March 30, 2022

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Thank you. We good? Okay. Welcome everybody.

Adequate notice has been given. I hope everybody had a great spring break and it's good to see everybody back at the board table. I think we are going to begin today with the Pledge of Allegiance. I almost forgot.

Okay, we're going to start with recognizing our own and school social worker week. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Weems. Good evening, everyone.

Tonight, I have the privilege of recognizing our outstanding social workers, Dr. Sheila Pell Walker and Miss Katie Burkhardt, either of whom were able to join us in person tonight. But I'd like to recognize them in honor of National School Social Worker Week, which falls annually during the first calendar week of March. This year's theme from the School Social Work Association of America is Time to Shine.

In their role, school social workers shine brightly for their students, families, and school community, shining hope, understanding, and respect. So to Dr. Paul Walker and Ms. Burkhardt, I just want to thank you for shining brightly for our students, their families, and our staff.

And you've really kept us all grounded on the hierarchy of school needs that our children face each day, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Superroportionate, from every phone call, meeting, email, student check-in, bag of food or toiletries that you've packed, to gift cards you've picked up and distributed. And then a few more of those, and maybe some porch visits and collecting data and more student check-ins and leading professional development in the district. Your efforts to help us become a more trauma-informed learning community are truly valued.

So thank you for all you do. I also want to thank you for hosting Catherine Ingersoll, who is our Social Work Practicum student. Catherine has become a meaningful part of our team under Katie and Sheila's guidance, and we are so grateful for Catherine's time and energy and contributions as we support her in developing her professional expertise. And lastly, I wanted to recognize the important contributions of Abby Gutman, our SSD social worker.

Abby has a unique role in supporting students across all of our buildings. And I want to thank her for all the ways she has helped our students be successful, particularly in the face of social emotional challenges that may have been exacerbated during the last two years. So, Abby, we appreciate your collaboration and the new thinking that you've brought to our team, and we are so glad that you are with us. And so I just wanted to close in saying we are so grateful every day for all the contributions that our social workers bring to our families, to our students, and to our staff members here in Clayton.

Thank you. All right. Well, it's Board Recognition Week. Are we supposed to talk about that?

I will take that one. So tonight, it's a special evening for us. Typically, there's usually a National School Board Recognition Week that happens early in March, but because of our board meetings and how it was mapped out, we're recognizing our amazing board here tonight. In the United States, there are over 90,000 board members that serve over 13,000 school districts.

We are lucky to have seven individuals here that serve our students and our community every single day. I truly, Board, when I was trying to think of what to say to you guys tonight, I was really stumbling for words. I can say thank you. I can say I appreciate you.

We appreciate the support that you give us constantly, and it still is not enough. Superroportionate Proposition O levy agenda motion carried You serve and you volunteer your time Don get paid for this but you give it your all and I cannot thank you enough I tried to put my own personal feelings into the card and I wrote you each a note for that but truly as being a new superintendent in this district you have no idea how much your support has meant to me You have challenged me, you have pushed me, and I hope that we can continue to foster this relationship because it truly is a team of eight that makes this. And so I thank you for all of your support. And then a special thanks to Joe and Steve because this is your last board meeting and for all the years that you have served.

Joe, you have been, ever since I came here, you're available by phone, email, text, you've coached me, you've helped me through so many things, and I really appreciate that. Thank you for that. Steve, you have been the person who always challenged me to think about things and how to make it better. And I thank you for that because you truly have made me a better person.

So thank you to all of you for everything that you've done. We really appreciate it. And also we have a small video that we put together from other stakeholders to express our gratitude to each one of you. So Chris, if you could play that for us, please.

Hello, Clayton family. This is Nisha Patel, your superintendent. I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize, thank, and celebrate seven incredible individuals who worked tirelessly to serve our school district. These seven individuals are our school board members.

They volunteer their time to make sure that we are successful and that we have the best Clayton experience. I'd like to personally thank all of them for their continued support, dedication, and time to our school district. As you know, March 6th through the 12th is School Board Recognition Week, which is celebrated across the nation. And so let's take a few moments to truly thank them and hear a few words of gratitude from our stakeholders.

As an employee of the district, as well as a parent, I have two kiddos in the district, one at the high school and one at Merrimack. I could just tell that every decision that they make is about the kids. They're always student-centered and staff-centered, and I just always feel appreciated. So I just thank them for their countless hours and the time and dedication that they put into the district.

I know that it's a lot of time and dedication and a lot of stress. There's a lot of behind the scenes work besides the formal meetings that are public. It is a really difficult job to balance all that they have to do outside of this job. It is absolutely remarkable that they're working really hard to do this.

I know that, particularly in Clayton, I've been here 21 years and I've always felt that the board put kids first and has always been really supportive of the administrators and the teachers to make decisions in the best interest of kids. And obviously they have input and guidance, but the fact that they treat us as professionals and experts in our field is very much appreciated. I know that's not the case in every district, and so for that I'm very, very grateful, and I thank you for all that you do. Their willingness to listen, and I think that's a great thing about Clayton is accessibility.

If a parent wants to talk to anybody on any level in the district, their door is open. You can email them. There are no barriers. I really appreciate the different perspectives that they all bring and their commitment to really making sure that they're representing all of the different perspectives that are in our community and really doing what's the most student-centered thing to support all of our children's success.

First and foremost, thank you. It's not an easy volunteer role by any stretch of the imagination. You see it today on TV, how many meetings are becoming a little strange and reckless. And you know that's the case everywhere.

But it's also about difference of opinion. Difference of opinion on the board and how they deal with that in an interpersonal way is really a skill set that you have to say thank you for bringing that skill set to the board. And with that, we thank each one of you for all of your service. So thank you.

Oh well thank you And thank you to all the schools who put our goodies in our bags We love it all and the beautiful artwork and the T and the cups and it was all so thoughtful and we're so appreciative. I'll echo what Dr. Patel said in that I don't tell you guys enough, but I appreciate each and every one of you guys so much, all of your time and energy. It is remarkable, and thank you for all that you guys do.

And especially to Joe and to Steve on their last meeting. You guys are awesome. Thank you. So now are we going to go on to superintendent communications?

All right. Thank you. So, few things for the superintendent communications. First thing is, well, it is spring, so spring is, well, it's almost here, right?

That's why I put that on in quotations or in parentheses. It's almost here. I hear it's going to be like 47 degrees for a high tomorrow. So, hey, we're here, but hopefully everybody had a great spring break.

You got to relax, rejuvenate, talk to a lot of students and staff, members who shared some of their experiences over spring break. And from what I hear, it was a lot of resting and relaxing. So that's a good thing. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality, Propriety, and Equality. The Globe is getting awards every time you turn around.

They're getting another national award. So is the yearbook. And then you hear about chess. You hear about debate club.

You hear about athletics activities. We had record number of students showing up at sporting events. That is amazing. In the middle of a pandemic, too, right?

They're cheering on each other. So we try to focus on not only engaging our students, but empowering them. We have professional learning that we continue to do with all of our staff. And the professional learning was really about empowering our students, and not only our students, but also our staff.

We continue to focus even on little things in terms of, it's not really little, but when you think about construction in our building, right? Safety, security, our library at the high school, we're starting to begin renovations on that. We're hiring, right? When you think about that, we just hired a Superroportion O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

And in that book it talks about your habits Every single day if you can just increase your output by 1 every single day your impact will be magnified over time And in that book I shared an example which I want to share with you guys because I was like that is so true Think about I love to travel So think about wanting to go from Los Angeles to New York City So the plane is going to take off from LAX headed towards New York City. Upon takeoff, if the pilot adjusts its heading, which is the direction that the plane is going to go, by 3.5 degrees south, your destination will now become Washington, D.C. So upon takeoff, you don't even notice the change because it's just a matter of a few feet that the nose of the plane is changing. But when you magnify it across the United States, you're hundreds of miles later, hundreds of miles away from your original destination.

So my point in sharing that is when we look at our profile of the graduate, the outcomes that we want from our students, yes, that is the goal, that is the outcomes. But the only way we're going to get there is if we continue to look at everything that we do and how do we make it better? How do we continue to tweak it? And it is messy.

It is hard to be transformational. It is challenging and it will push you. But I truly believe we are all in this together and we're committed to continuing to be better. So I, for one, am excited for the fourth quarter and I'm excited for next year and the years after that because we're going to continue to do that.

So thank you for all your support as always. My Tana. Thank you. So, sorry, one second.

Okay, so starting off, right before break, we had a Y-Down District Advisory Council meeting, and we mostly talked about the no-cut policy, actually, but I'm going to wait to talk about that for another time after we've heard more about it. After that, though, we moved on to talk about how the students are feeling with regards to, like, COVID and masks being recommended in the next week. And I think mostly people were still a little bit hesitant just because obviously COVID is still kind of a scary thing. And their number one concern was just that maybe like with masks coming off, people would almost forget that COVID still exists.

So I think just making sure that we like are still reminding students that they need to like wash their hands and social distance and be safe is going to be important, especially for those kids who feel a little more scared to be going to school. And then we also talked about using outdoor spaces more because Y-Down doesn't have the greatest outdoor space for classes to be outside or to have PE, but they're trying to work on how to make more areas for that. And then just some other things that have happened recently. Basically, the district has won a lot of things.

So first, Y-Down had this production of Joseph in the Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I think they were able to do that pretty much almost normally as if the pandemic didn't exist, but obviously they still were wearing masks in the auditorium. And the robotics team that has been working really hard since I think first semester had their first competition the weekend, last weekend actually, and they went to Peoria and they made it all the way to quarterfinals. The mock trial team also made it pretty far. They got to second in state.

And then we had 10 national speech and debate qualifiers, which is pretty huge. So they're going to be going to Louisville in the summer to compete more. And then we've had a lot of our first spring sport events. So for example, yesterday, I know that Varsity Girls Soccer won their, I think it was one of their first games.

And then just some other things that are happening in fourth quarter. We have the student-run musical at the high school, which I believe is Percy Jackson. So it's pretty much completely student-run. You know, people are, like, managing it and are in the play as well, or musical, sorry.

And then at Y-Down, so since last year and this year, the sixth graders weren't really able to have a sixth-grade camp. They're doing, like, a sort of day camp, so there's going to be two days for each grade. And the camps are going to be, like, between Y-Down and Forest Park. Spervantage, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

People are taking those end of course exams. It's just for, I think, biology, some econ classes, English classes, and one more subject, which is, I believe, just a high school thing. But I'm not sure if there's any more middle school standardized tests next week. And then prom is another big thing that's happening fourth quarter.

