November 9, 2022

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

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9th and it's nice to see everybody here. We have a full agenda tonight, so let's go ahead and get started with the Pledge of Allegiance. Oppositions? Non-aggression?

Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I move that the Board of Education approve the business meeting agenda for November 9th 2022 Second It been moved and seconded Questions or comments All in favor Aye Any opposed Motion passes. Sorry, I'm like sitting on top of a doctor's towel. Okay.

Now we are on to recognizing our own. All in coalition. Awesome. Got a big group here today.

Yes. Good evening, everyone. Tonight, it's my privilege to introduce our All-in-Clayton Coalition Project Coordinator, Lily Schleser, and her team of student leaders who belong to the Y-Down Middle School All-in-Clayton Student Coalition. And tonight we want to recognize these young people for their leadership last month in celebrating Red Ribbon Week and the different events they organized across the building in order to support and bring awareness to substance misuse among youth.

So I'd like to invite Lily and her students up. Hi everyone. Hello. Come on up.

Thanks for having us here tonight. We really appreciate it. So Red Ribbon Week is an important week where we raise awareness about substance use. It's celebrated across the country.

It's celebrated October 23rd to the 31st every year. And it's a way to build community around issues of substance use and get folks involved. And so, Clayton schools and community members celebrated throughout that week. Captain and Glenridge handed out red ribbons to students, and they had them participate in the drug-free pledge.

The Chamber of Commerce did a mailing for us to all area businesses to tell them ways that they could get involved in Red Ribbon Week. Clayton Police Department hung a banner outside to show the community that they were celebrating Red Ribbon Week. Clayton parents actually have the opportunity to view the film, Don't Wait, by Addiction is Real. So that started Red Ribbon Week and it goes to November 25th and that is a free film that parents can stream online.

Members of our youth coalitions at Wydown and Clayton High School planned and participated in events. So here to tell you about the activities at Wydown are 7th graders Olivia Lin, Catherine Strait, and Sandy Martin, and 8th graders Zuri Moniki and Zuwena Moniki, and from Clayton High School, Junior Graham Keller. And we're going to go down the line and let you know what activities they did. Hi, I'm Sandy Martin.

I want to talk about the Friday before Red Ribbon Week, we did a drug-free pledge on the morning announcements, where students would stand up and pretty much just listen to the pledge, and that would allow them to participate in the spirit week. Okay, hi, I'm Olivia, and I'll be talking about the announcements that we did. So basically, we planned Tuesday to Friday, during the announcements, one of us would go to the office and say a fact about either marijuana, vaping, alcohol, or just general, like, overall addiction to help spread awareness on these topics. Hi, my name is Catherine Street.

To promote Red Ribbon Week and make it a more fun week for everyone, all our posts are Spirit Week that lasted from the 25th to the 28th, Tuesday being a day to wear red to support Red Ribbon Week, Wednesday being Wacky Wednesday, Thursday Beach Day, and Friday Cozy Day. Hi, I'm Suri, and I helped set up a trivia table at lunch, and we asked them questions about drug and substance use. We mainly did this to help have more open conversations about drug and substance use. Hi, I'm Selena.

I was responsible for talking about the parent mailers. The parent mailers were envelopes that were mailed to every family at YL. Within those envelopes were two items. One was a paper on composition and tips about talking to your children about drugs like alcohol and marijuana.

Lastly, the second item was a magnet on a reminder about talking to your teens about alcohol. Hi, I'm Graham. Some things were at the high school were to give PA announcements about facts and dangers by using marijuana, alcohol, or vaping. And we also did a tribute table, like previously stated.

That picture is actually on the left. That's us. We did the wheel. We asked some questions.

And whether they got it right or wrong, they spun the wheel. We got a prize. It was interactive. It was fun.

And, of course, one week of prevention activities is not enough. So our students are currently working on strategies to address substance use issues right there in their own school based on the data that we've collected from students in those schools. And they will be implementing those strategies down the year. Thank you very much Thank you Thank you for being here and for all the work you do Thank you Thanks, guys.

Okay, so we are on to public participation. And I will remind everybody that we don't, the board as a whole doesn't respond to the specific comment, but Dr. Patellar, I will follow up in writing within 24 to 48 hours. So I just, I didn't want you to, people that are talking to think that we're being rude.

You, why don't we just sit here and stare at you and don't say anything bad. So the first one is Susan Brockhouse. Thank you. And I have two children at Merrimack Elementary.

Next year I'll have three all at Merrimack at the same time. For a bit of background on our group, we started this year, and our group is similar to national social media movements, such as Wait Until 8th and ScreenStrong.com. Despite being six months old, our Facebook page has over 70 members here in Clayton. At Y-Down's Back to School Night, I collected names from over 30 interested parents and talked to many others.

Since forming, we've met with Clayton Elementary and Middle School principals, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We're asking the board to consider a district-wide policy next school year that student use of phones and smartwatches at all Clayton schools would be limited to before and after school only. To be more specific, this is what YDON already has in place, and we're asking that it be applied to the entire district. One area of pushback that we've heard on this topic is that parents give kids phones at school because they want to know they can always reach their child in an emergency.

So speaking from personal experience and not on behalf of the U.S. government, I've worked for a federal law enforcement agency for 20 years, and I responded to the St. Louis school shooting two weeks ago by working in the command post. So I know firsthand the crisis and parental fear during school shootings, but this proposed policy addresses parental concerns for reaching their child in an emergency, such as a lockdown, because phones and watches can be stowed in backpacks in the classroom where they can be accessed during an emergency.

Our students are currently facing a nationwide mental health crisis with links to smartphone use. Additionally, teachers have multiple responsibilities, and the two teachers we spoke to at Clayton High mentioned that policing phones is a difficult job that many teachers face every single day and distracts from the learning of our Clayton students. Also, our group supports equity. When students are asked to look something up on their personal smartphone in class, it's not equitable to assume that every student can afford a smartphone in the Clayton district.

Our students have school-issued devices for this very purpose. Finally, several private schools and local public schools have already implemented the policy and change that we're suggesting of no phones out during the school hours. These include John Burroughs Private School, SLU High School, Thomas Jefferson School, and Visitation Academy. Additionally, according to local news reports, University City and Jennings Public School districts have also adopted this policy.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I apologize if I say your name wrong, but Alicia Hamilton. Did I say it right?

Alicia. Alicia. I'm sorry. That's okay.

I don't have the best handwriting. So my name is Alicia Hamilton, and I'm also here on behalf of the Clayton parents for delaying social media, and I also have two children at Merrimack in third and fourth grade. I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner and have focused my Higher career on the health of children and adolescents. And this initiative was actually born by the Head and Heart series that was sponsored by the Clayton School District from last spring that was discussing smartphones and the impacts of mental health.

And learning the data that was focused from that in the spring, it just felt like we had to do more after we learned how much it impacted our teens' mental health. So we dove in and did some more research. And we have found that the mental health Thank you. And the average student spends seven and a half hours a day on social media and admit that they're addicted to their cell phone.

So how is social media harming teen mental health? First, the comparison to others and the pressures to feel like they need to be perfect. The loss of empathy and just general communication skills and delay of identity development. Cyber bullying and the sexting, which is the texting of nude photos.

The data that we received also shows that the attempting to multitask with a phone during school has many negative effects. Teens with cell phones send 440 texts a week and 110 while in the classroom. Switching tasks is mentally fatiguing and negatively impacts their long-term memory efficiency by as much as 40%. Checking text messages on social media just a couple of times during class has led students to drop from a B to even a C plus on average.

And only 3% of a teen's digital time is spent on actual content creation, such as writing, photography, coding, or composing a song. 35% of students use smartphones to cheat in school. And we just have numerous scientific studies that have found phones are detrimental to learning. So what can we do?

The school district can't control what happens at home, but it can control what happens on school property. So implementing this new district-wide policy would improve students' well-being and the qualities we are attempting to cultivate in the profile of a Clayton graduate. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, Catherine Waldron. I'm going to tell a personal story here. So good evening. My name is Catherine Waldron.

My family's been in Clayton schools the last four years. I currently have a child in elementary, middle school, and high school. We moved into Clayton because we wanted the high quality public school, which is a goal I think all of us in this room share, just high standards. This past spring, I and two other Clayton parents started the group Clayton Parents for Delaying Social Media.

This is a group for Clayton parents who choose to delay, monitor, or limit social media for their kids. So here's my story. When my eldest child, Sarah, began white out in sixth grade, we gave her a cell phone. Using parental controls, we blocked her internet and ability to download apps.

Unfortunately, Sarah was one of her only peers with these restrictions, and she soon began to feel left out. Everyone was on Snapchat, she told us. FOMO. Sarah went to her school counselor, who referred us to an outside private counselor.

Sarah was lonely and felt left out, he told us. After several sessions, this counselor convinced us to let her download Snapchat to use for only 15 minutes a day, after school only, and no reels. Sarah downloaded Snapchat in late August of this year at the start of ninth grade. Three weeks in, Sarah met with her counselor again for a follow-up appointment.

His assessment? Sarah's anxiety levels had skyrocketed. He told us she urgently needed more therapy. The next day, we found out why.

When my husband logged into parental controls, instead of 15 minutes of Snapchat daily, we learned she had been spending three to five hours a day using Snapchat, mostly at school. Despite being an excellent student at this point her grades were poor and I was horrified that she was watching these videos and spending so much of her time on social media particularly during school hours While parents are ultimately responsible for what their kids do outside school hours schools can put rules in place regarding student access to phones during the school day And many local schools have, including Y-Down. It is striking to contrast my son's experience at Y-Down with Sarah's experience at Y-Down last year and the years before this rule was initiated. Under Principal Jordan, Y-Down just instituted a new rule this year, banning phones out of bags during school day hours.

