June 1, 2022

Board of Education · All meetings

Video & transcript

This is a transcript of the Clayton School District Board of Education meeting held June 1, 2022. Excerpts show opening items (Pledge of Allegiance), superintendent and student representative remarks about end-of-year activities and student leadership roles, public comments urging advocacy for gun-safety legislation, and budget mentions including a budget revision in the consent agenda and no changes to the 2022–23 budget presented previously. The board voted on a motion in favor (motion passed) and later moved to adjourn the business meeting and convene a board retreat.

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Full transcript

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Can you guys hear me? I don't think anybody can hear me. I can. Yes.

I'm not sure. We're live now, Amy. So OK, ready to go. OK, thanks, Chris.

Hi, everybody. Welcome. And the reason we are virtual tonight is because the admin building is under construction. So we will resume live next year.

This is our last board meeting. Let's go ahead and start by the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, for which it stands, one republic under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay.

Trying to pull up our schedule here. Okay, I think we are starting with superintendent communications. Yes, Chris, I didn't know, is Carter and Sophia, are they waiting for us? Yeah, they're in the waiting room now.

Would you like me to bring them in? That would be great. Okay. And Amy, I didn't know if you wanted to start.

Do you want me to start? Yeah, if you want to, yeah. Okay. I think we're waiting.

Hi, Carter, how are you? Good. How are you? Good, thanks.

Hi, Sophia. Hi. Hi. Thanks for being here tonight.

So I guess I'll start by just introducing Carter and Sophia. Sophia Carter is going to be our new board rep next year. We are very, very excited to have him. And Sophia will be the alternate next year.

And we are this summer going to be making some modifications to the program. So Sophia's role will be greatly expanded. I don't even know if we've had alternates in the past. So we are all very excited to have you both.

And your applications were wonderful. You guys both nailed it in your interviews. And thank you for applying and your willingness to do this with us. So it's going to be a fun year.

And you and if either one of you want to say anything, you are welcome. Yes, I sort of wanted to say hi to everyone. I'm really excited to work with you all this year. Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

We will try and make it painless for you. So I will turn it over to Dr. Patel to do her superintendent communications. Great.

Thank you, Amy. Chris, if you could pull up my update, that would be wonderful. So, you know, usually I have like past few weeks and months, we haven't had quite as much of the COVID update. But I do want to go ahead and touch base on it.

It is the end of the year. So when you look at our current data dashboard, when it comes to COVID, we are seeing just a small number of individuals who are getting more positive cases. So right now, if Chris, you can, there you go. We have five positive staff members, none that are in quarantine.

We do have 14 students who have reported testing positive and two of them are in quarantine as well. So you notice that we are at 0.62% in terms of total active positive cases in our district. And if you remember, we have the 1.5% threshold. And we have had to go back to masking at a few of our schools.

And right now, we have Merrimack that's going to be mask required for the next day. Spervantage, P.D., and the Family Center has always been mask required because they haven't had the ability to get vaccinations. We are working, I believe Heather actually has a vaccination clinic for booster shots coming up in June, and I spoke to her today and she said we already have over 300 individuals signed up for the boosters. So we going to continue this protocol all through summer school and all of our learning academies summer institutes that we have And then as we get closer to August we going to be revisiting all of this And you know what is that you know the questions have popped up like what is it going to look like in August And truthfully at this point there nothing that we going to commit to We going to continue just like we always have monitoring everything we doing We feel like we in a good place in terms of our masking thresholds That might be something we may increase as we get closer to August.

We're just going to have to wait and see. You know, one thing we've learned is not to make a quick decision right away. But the good thing is we have actually gone. Well, I don't know if I want to say that, but we have actually gone through every possible scenario that we probably could.

So we have definitely things that we are ready for, but you never know. There might be another surprise waiting for us. So we'll navigate that as we come and we'll communicate that out to the community as we get closer to August in terms of what we're going to be doing. Today is June 1st, so that marks the beginning and the start of Pride Month.

