September 6, 2023

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

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Am I good? Okay. All right, ladies, we're going to start. Good?

Okay. Okay, so we are going to get back to order, and adequate notice has been given. You need to, Gary, we need to adopt the agenda again. Move that the Board of Education adopt the agenda as posted.

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

Okay, motion passes. Do we have public participation tonight? Nope, okay. So I think we're going to, we're going to, do I need a motion to move for that?

Okay. We just want to go straight. The playground, okay. Is Tarita here?

Okay, Dr. Murdock, if you would, and our students. We just rearranged the agenda. We just rearranged it.

I didn't know if I needed a motion for that. It should be on board, though. Hello. Hi, everyone.

I'm Trita Mardak, Principal of Education. I would like to have five of these. Thank you. Oh, and Merrimack, too.

Yes, they're next. We already know that, right? And so, if you go to that next slide, Luke, Agents of Change Project, fifth graders are charged to find an issue within Glen Ridge around problems that they see. And so, if you see the topics that the entire fifth grade came up with, anti-bullying, campaign, accessible playgrounds, school lunches, school vandalism, and inclusion.

While they were giving their presentation to a live audience of parents and staff members from across the district Dr Patel happened to be in the room with other administrators about the accessible playgrounds During this time, they shared a lot of information that we weren't even aware of. There was some information about when playgrounds should be redone. Ours was at the time 16 or 17 years old and said that we should have a new playground. And so the kids met with me.

They also had their own issues. I'm going to tell you, they all shared their why, why they wanted to research the playground. For me, I wanted the playground to be more accessible for all of our students because we had a couple students that had a hard time accessing every component of our playground. So during that presentation, Dr.

Patel turned around and said, what's going on? I said, we're on it. We're fundraising. She said, stop it.

Let me talk to John. And then that is where we started. So I would love for me to stop talking and our students to start talking about their why, why they chose to do this research project and then their process, the way that they were on the playground committee. We had different meetings throughout the year, and so I want to talk about their experience of the process and then their why.

Thank you, Dr. Murdoch. Hi, my name is Lona Shin, and I am a former student of Glenridge. Now I am a sixth grader at White Owl Middle School.

My experience with Agents of Change was really a good one for me because I got to dive deep into the topic of inclusive playgrounds, and while I was learning to teach others, I really did get to teach myself. Hi, I'm Z Tucker. I'm also a sixth grader at Y-Down. Me choosing Accessible Playgrounds started out as kind of just a schoolwork, but then I started to learn about it and I realized that it really is helpful and important.

And that led to me being here today. Hi, I'm Thomas Castellano. I chose to do accessible playgrounds because I think that playgrounds are a big part of elementary school. It's what kids like about school.

It's where they learn to take risks and meet friends. Hello, my name is Julianne Samanowicz, former student of Glenridge Elementary. Now I'm at Whiteown. And to add on something that Tommy or Thomas said, usually in elementary school, you're like former friends that you might have been in a class last year.

You don't get to see them anymore because you're in a different class. But at recess, you get to see them and just have fun. Hi, my name is Brooklyn. You probably figured out that I'm a student at Rydown, and I was a former student of Green Ridge.

And when I was in fourth grade, my teacher read us a book about a girl named Melody who had disabilities. She had cerebral palsy, and after reading that book, it gave me kind of a new perspective. Spervantage, and in fifth grade I realized this is my chance. This is my chance to help people and this is my chance to make an impact on Glen Ridge.

So that's my why. Our process was like, consisted of things like surveys and asking around and interviews. Things like that. Things like we asked around school, a lot of things.

So the idea kind of started off as like, what can you do to like impact the community? And, like, he was saying, he said, like, it used to be just like, and we thought it was just like some more schoolwork. But it started to, like, grow on us. And then we're like, and then we got, like, new ideas about what we could do.

And, yeah. I would say first it started with kind of thinking of ideas with the group, seeing what everyone thought, and then starting to make it happen, surveying school, and eventually it all led to voting for a new playground. Yeah I mean my group only had two people and we came up with a lot of ideas We did a lot of stuff In one of our inclusive playground team surveys, we found out that actually a really big population of Glen Ridge students had been injured on the playground at least once. So we decided we needed a new playground, and not only because we need inclusivity, but because this playground, as Dr.

Murdoch mentioned earlier, it's getting kind of old. So we met with five different companies, and they submitted their own renderings. They walked around the playground. We watched different recesses to see what the students were accessing.

And so then they came up with their designs, and then I kind of narrowed it down to the top three based off of the presentations from the children of what they wanted. After that, all the children that did the presentation was on the playground committee, and then I listed help from teachers, so I had a teacher rep from each grade level, as well as parents. And I also had parents with students with disabilities on there as well, because their voices really need to be heard to make sure that our playground was accessible for all. And so we met three times throughout the year, and we met with the top three companies, and they presented it to our committee.

They listened to our feedback, answered questions. Parents took their children to different playgrounds. They went to Merrimack's playground because that one was just a few years old, and then other ones around the area, and then gave their feedback to the companies. Jim Brunel was key because he was there.

He was my note taker. We wanted to make sure that all the information that we gave to the companies, they got the same exact information so they wouldn't have one up on the other. So we took some copious notes and then we compiled all the notes. Jim and I compiled all the notes and resubmitted those notes to the companies, provided feedback, more feedback.

We had parents email like, oh, we thought about this, submitted all that to the companies and gave them a few weeks. And then they submitted their renderings and then I invited the playground committee to come back and they voted. And we 100%, we could not believe it, all the votes went to Kurt Hutchison, who actually put in Miramax playground because he actually embodied every single thing that the committee wanted and mentioned and the things that we did not want. And so the next few slides you will see is the playground.

