001All right, we all ready? Okay. Good evening everyone. Uh, if you would join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, we will begin our meeting. 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. Again, welcome. Tonight, the Board of Education is pleased to recognize one of our teachers as the Missouri Strings Teacher of the Year and also honor 11 schools receiving Energy Star Building Certifications. At this time, I'd like to invite Jeff Lackey, our Coordinator of Fine Arts, to the podium to recognize our students. Good evening, President Jeff Todd, Vice President Debbie Hopper, members of the Board of Education, Dr. Schneider, and Mr. Solver. Tonight, I am proud to recognize Linda Rikus, who was
002named this year's Missouri American String Teachers Association's Elementary String Teacher of the Year. This special moment This is a special moment in our district as it marks the second year in a row a Parkway teacher has received this prestigious statewide honor. Linda is a master teacher and a true expert in her field. Her colleagues describe her as a consummate professional who combines strong pedagogy with a lifelong passion for learning. As an elementary teacher, she carries a great responsibility of teaching our beginners. She is a brilliant at developing love of the love for the orchestra while building a strong foundation that our middle school and high school programs rely on. Beyond the classroom, Linda is an accomplished performer who has served as a principal violinist for the St. Louis Philharmonic for many years. She brings this
003professional expertise to her students every day, always prioritizing their growth and excellence, whether she's mentoring a first-year teacher or loaning out instruments to a colleague. Linda is an ultimate team player. Everything she does is with her students is in the front of her mind and heart. As she nears a well-deserved retirement, we celebrate this the incredible asset she has been to the Parkway community. Please join me in congratulating Linda Rikus on this well-deserved recognition. Next, please welcome Lindsay Elliott, Sustainability and Energy Coordinator, to the podium. Uh, good evening to President Jeff Todd, Vice President Debbie Hopper, the members of the Board of Education, and Dr. Schneider. It's my pleasure to congratulate the following 11 Parkway schools on achieving a 2025 Energy Star Building Certification. Those schools are Central Middle, Craig Elementary, Green Trails Elementary, Highcroft
004Ridge Elementary, McKelvey Elementary, McKelvey Primary, North High, Northeast Middle, Riverbend Elementary, Sorrento Springs Elementary, and South Middle. This award from the US Environmental Protection Agency recognizes high energy efficiency during the 2024-2025 school year. To achieve this certification, a school must earn an Energy Star score of 75 out of 100 or higher, indicating that it performs better than at least 75% of similar buildings nationwide. Some ways that our students and our teachers and staff reduce energy use include sharing centralized energy-efficient appliances and by keeping electronics and lights turned off when not in use. In addition, school LED lighting upgrades and HVAC scheduling have significantly impacted these scores. This spring, each school will receive a certificate of achievement, a letter of recognition from the EPA, and an official Energy Star window decal to display. Many of our
005schools are repeat award winners. Uh, please join me in congratulating our 2025 certified Energy Star schools. I thought maybe we'd we'd have a few walk through, but congratulations nonetheless to our two of our to these these outstanding schools and and thank you to our staff who are here representing some of those schools tonight. Uh, and congratulations again, Linda, and uh, at this time we'll take a brief recess and resume the meeting shortly. Let's see. I think we're ready to resume, are we? All right. Uh, next up is um, 7.0, uh, which is additions, corrections, and/or modifications. Those include 7.01, addendum to agenda item 11.03, approval of personnel items. Uh, next up is our public comment period. Uh, it's during this time that we provide an opportunity for citizen comments in an effort to to an
006open and respectful dialogue with our community. Public comment is not the appropriate forum for addressing individually identifiable student and or personnel matters. Therefore, due to privacy laws protecting students and employees, comments about these matters should not include personally identifiable information about particular students or employees. Members of the public, staff, and students are encouraged to utilize established policies and procedures for offering suggestions or addressing concerns or complaints prior to bringing those issues before the board. Please be mindful that the meetings of the board, including your statements at the podium, are broadcast and that you are responsible for any public comments you make. In lieu of a public statement, you may choose to submit your comments to the board in writing. These statements may be submitted to the board secretary, who will distribute them to the full
007board, or you may contact individual board members. Also, due to time constraints and the need to complete the primary responsibilities of our meeting agenda, we cannot respond to your public comments during the meeting, so you will receive a response from us in writing. We are always available to have an open dialogue outside of our meetings and can be reached by email or phone using the contact information on the Parkway website. Each speaker tonight will be limited to 3 minutes at the podium. Should you not have enough time to speak, you may submit your written comments to the board secretary or my myself in her absence tonight. In fairness to our speakers and to keep our meeting running as efficiently as possible, I was I will ask the audience to refrain from applause after each individual
008speaker and simply wait until the end. I will call on speakers in the order that they have signed up and when you come to the podium, I would just request that you state your name again and your relationship to or with Parkway. And tonight, I believe we have three beginning with Tracy Goldstein. Good evening and thank you for having me this evening. My name is Tracy Goldstein. I am a graduate of the Parkway Central class of and with me tonight to speak also is my wonderful daughter who will be a graduate of the class of 2028 from Parkway Central. Um I want to first start off by saying and as a reflection of um of of Jeff Tad's comment, I am not here to pinpoint any student. But what I am here to talk about