My son David, a sixth grader at Y-Down this year, has never felt pressure at school to even have a cell phone. This year, kids talk at lunch instead of looking at their phones. There is now no issue during the school day of students sending or sharing nude photos. And some of you may be aware that this was an issue at Y-Down last year where certain students were publicly shamed and police were involved due to the transmission of child pornography.

So now, class time at Y-Down is for focusing on academics, not on phones. Lunch and hallway time is for focusing on relationship building, not phones. So today, I am here to ask the board to consider making the district-wide policy next school year, including at the high school, that student use of phones and smartwatches at all Clayton schools would be limited to before and after school only. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Okay, Wayne, you. Yes. I'd actually like to speak about racial diversity here at Clayton High School, if that's fine.

That's terrific. So I'm one of the class officers, actually, and I've noticed that racial diversity here at Clayton High School has really been a growing concern for many people. It really isn't an obvious problem on the surface, but once you really dig deep into the subject matter, that's when you discover that there's a lot of trouble that's brewing under the surface. So I actually had a meeting earlier today with one of our equity officers, and even two weeks ago, the District Student Advisory Council also held a meeting about this.

And we all agreed that something really needs to be done to improve our school diversity. And while there are some factors like the VICC and zoning laws and the affordability of Clayton that are outside our control, there are a lot of factors that are within our control. And there are so many factors that are within our control, but it all starts with awareness. Awareness is the first step we can all take to improve school diversity.

Awareness we can spread to teachers, students, especially at the elementary level, because that's where the racial diversity split starts to grow. And teachers actually play a really big role in racial diversity, Because the way they group people together, assign seats, teach class, recommend students for higher level courses, all of this directly ties back into racial diversity. So we need to make sure that not only students but also teachers are very aware of this issue. And yet another example of how we can spread awareness about racial diversity is by the Greyhound Exclusive Television Network, or GET.

It's regularly used for like an entertainment platform where, you know, it's really more entertainment based, but if we could convert this to a more informational platform where we could spread awareness about racial diversity, that would certainly help us a lot in our agenda. This is just one of the many ideas that I could think of to raise awareness about racial diversity. So to end this off, I really hope that the Board of Education can start taking some serious efforts to improve our racial diversity here. And the first step to do that is simply awareness.

And I hope you will all undertake massive efforts to try to spread awareness about racial diversity. And let's not wait too long, because it's best to tackle this early. Because if we wait too long, we may have sealed the fate of racial diversity. Thank you.

All right, thank you so much. Okay, we are on to Dr. Patel. I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you. Thank you for all the public comments. We will be responding to each one of you individually within the next 24 to 48 hours. So I appreciate you guys coming up here and sharing your thoughts.

Thank you. Superintendent Communications so a few things that I just going to touch base on I always like to start off by just giving a few highlights in terms of what happening in our district with our students and activities So, we've had a pretty busy couple of weeks since the last board meeting. A few things, our theater productions are up and running, and it's great to see that in the black box. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Spervantage, Back last year, we used to have seven half early release days, and this school year we changed the adjusted the calendar to two, which meant we had to look at how we do professional learning a little bit differently, which was a good thing. And so we had two very productive days. And I wanted to just let the board know that when we have these days, there's a lot of planning that happens behind the scenes. A lot of our teachers actually lead a lot of this work.

And we spend a lot of time and a lot of time working on it. Analyzing how the day went to see what we can do with the future. And that means we look at data. So every staff member, once they go through a professional learning day, gets a survey that they fill out.

And then we look at that. So for example, I'm going to walk you through what we look at just so you have an idea. So this first slide shows you the data we got from the November 8th, which was yesterday's professional learning. I pulled this this morning, so we've only had 88 staff members respond as of this morning.

But just to give you an idea, like the last one, we had over 200 staff members respond. When they take the survey, they have four questions that they all get. So based on yesterday's professional learning that we spent all day on, This is the first four questions. The first one, 94% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they had opportunities to reflect on the ways to incorporate the learning into their practice.

It was good. 99% of the respondents agree or strongly agree that the professional learning experience was relevant to their needs in their role. And then the next two questions, 64% of the participants had a strong working knowledge in the areas covered prior to whatever they learned. And then after the learning experience, 90% of them felt like they had a strong working knowledge in the area that they went.

So that gives us an idea of what we're spending our time on. Is it really making an impact in the classroom for the professionals? And this is not just our teachers, this includes our classified staff as well, so every staff member. And so those are the four questions that everyone gets asked.

And then the other question that they get asked is, remember I always refer to our competencies, our profile of the graduate as our North Star. So what we really want to do is the learning that's happening, how does it connect to our competencies? And so we have them rank this, and this just gives us a snapshot of what we did that day, what did it really impact. And so we look at all this data, and then we just basically look at all the things that we did well, like the key takeaways from that day.

We look at opportunities of how do we make it better, because there's always areas we can be better at, right? How do we grow from this? And then we also want to make sure this is what's powerful about this survey. It's not anonymous.

Like every staff member has their name on it. So if they gave us specific feedback on how to improve, we can go back to that individual and say, hey, you wrote this because they give us like, you know, comments as well. Let's talk about it. And so I feel like this is a really powerful tool, and I think it's important for us to know, because we keep talking about data-driven decisions, like this is one way we look at it to see the impact of it.

And then I always end with this slide with the competencies and the profile, but what we've done on this image, you notice we've put our three goals around it as well. And when we talk about our strategic plan it is transformational We said that It is it an amazing document but at the same time when we wrote it it also it also interesting on how we going to look at capturing if we really moving the needle on it Like what are we really looking at data to say okay we doing X Y and Z When Dr Garganego came here about the empowered lessons she gave you examples of what happening in the classroom right So we're looking at our strategic plan not only through numbers, quantitative data, but we're also looking at it through qualitative data. So I just showed you an example of quantitative, right, the numbers. Next week when we have our board community engagement forum, that's a data gathering point for qualitative.

Because we're going to talk to our community to say, hey, are we moving the needle on these three goals? What's your experience been like? Talk to us about what you think we're doing well. Talk to us about things that we're not doing well.

And we want to hear from you. So that's another way to capture how we're moving along in this. And so my reason in pointing that out is that it would be really nice for us to come to the board table when we do our board updates on our goals and say, here's where we started, here's where we're ended. With numbers, but that's one data point.

We look at many. Later on today, Dr. Weins is going to come and give us an update of in head and heart. And part of that data is the panorama.

If you look at our strategic plan under the objectives, the panorama is not even listed, like the word panorama. What we say is we're looking at social-emotional surveys. But what we found in doing that is the panorama data helps not only this goal, but the other goal as well. It gets a good data gathering spot.

And the good thing about our strategic plan is we refer to it as evergreen, so we're constantly looking at it, tweaking it, adjusting it. So I just wanted to make sure that we understand that it is challenging, it is fun, it's exciting, it's innovative, and it will take time for us to make steps that we need to. But I'm really excited that we're going in the right direction, and I'm excited to hear Dr. Wayne's presentation tonight.

She's got a lot of information that she'll be sharing on how to move forward. And I know we're hearing a lot about mental wellness and our focus on that and what we need to do. And now to give us our student lens on everything. I'm going to toss it over to you, Carter.

All right. The first thing that I want to talk to you about ties into a little bit about what we talked about last time, which is just with the issue of school safety. So, since our last meeting, we talked to a lot more kids about more specific issues that they've seen in the school district. And across the board, like, the consensus is that, you know, Clayton does a pretty good job with security.

Again, I'm going to talk about a little bit later how we can address, like, mentally how kids are dealing with this. But one thing that students did note is that they suggested that the administration work more closely with teachers and people who are in the building every day to sort of identify areas of security which we can improve on. A couple students specifically noted that at the high school, some science teachers noted that basically every single science classroom is connected, not through the main hallway, but by side doors, which, according to them, don't always lock. So this is just one area that I know at least some teachers have pointed out as an area for improvement.

But really just in general, just making sure that we're working with the people who are always accessing and using the buildings to make sure that we're being as secure as we can. So now I want to sort of shift the focus to talk more about mental wellness. And we talked a little bit about this at the last meeting as well. But one of the biggest priorities, which I personally have and the advisory council has, is making sure that we have the resources available to students that not only are available, but also are accessible and something that they feel like they want to use.

So we talked about this last time, but since that meeting, we've talked to a lot more students. And the consensus is that it would be really helpful to have mental resources which were independent of a school counselor. Like, across the board, almost every student has said they'd be much more comfortable going to talk to someone if it wasn't the same person which they talked about, about, like, picking classes or how they're doing academically. So this is definitely a switch that not only I think we should be making, but a lot of students believe so as well.

And specifically in terms of, like, some of the data on this, almost all students have said that they don't really feel comfortable talking to their school counselor about personal issues in their life. And a lot of people have even said that they're reluctant to talk to them about when they're overwhelmed, even as it pertains to school. So I think this is definitely something that we can do, something that we should do, and Really, the student body backs up this idea. And the second thing is not just about the resources for mental wellness, but also some of the sources of stress and anxiety in our students.

So, for the most part, at Clayton, across the board, we've heard the feedback that the main sources of stress are really just academic pressures as it pertains to the high school specifically, how they're causing issues of stress. People have noted that generally the high school is pretty good on the social side of making sure there's no bullying. And in general, the main stressors that come from school specifically are these academic pressures, which ultimately being a sort of high-performing district, that's a little bit inevitable. And I mean, there's things we can do to make it better, but it's always going to exist a little bit.