So I want to make sure that we take time and be sure to recognize and celebrate all of our LGBTQ members of our community. We are a district where we say a place for everyone and that does mean everyone. So I want to make sure that we acknowledge that for this month. Carter and Sophia, I'm not sure if you're still on here, but congratulations.

We had some several, several rounds of rigorous interviews. And, you know, you guys had amazing things to say. And you could you could hear the passion in your voice of wanting to do this because it is for students and to amplify student voice. So we're very excited to have both of you on there.

And on that same note, I do want to thank you, Aitana, for being our board rep for this year. I know that you worked with our district advisory council and you got the middle school and the elementary school district advisory councils up and running. So really appreciate you doing that. And I know you're not going anywhere.

So you'll be helping Carter and Sophia and everyone else. So thank you for that. It is the last week of school. So we've had lots of activities this week.

We've had all these promotions like fifth grade and eighth grade promotions happening. We've had, obviously, we had graduation last week. We're having field days at the different schools. Just like about 25 minutes ago, I had gone to the annual hyper-bowling activity that the district does that's amazing that actually one of the Clayton High School teachers spearheads.

And it's an annual tradition and they go to the bowling alleys and we have staff from every building that get together and celebrate. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you.

So just as Dr. Patel said, I also wanted to start off by acknowledging that today is June 1st, which means it's the start of Pride Month, so I wanted to say happy Pride Month. And then now I'm going to talk about some of the things that I've spent most of the year kind of covering, and then after that I'll talk about some of my goals for next year, just with the District Advisory Council and everything. So, thinking back to the past year, I'd say one of the main topics that I really try to explore is the students' thoughts on the grading system, or the new grading system, I should say.

And I would say from what I heard, we had a district advisory council meeting this morning, and it seems that a lot of students are still kind of on the fence about the system. They're just a little frustrated that the hard work that they're putting into homework or projects isn't as, you know, awarded as like tests, which is just especially frustrating for people that feel like they might not be as strong test takers as other students. And they also think that retakes are less efficient than they should be, at least this year. It seems like every teacher has kind of a different strategy for handling retakes.

And while some teachers are kind of doing like you have to turn in all your homework if you want to do a retake there some classes where that isn happening So there students who are are just going into the test or their first test as a kind of practice and maybe their second test after knowing exactly what they need to focus on But then a lot of them didn't say that test corrections were helpful because they usually weren't receiving full credit for multiple choice questions that they were correcting, but they were still gaining that understanding and they were still improving their grade. And then with food and school lunches, this was mainly an issue that we talked about more with Captain, as I've said before. But I would say the main thing there is with the whole chart ball prepaid, or I guess students that need to pay for their lunches, they felt like the variety wasn't as big as it used to be. So I think that's something a lot of people are looking forward to, is that hopefully with this return to paid lunches for new students, that there will be an increased variety.

Yeah, so then the mental health resources, I'd say that this is kind of similar to what it was at the beginning of the year, where at least I learn now that there are a lot more mental health resources than like the average Clayton student may know. It's just the visibility about them that's a little troublesome. So I think something that we're going to focus on next year is really trying to up that visibility. We talked about maybe incorporating like, you know, learning about these resources into maybe like middle school health classes or even the high school health classes.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I appreciate that this partnership with DoroDogs is continuing. It wasn't just a one-time thing. So next, looking forward, obviously we've selected our new student rep and our alternate.

I'm really excited about the team. I think they're going to work really well together as well as with the rest of new, very bright, intelligent students. And I think they're going to do a great job. With Advisory Council, we are looking to hopefully expand the group.

We're not sure exactly how we're going to expand yet. We wanted to be a stronger foundation. I know this year I kind of said a lot, like, because of COVID, it's been kind of hard to, you know, have a one-year, but I think for next year, like, I really personally want to stop using that as an excuse with, like, District Advisory Council thing. Things I think that we can have a kind of fresh start, like, it's going to be our fourth year with the student rep position, and I think we can really, like, get down to business, you know, get a lot of things going.

And so in order to do that, I want to have obviously a bigger social media presence and have more frequent meetings as well. Is my audio getting there? Yeah. Okay.