Because last year, they weren't really able to have prom, at least through the high school. But this year, the juniors are once again organizing the prom for the juniors and the seniors. Yeah, thank you. Wonderful.

Thanks, Itana. All right, so we switched our agenda up just a little bit, and I think we're going to start with athletics, and then we will get to a place for everyone. So tonight we have Steve and Dan here from the high school and Tashaun, and they're going to share with us an update with what's going on with the athletic program and some exciting changes that we are going to be looking forward to next year. And this is through a very thorough process that they're going to talk about in terms of getting input from a lot of different stakeholders to making these changes.

Well, good evening. First off, I just want to thank you all for giving us the opportunity to share our work towards changes in the Clayton High School philosophy on athletics. This work started last late July of last summer and has continued all the way up through I also want to thank all the students who have come here tonight to support me, and they've been a part of this conversation as well. So through the executive summary, this work is a combination of several focus groups consisting of all the constituents for which the athletic department serves.

We are just over 100 individuals that have had a voice towards these changes in the Clayton High School philosophy on athletics. You see the list there. I've talked to all of the CHS varsity coaches, our captain's council, which is 30 plus students. It's a leadership group that represents all of our Clayton High School sports teams.

The athletic advisory committee, which is, again, a parent group that represents all of our sports at Clayton High School, several Y-down families, and now you all, the Board of Education. The focus of the work concentrates mostly on competition between our own student population, with the end result being athletic excellence, just as we are in the classroom, achieving academic excellence. I think it's important that we visit the history of where we have been as we move into where we want to go. Thank you, Superintendent.

And made some amendments and termed it the participation policy, and that's what we follow today. They felt that the term no cut meant that there were no expectations. It felt the environment was more recreational rather than competitive. And they wanted to have higher expectations, and they did so.

So now there are clearly defined expectations that each athlete must meet to participate. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. There were fewer options for students to find connections outside of the classroom. Really, it was only through athletics and the arts.

Now we have a robust arts program, a robust athletics program, and also over 50 clubs that students can choose to participate in to stay connected to Clayton High School outside the classroom. So the relevant factors that have surfaced through these conversations, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We are facing fewer sports championships and we are competing in the lower levels of the St Louis Suburban Conference I like to sit right there for a minute You can see the Suburban Conference is compromised of 31 high schools public high schools in the St Louis area Each sport for each school is placed within one of those pools. You can see there's a yellow pool in parentheses, a red pool, a green pool, and a blue pool.

The most competitive teams are in the yellow pool within those schools. The reason you see platinum, gold, silver, and bronze is I'm on a committee now that's looking for those pools, the terms for winning those championships to carry more weight. So the platinum will be the top pool on down to the bronze. Currently, we have four teams participating in the blue, six in the green, and five in the red.

I see no reason as a school district or a high school that has around 900 kids every year, and we are resourced so well that we should have teams in the blue pool. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. Other constraints driving these changes are practice facility limitations due to overcrowding, coach to athlete ratio, and high-level middle school athletes leaving the district after YDOW. If you see, there's the current mission statement.

I'm not going to read through it in full, but that was written in 2018. If you pay close attention to sentence two, paragraph one, we have made some changes in the proposed mission statement moving forward to that sentence. And we've also added a sentence to paragraph two after the first line there. I will move on to what those changes are and read those aloud.

Both, meaning athletics and academics, involve students in a healthy learning environment and growth process which strive to accomplish excellence. In addition to the bottom paragraph, we also value and place an emphasis on competition within our own student population in order for our athletes to reach their fullest potential. So again, the focus is on competition leading towards excellence within athletics, just as we do in the classroom with academics. The proposed philosophy.

This philosophy will impact all of our freshman teams, our JV teams, and our varsity teams. The philosophy is one that strengthens the community by having a positive influence on our student-athletes, Adheres to the highest level of academic success, has a strong focus on character, provides opportunities for athletes to excel, compete, and win. Creates a competitive environment within the student population that stimulates growth. Recruits and retains outstanding coaches who support student athletes are on the forefront of creative thinking strategy, training, and student support.

We also want to engage the community to make Clayton sports a shared experience with our alumni and one that Clayton elementary students and families aspire towards. What must be in place? We must offer multiple opportunities for our students to choose from. We must recognize that participation in athletics is a privilege and as such, certain expectations must be met.

This philosophy will support the district's mission, vision, and core values, and it will complement the district's profile of graduate. This philosophy falls in line with those competencies listed within the strategic plan. And this philosophy supports one where Clayton High School reserves the right to limit roster spots within competitive opportunities. The outcomes that will come of this philosophy.

We will attain more student athletes as they transition from 8th to 9th grade. Most all of our Y-down families know that Clayton High School has a strong academic reputation. Families will now consider Clayton High School for its competitive environment and its drive to achieve excellence within athletics. Students will take pride in making their freshman, their JV team, or their varsity team.

Currently, there's no sense of pride when you have unlimited roster spots at the JV or freshman level. Students will be, this is direct quote from several students who do not participate in athletics. Students will be more willing to support their sports teams, increase school spirit at competitions and within the building. They quote unquote say we do not take sports seriously by not limiting roster spots at the lower level.

The elementary and middle school students will increase the amount of training and participation in their respective sports in preparation for their freshman year which will naturally lead to an increased skill level before they arrive at CHS We will use our resources wisely as facilities will become better places to train. I have three examples of that. Currently at Clayton High School during the winter, between both basketball programs, we have eight teams. We are still well resourced with the use of the Center of Clayton, but it's still very, very difficult for all those teams to train on those courts.

Within the boys program, we have five teams, two freshmen, two JV and a varsity. At the MICDS tournament, I had a father approach me upset that we could not break a full court press, and my answer was simple. We don't have a full court to practice on. We have to share it with so many other teams.

Girls tennis in the fall. We had almost 60 girls come out. We have eight courts to practice on from three to six o'clock, and we carry eight to 12 girls on the varsity. And we give them priority so they get two to three courts.

So that leaves five to six courts for 40 plus girls to train on each and every day. We're not giving our girls equitable experience compared to the teams we compete with. Volleyball, we have four teams, one freshman, two JV, and a varsity. Our varsity team trains in half of the court space, with JV being on the other side of the super gymnasium.

Our varsity team lost by three points to Westminster in the district title game. Several of you may have been there. Westminster went on after that win to easily capture a state championship. One might argue that if we gave our girls an equitable training experience compared to Westminster, we would have won the state championship.

Moving on. Spernants of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I believe those students would come to these optional training sessions. Sports that typically have a lower amount of participation will now have increased participation.

Examples of that, boys lacrosse has half the number in the fall of boys participating than girls. Why? Because we have 70 plus boys playing soccer. If we limited those roster spots, many of those boys would move over to cross country.

Softball, we barely have enough girls each year to field a varsity team. Two years ago, four girls left the softball team after day one because one of them wanted to play tennis and brought her friends with her. If we limited those roster spots, those four girls who had softball experience would have stayed within the softball program, in my opinion. Football, very much the same.

Last year, almost every single senior who was cut from the varsity roster on soccer went and played football. As we look to grow football in Clayton, I believe if we put in limits within the roster spots with lower level soccer, some of those boys would then also go over to football and cheer much the same. Several of the girls within the tennis program have a rich background in gymnastics. And if we put limits there, our cheer program would grow.

We have 85% of our students participating in sports, which is huge. We should be proud of that. The goal for the state is 55%. In my opinion, that number will not drop if we make limits or put limits in place.

They will just move. Students will make other choices. Moving on, freshman and junior varsity teams will be able to grow and learn together as they develop into varsity players. Having multiple lower level teams does not allow lower level players to grow together as one team.

I cannot put data to this, but every one of those students behind me can agree they've all achieved great success in sports, and there's something about chemistry that is created in practice that equals success when you're playing in a game. When you have two JV teams practicing together, and then when they go compete, they separate out, and then they need to come back, the chemistry, it's impossible to create that. Ultimately, our end goal, as mentioned before, is excellence and increased success within CHS sports. And again I repeat there is a through line of the social needs of our students and the whole child within this change philosophy as well And I finish my explanation and I feel like this helps people understand this change I believe that Clayton High School athletes can be put into three buckets.

One bucket being our most talented athletes, our highest skilled, our blue-chip athletes, those who we believe can play at the next level. As coaches, we hear about them in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. We get excited when we hear about these athletes. And you have that middle bucket of student athletes.

And those athletes, in my opinion, determine the success of your season. When you wrap those athletes and surround your highest and most talented athletes, you train together, you create that chemistry, that success within competition. And then you have that third bucket of athletes. Those athletes are out there to build their college resume, to be around that social experience, and to be a part of a team.

Those are the athletes that might not get their first choice, but there's always going to be an opportunity for them to participate on a team within this new philosophy. Additional supports. This comes directly from Misha. This is the Missouri State High School Activities Association philosophy.

It says at the very beginning, we believe in competition. And towards the bottom there, it says we believe there's a difference between recreational sports and competitive sports. And we believe further that competition should be regulated by standards, which I believe I've mentioned in this presentation. This time, does anyone have any questions, feedback?

Sean, Dan, you want to add anything? All right. No, I do want to say I want to thank Steve for all the work that he's done on this. And these are conversations that have taken place for a long period of time.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. No cut means no rules, no expectations. And as a result, not only just families and students, student athletes, but coaches even started kind of feeling that way. It was like, well, you couldn't remove a kid from a team for any reason.

And so the conversations that started around the renorming process for the participation policy back in 2018, Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. Thank you. Because that's what it feels like. And I will just say in high school, a little bit of a trigger for me, I remember a, because I could have also played college soccer, and I had an athletic director who said, you know what, we're not going to let sophomores play on the varsity team, even with their skill, because they were trying to recruit football players.

And there were four of us that said, we won't play either. You know, so I just think we have to be careful, right? That's all. I mean, I applaud what you're doing, and I just, I hope the participation stays high, because I do think participation with expectation, right?

So I'm not saying there shouldn't be great expectation, but participation with expectation in sports is, I think, very important. No, I agree. And through one of my meetings I had, one of the parents said the exact same thing, almost word for word. And I said, you know, this is obviously something we need to monitor over time.

You know, we're going to transition into this new philosophy, put new expectations in place, but we need to be mindful of these changes. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Not only the presentation, but all of this work that I know has been years in the making.