So I think really just making sure we are making the resources available in response to those sources of stress is really what we should be focusing on moving forward. And now finally, and I love to talk about phones. Yes, please do. So something...

I love to hear it. Yeah, of course, of course. So obviously I and like a lot of students at Clayton all agree that phones are having a massive impact on our lives. We all agree with your guys' goal of making sure that our mental wellness is prioritized in and outside of school.

But I think that the only area where some questions do come up is sort of what the school board specifically should be doing about this. And I know a lot of students have questions about what a blanket ban would do across the school district and how it would actually be executed and what the results of that specific approach to addressing phones would be. So, for this, there's really like three main things that I want to say. So, the first is that I don't know how it would be enforced specifically at schools because I don't know, or actually, I'm pretty sure that you would not be able to get the majority of students on board with this policy, at least at the high school, because, you know, like you guys have all said, phones are a pretty big part of their lives.

And ultimately, this type of universal plan, I don't think that students will be on board with it, especially at first. And also something that I've seen is that even in the classes where teachers have instituted like a little cubby at the front door where you put your phone in, like even throughout the school year in those classes, by the end of the year, like no one is putting their phones in the cubbies. Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Students for beyond high school.

Because ultimately, once you get out of high school, you go to college, you're not going to have a teacher there to tell you, get off your phone. It's on you to make sure that you're either doing your work in your job or you're paying attention to class in college. So I think it's really important to have this transition from middle school in high school and then ultimately to college. Because if Clayton students are spending the entire first 18 years of their life Thank you.

Thank you. The board policy banning phones across the district would not be effective at least at the high school and I think it would make for a large transition to when they are not in high school. But again I mean students are totally behind everyone on making sure that phones are not negatively affecting mental health I mean obviously they are I just don't know how effective a blanket policy would be at addressing that. Thank you.

Does anybody want to have any questions? Thanks, Carter. So with that, I think we are on to our presentation of our update for goal three in Head and Heart. Thank you.

No, I just want to make sure I understand, man. So you're saying regarding the school policy of a band, a blanket band, and you're suggesting that we should just allow kids to just like anything else, like they should just on their own, autonomy, just not use their phone, I'm going to ask you to figure out when the time is right to use it, right? To a certain extent, yeah. I think that it should still always be on teachers if it becomes a larger problem to step in, and that's something that does happen.

But I think it is important for students to develop the skill of managing their own learning on their own while still having this more personal supervision in high school Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Because I just told you this yesterday, it was November 8th, and now it's the 9th and you're doing it again. And then the 10th comes, it's the 11th, and then it's the whole, now we're December 31st and you're still doing this. So I'm just trying to figure out, I love the idea and theory, but from a management and adult perspective, I'm just trying to figure out, you know, I don't see teachers having the time to correct kids in class.

So now it's like everyone keeps pulling their phone out, you know what I'm saying? But I'm giving you the autonomy to make the decision, but at the same time you're being very disruptive. And it is a flow through of, you know, first through ninth through twelfth. Next year kids are moving to the next grade.

I'm just trying to figure out, like, from your perspective, what else can we do? What else can adults do? Yeah, I mean, at some point, like, that's always going to be an issue. Like, even if we have this, like, no phones across the board, like you said, if teachers don't have the ability to continue to enforce that throughout the year, I think the issue of students, like, being like, okay, I don't care.

Let me pull out my phone is going to be an issue either way. You know, what's the worst? Yeah. Are there teachers that have no phone policies already in their classes?

Yes. And so how are they enforcing? Are they enforcing that? I mean, does that depend on the teacher?

How subjective is that enforcement? In my experience, like I've had one teacher who did that, and by the end of the year, like maybe five or six students would check their phone at the beginning of class. I know that that's probably not representative across the board, and that there probably are instances where it is enforced and students do get rid of their phones. But in my experience, it has not been enforced even in the classes that they make it a priority.

And I know that some teachers don't make it a priority. And I think that's where it would particularly be an issue. So I do have a question part of it. I just thought of it when Jason was talking.

So I'm curious if you've talked to Dr. Kaczewski about this at all, or if anyone has. I going to ask because in my opinion this is it not a school board or district decision anyway It his and how he going to run his school I think it Dr Kaczewski decision about like Dr Jordan did at Wiedown it his decision at his school or individual teachers decisions like he said before So I curious if you talked to him and what his feelings are I made it on this Friday, and I'll talk to him about it. Yeah, I'm just curious if he's aware of issues.

And like when I hear you talking about teachers that enforce it or not, I just don't know, like, are those same teachers also not enforcing their other rules? Are they just bad classroom managers? I mean, I'm not trying to insinuate anything, but do they also have rules about no talking, no gum chewing? And are they just, is it just the phone rules they're not enforcing, or are they just kind of laxed on their rules in general?

So I think it's hard to just pinpoint that the one rule about phones, I don't know. And Dr. Weems is going to talk a little bit about the high school part, but I know in talking to Dr. Kachewski myself, This came up last year.

So in April and May, this came up at the high school leadership team, right? And the teachers had a conversation about it, the leadership team did, and they went back and forth, just like we are. The pros and the cons of it. At the end of the day, the leadership team decided that they're going to keep the cell phone practices that they currently have and they're not going to change it.

They're going to leave it up to each teacher to manage their classroom. If it becomes an issue, then take it up to the next level and get administrators involved. But they're leaving it up to each classroom teacher, and that was based on the leadership team there. So that was a decision they made.

Yeah, and I do think it's their decision to make. But I like what you're saying, Carter, about preparing for post-high school. I think that's part of our jobs as a high school. Teachers and principals is to prepare our kids for when they leave.

So part of that is that independence and responsibility and self-discipline. I think the bigger issue maybe would be if it's a distraction to other students. If you're distracting yourself, that's kind of your loss. If it is a distraction to others, that is a situation.

But I would hope a teacher would step in just as if they were talking or doing anything else. Just real quickly, is this a rule or is this a practice that's unwritten in terms of how this gets managed at the high school? At Wynonnax, we're all at the high school. It's up to the official teacher.

Okay, so it's just a practice of how that's done. Correct. There is a policy. There is a policy, yeah.

It just hasn't been updated in a long time. The board level. There's a policy that... What does that policy say?

It's a board policy? There is a board about cell phones. It's not about technology. It's just technology.

Oh, yeah, good. Because I was going to say, that seems like a very corrupt policy. It's a personal device. And in the policy it says that each individual principal and or teacher can decide.

Okay. Oh, good. That's my one question. And it also says that parents can opt out from having their kids Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I think that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Let's, let's, let Rob get started. Okay. Well, good evening everyone. It's nice to be in community with you tonight.

And the goal of my presentation is to give you an update on Strategic Plan Goal Number 3. So, Goal Number 3 states that we will be dedicated to the personal growth of our learners And, the path way to those three competencies in this goal really lies in the following objectives. First, that students demonstrate belief in self and engage in self-improvement and advocacy. That students demonstrate kindness, compassion, and respect of others by engaging in the district-designed social-emotional learning curriculum.

Students incorporate habits and practices that foster lifelong wellness. And that students make anti-oppressive choices and use their gifts and talents to build a more inclusive community. So the purpose of this evening's discussion, we're going to spend some time taking a look at some of our recent results from our Panorama social-emotional learning surveys. And these measurements help us understand our progress not just in goal three but also in our other goals And there might be parts of this that you make some connections to related to goal one more specifically So let do a quick refresher on Panorama itself So Panorama social emotional learning surveys are given twice a year here in the School District of Clayton We give it in September.

So students have usually been with us for about three to four weeks when they take it in the fall. And then we give it again right around spring break. So March, April is that window. We give it to students in grades three through 12.

And we started this process back in spring 2019 with just our elementary schools. And then in fall 2019, we brought it to full scale for grades 3 through 12. So our surveys cover the following topics. School climate, sense of belonging, self-efficacy, supportive relationships, challenging feelings, positive feelings, self-management, social awareness.

And in spring 2022, we collected data around equity topics, more specifically diversity and inclusion and cultural awareness to set a baseline for the high school. I think it's also important to note that we added the supportive relationships and the challenging and positive feelings topics in fall of 2020 because I wanted to better monitor our students' social emotional state during COVID. And so we use all of these metrics to measure our progress in the various schools that we have in our strategic plan and also allows each of our buildings to better understand the specific needs of the students in their building and address those more strategically. So the first one we're going to start with is sense of belonging.

So sense of belonging questions focus on how much students feel that they are valued members in the school community. So here are some sample questions. This is not exhaustive, but here are several of the questions. How connected do you feel to the adults at your school?

Overall, how much do you feel like you belong at your school? And how much respect do students show you? So at elementary, you can see that this fall, 75% of our students provided favorable responses in this topic area. This is actually the highest it has ever been since we started giving Panorama in spring of 2019.

At the middle school this fall, 56% of our students provided favorable responses. That's a little bit lower than it was this time last year. And then at the high school level, 50% of our students provided favorable responses as it relates to sense of belonging. This is up 5% from this time last year.

I think it's also important to note how this information falls in the context of schools that are similar to ours. So Panoramically has a feature where we can compare our schools to like schools. It's not available in every topic area, but it is in several of them, and this is one of them. So when we compare our schools to other schools that are non-urban, that have a free and reduced lunch rate less than 30% and are in that age group, like they're considered an elementary school or middle school or high school, our results fall actually across the board all in the 80th percentile.