Lastly, I obviously need to say thank you. This has been a really great year, definitely very interesting. And I wanted to say a few specific things regarding my experience over the past year. I remember Adam Jaffe told me, I guess it was the end of my sophomore year, that I should try to apply for this position.

And I really thought that he was kind of crazy because I never thought that I had the kind of voice that could speak at a meeting like this or represent the student body. And now I'm still learning every day. I really want to just thank everyone who is here and who gave me this opportunity to come as far as I have. Even though I'm not going to be speaking in these buildings anymore, I want to continue to work on some of the things I mentioned in August, such as focusing on mental health and truly making those applies for everyone.

I think that I have unfinished business here, and I'm hoping to continue working in my last year in the Clayton School District. A lot this year has been truly incredible, and I could talk about it for a very long time. I wouldn't really feel like a true student of life if I didn't say this. I think this is really no one's fault, and I think it stems purely from the lack of communication.

Obviously, board problems can be a little bit confusing, which is why I'm glad that we're reinstating this soon. But I feel like only the rest of the DAC leadership team have felt a little bit frustrated lately. We felt, just personally, that our voice and the whole student rep process, or the whole decision process, has been diminished as compared to the past years. I obviously wasn't involved in this decision last year, or the ones before, I know I said this a lot before but from what I heard from past programs there a lot more board input this year as compared to the rest of the students We think that if this continues it going to turn a lot more into a board representative to the student body and not a student representative to the Board of Education Again I mean this with no disrespect at all Instead it just a passion for the student voice I know that technically a process that we followed this year aligned more with actual board policy, but we as students do not really feel that this current policy makes a true student representative.

Once again, I also know that this will be talked about at the beginning of next year, so I'm not really going to go into more detail now. However, I'm happy to expand on this if anyone has any questions or comments, and I would also love to hear your opinions, because obviously I only have my side of the story. But I am confident that with the help of Carter and Sophia, a great solution will be found. I think this issue can be put to rest.

And not necessarily as an issue, I'm kind of glad that it came up because it really, it gave us a feel that we needed to really brighten up the policy and make it one that can be used for many years. So all that being said, I would like to once again thank not only everyone on the board, but everyone who's working behind the scenes all the time to make these meetings and just to make the school district function. I do look forward to seeing the amazing work you all do next year, and it's really been inspiring to be able to represent the students at a table with such distinguished and hardworking individuals. So yeah, thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for all your hard work this year. We appreciate it. Let's see here.

Okay. So I think we need to move on to the adoption of the budget for 22-23. I move that the Board of Education approve the 2022-2023 budget as presented. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Are there any comments or questions? Yeah, real fast. I think I heard Atana ask a question.

Did anyone have, did you, Atana, Would your question clear? I don't think it, I thought I heard a question. Yeah, it was more of a, like, I guess an invitation for more opinions, because I do, obviously, I'm very passionate about, like, having a greater student voice, but, you know, being a student, I might have more of a biased opinion, so I'd also want to hear, you know, the perspectives of board members or maybe of the administration in this whole issue, because I do think, even though it'll be talked about more in the coming year, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I mean, I didn't realize that that was on the agenda tonight to discuss.

So does anybody have any questions or comments on the budget for 22-20-23 as presented? Well, I'll ask. I mean, Mary Jo, just really quickly, are there any changes between drafts? So, yes, as I mentioned at the presentation, I had some additional information that I received between when I posted the draft and when I presented the draft.

And so I made changes to 2021 and 2022 tax revenue and FIT taxes. And then I addressed analysis from current year to 22, 23. So there's no changes to the 22-23 budget that I presented last week. Was that last week?

But there are changes to the current year budget, and those were also presented in a budget revision that's in the consent agenda. Okay. Any other questions? Okay, great.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, motion passes. Okay, so I'm sorry, Itana, I'll jump back to you for a second. So we don't have on the agenda tonight to have the conversation around the student board rep. And so since that's not on the agenda, we're not able to publicly have that conversation because we haven't noticed everybody and given them an opportunity to come and listen.

