August 12, 2025

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Thank you. First meeting of the year. Happy New Year, everyone.

Adequate notice has been given, so I'd like everyone to stand and join us in saying the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Chris, would you read the motion to adopt the agenda, please?

I move that the board approve the agenda as posted. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed?

Okay. Motion passes. Do we have any public comments tonight, Gina? No?

Okay. Moving on to agenda item. Well, actually, before I turn it over to Dr. Patel, Since it's our first meeting back of the year, I'd just like to say a few words as well.

First of all, hopefully everyone in the community received the email that we sent on behalf of the Board of Education. And the first thing we mentioned, which I just wanted to also mention here tonight, is that as the Board of Education for the School District of Clayton, we strongly condemn the violent anti-Semitic act that occurred in our community last week. And we are, as a board and as a district, committed to doing our part to continuing anti-hate education training and community engagement. Dr.

Patel had sent an email even before that in July referencing the plans for the district to do those things. We also, as a board, are going to be looking at policies that refer to that and taking some other actions as a board as well. We offer our support and solidarity with those that were impacted by this. I'd also like to mention at the end of last school year, we sadly lost a Clayton High School student, Nicholas Helmering.

And I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge that for his friends, for his family especially. I was at his funeral and I just wanted to say it was obvious by the number of students and teachers and community members there, The lives that he touched of classmates, teachers, coaches, the entire community, and it was a testament to what an incredible friend, classmate, and student that Nicholas was. So our thoughts have been and continue to be with his family and friends during this difficult time. I would also like to share with everyone our board goals.

As a board of education, we set goals for every school year, and we have two that I would like to share with everyone. Number one, which we also put in our email on Sunday, is that as a board, we will work with stakeholders to finalize an actionable long-range facilities plan, including consideration of a potential ballot measure, and implement this plan throughout the remainder of this academic year. Our second goal, number two, is we will elevate our board leadership by building on existing strengths through targeted professional development and ongoing education. And with that, I will turn it over to Dr.

Patel for a superintendent's update. Great. Thank you. Welcome, everyone.

It's nice to see everyone in the audience today. Happy New Year. I don't think there are many professions where we get to say Happy New Year twice in a year. So it's always nice to be able to start off with that.

You know, when we think about summer in the education world, a lot of people have this idea that, okay, it's kind of slows down a little and, you know, people are enjoying some vacation times, and I hope they did. But learning does not stop for us. So one of the things I do want to highlight is over the summer under the leadership of our Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Dr Garganego and our Director of Professional Learning Professional Development and Assessment we offer a lot of opportunities called Summer Institutes for our staff to continue to learn and grow over the summer This year, I believe we had over 115 sessions that we offered, variety of topics, and all of our staff signed up, well, majority of our staff give up their summer to continue their learning opportunities. We had like over 70 facilitators working with our staff members in this new learning that was occurring.

So a lot of potential outcomes that happened and a lot of staff that were very excited about this. We also do a survey at the end of the Summer Institute, and I believe over 200 responded to the survey, and 88% of them strongly agreed that this was a positive learning experience for them. So I just want to acknowledge and just tell our staff that we're grateful to them for continuing the learning, even in the summer months. And then, most recently, as we started into the school year, we welcomed all of our new educators to the district.

We have, this year we have 24 new teachers, three administrators, and three practicum students that are going to be joining us. And we immersed them last week in a lot of learning as well, all around our strategic plan and the goal being really understand us as a district as they come to us and what our values are, what our beliefs are, and what our long-term goals are. So they did a lot of work around equity and creating a sense of belonging for all of our students. They did a lot of work around teaching and learning, and they did a lot of work on what it means when we say in head and heart and the social emotional well-being of our students.

A lot of exciting times, and thank you, Stacy was there to welcome them as well as our student board rep, Nina, was there as well. So that was really good. And as a collective, when you think about that group, they're coming with about a little over 12 years of teaching experience, and I believe 87% of them have a master's degree or above. So very excited for this new group and every time they join us, I always say, not only are we going to, not only are they going to learn with us, but we're going to learn from them because they come with different perspectives.

So we're excited to have them on board. Then also over the summer, we've spent a lot of time and I hope the community is staying engaged with the communications we've been doing around our facilities work. We already had one full day, and that was a full day that was packed with a lot of activities and discussion with our elementary groups, and it was a workshop that was led, and then most recently we had another half day with the elementary groups and the high school groups on what we want our facilities to look like and how we're going to modernize them. And all of the conversations there is going to help our architects team with the next steps.

BLDD has also joined us, and I know that we're mapping out the next workshop for all of our facilities in terms of athletics and activities. And they will, they're both, all the whole team is here. I see them in the audience. They're going to be doing a presentation just to give the board and the community an update on the work they've done and the upcoming work as well.

And one of the things that I really hope that our community pays attention to is not only the work that we're doing in these workshops, but really what we want it to eventually be. When we think about the School District of Clayton, like, what do our facilities mean? And if we really want to be future ready, are our facilities matching what's happening in the teaching and learning? And one of the activities at the elementary workshops that Perkinsville facilitated was really about how innovative are we as a district.

And they asked the teachers to rank themselves from 0 to 10, 10 being really innovative. And all the teachers believed that teaching and learning, we're innovative. But when you think of our facilities, we're not. We're more on the Flintstones.

I think the graphic was Flintstones or Jetsons. And where do you fall? And they believe the facilities are more in the Flintstones era. So they're doing the best they can, but imagine if they even had facilities to match that.

So I hope that through our communication, e-news, the emails I send, the emails the board sends, the website, that the community continues to stay engaged in this very, very important work that we're doing. We will be having three community engagement forums coming up. One is on September 10th, the first one coming up, and then October 21st and one on November 18th. They all be at Clayton High School and we hope to have like a large crowd there where we can have the conversations and really get your input on what our progress is We also will be doing a community survey so that we can get that input as well But it's just an important part in our district, and I ask that everyone just stay engaged in the work that's happening.

And I believe that is it for me. I'm going to hand it over to Nina, our first student board update. Oh, can you, yeah, you just gotta push. Perfect, thank you.

Although we've had a break from school, Clayton's students continue to do amazing things over the summer. Our girls' soccer team won the Class 2 state championship on June 7th, and this success was extra special because the team also won the state championship just two years prior. Our speech and debate team at the high school also took two qualifiers to nationals, and rising junior Henry Dong placed top 24 in extemporaneous debate, which was pretty exciting. Additionally, rising junior Aspen Meyer won first place in a national speech competition that aims to cultivate a deeper understanding of Korean culture and history.

So some very exciting things happening with students over the summer. And then here is kind of my plan for this year and how I'm going to play a role. Last Monday, I had the pleasure of welcoming Clayton's newest teachers to the district. I talked to teachers from all three elementary schools, the middle school and the high school.

I asked many of them what they were most excited for in the upcoming school year, and almost every single one of them said meeting the students and building a community, which I thought was a perfect representation of what Clayton stands for. It was so great to see how excited and welcome they felt by the wonderful induction brunch, and I was so glad to be able to share a few words of encouragement with them. I'm currently in the process of setting up focus groups at each of the elementary schools and the middle school, as well as enhancing the high school's SBSA committee. Once these focus groups have been put together, I plan to meet with the elementary and middle schoolers every two months or so, and the high schoolers biweekly to discuss their school experience and collect feedback that best represents the student body.

I also plan on keeping students connected and in the loop by developing some sort of open form or survey that anyone can fill out with comments, suggestions, or questions. This will ensure that we're regularly gauging the opinions of students and are able to make our priorities list based on how uncommon or common an issue is. All in all, I am very excited to represent our student body, and I know it's going to be a great year. Thank you, Nina.

Great job on your first update. We're so happy you're here. Moving on to agenda item five, policy. We have several policies to review tonight, and some of them must be voted on and approved before the first day of school.

So that's why we have more than normal tonight because we need to make sure they're approved before school starts soon. So we are starting with 5.1, Policy BBBA-1, Board Member Qualifications. Chris, if you'll read the motion, please. I move that the Board adopt Policy BBBA-1, Board Member Qualifications with proposed changes.

Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Does anyone have any questions or comments on this policy at all?

Okay. The only thing that I would say is I think the addition to the policy is a good one. Yes, it is a good one. I agree.

So for the public's benefit, the addition was, you know, because there aren't a lot of qualifications, honestly, to run for school board, but the addition was that you cannot run for school board if you have been convicted or have entered a guilty plea for the offense or of assault, first or second degree. So I think that's an excellent. And on school grounds. Yes.

Disqualifying factor. I guess I say this for all of these. This is a change that's dictated by a Missouri statute, and so we're not having a lot of discussion because we've been told what to say. Correct.

Yes, that's a good point, Leo. Oftentimes, for the public to understand, oftentimes when it maybe appears that we're quickly approving a policy without much discussion, it's because it's been dictated by law and statute, and so there's not much wiggle room for us at all. We have to approve it or we'll be, we won't be following the law. Okay.

All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes.

5.2 is policy EHBA, student use of personal electronic devices. Okay. Will you read this motion, please? Mm-hmm.

Happily. I move that the board rescind policy EHBA. Second. Okay.

Any questions or comments about this motion, which is rescinding an old policy of student use of personal electronic devices for instructional purposes? Any comments or questions? Okay And it being rescinded because it being replaced just so everyone understands The warm act Yeah Yeah Okay all those in favor Aye Aye Any opposed Okay, that motion passes. Thank you.

5.3, policy JFCD, student use of personal communication devices. Want me to go ahead? Yeah. I move that the board adopt policy JFCD, student use of personal communication devices to replace policy EHBA.

Second. Okay. Any questions or comments on this policy JFCD, which is replacing the one we just rescinded? Anyone?

Go ahead, Leo. I just caught your eye. Sure. Like the policy we talked about a moment ago, this policy is substantially dictated by a Missouri statute.

And in this case, the organization that works on our policy is called the Missouri School Board Association, took a statute about cell phones and digested it into this policy that you see. And my understanding is that we're adopting that policy just as MSPA digested that statute. Is that correct? That is correct.

Yeah, that is correct. We've had conversations, a couple conversations here about enforcement under the previous policy. This policy imposes more restrictions than our existing policy does. The policy itself can't enforce itself.

So we're going to continue to have those conversations. Because we have more restrictions in place now, Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

It's already ramping up in the fact that it's being much more communicated than I do believe that it probably has been in the past. That is going to continue into the first two weeks of school that the kids are also through class meetings and everything. There's going to be regular redirects for those first two weeks. Hey, remember, you know, things like watches seem like they become a very natural thing.

I put mine on every morning. And so for the first couple of weeks, everyone is being instructed, hey, look, remember, this is the law. You cannot do this anymore. It needs to go away.

It needs to be turned off. And so the conversation around it has shifted to be a lot more, what I would say, is intense, right? This is what we are doing. This is how it's going to be enforced.

So some clear communication. It's also a great thing, I think, with this is you're seeing all of this being unified across all buildings. So there are no, you know, one school does this, the other school does this. It is becoming uniform across the board.

It makes enforcement much easier when, you know, one school doesn't say, well, you know, they got to do it there or whatever the case may be. So that is also another level. One of the things that I've also said, and this comes from the tech director side, right? And so one of the things that I also see with this is some of the language and, you know, with the questions that I've been asked.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We've had a lot of conversations over the last two weeks. I've had multiple conversations, especially with CHS teachers that may have been using them for one reason, but we're giving them an alternative to be able to use it, and we're providing the resources to do so. That is not what we did last year.

Obviously, we made those educational because they were needed, but now we're really looking deeper into how do we really Remove the need to even have them on, you know, on the person, I guess. So, so yeah, those are some of the ways that we do anticipate that this is going to be much different than it has been in the past. And as you mentioned, Pam's not here tonight. And I know I think she would express to you, and I express it too, that we've already had one kind of year of not fully living up to expectation.

And some of what you're saying does seem new, but some of it seems like a continuation. And just to continue to push and also, I think, to think about if there's any new ideas that are different than just communicate harder, which is what you expressed. Do you think I captured the essence of Pam's point of view, Stacey? Do you have anything else you want to add?

I think so, and I just, I apologize to Pam. I meant to say in the beginning, she's not here because she's taking her oldest son to college today. So I just wanted everyone to understand why she's not here tonight. Yes, I think so.

I think we saw it on our up, what Pam wanted us to convey is that we saw in our update at the end of last school year, there was data to kind of prove that it really, especially at the high school, a little less, less so at Wydown, but still not great, that the practices weren't being enforced. And now that this law applies to even, you know, like you said, passing time, meal time, lunch time, even more times during the day, we just would like to be assured, of course, that it is enforced. It's a law now. It's not just our recommendation.

And so if it wasn't being enforced as well as we would have liked last school year, how will we be reassured that it will be this school year? Which you kind of already answered, but I'm just reiterating the concern. And to that point, I think there's a lot of strength in the fact that it is a law, right? And whether or not we like it or not, that being the case does carry weight.

And so there is a lot more conversation around it. I think even amongst all of the staff that, you know, this is the law. And so there is a level of this that would I love to say that policy is, you know, always taken as seriously as a law. Maybe not, maybe in a lot of cases, but we do see some of that.

One thing that I would add to, and I think is important, is as we move into our tech study moving forward, and I'll make this connection here because I think it is a valuable connection, is that, you know, we also have had an influx of a lot of, you know, personal devices and things to accommodate for maybe what we think, or maybe it'll depend on how the study rolls out, on what is the most appropriate device for students. And so we do think that that is going to have some type of connection in obviously this work as well. It's another way that we could see obviously being able to diminish the need to have personal devices in any capacity if students have the right device in their hands. Now, could that be what they have now?

Yes, we'll go through the study. Maybe not, but there could be a direct connection moving forward and how that fits together with taking out the need to have any personal devices whatsoever. And do you feel comfortable that Dr. Kachewski at the high school, for instance, has plans in place to address the use during passing times and mealtimes, which is different than being in a confined classroom with a supervising teacher to enforce it?

Yeah, and I do think there's, naturally, there is going to be enforcement challenges. I mean, we know there is enforcement challenges with vaping, and we know there's enforcement. So there's always going to be, you know, some challenges ahead that we're going to have to probably, you know, pivot and, you know, adapt to as we see them, as we put more of a light on the work. I will say that even Dr.

Kuchewski, because we were just talking about it a moment ago, we've had now two days with the staff back, and on both days there has been work done on this where he has addressed the staff. So it is being taken – it is not being taken lightly, if I could say. So he has put emphasis on it, emphasis on being clear and how he moves forward. I think that was pretty much what Pam wanted us to convey.

Yeah and I guess I would say I not Pam I don have exactly a way of saying it but speaking in my own way we have a policy we expect it to be implemented and effective and there definitely an administrative domain but if there not effective implementation I do think that can elevate things to the board level. It can. So let's get it done. Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Jason? Yeah. Just one suggestion or comment and then one question.

The suggestion and comment being, I think the smart watches is going to be what the big change is just across the entire district. Like this impacts the elementary school level more than, you know, the other stuff does. And so just being overly communicative with parents and students about that big change. So I think you talk about an ongoing enforcement challenge.

Like that's my guess is that's what's going to be it for the next nine months. So good luck with that. My question is, and you've talked on this a little bit, Luke, but maybe we could be a little more specific. Like how, whether it's Luke or Dr.

Patel or whomever, how is the administration interpreting the youth for educational purposes section and how is that being implemented? So the implementation, and I can kind of speak to it because we actually, that's defined. It's going to be part of the, you know, procedures naturally, always the same. That is, number one, I love the word sparingly.

It's being communicated as this is going to be a very sparingly, you know, given opportunity for somebody to use something that's outside of the norm. That being said, it will be something that has to be requested ahead of time to an administrator. And that's not like the day before. We're thinking this is going to be communicated well ahead of time so there's proper time to assess whether or not it's needed.

Or, like I had mentioned earlier, maybe there's a way that we can provide the opportunity to not have to have it be the case, right? So maybe there's another form of tech, an iPad, whatever, that we can be able to provide in lieu of that. If it still continues to need to go up to the next level, teaching and learning, technology, we'll get involved to be able to work that through with the administrator and the staff as well I just thought it would be helpful for the public to hear. I mean, that is a material procedural change from last year, and I think it's just helpful for the public to hear that part as well.

Has anyone made a request yet? Sorry, I'm not opening up on the spot. I've not seen any requests yet. Okay, great.

In fact, quite the opposite. Now we're already talking about, okay, what are some devices that we can bring into the classroom to accommodate this? I had the time. Great, thanks.

I have the same question, Jason, about it. It says a superintendent, principal, or designee may authorize the use, and I just wanted to make sure that that's being clearly communicated to the staff who they go to to authorize it. Like, is it their building principal, I assume? But I had the similar.

And similarly about the watches, we actually already heard from a parent with elementary students worried about the watches because the student needs the watch before and after school to communicate with home Because they're walking on their own at a young age. And worried about them then taking it off during the day at the age of nine, let's say, and having it be lost or stolen or forgotten. And so are you confident that elementary schools have some kind of system in place? Yeah.

Or the teachers maybe are working on that so that. Well, they are. And the elementaries have been. Because that is a change at the elementary schools.

Huge, yeah. Completely. They have to be out of sight for us to comply with the law, just so everyone understands. The plan is to put them out in backpacks.

But young kids are not as maybe responsible with things like that. As long as our classrooms have a system. Yes, yes. I'm confident that they've been working on that work already and having that conversation with the teachers.