And then I also have a poster as well. And so there's music play. There are items for wheelchairs to be able to go on, but not just one wheelchair, But for students who are not in a wheelchair as well, we have a couple pieces that will stay that were newer pieces to Glenridge. We have students that love to spin, so we have some sensory items that are also included.

We have some shade because that was also important. We talked about color, which is also important with certain students with disabilities that we thought was important to make sure we have these cool, warm colors. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. That was great. I loved it. And the kids were spectacular.

You guys did a great job. Does anyone have questions? Go ahead. What's the timeline for this?

Great question. Well, we wanted to present it to the board first. So then after that, we're going to communicate with Curt and hopefully we'll start getting things ordered now because of supply and demand. And our hope is that they will start this summer.

So it will be ready for the fall. Great. I just want to say, too, while I have the floor, I was also in the presentations last year. And you should be so proud of yourselves, where you came from all that work you had done.

I mean, these kids, first of all, were so impressive, just all the research and data they collected to make the presentations. And from there to now, look where you are with the rendering. So I'm just so impressed, and I think, and I see Mrs. Barnes here, so thanks to you.

Are you the only one? Maybe. That this whole unit, Agents of Change, to me is just so cool. And if it doesn't, like, embody our whole strategic plan, I don't know what does.

It's just really neat to see it in action, and I hope you kids feel really great, because really all that work you did, look, I mean, I know you're at WIDOW now, but you live in the community, and that's what's so great about it, Everyone who lives there can still use the playground even if you're not at school there. So I hope you'll continue to use it once it's built and be proud that the younger kids will have it for a long time. Great work. Thank you.

And that's one of the main reasons I wanted them to come and do a presentation to the board because to really see the value that you guys, what you have done is amazing work. And we're so proud of you, truly, for being from that classroom where you're like, this is just work. I have another assignment. I'm going to get it done, right?

But then you really started learning about it, and it helped you be better students as well, and then look what you're doing. And I remember being in that presentation, and I was going to say the same thing. Stacey was there. Chris, I think you were there too.

And when we walked out, we're like, wow, what an amazing job you did, and how can we help make that happen? So thank you to the board as well. Appreciate it. And, of course, the teacher.

Couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. Yes. And thank you, Fearless Leader, as well, for making sure our kids have a voice. Are we going to get, like, a VIP tour of the playground when it's time?

Tour? Can we play on it? Yeah. Yeah.

If you guys know anybody who can, like, hook that up, just let us know. All right. Thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate it.

And thank you, parents, as well, for being here. I think they've got enough sugar and cookies and juice, so have a great evening. Yep. Have fun at bedtime.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and jump back up on the agenda to superintendent update and board student rep update. Few things that have been happening since it's been only a couple of weeks since we last met. The first thing, I do want to officially thank our PTOs. They did an amazing job.

If you did not get a chance to attend our back-to-school bash, it was the first time we've ever done that here in the School District of Clayton. And from the feedback, it's now going to become a tradition. We probably had easily 1,000 people there. There were food trucks, DJ, the cheerleaders were there, the Greyhound made an appearance, the Clayton PD had a tent, and our SROs were there.

I mean, it was an amazing community event. We had teachers and staff and parents and kids playing. And so I really hope we will continue and we are continuing this. I just I think there's it's going to be a great community building event.

So thank you to all the PTOs that worked hard for that. And then the first two weeks of school was just I would I wish I had some wood, but it's been very, very smooth. Kids are enjoying being back in school. Our staff's in a good place.

There are lots of smiles. Officer Riley, you can see him there already visiting all the elementary schools. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. The goal was before the start of the school year was having these special education community forums where parents have come to us and just really around four specific topics that we been having conversation around like transitions their family experience communication and really the partnership agreement and how we can make it better And we have readily said yes there have been areas that we need to improve on And yes, that we have, we could do a much, much better job in.

And that's the first thing in always making things better is saying when we could have done better, we should have done better and admitting that. And so we are really laser-like focused, not only from the school district of Clayton, but the special school district is also committed in making sure that we are meeting the needs of these children and doing the best possible thing that we can and providing them the best experience. And so we've put a lot of action steps together, and that will be presented at the next board meeting when, you know, if you remember every year they come here and we agree to a partnership agreement. So part of that agreement is going to be the action steps that we're going to have, and we're going to hold ourselves accountable.

So we actually are going to measure things and see, okay, are we making an impact? And we're hoping, truly, to just gain the trust of some of those families that we've lost, because we have lost their trust. And how do we gain that back? So our next, the partnership agreement will be presented to the school board on the 27th, and then our next meeting will be the 12th, which will be online because we're hoping for more parent engagement.

But it just makes us better. And I think it makes us better for all of our students. So that I wanted to make sure we emphasize and just share that with you. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Talk about his journey, and he was inspirational and motivational, and we got really, really good feedback on that morning, and how he really reminded us of why we do what we do. And the morning actually started off with Greyhound himself and our own Carter Davis. He emceed as well as Mohini. So they all welcomed the entire district, so that was nice.

It was just a great morning, and it reminded us of our purpose, which is our students. And so we talked a little bit about the Clayton, the students being what Clayton is, and then us really providing them the experience, which is each one of us. And we do make a difference in their lives. So that was a recap of the morning.

And now I'll toss it over to you. Yeah, the sixth graders are definitely giving me a run for my money. Yeah, it was really great to see. The first two weeks have definitely been really great.

One thing I remember last time is we saw a lot of the athletes working out in the morning, and that's definitely paid off. There's been a lot of fall wins and a lot of, well, doing in volleyball, golf, field hockey, soccer, swimming, you know, the whole nine yards. Everyone's really showing that they're ready for the school year to begin and the Clayton Greyhound spirit. And one thing is the SPSA got their start at the activities fair last week, and we saw a lot of students, high schoolers of all grades, really interested in continuing a sort of more and a bigger enlarged presence within the school.