However, I've already talked about this with Sandy, and I believe it is on the agenda for one of the very first meetings of next year for us to discuss it. And we also plan to work on some of the specifics of it this summer. Summer. Stacy and Jason Grow have graciously agreed to help iron out any kinks with the program and in conjunction with Dr.

Patel and myself. So there will be some changes next year. I can't tell you what they're going to be. Spervantage, the board rep is a student that is selected by the board.

I don't know how it's happened in the past or for the past few years with COVID or what was told to you, but it is a representative that will be chosen by the board each year. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I think it's on the agenda for one of the first meetings of next year. Yeah, thank you.

We do really appreciate that. We're going to move to this. Yeah, I just wanted to put that out there before my last, I guess, M&S meeting. I had one very specific Is a board member considered part of the administration?

No. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, a student? Do you mean a student, the student rep, or a board member?

No, no, no. Okay, there's a number of my board members. Oh, no. No.

Okay, thank you. So, we are now on to, let's see, I'm sorry, guys. Okay, so we're on topic number five, which is the resolution for gun safety. And this is something that's really important to the entire board.

And some of you will remember that back in April of 2018, we had passed unanimously approved a resolution regarding gun safety. Spervantage, resolution, and make a few edits and tweaks. And we did that. I'm trying to pull up the...

You want me to read the motion first and then you read it? No, I'll go ahead and read the... I'll go ahead, Stacey, and read what we're resolving to do. Spervantage, and then we can talk about it.

But I'll just go ahead and read first what we're resolving to do. And I typically don't like to read things from a piece of paper. But this in this particular instance, I think it's important because I wanted people to be able to hear specifically the resolutions or how we're resolving to protect students and staff. The first is, well, it's resolved that the Board of Education and the School District of Clayton support sensible gun safety legislation to protect students and staff, including implementing enhanced background checks for assault weapons, including raising the age to 21 to purchase assault weapons, strengthening universal background checks for the purchase of firearms, banning the purchase of semi-automatic rifles and of any accessories, Designed to increase a gun's rate of fire.

Banning gun sales to domestic violence offenders. Preventing access to firearms for individuals who through mental health evaluation or diagnosis could be considered a danger to themselves or others. Increasing funding for programs and school staffing that support student mental health and social emotional well-being and learning. And finally, providing funding for thorough gun violence research, including the collection of data necessary to track, monitor, understand, and prevent the extent of gun violence in America.

So, Stacey, go ahead and read the motion. I move that the Board of Education approve the resolution in support for gun safety legislation Second It been moved and seconded Any comments Just making sure I'm not missing anybody. Okay. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Wonderful. Motion passes.

And we will all be signing that later tonight. And with that, I think we are on to our second reading of policy JGGA. So, Stacey, will you go ahead and read that motion? Yeah.

I move that the board approve policies J, G, G, A, J, G, A, and J, G with the proposed changes. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Questions or comments?

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Motion passed. Motion passes. And the motion for Policy E, BBC, please. I move that the Board of Education approve Policy E, BBC lactation support as committed, as submitted.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any comments? Okay.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great, motion passes.

And we're on the consent agenda now, so that's number six. I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda items for agenda item 6.02 through 6.20. Second. It's been moved and seconded.

Questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Motion passes.

Great. Okay, I think we are on to. Sorry, guys. Number seven, which is the public participation.

Did I miss anything? Okay, public participation. Yes, we have 12 comments that were submitted to the board tonight. Most of them are reasonably brief and all of them are related to the boards.

The resolution of the board passed tonight regarding sensible gun legislation. I will read them now. Lynn Quarter writes, I want to voice my support and appreciation for the board's commitment to advocacy for gun safety legislation. Thank you for prioritizing the safety of our students and staff.

I urge you to continue to do all that you can to educate and about and advocate for gun sense in our community and our state. Allison Price writes, I want to voice my support and appreciation for the board's commitment to advocacy for gun safety legislation. Thank you for prioritizing the safety of our students and staff. I urge you to continue all that you can do to educate about and advocate for gun sense in our community and state.