Good. Thank you. Okay, so my only question is, and this is really more geared towards likely middle school and high school students, personal laptops are included here as personal communication devices. So does that mean that all middle school and high school students that are using personal laptops or had been in the past would need to request an exemption to continue to use personal laptops for this coming school year?

So what we've done is we've actually given that as the exemption. So a laptop, a personal laptop will continue to be used for the upcoming year with hopes that, you know, the tech study, I think, some new conversation on what those devices look like so that they are not a necessity moving forward. Okay. In order to bring those back right now, the fear would be that we would not be ready to accommodate some of what our students may or may not need in their courses.

So that will be left in place for the time being So that exception is automatically essentially granted Yes Okay That not obvious reading this policy Yeah that a good question So I know there's a plan for looking at alternate devices, right, for student use. And there's been discussion around the effectiveness of the Chromebooks and hence the need for personal laptops in some cases. Given this sort of, you know, that's still on the, kind of like in the discussion about what that might be. Do we foresee there could be some scenarios where, because we can no longer use phones, like are we prepared for those devices to be inserted and be effective this coming school year?

Yeah. In fact, we've already had that conversation with our operations director today who does a lot of our technology. We've done some prepping ahead of time, not knowing exactly how much we were going to need. And there may be some need to order some extra equipment at some point in time to be able to facilitate things we're not aware of or how much they're going to need.

But our plan is to have inventory enough to be able to produce the need at the time, if that's kind of the direction you're going. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just recall there were a couple of scenarios in which they were used.

I think like digital photography was one. Right. So do we have an alternate device for that class, for example? Yeah, we had planned to use iPads, so digital photography using the cameras on the iPhones will be comparable to the iPads.

A little bit more cumbersome because they're a little larger to carry around, but at the same time, they do accommodate the need that we currently have. Gotcha. So we have like classroom sets. Yeah.

And we'll be adding classroom sets in certain classrooms. So with regard now, it just made me think of something. With the personal laptops, which are presumably connecting to the school Wi-Fi, right? So do those laptops receive the same kind of filter treatment, internet filter policy treatment?

So part of this, too, is I think in the procedure aspect of it from the technical side, We do ask for the phones to be turned off during the day. Part of the reason is for this purpose, because as long as a device is connected to our network, it is being filtered appropriately. We cannot control the data on devices that are outside of the district, right? And so if there is some type of tethering or pairing of those devices, they can use data and use things outside of our filtering.

So explicitly put in procedure to be able to turn those devices off is going to be part of the challenge as we go through the year, but that is important. I just thought of something else, too. So obviously we're talking about all school grounds, right, including athletic fields. Does that include the parking lots?

I mean, I'm just thinking, have we thought through all of this? You know, I mean, knowing my own child, he might well find himself running up the parking lot. So I'm just curious. I mean, it probably hasn't been fully flushed out yet, but I'm just curious if that's part of the thinking.

Some of that will happen here as we start to learn from what the behaviors are moving forward. Because this will be much more stringent in its rollout, there could be some things that we do have to react to as far as what the behaviors of the students are because of this push. So, yes, we definitely have had those conversations, but what it looks like as we move into the year, we'll be ready to adapt as that comes across. Yes, but since obviously it's going to be an unfolding kind of scenario with, I think, fairly, if we could get sort of regular updates on how it's going, you know, more often we might on something like this.

This is, yeah, you might want to ask. Thank you. That was one of the things I was going to say, Ben, is how often are we going to hear back from you about how things are going and specifically how are we going to be collecting data around, you know, misuse and policy, you know. I just wonder if it's going to be any different than last year in terms of your reporting to us and what you're reporting and who's gathering it and all of that.

Right, as far as, so some of the, obviously the things will remain the same as far as some of the data being collected. Surveys obviously and how it going Learning a little bit I mean what interesting is I think a lot of what we learn is from the students so surveying the students not only just the staff Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Thank you. Okay, so going back to what we've all discussed, which is so critical, I think, is this, you know, paragraph in here about use for educational purposes, right? We all are very aware that we want that to be adhered to.

And I need you, Luke, to give me not one but two examples of how it, why a teacher would be able to say and get approved to use it. Given everything you just said, A, given all the exceptions we already have, because we already know some students need it for X, Y, and Z thing. All written in here very clearly, completely acceptable. I'm not talking about that, right?

We already got that in there. We know that those, they can be used for those things. Give me examples of when you think that Dr. Kachewski would approve the use of a phone.

And why, and if you, the thing is, I just want us to feel like we've thought through all of this because I'm not positive, I'll just say, that this even needs to be there. Because of how much we've delineated out all the reasons why it can be used, the law truly is trying to say, and it doesn't get used for anything else. So tell me why that needs to be there. Give me two examples, different examples of why you would approve or Nisha or Dr.

Kachewski would approve for a teacher to use a cell phone. For an educational purpose? Correct. Why the lay – so at this point, I would say most of the situations that I've been confronted with already at the beginning of the year, like I've said before, we are already making accommodations for, right?

So that's important to kind of note. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Jump out too much in front and remove something, and then we go, oh, we didn't know that was going to be a need. And I think that's why we've put into the procedure that if a teacher feels that they really need it for an educational purpose, and we have not been able to meet the need, they have to talk to the administrator, whoever evaluates them, their departments, right?

So it could be an assistant principal, it could be Dr. Kaczewski, and have that conversation ahead of time. And if he feels like, yeah, I think you're right, or even Jamie or whoever, yeah, this could be a cell phone conversation. That's why you loop in Malena and Luke and say, okay, hey, guys, I have a situation.

They really feel they need their cell phone. From a tech perspective, teaching and learning perspective, do we really – is there something else that we could do instead of that? Right, and it sounds like you're being so proactive about that, which makes all the sense in the world. So I think we're all on the same page.

If you guys haven't even come up with a single scenario besides the ones that are already delineated as needed for ADA, et cetera, et cetera, it doesn't seem to me, I would hope, Milena and you would be like, no, that's a no, that's a no, and that's a no. Maybe we'll start getting asked, right? But I would like for us to understand and recognize that there used to not be cell phones, and teachers did just fine. Yeah.

And I think this will also be a great thing to report on next time we're having this conversation here. Yes, please. Was there any requests? Yes.

And we would be happy to be able to share if there was any and how we accommodated them or didn't. I can't think of anything we couldn't accommodate, right? I mean, Luke, you're already doing it. You're already accommodating in all these great ways, though.

And again, there could be something that we're not aware of at this point in time. Correct. And I think that's the reason probably to leave it in just to be, you know, just to be safe. And it's part of the law.

It's the mere state law. That's why it's in there. It's in there. This is exactly how MSBA wrote it.

I get it. But I'm saying for our purposes as a district, I'm hoping that we, I mean, yes, there may be something, right? But I guess I'm saying that I think our hope is that we have so many other options available that there doesn't need, we don't need this to be utilized. For now, though, this policy does include laptops, and we need it for that, right?

Right, right, yes. So for now, we do need it for that purpose. But I guess it's all about the perception from the staff point of view, too, about why that is there, too. We're saying, yeah, it's there, that's the law, but as a district, we would like for you to understand that, no, we're not hoping for you to come up and ask us to please let us use cell phones for XYZ thing.

We're hoping nobody asks. And if they do, we don't really see a good reason for it to be used. There are just literally so many other things that could be used. So I'd like to see us as a district just draw a line and say, we really don't have a need for this other than these very valid reasons.

Nina, do you have any questions or comments about this from a student's perspective? So, I think this is probably more applicable to the middle and high school because we have more of like a, like in the elementary schools, you're, you know, everyone's in one place for lunch. And that's kind of how it is in the middle school. But how are you going to like make sure that students, I mean, because there's really no way to like, you know, be everywhere at once in the high school, which is like obviously understandable.

But how will this policy be enforced when there's not really a structured activity and when kids are just kind of around doing their own thing? Right. Yeah, and part of the procedure that is going to be taken, I think it is mentioned as well, that the campus supervisors and the teachers in the hallways, and pretty much it's going to take all of us to make sure that this will be a team effort of monitoring. Because to your point, there are unstructured times that we'll all have to be aware and we'll all have to be doing some redirecting, especially in these first couple of weeks, to be like, hey, remember.

And so, yeah, it's going to take everybody in spaces that may or may not normally have had staff in it or things like that. Good point. Good point. Even just across the street.

I think, you know, it doesn't appear that any of us have any real issue with the policy language at all. I think it sounds like from what each of us expressed is really just the same questions basically we had in April, which is the enforcement of it, and it's even more extensive this year. So I realize, we all realize, this is a learning curve. I'm hoping, because we started this work last year, that we kind of have a head start, whereas other districts may not.

But it is the additional times that Nina's talking about that I mentioned earlier, the passing periods and lunch times that I wonder, yeah, Grant, I'm at the high school, I wonder who's supervising that to enforce the law as well. And I think about what Ben said about where does parking lots, you know, we do have an open campus, so kids are heading out to lunch. They're obviously allowed to be using their phone when they're, you know, at Straub's. So when does that stop and start?

Is it at the front doors or what? Yeah. Go ahead, Leo. So just to follow up on the educational purposes one other way.

You mentioned kind of a broad categorical exception that you're making at least this year for the laptops. Are there any other kind of categorical educational purposes, exceptions that you guys have conceptualized? I think you said no, but I just wanted to ask in a different way. Now, I'm going to say educational.

Now, the law also does provide exceptions for other reasons, whether that's medical reasons or whether that's going to be 504s. However, so there's going to be some other reasons, but from an educational standpoint, at this point. And there's also an emergency exception. Yes, absolutely.

But there's no, okay. I've asked my question. Thanks. That's all.

Okay. Okay, we have the, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor of adopting this policy? Aye.

Any opposed? No. Okay, motion passes. Thank you, Luke.

Agenda item 5.4, policy JG, which is student discipline. I move that the board adopt policy JG, student discipline, with proposed changes. Second. Okay.

Any comments or questions from anyone on student discipline for Dr. Poole? Anyone? No?

Okay, this is the one that's just a one reading also. Nina, did you have any questions or comments on this one Okay Okay all those in favor Any opposed No Okay That motion Policy JG passes We are on to 5.5, Regulation JG-R1, student discipline. I move that the Board adopt Regulation JG-R1, student discipline with proposed changes. Second.

Okay, any questions or comments on this policy from anyone? I just want to say I appreciate that we changed the language from marijuana to cannabis because there were other policies we talked about last year, and that way we just have common language across the board. And I think that is the common language in general, not just in our district these days. Any questions or comments?

Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Oh, okay, that policy passes as well.

And policy 5.6, policy GBCB staff conduct. Oh, there's not an answer. Okay, so read, I would just, but we usually, we usually read a motion. Yeah, yeah, read the same motion as the others.

Okay, we don't. Sorry. We've had a long summer break. We're all confused.

Okay. Okay, so policy GBCB is titled staff conduct. This is a first reading. This will have a second reading.

So I'd like to open it up for questions, comments, discussion with Kelly. Who would like to go first? How about Ben? Just moving around the table.

So first of all, I think there's like a lot of really timely changes in here. So in reviewing this and thinking about it, I did a fair amount of looking at other districts and just seeing what other policies look like. So it's interesting the differences in different states, different regions. So I did actually find some language that I would like to introduce for consideration as an addition to this.

It may actually overlap a little, but if I may, I'll go ahead and read that now. So what I would propose is, and again, I should take full credit. This is a bit lifted, a little bit changed from another district. But an employee's use of personal social media may not disrupt the work school environment, impair their ability to perform their district duties effectively, Superroportionately, undermine supervisory authority and or compromise working relationships within district schools and offices.

Any postings by employees will not reference, link, or contain statements that could be viewed as malicious, obscene, threatening, or intimidating, that disparage students, employees, parents, or community members, or that could be viewed as harassment or bullying. To me, I feel like this really covers off on a lot of, you know, kind of the scenarios and use cases. And I just think, you know, actually one thing I also did was I looked at my own employer's policy around this. And I was like, wow, there's a lot there.

We all have to be very careful in the world that we're in and should be careful and mindful of the things that we say and do, particularly online. So in my opinion, this would be language I think that just helps kind of sharpen the policy and give it a little bit more coverage, if you will. Don't expect anyone to respond to that necessarily right now, but we'd love for everyone to take a look before the next reading. And Ben, can you share that with all of us and with Kelly so that we can see it in writing?

I did share that earlier today, and I actually just kind of snuck it in to the document that we have right now. My question would be, as you're considering it, would we think that it replaces number 10, maybe even 11? Somewhere in there is where I think we have overlap. So that would just be, do we want that in addition?

Do we want that to replace something? Well I Go ahead Susan I was just going to say 10 and 11 are kind of general They don mention social media Oh they do mention it It does You right in the middle of it It feels like what Ben read is a lot more specific, which I think is why he shared it. There's definitely, as I look at it, some overlap. Yeah, there's definitely some overlap in the first, like, two or three sentences of 10.

I really liked actually that last piece of it where it highly suggests that these are my views and not those of the district. I think that's actually really good to have in there. So I think maybe a reworking of 10 with some of this language I think would make perfect sense. I think so too.

Okay. Yeah, thank you for – Rework 10 and the new language. I have that. I think I want to point out the difference that we're talking about here.

Let me try to articulate this. The one that we have here, it makes sure that we, in fact, it says encourage, which I'm wondering if it should say require, but it makes sure that the staff member knows that they are supposed to make sure Where they make everyone aware of what their personal view is versus, you know, and it's not the district's view. But I think what yours does is a lot bigger because it actually encourages, it makes it so that it's not permissible for anything that is even their own view to be bullying behavior that would disrupt our students or our other staff. And that's a huge difference, and I think it needs to be in here.

And I don't, it really isn't in a lot of ways in the way it is currently. Maybe in a couple I would have to look through, but I really like that it adds that to that, to this document. So I think one of the pieces of why it says views are my own and not those of the district is encouraged is because that's more specifically when you are acting in a capacity that somebody might confuse you as, You as the person, you know, in your own social media versus if you're alluding to the fact that I'm a teacher in the school district of Clayton and they might take what I'm saying is that I'm acting in that capacity, even though I'm acting, you know, as a private citizen. So that's where it gets a little bit tricky.

I think Felicia had shared with you that there were a couple of these that the MSBA attorneys are looking at too because they are, you know, not sure if we are overstepping. We have to make sure that we are maintaining the line between professionalism, personal conduct, and First Amendment. Because also in this policy, which we definitely will not be able to renew and should not renew, is that employees will not be disciplined for speech that is protected. But that sentence was struck out.

I was going to ask why. So it's not, I separated number eight. Number eight. Yeah, so it was separated in two parts.

So, yeah, it's still there. Yes, okay. I saw it crossed out. I felt like the previous number eight that's in our current policy was two parts.

So I divided them out. It's actually the same language. It's just split into two. Okay, thank you.

I didn't see that that was it. My thought would be whether that sentence that Kim just read should be a part of not a numbered item, but a freestanding statement. Like almost like an opening. Because it applies to everything.

Like a prologue, like in the intro. Because I don't, we do not, we do not and cannot infringe on anyone's right to freedom of speech. Remember, we are a public school. Yep.

And so there are certain things that we can and cannot do that a private employer could do or, you know, a private school could do. Absolutely. Whatever we, you know, this is our first reading. I think a lot of these suggestions are really great.

And I think what we're looking for is, you know, to maintain a school environment that's positive and maintain a community environment that's positive for everybody that is part of the school community. And conduct, everything we're talking about, you know, digital conduct, verbal conduct, all plays into that. But at the end of the day, free speech is protected by law in our public school. Correct.

So that freestanding comment probably needs to be in there. And then at the end of this, whatever we put in needs to be reviewed by our attorneys. Which they will, yeah. That was a big point I was gonna make, is just, you're gonna get a lot of comments and you're gonna take them back and digest them.

And what Ben wrote, or what Ben proposed, has a lot of good content in it You gonna go through and you gonna reconcile it with what in there I don think we should lose any of the ideas that are in there I think that what Ben was saying Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Superexpensive, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. What Leo's mentioning, can there be a, can legally, we tell our staff that they, between students, teacher students can't follow each other on social media. We have a student to staff relations policy, and in that it says that they can communicate only by approved channels, basically.

So they wouldn't be communicating with them on something like a social media platform, so I would assume that kind of would encompass that. We also had during our new teacher induction, communications came and talked with all of our new teachers about our communications guidelines. So while it's not explicitly stated in policy somewhere, I think that there are multiple places where if you had a student following you, you would be violating some boundaries that are set forth. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I think we just have to be careful with that of you're not going to catch it all. That's why I think sometimes it's left purposefully like all encompassing so that we say like you need to have professional boundaries with your students. And, you know, we as a group get to decide what those boundaries are and when you have violated those because we're the ones that, you know, interpret the policy. Well, you bring up a good point that I was going to mention.

I don't know if you all caught this, but we last revised this policy in 2020. I mean, it's been a while. I think in the spring of 2020, so almost six years. So things change, and I think that's why actually Ben's point is so important that even five years ago, of course, social media was around, but it wasn't being used as prevalently as it is today.

So I do think that is a reason to make it a bigger focus. Like, be able to forbid everything that common sense would tell you is inappropriate conduct. So I think that's why, like, the language in here is that, you know, education employees have to have, you know, the highest level of conduct both inside the school and outside of the school. And we do that because that's how we maintain a culture of, like, trust and safety.