Thank you to you kids and all the other stakeholders that were involved in this. And I know, I mean, I personally have three kids that have so far participated in five different sports here, and I have personally witnessed all of the challenges you've listed here, not to mention in the fall and the spring when the weather's bad and everyone has to move inside. So I hear you on that for sure. I feel like for so long the excuse was kind of like, oh, Clayton's so focused on academics.

But so many of us would say that doesn't mean we can't also be excellent in athletics. So I really do appreciate acknowledging that we could be great at both. And I really think we can. One question I do have as a concern, Did you give any thought to, I guess maybe I'll preface this by saying, like I've witnessed in a sport this year where freshmen came out without much experience, and by the end of the season, they were great.

So we really were able to grow our athletes. So I'm just wondering if you gave any consideration maybe at the freshman level to allow more roster space to help grow athletes, or are you envisioning that they would grow elsewhere? Does that make sense? Yeah, I know, and I think I'll answer your question and transition into some other thoughts I have.

We've definitely considered that. It would be difficult to say that we're going to have a policy in place where we're only going to keep all freshmen, but then beyond in the sophomore, junior, and senior year, then we could put roster limits in place Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superroportion O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Evaluation.

Thank you. I totally understand and appreciate what you're saying about the freshmen and what I was meaning about giving them a chance to grow and improve. But I think if we change the overall culture K through 12 in our district, our athletes will be coming to us better trained and with more experience where it won't be maybe our responsibility to do that. So that makes sense.

Thank you, correct. And Dr. Patel and I had that exact same conversation. I mean, moving forward, this is the direction we're going to go, and it's my office's job to communicate to the entire community, not just those who are at Clayton High School.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Steve, too. There are several sports in the area that schools, much larger than us, that don't run freshman teams, actually, in some of the sports that we run freshman teams, and some of the sports in which we run two freshman teams. Correct. And so, I mean, I think our commitment to maintaining opportunities for freshmen, I think, is really, really important through this.

But I think we already kind of do that. And I think that, you know, we'll continue to do that as well. Yeah, and to your point, Dan, for instance, they do not carry a boys' freshman baseball team nor a girls' freshman basketball team, and they have 500 more students than us. So it's our job as educators to set students up for success.

It's very, very difficult for Tashaun and I when we schedule to set our girls' freshman basketball team and our boys' freshman baseball team up for success. There are no schools our size that offer teams and it just very difficult I think our boys freshman baseball team has won eight games in 10 years Any? Itana, go ahead. Thank you.

I was just wondering if there was, like, any possibility of having some sort of, like, recreational league for the people that maybe get cut from a team. Because if we have, like, a lot of people getting cut from, like, one of the bigger teams, like the girls' volleyball team, for example, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. I'm probably going to be a little contrarian, so I'll share, since it's my last board meeting.

And just to preface, and I think Dan knows, you know, in terms of my own child, I had one daughter who was a super athlete and two daughters who were participated, but they were not athletic. Okay. So to me, what is success? You say we want to really focus on success.

And to me, success is 85% participation. That means success. The fact that our kids are getting high quality physical education, physical activity, that is the most important thing to me. The fact that Clayton clearly articulates and values academics over sports, and frankly in a country, in a city, that sports, in my opinion, is valued in a kind of a crazy way.

So I'll share that. You know, I understand your comment about that there's a lot of logistic issues. And, you know, maybe we have too many sports, okay? And that, you know, Clayton, maybe our problem is we can't say no.

We have a hard time saying no to things. And maybe we simply, you know, we only have, what, 200 kids approximately, a class. So, you know, maybe the problem is we need to shrink the number, easy for me to say, but shrink the number of sports we do. So I don't know if, you know, our facility is the facility and you guys manage it great.

So those are just my thoughts. You put up a little chart about comparing Clayton to the other 32 school districts. We're on the small size of school districts. So the fact maybe that we're not competing against Ladue, which is now at 4,000 students or Parkway or something, I don't know.

But I share Joe's thought that, you know, the most important thing for me is, you know, how many kids are going, you know, to practice every day and are participating in getting that experience. And if we monitor, if success means that we win more, if success means winning more games, But, you know, we're down to 70%. To me, that would be failure. So whatever that's worth.

I want to make sure I'm clear about this. So when I watch my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, play. That a professional team I like to see them win I just want to make sure we on the same page Do we want to win Or do we just want participation That what I want to know What our goal here I don't want to do both. I think our teams have excelled more than they have in the past.

And I don't know if it's just because like the players that are playing on the team this year are better. But I think we can also focus on other factors. I don't know. I think coming out of COVID, a lot of the teams were brought together and a lot of people are more invested in sports.

So I think we can achieve both in a way. I don't know. Yeah. So I think we want to win more, but I also agree that I think participation is great because the more people that we have active in sports, I think the better school spirit will be and the better people will feel.

I know when I'm, like during field hockey season, I think I'm much happier than when I don't have a team to go talk to after school. But I don't know. Thank you all, all three of you. And I, you know, I've talked to countless individuals, parents, students, both Tashaun and I are here every night at games.

And this has always been a part of the conversations. The three years we've been here, and then I've coached 15 years here. And this community is changing. They want to win.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I support you 100%. I think that athletics is what keeps many kids engaged and inspired.

And we do great in academics. And, you know, when you go to Clayton, not everybody gets to be in honors, not everybody gets to be in the gifted program, not everybody gets to be in the school play. But for some reason, we've adopted this philosophy that anybody can play sports. And that diminishes the honor of being selected to be on the same in the same way.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Gold, silver, bronze, tears.

So if we want to win and we want to have participation, then I think that the direction you guys are taking the program is absolutely the right direction. But what I would love to hear is, and I don't know if we're going to hear from any of the student athletes that are in the high school, but I mean, since you guys are really at the center of every decision that this board should make, I can't imagine that you wouldn't be here if you didn't also support that. And I know some of you are captains of the sports teams. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I feel like that would hurt the participation percentage more than anything else. Like when you're taking away certain sports, like that sports that certain people fall in love with, and that's something that really takes you through the day. Like right now I'm not in the sport. I play basketball in the winter.

I'm not going to lie. My life in the winter is so much better than in the spring and in the fall. You know, just playing that certain sport just really like brings a lot of joy and happiness out of you. And it's a whole lot more fun to win than it is to lose.

Last year our basketball team, Snow Seeker, we weren't great. We were 5-17. This year we doubled our win total. We beat Ladue for the first time in 11 years.

And I think part of that is the competitiveness. And we really ramped that up. And I think if we continue to ramp that up, the sky's the limit. I think that's really important.

And also once you reach those high levels of activity and once we start winning, then the people that keep leaving after Y-Down to go play at CBC and to SMAC, they'll start staying. And then we start winning more. And then we win conference championships and then state championships. That's ultimately the goal for at least everyone back here.

We want to win the big thing. And that'll also up school pride and school spirit because everyone wants to be part of a school that has a winning team. Everyone wants to add CBC loves their sports because they win everything. Same with the SMET, same with SLU, same with every other big school.

I think it's important that we just continue to just, the goal should be participation but also we need to win. That's what's going to increase everything else. And then once you start winning, like in the football team, no one wants to play football because we lose every game. Once you start winning in football, then more people are going to want to join because it's cool to be on the football team.

It's cool to play volleyball because volleyball is a great thing. What's your name? You're very articulate. And, Ethan, didn't you shoot, like, the winning three-point buzzer beater this year?

Yeah, against Ledoux. Congratulations. That's one of the reasons why Matthew's going to be a Greyhound next year instead of a Billiken at SLU High. Thank you, Ethan.

I just want to thank Ethan because I think Ethan brought up another really good point, which is part of the goal here, or what I know Mr. Hudson's goal since he took this role, has been his increasing school spirit. And I think once we have winning teams and those games are more fun to attend for the non-athletes, the school spirit will drastically increase and the attendance at our games will drastically increase, which I know it already has, but it will get even more. So even kids that are not athletes or not athletes in that season will become more involved as spectators and fans if the games are good and fun to go to and we're winning.

So I think that's another positive outcome of this plan. So thanks. Anyone else want to share? Paige?

Yeah, I just want to say, like, I, like all the rest of us, completely back Mr. Hudson on everything here. I think just as an athlete who works really hard on and off the field, I train both in season, out of season. I think last season, although, like, I pushed myself really hard on the field and was ranked pretty highly in St.

Louis, I was told that I wasn't good enough to make the All-State team. I'm happy to be here today. And then again, for the All-Metro team, the All-Metro reporter didn't want to come to a Clayton game, which is why I was put on third team instead of first team, which, like, even as a player who's ranked number one in almost every stat in St. Louis, and I think that boils down to us not having, A, the camaraderie as a varsity team, and I think that comes Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality.

And can I just add, I think we should also consider how we're measuring participation when we weight participation versus success in terms of wins. Obviously, we want those wins and we do want participation. But if we employ this cut policy, we have a fixed number of kids who are participating. And I think although that number may drop under 85, the number of kids who are going to come out to summer workouts, like whatever off-season, will definitely increase.

So looking at it from that perspective, participation could increase as well. Thank you. Go ahead. Just to piggyback off of what Paige said, so this basically was an experience that my friend had.

So he ended up playing three years at Clayton on the football team, And then he decided to go to a different school his senior year. And he actually told me, he was like, Eric, I don't want to leave. I don't want to have to make the decision. I want to stay at Clayton, but it's like he had to make the decision because he wanted to play Division I football.

He wanted to stay at Clayton, but the schools that were looking at him, they wouldn't give him the offers or the looks just because of the school that he went to. So I feel like if we make these changes, it'll open up more doors for students. Spervantage, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spermingham, Iowa State, Kentucky, Iowa State, pretty much every big school in the nation.

And those are the type of athletes that we're missing out on just because of our poor success in sports. And piggyback off of what Ethan said, I feel like if we try and keep these athletes at the school, it'll just bring more attention to the school. So people will say, hey, Clayton is not just good at education, they're also good at athletics now. So I feel like that Spervantage, Pursuit, and For girls lacrosse, I think that sometimes there's a stigma around the JV team that it's more of a social hour, like you were saying about the tennis team, than it is actually a competitive sport.

These are the same people who are then moving up to our varsity levels. You're taking these kids who've played JV since they were juniors and took it as a social hour for three years, and then those are our varsity athletes, saying that we don't get a huge coming out of another wave of really talented athletes. So therefore like later on we are reducing our success levels which is completely the opposite of what we want So I think although like especially in like lacrosse and these sports that aren going to have huge impacts on these on the cut policy I think it just important to note that we going to be able to further our success later on by implementing a more competitive environment in our lower level teams as well Thank you Aren they amazing Unbelievable Thank you guys all for being here tonight. You guys are awesome.