And so we're definitely pursuing that. The SPSA had our first meeting as well, and there a really main focus was a lot of people wanted to talk about the cell phone policy, which, you know, there's definitely just a less tolerance for cell phones in the classroom. And while I definitely think it's been a rough transition for some kids in some classrooms, it definitely has a net positive. I first hand am seeing the sort of, you know, the more involvement and engagement and less, you know, off topic and really focusing on what the teacher has to offer and really make sure we're learning.

And similarly to electronics, we also had a lot of discussions about the new Wi-Fi. Many people, you know, had issues, but we're finding as the school year goes on that it's definitely fixing itself out. And there was two concerns about Google Forms and Google Sites, which are sometimes needed in the classroom, which aren't necessarily available right now, and it should be definitely looking forward to maintaining that. But so for right now, it's overall been working with general school work.

Personal advice has been working. However, students definitely feel like there are some things they could use before for school that aren't necessarily available at the moment. And finally with the SPSA we were really looking into expanding into middle and elementary schoolers As we see you know the elementary schoolers and the middle schoolers definitely have a voice that they willing to share And one thing that my co and I were really discussing the other day is you know Clayton whole school district is really focused on paths within each subject like math and history all have like a sequence to sequence class sort of development that goes throughout the elementary school middle school high school And one thing we really are looking forward to when discussing with elementary and middle school teachers Thank you. And so when we're looking at the success rate of this path, I think definitely we should reach out to middle schoolers, elementary school, to make sure we're challenging them at the start and so they can be prepared for maybe more courses offered to them in the high school.

And so, yeah, it's, and to finish it off, it really is really great to see all the elementary schoolers, or sixth graders here, because, you know, the, with Clayton High School, for example, we had the renovation with the library, and we can see when students participate in renovations, it really creates a space where everyone's really ready to learn and be engaged with the Clayton School District. That was great. Thank you so much. If nobody has any questions, I think we are on to our strategic plan dashboard with Luke.

All right, well, good evening. I don't get to talk about playgrounds, but this will be great as well, because we get to talk a little bit about some of the work that we've been doing to our strategic plan and some of the data work that surrounds it. Obviously, it is our guiding document, so super important. And we've been able to spend a lot of time just kind of going through and making some updates.

What you're going to see here is the most recent version of the strategic plan. And so it has gotten a lot of updates to the look, making it a little bit more understandable. As I flip through it, you'll notice that some of that seems to be called out a little bit more. One of the things that we really wanted to hone in on, it was the data piece, which is what we'll be looking at here in a minute.

And so we wanted to call some of that. So there was some language changes overall, by and large, most of it would will remain the same. But you'll see some of the differences in the design of it as we kind of go through. Education.

Most of the content as we look at the mission statement and the vision statement all remains the same. None of that has changed but obviously got a new fresh look that looks really sharp. And then we'll fast forward a little bit. There are a couple of changes to the profile of a Clayton graduate.

Mostly just in wording. Nothing that really changes the goals of what we're trying to Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. And then you'll see, again, here with Goal 3, calling out each and every individual measurement on the plan itself. And so like I said the majority of it remained the same other than calling out a lot of the measurement components which is the major piece that I want to show you this evening We've been working very diligently to get a data dashboard up and running that really just gives us the opportunity to look at what we set out to accomplish with the strategic plan and then be able to measure that in a way.

Now, this is the first, what I would say the first iteration is. We are going to continually add to the dashboard. So, we've chosen very specific objectives to start off with. So, you won't see every objective measured at this point in time.

And so, I will speak to some of those here. So, we'll start here. This is going to live on the district website, so you will be able to go into the area of the district website that is strategic plan and then see the data dashboard for each goal. And so under each goal, then you will be able to cycle up through so you can get some of the idea and the feel for what the dashboard is going to encompass.

And so you will see there that we are using panorama data and then being able to display it here on the website to give us some data on how we're comparing and then how we're going. If you look at positive feelings there, we are going from spring 2022 to spring 2023 and then seeing how we're moving with those favorable surveys as we go through. And I will take you a little bit on a ride down the dashboard for goal one there. So you'll see very similar.

One of the things that we really wanted to kind of set out and do also is make it easily understandable and high level. And so this is not something that you would find that we're going to get into the weeds with, I would say, would be the best way. But we do have all that data available so that if somebody should want to get into a little bit more detail, we would be able to do that. And so this is goal one.

And so we get a little look at all of our different objectives that we will be scoring there, how we are comparing nationally as well. And so let's move on. And so that was, we'll move on to strategic goal two here. And so as you're looking at strategic goal two, you'll notice that we have our 2022 map data and EOC data here.

One thing you should know about the map data is that the state of Missouri had said, do not compare backwards from 2022. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superroportionate, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. The EOC that's being taken at the high school level.

And then we'll hop down to PSAT and SAT. And so our levels, obviously, that are compared nationally, very similar. We try to keep it in the same format as moving forward. So to anybody that would get on the website, they would be able to see kind of exactly how we would compare that data.

And then lastly, our NWEA data as for all of the grades as well. So the last one I will show you and on goal, I jumped all the way through there. On goal three, we have one objective currently that we are going to place on the dashboard. This is a one that is shared with goal one.

And so that data is currently going to be identical to what is in Goal 1 because that is a shared objective or a shared measurement tool for that objective. Any questions about the new data dashboard? I have one question. Sure.

First of all, great work. I think this is like very visually. Appealing and easy to understand. And I appreciate it because it's living on the website to just stay high level.

I think that's perfectly appropriate. Simplifying it makes all of this easier to understand for everybody. So great work on that. My one question is, how and when or do you even plan to draw the community's attention to this?

Like, are you going to publicize that this exists on the website so that the community knows? Yeah, I mean, I think once this becomes live on the website, which will be in the near future here, we will definitely call attention to it as we really should, Because this is a great way to just take a look at how we're doing as a school district. So we'll make sure that parents are aware. Like in a newsletter or social media or whatever, somehow.