009is a very serious issue. And that is the Jew hatred that exists in our schools. And it's not funny. And I I I'm again, I'm not going to say who, but we have two Jewish school board members as well. So I think it should be something that's a very serious. When kids um you know, when when families are starting to talk about possibly leaving Parkway or putting their kids in public schools because they're afraid for their children. They're afraid that when their children walk down the hallway and they're going to be called a or oh, you're Jewish, you're a baby killer. Those things are going on in your schools. And the good news is that the Missouri House and Senate have passed a law that soon will be on Governor Kehoe's desk. And that is
010House Bill 2061 and I highly recommend that you all read it. And I'm going to quickly tell you what it does what the what 2061 does is it adopts the um the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. And there's been a lot of confusion about this, so I'm going to quickly go through and tell you what is not prohibited by the IHRA definition because a lot of people seem to think, oh well, there goes my first amendment right. Well, that's that's a straw man argument and that's completely not true. So, number one, it is not prohibited to criticize the Israeli government or its policies. Number two, it is not prohibited to advocate for Palestinian rights. Number three, it it does not prohibit opposing Zionism on political, philosophical, or ethical grounds. And for those of you that don't
011know what Zionism is, it is the right the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their indigenous homeland called Israel. Number four, it does not prohibit the academic, historical, or political debate about Israel and Palestine and the conflict. Number five, it does not prohibit criticizing Jewish individuals for reasons unrelated to the Jewish identity. Six, discussing or criticizing religion. Seven, supporting boycotts. And eight, expressing opinions about geopolitics. Nine, using terms like Israeli, Israeli government, or >> Goldstein. Yep. And let number 10 and I can send you this too because >> great. Would you like that? Cuz because I really do want you to understand that it's just it's not acceptable anymore for our kids to not be able to learn in a safe environment. And so with that, I'm going to let you hear from
012a student. Thank you. Next up is Dalia Goldstein Larocco. Um hello, my name is Dalia Goldstein Larocco and I go to Parkway Central High School. I'm not here to say much, but what I have to say is important. From the time I get on the bus from the time I get off the bus in the afternoon, you all have one major responsibility and that is to make sure students like me are are safe. We have had way too many incidents of Jew hatred in Parkway Central. My goal is to graduate from Parkway Central with outstanding grades and to get into a good college. But with all of the noise and the outside distractions of people trying to hold Jews Jewish students like me accountable for what's going on halfway across the world, it's ridiculous. And
013it's your job to keep the school safe and to keep me safe and students like me safe. And it's your job to make sure that we all may meet dist that we all meet our highest potential. And with distraction like distractions like these, it's not going to happen. I look very forward to next school year when the school district will be forced to have policies regarding all forms of hate. You all must do better. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Allison Reppy. Good evening. My name is Allison Reppy and I'm a parent of four students in the Parkway School District. I'm coming here tonight to speak about to the board about personalized learning. I've done a bit of online searching and know the discussion for personalized learning in Parkway began in 2019. I first
014learned about it as a parent at PCMS when my daughter had the option to choose her path forward in the middle school in 2022 and she opted to sign up for an academy. My daughter made the right decision for herself and I dare say our family as our younger daughter has also been part of the same academy. Seeing the effect of project-based learning in this way as a parent shows me just how much a middle schooler can do, sometimes completing six projects at once. I've also seen my children show their learning beyond what a standardized test can show in creative and informative ways, developing a passion for projects. Whether it's a newspaper article or slideshow or a game created with peers, which is fostered by educators who make learning meaningful. Students have the opportunity to
015learn from the same educators for years in middle school nurtures even deeper learning as the relationships are built and strengthened with trust throughout their years together. The educators are the people who bring the personalized learning to life. This group of people completely changed their teaching style and grading style when they didn't have to, but because they were willing to take a risk. They put in extra work because they were willing to do so and I believe inspired to do so. My first conference, I told one of them, this is amazing and her response was, I've never been so tired, but my husband said I've never been so happy. I feel the district should protect the educators who have gone above and beyond and made changes. Removing educators from teams like this means that less students
016will have the opportunity to learn in such an innovative way. Currently at PCMS, there are changes for next year's teaching positions due to future enrollment numbers. An ELA teacher is being removed from my child's team and when I asked how that will affect her learning, I was told that their teachers teach cross-curricular, so she'll get all of her ELA. This feels like a threat to a group of enthusiastic educators and sends the message that coming together to sync up subjects for meaningful education may result in a teacher losing their position. Losing these or any great educator to different buildings and different districts would be a great loss to PCMS and Parkway students. When moving forward with budget analysis, I strongly urge you to consider how to budget fiscal support for the academies. These options for
017students keep Parkway at the forefront of education, keeps the students excited about their learning, and keeps teachers interested in continuous reflection and growth to best prepare students for our ever-changing world. Thank you for your time and all you do for our district as well. Thank you. Next up is the approval of our agenda tonight. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda of the regular meeting of the Board of Education as scheduled for April 15th, 2026. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion 7-0. Next up is 10.0 our communications. Next regular board meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 13th beginning at 7:00 p.m. here at the Parkway Welcome Center. A board Excuse me. [clears throat] A board workshop will take place on Saturday, April 25th. Excuse me.