And that's the purpose of a policy like this, is to make sure people are, you know, making good choices. So we maintain that culture of safety and trust. I think the number 12 is very clear. Only district-approved platforms or accounts should be used for official communications.

So are we saying that students and staff shouldn't even be commenting on each other's – it's one thing to follow. We've talked about following, whether or not we're going to delineate that. But there shouldn't even – right? There's already number 12 saying there shouldn't even be communication between the two on social media.

Is that correct? That's new. Yeah, so that 12 would be an addition. It's not something that's currently in the policy.

That's a suggestion. Okay. Yeah, any of the ones that are highlighted. So, our attorneys need to look at that.

Yeah. I like that. I mean, that's very clear. That's, you know, we're saying to the staff, you only communicate with students in these certain platforms, otherwise not at all.

Right, where we can access whatever that conversation might be if we needed to. We can monitor it. There you go. Right.

I don't know if that prohibitory thing is a thing. It says official communications. I'm not sure. Oh, it's official.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe the word official doesn't need to be in there. Yeah. Can I ask a question?

Of course. Okay, great. I don't even need a motion. My question is about, it's going to be a long year.

My question is about number 11. What is there, I don't know if I'm asking this the right way, But is there a line of demarcation where an employee needs to state that their views are his, her, their own and not that of the district? Like when does that need to be disclosed and when do you not have to disclose it? And how?

How do they clearly indicate that? Yeah, so number 11 is currently in the policy. That's not a new one. But I don't know that there is a line.

It depends on who is interpreting that, right? Yeah. A court case came up, and someone who was a government figure basically took down somebody's comments on a post that they had, which they couldn't do because they were acting as a public figure on this particular website. So they were saying that was protected speech and people could post on that.

So, I mean, there are court cases where people have made decisions. I would encourage us not to get into trying to analyze what the law is in this meeting. Well, I'm not, is that, okay. No, I just don't, you ask whatever question you want.

I just don't think we should try and lay out what the boundaries are. There are boundaries there. They're complicated. We could analyze them.

I just don't think we should spend this meeting trying to spell all that out. That's my. I guess, okay, then my comment would be. The First Amendment, not this policy.

Oh, okay. Okay. So I'm just going to ask my question, and if Leo wants me to not talk about it, we can just not talk about it. I trust Leo.

So, I mean, let's say I write a letter to the Post-Dispatch. Jason Groh is an 11th grade American history teacher, you know, or history teacher, you know, writes a letter to the Post-Dispatch, how hard it is to be an educator. It's in the public domain where I'm at Clayton High School, but I don't have to say that in the letter. You know, is that, like, at what point, I guess, there might need to be some clarity over at what point do we cross the line on that.

Are you signing off your letter, Jason Groh, public educator at Clayton School District? Or are you signing off your letter, Jason Groh? Jason Groh, I'm a teacher. And that is your picture or something like that.

I think that those would be judgment calls that we would have to make and we would call our attorney to decide if it was protected speech or not. Okay. And in those cases, like, even if we can't discipline, let's just say, for whatever that is, there are other conversations we can have just about, you know, how we can respect our community, our staff, our students, our evaluating administrator, you know, whatever the case might be in that article that we wrote. Okay, fair enough.

On number four, what's highlighted in pink, is that, which draft is that? Has that been approved yet or not? Yeah, that came from Pam, actually, earlier today. Okay, good, because I was going to say, I was curious, too, how we define what professional and respectful manner is, and this gives more clarity to it.

I was curious where it came from. Yep, so Pam submitted that earlier today. That's number four, handling disagreements with colleagues in a professional and respectful manner. That was already in the policy as is now.

So the suggestion was that we consider this includes refraining from disparaging comments about colleagues or the district, avoiding conduct that undermines the work of others, and addressing concerns through appropriate internal channels. Good, I liked that. I was curious where that came from. So that's, thank you, Pam.

Because I do think that needed some more clarity. It was so vague before. Nina do you have any questions or comments about this one Okay probably smart Yeah she is So again this is just a first reading Kelly will bring our suggestions to MSBA for approval so the legal team can make sure what we suggesting We will see it for a second reading And if she incorporated everything we suggesting and we okay with it we can approve it next time or have another reading if we feel like we need to Are there any other questions or comments, though, on this before we move on? Okay.

Thank you, everybody. Okay. Moving to agenda item six, our action items. 6.1.

I move that the Board approve the resolution authorizing the cooperation agreement between the St. Louis County Board of Elections Commission and the School District of Clayton for the 2026 municipal elections. Second. It's been moved and seconded.

Any questions or comments on this one? This is basically, we just did this for the first time last year, letting those who wish to file to run for Board of District of Education to file at the Board of Elections versus in our office, just so everyone understands. Okay. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay.

That motion passes. That was the only action item. So on to our consent agenda. 7.1.

Oh, yeah. Consent should just be one. Just read that first one. It says 7.2 through 7.12.

I move that the board approve consent agenda items 7.2 through 7.12. Second. Good. Okay.

Any questions or comments on Consent agenda items. The only question that I have is whether, is it the first year that we're, that Catalyst students are receiving credit from Missouri State University? They've received it from UMSL before. Has it been Missouri State before?

Missouri State. Helena's saying yes. Dr. Garganio's saying.

It is not the first year. It's not the first year. Okay. Okay.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, consent agenda passes.

Okay, moving on to our presentation, architect introductions and progress updates from John Brazile. Good evening. In June of this year, we selected architects for multiple projects, and tonight we want to introduce them to you and give you a progress update on the work that's occurred over the summertime. The first set of projects was awarded to the collaboration between Paragon Architecture and Perkins and Will, and they will be working on our elementary school buildings as well as the academic wing for the high school.

So at this time I'd like to introduce that team to you. Come on forward, folks. Thanks, John. Brad Furling, who you know, is leading that team, so he can make the rest of the introduction.

Yeah. Good evening. It's great to be back here and good to see you all again. This is an exciting moment to carry forth all the work that we did together last year Superroportionate, related to long-range facility master plan and carrying that forward.

Skip ahead one slide here. There we go. Yeah, last year I had a senior daughter, and here exactly a year later I'm going to have a college daughter next week. So it's been a fun year to be.

You've got to see me through the whole thing. So, have Mike Younglove with me as well. Mike has been part of the project all through last year. He's going to be one of our main representatives during the project, especially from the day-to-day project management.

The difference that you see there is Steve and Amy. As we were going through this process last year, you guys really challenged us in a lot of good ways. And a lot of the conversations we had were related to the future of education. And Steve and I have developed a relationship over the years looking for the right opportunity to partner together on some projects.

And in the back of my mind, I was saying, if we get the opportunity to bring Steve and Amy into this, they're the team that we have to be partnered with to launch. And so I'll leave it up to Steve and Amy to talk a little bit. Hi. Good to see all of you again, or many of you who we've met.

Amy Ackman, I am a principal and architect at Perkins and Will and have been working on K-12 schools for the past 26 years at Perkins and Will. It been my lifelong love and a great place that we love to work with our K clients so thanks for having us And I Steve Turks principal with Perkinsville Brad thanks for the gracious words It's a pleasure to be here. As Amy mentioned, several of you have been active in our workshop so far. We're going to share a little bit more information with you tonight.

Like Amy, I have focused my career on mostly public K-12 education. Proprietary. We are delighted to be here with you in St. Louis.

We have several other clients here in the St. Louis area. We are happy to add Clayton to that mix. We are going to jump into it.

We are just finished last week workshop. We are going to talk about the Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So, that's the future of what your elementary schools are going to look like, the kind of education that you foresee happening, not just today, but in the future in these buildings and how the facilities can best support that. So, really, that in a nutshell is what the workshops are about.

As we go through this series of workshops, we start with talking about the big picture, the vision, and by the time we get through the third one, we will have space programs, We'll have conceptualized diagrams for each of the buildings and working with the CM, some cost numbers to share with those. Last week, we had great half-day workshops with each of the elementary schools where we started looking at the space programs and had the folks edit those. So we're going to describe that to you here. At the very first workshop, we asked folks to come prepared with what we called an aspirational object.

Jason, I think you're in the picture there. . We have different trousers on, it looks like, so we're good there. .

Keep it simple, that's always good. We asked folks to show up with what we call an aspirational object. This is an object that represents your vision around the future of the elementary schools. And it's really the vision piece of it, not so much the object, but the vision piece of it that was the important part of it.

So we asked people to introduce themselves and explain why they brought the object that they did. So it's a bit of an icebreaker, but it also really helps us begin to understand sort of the, you know, where folks' minds are relative to their vision. So we took a lot of the words and we created this wordle. And as you, I'm sure I've seen these before, these words that show up the biggest and the most often are the things that got talked about the most.

So what's really nice about the image on the screen is the word that shows up the biggest there is students. And so there was a huge focus on students, which is always, you know, it's always a nice thing to hear. And students show up in a number of different forms. You know, the word student shows up, the word kid shows up, but so does community.

So to families, spaces, and it's good from an architecture standpoint, it's good that people were talking about spaces, creativity, flexibility. So those kinds of things really speak to us in terms of sort of people's mindset when they were walking in the room that morning. We did a series of exercises. This is one of those that we did was we broke folks into the committee into small groups and had them think about and talk with each other about what are some principles that really should drive this work.

And we call these guiding principles for that reason. There were eight major sort of themes that came out of this. And there's lots of words. I understand these are printed and that you, the board members, have these.

So we're happy to answer any questions about these. But we did show these back to the committee members last week when we met with them and asked for their input on these. But big themes around learner-centered environments, around spaces that are flexible and future-ready, about the integration of community. The community, after all, is a big part of these buildings.

Spervantage, around safety, wellness, around sustainability and environmental stewardship, and so on. And so the idea with these though is as we begin to bring forth solutions and vet solutions with the committee and the community that these are things we constantly looking back at Are we living up to these guiding principles Are we honoring these guiding principles So they're important in that regard. So we kept you all very busy for the last couple of workshops and continued on our build of information to understand space needs and how those guiding principles would start to relate to that. So we looked at the activities that you do on your day to day now and in the future as well and talked about a few things that were mentioned in the guiding principles like outdoor learning, small group work, collaboration, etc.

And out of that, we came back in the next workshop with the program trees. So this is the captain example, but we had one for each elementary. Thank you. And what could be combined or shared or put together so that it could be a really efficient use of space?

We like to say make space work hard, that something's not sitting idle during the day, that you're really not just building a one-time-a-day type of space. So they got together in their small groups and reviewed those, and we've got that coming out of that second workshop. We also reviewed in the second workshop what the options might look like when we come back. And there are several that came about during the master plan that are moving forward.

And this is not one or two. It's a combination. It could be any combination for each of the elementaries. Renovation to different levels and additions is option one for all the elementaries.

And then the possibility of new schools for Captain that would be the same site or potentially a different site and the same site for Glenridge or Merrimack. So those are what we will be coming back with conceptual options for our third workshop. This is what our work looked like just last week. Turning everybody into architects was a lot of fun.

And this is what the outcomes were for each of the groups. So we asked to take those spaces and tell us how you want them to fit together. What's important to you from an adjacency standpoint? How do you want the teaching and learning spaces to be arranged?

And so these are a few diagram examples of what that looks like. And believe it or not, these will be turned into architecture. And I'll turn it over to Brad. So Amy covered a lot of the work that we did at the elementary school.

When we met with the high school last week, our scope of work was a little bit more focused over there. So we really had kind of centered on two different areas of the high school. One is over on the performing arts side, and the second is over on the west side of the building just over here. So the conversation really was about on the auditorium specifically, and the staff brought up a lot of good points about the accessibility to the stage for students, Thank you.

So we're going to move over to the west side. Again, these are diagrams that we had in the master plan with just some slight adjustments. With a lot of that focus on the geometry and construction program, which is the new program. The robotics, so it's providing them some ample space for daily use.

Bringing the AMPT program and the school store together. Had a lot of good conversations about where that store might be located. Then the Catalyst program, bringing that on campus and how to be able to integrate students from other high schools, other school districts into the building and still provide the safety and security. And then as we're doing that work, is there some opportunity for improvements of other classrooms?

So especially in that area, we have a lot of math classrooms, several of those classrooms don't have Access to daylight. And so as we're looking at that area is looking at ways to improving those classrooms and maybe others. And then again, restrooms were a big part of the conversation related to bringing those facilities up. And so while we're doing the work over in that area is there are some opportunity to improve those restrooms as well.

Spervantage, Bord of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We had about 15 or more staff members there for that meeting, and it was a really good conversation. So this is the slide that you already saw, but I really wanted to put this into perspective of where we're going down the line. So this is kind of the real immediate detail that we're working around.

And then this is really the plan that we're working around right now. And so the area within that orange box is kind of that current future. And I just wanted to highlight, we're really looking at this very similar to what we did with the master plan, where every meeting every week is very planned out and very intentional. I'll skip ahead because realistically we're kind of keeping the end in mind, right?

So in January at the board meeting, you need to, if you choose to move forward with a bond ballot, that language has to be approved at the January 21st board meeting. Which really means at the December 10th meeting, we need to have really hard decisions in place because you need that time to work on that ballot language. So backing up from there is essentially we're trying to get you a ton of information October 8th for that board meeting. Because between October 8th and December 10th, there's a lot of work that we have to do on our side.

So we can go into a little bit more of those details with you specifically, but we're really kind of working backwards, working forwards, backwards, forwards, and working within the board meeting dates and the board retreat dates to be able to provide you with that information needed to make the decision. So in between there, as Dr. Patel mentioned before, we'll have some surveys, we'll have community engagement, but it's going to be very intentional, very deliberate, and we are literally planning out meetings three months in advance, and we're week by week. Our team is meeting weekly with John and Dr.

Patel, making sure that we're staying on track, and then looking at those opportunities to engage you in addition to all of the different workshops and all the different engagement pieces that we have with faculty, students, staff, and the community. So this is just, this is kind of, it's constantly a work in progress. We're looking at this on a weekly basis and making revisions to make sure, very similar to what we did with the master plan, that should new information come up, we've got a plan in place and some flexibility we can adjust. We also know that we have to provide you with information in a timely manner to give you that opportunity for feedback loop, for questions, for discussions, to be able to process that information.

And we think we've built that in. But again, December 10th is when we'll probably need to have those decisions. We've got that December 2nd board retreat that will help process that, work together to process that information. And we're going to be providing you with a lot of information on October 8th because we're going to be looking for some feedback at that point so that we can have those 60 days to really put a lot of information together.

It's not the only time that we're going to talk, but that 60-day period, there's going to be a lot of work on our plate to be able to set the district up for success in the spring. That was it. We thank you and appreciate the opportunity to be here with you through this next phase. Thank you.

Thank you all for being here. I just have a quick question. On October 8th, you just said you're going to give us a lot of information. Will that include cost estimates or are those not coming until the December 10th?

We plan on having the preliminary costs actually in September. Great. Okay. It wasn't listed until the – Correct.

I didn't see costs until December 10th, so I just wanted to make sure. So, yeah, so I'll back up one slide here. So that workshop number three where we get back in front of the – it will be very similar information that we present at the workshops, and that will be at the community engagement session as well. And it will be high-level cost because they'll have about less than a month to work with us to put that through.

And then based on the feedback that we get at those meetings we further define the approach the design They further define the pricing and we continue to work through those iterations and evolutions I just wanted to say too for the rest of the board Chris and I were at the workshops last week with these guys and I was so impressed by how well they understand education, truly. You guys use all the right language that we do internally in the district, and it was so helpful, I think, for the staff. Thank you. It was a great group of perspectives on how spaces are used and how they're used differently in each of the three elementary schools was also really interesting for me to listen to.

I appreciate, Nisha, you mentioning what you did. I want to say that I really loved that you helped the staff and all of us, us included, look at how innovative we are in our teaching and learning and yet how far behind we are in our facilities. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Our thinking is towards the Jetsons, but we are hindered by these buildings.

And that was very clear. Thank you all very much. Anyone else have any questions or comments on the presentation? So I just have one question along that same thread.

So sometimes individuals aren't that great at self-assessment, and you guys have the benefit of having been in schools, as you said, here locally, whether it's Lindbergh or Ladue or even internationally. And so in your assessment, where do you think our school's facilities are on the spectrum of Flintstones to Jetsons? If Jetsons are a 10 and Flintstones are a zero? You know, it's interesting.

The era in which your, you know, Glenridge and Merrimack were built, we're talking now, what, nearly 100 years ago. But there was actually some, you know, a modicum of flexibility built into those buildings. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Teaching that was trying to be done in those was still the type of teaching that was in Merrimack or Glendridge.

I'm used to being in my own room type of thing. So I think your facilities, there's some mix there in terms of what you've got. But there's a long way that you can go at the same time. So I think that's where it's going to be interesting to see how do we take all these ideas from the workshops that we've had so far And now overlay that on top of those existing buildings and see how could we start to transform them to push them in the direction that the teachers like to take them.

And by and large in the workshops, I think there was a lot of forward thinking in those diagrams about how they wanted their ideal, you know, core academic spaces to be arranged. Spervantage, how they wanted to work as a team. That was clear across all the elementaries that there was, you know, this team approach to teaching at their grade level. So some common things and some that are a little bit different at each school.