Because I do think these are questions sometimes we get at those community forums. So I want to make sure everybody realizes, like, now it's there. And it's, I don't know. Absolutely.

Yeah, I kind of have a similar comment to the one that I made when we were having the joint meeting with the city. So I appreciate the like national averages and the national comparisons, but do we have any ability to double click into that for school districts of our demographic and of our size? Because I think that that data probably looks significantly different compared to the national norm. Maybe that's a question for a follow-up, but I would hope that we can get to that point.

Because it's hard to compare a high school the size of Clayton to a high school that has 6,000 kids. Sense of belonging in that high school is probably very different than sense of belonging in ours. And I believe, Robin, you may be able to answer this, but with the panorama, specifically sense of belonging, we can compare it to like schools, correct? And I believe the other two we could not.

We can. Some of them are nationally benchmarked. Right. To the whole data set.

Right. I think it's level. I know it compares to level. So we compare high schools to high schools.

Middle schools to middle schools. But to drill it down even further to Kim's point would be something we would have to look at. Okay. So we'll work on that too.

Yeah. Yeah, first of all, I think this is great, great work, and it's really helpful for me, at least, as a board member to say, okay, how exactly are we doing on our strategic plan? And, you know, over time, we'll have more data points we can see longitudinally. Are we overall getting better or staying the same?

I guess my question is, and I don't know if anyone, I don't know if you answer this or Dr. Patel, if you answer this, but, you know, as a board member, you know, I guess this fall we're about to get our updates on how we're doing against the various goals. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. This really is going to depend on when we get the data for each of the objectives.

But we can plan on it. This is not, just to be clear, this is not me saying this is how I want it. Right. This is how it has to be.

But I sort of remember last year in the fall, we got updates on the various goals. Right. Each meeting got a different goal. You know, for me at least, not again not mandating, but it would be helpful.

And I think maybe just a great way to summarize, we did better. We made progress against our goal. Here's why. Right.

Here's what we can expect for next year. For me as a board member, that's all I really need to see. Thank you for that feedback. That's good.

Jason? Okay. Okay. That was great.

Thank you. We appreciate it. Let's see. Melina.

Am I driving the first part from here? For the first part? And then you'll take over? Do you have my slide deck Good evening.

So I wanted to spend tonight talking a little bit about the work that we've done around curriculum and do some work around sort of making sure that we all have a shared understanding around curriculum within the district. I wanted to start with our policy, IF, and just lift out a couple important points from that policy that the board directs the staff, which is my team, really, to implement a curriculum that's aligned to the Missouri Learning Standards, that's aligned internally, so from classroom to classroom and within levels. And then also that allows each student to succeed. That the board will review and approve the district developed curriculum.

And then the selection and adoption of materials is really the work of the curriculum committee. And you all approve that through the financials that we present to you whenever we're looking to purchase those materials. So in our development of our curriculum, one of the new components for us is the addition of the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council. So we added that committee last year.

It's a committee of the board, so Stacy helps us by sitting on that group. It's a parent group and a student group. So the parent reps come from all six of our buildings. We have two administrators, one elementary and one secondary principal, who sit on the committee with us.

And then there's a group of students that helps us also. So the purpose of that group really is as an advisory for curriculum changes. So if you remember, we used to come to the table multiple times during the self-study, and it felt like we were telling you the same story each time we were coming. So this allows us to have a better communication with the broader community about the work that we're doing and get some information and some feedback from them.

So generally speaking, the meetings follow a pretty similar structure for each meeting. The coordinator of the committee does some sort of presentation to level the playing field so that we're all talking about the same things. And then we're soliciting feedback. So we have some kind of provocations that we're presenting to the group to solicit feedback, get perspectives and input to continue to help us in developing our goals related to that work.

We purposely try to do it in the first year of self-study. Last year, because it was the first year, we didn't get through all of the groups. So the beginning part of this semester, the other two groups are going with them. And then in year two of the self-study is when we come to the table at the end of that year in the spring for our final presentation of our long-range goals, our financials that are attached to those goals.

And then that's also when we would have you do any curriculum approval at that time for that specific department. Then we have four years of implementation of those long-range goals. So just to remind you of sort of where we are in that process right now, our specialty groups are the groups that are coming to you this year for board approval. So they're in their second year of self-study.

It's that list plus professional learning is coming this year. Then next year, Humanities will start their first year of self-study, so they'll come to the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council, and then we continue that process. So when we talk about curriculum, one of the things that guides our work with curriculum is standards. So we have state standards that guide our work, and then we also oftentimes tap into national standards for different departments also.

The purpose of standards is to outline what students should know or be able to do at each grade level, and then they inform teachers about the focus. So if you think about a standard related to addition, the concept of addition is a huge concept. A kindergarten teacher is focused on addition within 20. A second grade teacher is focused on addition within 100.

So it gives the scope of what they're working on. That helps the receiving teacher to know what to expect children know and understand, and it helps the teacher who's teaching the students to know the breadth with which they cover things. DESE's website talks about the fact that the Missouri Learning Standards don't dictate curriculum. So local districts have the power to make the decisions about curriculum And the strategies and the materials and the textbooks that they use The state standards help us in informing those decisions that we make And then the state uses what they have identified as priority standards.

So lifting up a set of standards within each grade level to say these are the things that we're going to use to assess students on the MAP test, etc. I always talk with people about the difference between curriculum and resources. So oftentimes people think of a text series. So like you approved the purchase of illustrative mathematics for elementary last year.

That's a text series. That book is not written for Missouri. It's written for the whole country. It's super comprehensive.

It's way more than we could teach in a year. The curriculum then is for us to make the decisions locally about what we're going to focus, what we're going to amplify, what we're going to consolidate, how we make those decisions is important. So the curriculum is written by us, and I often say to our teachers, like, I don't want anybody to say we have Clayton's curriculum. It's our work.