018Beginning at 8:00 a.m. also here at the Parkway Welcome Center. Uh now we have board superintendent reports, Matt starts now. I'm just going to share and be a plug for our community conversations. We've already done South and we've done West and we have two more coming up. Monday, April 27th at North High at 6:00 p.m. and then Thursday at Central or Thursday, April 30th at Central also at 6:00 p.m. and I just want to also thank the administration for doing a great job cuz it is a tough subject but they make it kind of fun. Especially with the Price is Right discussion around our finances. It is a fun way to learn about our challenges. But it's also very important too as we look ahead for the district. So I encourage everybody who's not come
019to one yet to please come out to either two Central or North. Thank you. Uh it's been a busy almost month and a half. I hope everyone had a relaxing spring break, had a little chance to recharge. Um I was able to do my annual trip down to sixth grade camp. Uh this is one of my favorite things to do. This was an extra special as my daughter was there. I don't think she necessarily liked to be coming unannounced. Uh but you know, she she got over it. Um other than that uh we had an operations subcommittee uh along with Matt, Kevin, and Debbie. Um a lot was discussed. We talked about Chartwells and all the things that they do for the district. Um we talked about facilities. We talked about absences and fill rates
020and substitutes and staffing. It's always a good uh meeting that we have that really covers a lot of different topics. Um and also last night we were all part of the Parkway Appreciation Night. I want to thank everybody who put that together and especially Lindsay Perkins and uh Dr. Greg Wagner who MC'd. Uh it's one of the best nights of the year. We get to honor retirees, uh award winners, teachers of the year. It really is one of the best nights of the year and uh thank you again to everybody who put that on. So Uh so just to add on a couple other Parkway related activities. So um I'm part of the TLA subcommittee. We had our meeting on March 23rd also with the Matt and Debbie and Dr. Beckner. We are in the
021process of working through a policy review of um curriculum uh cited policies. So uh it's been a year long project or I guess a school year long project that'll be coming to fruition soon or final soon. Um I also uh went to the West High communication or the community conversation on the 25th. It was a great turnout. Thank you everybody for coming out for that. It was well organized. I uh just echo what Matt said about uh please come out to one if you haven't already. Um was uh at the all district honor band concert at Lindbergh wood on uh April 6th uh along with Kevin and that was uh just a phenomenal uh concert. Uh I learned uh that those kids they basically went there for a field trip. Practiced their music all day
022long and then performed that night and as middle school and high school they did a phenomenal job and uh all the the teachers and directors did a great job with that. And then yeah, appreciation night last night was great. Congratulations to all the honorees and uh it was well organized. So I'll just add um one of the other things that I did that was um different from what has already been talked about. Um I had the opportunity on March 27th to um do an equity walk at Southwest Middle. I was able to join Dr. Schneider and we were able to visit uh I think it was three or four classrooms and to see how how great our teachers are um quite honestly and see how they interact with our students and how the students interact
023with them. It was a really good um um time that I I I had. It was very good to see um how the teachers were in in person. I get to see that sometimes with my own students but I don't get to see that just in general. So it was nice to see that and I appreciate being able to come along. Um so this is actually our second meeting tonight. Uh we had a 6:30 organizational meeting wasn't quite as well attended as this one. Uh we do that every year following the April election when we swear in new school board uh members and elect officers. Uh like I said it wasn't very well attended because we we didn't even have an election this year uh because the three board members around me all were unopposed
024and reelected and Debbie and Jeff at our organizational meeting uh were installed as president and vice president for another term. I bring this up uh not to talk about an unopposed election but because I do think it signals some consistency and uh you know, approval from the community that you know, the there was no opposition. Uh status quo is doing all right and I think that's a nice message to send that you know, boring is good and uh we're on our way for another uh year the same group. Um I [clears throat] also attended leadership night last night. Uh last year Matt and I hosted it. We were not asked to host it again and in fact they decided to completely change the whole program, move locations, and uh make it a whole different event
025as a result. Uh but I I think it was an improvement. Uh but it was wonderful to see everyone to honor the retirees, the teachers of the year, and the various award winners. I thought that was an outstanding uh program and kudos to everyone involved. Um Uh I also attended the all district band concert uh which was I believe last Monday and I was particularly honored to be there because my son uh was selected to be uh in participate in the all district uh band. The Seltzer family's come a long way. When I was a Northeast Middle School band participant, we had a concert and I remember the teacher came over to me and said, "Hey, maybe just make it look like you're playing." So uh it's nice to know that my son's doing a