Does anybody else have any questions or comments? Go ahead, Jason. One last thing. I just want to make sure I'm clear about I do support what you're doing.

And I personally want to see us become more competitive. I coach. I coach. I'm just being silly, but in all seriousness, I do coach at the rec.

And there are some talented athletes that I've come across. And I'm always afraid that those kids will end up leaving and going to another school. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. The amount of hours you put into anything is remarkable.

So thank you for all of that. And then students, we are so proud of you. You guys are phenomenal today, and you always are. We love cheering you guys on.

That's for sure. Atana, go ahead. Yeah, I think after hearing what all my classmates had to say, I do agree that we should go forward with this. But I think it's a balance for those five teams.

Like we mentioned earlier, having some sort of opportunity for them to practice, Evaluation. We are working towards something big and it will be even more rewarding if we make the team which I think will just improve our competitiveness even more. Thank you. As I said to Joe earlier, we will absolutely continue to monitor this, look at the data, look at the participation rates, look at our success rate.

Are we making the right decision? You know, I will say that through my research, there's a school in Hudson, Massachusetts, Hudson High School, actually. It's very similar to this school. Yeah, exactly.

Spelled with H-U-D, but very similar to this school. And they had a full cut policy. They changed and went to a no cut policy and within one year went back to a cut policy. I reached out to that athletic director five, six times and never heard back because I wanted to hear the why.

There's got to be one. But, yeah, it might look different here. Back to what I mentioned, we've just got to continue to monitor and listen to the voices in the room. So thank you all so much.

Thank you, Steve. And to Sean and Dan. Wait, would this go into effect next year? I'm sorry.

Yes, that would be the plan. You know, I'll get together with similar groups of people and look at what the communication will look like, the timing of when it should go out. And then prior to each season, each coach can address how this philosophy will impact their program well in advance. So students are aware and families are aware of the expectations.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we are going to move on to a place for everyone and head and heart. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

And tonight, Dr. Poole and I are here to give you a strategic plan goal three update. Just to reground us all in the different goals of our strategic plan, tonight we are going to be sharing some information related to goal number three, which is we will be dedicated to the personal growth of our learners in their social, emotional, and physical well-being. So just to kind of you know jump in and you know as a district you know from the top on down how we you know work to try to accomplish this goal starting with our professional learning and what our focus is really being rooted in individualized learning And really understanding that you know in order to not only reach our kids on a social emotional level and also continue to work to be an equitable district the work is tied together I found a quote at the top that kind of sums that up in terms of the overall context in which students develop and the relationships they build over time, contextual factors such as societal realities, individual realities, cultural background, all influence social, emotional, and academic development.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I'm in kind of three, through those three perspectives.

So the first one I wanted to talk about was students' mental health. And I would say there were three major ideas that came up in the discussions, which were related to friends, family, and school and school activities. And I would best describe these themes as really being a two-sided coin. On one side of the coin, you know, all three of these things were really at the center of students' abilities to feel anchored and cared for in this teaching and learning community.

Being with friends, being with family, and participating in school activities and school classes really was a source of joy and really makes a lot of our students smile. And on the other side of that was that these three things are also an overwhelming sense of the source of what I would describe as, am I enough? Particularly when students are stressed, friends, spending time with family, participating in school activities is a great way for them to feel connected and centered. And on the flip side, there was a lot of talk about, am I doing well enough in my classes to have a good future?

Am I doing enough for my parents' expectations? And am I enough compared to my friends and what my friends are doing? From the student perspective, you know, there was a lot of discussion around feeling overwhelmed with schoolwork. You know, talking about being enough, school grades, colleges, college applications, extracurriculars, and not being enough for my parents or not disappointing those who I care about.

And the parents' perspective also aligned to that. But they also added things about concerns about busy schedules of activities. And that combined with a lot of schoolwork would make their children stressed out. And I think one of the exit tickets that students left really summed this part up.

They said, we need to feel like we're prepared for the future without being stressed all the time that we aren't doing enough to achieve success. Another focus of our discussions was around academic learning and three big ideas that came out of those discussions with both parents and students was homework, grades, and also their experiences in their specialty classes. So with homework, there were concerns about the amount, both ends of the continuum of there not being enough but then also too much. Students also talked a lot about the grade weighting at the secondary level.

And homework was also most frequently identified as a source of stress by students and parents. The specialty classes often came up as a source of joy, particularly the arts such as band, acting sculpture were named multiple times And students mentioned them because they provided a creative outlet All students described it as being in those classes was a different way to think And at times that different thinking made them feel more relaxed and helped build their self One student shared, band really makes me feel good about myself. The core classes also did come up in the discussions, particularly when activities or assignments felt much more relevant to where they are in their lives. Thank you.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. Kind of what we would think of as more traditional topics related to healthy choices, drinking, vaping, smoking, and drug use. So what I found very interesting was that were some of the conversations around cell phone and Internet usage.

Parents expressed the challenges of managing this as their children got older. And that they mentioned that it's much easier to have screen time controls when your students are younger. But once they get older into middle school and high school, it's hard to balance the new freedoms, but also the challenges of kind of that unfettered access to the Internet and to social media platforms. On the other hand, students said that they felt like social media usage was actually a source of relaxation or entertainment and not really a source of stress.

And depending on the age group, because we had both middle school and high school students involved, they perceived cell phone and Internet usage at times didn't actually support healthy friendships. So I think that speaks a lot to how our students are using cell phones and Internet to communicate with each other. When it came to drinking, vaping, smoking and drugs, most parents who participated felt like they have open conversations with their children about these topics. But they also worry about if their children will make those healthy choices in their absence.

And then students mentioned that usage of those things isn't necessarily associated with peer pressure, but rather as a coping strategy for dealing with stress. Time management and sleep also popped up as a theme. Some students admitted that they're not getting enough sleep. And when asked about, like, you know, what's the function of that, some of them said that the recreational scrolling on a cell phone often gets in the way of going to bed at a reasonable time and that that time could have actually been used to complete some schoolwork instead or actually going to sleep at a reasonable time.

Another thing that popped up was physical activity. Both parents and students acknowledge that physical activity is a healthy choice for dealing with stress and for lifelong wellness. And then friendships also came up around healthy choices that students feel good when they feel like they belong among their friend group, which we know is also affirmed by social emotional learning data, that our students are wanting to feel included. And one of the challenges is that they want to feel included with their friends, even when they know their friends may not always be making the most healthy choice in certain situations.

So in terms of next steps based on this information, and some of these things have already been set off in motion, is really thinking more strategically about stress management strategies. How can we be more intentional about those things? How can we be more planful when we know there are times of the year where our students are experiencing more stress? One example I can give you is that both secondary schools have already started thinking about what are some things they can do to help address stress levels as we go into state testing season, As we move into times of EOCs And standardized exams.

I will say that you can expect to see some more visits from the therapy dogs, from duo dogs in a variety of our buildings in the next two months. And I think we can also start thinking at the system level on how we might augment or expand our reach with outside providers and providing more targeted coping skill development and support for our students who may need it the most and being really thoughtful about what time of year we're offering those. I would also say in terms of next steps is it's helped again illuminate and clarify what our areas of focus and priorities might be as it relates to sense of belonging, self-efficacy, self-management, especially in SEL instruction and the intentionality in those areas. Obviously, we have all the information that our panorama data is telling us, but also our profile of a graduate committee has been working on identifying social-emotional learning competencies for K-5.

They've met about five times, and they've also been really looking closely and developing what those different competencies look like at a variety of age and key stages at the elementary level. We've also started learning more about the current state of social-emotional learning instruction at the secondary level. We had several secondary folks join us at the last K-5 Profile of the Graduate Committee meeting, and that involved looking at the CASEL standards and how we're currently addressing them and where there might be some opportunities to grow. I'd also add that as a result of some of this information, we've been able to put together several more proposals for summer learning opportunities for our employees that are really centered on mental health and supporting youth mental health.

A couple other things I think that we need to continue to think about, especially as we kind of come out of a more restrictive COVID risk mitigation plan or approach from the last two years, is really being intentional about how we're fostering friendships and connections, especially at those transitions from fifth to sixth grade and eighth to ninth grade, and just thinking about the unique needs of some of our different cohorts. So, for example, we have a couple grade levels that have never eaten lunch together in the cafeteria. So how do we plan for that and teach into that in the coming year? And lastly, I think that there are a lot of opportunities based on the feedback that we got around parent education.

Some of you may have joined us last night. We partnered with the All in Clayton Coalition to offer a webinar on substance use trends among youth. And on April 25th, whatever that last Monday is, we're offering another webinar with a panel of experts to talk about healthy cell phone usage and developmentally what's appropriate and what we can expect and the impacts on its usage on young people. So there are a lot of opportunities for us to step into to help support our parents in a lot of these areas as well.

In terms of up next, we're looking at changes in our panorama data. We're going to be closing that data collection out at the end of the month, looking at how our buildings are making progress toward their SEL goals that were stated in their school improvement plans. And we also just wrapped up our survey collection of the Missouri Student Survey, which looks at how students are engaging with substance uses and just really like healthy choice patterns is I think the best way I can describe it. And we should be getting that data back in June as well.

So that will be a really helpful way for us to understand what direction we can go in some of these initiatives. And then just to kind of give a brief equity update in terms of where our work is, you know, within the Department of Equity and Inclusion. One thing we just did, which I'm super, super, super excited about, we just hired an equity and inclusion coordinator Spervantage, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Then to just kind of do a quick recap of Black History Month and the programming that we did at each level.

From elementary on up to the high school level, we had some awesome programming in terms of the great things that the elementary schools were able to do on a day-to-day basis within their classrooms and really getting into the everyday programming of the curriculum within each building. And then the phenomenal black history program that the middle school and high school put on together which Dr Tarita Rimes and Dr Sheila Powell Walker were the leaders of that and they did a phenomenal job with that program And then in terms of future programming with Black History Month, especially seeing how things went this year at the elementary school, this summer a cohort of elementary teachers are meeting to create a curriculum that we have on Black History Month so that it's something that we can continue to evolve and it can be an everyday part of our programming and our curriculum moving forward. And then in May, we have Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, and we're looking at trying to do some similar programming like we did during Black History Month with that. Dr.