It's our teachers' work. They're using resources to inform that process when they do that. It's intended to be a blueprint, not a script. We don't want our teachers going in reading page by page from a book.

Marzano, the work that we've done with Marzano talks about in high reliability schools, one of the things that has to be in place is what they call a guaranteed and viable curriculum. So guaranteed, meaning that it's aligned vertically in the sense that the receiving teacher knows what students have learned before and they know what they're supposed to focus on. It's aligned horizontally in the sense that if Chris and I are teaching the same course, that we have the same things that we're focused on. And then the viability is that we have enough time to do it.

That one is probably the hardest for us. I think it's hard for everyone in education because we want to teach everything. So that's a lot of what we spend our time focused on when we're doing curriculum writing. I talk about the fact with new teachers, I always talk about this, If you think of a continuum of lockstep on one end of the continuum.

So everyone is on the same page on the same day. So Chris and I would be same page, same day. And the other side of the continuum being complete autonomy. Chris is teaching what she wants to teach.

I'm teaching what I want to teach and never the tween shall meet. We can't be in either of those places. We have to tend towards the middle of that. And I say we tend towards the autonomous side of that because the students in your class and the students in my class have different needs.

Your talents and my talents are different. But the standards inform where we're going and how far we're going with those things. So in Clayton, what curriculum writing looks like is that we follow a nationally recognized model called understanding by design. What that model does is instead of, a lot of people think, okay, we start with planning lessons.

That's actually the last thing that we do. We start with what do we want students to know and be able to do. So the standards inform that. We make decisions about those standards.

Then we say, how are we going to know if they know it? So the next thing we do is write the assessments. The final thing we do is plan the activities and the pedagogical structures. The timelines that influence the way that we make decisions about how we're going to write curriculum within the district, when we purchased illustrative mathematics last year, we said to the teachers, we want you to implement it with some level of fidelity the first year.

We're not going to write curriculum the first year because we have to know what's in the materials and what's in the resources. The year two of implementation then, so this coming summer, after the teachers have taught it for the first time, we will write curriculum and make decisions. That's where we make decisions about moving units. It's where we make decisions about consolidating or expanding or bringing in other resources.

The other thing that sometimes influences our timelines are legal changes. So there's a lot of things right now related to teaching of literacy within the state. Those things will influence when we would write curriculum. The alignment to district philosophies, so if you think about the profile of the graduate, that's a district philosophy that has influenced some of our thinking around the writing of curriculum.

So our elementary counselors spent time this summer writing curriculum that was focused specifically around the profile of the graduate competencies. And then again, like I said before, it's not lesson planning. That happens during the year. It doesn't happen during the summer.

So this past summer, I just wanted to lift up and highlight a couple different things that we focused on. We have a new course proposal process where departments recommend new courses. They go through a series of committees. The Coordinator's Council is the last committee that makes a decision, and then I have the final say on whether we approve it or don't approve the course.

So the three courses that are listed there, we came to last year to talk to you about realignment of middle school math. Child development is in our CTE department. Plant science, too, is in our science department. So those courses take priority Because they new courses we give them priority We also give them more days to write because they starting from scratch The next thing that influences my decision So our elementary science a couple years ago you approved their goals related to realigning to Missouri learning standards and the learning for justice standards So, we spent time this summer rewriting the units for three through five, the summer before we had done K through two.

Alignment within the district. So because of the changes that we're making with social studies, that school social studies is going to have to make some changes because the kids are going to come with a different body of knowledge. So they started that work. Legal changes then influenced it.

So like I had already talked about with elementary literacy. And then probably our biggest bucket is what I call adjustments. So they're departments that have one or two courses that they want to adjust something either because the kids are presenting in a way that we don't need to be teaching the same thing that we're teaching, and so we need to make some adjustments, or there's something else that's influencing that, but it's not a complete overhaul. It's just a tweak.

And that's probably my biggest bucket, and they get the shortest number of days to be able to do the work. So the last thing I wanted to highlight, and this is the thing that I'm looking for you to approve, is the curriculum website. So if you remember last year, I talked to you about the fact that we had done a complete revamp of the elementary curriculum website. And really my why behind this was to have a way of communicating the approved curricula to the general public.

A clear and transparent format that's easy for families, both prospective families and current families, to understand what it is that we teach in each course that we have. And then a curated resource to articulate vertical and horizontal alignment within the district. So I'm going to ask Luke to, one of the things that you need to know about me is that my philosophy about anything is that three clicks to anything. If it's more than three clicks, then we've gone too far.

So when you go to the homepage of the website, across the top bar, there's a link for curriculum. When you click on the curriculum, it divides it into the different strands. So, Luke, if you'll go to Humanities and then go to Social Studies. And then the Social Studies homepage gives you the Enduring Understandings for the department and then has the curriculum maps for the three levels on the left.

If you'll click on the 9 through 12 map. When you click on the grade span map, it gives you a comprehensive list of all the courses that are offered within that department. And then, Luke, if you'll just click on World and U.S. 2, I'm just going to show you an example of what this is the work that we did this summer.

So to drill down to be able to say, if I'm going to take World and U.S. 2, what does that mean? And so there's a course description. There's enduring understandings and essential questions for the courses.

Those are the things that drive us. Those are like big, meaty questions that the kids are going to grapple with within the course. And then there's a unit outline of the units that they're going to focus on. And then the last thing is the resources that are provided for students.

What you'll notice with most of these is that we have teacher-selected materials is what's put within the resources, because we don't use a lot of textbooks within the school district. So where we do use a textbook, we list that one specifically, but otherwise we list teacher-selected materials. So what questions do you have for me? I don't have a question necessarily, but I do want to say I like that.

