate the support that I've received from the citizens of Clayton. I realize this is one year into a three-year term, so this will disappoint some, and it's going to irritate a few and maybe even relieve a couple of others. But those that know me best know that I value integrity and doing the right thing, no matter what the optics or what challenges that may bring. In the previous four months, we've had two pivotal items come up that I cannot in good conscience support, and the way we've handled it leaves me feeling complicit, which is exactly the opposite of what I promised the community I would do whenever I ran for this position.

I've come to realize that I can better support the community as an activist shareholder, if you will, rather than sitting on a board where I have concerns over how issues are handled. So with this, I do want to say thank you for everybody here, and I really have appreciated serving with you guys. And I do want to say to the community, I fully, fully support and absolutely believe that Dr. Patel is going to be a great transition, despite the huge shoes she's got to fill.

And so, Sean, how about that PTO council meeting? Well, David, thank you. I don't know what to say. Again, thank you for your service this past year.

I respect your decision and I will say that you probably served as a board member during one of the most difficult times in our history. Thank you for that. I respect your decision and we will talk to the board about what the next steps are. Thank you.

In terms of the PTO meeting, I would have to say that I would just, the only thing I would add to that is the PTO was basically a kickstart for next year. And they were training all of the new members of the PTO. And I just have to say that our PTO is extremely generous in terms of their time, their resources, and financial support of our schools. Thank you.

On two separate days, we managed to get through all of the elementary schools and Y-Down and the high school and the family center that's on the high school campus. And if you haven't done that yet with Sean, I encourage you to do so if he has time in the last few weeks. Anyway, as you know, we haven't been in the buildings really, you know, this year at all. So I really appreciated the opportunity to see how our schools are functioning during COVID.

And I have to say, I was so pleasantly surprised. Our elementary schools are basically as if nothing really had changed. I mean, there are kids in masks and they are eating at their desks, but they are learning and they were laughing and they were working with their classmates and having a good time. And the teachers were so upbeat and positive.

So the overall mood I felt in all three of our elementary schools Was very positive from the students and the teachers. So that was really great, really great to see. I guess it was not much different at Y-Down in the high school. The physical spaces there look more different than they used to compared to the elementary schools.

I mean, the Commons at the high school is now a huge study hall filled with desks because they don't need it for lunchtime. Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. It's such an innovative and great idea, and the kids are loving too. So thanks John for your time and walking me around It really put me at ease and made me feel good to see how everyone has adapted And our teachers and our kids have been so flexible and these kids are so resilient And, you know, they're just so used to wearing masks.

And the little kids probably don't remember any different. But really, everything was going on as has in years past, and it was great to see. So, thanks. Thank you so much, Stacey, for going on those walkthroughs.

And I would encourage you, if you want to go on a walkthrough with me, just contact Sandy and she will schedule it. I think that oftentimes when I'm walking through the school, a lot of kids will say, hello, Dr. Doherty. But Stacy Seawax is definitely a celebrity as she walks through our schools.

And a lot of kids knew who she was and was like, hey. And so I felt like I was with the celebrity that day. That's great. Well thanks Stacy for doing that And thanks Dr Doherty for taking her through the schools David I didn know that this was all going to happen but I do want to thank you for your time on the board We appreciate it We appreciate you It been such a pleasure getting to know you and you will be missed And like I said, I wasn't prepared to say anything, but we're, you know, obviously you will be missed and we're sad to see you go.

Okay, so I guess we are going to... Could I just say one more thing? Tomorrow morning, just to make everyone, as a reminder to the Board of Education, We have invited the Board of Aldermen to our space out here in the patio for a brisk breakfast outside. And so it's an opportunity for them to meet Dr.

Nisha Patel. And so all the board members are invited to stop in sometime between 730 and 9 if you're able to come by. But it just an opportunity to reinforce that connection between the city and the district I move Go ahead Yes Stacy Adrena Sorry. I was going to one other committee thing.

The legislative advocacy committee group of the inter-district group, I'm actually not sure why, but that's normally scheduled for this Friday. That was actually canceled. Second. All in favor?

Aye. Motion passes and we are adjourned.