Patel and I, prior to spring break, met with a group of, you know, a group of our Asian students to kind of discuss what are some ways we can get better, you know, in serving their needs, not only from a curricular level, but also from a programming level as well. So we came up with some awesome ideas in terms of, you know, specific events, kind of like we did during Black History Month with, you know, like the Lifebooks read we had and some of the other events. So really, you know, stay tuned for the program and we have coming with that as well. On April 20th, we have our third and final community engagement forum, which will follow, you know, pretty much the same structure, you know, that the other two did that Dr.

Weins led with an equity focus, focusing on goal one. Today, I actually met with the equity committee as well to really, you know, do some fine tuning on what that program will look like. We'll look at the following categories in terms of content and curriculum, access, interventions, and support services for students. Also, professional learning and if it's having an impact on student achievement.

And really looking at those and having some conversations and activities and trying to attract a wide range of parents to make sure that we're on the right track and we're doing the right thing from that. And then using that event to really as a launching pad to further our programming with, you know, different affinity groups within parents and within students as well. So really using that as a pad to really bring in the community and to the work of equity that we're doing within the district. Also, before spring break, I had an opportunity to meet with some of our leaders in the Educational Foundation in terms of expanding our alumni programming to have a more diverse collection of alumni taking part in the activities and being more active in the Education Foundation.

So going into the next school year, really looking at, you know, some events to really grow that population so that, you know, when alumni are coming back to the district that we have, you know, just a diverse population coming back as we had when they were in school. And then I recently met with Dr. Patel in terms of creating a bias incident reporting tool so that, you know, one thing that we've talked about often, especially with developing the strategic plan, was how are we going to track bias related incidents and what are we doing exactly to combat against those? So by creating a bias incident reporting tool, it gives us an opportunity to get the necessary data that we need in order to see, you know, how big of a problem is, you know, bias incidents within our district and how are we putting programming and systems in place in order to combat against those.

That is it. Awesome. Does anybody, go ahead, Joe. It's my last meeting, you know, I got to.

Thank you. So just two things real quick. One, just compliments to you both, Cameron and Robin. You guys are doing a great job.

Thank you. I think this is awesome. And then just a wondering, I heard you say that you're thinking about K-5, social emotional learning competencies or learning standards or whatever. I would just encourage us to look at 6-12 too because at least what I heard in some of the, you know, was some real challenges from the middle school and the high school in particular.

So that's all I would say. And there's many districts that are doing that too. Yes, and that is absolutely kind of in our roadmap. But we decided to start with K-5 so that way we would have a better idea of like where to build on.

So it's in a different phase, but yes, absolutely on the radar. Well, good job. Thank you. Go ahead, Stacy.

Okay, great job. And I was really, I'm really happy to see kind of from those community engagement forum events kind of all that anecdotal data summarized together because, first of all, I thought those events were great. And I it was of course great to be back in person with the community after not doing so for so long I would love to see us in the future do it with younger kids as well And I actually hope we can find reason to do those kind of things every year with parents and students, because I think those informal conversations are so important and everybody probably opens up more, you know, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? Joe, last comments? Nothing?

Okay. Steve? No comment on this other than a thank you. Okay.

Great job to both of you. We appreciate it. And it's so important. I'm so happy to see us really focusing on social emotional health.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, we are now going to Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Sit your ass down. We are going to our study item, which is our first reading of Policy AC. All right, good evening. So we are here with Policy AC, which is Prohibition Against Illegal Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation.

The U.S. Department of Education issued regulations around sexual harassment under Title IX in August of 2020. So the new rule requires special procedures for allegations, especially for severe forms of sexual harassment or assault. The update to Policy AC is the last piece of implementing compliance with the new federal rule.

The update changes to AC are to direct all sexual harassment reports to the Title IX coordinator named under Policy ACA for intake screening. The Title IX coordinator will be trained, is trained, to classify the cases so that when a report does not trigger ACA, it can be returned to the AC process to be handled promptly. So essentially, the most important difference is that the Title IX rules require the ACA process, which is extensive, affords more procedural protections than process and AC. All of those have to be finished before any discipline is imposed for the behavior that counts as ACA covered sexual harassment.

So essentially it's vital that the Title IX coordinator has the chance to screen all the sexual harassment reports that come in to catch those that are now required to be handled under Title IX sexual harassment procedure that's included in policy ACA. Okay. This was a really long one. And it was, so I guess this is new.

And it's kind of It's policy AC with revisions to it? Yeah. And the revisions were made as a result of, I guess, some new policies from the Department of Education, right? Yeah, it's from the 2020 when we implemented ACA under Title IX.

Yeah. Basically, AC was sexual harassment. ACA is the Title IX sexual harassment. So any sexual harassment claims now have to go initially to the person who is in charge of ACA to determine if they are under Title IX or if they are an ACA policy violation, possible policy violation.

Because the investigative procedures are different if it's AC versus ACA. Yeah, it's interesting because under the policy ACA, I guess you can't take any disciplinary action until the investigation has been thoroughly played out. Correct. But the offense would be worse under ACA.

Correct. Whereas under Policy AC, you could discipline immediately for a lesser offense. So in a case where, I mean, I know it's just the law. There's nothing we can do about it, but I just, it was interesting.

Does anybody, go ahead, Jason. Yeah, I mean, I think this is, we went through this last year. I think I was pretty tormented by it then, untormented by it now. And reading it again, it's kind of rehashed old wounds.

And so, yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, it's just, I'm sorry, I have to take this off. I can't really hear myself think. But, yeah, I just find it, this is a very complicated thing to read. I think it's very tough for the victim.

It just puts him in a worse situation. It would make somebody say, hey, I don't even feel like making the complaint because this is just too much for me to go through. So I feel like, honestly, when we had an opportunity, I'm not even sure if we really did, but when it was fresh, I think we should have made more noise about it and put more push back just to let people know that this is ridiculous. So I don't have much to say about it other than, yeah.

Yes, this was cumbersome. But I have a few questions. So on the bottom of page one, it says that we can't use the terms gender identity or sexual orientation unless we've discussed it with our attorney. And I'm just wondering if we have discussed it with our attorney or if you think we should discuss it with our attorney to include those terms in our version of the policy.

Yeah, we have not discussed that with our attorney. When we had talked about this previously, they were talking about the word sex being more inclusive under court, and that's still kind of ongoing, so they were saying that it could just be included under that definition. Right, and it did say that, but because it mentioned that, I was just curious if we had taken them up on the offer. We have not, but I can certainly look into it if that's what the board would like to do.

I mean, it is pretty clear that the word sex includes that, so I'm fine not. I was just, because it mentioned it, I was just curious if you had. And now I'm trying to remember what page this is on. I think there's a part, I think it's page five.

Hold on, let me look. No, it's not page five. Page six. Actually, I think this is in page six and seven.

Page six were the definitions in discrimination. So part of where it says, display of written material, pictures, or electronic images, et cetera, et cetera. Do we take that electronic images, for instance, to mean like social media posts? Is that what that would mean?

It's on page six under the definition discrimination. Yeah. Yeah, I think we've all, I mean, it kind of almost fits multiple things because it's also written material depending on the situation. But yeah, the electronic images would, that could be photographs, that could be things that, and again, the piece around social media is also, We're always looking for the nexus of the intersection to the educational environment and to the harassment that happened is gonna be another important component of that Yeah and it yeah I think it on page 7 too when it talks about communications But I was just I guess I just wanted to make sure when we say electronic images that that could include social media, whether it was faculty, student, student to student or whatever, because it also mentions like on page 11 something about it being on or off property, And I just started thinking about, I don't know if that includes, those might be two separate things.

But I guess, first of all, I just wanted to make sure that because social media is so prevalent and that is where so many of these cases probably occur, especially student to student these days, that we could include social media in what we're calling electronic images. Okay. Yes. And then when it mentions, I guess, so on page 11, it says something, and I'll try to find where, about it occurring on or off property, which I guess would mean it doesn't have to be on district property.

That's correct. Okay. I don't even remember where it was. I just made a note and I can hardly read it.

Okay. And... Okay, sorry, I have one more question, and it's back on page five. Sorry, I forgot this before.

Let me find where it was. It says something about not being disciplined for speech. Yeah, does that mean, they're talking about free speech, I guess, under the law, First Amendment rights. Okay, okay, yeah, okay, that's it, thank you.

Okay, so it's a question for you guys and probably for Amy because it's a legal question. I share Jason's frustration with the fact that this is very unwieldy And I think it actually exacerbates some of the issues that we talked about the last time this came up, but it's the law. So one of the things, though, I noticed that we changed some of the language where we struck out on page three, prohibited and replaced it with illegal discrimination. So you could see that in the under the retaliatory action subsection.

Amy, do you see that? Yeah, they took out the word. Yeah, but then when you go to page six, here it is in six, it says behaviors that could constitute illegal harassment. So we don't define what illegal harassment is.

We just say it could constitute this. Should there be somewhere here where we define what illegal harassment is since we've struck out the word earlier and we've struck out prohibited Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Is that what you're referring to? Yes, it's on page six, actually, under harassment.

Behaviors that could constitute illegal harassment include but are not limited to. But it doesn't say that it is illegal harassment. So if you're, you know, if we as board members or administrators or anybody in the district is pulling out this policy because there's been a complaint that's made and they're trying to determine, did illegal harassment really occur? Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Right. So if you know, if you're, if we are required to go to this policy in these instances, how would you know what to apply is my question And I leave that for others that are smarter than me to answer Illegal harassment. Right. So then why did we strike prohibited and replace it with the word illegal?

Well, we didn't do it. It was the... It must be you. Oh.

And they did that in order to comply with some new regulations by the U.S. Department of Education. Okay. So I don't...

It wasn't... We didn't make these changes. And we have to either decide to accept or not accept the changes? Yeah, we have to vote on whether we're going to...

Can we accept some and not accept others? I think that that would be maybe one of those nuanced areas that you, you know, as a lawyer or a school external lawyers could look through, because it just, it's very confusing. Yeah, and we can consult with the district council to get a little bit more background information of that particular sentence. Based on what they have listed later, I'm wondering if it has their, well, I don't want to say anything accurate, but I have a wondering if maybe it's related to protected classes as what constitutes illegal because a lot of these are protected classes.

I'm not, I can't. I don't, this is not my area. Yeah. So we can, we can contact District Council about that.

One question that, you know, it talks a lot about reporting immediately in there. If there's a report of an allegation, it needs to be reported immediately. And they emphasize that several times. So my question, though, is if I don't do it immediately, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Student told the teacher. And we did not take any action on it. I think both ways. So let's just say a student, there was an issue and didn't say anything for a while and then finally said something.