Thank you. Anyone else? That was a really good presentation. Well, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Go ahead. It's really awesome, Alina. Thank you.

It's really awesome. It's really needed and helpful and so great for everyone involved. You know, parents, community members, people from other schools, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So you can, a parent could be like, oh, so easy.

And then it also gives the, how long that person's been in our district, what their, you know, qualifications were coming into the, I mean, it's so great. It's just so reassuring and it just, we already know how great all the people are, but this just puts it out there. We know how amazing. Thank you for doing this.

Thank you. I have to say that I have a tremendous team. My team did a huge amount of work. Like, this was a really big lift, and I met with them before this meeting tonight, and we went through the presentation.

And I just said to them, like, we couldn't have done this without, like, the lift that my team did this summer. Big kudos. Yeah, they did a great job. You know when we don't have a lot of questions.

Yeah, so it's great. The amount of information that's on there and the ease of finding it, the website for a long time has been one of my pet peeves of how difficult it is. You put stuff in the search engine, it would go to the World Wide Web. So the fact, I mean, truly, that's what it did.

So the fact that you can get in here and find everything, people who are evaluating school, people who are looking ahead to what high school curricula looks like or middle school curricula looks like, that's great. So the one wondering that I have, and I'd really actually like to hear Mohini's opinion on this is, and for context, my sister is a teacher, my mother was a teacher, my mother-in-law is a teacher, Stacy was a teacher. I think it's great that teachers here have the autonomy on that range of autonomy versus structure. You have to teach this and have to be on the same page.

The one wondering I have, and I know we've talked about this before as the board, is that horizontal measurement, especially within the high school for classes that are taught by different teachers but are the same courses, that when it comes to grading standards and when it comes to objective measurements of the knowledge of the students for, you're the expert in curriculum so I can't remember the term that I saw there, but when it comes to that measurement, I think that there still are some interesting things that we need to be able to do. Thank you. Whatever personal preference they have or disliking a teacher or liking a teacher because of that, I think it's going to be good for everybody. I think some of our work, we've been doing a pretty big overhaul through professional learning around professional learning communities and the meeting of course alike.

At the high school, the professional learning communities are mostly around course alike teams. And the focus this year is really on what you're talking about. So like what are the common formative assessments that they can be writing that then they can be looking at and assessing together so we can look at the whole body of students as opposed to like me just looking at my students, you looking at your students. Let's look at them all together and trying to become more aligned in that sense horizontally in that way.

So the overhaul is a PLC overhaul across the district. The high schools is, it looks different at each level. And at the high school, it's looking like course alike. Great.

Mahini, do you want to add anything? Yeah, I'll definitely say, like, tonight I have to go read for English, for example, right? While, like, in another of the same class, you know, they're not getting the same amount of reading. And I just think, I definitely agree that in high school especially, we have just different classes teaching different things.

And I know in math specifically, we do see all the teachers being on the same page. So I really hope with the humanities and the sciences, we definitely get more looking towards that, because a lot of students feel unprepared or feel unfairly biased against because of their teacher. And it's really like, it's very important that it's maintained for the high school students especially since this is like the busiest years. And so they can create that community having the same coursework and not, you know, trying to avoid a class because there's too much going on Anyone else Okay Thank you Thank you I think I actually the next one We need to, I think we're going to approve this.

Yeah. We need a motion. So we need a motion. I move that the Board of Education approves the district curriculum site as presented.

I think it's good. Okay. Thanks. It's been moved and seconded.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Definitely yes.

Thank you. And, Melaina, are you just going to stay up here for our policy update? Yes. So, I think I'm bringing four policies.

I think it's four policies. They're all changes related to Senate Bill 681, so all of them are through statute. Most of them are language changes. We would recommend that we go with MSBA's recommendation for all of these.

Does anybody have any questions about any of the proposed policy changes? Go ahead, Stacy. This is not like within our discretion, but I'm just curious. The instructional intervention Question about the education policy about recognizing dyslexia.

Do we know why special school district doesn't recognize and, I don't know, Chris is nodding, I don't know if you know that or if you're just agreeing with me, why that's not something that they recognize as a learning disability in their, like, in an IEP and that they support? I'm just curious. It's not part of the Missouri State Special Education, so it's not part of the 13 disability categories that are currently outlined at the state level. And we don't know, but we don't know why.

It just always has been interesting to me that dyslexia is like the one thing that we take on at Special School District. It never has, right? That's why I was asking if we knew why. It's all top-down, that's why it's not.

Yeah, okay. Okay, can I ask about a couple other policies questions? Are we just going one by one? The policy about promoting, retaining, accelerating that IKE, is that, is this something that we as a district deal with often, that we don't promote a student or retain a student?

Is that like something that we need to discuss very often? I don't know what your definition of often is. Yes, there is evidence of us having those conversations with individual students and their families. But it's not any kind of overwhelming issue?

No. Promoting or retaining? I feel like I could count them on one hand. Okay.

No, that's helpful. Thank you. Okay, and I did want to ask about the policy IND that was the one adding Holocaust Education Week. Yep.

So I think it said there are some districts piloting it. I'm just wondering, where are we in the work? Have we talked to those districts? I know it's not.

We don't have to do it until I think it's 24, 25, or maybe 25, 26. But I'm just wondering, where are we in the work with figuring out what that's going to look like? Right. And I recognize, of course, we teach about the Holocaust in certain history classes, But we've never had a designated week to recognize it, not 6 through 12 like it's now mandated.

So I'm just wondering where are we in planning for that? So the Social Studies Committee is working on that. And when I talked to the state about what's not clear within the law is the frequency with which it needs to happen based on the law. So I said, so my first question was, is this every year six through 12?