I agree with what Steve said. Jamie talked about a slide that was up on the screen that was called activity mapping, and this is always a telltale for me. And that is how they talk about, the gist of that is, talk to us about the day in the life of, or the week in the life of a student. What kind of work should they actively be doing?

And if the answer comes back, well, sitting in lectures all day, then that tells you something, right? That's not what happens here. And I think you probably all know that but there a little bit of together time and then it what they call the launch We now working on you know individual things projects group work That was very instructive for us I think to be able to say okay you know they trying they're really, you know, working toward that sort of future ready side of on the teaching and learning perspective. But you can tell from their conversations that the facilities, they could do so many more things if the facilities didn't get in their way.

Yeah, I think they mentioned at all three of the schools, really, that they really would love to do more collaborative work and have shared spaces among the grade levels. And Glenridge and Merrimack certainly don't have that ability at all. But that community feeling and wanting the three classrooms in a grade to have some shared space that they can collaborate, co-teach, teach together. I heard that a lot.

I did too, and what's neat about this is the idea that not only will our faculty and our students and everybody now have this large group space, but we're going to have, because of the plans and because of what we need, there's going to be all these little tiny rooms. So in addition to having the big places where we all get to come together, there's going to be these small places where one or two or three students are being worked with on whatever specific thing they need. It's going to change. Right now we have kids doing that in the hallway, right?

And so we're trying to give them the education that this individualized one or two people need, but it has to happen in the hallway. Now that won't be the case. Now we are planning out these places where smaller groups can really get this really powerful instruction. I just think it's going to make a huge difference.

Thank you. And thank you in advance for what's to come. Thank you. Appreciate you being here.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We will move on now to 8.2, which is our construction manager at risk.

Actually, we have one more presentation from BLDD. Oh. We have one more presentation. Oh, I apologize.

I jumped in. The other architect we selected was BLDD Architects. Their package of work relates to our outdoor athletic facilities, and so I'd like to have them introduce themselves and give you an update as well. Thank you.

Sorry, I jumped ahead. Wrong page. Good evening and thanks for letting us come tonight. I recognize a few faces, but it's a pleasure meeting the rest of you.

So what we'd like to do is just give a brief history overview of BLD Architects. We'll get into some introductions, a little project spotlights, and then get into the schedule a little bit, and then a broad kind of overview of the scope of the athletic projects. They're intentionally broad because our workshops start on Monday, the committee workshop meetings, so we'll get into more depth over the next coming months. So BLDD was started in 1929 in Decatur, Illinois, so we're coming up on 100 years.

We've got 65 employees spread across our different offices. 80% of our work is K-12 work. That's what we know. That's what we're good at, and that's why we're here today.

My name is Justin Plasek, principal in charge of this project. I manage our St. Louis office. Both my parents were high school teachers.

Both of them were also high school coaches. I think I've spent half my life in schools. It's what I know. It's what I do.

So also with me today, Laura Wunderlich. She's a senior associate, one of our best project managers out of our St. Louis office. And then I've got Nelson Musioka.

He's a project team member. He's going to do a lot of the lion's share of the production as we get into these projects. Two people that will be instrumental. They couldn't be here tonight.

You'll see them in the future. I think you've met them, or a few of you have met them in the past, but one is John Whitlock. He's our president. He's also our athletic facility specialist.

And then Todd Strelick, he's also principal and our education design director. So you will see plenty of them in the future. Like I said, we've been in business since 1929. We've done a lot of athletic facility projects for our various clients.

These are just some background numbers for you all. Couple project spotlights. Again, top left, full stadium replacement for Springfield Landfear. That's a football field with soccer as well as the track and bleacher, press box, etc.

Williamsville another highlighted project on the top right and bottom right Again full stadium replacement for that school district And we also done bleacher replacement and press box for Kirkwood School District Laura we get into the project schedule and then we get into a little bit of kind of what we been up to so far Our project schedule, as you can see on the dates up on the screen, our project kickoff was July 29th. So we've got some work ahead of us, but we're super excited about learning about all the needs for the district and the community. We got a lot of information from our scope meeting, which was just on August 5th. Learned a lot about the collaboration between the district and the city of Clayton.

So we have our first two committee workshops scheduled. One the first in the week of August 18th and then one the week of September 1st. We want to get those two workshops in before our community meeting on September 10th. And then after that community meeting, we'll schedule our third workshop.

Basically, you know, we've invested in learning about the school district and the city of Clayton and the community wants, and there's a lot of information, a lot of wants and needs, and not a lot of space to, you know, make all those wishes come true. So that's our challenge ahead of us. And I think our next slide is maybe Nelson can talk about Y-Down. Correct.

Yeah, Nelson's going to get into a little bit of Y-Down. We'll get into improvements at Adzick Field and then really the other high school improvements, both the Gatefield site as well as our current site here, Shaw Park. All right. Hi.

So for Y-Down Middle School, we're going forward thinking about the update of the turf grass areas with a more resilient solution, as well as adding a walking track of three lanes. And then moving forward, we'll do an improvement of safety and security, as well as enhancing the learning environment and competition quality in the field. So during the interview process as well as meeting with AD Steve Hudson and Christine, we were able to really understand some of the challenges with this White Island Middle School site. Certainly, we're well aware of the parking structure underneath half of that and some of the challenges that the district has had to maintain that field for full use.

I think even meeting with Christine, there's 90 students every 90 minutes on that. So just trying to maintain that very safe environment and very durable. That's something we'll really get into in the future and provide a few different options for the district to explore as well as the community to provide input on. High school scope, the first one is really Adzik Field, the baseball field.

It's really completing that field up to the Clayton School District standards. So what we're really talking about is replacing those dugouts with brick dugouts that kind of gives that Clayton pride to this whole area, as well as that press box, making sure that that brick goes along with it. I think there's probably opportunities to improve that with a few small restrooms down there, possibly concessions as we get into the project. The big thing, and this is something that we'll work through in the next couple of workshops, the community engagement, but it's really what is going to happen at either the Gayfield site with the existing stadium and the upgrades that are needed there.

And possibly the last line item, which is probably the most important and probably the largest opportunity and the most exciting, is exploring shared opportunities with the City of Clayton and how this can affect the School District of Clayton. I think what's important for, I guess, the challenges that we've been tasked to solve, it's really improving the outdoor PE and program support space for these athletic facilities. Improving the safety and security of all these spaces. Improve the competition environment, as well as all the facilities, either the Gayfield site, the ADZIC, the Shaw Park area, as well as White Island.

Allow for program growth. And through these solutions, really reducing practice scheduling issues, game scheduling issues throughout both the fall and the spring. And as I mentioned, the biggest thing is just exploring the shared opportunities with Shaw Park. So that's where we stand right now.

Next week is when we get there at the exciting moment to meet with the workshop committees, gather a lot of information, a lot of collaboration, hands-on activities, and then bring this forward to you guys at the next board meeting. So that's all we have for you today. Good night. We're excited to be here.

Thank you so much. I'm curious, when you say safety and security, what you're referring to. Is that traffic flow or actual security gates? Yeah, some of it could be traffic flow.

It's with Gayfield being a quarter mile away, it's how are we monitoring that site, if that's where we're doing renovations. There are certain issues that the public of using these facilities, Thank you. Any other questions or comments for BLDD anyone? And that will probably become a little bit more important as we explore the opportunities of the city of Clayton and what can and cannot go at Shaw Park, right?

Now we're going to be introducing more facilities around the larger community at times. Thank you so much for that presentation. It's exciting. Appreciate you being here.

Thank you. Thanks for the time. We're excited. Thank you.

Does anyone need a bio break before we get into these interviews? Everyone good? What? All right, let's go.

Okay. 8.2 is the construction manager at risk services for facility projects. As we build our team on these facility developments, the next team member to be added is the construction manager. In earlier conversations this year, we decided to go down that path of construction manager at risk.

We've selected, we've received RFQs for this proposal. We had three companies submit. I've laid that out in the narrative to you. We also solicited RFPs from them for cost structures and contract provisions.

And the next step in this process is an interview before this body. Policy and statute require that it be an open session. We've provided you some suggested questions. You're free to ask any question you want.

We have two firms to be interviewed tonight. The first one will be S.M. Wilson. And you can proceed through your interview process and then after that, BSI Constructors will be the second interview.

The third party, we did not request. They are nothing to besmirch them at all. They're an up-and-coming firm. We just didn't believe they had the bonding capacity and financial capacity to handle our projects.

So I'm going to ask the firm that's not being interviewed, we'll put them in a side room out of professional courtesy Thank you. Thank you. So just to clarify the procedure here for the board, there are six of us here tonight. You'll see we have 12 questions, so we're each going to ask two.

We will go around the table. Thank you. Thank you, people. Like John said, though, if any of us have any additional or followup questions, please feel free to ask them.

Everyone should have a sheet in front of them with the interview questions. Feel free to take notes so that we can make an informed decision later. Thank you so much. Okay.

I want to make sure everyone's settled. Okay, so like John said, this is SM Wilson here presenting to us first. So the plan was for them to make a five-minute presentation? Yes, correct.

Right. Your microphones need to be turned on green when you're speaking, just as a reminder. All right. Thank you very much, everyone.

Good evening, and we appreciate the opportunity to be here. I Mark Cochran Chief Operating Officer for S Wilson I Nicole Vonderhaar Project Director My role is to be the day project contact for you through construction and oversee the construction management team Patrick Aylesworth, Market Executive for S.M. Wilson. My role is to basically make sure our projects are a success for the district and to align our resources with your needs and your goals.

Mike Ashley, my role in this project would be general superintendent. I do the day-to-day with the teams in the field to make sure that quality control is being followed. Hi, I'm Omita Bonner, the chief marketing officer. With you in your packet, you have a skilled program, and I run the skilled program for us at Molson.

It's a way for us to engage the student body throughout construction and turn it into an interactive learning experience. I'll also give you warning, the little booklets in your things, play a video automatically, so I would save that for later. I'm Mike Yazbeck, I'm the president of S.N. Wilson.

I'm really here to support this team, now that we've met the individuals you see in front of you, but also to commit the full resources. So as we go through this tonight, we're going to really share a lot of our unique qualifications and items we bring to the table to you as the district. And we will use a custom website that we've designed specifically for Clayton Schools. This is something for our presentation tonight, but it's also something that we will use in the future in the project, and Nicole will cover some of those things.

I will encourage you, we will not get through all the content that's on that. There's some great videos of our team members that aren't here today talking about this project and their excitement about it. There is a QR code on your placemat. Feel free to take a look at that in the future.

So saying all that, we've spent the last two months really digging into this project, studying the demographics, the community engagement process, the long-term master facilities plan. It really drove the team we assembled, and you'll hear more about that, and our proposal we put together. So we're really excited about that. And listening to the discussions earlier today, It reinforces our belief that we understand that schools and building these buildings, there's a lot more than that.

The building is just a very small part of this. And, you know, really the deep impact that schools have on the livelihood of communities and the future of communities. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage, Pursuit, and We're going to build a building that's a lot more for us at the end of the day.

We want to ensure your vision of educating, inspiring, empowering is communicated, and we uphold that ability for you with these new facilities as we move forward. So as we go through the rest of the presentation, you'll hear some of those unique attributes and solutions and values we'll bring, and the team will jump into that. Patrick? Thanks, Mark.

I want to highlight some of the keys to success for Clayton is really the pre-bond planning services. And so this is a significant differentiator for SM Wilson. We have a wealth of experience doing the pre-bond planning services for over 20 successful pre-bond projects, including two here at Clayton for Y-Down and your high school. At SM Wilson, our process is really specifically designed around public K-12 work.

And please remember, there's six of us here tonight for presentation. There's many team members back at home office that are chomping at the bit to get involved. Stepping back, we understand the critical dates ahead of us. We understand that September, October, you obviously want to get your community involved.

That's really important. At the end of December for your board meeting, the bond language needs to be finalized with that funding to support these projects. And finally, next April for the vote to go to ballot. So we're going to work with that in mind and hit these milestones and make sure that the projects are successful, you know, set up for those milestones.

I also want to highlight our collaboration with your design firms We delivered eight education building programs with your design firms collecting a total of million And really step one here is aligning scope and budget. And so all these projects are important, whether we're talking about the high school, your athletic upgrades, and your elementary schools. We're going to help drive the priorities to establish some confidence when it comes to the budget and the schedule. Paragon already has some great work here that we can look at for the master facility plan, but specifically with your elementary schools, you know, doing some feasibility studies and some cost models to give your board the information they need to make some decisions and get your community involved there.

With a North Star being your budget, as the RFP says, maybe $100 million, we'll use that as our guiding light and make sure we're a good steward of the district funds. This will be a transparent process. We make recommendations to the board and we'll also work to keep the team on track. We're ready to roll up our sleeves and get involved in this process.

Getting with design firms, programming sketches to develop some pricing on these projects and really set up these collaboration meetings to get going. Some examples of projects that S.M. Wilson has completed that are very similar to Clayton include Ledoux, Pattonville, Northwest, Jeff City, and Columbia. To highlight some wins that we bring from Ladue, for instance, is really getting creative and working on temporary classrooms inside their buildings to help move the students around to help unlock areas for renovations.

This saved the district millions of dollars avoiding temporary trailers. The other piece is the phasing was critical for those projects, so we worked with Perkins and Will to get that memorialized into the bidding documents. Switching gears to Northwest, the win there was target value delivery and working with Paragon to maximize the amount of projects we could build for Northwest. And again, all these projects I mentioned are on track to be on schedule and under budget.

With that, I'll hand it to our team lead, Nicole. Hi. Thank you, Patrick. I'm Nicole Vonderhaar, project director.

My role as the project director is to be your main project contact for the project. I would be overseeing the project team on a day-to-day basis all the way from pre-construction through completion to provide you with a consistent team and a consistent delivery. Throughout the project, we will have this custom website that will house a financial dashboard, similar to what we see there. It kind of gives you an update, financial status at any point.

You can go on there and get an update of where we are in the project. It will also house project photo updates and weekly project updates. This is a great tool that we could use at board meetings, giving updates on where we are with each of the projects. As well as it just could be used for the community, sharing updates.

I'm sure they'll be interested in knowing what's going on. If there's an area of the school that has to be closed down for renovation, it could help with that communication for parents picking up, dropping off. Pretty much an open communication platform to help with that construction process because we know sometimes that can be confusing through the chaos. But trying to make that easy and making that an open collaborative process.

Honestly, through this, our goal for you is to give this an efficient and the most collaborative approach that we can so you can oversee and manage these projects with us. To share some of my recent experience, I am currently wrapping up a school project with Columbia Public Schools. It was a $66 million project on their three campuses. First one was a brand new elementary school.

We built that from the ground up. A two-story, 76,000 square foot new building. It's beautiful. Turning it over for school.

Second one is an addition onto an elementary school, adding on a storm shelter. And the third one is an addition and renovation onto their career area technical school. Our team that we've put together has an amazing experience working with school districts, and we have so much experience working with multiple project locations, such as yours, as well as occupied campuses. Spererntennant role.

Thanks, Nicole. Evening, everyone. What I'm going to bring to the table is basically oversight of the project. I've spent the majority of my career doing schoolwork.

My last two jobs have been with the Ladue School District. I've done both of those bond projects. I did the high school, and most recently I did the three schools in their system over there that we did during COVID, which was a challenge in itself. Spervantage Proprietary and Proprietary Spervantage Proprietary and Proprietary Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried That works well.

We all know what goes on in schools nowadays with some of the things, and so we're very conscious of that. We try to enforce it to make sure that I don't have students under me, but I have a lot of construction workers that they need a lot of guidance, and so that's what we do is we try to make sure that they understand that these are the policies that we have in place. I get involved in the very beginning. I get involved in the design part of it.

We do the pre-construction. I also get involved. I take it personally. I do live next to a school, so I bring that in, and I try to consider that the neighbors are a big part of living around a school.

Equality. The other thing that communication is key, and one of the ways that I kind of instituted over at LADU which worked really well was that our superintendents will send out a daily email to your staff members. And typically it's the principal and then maybe some of your maintenance guys, directors, to let them know what we're anticipating that day. I also like feedback from the district because we're a team, and we're going to be able to get feedback from the district.

District, because we're a team, what you've got going on. And where I'm going to go with that is that we've had a couple instances where you guys have had Grandparents Day. Well, guess what? There's probably twice as many cars there that day, and it impacts us.

So it's great to have communication both ways, which works out really well. But the other thing is, is I establish a lot of relationships with a lot of your staff. I've gone back to Ladue High School recently doing a couple things over there that we had some Security upgrades and principal came up to me, Brad, and knew me from a job that we did basically seven years ago. You know, we're on a first name basis.

We worked very well together. So that's what we're going to be looking for is the same type of relationship with you guys. That's basically what I'm going to do and I'll turn it over to Patrick. Thanks, Mike.

SM Wilson is committed to go beyond the build for Clayton. This is not a standard project team. We have handpicked our team members to best fit Clayton's needs, and they've all helped deliver future-focused learning environments. We're not going to just estimate these projects.

We're going to proactively establish the budgets to bring solutions to the table. We're not just going to build safely. We're also going to knock on doors with your community and so your neighbors are aware of our construction operations. This commitment is from the top down, from our president, Mike Yazbek, all the way through our home office and team members that will work for you.