We would still, yeah, it would still immediately. And if a teacher or a faculty member saw something and didn't say anything until later, what happens there? Is there an expiration on there? Is there a problem?

Will it still be? That would be problematic, but we would still look into it. And then they would actually be in violation of, I mean, we would talk to them about, this is the requirement that you need to report it immediately. And then there's an annual training that they have to go through for compliance training that they have to sign off that they understand the policy.

What if the student, for example, told the adult or the teacher not to say anything? They're not comfortable. Doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Oh, no. It's just a study item. Okay.

So we are going to move on to the Safe Return to Learn plan, Which is an action item. So we do get to vote on this, Steve. Thank you. Good evening.

My name is Chris Settle. Happy to be here with Heather Christman, our nurse slash health services coordinator. I have had the privilege. It's weird to use the word privilege in the same sentence with pandemic.

But the privilege of being able to have Heather as a as a partner and work with her for the last two years on all of this. And she has been just a steady guiding force with all the decisions and everything that we've had to make. And I don't think gets recognized enough for the amazing work that she's done over the last 24 months. I just want to lead by saying that, you know, I was going to say that, obviously.

But we're here to talk a little bit about the transition starting on Monday that the district is making to a mask recommended environment. And we're going to kind of go through a brief presentation for you. The way Heather and I have it worked out, she asked me to kind of do the play-by-play of the presentation. She's going to provide the color commentary and the fill-in for that.

So when we think about the work that we've been doing in the last 24 months, navigating through the pandemic, you know, we've really had two really important goals in mind. One, to keep students learning in person for as long and as often as possible, I'm going to take a few minutes to say thank you to all the staff that's been working with us today. We've had a lot of support and the opportunity to make decisions based on data, based on the science that we know about it, and based on local and internal trends. We've had guidance from a number of groups as I kind of opened with.

Heather's guidance has been just paramount throughout this process. But we've also worked with a lot of the national public health partners that everybody's familiar with. The CDC, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, St. Louis County Health.

Dr. Patel has been involved in a superintendent's working group. We've had access to medical professionals that other districts have put together in groups. We've had access to our own medical professionals and all of those advisors throughout this whole process.

Have really worked to help us put together a set of mitigation procedures that have really ebbed and flowed over the last two years. And they've changed when we've needed to change. And they've changed because we want to keep that goal of students learning in person and keeping schools safe and healthy. And keeping our schools to be safe and healthy environments.

And because of that ebb and flow and because we watched that data, we've kind of gotten to a point right now where when we look at the data, it supports our transition to a mask recommended environment. Anything that you want to add to that? I would say to add to the other people that I've been working with, the nurse coordinators have been getting together. It was in the beginning of the pandemic.

It was weekly. So every Monday we all sat together. It was really great to like talk to Parkway or Ladue or anyone to be like, what are you doing? How is this working?

Oh, obviously that's not working for us. Well, let's try this. So that's been really great. And just to know that like we weren't in this, you know, like we weren't alone.

So like I will say it's been really a fantastic thing. And now it's gone from the beginning of this year. It went down to every other week and now it's going to be once a month, which it's almost like losing for me. President, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

But I still have a lot of support from a lot of our parents here in the district and then some colleagues still at Children's Hospital. So when we talk about data being kind of an important driver for our decision makers, we want to kind of look at our current reality and where things are here in the district. So these are updated numbers as of today. So we're currently tracking three positive cases in the district, one student, one staff.

We typically would see that number be just if I think about back over the course of these 24 months of the pandemic, an average is around one or less. There's usually a zero in front of that decimal point for a lot of the times that we've been tracking and looking at this. Put that in perspective. So when we had that big surge from from Omicron back in January, the internal positivity rate that we were tracking was like 4.1%, 4.15%.

So that shows you how that kind of moves up and down. We also look at this, this this data that we have access to around St. Louis County that shows the current positivity rate. Actually, this this data was pulled yesterday.

So yesterday's positivity rate in St. Louis County is running about 3.1%. Put that in perspective. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, a pretty significantly high vaccinated percentage of students and staff within our schools. So I can also share too. I, um, I worked at Children's for 16 years and then I've been here now six years.

So I have, you know, I can talk to people that I now know in the city or I now know in the county in different districts. Um, would you, the nurse over there, that's the coordinator. I've known her probably 20 years. I worked with her at Children's previously.

So it's really nice to be able to just authentically talk to them, too, about their numbers and their percentage rates. And when I talked to the county and Amanda, who doesn't work in this department anymore, but when she was, I'd be like she asked me stuff about our percentage rates of vaccination. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

And it's mostly because they're thanked when they're here. And the staff, like the nursing staff, like we help. It's not like we're just here as ornaments. So and that was the biggest thing I gave to her.

I'm like being able to offer them in our building is what was a big take home. One last little piece of data to put this in perspective. So when you look at the state of Missouri and you look at the vaccinated percentage, The number of children between the ages of 5 and 17 who have completed their vaccination for the state of Missouri, it's 29 percent. So that kind of puts it in perspective to where our numbers are for that.

So Monday, April 4th, we are scheduled to move to a mask recommended environment. So when we talk about it being mask recommended, what does that mean? We've communicated a couple times with our parents already. We have additional communication planned to come out on Friday of this week.

But we wanted to do that, keeping with the fact that we have really monitored data and trends and stuck with trying to see what is happening, especially in our district, but also in the area around it. We knew we would need to have some thresholds or we would need to have kind of a guidance We had a lot of opportunities to move back to mask recommended and working with Heather and looking at what other school districts who had transitioned to a lot of whom had transitioned to mask recommended or mask optional environment long before we did So we had we had opportunities for some some great learning there We work to set a threshold of 1.5 percent for each of our buildings. So what that means is that any time we have more than 1.5 percent of that building's population of students and staff, that building will test positive for three consecutive days. So it's not, we're trying to give a little grace and not just kind of be sending everybody back and forth for a little one-day blip.

But if they test positive, if they have a positivity rate that exceeds that for three consecutive days, that building will transition back to universal masking or masks required for a period of two weeks. And do you want to talk a little bit more about what we've seen with that 1.5% in other districts? So, yeah, I can. As a matter of fact, I talked to Anne Bode with Lizzie Monday, Tuesday, and they had the same spring break we did, and they have six cases right now.

I also, we looked at MICDS, and they had spring break the week before us. They have one. They have one case. Parkway, much bigger district.

They have five positive staff and five positive students. So I will be honest, when people asked me like why we hadn't, I was like, I want to see what's going to happen in your district first. I mean, I'll be honest. I totally like said that.

And I reached out to Ann this week, too. So she offered any help that we needed if I had any more questions about it. We also, the testing. So, like, we are kind of partnered with this, like, trial thing that we're trying to figure out with.

And we're working with Webster and Ledoux. So it's the three of us. And then we offer testing four days a week. So if I, so in the search, we get asked daily, where should I go?

Where should I go? So we'd be constantly, like, recommending places. And then somebody would be like, that's terrible. Okay, I won't send anybody there ever again.

So here on Tuesdays for two hours, we offer testing here, and anybody from Webster, anybody from Ladue can come get tested. And same vice versa. We can go to Ladue or Webster to get it done. So, like, there is most of the times are 9 to 11, but they do have an offer at a time that's like 2 to 4.

It's an off time. We've hosted that for the week before spring break and then just this past week. We have been purposeful in not necessarily sharing it out because Heather wanted to work out the kinks of actually hosting it here to make sure we had it in the right location and that we had it moving, but then we'll be pushing that communication out to our families and our staff moving forward as well. Just important asterisks on the whole moving to mask recommended is that, you know, the title of that slide is that we're moving to mask recommended for K-12.

So we will still stay with universal masking for all of our pre-K programs, our pre-K building, which is the family center. And then also we'll be requiring students to wear masks when they return from quarantine. So right now under the current quarantine guidelines or exclusion guidance, they're allowed to return to school after five days and then they must remain masked for, you know, the duration of their 10 day quarantine period. This just shows you really quickly what 1.5% in terms of a positivity threshold looks like at each of our schools.

We have the Famous Center up there, obviously, with the antisticking that hopefully when our pre-five-year-old population is eligible to be vaccinated, that we'll be able to move them to this type of program as well. But that kind of gives you an idea of how we'll be monitoring that on a daily basis. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. That's pretty amazing.

So as we move forward to finish out the school year, obviously we covered the fact that we're going to keep this masking in place for pre-K students and staff. We are going to allow them to start taking mask breaks and removing their mask when they're playing outdoors. That was something that we worked with Debbie Riley very closely with We going to continue to contact Trace and do everything that we have been doing So if you have any concerned parents that ask you about that about that you know that that doesn go away We're still going to be vigilant about any exposures or anything that we have in our schools. We're maintaining our vaccination or weekly testing program for staff.

You know, still requiring visitors, vendors and volunteers who are having contact with students to either show proof of vaccination Spervantage, and of course, we're going to continue working with the same group of advisors that we've had all along and monitoring what's going on with COVID in our area. So if we do need to pivot again, we're able to do that as quickly as possible. In fact, Heather was having a conversation about that just today. I talked to ID, Infectious Disease at Children's today, actually, for 20 minutes, just to be like, okay, I'm going to the board tonight.

This is the question that I feel like that I'll have, and it's like, with the new variant just on our threshold, like, is it still a good idea? And the answer was yes, but we still have to sit and monitor. We don't know exactly what's going to happen. We just going to have to like monitor the situation.

Thank you. Anything else? I don't think so. And that's all we've got.

Okay. Thank you. Let's let Joe go first. So I recognize it's a balance.

It's very, very difficult, and I recognize that we have literally the Board has gotten, you speak about infectious disease, Thank you. I just want to say I don't support it, right? And so I'm going to vote against it. And that pains me, but I want to at least tell you why that I will.

And it's really about students, about staff, and about trends. You know, our vaccination rate is great, but it's not so great for everybody, right? So when you look at our free and reduced lunch students and we look at our black students, it's almost 30% less. And I think so that, you know, when we talk about a place for everyone, that concerns me.

I just want to say that. And that's not even talking about folks that are immunocompromised. Staff, actually that same person who is the co-director at Wash U, talked about, we've asked our staff, our teachers, right, what is the hardest job to do right now? Frontline health workers and probably teachers, right?

And I just, you know, I've had children in the district for 20 years, so anecdotally, you know, I know lots of staff. I suspect that our staff, maybe not a formal survey, but our staff are like other staff, other teachers. They would prefer masks. And then trends.