Because we have instances where we're teaching the Holocaust in middle school and we have instances where we're teaching it in high school. The state's reply back to that was, it's not clear in the law. So there were still, I feel like this happens often with the state that we're waiting for direction from them. What our team has been looking at is a way to there is some discretion that districts have on maybe not using the second week of April It can be another week that designated by the district We looking at something in the winter and the committee is doing some work with that So as opposed to waiting for the state to tell us what to do, we're doing some work in preparation for that.

I don't know whether they've talked to the districts that are piloting stuff. I can ask Paul that question. And along those lines, and I apologize because this is probably a little in the weeds, But I would just encourage them to reach out to, a year ago maybe, St. Louis opened a brand new Holocaust museum that is a wealth of information.

And they even have on the website like toolkits for teachers, activities, classroom activities. I mean, anyway, it's just a great resource that we are so lucky in St. Louis to have here. So I just wanted to remind them.

I'm sure they're aware of that. But it's incredible. Spervantage, Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. Would there be, I mean, I don't know the timing. I mean, things seem so unclear from the state yet. Do we need to update this now, or could we wait until there's more guidance?

I think because of the fact that it's related to statute, that's why we're doing it now. Like update our policy, taking into account the nonspecific guidance from the law? I mean, it's kind of... I think it's just because the policy says that we need to have it.

We're just agreeing to have it, I think is what the policy is, right? It's very broad. Right, and then the procedure would be about how we would do it. Yeah.

It's a little crazy. Yep. Okay. IGC, the Extended Instructional Programs.

Yep. I was really interested in reading that it says the reading improvement instruction programs may take place outside the school day. Do we have any of those that actually exist? So when we, before 681, we had 319, Senate Bill 319, that had us doing what now is called reading success plans, used to be called reading improvement plans.

And with the reading improvement plans, we had some things that happened. It was tutoring outside of the school day. Those are, it's a little determined individually with the students and the families what makes the most sense. So we have a few of those.

I don't know right now, like this year, like we're still in our testing window right now. So I don't know what our plan is for this year yet. We have to figure out which families we're trying to talk to first. But that's something that has worked well in the past?

It has. It's a good way to, you know, add extra time for students that need it? For some. It's potentially challenging also.

So when you're talking about transportation for students and things like that, that gets a little more challenging. So that's why it has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Sure. Okay.

Did you know that in INC, the ceremonies and observances, do you realize that it says, number three says that the text of the Bill of Rights will be displayed in all of our school buildings? Does anyone know that the Bill of Rights is in all of our school buildings? I've been to a lot of our school buildings. I have not seen it.

I just, it's funny to me that they, again, they put this language out there. How much of it do we make sure we're doing? Because I don't think we're doing that one, but I don't feel really upset about that. Maybe the state would.

You know what I mean? I don't know. I'm just. Foundations got to get it in 48 hours.

I don't, I. You just. Sorry. I'm pretty sure anywhere we're teaching U.S.

history, it's in the classroom. Sorry. I know. We have a pledge of allegiance every day.

We do. But you don't have to participate. I mean it's... Are we doing that right now?

We are. Yeah, we do. We say it every day. We say it every day.

Sometimes Nisha and I say it six times a day. I'm just happy that was the clause saying kids are not... Me too. Right.

We'll check on the Bill of Rights. Thank you, Chris. Thank you Chris Thank you Chris Thank you Chris Thank you Chris Thank you Chris Thank you Chris too Right We check on the Bill of Rights Thank you Chris Thanks Sorry. I already had the email, Paul, so...

Oh, it was not the end of the period. Yeah. Let's put it there. It'll be there.

It'll be there. Are there any other questions? We'll add them to my list. No, Nisha, I got that one.

You got it? Yeah, I'm good. I got it. Thanks for texting.

Okay, so thank you. Yeah. I think we're good. So we have to vote on to, we have a second reading of policy BBF and policy BBBA.

So, Gary, go ahead and start with BBBA, please. 11.01? Yeah. So I move that the board adopt policy BBBA1 board member qualifications with the recommended changes.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Are there any further questions? Okay.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes.

And the second one, please. 11.02, I move that the Board of Education adopt policy BBF school board member ethics with the recommended changes. Second. It's been moved and seconded.

Any questions, comments? All in favor? Aye. Okay.

Motion passes. And the consent agenda, please. I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda 12.02 to 12.08. Second.

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

Any opposed? Okay. And we are then on to Board Communications Calendar. I don't think that Jason and I need to go into the last CRSWC meeting because we had an extensive meeting tonight on that.

So I'll spare people for their agony. But does anybody else have any further updates? I had a PTO council meeting. It was what they call their jump start, which is kicking off the new school year.

Voted on the new slate of officers and it was actually a really great, very productive meeting. They're doing, I think, a great job of comparing, especially among the elementary schools because there are three of them, how they handle certain things, actually across all levels, things like contracts, legal matters. And so I believe at the next meeting, John's going to go and kind of advise them through that Because it seems different schools are handling certain contracts differently. But it's one reason why I appreciate that we have a PTO council, so they can kind of compare notes with each other and share best practices.

And they're even talking about having a special spot on the website where they can share things with each other, even like flyers and planning for events and that sort of thing. They broke up, too, into, like, all the treasurers had a little meeting and all the communications people had a little meeting. And I think that helps all of us in the district, all the schools become more, like everything they're doing, be more in line and cohesive. That's it.

And they voted to do the back-to-school bash again. That was something that they talked about. Should they do it every other year? But they felt like there was such great feedback and momentum that they want to continue it.

That's it. Okay. If there is nothing further, then we will go ahead and adjourn. So, we don't need to, we don't move to adjourn, right?

Sometimes we, I was like, I know the city did, so. Okay. Second. We're adjourned.