We're committed to your community with our skill program, website, building tours, videos, and social media, just to name a few, to get in touch with your kids and your community. Over the next six months, SM Wilson will partner with the administration, the board and the staff, your design firms, to help solidify a program that delivers future-ready learning spaces, meeting the needs of your community, and setting a stage for a successful bond issue. That concludes our presentation. Thank you so much.

And open for questions or clarifications. Thank you so much. That was great. I appreciate it.

Appreciate so many of you being here. As I mentioned earlier, we've prepared 12 questions. There are six of us board members here, so I think we'll go around twice so that we each ask two. And I would just, again, to the board, if you have follow-up questions, clarifying questions, Additional questions, please feel free to ask those as well, but I thought we could start with the ones that we've prepared.

And we'll just go around. We haven't pre-assigned them or anything. So I'll just start with Jason and question number one. I'm just going clockwise, that's all.

Such an honor. No, thank you guys. That was a really great presentation. Appreciate the information.

My question, my first question is, what costs are included in the guaranteed maximum price and what costs are explicitly excluded? So when we think about that, there's a discussion when we think about a guaranteed maximum price. Within the contract terms, you typically define cost of work. And really that is what is required to physically build that space.

There are a lot of times code requires, for instance, that you have a third-party inspection for structural steel. As an example, we are not allowed legally for building code to carry the cost. That would be a cost that would be outside of that. But we as a CM will track a total program budget.

And that's something that we've been Basically, I have a responsibility chart that we outline at the beginning of the project, and we'll have a column that is for owner costs. We'll have a column that's for architect costs, and we'll sit down and talk about those and outline what those are well before we ever get into a discussion about numbers. And then at the end, it's not a situation where, hey, here's a GMP. Oh, yeah, that should have been in your bucket.

That is clearly identified in that responsibility matrix for the GMP. Okay, thanks. I'm next. Number two.

Oh, turn on your mic. Turn on your mic. Turn on your mic. Turn on your mic.

What happens if the project costs exceed the GMP due to unforeseen circumstances? I'm sure that happens actually all the time. So. Patrick, do you want to?

Yeah, so in a lot of ways we have great discussions with our K-12 clients essentially to establish maybe a contingency, construction contingency to basically absorb your point there is that sometimes there are unforeseen, you know, soil stabilization, Moisture mitigation of the floor, hot, cold weather allowances. Those are discussions that we would love to have. Again, mutually agreeable to understand where those risks lie and to get those line items in there. And this is a fully transparent process where we will show you exactly what those line items are and make sure that it's agreeable, again, to both parties.

Just to add to that, I think there are also, to Patrick's point, if we run into an abandoned fuel tank underground that was not on any reports or anything, that's an unforeseen condition. There would be a discussion about that. If the project is running two months behind schedule for no reason besides our management of that and it cost us $200,000 in cost, that's coming out of our fee at the end of the day, or if our fee is gone, it's coming out of our pocket. So there's definitely situations like that.

It's determining and defining what an unforeseen condition is. Sorry, can I ask a follow-up question? Yeah. And we don't need to know district names or anything, but maybe you can summarize a live example of when this has happened and how you guys partnered with your client to resolve the issue.

Sure. I mean, I think – Because I get it. We're all going to sit down. We're going to talk about it.

That's great. But, okay, so then what, right? So how do we work through that together? I'll use an example of a schedule where we had a subcontractor who went out of business at the end of the day, and we had to find, that's our liability because it's underneath our contract, we had to find a replacement subcontractor and deal with the schedule impacts of that and the financial impacts of that.

And we, S.M. Wilson, ended up paying a lot of money out of our pocket associated with that. That's a situation that wasn't in control or unforeseen. It was a risk we took with construction management risk.

I think a lot of times people hear construction management risk, it's S.M. Wilson that's at risk for that. That's an example where we took that risk. Another example is we have...

How about an example where it would have turned out bad for us? You know what I mean? Like you found something underground, now you've got to say, like, hey, guys, let's sit down and talk about this, right? Like that's what we're going for here.

Like the fuel tank example. We had a client out in central Missouri that Patrick and I worked on there. They knew there was a school that had been torn down, as an example, in this area where they were going to add an addition. The school wanted us to take the unforeseen conditions route and own that risk.

And we were fine with that. But also one of the things we suggested is let's go spend $2,000 and do some exploratory holes and dig up and see if the soil was compacted and did some other things. So that's part of our job is to partner with you up front and really dig into these details and try to capture all of the potential issues that we have with this job, but not be so conservative that, you know. I'm with you.

Yeah, we can't do that. We've got to align that program and that cost at the end of the day, what Patrick talked about in the target value. Okay, all right. So it sounds like in a lot of those cases you guys are trying to kind of delineate between what is within your sphere of control and what is outside your sphere of control.

And a lot of that's going to have to do with how much due diligence is done on these sites ahead of time, whether there's a phase one or phase two environmental assessment, those types of things. Because if that had been done, you would have known there was a tank underneath, right? It wouldn't have been an issue to begin with. And so as part of your process as we go into this, not knowing exactly are we building non-existing sites, are we going to new sites, there's so much uncertainty around the design uncertainty with respect to geography and the design with where we are in the project right now, that how much advice or counsel are you guys giving up front before we get into that so that we can avoid even having to have those discussions?

That our role We come on board and essentially we helping to push that due diligence from that consultant in terms of what they can do with a you know phase one phase two We also deploy you know as Mark mentioned a couple thousand dollars to scan you know GPR scan that site and really understand we knew there was old footings there We knew something was there Let find out exactly what it is Then let talk as a team How do we you know define that risk and eliminate that risk essentially from the project It looks different. So a new build on a new site, you're focused on what's underground. Once we get out of the ground, the risk discussions go away somewhat. But on the remodel discussions or additions, we're going to be diving into looking at Asbill drawings from 100 years ago, looking back at the pencil drawings on that stuff.

We're going to go in, we're going to be popping ceilings. We're going to talk to you about cutting holes in some hard ceilings to take a look at some things. So that's where that feasibility of additions or remodels, there's a lot of data we have to go collect, physically look at, pop our head above ceilings, take pictures. That's where that helps us price that stuff up.

And you think you guys are going to be able to do a lot of that work prior to, like, some of the timelines that we saw get put up? So between now and middle of September? Yep. Okay.

As Patrick said, we've got a slew of people ready to go. Yeah, we are ready to join the team. The interior scans is another way that we use to help with the renovation work, right? So, again, we can do that.

We can get these 3D point clouds and essentially help push those to Paragon, Perkins of Will. They can drop those in their model. They have the existing conditions. That's not to say it'll cover all of what an unforeseen may be when you open up the walls and we uncover some of those.

But, again, we're doing the efforts on the front end to your point to help mitigate some of those risks. We'll be doing it this time of night, too. Okay. Leo, number three.

I'm actually going to follow up a little bit, too, and this is just partly my trying to wrap my head around and understand the construction manager risk model. So the big advantage of this for our district is, you know, For any of this, I guess, is the kind of the certainty that it's not going to go above a certain price. So is that an unlimited risk that you guys are taking on? I mean, what's the scope of that?

I mean, it could go, yeah. It's defined on those drawings and specs, and that's why you're hiring a CMAR, is we're going to get on board now in the very early programming, SDD, DCD. We are helping evolve that design, so we're going to flush out a lot of these issues on paper. Yeah, I know.

I understand that. But then the GMP will be based on that set of documents, and a lot of times we will bookend those with the phase one. Maybe it's the high school. I'm just throwing out ideas.

Then the next piece may be the elementary schools. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We're going to talk about what that risk may be and quantify that risk and identify it and include it with the budget discussion, but contractually. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Well, I don't know. John, I may have a follow-up question or two for you. Anyway, what happens with cost savings if the project comes in under the guaranteed minimum price?

That's a clause in the contract. Spervantage, we're willing to negotiate. Obviously, there's different percentages on what shared savings could be. We have clients that do 70-30, 80-20.

Again, the incentive there is for us as a CM to help save those dollars. We get a little, whatever that percentage is at SMOs and savings, the rest of it comes back to the district. We also have other districts that want zero savings there. Absolutely, all the funding would then come back to Clayton.

But again, just thinking about the mechanism there and what the incentive may be for your CEO, our firm, essentially to help save every little dollar along the way. I mean, overall, we're going to be stewards of the district finances, period. But. How are change orders managed and priced under the GMP?

Thank you. Yeah, so change orders would be reviewed by myself. So we would submit that, whatever the changes, design change, unforeseen, would go out to the subcontractors. They would review it, send their pricing in to me.

I would collect that, review it, make sure it is within price, materials, labor, looks reasonable, and submit that to the architect team to review And then it would come to the owner to take a look at discuss it at the board and decide if that a change that you would like to proceed with or not Follow question So are the change orders usually initiated by let say us or the school district or are there other things that factor into change orders and how they kind of come about Majority of the change orders I would say is it's a design change, maybe something that changes along the way, something you initially planned to do and didn't exactly turn out exactly how you were wanting it, so you might want to make a design change along the way. Or we could say something like those unforeseen changes, which may be something we had an allowance in the budget for. If we had an allowance for, like we talked about the fuel tank, we said, hey, we knew that was there, we put X amount of dollars set aside for that, that could be an owner allowance. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality.

In order to not sacrifice speed for efficiency and everything else, like, I know it's size of the project and everything else, but is it $0, $1, under $5,000, under $500? At what point does that change order trigger the involvement of has to come to the board, has to go to the next level committee, you know, in your process? Yeah, so explaining a $0 change to what Nicole's saying, if there's a contingency allowance all agreed upon and the dollars are coming from there, it's a $0. We're just changing from one bucket to another, right?

It's going from an allowance to the subcontractor. Everyone's agreeing upon that. To answer your question, we are not going to come in here with one, two, $50. No.

These are substantial changes, and we have to, again, prove entitlement if those are going above, you know what I mean, what's already established budget on that line item. So smaller things, SM Wilson, again, we take care of a lot of these items to your point. Schedule needs to happen. Milestones we need to hit.

You know, we are going to absorb a lot of those costs and be able to move the project forward. By the way, in that construction contingency, we are going to track those items so you can see essentially what those dollars amount might be. But they don't come, they won't necessarily come as a change order to the board level, if that makes sense. Typically, we see most districts handling any of those types of things through John, or the CFO, in that role of that capacity that, unless it's some major, you know, it's adding an addition, a 10,000 square foot addition to, you know, a building that wasn't planned for.

Because most of, again, our job is to plan for the program cost of that and manage that within that. Typically, we don't see that coming, you know, a $2,000 change order coming to a board for approval. How do you recover and get back on schedule when construction has fallen behind schedule? I can speak to this, but look, we're always looking for efficiencies in the field.

Phasing is a big part of that and overlapping trades and unlocking areas. We can cane a lot of efficiencies there. And so we will build realistic schedules. We want to work to your end dates.

Obviously school, we want to turn over in June. Spervantage, The reason is because the later it gets, your skilled trades, they call themselves, but your mechanical guys, your electricians, those guys, those are a lot more expensive than the general trades that we typically have. So you want to get anything over an eight or nine hour day, they want more. So that's why we try to manage that up front and get that back on track.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Technology has helped us a lot with that because the old adage of working weekends or just getting more people hasn't been working the last five years. Thank you.

Can you please give an example of a project that had a supply chain issue or a lead time issue, and how were you able to overcome that while maintaining the schedule, the project schedule? I'll give you a real good example. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality, and the Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. They are watching that pricing. They know what's going on in the market. And every time we build a project, we create those systems and those processes to make it more efficient and more effective for the next time.

And, I mean, these team members sitting here today have built so much, and they sometimes lose track of the fact that, look at all this collaborative knowledge they've pulled together, but you don't have that understanding of that deep bench that's back at whom we do. So it's really about looking back and saying, how can we make this project even more efficient than the last project? Thanks. Are you seeing tariffs affect construction costs?

And if so, how? Why is it funny? We had bets on this question. What was the bet and who won?

That's my follow-up question. So Mike gets to answer. There it is, right? CU1.

I think at the end of the day, we have not seen a significant impact today from Terrence. There was a lot of discussions about it, but it's something we evaluate. And one of the challenges when you have this discussion now is that's going to be in seven or eight months when we're procuring this project at the end of the day. So we've had discussions in the past where we proactively think about it to the point where we buy stuff early when we know we can.

We also have a discussion about what does that pricing risk look like. We've arranged for contract arrangements with subcontractors where it's a shared risk where they have the material price according to indexes. So, you know, that's one thing we use a lot. The indexes.

So there are tons of indexes out there that will tell you what the actual price was. You'll hear a million people tell you that it went up 20% every month for steel pipe for fire sprinkler. But when you actually look at the index or the asphalt index for Modot, the reality is something different. I think that's the one thing we really dig into deeply and look at that.

I think, I mean, your point is right. I think a lot across industries, a lot of these prices haven't really been baked into end user costs or end user prices yet. But I guess maybe a more on point question for the timing of our project would be, do you know that your projects have sourced a lot of raw materials from countries that might be at risk for higher tariffs? Are you like, oh, this country, we get a lot from China, right?

We get a lot from China, and so therefore, two years from now might be an issue, right? Do you know of anything like that where you get your raw materials from? No, I'll say that it's probably, I see elevator contractors trying to be the most advantageous of the discussion and just throwing out. I was just talking to one of our team members yesterday that said they got a $40,000 increase on an elevator that's been ordered for a year and a half.

And frankly, it was in a warehouse somewhere in the States. But again, our job is to really push back on that and really dig into the details to understand that. I mean, we were in that issue with switchgear a lot three or four years ago, one on the delivery, but also the pricing side of life. And, you know, at the end of the day, you found out that, hey, it was just this breaker that was coming from overseas.

The cabinet was built here, all these other components. So that's our job is to really dig into that. We don't just take a blind, hey, here's my 20% price increase, give me a change order. Our job is to really delve into that.

But your point, there's all the components of these products. It's really hard to know exactly where some of those things are coming from. Some of the checks and balances that we do, too, is the design team may have specified a specific one. When you check the lead time on it, it's two years out.

And we'll suggest to them that, hey, we can get square D over here, and it's comparable, it's totally equal to it, and we can get it in less time. So that's one of the jobs that we try to make sure of, too. So that would be index pricing you talked about? If you're looking at a commodity like steel, is that how you're holding it?

Or subs and suppliers? I can see exactly what the global price is. There's the buy price, too. Yeah.

You hear those indexes, but we're tracking the buy a lot. So were you hedging your? Well, I'm not hedging, but you know what you're buying it for in the market. And so there are some steel suppliers that maybe have taken a position.

Okay. Just like that happens a lot. Yeah. That happens a lot.

Just like you here today, like, you know, why haven't we seen inflation? Because maybe some of these folks are eating. Yeah. So you find somebody who's taking a long position, or you guys know somebody who's taking a long position on steel.

We see that happen a lot with lumber and steel. The one that an index plays a lot more a lot of times is asphalt. Because typically when you think about a project is we're going to go bid a project out, and you may not put that asphalt down for two years. There's a risk there that has to be addressed.

Because what we don't want is we don't want an ultra-inflated number on bid day, and then those material pricing increases they thought were going to happen don't happen, and we collectively also paid a lot more for that product at the end of the day. Those are the type of ones that are so far out that they can't take a long position on it. We use those indexes sometimes on that, specifically asphalt is a good example of that. Okay, I got the next question.

What's your typical process when a project estimate is over budget during the pre-construction phase? I think we've already kind of covered this, but. We'll come up with a lot of options. Yeah.

And again, that just continues as an iterative, you know, kind of more collaborative process. That's the CMAR partnering with your design firms. I think one thing to think, Patrick mentioned target value delivery, and really our intent here is to continue building momentum. Anytime something comes in over budget, we're taking two steps back.

So our job is to really outline expectations with Paragon, Perkinsville, and BLDD and show them what our estimate is based on at a granular level. So we make an assumption that we've got 500 cubic yards of concrete in this floating and foundation package. That's our expectation from them on design, and it's coming from years of experience to know, hey, we built tons of these schools. We know that this is a typical column foundation pad.

We're going to have a discussion about, you have a thousand yards of concrete. If they come back with a design that has a thousand yards of concrete we going to start talking about that But we going to outline that expectation We expecting a six column footing on the inside that two foot thick We want you to design around that So that's really what we're trying to do is keep building momentum. And we talked about the short duration here is we can't afford to take a step back. So that's our job is to really guide that program and the design to equal this budget.

How do you ensure your construction bidding process complies with state statutes for public bidding? So we have SpecLink as the software that builds full custom front ends for K-12 public projects. We've done hundreds of these, so we absolutely understand the statute requirements, the drug testing, the background checks, the e-verify, the OSHA requirements, all that. It's all in the S.M.

Wilson package. So we're ready to go, again, working with your designers really to get the budget and scope alignment, getting those drawings ready. And then we're really soliciting those bidders and helping to get maximum bids for Clayton is the most important as well. And then doing public bid openings with you present.

That's what we do on all our projects is we have those public bid openings with you, with representatives from the school to make sure we're compliant. Do you intend to self-perform any work? We do a lot of the temporary partitions. It makes it safe as far as, you know, if we're going to isolate an area where we're going to be working in, a lot of times we'll build those things.

As far as, like, installing casework and cabinets, we're capable of doing that. We just look at it, what's going to get you the best value for your money. I think we really step back and think about, you know, these are intense projects on occupied campuses potentially. We want Mike and his team of superintendents to really focus on the construction and not worry about calling for concrete or making sure he's meeting production rates on that.