I was also curious when I was looking at the data, you know, there's been a lot going on in the last, you know, 24 months. And I was really curious to see, like, in fall 2019, like, where were we, you know, three years ago in comparison to this? And I wanted to point out a few things. First of all, as I just said a few seconds ago, elementary school is the highest that it's ever been since we've been giving it.

At Y-Down, when we gave this three years ago, sense of belonging was at 49%. So it has climbed 7% over the last three years. At CHS, what's interesting is that it was exactly 50% three years ago. But what has happened between then and now, that sense of belonging has bounced a little bit up and down.

So it is now back up to what it was pre-COVID. All right. Did we not conduct it in 2020 then because of COVID? We gave it in fall 2020 and we also gave it, I'm sorry, we gave it in spring 2020.

So during the school shutdown and actually the school shutdown happened in the middle of the survey. Yeah. Thank you. And then that fall, like that's when we had kind of the rolling start of students coming in person.

So it was, those two data points are a little, okay, that makes that a little off. So, and then Anyway, so that's why I looked all the way back to fall 2019, because that's probably the most similar circumstances to where we are now. All right. Just a quick clarifying question.

So you got 80%, 80th again? 80th percentile compared to like schools. So like 80th of what? So I, oh, I'm sorry.

All of the schools that use the Panorama tools across the country. So we're in the 80th percentile, so 80% of the schools That participate had a lower rate than we did. Got it, lower, okay. So really, yeah, does that make sense?

Okay, all right. Is that schools of similar size? Size, unfortunately, I can't control by size, but I can control by free or reduced lunch, like age group, elementary, middle, high, and then the choices are all schools, urban schools, or non-urban schools. I'll have to take a closer look at exactly what their definition is of non-urban schools.

Yeah, to see what factors they're doing that, but it's not right. I'd be curious if it's higher or lower than the 80th percentile when you can control for some of those factors, like free and reduced lunch and urban versus non-urban. I would consider us an urban school. She did.

She put us in for non-urban and our percent are free and reduced lunch. Didn't you say that? No, it's all schools is the 80th percentile. No, the 80th is not.

Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the 80th is like schools.

Okay. But it doesn't, I'm not able to control for size. Got it. All right, any other questions before?

Okay. All right, so school climate. School climate questions focus on perceptions of the overall social and learning climate of the school. Some sample questions in this topic are, how often do your teachers seem excited to be teaching your classes?

How fair or unfair are the rules for students at your school? And how positive or negative is the energy of your school? So at the elementary level, we had 78% of our students provided favorable responses. Again, this is the highest it's ever been since we started giving the panorama in 2019.

The middle school came in at 65%, which is very similar to where we ended the year last year, which was at 66%, but you will notice that it's down 6% from this time last year. And then at the high school, 65% of students provided favorable responses, Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. And then the last data piece I wanted to share with you was self-efficacy. And self-efficacy She relates to how much students believe that they can succeed in achieving high academic outcomes.

Some of the sample questions in this area include how sure or confident are you that you can complete all the work assigned in your classes? How sure or confident are you that you can do the hardest work that is assigned in your class? And when complicated ideas are presented in class, how confident are you that you can understand them? So at At the elementary level, we came in at 63%, which is about 3% higher than where we were this time last year, but it is also a 5% drop from where we were last spring.

At the middle school, we've been hovering in those low to mid 60s, so it is 2% lower from this time last year. And at the high school, we did creep up from fall 2021 up to 54% from 50% in fall 2019. And typically this number has floated right between 50 and 55 percent for CHS. When compared to like schools or elementaries coming in at the 50th percentile, and at middle and high, we're at the 80th percentile.

I also want to highlight that at the middle school level in fall 2019, self-efficacy was at 57%, so that has actually climbed 6% over time. And then CHS back in 2019 was 50% and has climbed 4% to now. All right, so what does some of our work at Goal 3 actually look like and sound like in our schools? So, at the elementary school level, we have been rolling out the zones of regulation.

And so, you might see some of these posters in classrooms or in offices. And zones of regulation is a framework and curriculum that helps develop students' awareness of their feelings and the energy that they're feeling in their bodies with those feelings. And the purpose is to help students name their feelings identify how they physically feeling and also to start empowering them to know what to do when they trying to move into a different zone So if one of the counselors or social workers or teachers asked me right now Robin what zone are you in I'd say, you know what, right now, I think I'm in the yellow zone. And I'm in the yellow zone because I'm excited to share all this information with you.

And my heart is beating a little bit faster than it probably should be because I'm a little worried that I might leave out an important piece of information that would be helpful to the school board. Spervantage, Boredom, and Spervantage, Proprietary, Parent Weekly Newsletters. Like I said, you might see some of these posters around our buildings, or you might even hear some of the children say, like, oh, I'm in the blue zone right now because they're not feeling great. And they might be feeling great because they're sad or because they're not feeling well right now.

And so our teachers and our counselors, our social workers and our principals are all working to integrate this language in their conversations with students and to help give them strategies on how to get themselves into different zones if needed. All right. At the middle school, it looks like and sounds like a lot of work with circles. So the middle school has really invested a lot of time and energy and training over the last several years.

And implementing a circles model. And so what are circles? Circles are a method, a structured process for communication that allows students or adults to reconnect with themselves and connect with others. And one of the key components of the circles model when students are talking to each other isn't just the physical arrangement of them in a circle, but it's also really to create a safe space for all students to share their voice and also have the opportunity to pass if they don't want to share their voice.

And it's a way to reinforce that connectedness and respect that we hope our students will share with each other throughout their day and time at Y-Down. So one of the reasons this is such a powerful strategy is because it allows a team of educators to move with a lot of alacrity to be responsive to students' social emotional needs. So several weeks ago when the tragedy happened at CVPA, the YDAM team was able to push out a lesson plan related to circles, and this was the prompt that they gave all the teachers. So when they received students on Tuesday morning, they could all run a circle in their classroom to give students time and space to process all of the different feelings that they were experiencing.

And one of the things I think that paid off the most for them is because they had been doing circles, not just in times of crisis, but as a regular practice for students to connect with each other, it didn't feel weird or awkward of like, oh, we're doing this because something terrible happened. I mean, yes, it is something terrible happened, but it was also in response of we value your voice, we value the feelings that you're having right now, and we want to give you a healthy and safe place to talk about it. And I also want to note that two of our elementary schools are starting to get their folks trained in the circles model and are starting to roll that out in their buildings as well as part of their school improvement plans. And then at the high school level, there's been a lot of work to create the Great Hound Scholars profile.

So at the high school, a committee was formed to imagine what the profile of a graduate traits would look like for our CHS students. And teachers have started making explicit connections between the traits that you see listed up there and their time with students. And so the high school team has been using professional learning time to unpack each of the competencies related to the profile of graduate and what it means specifically for their content area. And ultimately, the goal is for us to create a community that has a shared understanding and a shared language on what the profile of a graduate means for all of the students at Clayton High School.

Another component of our work in the area of Goal 3 is our community partnerships. So you will probably recognize some of the organizations that I listed here because you approved the MOUs that I had submitted in the last couple months and I wanted to give you an update on that work. So first of all, we've got our work going with the Center for Mindfulness. We have therapists that are coming to our elementary and middle school buildings to run small groups.

We have about 30 students right now across our elementary that are meeting And then we have a group of 15 students groups are to work on coping skills emotional regulation and stress management We also have things moving with Kids in the Middle which is an organization that supports students whose families are going through transition either related to separation or divorce. And we have 15 students across our elementary schools who are participating in that small group program. And then we have about five at the middle school. That number is growing.

And those groups, again, are focused on navigating the stresses of family separation. And then we also have a therapist coming in from Safe Connections. And this therapist has a caseload at Clayton High School and meets one-on-one with several students. And the focus of that time is to develop strategies for healthy relationship building.

And then finally, we continue our partnership with All in Clayton Coalition. I started this work with the Caring for Head and Heart series with Kim Schironi and now with Lily, as you heard her with the students earlier this evening. Some of our current work is we're going to be hosting Julie Smith, who's a faculty member at Webster University, and she's also a media literacy expert. And she's going to be doing a free webinar on parenting related to healthy social media usage on January 23rd.

And then this is also a follow-up to the parenting during the smartphone age event and the social media impact on the youth brain event that we hosted in the last 18 months as part of the Caring for Head and Heart series. We're also in the process of scheduling a screening of the next installment of the Screenagers docuseries, which focuses on youth well-being and screen usage. So speaking of screen usage, I wanted to just kind of give you all an update on where we are with our device usage and the education around social media use and mental health. So the elementary school, I think, has already been shared is personal devices like cell phones are prohibited.

We know that there are some families that feel like it is necessary for their children to come to school with a cell phone, But all the cell phones are silent, off, put away. They are not out at all during the school day. And our students at the elementary level get educated on cyberbullying and what that looks like and sounds like. At the middle school, their cell phone policy, which has already been shared earlier in this meeting, you know, phones are put away in silence, basically from bell to bell over the course of the school day, unless a student has a very specific permission to use it for a very specific purpose.

But otherwise, the phones are completely put away during school hours. Students are also part of lessons where they receive internet safety education as well as education related to mental health. And at the high school level, you know, the principal's work, Dr. Gattusi's work with his leadership team determined that it's teacher discretion at the high school.

And as part of our health curriculum, all students who take the CHS-based health course get instruction around mental wellness. And then our 9th and 10th graders, this year our social studies teachers collaborated to provide instruction around cell phone usage, the risk around cell phone usage and addiction and its impact on the brain. All right. So next steps.