Laura Horvitz writes, thank you for your consistent efforts to keep our children safe in an atmosphere of pandemic, systemic racism, and gun violence. Please do all you can to be a haven for our children and continue to lead the way on affirming the importance of gun safety, responsibility, and limitations that protect lives. Marissa Gelfand writes, I want to voice my support and appreciation for the board's commitment to advocacy for gun safety legislation. Thank you for prioritizing the safety of our students and staff.

I urge you to continue all that you can do to educate about and advocate for gun sense in our community and state. Katie Silversmith writes, thank you for your continued support and advocacy for common sense gun legislation. We appreciate all you are doing to keep our kids safe. Emily Merkergy writes, please support and advocate for gun legislation that restricts access to guns.

I am very frightened about the idea of school shootings and it makes me scared for my children's safety. Allie Kuchanek writes, As a mom of three children who are coming to the Clayton School District I asking for your continued support of common sense gun regulations in the state of Missouri and advocating for common sense gun laws in our community There nothing more important than the safety of our children Thank you for continuing to make it a priority Susie Hindepur writes I writing to ask you for your continued support in advocating for common sense gun legislation As a mom of two elementary school kids I don want to have to worry for their safety and others at drop off each day As a provider in a neuro ICU of a St. Louis hospital, I can tell you firsthand what gun violence does to a child or young adult, and it's not something that any family should have to go through. I thank you for your ongoing support in keeping our kids safe.

Dana Silverblatt writes, I'd like to thank the board for the resolution in support of gun safety legislation. I imagine like many others in our community, country, and across the globe, I was utterly heartbroken to learn of the recent tragic and senseless events in Texas. I'm inspired by renewed efforts in support of sensible gun safety legislation that could address one aspect of this public health problem plaguing our country. I am proud that our school board has taken swift action to reaffirm its call for gun safety legislation and hope that there are enough other brave and sensible leaders to add their voices.

Alex Silversmith writes, thank you for continuing to support and advocate for common sense gun legislation. We appreciate all the efforts you are taking to keep our kids safe at school. Neil Silverblatt wrote, we appreciate that the community continues to support smart legislation to combat gun violence in our country school. The only viable solution is to reduce the availability, circulation, and situational legal use of guns.

Thank you. And finally, Stephanie Woolen writes, thank you for your continued support and advocacy for common sense gun legislation. Your hard work and dedication to our community does not go unnoticed. Thank you again for your efforts.

And that is all of our comments for this evening. Thank you, Chris, and thank you. We appreciate all the community support. So before we go on to board communications, I do want to acknowledge that it's our last meeting of the year Thank you.

Superexpensive, Bored, calendar. Any updates? Okay. I will let you guys know that Dr.

Patel and I have a meeting scheduled in the next few days with the developer of the CLARIS project. So we will get to learn more about that. And I will be able to report back to you guys what's going on with that at the next meeting. But if anybody wants to know how that meeting went, please feel free to reach out to myself or to Dr.

Patel before then, and we will be happy to talk about it. Go ahead, Stacey. I forgot. I do have one.

This Saturday morning at University City High School is the St. Louis School Board's PLC that if interested in attending the registration link now came from my email. Joe passed it on to me. So you may have seen an email from me about that.

And just for Chris and Jason and anybody listening who's not aware, it's an opportunity to get together with school board members from across the region. It's now expanded to include beyond St. Louis County and City, but St. Charles County, Jefferson County, superintendents from all of those school districts as well.

And, you know, we focus on different topics each time. We're happy to be back in person at U City High this Saturday morning. So if you're interested in attending and haven't registered yet, go look for that email from me with the registration link. Thank you, Stacey.

Anyone else? I have one thing to say. Go ahead. I just want to make sure that while we're looking at Texas, Uvalde, and those innocent kids that were, man, murdered down there, we also need to make sure that we jump on Buffalo as well.