The other thing we see typically is when you, you know, to the public bidding discussion, when you're indicating you're bidding this work, you tend to see less bidder response because people think you have an unfair advantage because you're working on the project. It is very critical for us to get three plus bidders on every bid package we put out. From our perspective, we see a very large variance between a number one and number two if we only have two bidders. When we get to three bidders, that variance gets down to five, six percent at most.

So that's what we're focused on. We're not focused on trying to, you know, self-perform and make more money doing that. Our focus is really on your project overall at the end of the day. So if you were to do some self-performing work, what would be the benefit to the school district?

Some of the examples, and Mike brought up temporary discussions. So if we had a temporary guardrail that had to be put up to protect students for safety-wise, and it's an hour worth of work, if we put that in a bid package with an undefined quantity of discussions versus us just calling and saying, hey, Mike, call the office and get a carpenter to come over for an hour, you'd only pay for an hour, versus more than likely you're going to pay for four or eight hours for someone to come and do that through the subcontractor side. That's fair. So typically it's going to be fairly small.

Okay. I think that's covered it. Yeah. In the construction manager at risk process, what financial risks are retained by the owner?

Typically design side, geotechnical testing, special testing inspections, those things are kind of outside the GMP, and we'll make sure you understand that because we have kind of a total budget scorecard we call it, and those will be down kind of in the owner section. So we'll make sure we talk through those. And those are items, again, that are procured directly through the district. We can help, obviously, you know, make sure you're on time with those.

And we're getting those activities on board when we need them for the schedule. But those will be directly contracted through Clayton. Typically, the asbestos removal is also covered by the district. And we run into that, especially on older buildings.

You know, and a lot of times we'll go in and maybe they took it all up Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality. Superroportionate Proposition O levy agenda motion carried We understand these deadlines and we understand we can keep going back you know to reinvent something or go backwards in design And so that really what this team brings And again just the leadership of Nicole and Mike and kind of what they will lead in terms of these specific project teams you know and that's essentially what we are bringing and the reason why the district should look for us. Kind of a selfish thing for me, but I've worked in a lot of districts, and I'd love to work at Clayton. So, I mean, it would kind of round out my portfolio, I guess would be the best way to put it.

I was thinking the other day how many different districts I've worked in, and I've hit almost all the major ones in St. Louis. So it would be nice to finish it out with Clayton and have a nice thing to look at. I'm very proud of what I do.

I mean, it's a good feeling. And you talked about your students earlier. It's really nice, and it's a great feeling to go into a school where – and we get our kids involved in it. Thank you.

I'm curious if Nina has any questions for them about what they do. No pressure. You talked about kind of how you like to get students involved in the process, which I definitely agree with. Is there a specific plan you implement at every project you do, or does it kind of depend on the extent of how you're doing things and what kind of district you're working in?

Yeah, good question. So every district we work in, we do create a custom skilled plan because depending on what we're building, we just finished a new early childhood center in Jefferson City. And so with those kids, preschool kids, we went in and we read construction stories to them and we engage, we had them draw, we had them do different opportunities. But here, when we would get to work with high school kids, we actually integrate with like your geometry and construction classes.

We try to help put that into the actual curriculum. And we say, these are all the careers and things that you can do. And here's a real life project right outside your door. And let's see how what you've learned in the classroom relates to what's going on outside your classroom.

So it's a great question, and we really like to get the administration and the students involved. I've spoken with Catalyst before. It's a great organization to get involved there as well. And skilled is something that's near and dear to our heart because we've built so many schools, and we really, really want more people to enter our industry.

Any further questions from the board? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

Appreciate you being here. Thank you. We're going to take a little break. Thank you.

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

Thank you. Thank you. I live over in Alexander, so I have an interest in this. I'm here with Steve Schrage, and he'll talk more about himself a little bit, but Steve has been with us 26 years.

26 years. He will be our project director and would be involved all the way through. Paul Shamatero here on my right has been with us only 25 years, and he would be leading our pre-construction. He's our director.

He'd be leading that. Both these guys are super smart professional engineers. Steve's got his master's in structures. Paul graduated from Washington University.

Paul started with us as an intern, and Steve started with us right out of school. So we'll talk a little bit more about why continuity and low turnover is good for the client, and I really believe it makes a big difference. So a little overview on our company. We are family and employee owned, so I'm a family member.

I'm second generation. We have three generations at our company. Paul and Steve are both significant owners also. Clayton, Connecticut, and I've lived here for a long time.

We have a very local focus. So when you talk about where do we focus our efforts, we're not like eastern Missouri, southern Illinois. We are St. Louis, St.

Louis metro area, particularly central core. It fits with the way we think of our business, the fact that we believe that active senior management, walking the job site on a regular basis makes a world of difference. So this is what fits in our business. Thank you.

We're in the industry. These are not the only 25-year-plus people at our company. We've got a lot of that. We started a policy about, gosh, was it 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago?

We had our first person at 30 years with our company. We thought we'd do something special, so we gave them a $10,000 trip. We thought that was pretty cool. Had we known we'd have 19 people at 30 years, we might have thought again.

But anyway, we're happy to do that. We've even had to raise it with inflation now. So now I want to tell you, so we're in a very tough industry that is a lot of legal work happens. We've never been in a lawsuit in 53 years with a client or architect.

We have no legal budget. We just try to do what we say, stand behind our work, and things tend to work out that way. And we'll talk more about this. We have an unusually good history of controlling costs and beating budgets.

You know, we'll talk more about what we mean by that. A little bit about our experience. So, again, mostly see them at risk work. You know, we know, I mean, obviously, Clayton is an elite school district, one of the best, certainly in our area of the country.

We know that you turn out some of the top students and they go to the best schools and all that. And so we know it's a top school. We work for a lot of elite organizations who can pick whoever they want to work for them. Forest Park Forever, we've done many projects there.

We're working on the Steinberg right now, the big 6500 Steinberg. St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, big project wrapping up. It'll open.

The grand opening is the 20th, September 20th. $150 million project. They could pick anybody they wanted. They picked us.

St. Louis Public Libraries, including, we've done several of those, including the St. Louis Central Library, Sorges Memorial Military Museum, the City Garden, the Gateway Foundation, History Museum, Ministry of the Historic. We've done seven projects for them over the years.

Pulitzer Foundation, Missouri Botanical Garden, done about 35 projects there over the years. So we get to work for a lot of top institutions in St. Louis. We work a lot in Clayton.

Really, first, well, not our first experience, but a couple things that we did in Clayton. Back when we were doing more hard bed work, which we don't really do anymore very much. Shaw Park Pool, we redid Shaw Park Pool and got it done through a horrible winter, opened it in time for Memorial Day. The Clayton Firehouse Station.

More recently, Emerson's headquarters, Energizer's headquarters. We're doing the condominium building that's probably driving you crazy with the lane we're taking over by Straub's. We're sorry for that. Commerce Bank, we did their headquarters.

We're working on a ninth project over there in their tower. Colerana, an early childhood center for them. It's our third project for them. And then the Ritz-Carlton, Don Alfonso, the Atrium, the Cigar Club, the Lobby.

We're doing the ballroom right now. So we like Clayton, love working close to home. We know the building department really well. Great relations with all the people over there.

And we do a lot of K-12 work, too. I've kind of focused on things that are kind of close to here. Now, most of our work historically has been private school. And why is that?

It's because for many years, public schools couldn't do CM at Risk. So since CM at Risk is our model, we end up doing most of our work with private schools. Like Community School recently did a job there. St.

Louis U High have done nine projects. Projects consecutively for them. Hopefully get a theme, a lot of repeat business. It's kind of our thing.

St. Joe Academy, six projects. MICDS, STEM building, just did their tennis center, baseball field, doing the field hockey, field hockey and the lower school. We're working on the lower school right now.

So again, the theme, a lot of repeat business, working in the central corridor. And then Lindbergh Schools is, we think, a very important example. We don't normally bid work, as I said, but we did bid to Lindbergh High School. It was during COVID, and we had had about a third of our work canceled in about three days, and then there was this bid opportunity.

So we put together a bid, and we're the successful bidder on the 85-month-old high school, which was interesting because we don't normally do that. But it showed that we are able to get competitive and get the best bids to be able to get low on a job like that. From that, it was a very good experience. Lindberg, I don't know, did we help persuade, encourage them to try CM at Risk, Steve?

They were intrigued by it, especially after learning about us and knowing that we do most of our work as CM at Risk. And so they kind of dipped their toe in the water on the Idea Center, which is their gifted center. Superintendent Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried And it was about a million job so they just wanted to try something small and see how it went It was a big success so then their current bond issue that we working for now is a CM at risk model Right, which will mostly pretty well be done in the field before we would start on anything here. So the team that you saw in our proposal, if you saw our proposal, is populated primarily with Lindbergh people coming right off that job.

So you have a good way to know, gee, how are these people? Because these are the same people who will be coming over, and you can see how they do. And I noticed things didn't line up very well. Okay, it converted to different fonts.

So anyway, there's Steve and Paul. The top row is the operations. The bottom row is the pre-construction. So anyway, those are some of the people that you'd be seeing here.

So we did want to talk just a little bit about, so you got to make a decision, and you got a couple good options. But we want to talk about what we think matters when you make this decision. There's a few things. Number one, where the real money is.

We know this is a professional services selection, and we know that fees are involved, kind of like with architecture and other things. You know, the lowest fee does not always mean the best cost or outcome. It is rare that we are the low fee, even though we continually get picked for some of the best CM opportunities in St. Louis.

And if you think, you know, working for people like Emerson, Energizer, these types of companies, if you think that they pick us because they want to pay more, that's not the case. They pick us because they think we can deliver the best value. And I'll talk a little bit about that. So, the real money is in the cost of construction, of course.

You know, so if the fees are different by, you know, whatever, half a percent of your program, the big difference is who's going to buy that, whatever it is, $77, $80 million worth of construction the best, who's going to have the pre-con process that's going to facilitate to make sure we get the right design, that we're buying the right thing, and then ultimately who will deliver the best bids. So that photo there at the right are awards for the American Subcontractors Association St. Louis picks the best general contractor in the region annually. We're in the large category.

And this is one award you can't nominate yourself for. It is done by secret ballot and secret nomination, and the subcontractors pick who they think is the best contractor to work for based on efficient job sites, prompt pay, fair contracts, safety. Am I missing anything, Paul? Those are the main things.

So we were selected for that, pleasantly surprised to be awarded in 2025, and we've been awarded that five of the last nine years. So what does that mean? Ultimately, how much you pay for your building is going to be ultimately dependent at the end of the day. How aggressively subs bid it, and who bids it.

So a great example, and this kind of proves the point. We brought this up when we were interviewing for Energizer. We weren't the lowest fee, but we said, but, you know, you really got to look at where the money is, and it's in the subs. And so without our knowledge, we didn't know this, that the owner rep, after the interview, they said, well, okay, that's what they said.

Let's see about this. They randomly called 10 subcontractors in St. Louis, pretty well-known contractors, and said, confidentially, who of these two firms would you prefer to work for? Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

You're going to cost yourself a lot of value for what you're spending. What matters also? Okay, so no surprises. Your biggest risk as a board, and I guess as a school district, is that there would be a big surprise when the bids come in.

You work together. Your architect does the drawings. We do some estimates and then we go out to market and oh my gosh we way over And sad to say that happens It happened a lot lately What does that mean for the district, the board, the team? Well, it's embarrassing.

You know, as a group, we have a loss of credibility. It can cause delays to your programs. Like, oh my gosh, we don't have enough money to start these projects. It can lead to costs of redesign, costs in terms of time and money.

Thank you. Oh my gosh, this school district was 20% over their budget, 30% over, things like that. We haven't had that. We've been able to hold our budgets, bring our numbers in, and we think that that's a great benefit to our clients.

It gives them a lot of confidence. Another thing people don't talk about enough, what really matters in the long run is quality. Ultimately, our product is the building that we leave you with. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

We have a lot of conversations with our clients on this. Why is that? Well, we focus on that a lot. We make a really big deal about the quality of the construction that we put in place.

We, just for reference, we spend virtually no funds on business development and marketing. We have no marketing department. We have one guy who does about half-time business development. Almost all of our work comes word of mouth and repeat business.

We put all of our efforts into our product, which is the building that we build. We both live and work in this community. So all of us, me included, we see people we build for every day. I mean, I live in Clayton.

We work a lot in Clayton. We see these people. I never want to have to look somebody, run into somebody that I'm embarrassed about something I did for them. If we did something wrong, we're going to make it right.

We value our reputation more than our profits. So we just take a lot of pride in the product. And, you know, we think people should focus more on that, frankly. We believe in customers for life.

One of the benefits of continuity and low turnover is we're going to be here a long time. Steve's already promised me that he's going to be at least 15 more years. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Probably 30. Yeah. So I've been here 36 years. Last week, we got a call from a client on a building that we had built 19 years ago with a problem they were having.

We were down there the next morning. You know, I swear, I'm sure 90% of the contractors in town would have said, well, it's way out of warranty. Or we don't have anybody in the company even knows anything about that. But at BSI, with the continuity of this company and the care for the work that we do, again, we're there the next day to help them figure out the problem and take care of it.

That's just the way we roll. So what's the conclusion? I mean, you got a lot of things to think about. I'm just saying the things that matter, we think that BSI would be a very safe choice for Clayton, and you can't go wrong, and we'll keep you out of trouble.

So that's all I got. Questions? Thank you so much. Appreciate that presentation.

There are six of us board members here tonight. We have prepared 12 questions, so we're going to go around. Each of us will ask a couple. But I'll remind everyone, please ask any clarifying, follow-up, or additional questions as they come to you.

And we'll just go in the same order. I'll start with Jason. Question number one. Great.

Thanks for the presentation. I enjoyed learning more about your firm. Question number one, what costs are included in the guaranteed maximum price and what costs are explicitly excluded? I'll start with that one.

Typically, the GMP that you get from BSI is going to include all of the costs that are considered the hard construction costs. So that includes all of the trade contractor work that would be bid out multiple bids per category And then all the BSI costs to run and supervise the jobs Our project management our superintendent Sperattutto Board of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried And the owner. And so the things that are not part of the hard construction cost would not be part of the GMP. There would be a separate budget, a program budget, which would track those items as a separate line item, and that's work that would not typically be performed by the CM.

That might be furniture, equipment, et cetera, that the school district would procure separately. What happens if the project costs exceed the GMP due to unforeseen circumstances? I mean, I know that probably never happens, right? If it exceeds the GMP or exceeds it, when we take the bids, it comes back and it's more than what the budget was.

I think that's probably the right way. Yeah, okay. That does happen a lot, as Paul mentioned. It does not happen a lot with BSI.

In the past five years, I have not had that experience with anything that we put out to bid where we were the CM and developed the budgets along the way. So when we went out to bid and took bids, we delivered the project at or below the owner's expected budget. What happens with cost savings if the project comes in under the guaranteed maximum price? Perfect segue if you've never done it before.

You want to take that one? Well, I'll just say, so it's a guaranteed maximum price, and so there's savings, which typically there would be some savings. That would be very normal. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

370 would be a typical one that we would see, but we really leave that up to the client. And so if it's full savings to the client, it all goes back to you. If there's a shared savings, then we get a piece of it. So I think 90% of the work you guys do now is really CMAR.

What percentage of that work do you have those type of shared savings provisions? Half, less than half? I'd say half. I'd say on the projects I'm currently involved in, maybe a little less than half.

A little bit less than half, yeah. And those percentages might be a little bit different, but it's always a majority to the owner. Okay. How are change orders managed and priced under the GMP?

We do our jobs well during pre-construction. You shouldn't have much in the way of change orders. Steve on Lindbergh School District, you got a couple examples of... Yeah, I mean, there's obviously changes from subcontractors that we evaluate.

So we evaluate the cost, the legitimacy of the change order. Subs ask for changes that they don't deserve. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. But we frequently are able to absorb those changes within the GMP.

Just a follow-up question. So you mentioned sometimes some contractors request, I guess, additional funds for what they're being asked to do. Is that because they look at the, let's say, final drawings or something and they said this was different from what we did? Or I guess how does that come about?

Yes, or they may just flat out say, well, I didn't know it was going to be like that. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. 40, 45 subcontractors and all the, everyone's out for their own self-interests, and when that all works well, that's great, but we're there as a protection against that. You shouldn't just be getting stuff that's, you know, stamped by us and sent off to you to deal with.

That said, what we're looking for is a fair implementation of the contract documents between the client and the subcontractors. You know, if it's shown on the documents, then the subcontractors owe it to us to do that work. If it's not shown on the documents, then the owner is not entitled to receive something that they didn't pay for already through the original bid process. So we're trying to do a fair analysis.

So the first thing you've got to do is establish entitlement. Are they entitled to a change because it's a change condition, or do the contract documents define it and they're not entitled to a change? That's like a general to the subcontractor. So in a dispute situation like that, so if it was deemed, I guess I don't know how it would be deemed, But if it was deemed that they had a legitimate claim to additional funds, would that fall in your responsibility as CMAR?

Let's say if you didn't establish in the bid documentation that this condition needs to be built, would that be the – would they have a claim? Can I give you a real-world example? Yeah, please. Okay.

I don't think they'd mind knowing about this. At Lindbergh High School, they have – which Perkins and Will designed, by the way. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We have a supplier furnishing the doors.