026whole lot better than I ever did in that regard. Uh earlier this week Was it this week? The uh there was also Was it this week the Parkway North service? All right, life's going by pretty fast. It was last week. All right, good. Sorry. Uh I attended the Parkway North Day of Service which also involved the Special Olympic competition. All the high schools do a version of this and it's just an absolutely wonderful experience. The kids uh take a day and give back to the community in various uh ways, one of which again is the Special Olympics at the school and it's nice just to be a part of that and see good good people all doing good stuff. Uh I'm not going to I think my colleagues did a good enough job discussing the
027subcommittee meeting and that's the last on my list of things to talk about. Debbie. Well this is why we're so tired. Um Um so I have nothing new to add other than I've gone to all the same things that everyone else has and um I just want to say that I've in an addition to going those things also as a parent I've been going to a number of year end um events um to commemorate the end of the school year and we're also getting ready to participate in graduations and thinking about all of that. Um I just love Parkway. I mean we have so much going on and these community conversations have been incredible and the participation and the um number of people that have been showing up has been so wonderful. And as they're
028very important conversations that we're having. And then on top of that the appreciation evening last night um I learned a few new things about some of our educators um and it's just just a thrilling time right now to participate in this and now to uh have the opportunity to serve another three years on this um with these wonderful colleagues of the board and our wonderful superintendent um gives me a lot of pride and um we are so so so fortunate to be in Parkway and we welcome all of the cooperation everyone is offering and thank you for your partnership because we couldn't do it without our community and thank you. We've got um we've got a great district and to all the administrators who work so hard and our students who are working so hard
029to hang in there until the end of the school year. Um you know, job well done and looking forward to wrapping this up for the school year. There was no election. You don't have to campaign anymore. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. Thank you all. Um I have a few things uh that I want to touch on uh some things that I attended in the last month. Uh we had a mayors and city administrators meeting which we do a couple of times a year to to connect with uh the leaders of all the municipalities within Parkway. That uh that went great as well um as it always does. Great conversations with those folks. Um Let's see. Uh I'm not going to reiterate some of the other things that have been going on. I will tell you
030that um that we about two or three weeks ago we received a report uh annual report from the Parkway Food Pantry. Um they uh in 2025 um they served 8,000 plus individuals. They they provided meals for over 8,000 people uh in Parkway. Um Typically we have we we take care of about 140 on average 140, 150 families every month. There's a distribution day each month where the families get so much food um that lasts them quite a while. In uh the fall of last year we had almost 300 families that were served uh primarily around the government shutdown uh when things got pretty tight for some families. So they have just done some amazing work um and I just want to mention not only they had that going on, but we had a tornado last
031spring where a number of our families were impacted by that. The community uh and our volunteers in the pantry really stepped up to help during that time. Uh they survived some construction this this summer uh at Northeast Middle. Um, but they uh they continue to just be a shining star in our community and we can't thank them enough for the work that they do. Um, I also want to mention that uh last month we had Mike Seppi here who has led the Parkway Rockwood Community Ed program for a long time. Uh he was here for his annual report. Shortly after that, we learned that he has announced his retirement. Um, so he will be very much missed in the Parkway and Rockwood communities uh in that program specifically. Um, and uh his replacement search is
032underway and we'll update you on that as it uh unfolds. Uh this morning I had the opportunity to be with uh several uh Parkway folks and non-Parkway folks as a guest judge uh on the Chartwells sponsored Discovery Kitchen Cook-Off uh that was held at Central High. Uh we had teams uh from all four high schools uh and as well as Fern Ridge. And uh they competed this this every year there's this is this is a a long kind of long-standing competition that's gone on between the FACS classes at each different school and uh it's a different menu, so to speak. Uh this year was uh an Asian flair of food and it I can tell you there's nothing like having a lot of curry at 10:00 in the morning. Um, so but it was all
033very good food. It was very difficult to decide uh which was best. We graded it on a number of different elements. Uh but in the end, Parkway Central uh came out on top uh by a half a point uh followed closely by Parkway South. Um, but again, it was it was difficult to decide. Everything was fantastic. Uh and lastly, I want to just give a shout-out to the uh Alliance for Healthy Communities folks. They had uh their meeting uh just recently and I'll just mention two brief things. Um, they highlighted the DEA Spring Drug Take-Back Program uh that's happening on April 26th. They are looking for volunteers uh to help pass out flyers at schools at at department stores, drug stores, any place that would allow somebody to post a flyer. Um, and obviously, if