I am continuing to support our principals with their school improvement plans. Our school improvement plans have a very, very strong through line to connectedness, both teachers to students and students to students. From very deep work around trusted adults and identifying trusted adults for students at the high school to the return of Greyhound time, which allows clubs to meet during the day for students to connect with each other and with their teachers, Spervantage, Pursuit, and Next couple bullet points. As it's been referenced in a couple different ways here in this meeting, our students' needs on the social-emotional side are evolving quickly.

And I think with our return to in-person learning and a lot of the return to things that our students were familiar with over the last few years, we know that there's an increasing need for supporting students with anxiety, depression, and ADHD. As part of that work we also know that we need to study the clarity of our roles You know what is the full scope of the work of a social worker of a school counselor and where is there overlap or where is there a gap that needs to be addressed in a different way than how we currently doing things And then we also want to take a closer look at the curriculum, revisiting what's previously been in place and then exploring some new resources that can help us address some of the needs that feel very relevant right now. And part of that goes back to finding resources that will align with our new report card indicators. The profile of our graduate competencies, you know, at the elementary school level, they've been working hard to identify, you know, what do the traits of a profile of a graduate look like in our elementary school students?

And that work is also starting in our secondary schools with leadership teams really taking a close look at what those competencies look like for the age groups that they work with and support. And finally, I do anticipate coming back to you next semester with a request for resources. I think some of those requests could be for space, some of it could be for personnel. As I spend more time looking at our data, I know that we have some needs that need to be addressed for our students in a different way than how we have in the past.

And I think ultimately we want to be able to position all of these resources, both human resources, So, that is the conclusion of my presentation and I'll open it up for questions or discussion. Go ahead. Thank you. I have a few specific questions and sorry, maybe more than normal for me, but you kind of bring these topics out of me.

I think I would really like to start though I'm going to start, though, by just acknowledging something that I really like, and that what you included in the presentation is pathways to our being self-actualized, empathic, and collaborative. I think if you read these statements and say, these are the things that we want our students to be, these are, I find it really inspiring that we would focus on this for our kids. I kind of wish there was someone my whole life that had been saying, I'm going to make sure you're on board with these things too. I think it's just an example of how if we, as a board and as district leadership, we focus for a long term on these specific pathways to achieving this goal.

I just think it's really innovative and I think it's incredibly, incredibly impactful in this social-emotional area, which will impact the other areas as well. So I just want to acknowledge that. Good for us, I guess, in summary. So a couple of specific questions for you, Ronan.

On the panorama study, a measure that we've talked about and heard about, I think, over the years Supererntant, Bord of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Ask the same question for outside of school. And ask them about a similar question, a parallel one, about friends. So is there a friend at school that you know you could rely on no matter what?

And then is there an adult either in school or out of school that you could rely on? So would that be in the sense of belonging? That one is actually under the supportive relationships, which was not part of this particular presentation, but it is one of the topics that we monitor. Okay, that's what I was...

Yeah, so we kind of look at both of them together, like, to see, you know, what is it telling us about the students. I will say, though, the high school is going to be rolling out, if they haven't already done it, they're about to do it, which is they actually, pre-COVID, used to have students fill out a card that said, like, who is your trusted adult? And for the students who did not write down anyone, specific follow-up to those students, they're going to be doing that again. Thank you.

I wasn't sure if I just didn't know where that would fit or how that would work. Okay, so question number two, I guess. The professional development that we do, can you give us a sense of how, maybe a quantity of examples of what portions of that professional development that we do with the staff that are specifically intended to address this goal? And that's one of our three goals.

So can we speak to that a little bit? Yeah, I would say the first one Is all of our work around empowered learning because it really draws upon so many of these skills, like students being able to have voice choice, you know, in what product they're about to produce, you know, students working with each other in collaborative ways and getting students to be able to manage their frustration tolerance as they are really, you know, moving through projects. I think our gifted specialists have also been working with some of our teachers around what that looks like in terms of helping students manage their social-emotional learning as it relates to the different challenges that a student might face. And then our counselors have also been working with, especially at the elementary level, with our classroom teachers around how to manage your classroom, both the behaviors, but also really strong focus on the community building.

And that's also one of the goals at the middle school as well, is to start using that pack time as a way for students to be seen and not to have anyone kind of fall through the cracks or not be on anybody's radar. And so it's absolutely a work in progress, and it's something that we're always aspiring to do. So I think last year, the trajectory of our district-wide learning days incorporated a lot of the overlap between all three goals, especially the work that I did with Dr. Poole, et cetera, around tying our equity work to the social-emotional learning piece and understanding why it's so important to center our students' identities in the work that we're doing and why it's important to make sure our students feel like their identities are reflected in the work that we're doing.

And how they experience our teaching learning environment, because we know those are all things that contribute to sense of belonging, school climate, and self-efficacy. That's all very much tied together. I was thinking about that Empowered Learning presentation during yours and how many sort of common goals and maybe even pathways to that. So it's interesting to bring that up.

And I also want to highlight, too, over the summer I brought in a couple different resources to be experiences during our summer. I've worked with West County Psychological Associates to have therapists come in to talk about what does it look like for anxiety in the classroom setting, what does depression look like in the school setting. And, of course, those are kind of opt-in experiences, but I'm hoping to incorporate more of that into Assured Learning Experiences for our staff. Yeah, I appreciate that for sure.

So the third thing that I wanted to kind of ask you about is a little more, a little bit more vague, so I guess maybe just a little more conversational, but it's around, you know, that idea of these evolving student needs that we have driven so much by the learning, the changes in the learning models that we've had over the last, you know, two plus years now. Superexpensive, Boredom, and Now, do. And we've talked a lot about technology tonight. That too.

Do we think about technology usage differently now because of what's happened with the way we've had to use technology to deliver teaching than we did before? And how are we drawing on those challenges and those experiences and the things that our kids have had to endure to inform this network? Does that make sense? Yeah, and when I hear your question, what strikes me as like what I think students evolving needs, I guess I haven't necessarily thought of it through like through the lens of like our Chromebook usage and how we've been using Chromebooks, etc.

But what I have been looking at it is through things like the number of suicide risk assessments we conduct each semester. I can tell you right now that this time last year we had conducted 13 suicide risk assessments across the school district, and at this point in time we're at four. And that lines up to what, you know, our SEL data showed in this last round of panorama, which is, you know, I also look at challenging feelings. And some of that data was really startling over the last couple semesters where we have given it, and when I looked at the challenging feelings results compared to where it was last spring and last fall, So that is a need that I think is changing in the sense of it still a very intense need And it let me know actually how intense it had gotten and now maybe it coming you know it changing shape and is still here So what I'm thinking is what are the things that we need to be doing for all students as it relates to building coping strategies and resilience as it relates to anxiety, depression, attention, etc.

And then what do we need to do differently around tier two supports for that 15% of the students who need something a little bit more or a little bit different than what the other 80% need. And then the remaining 5% for those of you who might be doing the math along the way. I didn't forget about that. Our tier three students.

And these are students who we are looking at, you know, what does their schedule look like? What do we need to do differently for their entire school day in order to help them be successful? And sometimes that means we're partnering with an outside provider because that student's in an intensive outpatient program. So maybe they're doing half days with us.

And so I think that there is a lot of room for us to be reflective and thoughtful about what the data is telling us, what the students are telling us, because this data is congruent with the qualitative information that I collected through the community engagement forums that we hosted this time last year, where there is an overwhelming sense from so many of our students that they're not good enough. And if they are not good enough at getting a good grade on a certain assignment that's about to get turned in, that they're going to get a bad grade in that class. And if they get a bad grade in that class, they're going to get a bad GPA. And if they get a bad GPA, they're not going to get into college or they're not going to get into a good enough college.

And if they don't get into a good enough college, they will have disappointed the adults around them. And so I think what Carter mentioned earlier about school academic performance, Is a huge stressor. And I think, again, we need to think about tier one. Like, what are we doing environmentally that supports all of the children to be more successful and to mitigate the anxiety, the depression, the ADHD that is so clearly coming up?

It's really helpful. Did that answer your question? I didn't really ask you a very good question, to be fair, but the topic, and I think it helps me, and I don't know, hopefully other people too, to think about our kids in those tiers and having different needs, but everybody's in tier one, right? Yes.

So that's kind of an important concept, and it gets to that each and every thing that we've talked about, right? Like that we have to address some, that we have to not think about one kid, but all kids and one kid, right? So that's helpful to think about it that way. So I'll let other people ask questions now because I don't want to monopolize anymore, but it's very thoughtful and I just appreciate the conversation.

Thank you. Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I just want to make sure we're always remembering, you know, we can do all that, but if the kids still don't feel comfortable with those people, it's not going to matter. You know, they're not going to use it.

So I'll tell you right now, I would approve whatever you're going to ask for that, because I think it is really, like, such an important urgent need. So thank you for thinking forward in that. I also wanted to, the data we looked at, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. So, so much of it, we were like in really high percentiles, right, compared to other like schools, which is great, like 80th or 90th.

But I still couldn't get past the fact that some of those percentiles were so low, like 50% of our high schoolers felt a sense of belonging, even though that was in the 80th or 90th. Comparatively, like that's horrible in my mind. Like I can't, like half of our kids don't feel like they belong or what, I think it was 50%. It was.