We acknowledge Buffalo as well. It was 10 people heinously murdered in Buffalo in a supermarket And we are just now looking at this gun resolution But it was 10 people murdered in that supermarket. So I just want to make sure we acknowledge that as well. That happened just two weeks prior to Uvalde.

And they both are devastatingly horrible situations. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I appreciate you, Amy.

Thank you very much. Anybody else? Amy, I just want to say really quickly along the same lines. I just want to acknowledge very publicly and say that I appreciate Stacey Fewock really bringing this up.

I have to admit that after both of these, the Buffalo and the Texas things, I really have blocked a lot of this out and was kind of unable to process it and was really kind of shut down. And I just appreciated that she encouraged all of us to think about this resolution again and reminded us about it. And I just want to acknowledge that. I appreciate her making sure that we are thinking about it because it's very difficult.

I don't want to think about it, but that is not the right response. So, yeah, thank you. I agree. Okay, Stacey, so thank you.

Anybody else? I'll make a comment if that's okay. I just wanted to thank Stacey as well. That was so important for you to bring this, not just for the board to discuss, obviously for the community to see that the board really believes in doing everything we can to help.

Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Anybody else? I guess along those lines, thanks for the kind words, but it really was the board of a few years ago that got this started.

I just want to thank really the whole board and Dr. Patel and the district also for committing to the physical upgrades to our buildings that will keep them more safe and secure and thank the board for allocating the funds to do that. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So I will, Stacey, can you read a motion to adjourn, please?

I move that the Board of Education adjourn the business meeting and move into a board retreat. Second. All in favor? Aye.

All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a great summer.

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Minutes

This document is the minutes of the School District of Clayton Board of Education business meeting held June 1, 2022. It records attendees, a superintendent update on COVID, Pride Month, student representatives, end-of-year and summer learning activities, and several board actions including unanimous votes to approve a Resolution supporting gun safety legislation, revised student discipline-related policies (JGGA, JGA, JG), and a lactation support policy (EBBC). The minutes also document procedural motions to adjourn the business meeting and later adjourn the board retreat, with times noted (business adjourned at 6:41 p.m.; retreat adjourned at 9:01 p.m.).

Full minutes

Business Meeting of the School District of Clayton Board of Education June 1, 2022 Meeting Minutes

Members Present:

Ms. Amy Rubin – President Mr. Gary Pierson – Vice President Ms. Kim Hurst – Treasurer Ms. Stacy Siwak – Board Secretary Mr. Jason Wilson – Director Ms. Chris Win – Director Mr. Jason Growe – Director

Dr. Nisha Patel – Superintendent

Ms. Sandy Menchella – Executive Assistant to Superintendent/Board of Education

Ms. Aitana Rosas Linhard – Student Representative to the Board

1. Call to Order Information, Procedural: 1.01 Statement of Adequate Notice The board meeting of the School District of Clayton was called to order at 6:01 p.m. and held virtually via the Zoom platform. The meeting was held via Zoom due to construction in the administrative boardroom.

Board President, Amy Rubin, introduced Carter Davis who will be the 2022-2023 Student Representative to the Board, and Sophia Lu, who will be the Alternate Student Representative to the Board. They will be replacing our current Student Representative to the Board, Aitana Rosas Linhard

2. Superintendent Communications Information: 2.01 Superintendent Communications Superintendent, Dr. Nisha Patel, provided an update to the community on current information pertaining to COVID updates, recognition of Pride Month, information on our student representatives to the Board of Education, the last week of school activities and Summer Learning that will be held with students and staff.

3. Student Representative to the Board Information: 3.01 Student Representative to the Board of Education - Update Aitana Rosas-Linhard, Student Representative to the Board, provided updates on Pride Month, the grading system, food and lunches, mental health resources, school spirit, the student representative and the alternate to the Board of Education, District Advisory Council, a new fresh start to the next year and social media presence. This was Aitana's last meeting as the Student Representative, and she thanked the Board.

Board of Education Meeting June 1, 2022 Page 2

4. Budget - 2022-2023 Action: 4.01 Adoption of Budget - 2022-2023 That the Board of Education approve the 2022-2023 budget as presented.