034any of you any of us uh have uh expired drugs that that we don't use anymore uh for whatever reason, now's the time to get those back in. Um, and then they also actively involved in the celebrate safely prom season party things that that are going on. So, they're trying to make uh a big push with the help of a lot of our municipalities as well. So, thank you for all their work. Dr. Shine? All right. Um, many of the things that you all mentioned, I I was able to be at either with you or um see from another lens and so I won't spend too much time on those, but um I to um President Todd's comment on the mayor's meeting, I just want to add that we were able to celebrate Mayor uh
035Clemens' last meeting with us from Manchester. He'll be retiring and uh we really appreciate that partnership that we've had. Um, I also was able to attend for my first time one of these trivia nights that seem so popular in Missouri. And I Every every Friday there's another trivia night I could go to, but I was able to attend the Parkway Alumni Association's trivia night and our very own John Kilper MC'd that event and I our team won second place and I was on team seltzer. And it was it was just a neat way to see um the generous uh the generosity of our Alumni Association and what they do for our kids. They raise money for scholarships through these events um and for for different things that they give to us as an association tied
036with our school district and um we really are grateful for them. Um, I've been a lot of school school visits. Love walking through classrooms, seeing our incredibly talented teachers teach our students. They love our students. I love seeing them just so engaged and our students so engaged. Uh went to the equity walk and also saw another cooking class on that walk and it was high engagement. I was at the cooking uh event this morning, too, and it is so neat to see the kids um on a team working together doing that stuff. >> [snorts] >> Our community conversations have been as you heard going very well. We have two other ones to go, but on that note, there is a community survey that is out in your mailboxes in a postcard format on a QR
037code, also available on paper at the admin building, but we really do value the community's input on this survey and urge you to participate in it. Um, Appreciation Night was amazing last night. Great new venue and we are so proud of all of our awardees. I too attended the District Honor Band. I thought it was amazing to see the talent of the kids who were selected to rehearse many different pieces all in one day, which they had never come together to play yet, and then perform them at the end of the day. It was it was quite impressive. Uh also, North High Special Olympics. Uh we had a beautiful day for that and I think it was last Friday. I was trying to remember what day that was myself, but it's always neat to see
038the Special Olympics and opening ceremonies that we have in our district. And last but not least, um we have been I been had the privilege to introduce uh many of our new newly hired hired leaders and principals around the district. Um, but I also had the opportunity to present to what we call the FLIP class in Parkway, which is Future Leaders in Parkway. And this is a group of people who are interested in one day becoming leaders in Parkway and we're training them up to be able to have um the opportunity to do that and to snatch that opportunity when it comes their way. And so I spent a good hour with them um a week or two ago and it was very rewarding to meet who I hope one day will consider leadership in
039Parkway School District. So, it was a a great great last month. Thank you. Uh next up is our consent agenda. Uh we've all had an opportunity to review this over the last week or so. Um, and uh let's see. At this time, does anybody have any questions about anything on the consent agenda? Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented in the April 15th, 2026 board materials. >> So moved. Second. Is there anything to be pulled to action or closed? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried 7-0. Next up, we have no individual action items, no policy review tonight, but we do have a couple of reports. Uh so at this time, I would like to call on Dr. Sarah Power, coordinator at Fern
040Ridge, Lindsay Perkins, our director of choice programs. She's not wearing the same outfit as last night. I should have gotten a second wear out of that, but >> And good to see you all. And Dr. Kevin Beckner, Assistant Superintendent. I assume you'll jump in if so required. Thank you. Okay. Good evening, President Todd, Vice President Hopper, Dr. Snyder, members of the board. Good to see you all. Sarah and I are pleased to be with you again this evening to talk about our progress in our comprehensive evaluation of Fern Ridge this year. So, I'm going to hop over to Sarah. Yeah, with back-to-back evenings, Lindsay and Greg did an amazing job last night at Appreciation Evening. As she started last night, she said she's a glass half full person. Well, I would like to think I'm
041an outside of the glass person. So, today we'll talk about um some exciting things we'll share about our findings and recommendations. So, our goal were to evaluate the most impactful way to serve Fern Ridge students now and into the future so that we can make informed decisions with regards to staffing, program awareness, and personalized learning opportunities. We have three evaluation guiding questions that we're going to discuss and we'll review during the presentation. So, we must set the table for you. This opportunity this year really um gave us a good understanding of the students that we've been serving at Fern Ridge and what their variety of needs are and how we need to be supportive of those needs. This diagram that you'll see is just a a vision of how we can um understand these numbers