So a lot of those were in the 50s and 60s which in my mind is still so low even if we doing better than other schools we still not doing great I think So I first of all appreciate you using data to drive your decisions but I curious how you do you agree with that Or do you think like 50 or 60% is great? I mean, I don't, I was shocked to see us so high, like 80th or 90th, but the percentile is still low, I guess. I would love for it to be 100%. Right, 100%, of course.

Because I look at the, when I see that 50%, you know, I think about the parents and the families of the students who are in the other 50%. And, you know, I think about, I would, I aspire that every child who walks through any of the doors into the building, into any of our buildings, that they feel like school is a place for them and that they can fully be themselves in all the spaces in every single building. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Report, I'm serious, that's how basic some of these sessions are because we need to teach our staff how to do that, right?

And it even goes down by kid. So, for example, Stacy, to your question, Dr. Poole, he and I were talking the other day. There's an elementary school which has taken action because they didn't like that number.

They found out that in the subgroup, right, the African American students specifically had a lower sense of belonging than the others. So the teachers now have identified those students, have taken the initiative to actually create like an affinity group with those students. You know, like they're creating structures to be able to address these numbers. I mean, I guess it was like probably a dumb question, but I just want to think, I mean, a dumb question is to say how do you feel about it.

Of course we want 100%. I just wanted to point out that it's like crazy to me, like comparatively we were doing so great. I mean, it makes me so sad for the other schools we were comparing actually, honestly, too. But I think about, like, really, those are so low, which I thought, I don't think, anyway.

80 to 90 percentile sounds great, but it's really not great. But historically, it's never been over 50%. Right? Like, in no time in history in school has it ever been over 50%.

We haven't been over that long, but true. Right. Let me just go to show you. I mean, any of those categories weren't so low.

Well, to be pretty respectful, school's not for everybody, right? Or some kids are just still in the structure of school. I don't think it's sad. Well, we should just understand it.

Because it might, you know, get an affinity group, might not be the move. Who knows? Might not be the move. I'm just trying to find out, maybe just get the data and try to understand it, as opposed to always trying to, like, find some additional process to fix it.

You know what I'm saying? And it might not, and maybe that's the wrong question to ask. Maybe it's not about, what was the question, what was the question you asked about that, about it again? Oh, for sense of belonging?

Yeah, I mean. Yeah, so some of the sample questions are, and this is not in soft as a bliss. There's like three or four other ones in addition to these. How connected do you feel to the adults at your school overall?

How much do you feel like you belong at your school? How much respect do students show you? Yeah, so I mean, some of those kids, I don't, I don't. It might not be bad, I just don't feel connected.

But, you know, I don't feel connected to do a lot of stuff. I mean, there just might be something different. I'm just trying to understand. What I'm trying to say is that it may not be problematic.

For help. Yeah, we just need to, I mean, we feel sad. I feel it's great for one 50%, the other half is, like, doing so poorly. It might not be that, what I'm trying to say.

So how do we interpret that data? Is there someone out there that can help us read it and maybe ask the questions differently or, I don't know, is there another way to manage this process? But I'm not sure if I just completely 100% agree like it's all or nothing. I love it, I don't love it.

They're sad, that's not a way to fix it. Make sense? Is the survey anonymous? Or can you actually identify not just subgroups but students?

So it a little bit in between So what it will do is so for example Little Robin takes the survey and the platform will aggregate all of her responses for that specific topic and generate a number for it And usually it like a scale of zero to four And so depending on the topic usually any number between 3 Thank you We look for all the students whose scores are like 2.0 or below. So again, so it lets me know they did not pick some of the greatest answers out of these questions, and that's an area of concern. So I'm going to pull that list. I'm going to email it to the counselor to let them know these are the kiddos who popped up when I did this search.

Okay. So I don't know how every single student answered every single question, but I do know like the aggregate of their answers for specific topics. Okay. Well, that's good.

And I'm glad to hear that it's somewhat actionable then when you do see an aggregate low score. Because that's actually the benefit of any survey that we do, is that there's something that's positive and actionable out of it. Do the respondents know it's not totally novel? If I'm a student, I'm taking it, do I know?

I don't know if it's good or bad or not. You know, I just, you don't know. I mean, they tell us they're not. I will say it is very helpful in being able to filter to a specific identity group.

So if I wanted to see how are all the fifth grade girls who are Hispanic in the school district of Clayton, what did their scores look like for supportive relationships, I can drill down to that. I was going to ask that too because she brought up an example of a something. So you can look at the free or reduced lunch kids, the African American kids, the Hispanic kids, gender, IEP kids, like there's a whole bunch of subgroups. We're just not seeing it, but you have access to all of them.

So if you take out the black kids, what's the number then? If you take out that number that are unhappy, that don't feel good about the school, they don't feel connected, then what does that number look like? I'm not sure. I would need some time to go through to figure that out.

Hmm. Seems like it would be pretty easy. Exactly. Just take the number, divide by x and that's it.

So I think what's going to be a really important thing is that, I think everybody's bringing up good points, and that we're going to engage a consultant to help us navigate some of these issues, Which, quite frankly, none of us are really experts in this area. And they can help us then identify, you know, what we do need to be doing. Maybe it is an affinity group, maybe it isn't. All we can do right now is work with what we have until we get these people in to help us work through some of these issues.

So, you know, we, and I think that will inform a lot of the work, the specifics of what we do next year. And in the years thereafter. So working with what we have, I've got a few specific questions based on your presentation. Thank you, by the way, for all the information, Robin.

It sounds like there's two elementary schools that are rolling out that circle model, which seems like it's pretty positive. Who's the holdout and why are not all three doing that? That is an excellent question. It's a building-based decision with the counselor.

I'm sorry, not with the counselors, with the building principals. Thank you. Thank you. I don't expect you to have an answer for today.

And then Center for Mindfulness, that sounds like a great program. That sounds like an independent program. Why is that not at Clayton High School? My hope is to expand into Clayton High School.

I attempted to do it last school year. The bell schedule was a little different last year than it is this year. One of my greatest design challenges is scheduling and time. One of the other barriers that I ran up against, which I did not anticipate, was the follow through in returning the consents.

So we had several counselors in this building social worker. We're reaching out to families providing the paperwork. And there wasn't, you know, there wasn't follow through. And so the therapist can't connect with the students unless we've gotten that consent out.

So my hope is to try again second semester. You know, we're rolling out and we have a slightly larger caseload this year than we did last year. Last year was the first year that I tried it, but I absolutely agree with that thinking. I think that it is something that we need to get into high school.

Okay, great. And then Safe Connections, which it sounds like it is in the high school, how do students access those services? Carter, are you aware of that? Have you heard of that?

I have not. So how do they access it? Is it by recommendation of the teacher or a counselor or a social worker? It's a social worker portal.

Okay. And is that the only way to access that particular service through Safe Connections? Ultimately, yes. I mean, they can go to the counselor as well, and the counselor will work with the social worker to get that referral made and get those consents completed.

Okay, great. And then, going back to the, since the device thing has come up multiple times, I agree with you, Stacey, it's probably not a board decision, but as the leadership team at the high school looks at it, I do recall hearing from one of the public comments that there are very high-performing schools. It sounds like they've implemented this, like Burroughs and SLU, I think were two of them. I know one of the practices that we've had as part of our PD for teams in the past is a blast walkthrough.

It would be interesting if that leadership team at the high school did a blast walkthrough at one or two of those schools and assessed the different climate of learning versus what they see in our high school for a comparison as they make their decision this year. That would be a recommendation maybe that I would have. And then, not to be devil's advocate, Carter, because, you know, I will be the devil when I go home and tell my two high schoolers this, but, you know, the opposite side of what you said, and I share Jason's frustration with, you know, you tell teenagers to do something, they're not always responsive to the suggestion, but you want them to be able to develop the self-regulatory skills for the future. I wonder if there's not devices in the classroom, if that helps them with developing good study habits that then they carry over into college.

So that's it for me. Okay, I have plenty. I'll start with what Kim just ended with. I would agree with Kim that autonomy is really important and learning how to use your device is really important, but I do wonder when you have a device that is, as we've talked about, We've used the word addictive, and we know from studies that that's what's happening.

And Carter even used the word, it's not great for our mental health. But then Robin used the phrase, what are we doing to address the challenges that kids are facing with depression and anxiety? So to me, those two don't jive together. It seems like we're talking out of both sides of our mouth.

Does that make sense to you? Sort of. I'm still processing it all because there's been a lot of perspectives shared. Yeah, so I'll just specify.

If we are trying to address students' depression and anxiety needs, and we know that they are capable of getting on a device that we know to be both addictive and bad for their mental health, as stated by everyone in this room, how do those jive together? Does that really, are we really going to meet the goals of the pro-fibril graduate when we're doing two of the opposite things for our students? We're wanting them to be well and to have great, you used the word, lifelong wellness, but we're also saying, but use this thing that makes you sick. I don't think they're encouraging you.

I didn't say they are. No, I'm just saying they're allowing it. I definitely don't think anybody's encouraging cell phone use. But I'll speak to what Kim said.

And the reason why this is so present in my mind, Robin, is because Nisha and I and Spacey were just at the high school doing a walkthrough. And we happened to go because we chose to go into our kids classrooms And my son who a junior was on his phone Didn even realize I was in the room because he was on his phone while the teacher was lecturing And the teacher didn't say a word about it. And he wasn't being disruptive, but he certainly wasn't engaged in the class. Somebody actually had to say, hey, Beckham, like, hello, there's people here.

And then he was like, oh. So we went to another classroom, and Stacy's son, same exact thing. On his phone. So literally we went into four classrooms, and of two of them, our kids happened to be on the phone while we were there.