Joint Meeting Board of Education and City of Clayton Board of Aldermen School District of Clayton September 6, 2023 Meeting Minutes

Members Present:

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

Non-Voting Attendees: Dr. Nisha Patel – Superintendent Dr. Milena Garganigo – Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Dr. Tony Arnold – Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Dr. Robyn Wiens – Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Dr. Cameron Poole – Chief Officer of Equity, Inclusion & Accountability John Brazeal, Chief Financial Officer Luke Heitert – Chief Communications Officer/Safety & Security Liaison Jeff Puls – Director of Technology Mohini Mahajan – 23/24 Student Representative to the Board Heike Janis – Executive Assistant to Superintendent/Board of Education

1. Joint Meeting with Board of Education and Board of Aldermen - 6:00 p.m. Information, Procedural: 1.01 Call to Order The meeting was called to order at 6:06 p.m. President Rubin led the Pledge of Allegiance Also in attendance: Mayor Michelle Harris City Manager David Gipson Alderwoman Bridget McAndrew Alderwoman Susan Buse Alderwoman Becky Patel Alderman Gary Feder Alderman Rick Hummell Alderman Ira Berkowitz City Clerk June Frazier Director of Center of Clayton Toni Siering CRSWC Citizen at Large Commission Member Rob Bertzman

Action: 1.02 Adoption of Agenda Adopt the agenda as posted.

Motion by Gary Pierson, second by Stacy Siwak. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Gary Pierson, Jason Wilson, Chris Win, Jason Growe

2. Recognizing Our Own Information: 2.01 Mayor's Youth Advisory Council (MYAC) The Mayor's Youth Advisory Council (MYAC) is a collaboration between the city of Clayton and the Clayton School District. The program is designed to encourage high school students to become active in the community by participating in local government.

Board of Education Meeting September 6, 2023 Page 2

Mayor Harris introduced the Youth Advisory Council members and parent advisor: Audrey Aranha Henry Rosenblum Story Kummer Shiv Patel Bridget Gustafson Charlie Meyers Kailyn Rhimes Adelaide Pollock Caleb Park Gavin Wickenhauser Riley Zimmerman Lavanya Mani Liam Ferguson Stella Whitney Anais Oge Yehia Said Jaylyn Lin Jenny Abeles (Parent Advisor)

3. Information Information: 3.01 CRSWC Annual Update/Budget Fiscal Year 2023-2024 Toni Siering, Director of Center of Clayton, presented the annual budget to the Board of Education and Board of Aldermen.

4. Adjourn Information, Procedural: 4.01 Adjourn - Board of Education/Board of Alderman Joint Session The joint meeting with the Board of Aldermen adjourned at 7:23 p.m.

5. Business Meeting Information, Procedural: 5.01 Call to Order/Statement of Adequate Notice The meeting was called to order at 7:33 p.m.

Action: 5.02 Adoption of Agenda Adopt the agenda as posted.

Motion by Gary Pierson, second by Stacy Siwak. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Gary Pierson, Jason Wilson, Chris Win, Jason Growe

6. Public Comment Information: 6.01 Public Participation at Board Meetings There were no public comments at the meeting.

7. Superintendent Communications Information: 7.01 Superintendent Communications Dr. Patel shared updates from the district with the Board of Education.

Board of Education Meeting September 6, 2023 Page 3

8. Student Representative to the Board Information: 8.01 Student Representative to the Board of Education Student Representative, Mohini Mahajan, shared updates from the student perspectives with the Board of Education.

9. Presentation Information: 9.01 Glenridge Accessible Playground Dr. Tarita Murdock and students from Glenridge Elementary shared the process of chosing the model of the playground through student voice. Students present: Thomas Castellano Brooklyn Bruegenhemke Julian Simanowitz Zee Tucker Lona Shin

Information: 9.02 Strategic Plan Dashboard Board members received information regarding the Strategic Plan dashboard process.

Action: 9.03 Approval of Curriculum Site That the Board of Education approves the District curriculum as presented.

Motion by Gary Pierson, second by Jason Wilson. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Gary Pierson, Jason Wilson, Chris Win, Jason Growe

10. Policy Information, First Reading: 10.01 1st Reading - Policy Update Board members received the first reading of policies: IGBA- Instructional Interventions, IGC - Extended Instruction Programs, IKE - Promotion Acceleration and Retention of Students, IL-1 - Assessment Program, and IND Ceremonies and Observances.

11. Action Action: 11.01 2nd Reading: Policy BBBA-1 - Board Member Qualifications Adopt Policy BBBA-1: Board Member Qualifications with the recommended changes.

Motion by Gary Pierson, second by Stacy Siwak. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Gary Pierson, Jason Wilson, Chris Win, Jason Growe

Action: 11.02 2nd Reading: Policy BBF - School Board Member Ethics Adopt Policy BBF - School Board Member Ethics with the recommended changes.

Motion by Gary Pierson, second by Stacy Siwak. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Gary Pierson, Jason Wilson, Chris Win, Jason Growe

Board of Education Meeting September 6, 2023 Page 4

12. Consent Agenda That the Board of Education approve the consent agenda 12.02 to 12.08

Motion by Gary Pierson, second by Stacy Siwak. Final Resolution: Motion Carries Yes: Amy Rubin, Kimberly Hurst, Stacy Siwak, Gary Pierson, Jason Wilson, Chris Win, Jason Growe

 12.03 Disbursement Report - July 2023  12.04 Approval of 2023-2024 Student Transportation Plan  12.05 Approval of 2023-2024 Bus Routes  12.06 Agreement with St Louis Community College for Dual Credit Course Offerings  12.07 Personnel  12.08 Approval of Minutes

13. Board Communications Information: 13.01 Board Calendar, Committee, Community and Liaison Reports Stacy Siwak: Ms. Siwak shared information from the PTO Council Meeting.

14. Adjournment Information, Procedural: 14.01 Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 8:43 p.m.

_________________________________________

___________________________________________ Amy Rubin, Board President

Gary Pierson, Board Secretary

Date: September 6, 2023