042a little bit. But over the last four years, Sarah put together all of this data. It was quite a bit of students, anybody that has attended Fern Ridge for support. And asking them, "What made you want to come to Fern Ridge? What supports did you need? What were you looking for?" I first find that this is very impressive that these students could identify what the needs were that weren't being met maybe in other spaces that they were hoping I you're going way Slow down. >> [laughter] >> Um, these students are able to identify first what their needs are and that they might need a different approach, a more personalized approach, a more whole student approach. Just to give you a little bit of idea from these numbers um over the last four years. We're first
043going to talk about students that identify that they did not feel a sense of belonging in their home school. 27% of our students that were surveyed over the last four years identified this as a need that was not being fulfilled. Goal setting. Of these students over the last four years, 44% of them needed support in goal setting and executive functioning and bringing tasks to completion. SEL needs. These um can present in a lot of different ways as we know. Students have a variety of needs to feel supported in a school setting and outside of it. A few things that I wanted to share with you in this category, 27% of these students identified that they had a low frustration tolerance and they needed support with that. 34% identified that they had negative peer interactions that
044they needed a fresh start and a new place to engage in a school setting. Task completion over 50% of these students identified that they needed support with task completion, so more one-on-one support, and 60% needed support with credit recovery to be able to obtain their goal of graduating high school on time and moving on to their next steps. All of this to say, students have a wide variety of needs in our district, and Fern, as the program that we are, wants to be able to be ready to support these needs for students. So, based on these application trends, we identified a consistent profile with our incoming students around executive functioning support, social-emotional support, and academic support. So, the next guiding question will help share ideas for more specifics. And our next guiding question was, "What
045needs to exist within instruction, intervention, and programming at FernRidge to ensure students are prepared for the ever-changing world?" Right. So, some key insights. So, with graduation and retention, significant majority of FernRidge students graduate on time. This suggests that our environment is effectively moving high-risk students towards graduation completion. Second, there are also students identified as needing a second year for being a senior, so considered a sixth-year senior, and so it indicates our fifth or sixth year that FernRidge is a critically safe net for students who did not meet requirements, but they're going to remain enrolled to graduate. Many students with low or very low credits in the ninth and 10th grade year saw a significant spike in credits earned when they came to us in 11th and 12th grade. Almost every student who come to Fern
046has a flag. And a flag would most common be an IEP, a 504, or needing a mental health specialist. Many students show high behavior incidents in the ninth and 10th grade at their home schools, but taper off once they get to Fern once they're 11th 12th grade year. Post-entry attendance though is varied. Some maintain a high attendance percentage when they come to Fern, but a large subset still struggle, you know, 20 to 50%, suggesting while maybe, you know, academic environment's beneficial, their external life barriers still remain. Interesting information. A lot of South and North provide the most transfers. 11th grade is the window where most students transfer to Fern. Most students who have been in the Parkway School District for more than 8 years, showing that these students are long-term district students. I don't have
047as many new arrivals as one would expect, and our on-time graduation for students remain in the program again is very high. The application data for the past 4 years consistently shows that incoming students require significant support in the four areas: academics, attendance, social-emotional health, and executive functioning. The academic support is most critical with credit recovery and raising their GPA. The high number of students needing the halt, smaller class sizes, hands-on learning is is what's what's going on. Attendance and wellness, while many students report no attendance issues, which we know is a false notion. A notable portion of the population struggles with anxiety-related absences, and a lot of them oversleep. Social-emotional health, anxiety remains the most prevalent social-emotional concern among my applicants, followed by challenges with frustration, depression, and social skill needs. Executive functioning, students increasingly
048identify focus, time management, and task completion as their primary barrier to academic success. So, this data underscores the continued necessity of our program to focus on small instruction, integrated social-emotional support address the diverse needs of our student body. Interestingly enough, from the stakeholder feedback, all groups, which I think we've heard tonight, wants increased flexibility and expanded academic options to better the meet the diverse needs of our students. So, here's the meat. Here's our main recommendations. With instruction, our team will continue to enhance our daily advisory curriculum with a focus on social-emotional learning, executive functioning, and post-secondary readiness, while simultaneously expanding our course catalog with a more elective diversity, full course credit options, and flexible virtual learning option. The example I would like to give, we do not have theater, we can't afford a theater teacher.