So I think phone usage in school is happening a lot more than we know or realize. And if we're saying this thing gives us our kids depression and anxiety, period, and we're allowing them to do that during school, how is that affecting their cognitive functioning? How is that affecting their test scores? How is that affecting their mental health is what we're here to talk about tonight.

But it doesn't feel good to me. It doesn't feel morally good to know what the studies show and to then say, well, we'll just let them figure it out, how to use this thing, which is, you can say this is a very big word, but is addictive, is a drug. We'll just see how it goes, Carter. Just, you know, I know it's bad for you, but, you know, and I'm not saying we're encouraging it.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's happening. I'm saying that teachers are having to face this, and I'm saying that students are having to deal with the temptation that their mind is not developed to deal with. So again, whether this is a board policy or not, I think for what you're doing, if I was you, I'd be screaming, hey teachers, let's get on board with this.

And again, let's let the teachers be the ones that call it up to have it happen. But because we are not, we are doing the opposite of what we're saying we want to do for these kids by allowing this to happen in our classrooms. And Chris, I hear you on that, but I also, what you just said, let the teachers give us the voice. The teachers did.

Exactly. So I want to address that, too. They spoke through the leadership team. I hear that.

They spoke about it. I hear that. They debated that. So my thought on that, Nisha, would be, you tell me, because I wasn't at that table and I don't know.

Who is at that table? The leadership team is made of the administrative team. So like the assistant principals, Dr. Kaczewski, department chairs from each department.

So like your language or social studies electives, you have your counselor there. Like basically everyone from each department. Everyone is employed by the district. Correct.

Right. And how many of those people have a degree in, like, how about a medical degree? I would guess not. Right.

And how many of them are then, even if they have a medical degree or have a master's degree in, you know, counseling, Or mental health or any of those. But I would say that almost all of them have seen the research on it. But they are not, that's not what they do for a living. They teach social studies or math.

So in my opinion, it's okay for that board to be a part of making the decision for themselves, for their own community, right? It's their community. And I want them to have the autonomy to make that choice. If someone that is an expert can say to them, that makes a lot of sense, what you're talking about.

Or, actually, the data shows this, and this is how it applies to kids this age. You see what I'm saying? I don't think they have the right information. They can't.

They're not experts in those fields. I just want to jump in with respect to this conversation. It's, in my opinion, you guys can keep talking about it if you want. It's extremely micromanaging.

And this is not, we should not be dictating, none of us really know, because we're not professionals. Maybe Chris knows more than some of us. But until these consultants can do an audit of some sort and they can tell us what needs to be done, for us as board members to be sitting here opining on whether the kids should have cell phones, I just, I think it's a, it's a kind of a conversation that is misplaced. But you guys can keep talking about it if you want to.

I disagree. That's fine. And I, yeah, I appreciate that, that I, that you have, that we just disagree. And I think that's what, you know, that's why we're all here.

That's why there's seven of us. Again, I think if there was, if when there was data showing that seatbelts worked, you know, again, Chris you saying to some degree but as someone in the public health and social work background it also you know a community issue You know what I mean? Well, it's not that micro, honestly. The whole topic of conversation since the beginning of the evening has been about cell phones and classrooms.

I mean, we've got parents really in place. So I don't think it's micro. That's not what the board decides. I think the gist of it is that, I mean, you know, we need to figure out whether or not we want to come up with some kind of blanket way of dealing with this, or do we want to continue with the measures that are put in place allowing each teacher and each school, bar down versus elementary school versus the high school, to make their own decisions.

But we know that the results, we know that based on statistics, based on these outcomes, based on some of the things that the data has been shown, that you can gather, that it's been, you know, a detriment to our students' learning. And disruption to... What data? I'm not saying that.

We need... I don't know, like, this premise that we've proven it and the data proves that this is bad for every kid, I'm saying there's data out there that proves that it's been a detriment. For every kid? I don't think that's true.

I've never seen that data. No, it's associated. I didn't say every kid. With a decrease in...

We're talking about this as if those are accepted premises, that this is bad for every kid. And I mean, maybe it is. If it is, we should find that out. But that's not...

I think we're jumping into that and also... That's why we'll hire them. Right. I agree.

Plus, we do know that we use our cell phones for instructional purposes. We talked about that. In the classroom. Yeah, we talked about it.

I've talked to several teachers about it as well. They use that for instructional purposes. Yeah. I think the risk of what that cell phone gives a student during the class day far outweighs any productivity that they can get from it, especially because of Chromebooks.

I've talked to teachers about it. I worry. We're not supposed to be talking to teachers either, by the way, as board members. Oh, it was in a parent-teacher conference.

So it wasn't about this specific, it was about my child's cell phone use. I worry that, I'm not at all disagreeing with what you're saying, Chris. I actually do see that correlation, totally. But I worry if the board is wanting to dictate that for a rule for one of our schools, that that's a slippery slope.

Like, we don't get in, that we should leave it up to teacher and principal discretion, It's almost like if we were going to vote on a dress code policy for the high school. Well, that, whatever. There's other reasons. I'm just, as an example, I worry that then we're getting too micro in school rules.

I don't disagree with discussing this, but I agree that Robin had on the slide, and we're all saying that it really should be the school figuring it out with the teachers and the principal. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. And they don't have expertise in it. That's my biggest issue with all of this.

Yeah, that's fair. That's what I'm getting at. I'm not getting at, hey, let's all make this a huge. I'm not saying that.

But I do think that if you don't have the expertise at the table, you're not going to get the right answer every time. You know what I mean? So, again, to me, I've looked at the data really closely, Gary, and it's new-ish, but it's really clear. As of 2011, things really changed for our mental health in this country in general, just in cell phone usage in general.

So I do think there's a correlation. And again, I don't know enough about it, and neither does Mrs. Nichols at Glenridge, to really know what to do about it. So let's just bring the right people to the table, and let's let data bear out what to do.

Exactly. And that's where I keep going back to is that if these people come back to us in the spring and, you know, they have their conversation with Robin and make their recommendation, then I'm sure, you know, Robin and her team will take measures to, you know, to do what needs to be done. But I don't want to give Jason a short shift. I think he wants to have the ability to ask Robin a question about the presentation.

No. Well yeah all of my questions were answered I just want to say first of all it has really been said yeah like congratulations on a great job on getting these numbers back up that we saw at the beginning of the PowerPoint presentation That not easy especially over the past couple of years I really appreciate that. I have to mention that my kindergartner talks about the zones every day when she comes home from school. I can see it.

Just as a parent, I can see it working. I wish I was just that green and red. I never knew about the middle things. Oh yeah, she comes home in the yellow zone every day.

Did you hear about it? I go blue to red. Her birthday's coming up, she's determined to be in the green zone all day on her birthday. I love this.

That's true. I just want to say one thing, but I do like the fact that we're having this dialogue. I don't think we should shut each other down when we're saying things. We may not agree, we don't need to be defensive either when someone's saying something about, you know, an opinion.

I don't think anyone in here is trying to make a decision tonight. And I think we all agree that the day that having someone come in, a consultant, will be helpful in the future. But I see what you're trying to say. I want to make sure you understand that you can say what you want to say.

I want to support you on that. But, you know, it can get kind of dicey. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. You can say what you want to say, Chris, and I think I understand your point.

This is the reason that I live in this world, is to be an advocate for health and wellness. So, of course, this is going to be the meeting that I talk the most at, right? I mean, any time this subject comes up, I'm going to be talking about it. I believe strongly that that's the core of us being a healthy society, is to have positive health and wellness.

And to me, when I see things happening that aren't to that, even if the board itself isn't the one that's going to be the deciding factor on how this plays out in our schools, it needs to be talked about at this table. So that's why I just wanted to be some, that's what I brought this to do, was for us to just really think about who's making these choices in our schools. Thanks for your voice. I think, yes, and I hope you didn't think I was trying to shoot.

Oh, I didn't think you were. I just wanted to refocus. Maybe. I just want to make sure we weren't discussing this to try to be the ones making the decision.

I heard you, Stacey. I think at the end of the day, we all have the same goals, which is what you're saying, of course, which is Robin's whole point. And so I think that's why it is healthy discussion. I think, of course, we all want our students to be mentally healthy and taken care of at school.

And that's why I'm so happy to see what Robin's next steps are, is asking for more resources, bringing in a consultant. Yeah, that's great. Oh, did Carter have a question? Carter.

What do you have? Carter, cap out it. Okay, so my first question is about the things we're doing, the outsourcing therapists and other mental health resources. So I just wanted to sort of hear how that's going and how accessible that is to students across the board.

So I would say it's going well in the sense of we are getting resources to students and families who have not previously had access. And that our, you know, obviously we have to have conversations with all of the families about the consent forms, if they want to participate, et cetera. And the support from parents has been overwhelming. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Thank you. Kind of funny with the, well not funny, haha, but like interesting in terms of the response was with our Center for Mindfulness, it was almost like we've, in some spots, you know, like we're reaching very close to like what our case load threshold can happen because the therapist, she spends four hours a day, one day a week in each of the elementary school buildings. And so for, in some spots, it's the age group and the need, like the focus of the school group, we've maxed out. So, so I, so I, I'm pleased with where we started and where we are now, and I am looking forward to, again, getting some outside eyes on this as a Tier 2 support, and what are some things that we can do to continue and augment it, because I do think the need is there.