We have an electrician supplying the power. He brings up the point that, well, the drawings don't show any power to these doors. They could have been manual doors. I don't know that.

Turns out they're motorized. We validate that. It's a legitimate gap in the drawings. These are what contingencies have to deal with.

The drawings aren't going to be perfect. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So, and just for like, just to pull on that thread a little more. So that comes in out of the contingency budget and as part of a change order request, all at the same time.

I would, I would clarify this. There are two different types of change orders. There's a change order from the general contractor CMR to the subcontractor. Yep.

And then there's a change order from the CMR contract to the owner contract. Yep. And so what we're saying is something like that, we can absorb that within our contingency, and we have a change order to the subcontractor. They are due the money.

Okay. But the owner doesn't see a change order from us to say this was not. So what's an example where we might see a change order then as the owner? If you decided that you wanted to add a.

Another 10,000 square feet on something. Another story on top of the building. Yeah. A dome on top of the football field.

We had a close-out meeting today on a project. The project was delayed by a year. So there were escalation costs because they delayed it by a year. So there was an owner change order.

Got it. I mean, technically speaking, the example I gave you would go to the owner. Okay. I mean, because that's not necessarily automatically covered in our GMP.

But historically, what we're trying to describe to you is a situation where we typically return savings on the job, and the job savings that's already being realized as the project goes on can often fund those sorts of smaller changes that we know are going to occur. But even that example, Steve, that was actually the hard bid job. Right, that was on the high school. That was the competitive bid job where we were just given a set of drawings and just bid what's on the drawings.

So we still really represented everybody fairly. If we had been CM at risk, which is one of the reasons I think Lindbergh likes CM at risk, is the odds of that kind of thing ever getting that far would have been a lot less. That's right. We were not involved in any pre-construction effort.

We weren't involved in the original design. Right You know and so that and sometimes it be a case where there will be a gap and we will say well yeah he didn have it and he didn have it but there was enough information that we should have had it so we not going to ask you for a change order even though we got to pay somebody downstream So that can certainly happen within the CMR process. It's a high bar for us as CMR, much more than a competitive bid when they just say, bid what's on the drawings. You know, you should expect more out of us to help debug these things.

The gifted center, how many changes did we have? I worked on the pre-construction on that. Yeah. And we finished the job.

Do we have? Yeah, the gifted center, we had one change order to the owner. And that was largely for enhanced scope, kind of like what we described. They wanted to do more.

And then we just finished Crestwood. In fact, we're getting occupancy on Thursday. And not only do we have no change orders on that job to the owner, Superroportionate, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Great.

How do you recover and get back on schedule when construction has fallen behind schedule? Well, it starts in pre-con with a good understanding of what the subcontractors are capable of doing and laying out the expectations and working with a schedule that is collaborative with them, but not just whatever they want either. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Done. And so things that we never used to have to worry about, long lead time items, are things that we have to address in pre-construction. So that's why Steve made the comment.

This really starts in pre-construction. Our schedule templates, we identify long lead time items so that we can come up with strategies. There was one school project that we had about eight months of construction, but one of the pieces of equipment, the rooftop equipment for the heating and cooling system, was going to take 12 months to get. I can't fit 12 months in an eight-month schedule, so we worked with the client to authorize and release that early so that it would be Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Superroportion O, levy, agenda, motion carried. When the permanent units came in. So you were able to maintain the project schedule Oh yes Even though you had been given that Yes You had to deal with it Yes You never know what curveball is going to come but we got to come up with a creative solution for every curveball that they throw at us An added benefit, coincidentally, was this school is now doing an expansion. So two years later, we're back there again.

It's a repeat client. And because those units were charged, we actually kept those units, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. How did you overcome that to keep it on schedule? You just answered that, so.

You're welcome to ask another one if you like. Go ahead. Alright. Are you seeing tariffs affect construction costs yet?

And if so, how? I would say minimally. For all of the hype that you hear in the news about tariffs, we have not seen too many direct impacts on the projects. The subcontractors recognize that they are always taking prices Sper chuckling.

Within the GMP, we identified or established like a tariff or market condition allowance to, because basically when you take the bid, a lot of the bids, the bidder might try to qualify the bid and say, my pricing is good for 7 or 14 or 21 days. Well, depending on what the timing looks like, from the time we get the bid to the time that the board approves the project and we sign up contracts, there may be longer than that time has passed. And so we will identify market conditions allowance within the GMP such that if a bidder can come back and say, I had this bid from my supplier on this bid date, and here was the price, and since then they have had a price increase and it is up by $5,000 and they can substantiate that, then we would allocate dollars from that allowance to cover that. That's a strategy we've used with multiple clients.

We think that that allows, it's really about risk management. And if you just tell the bidders, like, we're not going to allow that, just put the money in your bid, the bids are going to come back higher. If they can bid more confidently saying, I'm not taking the risk, BSI will carry an allowance, and if something comes up, they know that they can get coverage, they can give you a more aggressive bid. So we will advise most of our clients that overall, you'll wind up with a lower cost if you do it that way, as opposed to just pushing all over the risk downstream to the subs.

And that's a common theme that we will use on different contracting things, and we don't have time here to get into all of those strategies, but we'd love to talk with you about them. Not at 9.30 tonight. I have a follow-up question on that real quick. So does it happen that you do a cost-plus kind of thing where you basically – you mentioned open book as part of it.

So is that a strategy as well, or is that kind of what you were saying? Cost-plus meaning like my cost is this, and we already established what my markup will be on the product. You mean like with a subcontractor, for instance? Yeah, with a subcontractor, yeah.

There are certainly circumstances where we subcontract work on a cost-plus basis, where it makes sense for the client. Whether that would come into play for these projects or not, we'd have to evaluate that. But, yes, there are times where we have done, I mean, certainly on private projects, we will bring subcontractors on board strategically early in certain things and put them under a cost-plus arrangement, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. So, we're not turning the whole contract into a cost plus.

We just acknowledging that there a volatile component within that bid as a component that is very volatile So we let them break that and identify that then we can validate yeah that really happened Because that an area where they going to inflate it if they see risk Right, right. Like he says, if you just tell everybody you got all the risk, then we're going to pay for it. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

It's mine, I think. Right, yes. So, and I think you guys, this may be a redundant question because you guys have already talked a lot about your process for the pre-construction, but I'll ask it anyway. So, do you have a typical process and what is it when a project estimate is over budget during the pre-construction phase?

Yes. One of the things that is very important is budget and scope alignment. We have had projects in the past where a budget is established before we're brought on board. Spervantage, and then you're trying to make whatever work to that budget.

We have other... To get the numbers to align. We have had other projects brought on board before any budget is established. I would say those processes generally go more smoothly because we can help advise from the very start where those budget numbers ought to be set.

Obviously, there is... You heard earlier, there's a ton of design work and things that they have to think about over the next 60 days between now and the October 8th meeting or 9th meeting. And so the process we use is a collaborative approach with the design team and the client to sit down and review the cost model and understand what are the decisions and the scope items that are driving those costs. And then typically we would go through a process that we would prioritize things and say, where are some dollars that we could save to scale things back and get things better aligned?

Certainly we would want to check original assumptions, and if there are differences, there are often something changes in the course of your design. Well, previously we thought this, but now we think something else. Okay, well, that's something we need to accommodate. Is there something else we could trade out for it?

Additionally, we would evaluate contingency percentages. As you move through design, earlier in the project, you want to have a higher project contingency to address unknown things. As you move through, you can reduce that contingency because more things become known and you become more sure about some of those costs. So that is another strategy to keep in mind as you work through budget alignment is making sure you've got the right amount of contingency.

You don't want to have so much in there that you give up things Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Solicitation requirements and public receipt requirements. So it's all out in the open. This statute is not so hyper-specific that districts don't have to make their own policies with more detail.

Like how are we going to – I mean you all had a lot of discussions tonight about how do we tailor our policy to match the statute. And so in a similar way, we're flexible in that. I mean, a lot of our clients are private and can kind of do whatever they want, so to speak. Within the confines of the state statute, there's still some latitude regarding how, for instance, how your attorney would interpret what sort of public solicitation, public opening would look like.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We don't even see them until the public opening. And then once they're open, then we take them and do a full analysis because, as Paul mentioned, a lot of these bidders still include a lot of clarifications and may or may not include everything that's within the documents that they're supposed to have. So that's where our professional opinion needs to come in and evaluate, do a proper evaluation, and then we submit that to.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Any work? We're capable of self-performing demolition, concrete, carpentry.

So we have trade workers that are capable of doing that. Many of our clients want us to perform those. We can often deliver them at a savings. We can often absorb, in particular, demo, which is very difficult to define.

Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. In a surgical way, try to open up some of the unknowns early to assist the design team so that we get more information, the drawings are better, and there are fewer unknowns. That covers it.

Thank you. In the construction manager risk process, what financial risks are retained by the owner? It depends on what part of the process we're talking about. So certainly early in the process, most of them, because until we define what is the scope and, you know, we have to figure out what you really need and what we're up against.

Once we put that GMP down there, though, we got pretty much, we got the vast majority of it. The only thing then is, I guess, if there would be, again, if you would want to add scope like we talked, if there were some underground condition that wasn't detected during all the pre-testing, or what else? I mean, there's not... Usually the biggest risk to the clients on the projects where the CM are unforeseen conditions, either subgrade, underground, or in an existing building demolition discovery that you can't see until later or scope changes.

I would say the other risks then fall outside of the hard construction cost, GMP, and would be like furniture pricing when you go buy all new furniture desks, et cetera. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. That's one of our biggest risks, frankly, is sub-failure or sub-inability slash unwillingness to perform. Right.

Those are the big risks. Right. But that's on us. Once we give you the GMP, that's our risk.

Okay. Perhaps the most important question why should the School District of Clayton choose BSI I guess I go first I think it probably well for a lot of things we said I mean, you know, this is, you know, we are not just a school contractor. You know, I know some, all they do is schools, we do a lot of things, you know. But our track record on doing high-profile work for really good clients is unsurpassed.

And we would encourage you, I don't know if, you know, you've probably got to make a decision quickly because we've got to put an estimate together. But when we have clients who are able to take the time to really do thorough reference checks, we normally get picked, you know. We live, just really live on the experience of the work that we've done. So I guess the biggest thing would be that, you know, we're going to do what we said we're going to do.

And we're going to stand behind our work. And this guy and his team and their pre-construction is phenomenal. And Steve, I have complete confidence in him. And, again, you can talk to people at Lindbergh just to say how that experience has gone.

And all the, you know, you can call anybody you've ever worked for. So I think we're going to keep everybody out of trouble because we're not going to have a big budget bust. We're going to buy really well for you. We think we can buy this better than anybody else in town.

And then we're going to build you a quality building and stand behind our work. Did I miss anything? Thank you. Thanks.

I'm curious, Nina, if you have any questions for BSI at all. Do you guys have any procedures in place to minimize disruption to the school deck? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's all going to happen in pre-construction where we're going to be meeting with the principals and the building staff.

I mean, handling things like parent pickup and drop off. How do we segregate construction traffic from parental traffic or even just entrances? We typically perform demolition at night or on weekends if it's allowed and disruptive. We've had to cease operations during standardized testing.

Again, a lot of this is related to communication and schedules. If we get the information and we know what the needs of the school are, then we work around that, right? And we communicate to them, hey, we're going to have to bring a crane in here. Is it okay if we bring it in at 6 in the morning so that we're here and set up and in, you know, behind the school well before parental drop-off?

So it's very common, very typical, very few projects and virtually none in St. Louis anymore built in just some open field somewhere with no disruption whatsoever. It's either extensive renovation in an occupied school or substantial wing on an active campus. And so, yeah, planning, communication, and understanding the needs and addressing them.

Does anyone else have any additional questions? Chris? So along those same lines, can you tell us how you, you know, our elementary schools are very much in the middle of everything. Yeah.

So can you help us understand how you're going to communicate with the neighbors and those, you know, around those schools and help them to deal with the construction? Like, what do you guys have in place that you do that really takes into consideration the fact that it's not just that school that's going to be impacted. It's our entire community, that whole neighborhood. Right.

Tell us about that. Yeah, we would often work with you on establishing what messaging do we want to say. And we would probably encourage that coming from you all. Not that we wouldn't participate in it, but, like, they don't necessarily want to hear from us, but they want to hear, you know, what are the proactive measures.

So we would develop that plan and then share it with you to try to communicate that to the adjacent constituents. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That silly not a big deal but that goes a long way for yeah It a big deal to that person I can overstate the importance of the personality of our superintendents Yes It a really big deal And they I mean typically they befriend people pretty well Absolutely.

Jake Finnerty, Jason Heisman, guys who might be, you know, Jake would be on one of our projects here. Jason, they're just salt of the earth kind of people who... They usually become best friends with the old guy in the neighborhood that walks around and wants to know what's going on. Yeah, they get real tight.

I had just one final question. Paul, you had mentioned your buildings are just built better or that's reputation. So what would be some examples of things that you're doing to ensure that that is the case? Just a couple maybe.

Well, yeah, let me give you an example of, so we followed another contractor on a particular campus, and we went through a very thorough pre-installation meeting on how we were going to put in the windows in this building and how we were going to flash them, and to make sure that we got all the details right. We had the manufacturer of the window and the flashing system that we did a mock-up, and we had everybody there. We're like, okay, here's how we're doing it. And so we did that, and everything was going great for about the first week, and then they brought in a new carpenter to start installing some of the windows.

And he did it wrong, and our superintendent was on him right away. And he said, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is not how we're doing this. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We have to do more oversight than we used to, sad to say.

It's just the reality. But you've got to do it. And so you've got to set the tone. We're just fanatics about pre-installation meetings.

And then our superintendents are fanatics about enforcing what we talked about. And so that's how you do it. Thank you. And I'd say just to clarify, that's the third part of our quality control program.

We really have three big components. One is it starts in pre-construction, and it's the reviews of the documents. We're looking for water infiltration problems in places where we don't think the flashing or the drainage is going to work properly. We flag those types of things all the time for the design team.

We bring it up. We talk about it. We get the drawings right before they ever go out to bid or to be built. Then the second piece is when we go through the submittal process and making sure that Sperczywiście, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Thank you. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. idea center And then they are also designing what going to be we call it the Farmer Club because that what the property that Lindbergh bought but it going to become their agricultural technology building for the K So they going to do programs all the way through K and Perkins Will is designing that one as well So that four of them I guess And it all my experience with them I mean they a Chicago firm and specializing in K education as you heard And so yeah that the four of them with Lindbergh I would add that I worked on a project with Perkins-Will from their Minneapolis office.

It was a corporate conference center, and there was an associated project out there, so we had a couple experiences with them. That office was also a very positive experience. The one thing that we found with them, in particular on these school projects, you asked earlier about keeping budgets aligned. They have been much more responsible to that.

Once a budget is established, they're going to try to figure out, let's get everything that we can into this budget, but there are things that usually don't fit, And so you've got to make compromises and compromising decisions. But they have proved to stick to those scopes very well compared to some other architects that we work with who tend to veer off scope. And then we added all these things, so the costs go up, and then we've got to take things out, and you go along, and then they add some more things, and then you've got to take costs back out. So that's been a positive end for doing a good job.

Back off that. You already hired them, so you don't need me telling you this. But not only do they stay within the guardrails of the scope, but they also hit their dates on drawing production, which is obviously very important because the schedule really is made on the early end, right? I mean, you asked about recovering the schedule on the back end.

Well, yeah, but we really got to meet the schedule on the front end. And they also, I've been in many of those design charrettes or, you know, the things that they led for you all, and they do an outstanding job. So, yeah, you're in good hands with them on those projects for sure. We have not worked directly with Paragon yet.

And then my last question is, do you do anything to do any sort of integrating our students in, you know, being educated around your work? Do you have anything in place that includes our students as, you know, helping them learn actively around what you're doing? Yeah, for sure. Well, you want to talk about your presentation?

We have done that for different school clients in the past, depending on what they're looking for. One specific example is St. Louis U High, after we did their chapel project, we went up and we did a presentation to, it was directed to the STEM club, and any students, it was open, anybody who was invited who was interested, specifically in engineering, and considering engineering for college. And so we did a presentation to talk about the construction of the chapel, how we transformed it, it was an interior renovation project, And then also all of the different professional disciplines that are involved in the project to give them a better understanding of if they have an interest in that, what paths of study they might be able to pursue.

So that's one specific thing. And then, Steve, you. Yeah. When we give tours, I mean, a lot of it's very age dependent.

Yeah. And, you know, but often it's, you know, at a time of day when we can safely take students through in a supervised fashion. With hard hats. With hard hats and proper, yeah.

I've brought student journalists through to do stories for the paper. Teachers. Some teachers want to see the space that they are going to be working in and sometimes have comments that, you know. That can be the change order, Steve.

Yeah, but we can avoid the changes that occur after they move in, right, if we know what they're looking for early enough. So it's really – I've gone to present to, I don't know, second or third graders in a gifted program that they were studying structures. And being a structure engineer, I was able to try to communicate with little I retained from school. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

Thank you. Okay, well, thank you very much for your presentation and for answering all of our questions so thoroughly. We appreciate it. I know it's a late night, so thank you very much.

Thanks for your attention this late at night. We appreciate it. Thanks. Okay.

So everybody should have a sheet at the top. It says CMAR scoring. Does everyone see that? It's on the back of...