049However, our English teachers, they worked on it today, creating a full credit course that combines a performance aspect and a speech and debate aspect. So, if we can be more creative, how we can do that, that's what's going to expand us. With intervention, our team is committed to implementing the district's multi-tier system of support framework by utilizing data data doesn't data-driven decision-making and in fostering an inclusive learning environment. With our program, this is the two things we've been really excited to share with you. We've had pilot programs for the second semester to evaluate their efficacy within our current instructional framework. The first is a hybrid instructional model. This is to address the immediate demand for a non-traditional learning environment. So, we've launched a hybrid model which features 4 days of remote learning and 1 day
050of on-site learning at FernRidge. So, this pilot aims to increase the flexibility and expand academic options for students as people have asked for. Our second exciting pilot program in quarter four we rolled out called just a traditional credit recovery for underclassmen. This program utilizes a split day schedule where students complete a hybrid virtual credit recovery, and they also do in-person FernRidge classes during the morning before they transition to their home school to do traditional afternoon instruction. So, half with me, half with the home school. This targeted intervention is designed to provide students with intensive, flexible pathways to regain lost credits and remain on track to graduation before the academic year concludes. Our long-term goal though is to further research more opportunities about dropout prevention. And here's Lindsay to share our next guiding question. We're going
051to explore now, how do we ensure staffing is reflective of all the needs that we've been discussing tonight that are going to attend FernRidge, right? So, operating within our unique, you know, FernRidge very different constraints with an alternative setting, our smaller faculty must leverage the breadth and depth of our professional certifications and our expertise to maximize our student support. Our model requires a departure from the traditional siloed instructional methods in favor of creative, cross-disciplinary collaboration. Our team is diverse. We've got a great skill set in non-traditional ways, and we can maintain the flexibility necessary to meet the variety of different academic needs that our student population has. As many people have heard me say, my teachers are unicorns. So, based on these findings, we have two recommendations. Woohoo. First, to ensure institutional stability and consistent
052student support, we're advocating for a fixed staffing and a fixed budgetary model that remains independent of fluctuating enrollment numbers. This predictable funding structure would allow our team to focus entirely on long-term instructional innovation and intensive student interactions without the disruption of year-to-year resource volatility. More exciting, the second one is to recognize the unique challenges that our student academic journeys are. We're proposing a pilot for the upcoming school year utilizing DESE's at-risk course codes. Any FernRidge course using this at-risk course code allows for teachers to supervise multiple subjects and can provide different specialized interventions. This would allow students to have increased flexibility and expand their academic options. So, going back to coming to this graphic, our hope with these different recommendations, we can ensure support for the FernRidge students now and into the future. And our
053last guiding question? How do we ensure stakeholder awareness of what FernRidge is and what it provides to Parkway students? As we know, FernRidge has been part of our district for a very long time, both as a comprehensive high school and now as a program. Along with that history comes some preconceived notions about what students we serve and what type of setting it is. When we started this journey this year, we at first needed to figure out what is our why, and making sure that our staff and our team was all on board and clear with the why. If you asked someone at a different time and a different place, everyone has their own personal why, but we need to be clear as a building and as a team, what are we hoping to serve others
054with? And so, our first step was to develop this who we serve statement. FernRidge serves learners who are committed to growth and change, who would benefit from a small educational setting with individual academic and social-emotional learning support, so academics and SEL support. So, once we were able to get clear on that why, we could then decide, how are we going to make sure that this message is clear and present for stakeholders? That came up in our initial meeting with you all. One of the things that we've decided as a team, there's a few different ways that students find out about FernRidge. They have a peer that's attended FernRidge that's found success, so friend to friend. They also have a counselor that's advocating for them. One of the places where we really have an opportunity to
055grow is our families understanding that FernRidge is an alternative program, it is also a choice program. And the earlier that families understand the choices and opportunities that we can provide to students to support them and their families' goals, the better we can be in making sure that we can personalize and help support those students. So, in doing that, our goal for next year is to be very concise and develop a predictable pattern for families to be able to access FernRidge, both the staff and Sarah and myself as a choice program's opportunity. That means curriculum nights, open houses, anytime a family is already engaging with their home school, it should be another choice program that's alongside all of those options that are presented, so that families are exposed to opportunities to support their student in a
056creative way. And so that's something we're going to be really pushing on next year with the which the staff is excited about because it provides that opportunity to change that perception that sometimes is out there about the programs that we offer. So with that being said, what questions do you have for us? I've got a few swimming around in my head. That's a lot to and and and I appreciate the depth that you all have obviously gone to. I'll open it up to the rest of the board first. I was just going to say that I'm happy to see the community perception piece cuz I know I when we brought that up the last time you know, as a graduate of Parkway Fernridge had a had an interesting kind of perception. I've since learned but