I do think, I hear what they're saying, but we do have to monitor that. The new Omicron variant is now 54% of all the cases in the country. And so I feel bad about it. I don't want to undo it, but I just want I'm not going to say that.

I still support you. I think you're awesome. But I got to vote no. So that's what I'll say.

Okay. Steve, go ahead. So I only have really one question. 90% vaccinated.

How do we even know what the positivity rate is? Certainly for a lot of kids and high schoolers, data says that it would be like a cold or something. So we're basically expecting parents to, if the kid's feeling a little under the weather, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried High percentage vaccinated But that means that we may not know We could be at 3 and not know it That would be my concern I mean, yeah, because there's definitely the asymptomatic cases.

And I will be honest, how many times I've been exposed? More than we can count, right? Because like, let's be honest, they're in my office, right? Like, if they're sick, they're, I'm there.

I'm with them. And I will tell you, my mom laughs at me. Because I have such a stock of tests underneath my counter, it's kind of ridiculous. My kids sneeze or look the wrong way, I'm testing them.

And I will be 100% transparent. I hear my husband had it in December. I stuck him in the basement. And I tested myself and my kids every single day.

And could I have had it and it didn't pop positive? Maybe. Right? Maybe.

I also wonder, like when I look at some science and stuff is because I'm getting exposed every day or because I'm testing so many people, maybe I am getting my own immunity from that, but I'm not testing positive. And I have to be honest, that's kind of what I believe. And then I guess just a follow-up question. On an operational basis, so if a child is not feeling well, they come to the office, is your one, would you test them?

Or do you have to get the parents' permission to test them? We don't test the kids in the office, no. Not testing? No.

We send them home. Just like we would for like, hey, your kid has a fever today, and we send them home. And that wouldn't change. No.

First of all, thank you, Chris, for all your communication with this, and thank you, Heather, especially for all the work you've been doing the past couple years. You've been the right person at the right time for this job, so thank you very much. Thank you. I love the idea of the testing once a week here and especially love that it's in collaboration with other districts.

I think that's beneficial for a lot of reasons. I have two questions. One is when we look at those vaccination rates, I know that the official definition still of fully vaccinated is just the first two shots. Do you have any indication what percentage of our staff or students are boosted on top of that?

So students aren't really required to be boosted yet. So I, I I can't really give you a number on that. But staff, I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, it's pretty much just as high. And then like we offered a booster clinic.

Was it December? Yeah, like in December for staff. And I never say no. If you know me, I never say no.

If you call me and you're like, can my neighbor come? Of course, like, yes. And the fine print says yes, only like Clayton, no. One more person, then I'm going to keep the rest of us safe, right?

So that's my answer always. I have already gotten plans of next year, because in my opinion, from the beginning, I was like, this is going to be like the flu shot. We're going to all have to get this every year. So my plan is, yes, to offer it every year.

And if we have to offer multiple clinics, then of course that's, I mean, we've done nine so far. I will continue to do it. If anything, with working with other districts, the three of us have been like, we should utilize this to our benefit, right? So, like, there's things that we don't, and this is offhanded with COVID, but things that we don't qualify for because we don't have enough students for, like, the dental bus or for the vision.

But if we did it as a three-day district, we would have enough. So I will say doing the testing is actually just brought other open eyes to other. That's great. And my next question is, and this is because I've gotten this question from the community.

So I kind of want this to be a public question. And answer is, how did we arrive at the one point five threshold when it seems like every district kind of has different ones all the way up to like three and five percent? How did we land at one point five? I was, the ones that I most, there's like 12 of us that typically show up on a Monday to those leadership meetings.

And so for the most part, 1.5 was what most of us have kind of like come to. And so that's what I just brought to the district was like, you know. Any, any further comments or questions? I'll just throw in that I do support this.

And what I'm about to say is I know that it's just, there's not really a better answer right now, and I know everybody's using it. But I will say, I do support it. I think we're kidding ourselves if we think we're really going to have an accurate reading of if there's 1.5% or not. So, you know, as you continue to meet with your group, I would say, you know, I would encourage, you know, if something does emerge as like, oh, this might be a better metric, maybe we think about it.

But I do understand it's just so nuanced and difficult and it's just, you know, it is, you know, it is what it is. I would say just in general too, I would say that I'm more reserved with like, like just cautious, I guess is more the word. I'll like mention like, okay, so the nurse will tell me they have this positive and this positive. And even though they don't necessarily think that they are like connected, I push more for the side of let's just err on the side of it is instead.

So like, yes, we might have to quarantine this class for like, Poverty. And also agree, Joe, with some of your comments and your comments that there is no way to definitively measure objectively exactly what it is at any given time. What we have is best thinking, I think, is what you said, Amy, and we have snapshots in time. But I will say that everything that you guys have done has been consistent from the start.

And so that's appreciated because at least our baseline hasn't moved or we haven't moved the goalposts the entire time. Spervantage, and then the last one is the recommendation that you're making. I think that the recommendations that you're making are consistent with the latest thinking from the American Association of Pediatricians, which just recently changed their stance, like in the beginning of March, because even when the CDC changed their stance earlier, they were still cautious, and it's just within the last 30 days that they have now said, Spervantage, Poverty, and Poverty. Remember that the pandemic affects families in all kinds of different ways, right?

And what we can do as parents and board members and administrators and, you know, teachers is just kind of role model, like the empathy everybody has to have towards everybody else, because there's not going to be any decision which is going to be right for everybody. And the one thing that I am a little concerned about, and I'm not sure in which of the schools we should be most concerned about it is, is when we move to this, and maybe Aitana, you can give us your opinion, is what happens if there is, you know, bullying of kids who decide to wear a mask or not to wear a mask? Spervantage, and how, you know, what are we, what do we have in place or not have in place as a district to deal with that, assuming that there's enough votes for this to pass, where we do go to mass recommended. So what is the district's plan, assuming that we, you know, this goes through, to deal with that type of thing?

And I think Kimmy mentioned the fact that we have to have empathy, right? We have to be respectful of each other's decision making and all the communication that we've sent so far regarding the idea that we will be going mask recommended is that whole messaging, right? And we've been trying to be very proactive in that in terms of even the building principles in their messaging to their staff and their messaging to their communities are sending that idea. If it does happen, we would address it just like we would with any other bulletin.

Spervantage Bord of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Thank you Plants or other things or have you guys identified exactly what those circumstances are Is that a hypothetical that just out there I mean are there Yeah that at this point it just a hypothetical that out there just because we wanted to at least mention that there is that possibility if we do have a staff member that goes through the process to get ADA accommodations then we have to go you know we would have to take those steps to meet those accommodations Okay All right Yes, if they had got it through a 504 accommodation, it would. I just wanted to add one more thing. I do also support this, not because I think this pandemic is over, but I'm comfortable with everything you've recommended and where we're at with the numbers and our vaccination rates, etc. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I move that the Board of Education District of Clayton Board of Education approved a safe return to in-person learning continuity of services plan. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further questions or comments?

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so we've got most of us in favor and Joe opposed.

And we are now on to the academic calendar. I think we just need a motion. Should we do these separate motions, I guess? Separate?

Okay, first, I move that the Board of Education approve the 2022-2023 calendar. Second. Second. I'll second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. And does anybody have any questions or comments? Go ahead. I do.

Chris, I think you probably know what I'm going to ask. I'm just, I don't, I'm like, don't mean to micromanage the process. But I am just curious if you looked at other districts that moved their final exams to January to even out the semesters or talk to some of our semester course teachers like we talked about before. Only because I'm curious how that's been working since they moved that way when we moved the start date.

Sure. I mean, on a kind of on a higher level, we had we asked Dan to kind of explore that conversation with with his students and his staff. I mean, he can talk a little bit more deeply about it beyond. He did do a poll and ask, you know, what where students and staff were in terms of moving exams to after winter break.

Students were 10 to 1 with about half of the students in the high school voting in favor of keeping exams where they were. Staff was about 7 to 1 with probably about two-thirds to three-fourths of the staff voting, so kind of keeping them where they are. Okay, thank you for coming prepared for my question. You're welcome.

I appreciate it, thanks. Go ahead. Go ahead, Joe. I was just going to say I think that it's great that we're moving from early release days from 7 to 2.

That's been an issue for so long, so thank you. I think that's brilliant. Yeah, and I just, again, I have no interest in micromanaging the process either, and I know you guys took a lot of work to get here. The only thing that I noticed when comparing the 22-23 to the 23-24 calendar is, is that November 8th, which is a random Tuesday, really the right date?

Yeah, it's a federal election day. Okay, that makes sense because I saw it the following year as the first, which is right after Halloween, which I know a lot of parents in the parent surveys that come back with, so I didn't know if it was. No so and that makes sense Yeah so then you know when we when we make changes we kind of try to set up templated guidelines So moving forward then our plan will be in even years to have that day be on the Tuesday in November that election day And in odd years when there is no federal election, that day will move to November 1st. Okay.

And hopefully we have more years where we end by Memorial Day, which I know is not next year, but then it is the following year. No, it's not. Well, no, we're done in May. We're just not done by Memorial Day.

After Memorial Day. Oh, it is still after. It is still after. It's just May 31st.

Bummer. I thought that. Okay. We can vote on this one, I think.

Yeah. And what if they change school board elections to November? Will that change? I mean, you'll just.

Will that change it? I mean, because they're seriously considering it right now in the legislature. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, I think we have a couple of questions.

I'm going to ask you to come to your schools and vote to support them. It's great if they can run into happy kids and teachers along the way, too. So that always creates, that could create a potential challenge as well if we lose the availability of that April election date. Okay.

Yep. So all in favor? Aye. Okay.

Yep, so all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Okay, next one. I move that the Board of Education approve the 2023-2024 calendar. And moved and seconded. Questions or comments on this one?

I do have one question. So this one, I think it's because Good Friday is in March. March is like almost like every Friday. I mean, it just looks crazy.

So my question is, because we can't move Good Friday, have we been, I know when my kids were really young, we didn't get Good Friday off. Are we doing that now? Is it that hard? Do that many teachers want substitutes?

Is that our reason? And is it really that many that we really need that off? Because when I look at this year in March, I don't think we're going to get Good Friday off. I mean, and then April is a long month with no days off.

Yes, and we discussed that a lot with the committee. And when we look back at historical data, one of the reasons why we switched to starting to have that day off as it being an unpaid, typically it was an unpaid day, is because we cannot fill the substitute request. We have so many requests for personal holidays, personal religious holiday. We have even less subs now.