And how would you compare that to the idea of having a designated district employee who is a school therapist, just a familiar face that every student knows they can go to if they have something to talk about? I think that is absolutely a solution that we should take a closer look at. One of my greatest concerns is really just like bandwidth. Like what is a realistic caseload and what do we think the need is?

I will say that quite a few of our students have providers outside of school, and that's what works for their family. You know, because there are some pros and cons to having a child or a student meet with their therapist in the middle of the school day. Because, oh, guess what? It's, you know, 1-11 and you need to, you just finished your session and now you have to go be emotionally regulated in your next class.

And that can be hard for some students. But I do absolutely think that that is a solution that we need to take a closer look at. I think we need to take a look at where does that fit into the tiering? Is that a tier one?

Is that a tier two? And what are the qualifications of said person or people that we think could fill that role for our students? And I think right now what I think the way I'm looking at it is by getting these outside community partnerships, we're able to fill a need where our current staffing isn't able to reach. And so I think your idea that you just shared is absolutely on the table.

And then can you talk through quickly all the legal regulations that go hand-in-hand with outsourcing, this type of thing, like where parents come in and how much a student can sort of just do on their own with these outsourced therapists? That's a really great question. So with our MOUs, we usually outline what the exchange of information is going to be. We really try to be thoughtful about once a family gets started, really try to be thoughtful about the amount of information we actually need to know about those sessions.

And oftentimes we don't know all the details because we don't need to know. We don't honor students' privacy. But sometimes a therapist might be able to share with us in the small group, like, here are the goals. So here are the focus areas now that I've gotten to know this group better.

These are the things that we're really working on. I think that it's worth exploring. Some school districts do kind of a blanket consent, which helps especially in moments of emergency where we've got to bring in outside, where a district might need to bring in outside providers on the last minute notice. So that way students can go in.

And so that, I think, would be a component that we'd have to look at in relationship to if we were to add personnel or develop a more sustainable partnership with an outside provider. Thank you. Good question. Yeah.

What else? It's a hard conversation, for sure. Complex. Thank you for all your time.

Okay, so we are on our action items and our first one, Stacy, is policy GCBDA. I move that the board approve the second reading of policy GCBDA, professional staff short-term leaves, and policy GDBDA, support staff leaves. Second It been moved and seconded Are there any questions or comments Okay all in favor Aye Any opposed Motion passes Okay I move that the Board approve the second reading of policy IICC school volunteers Second It been moved and seconded Questions All in favor Aye Okay Consent agenda. I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda 9.02 through 9.05.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any questions? All in favor?

Aye. Okay. Terrific. So we are now on...

There's a couple donations. I'm sorry. Oh. There's more than that's reflected there, so I would hold off on that, on the donations.

I mean, we can acknowledge those donations, but the soccer program actually raised like close to $12,000, so there's many more and larger donations than that. I don't see where we just... Can I ask a question? I would.

Can I ask a question about that? Nisha, when we recognize donations, it seems new to me that we're recognizing like every... I don't want to at all insinuate that not every donation is meaningful. I don't remember that we used to acknowledge like...

I mean, I know of donations in the past that we've never said a word about. Right. Personally. Right.

And there's a lot that are missing here. So I just want to make sure we're either covering every single one or we're not. Because I don't want to slight anyone. Agreed.

I mean, I've personally made donations that have never been recognized. I don't care. I'm not doing it for the recognition. It's just an example.

It's just not consistent. I don't know what it's like. It's not consistent. Yes.

So I 100% agree with you. But we recognize. Or is there a minimum amount that we recognize? We recognize any check $500 and over.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. And I want to make, I just, we might want to, well, we can look into that. Or there's another way to acknowledge them. Yeah, we should probably acknowledge the soccer district club for raising all the money that they do.

Tons of sports teams do it, and clubs, and individuals, and everything. So I just want to make sure, I don't know if there's a better way to do this, but maybe we recognize them a different way. Maybe it's not just a consent agenda. Maybe it's, I mean, I don't know, maybe at the end of each quarter we just publish a list.

I don't know what would be the right answer, but I definitely, I've been noticing lately that it's just been different than in the past. Thank you. We can look into that. Thank you.

Sorry. No, that was a good point. Okay, so we are on, okay, number 10. Communications.

Am I missing anything? Okay, so let's see here. Did anybody have any interesting meetings they want to talk about? I went to one, yeah.

Carter. I went to the... Carter goes to all the interesting meetings. The Teachers Learning Advisory meeting, which was, we talked about the health curriculum, health and PE curriculum.

It was really cool to have a bunch of parents, teachers, administrators from across the district Spervantage, Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Thank you Thanks for being there Carter of course And I just say I happy we formed that advisory with parents especially too because years ago we used to have parents on the math curriculum committee and social studies, and we slowly got away from that because we were getting input in different ways, like surveys or community engagement events or whatever. And I think parents were upset. They like to be part of those discussions. So I'm happy that we've kind of recreated that, not by department, but just as a general.

So I'm glad that you found that good. Yeah, and another really good thing about the way they did it is it wasn't just like a tell us about your experiences. It was also like a big educational experience. Like they told all these parents of like how the health and PE is actually running.

And then after we learned about the way it works, then we could have educated discussions about it. That's good. That's good. Anybody else?

Well, Jason and I went to an SBA conference. That was, I really enjoyed it. It was, you know, it's a lot of eye-opening, a lot of learning. You're coming together with, you know, schools from the entire state, so you meet a lot of people that have similar experience, some, but most that have very different experience than us.

And I met superintendents, I met teachers, I met mostly fellow board members. And so many of them were from St. Louis, which was great, because I feel like I learned a lot from the folks that are right here with us, that we recognize their names. But the breakout sessions were great this year, and I think I was happy to see that social-emotional learning was on everybody's mind.

We talked about the book issue in one of the breakout sessions. Basically, everything that we've talked about this year, they had a breakout session about it. So I went to, I was really happy that I got to get some of their perspective and think about things, you know, in a little bit of a bigger picture while I was there. So what do you think?

I thought it was great. I may agree with everything you said. You know, I particularly liked, it seems like Special School District is doing some cool things with, there's a topic, equity in governance. It was something like that.

And someone from Special School District came and presented, talked about how they incorporated equity work into what they do. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, The most powerful way to do it and really kind of the way it has to be done, right? But I was surprised how many schools had a very strong, how many of them employ lobbyists.

And there's just, we know that a lot of stuff has already affected our school this year. It will continue. You know, legislation is happening constantly. So that's just something for us to think about.

These other districts are being super proactive. They have what they want to see and they have a lobbyist that is there to actually speak to what they are experiencing in their district. So it's an important thing for us to just talk about. Let's see, what else?

So I think that... Great Clayton Education Foundation meeting. Great Clayton Parks and Rec meeting on Monday Great board meeting tonight So I don know what I going to do tomorrow night Actually I do know what I going to do tomorrow I busy Chris and I as she mentioned went on a walkthrough of the high school with Nisha which, like I always say, I encourage anyone to do whenever you can. We were like, we purposely went to, first we were purposely going to try to hit some honors and AP courses I think it's important to observe the diversity because we're always talking about that in those classes.

And it was definitely varied. Like one class we went in and we're like, oh, this class isn't very diverse. And then there was one that was. I mean, so I think it's, you know, we have the numbers so we know what it is.

But to see it, I think, in action, I think you can feel the difference in those classes for sure. We commented on that. What was really cool too is we made sure to go to like a business class. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

We need to talk about gender needs to be part of that conversation too, not just race. Anyway, so it was cool. We went to the band. There's not a single guy in the fax class?

Not in that one. I mean, there's several fax classes. This one was maybe child development, I think she said. Anyway, but it was cool.

I mean, because there's so many different courses offered at the high school, it's really cool to pop into those. Well, what we heard in the art classroom, remember how important that was? Oh, oh. Mention that.

Yeah, the art was. The discussion that she had with the students prior to looking at. This was like an AP art, like a high-level art class. But talk about, you know, we talk about like co-curricular things.

They were studying religion and how religion is depicted in art. And then she starts talking about biases and your preconceived notions about different religions and minority religions. And when you see a piece of art that depicts that, how do you feel? And how would you judge someone of that religion?

It was deep. I mean, it was like... And she tried to give them... All through art.

A safe... She tried to sort of say, this is how we're going to speak about it. You know, we're going to speak about some stuff. It's going to be hard in some places.

But we're going to speak about it respectfully and kindly. And we're going to think of... You know, it was just done so well. It really, to me, is the profile of a graduate.

That conversation, that class, and that teacher was excellent. It was like what we all talk about, like what Cameron talks about all the time, and just inclusion of different groups, but through art. It was an AP art class? It was like AP art studio.

It was just cool that they were talking about really deep stuff like that. And how inclusive it is. It was so inclusive because they were really focusing on minority religions and how that's depicted in art and how they're going to express that. Anyway, thanks for reminding me about that.

That was cool. Anyway, so if you guys have a chance to do those walkthroughs, I always get so much out of it. It's cool. So I will remind everybody that board candidate filing runs from 12-6 through 12-27.

So to the extent that anybody wants to join this fine board, put your name in, sign up. And what else? I think that's really it. What are the dates again?

It starts December 6th, and it goes through December 27th. Which is a change this year. Last year it was. Last year it was.

Oh, right, last year. But it's a change from previous. It used to be a month. It used to be almost two months.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Like six weeks.

Wow. And now it's during the holidays. I guess one year it's going to end on Christmas Eve. I mean...

Fantastic. Christina will be retired. Makes no sense. Okay, we adjourn?

We can adjourn. I move that the Board of Education adjourn. Second. All in favor?

Aye.