Does nobody have this? Does nobody have this except me? Oh, yeah. Nina, you can go.

Are you guys sure? Absolutely. Thank you so much. Did not everybody get that?

Okay, hold on. We're looking for it. We're looking. I'm sorry.

I thought everybody had a copy of the scoring sheet. Oh, you do? Okay. Do you see what Kim's holding up?

Does everybody have that? It's a sheet of paper at the top. This is what's on the back. It's the questions, but they're single-spaced.

A sheet that has our interview questions single-spaced. Okay, yes. Okay, we do have it. Okay.

So, I'll wait until everyone finds this. Sorry, we had a lot of papers tonight, so. Okay, everybody found it. So you'll see that there are several categories that we're scoring them in.

Several have already been filled in and we have subtotals. At the bottom, you'll see where it says board interview. There are three categories to score them in, bidding, procedures and transparency, ability to maintain schedule, and ability to manage budget. So, I would like for everyone to score in that section, but also please review the subtotals at the top that we'd already filled in.

There are certain categories that may be more important than others to you. So pay attention to the top as well, but go ahead and score the bottom. I'll give everyone a few minutes based on our interviews, and then we'll come back around with the scores, totals. Yes, we are going to discuss.

I want us to score first, and then we're going to go through it. Thank you. Thank you. Spervantage, Propriety, and Equality.

Thank you Spervantage of Education Proposition O levy agenda motion carried Okay. Oh, no, just hold on. We're just going to discuss. So the top portion, John, I think I would like to direct any questions about the top portion to John, since he did the legwork on these sections and the scoring.

So I would just open it up for him to explain any of the top questions, to answer any questions that you have about the top part. And I can make a few statements here. Yeah. First off, I think you just interviewed two outstanding firms.

Both have excellent portfolios of work. Both have excellent references. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. All those essential qualities.

One of them has been working for Lou Du recently. That's S.M. Wilson. One has been working for Lindbergh recently.

And so I hear from both of those districts good reports. So they did submit their RFQs. Those were very complete, very informative. The RFPs were complete and generally informative.

If you look at my scoring here, I have a lower score on S.M. Wilson slightly, and I'd like to explain that. When we sent out that RFP, we asked for fee structure, and they both supplied that. We also sent out a proposed draft contract for the CMAR services.

And within that, we gave them an opportunity to take exception to provisions of the contract and ask them in the alternative, if you don't like this, tell us what you want. BSI answered those questions. They had some exceptions. They clearly delineated what their alternatives might be, but they also indicated we'll take this contract as is.

S.M. Wilson had some exceptions, had general conversation about what they would prefer, but wanted to still have further discussion. And most of this is around how we handle allowances and contingencies, maybe liquidated damages, things like that. So we've had some follow-up email and discussion, but I did give them a slight deduct on that.

One of the things that impresses me with BSI in this case is their lack of history of litigious situations. You know, you don't like to ever have that. I don't like to be in a situation where we're in court or even mediation situations where some third party is going to tell us what to do. Spervantage of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

I not saying that the budget is a big deal but I saying that the budget is a big deal But the difference on say million is around a half million dollars of difference of project So those are some of the differences I see between these firms. I think either one can do the work. If we're going to pick one, that's our challenge tonight. Does anyone have questions for John based on how he scored some of those ahead of tonight or based on what he just said?

Clearly, looking at the numbers here, they're very, very close. Yeah, they're very close. Yeah, that explanation was helpful, John, and I agree with you. I think we do have two very good firms, and so thank you for running a process that got us those options.

I understand that how you score, I think I now understand how you score the top part and where if you didn't give someone a five, why that is the case. Like, and I don't know if the points, I don't know if we're really doing points at the end of the day and doing that as a matter of our process. Not necessarily, but it just helps us see who rises. Like in some cases, you know, you gave one like a 20, one a 17.

You know, like when it comes to the dollar figures, how did you decide to get, you know what I mean, how did you decide to give those points? Right. Well, I'd say to some level they're arbitrary, but I just, based on the magnitude of difference, I made those scores. Gotcha.

Okay. I don't think the cost, I mean, personally, I'll speak as treasurer. I don't think when we're talking about like six-tenths of a basis point that those the numbers as far as the costs are going to be a material consideration for us given where we are financially as a school district. So I think probably the things above the cost if we're going to talk about if those factory decision are more important.

I guess what's not reflected on this list that I'd like to hear about is the reference checks. So who Has the school district talked to you? It sounds like both these firms, both very qualified, both have done exceptional projects that we're all familiar with. Has somebody talked to Lindbergh?

Because it sounds like they've done projects, both of them have done projects for the school. I have. And how was the feedback? Glowing.

Going? Glowing. Oh, glowing. I mean, excellent.

For both? I had an opportunity to talk to the superintendent of Lindbergh, and he had excellent references for BSI. Did you mean glowing for both firms, John, or just BSI who's currently doing Lindbergh? Lindbergh had glowing or excellent references for BSI.

LeDoux had excellent references for S.M. Wilson. And in talking to LeDoux's superintendent, I would agree he had excellent references for S.M. Wilson.

His only challenge he felt when he expressed it to me was that there was quite a bit of rotation in terms of the team. That was a little frustrating for him. The only other wondering that I have is that there seems to be a difference in kind of project management process based on what we heard from Wiki at Leduc about the change management process where the board approved every change management order that came from us and Wilson. And it sounds like, I can't remember the number, the total number they told us, but it was a very high number.

And then to hear from BSI that they really limit the change management process, I mean, that is a, that's probably a consideration factor of, you know, is it just a different way in which they manage the project overall? Is it just the process that Ledoux had in place? I was going to say, that might have been Ledoux's board. Exactly.

Exactly. I thought that was done. Why are there different approaches to that? Yeah, I just think, yes.

I can't speak for the two CMs that are here. I will say, you know, in my experience, contractors and subcontractors, depending on who they are, some of them want to feed change orders in for every little thing. It's not in the plans or this condition change or this. Spervantage Pursuit and If the plans are complete, it really is completely rational and defensible to say, no, the plans were there.

You bid what the plans were. We're not going to accept the change order. I think that gets solved in the document phase. That's fair.

Did you have a question there? I thought I saw you about to ask something. I was going to kind of agree with what Kim was saying and say it a little different way, which is not only within the scope of the budget of the school district, but within the scope of the project we're looking at here. You know, control of the overall picture of the project is much more important than some of the smaller numbers that we're looking Spervantage of the grant here.

Smaller in the grant scheme of things. You know, I have, I don't think this district and I have not engaged in a CMAR process before. What sounds good at the beginning of transferring risk potentially really is we're trying to manage risk, but they're trying to manage risk. We both have risk in the situation, Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried.

We're dealing with two very qualified firms. What does everyone see are the distinguishing factors that will help us make our decision when we look at this chart? Well, can I just say that the things that I think are distinguishing aren't even on the chart. I mean, I literally scored them both the same for those last three questions.

They both got total points. You know what I mean? That's how close in terms of quality. It just, we were dealing with really quality firms here.

So the distinguishing factors for me are the things that I was asking about at the very end of the BSI. Thank you, BSI. S.M. Wilson spoke very clearly about two things that they have baked into their system, one being that they go knock on doors in the neighborhoods.

And I'm just very concerned about our neighborhoods, right? I'm concerned about our neighbors and how this will impact them. The fact that they already have in place this system where they know how important it is to engage with the neighbors and to make sure that they are informed and they feel heard, et cetera, et cetera, I think is a really cool thing. I don't doubt that BSI would do that if we asked them to.

That's what their response was. But I do like that S.M. Wilson has that as a value and as a thing that they know to do. Right?

The other thing is that SM Wilson has the skilled program, and it's just a baked-in thing. They already know, they come to us saying, we want to help your kids be engaged in this and have this be part of the curriculum in any way that, you know, works for us. I think that's pretty amazing, too. I think BSI would probably, you know, again, if we wanted them to, would do X, Y, or Z, but that's a different mode than doing things, like, proactively, you know, rather than just doing it.

I was asking them to. And I really like, you know, our philosophy is hands-on learning, you know, all these things. We want, you know, active learning, all these things. I think having our kids be as involved in this process as possible would be what I would vote for.

It would seem to me the best way for our kids to get the most out of this, not just because they get a school at the end of it, but because they have learned about this process in such an active and engaging way. Wow. I was just, I mean, I hear what you're saying on that, and I think perhaps even if you pull out a little bit, one distinguishing factor, and I can go through what I thought distinguished BSI from S.M. Wilson and vice versa, you know, in multiple areas, but I do think that there's a lot of I think SM Wilson demonstrated a clear, just more experience in the K-12 space, right, in the public school space.

And I think what you're talking about is a reflection of just lots of experience with that. You know, BSI has worked on and is doing some really cool projects. I'm excited to actually see Powell Hall, so I was interested in that. But, you know, like there wasn't a ton of K-12 experience that came across.

Except that private schools were often compared to. Yeah. Community. That's fair.

SLU. But I would say, but I think that's a reflection. I suspect that the neighborhood relations, you know, that Chris was talking about and some things like that might be a little more important in a public school setting. Yeah.

I guess, I mean, I look at this chart and I look at the things that are above the numbers in the portion that John filled out. And I think those are some pretty important things for us educationally because we're going to put kids in these spaces and we're going to control the amount of money we spend on them. And there's a small but real preference that our chief financial officer has expressed in those numbers there, and I would like to give that some weight myself. So, a small but real preference for DSI.

Anyone else? Were you going to say something about it? Oh, I was just going to say, I do think that, you know, given the sort of unique spaces that we have, buildings we have, that maybe actually experience in other types of buildings Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. We know we've got a partner that's going to give us a really good understanding of our design for school purposes regardless.

And, you know, does that make sense? They kind of fill that void. John, do you have a recommendation for us by any chance? I mean, or this might say it.

It's there. But it's so small. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I think based on my evaluation of this, my recommendation to you, if you're going to hire one, would be BSI.

At the same time, I would say that we have two teams going. This would be my alternative recommendation was we have the Paragon Perkins team working on elementary buildings. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. Does one firm have more experience with sports facility We didn really spend a lot of time asking about sports facilities Both excellent firms that I was reluctant to pick one or the other But like I said if I had to pick one I think the narrow edge goes to BSI myself The fact that it's so local is fantastic.

You know, the fact that they're right here. I would say... And the idea that they've had continued business, like the same people keep going back to them again and again, it does speak a lot. I have to admit what of all of these categories, even though it wasn't a huge difference in the scoring, but something I think that stands out to me is the history of conflict resolution and the cases of mediation.

And I don't know the details of those. Obviously, you know, have more information, John, but I think that's something to strongly consider here. If we have a firm that has a clean history and has not engaged in any mediation or litigation, it gives me a little more confidence in them. Who have we used that as a lesson for?

Well, we did Y-Down and high school. Y-Down, I think, S.M. Wilson built Y-Down as a general contractor, I believe. Yeah.

So what about, like, the plumbing issues we've talked about that have come out of, like, the facility study that we're experiencing at Y-Down, even though it was recently built? I think my understanding of that story was at the time that was under construction, there was some budget issues, and they were trying to restrain the cost of that, and I think they chose a different grade of, there was a decision that was involved with the Board of Education at that time to put a different type of drain pipe, cast iron drain pipe into the facility. And that stuff today is challenging us. Or who knows who's to blame for that, who's decision that was.

I remember there was the mention of the stairwell, the lights above the stairwell that lie down and were poorly placed. There's some lights that they don't even use because it's almost impossible to change the light bulbs. It's over the stairwell. Am I making this up?

We have that challenge in our theaters too, but I mean, that may be more of a design issue than a construction issue. I just bring it up for bringing up things, you know. We are six people tonight, not seven, so. Have we worked with BSI?

Have they done anything for us? Not that I'm aware of. I don't think so. So we have worked with SMOSA and we would say that it was a good relationship.

None of us were around when that happened, but, except for what Kim's talking about. We don't know whose decision that was. I don't think you should make a decision on that basis. We hired him more than once in the past, so that says there was some confidence there.

Does anyone, if we were, we don't have to decide tonight, but we'd like to, because of course it just puts the whole project back if we don't. We should get this decided. Yeah, so I'd like to decide tonight. Does everyone in their heads feel that they have, that they know who they would choose?

Ben and Leo are saying yes. Yes, could we vote is exactly what I'm trying to get to. Could you, Chris? Sure.

I'm just saying I would be happy with either one of these. I would be too. I would be too. Do we all feel a preference to choosing one versus John's other option?

Go ahead, Leo. Unless John is recommending doing two because he has a preference for that, I think what he said was as a fallback to two. And so if the recommendation is one, I would go with one. Okay.

Are you recommending two? I would recommend one. I made an alternative to you in case you needed a different recommendation No I don Look, I mean, as far as the things that we were asked to evaluate tonight with respect to, and just so that both the firms that are still waiting here, so late on a Tuesday night for a decision. So we are asked as a board to evaluate bidding procedures and transparency, ability to maintain schedule, and ability to manage budget.

And from what I heard and from what I saw in the RFP responses and the RFQ responses, for me it's a dead tie for both. So then, you know, for me then I defer to the scoring that's above. Yeah. Because both firms are well qualified to do this work.

Yeah. And just so everyone understands what Kim's getting at here, the scoring above has BSI at a slight edge. So if... And, you know, the way that S.M.

Wilson would integrate with the community and the way that we know we are going to need in this community. I'm not saying, B.S., I can't. I'm just saying they really spoke to that. So those things aren't on here.

And to me, if we were going to rate those two, I would give S.M. Wilson the higher score on those. The other thing that's not on here related to that is help with the bond. Yeah.

So how do we want to evaluate that aspect? That's a huge one. I wish we would have asked more questions. In the pre-bond part of our work, anyway, they will be developing all the cost data that we will be using to inform the public.

I was going to – I thought it really – how involved with helping with the bond would a CMIR be, I guess? John? You mean as far as – Like Kim mentioned, this didn't talk about helping with the bond. How much help with the bond would a CMIR be?

I think in this particular bond issue, it's going to be very critical that we have accurate, well-developed cost information. So the selected party will be developing that in conjunction with the design team to prepare that for, and it's information we're going to use as part of the informational campaign that we have for the bond issue. But there's a whole communication strategy and like language around ballot measure. But is that there?

I don't know if that's up to PSI or S.M. Wilson. But communications. Would we be hiring help with our bond campaign?

So we have discussed that. And if you remember, John, I think the main meeting, the board approved for us to hire someone if we needed at that point. Gina and I have been talking to different firms in terms of just the survey portion of it. We're talking to someone else as an advisory role who's done this work before.

And then we're looking at hiring someone for the communications department for the long run to do the work so that Gina can lead some of this work. Question from the audience. Superintendent, Board of Education, Proposition O, levy, agenda, motion carried. I'd like to know what you think we should do about having our kids be more involved, going with us and Wilson because of that.

I personally wouldn't make a decision on that. I think some of these things are more important. I like that 50 in my eyes and that the thing that would that be one thing If they 50 they not 50 To me they equal to me Right How do you feel about that aspect of it? I think it absolutely does.

Yeah, absolutely does. SM Wilson has a very thorough program that they have, that they approach with, but that's also not to say that I don't think BSI would not do that. Correct. Right, you're saying, they did say they would respond to whatever we needed.

So that would be something that, even with them not having that in place, you feel like you would be, you would ask them to engage in that kind of stuff? Yes, yes. And to your point, SM Wilson already has that program in place. But do you have a preference, Nisha?

I think looking at all the information and looking at the rubric, which I don't have in front of me, I would give a slight edge to BSI. And again, for me, it was talking to the two superintendents and getting some information through that. Yeah, from the reference check. And again, I don't want to say that SM Wilson didn't get a great reference check, but I do feel there was a stronger one from Lindbergh's.

I would, things are so close. It is. But I would echo what Stacey had to say about the, Yeah. It's an important one.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. That's why I brought that up, because it is so close, but I think that's a really important difference. Vote.

Okay. Make a motion. Well, we have... Did you read the motion?

The motion... But we... It has a blank in it. So we kind of need to vote.

But we need to vote and then read the motion for that firm, I think. No? So we just read... Or you're saying read the motion both ways?

She wants to hear from all of us what we want that word to be. Right, I was just going to have everyone raise their hands. Is that what you mean? Okay.

Although we're an even number tonight. Okay, all those? No. Well, it's a...

Okay, if you prefer S.M. Wilson, raise your hand. Don't be... You can raise your hand.

You can raise your hand, Chris. I know, it is hard. They're very close. I agree.

It's a great opportunity to do that. I agree. If you prefer BSI, raise your hand. Okay.

Thank you. Now will you read the motion, please, with BSI? 8.2. Thank you.

I move that we approve the selection of BSI to service CMAR and authorize the administration to negotiate a contract with the desire of CMAR services to include a clear scope of work, reasonable fees, and other acceptable terms. Second. Okay. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for coming here tonight for that long, late, thorough process.

As we said, this was, and as you heard, very close and hard decision here, so we appreciate everybody's work around this. Moving on to agenda item nine. Ben, do you have a Parks and Rec update? Felicia thought you might.

I actually was out of town for the last meeting, so I just did. Sorry. That's okay. That's okay.

Does anyone else have any other committee reports or updates? Thank you so much. Thank you. Anyone else have any other reports?

Okay. We can move to adjourn.