And we have even less subs now. So we felt it was in best interest to go ahead and maintain that Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. And we are on to our consent agenda. I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda for agenda items 8.02 through 8.04.

It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Motion passes. And on that, I want to thank the law firm of Curtis, Hines, Garrett, and O'Keefe for their generous donation to the Merrimack Library Fund in memory of Mr. Aubrey Yowett. So thank you very much.

We appreciate it. I just had one comment because he's a neighbor of mine. Oh, yeah. Aubrey was a unique...

Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried I think the whole Merrimack community really got to know him. Up until he was 103, the drop-off lane is on Central, in front of our house, and that's where his walk was for 70 years or something. So it's really... Yeah, it is.

Okay. I think our last thing, or one of our last things is the financials. I move that the Board of Education approve payment of current expenditures and investments for February 2022 as detailed below. I have a couple questions.

Okay. And I don't get to ask Mary Jo that many questions for that much longer. So Mary Jo, thanks for the recap. I actually really like the four-page summary that you put together on the financials.

So I noticed that in the financials, a lot of the puts and the takes tend to be federal reimbursements for coronavirus or staff salaries are lower because we're not running programs or not. When do we expect that those federal monies for the pandemic will no longer be available because that's going to have an impact on the budget long term? And then the offset of that is that as soon as the pandemic is over, I would expect our expenses and go up because you know, we are going to Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So I don't expect a lot of changes really due to the COVID funding. All right, thanks. That's helpful.

And so and then while Mary Jo is sitting there, I think everybody knows that we're losing Mary Jo to another district. And I just wanted to thank you publicly during this board meeting in case I'm sure we'll see you until you're gone. Spervantage, Propriety, and The Clayton District are really, I mean, we're going to have to have your number still on speed dial after you leave. So thank you for your service to the district.

Thank you. Okay. Where are we? Okay.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great.

Any opposed? Motion passes. And with that, we are at the public comment. So we have one public comment this evening.

And the comment is from Mr. Paul Helsher. As an employee of the district, I would like to take a moment to publicly thank Steve Singer for his contribution to the Clayton School District. Although I did not have his daughters in class, I first got to know Steve many years ago as the coach of his daughter's soccer team at CHS.

Over a period of about five years, with an earlier phase of visioning, social studies, the social studies curriculum reviews, and some budget cuts to summer school, I feel like I was in front of the Board of Education on a monthly basis. Steve was always prepared, read all the provided materials, and asked tough, thoughtful questions. When we reference the ways in which citizens can get involved with our local government in our high school civics class, we often provide the example of a local board of education. With his return to the board at this time, Steve embodies this characteristic of citizenship.

On behalf of myself and many members of the CHS faculty, Steve, thank you for your service to Clayton for many years. So nice. Very nice. And I echo that.

All right, great. We are on right now to the board communications. I know that there have been several meetings. Does anybody have any updates?

Okay, go ahead, Joe. Wow, such deference. That you've never experienced. No, never ever before.

So we are St. Louis Board PLC. I don't know if I shared this with you all. I don't think I did.

We're going to have another, hopefully in-person meeting on Saturday, June the 4th, 9 to noon. Most likely we'll be in U City. So more to come, but it'll be exciting because hopefully it'll be in person. So I just wanted to say that.

And while I have a mic, I just want to say thank you to all of you. Really awesome serving with each of you, and thank you, Nisha, and Itana, too. It has been a great six years, so thank you. Yeah, it's going to be sad without you, Joe.

I don know I expect to see you in the audience Each and every board meeting Yeah yeah yeah yeah I hope Chris tells me every meeting that he sees your name pop up on the list. Watching it from home. Okay, anybody else? I know that Gary had an SSD meeting and a Parks and Rec.

There was an equity and inclusion, equity meeting today. Did anything happen at that? Didn't go. Jason?

I didn't make it. No. Okay. Cameron?

We pretty much discussed it. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Go ahead, Stacey. I had a social emotional wellness committee meeting, and we heard from Chartwells, who told us they now have a food truck available for events for the districts they serve, which would be great for sporting events, other school events. And we had dinner catered by Chartwell's tonight. It was delicious, so I think that's great.

They recently completed a survey, and what they realized they needed the most improvement in from the survey results was variety in what they offer. Also, another update is that we hope to have elementary cafeterias totally back up and running next year, fingers crossed, with salad bars back available and more choices. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. The This year for ages 5 to 14, which is always a huge turnout for the community and great.

Early next fall, our staff will be able to get biometric screening, which is really exciting through the district. And at CHS, at the high school, the last week of May during final exams and at Y down during MAP testing we be having wellness weeks which Dr Wien also talked about with the therapy dogs again the duo dogs which is a crowd favorite The spring panorama survey will be given in the next few weeks to grades 3 through 12 And I also wanted to mention that the high school recently hosted Dance Marathon, which I don't have the number in front of me. I believe they raised over $40,000. It is a huge endeavor and is completely student run.

And I believe these kids work on this maybe almost a year to put together. So to raise that much money in a school and community as small as we are is a huge accomplishment. The money is raised for Riley's Children's, is it Riley's? For a children's hospital.

I'm sorry if I'm not remembering the name. But the kids plan it from start to finish. They get the sponsors, they get the donations, they get the They run the activities, and I just want to congratulate them on that, as I think it fits in with the social and emotional wellness as well. So kudos to them.

Terrific. Thank you. Yes. So there were a lot of us at the last CEF meeting.

Dr. Patel was there. Milena was there. Chris was there.

They spent a lot of the meeting talking about the Teacher Innovation Grant Selection, and I won't spoil the surprise, but they were very generous with the amount of money that they are allocating this year, and I'm sure that, you know, they always do something special to notify those teachers that have been awarded those grants, and I'm sure that's coming soon. Spervantage, Proprietary, and Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Thank you Yeah. Spervantage, P.A.C.T.E.R. Spervantage, P.A.C.T.E.R.

Okay, it's kind of sad. No. I don't have to call the motion. I know.

We got to vote for our last time. Yeah, that's true. Okay, I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

r THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF CLAYTON '---' #2 Mark Twain Circle Clayton, MO 63105 T: 314.854.6000 F: 314.854.6093 claytonschools.net Business Meeting of the School District of Clayton Board of Education March 30, 2022 Meeting Minutes Members Present: Ms. Amy Rubin - President Ms. Kim Hurst - Treasurer Ms. Stacy Siwak - Board Secretary Mr. Joe Miller - Director Mr. Steve Singer - Director Mr. Jason Wilson - Director Absent: Mr. Gary Pierson 1. Call to Order Dr. Nisha Patel - Superintendent Ms. Sandy Menchella - Executive Assistant to Superintendent/Board of Education Ms. Aitana Rosas Lin hard - Student Representative to the Board Information, Procedural: 1.01 Statement of Adequate Notice The Board of Education business meeting of the School District of Clayton was called to order at 7:00 p.m. and held in the administrative boardroom at 2 Mark Twain Circle, Clayton, MO 63105. Gary Pierson was absent for this meeting. 2. Recognizing Our Own Information: 2.01 School Social Worker Week - March 7-11 Dr. Robyn Wiens, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, recognized the social workers on U.S. National School Social Work Week. This week is marked every first full week of March to celebrate school social workers across the nation in appreciation for their work in helping students achieve academic success. Thank you to our social workers: Katie Burkard - Elementary and Family Center Dr. Sheila Powell-Walker - Secondary Abbie Gutmann - SSD Social Worker Katherine Ingersoll - Practicum Student Information: 2.02 School Board Recognition Week - March 6-12 Dr. Nisha Patel, the superintendent, recognized and thanked all members of the Board of Education for School Board Recognition Week. Board members are: Amy Rubin, Board Gary Pierson, Board Vice-President Kim Hurst, Board Treasurer Stacy Siwak, Board Secretary 3. Superintendent Communications Information: 3.01 Superintendent Communications Joe Miller, Board Director Steve Singer, Board Director Jason Wilson, Board Director Superintendent, Dr. Nisha Patel, provided an update to the community on our spring quarter, updates to the Safe Return to Learn Plan, and our accomplishments this year and work towards the Strategic Plan goals.

4. Student Representative to the Board Information: 4.01 Student Representative to the Board of Education - Update Board of Education Meeting March 30, 2022 Page 2 Student Representative to the Board, Aitana Rosas Linhard, updated the Board regarding teacher interactions with masks mandates, how much will COVID still dictates student life, the use of using outdoor spaces more, updates on the current activities such as plays, spring sports, Robotics, Mock Trial and Speech and Debate, 6th and 7th-grade camp, end of course exams and the upcoming prom. 5. Information Information: 5.01 Athletics/ Activities Dr. Dan Gutchewsky, Principal at Clayton High School, Steve Hutson, Athletic Director, and T'Shon Young, Athletics Coordinator, presented an update on the proposed changes to the sports program at the high school. Information: 5.02 A Place for Everyone/In Head and Heart Dr. Robyn Wiens, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services and Dr. Cameron Poole, Chief Equity Officer, presented an update on the district's Strategic Plan with a focus on Goal 3 "In Head and Heart". 6. Study Items Information, First Reading: 6.01 lst Reading - Policy AC - Prohibition Against Illegal Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation Dr. Tony Arnold, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, and Dr. Robyn Wiens, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, presented Policy AC - Prohibition Against Illegal Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation for a first reading and discussion. 7. Action Items Action: 7.01 Safe Return to Learn Plan Chris Tennill, Chief Communications Officer, and Heather Christman, District Nurse Coordinator, spoke about the transition to a mask-recommended environment. That the Board of Education approve the Safe Return to In-Person Learning/Continuity of Services Plan. Motion by Stacy Siwak, second by Steve Singer. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Steve Singer, Jason Wilson No: Joe Miller Action: 7.02 Academic Calendar 2022-2023 That the Board of Education approve the 2022-2023 calendar Motion by Stacy Siwak, second by Amy Rubin. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Joe Miller, Steve Singer, Jason Wilson

Board of Education Meeting March 30, 2022 Page 4 Dr. Cameron Poole, Chief Equity Officer, updated the board on the Equity meeting held discussing the upcoming Community Engagement meeting in April. 12. Adjournment Action, Procedural: 12.01 Adjournment That the Board of Education adjourn. Motion by Stacy Siwak, second by Joe Miller. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Joe Miller, Steve Singer, Jason Wilson The meeting was adjourned at 9:49 p.m. Amy Rubin, Board President Date: April 13, 2022 Stacy Siwak, BoaI Secretary