057that's because of the seat I'm in and I don't think many people know what that what it truly is. So I think, you know, obviously we've got academics and everything that I know is is going well but this I think is the probably the biggest hurdle. Um but I appreciate the work you're putting in. Thank you. Thanks, Tim. I just had a question on the the implement DESE at risk So how does that um how does that increase the flexibility and and the ability for your staff to be able to do more? So basically I could have a PE teacher teach a FACS class teach a math class teach any class. So I can, you know, and so if I it depending on what the schedule is, depending on what the needs are of the
058student, I'm able to just have more flexibility and it's got to be by the code. So I have to let DESE know by August which classes we're going to do it that way. So it doesn't have to be every class but it can just be some of them. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I think we've talked about too our our teachers are wonderful content area specialists but at Fern especially we need whole student specialists and so it's not just about curriculum, it's about supporting that student in their need in the moment and this is kind of in that lane as well. So So I had a question um maybe it's a comment, I'm not sure. On the who we serve. Mhm. So I really like how this is phrased in regards to those who would benefit
059from a small educational setting. Um with the individual academic and social emotional learning support. So I guess the question I have is around um those that are students that might be considered higher achieving but would benefit from this. How would they what what can they gain from being in an environment like Fern? Especially, I know in the report you had mentioned that there's no AP classes no algebra two I mean no classes over algebra two. So what could they benefit? Well So I actually interviewed a student yesterday coming from a different school district coming here kind of said the same thing. I was like, "Look, you can graduate early. Like we we just have so many more avenues of different ways we can earn credit and so but true, we don't have honors, we don't
060have AP courses. You can still do a part day at Fern and a part day at your home school, right? So we're trying to find the way to again to have some different classes that they might not be able to take in a different way but also still have the flexibility to do it at their home school. Usually people when they come in, it's usually that >> [sighs] >> cuz it's the two hallways. Um so, you know, I've got a handful of kids who've had 30 on their ACTs that literally just need the two hallways. It's just knowing that we just don't have as much flexibility with the courses but I mean I feel like we've done a really great job of have, you know, if you look at our course catalog it's it kind
061of mirrors a home school. Again not as much but we still have a lot. I think too the opportunity if you are done with your high school requirements earlier, you're getting into some work-based learning opportunities. You're getting into a real world learning opportunity. You're getting into ECP. You're going to St. Louis Community College. It is putting you on a trajectory to focus on the things that are valuable to you and the life that you want to have and so we've had a lot of conversations of students that are with Sarah that are ready to move on and how can we challenge them in a different way with other resources we have at the district level. Some of the I have I have a number of questions too. You kind of touched on some of them.
062I'd like to delve into a little bit deeper. So one of my questions had to do with drama but also with music because I know that those are not taught at Fern and is there any anticipation that maybe music classes could be brought in to Fern as well? >> So we've talked about that when we were trying to build the couple of our new classes that we're trying to build, that was one of the things we talked about. So Krista does have that part in. He does do, you know, he's in a rock band, you know, you name I mean so he can figure out ways to get credit for that. But if you're want I mean I've talked with Jeff like you like, you know, if you're wanting to do choir, if you're wanting
063to do orchestra, if you're wanting to do band, we're going to so we have a student who does part-time at North. Does, you know, marching band and then comes to us part-time. So I mean we're still able to make it all happen cuz it's going to look different. So then that really is just tapping into the home school then to be able to access >> Right cuz they're dual enrolled. Yeah, they're dual enrolled. Mhm. They don't have to choose one or the other which is the beauty of having a choice. And then can they participate in spark and in Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They can do that too. Mhm. Okay. And then my other question had to do with um last night Fernridge art teacher was recognized as a teacher of
064the year and I noticed in her video that there was mention made about the National Alternative Education Association. And I didn't really realize that there was this whole special world of alternative education for teachers actually go into as as a specialty if you will. So the the teachers that are hired at Fernridge, what does that look like in your hiring process as to what their requirements are and are you feeling like we're able to tap into that well enough for the students at one of those parts of the of the report that I read had to do with the teachers mirroring the students that they're teaching. So Right. So our our teachers have dual certifications in multiple areas. So Diana alone, you know, um she has multiple I mean I think five. I I mean
065there's not I mean when I say unicorns they're legit unicorns. Like they just can do everything. Um and so you know, we presented different, you know, you know, it just I think it's one of those things that you when you when I'm thinking about that question I just say yeah, I mean everybody who comes to Fernridge is like the students. The students choose to come to Fernridge as do the teachers. The teachers have chosen to be there. They want to be there. And so yeah, we we went to go to Wentzville, you know, looked at their program. Lindbergh just came. Pattonville just came to us. I mean I think the alternative setting I think we're all trying to get ideas from each other. And that same is for teachers but most of my teachers actually
066go to a lot of the home schools because they still do the curriculum and they're they're getting ideas all at all times. The MSPLCs have really really been helpful too just to get, you know, further instruction. Okay. Um and then my last question >> [clears throat] >> I understand that sometimes there's or typically there's a waiting list to get into Fernridge. I think we're maxed at 80 students. We're I mean we moved it to 100. Okay. Okay. And is do you still have a waiting list and what are you what are the constraints with being able to take on more students? Is it space? Is it recruiting teachers? What what are the constraints to not being able to take on more? I've I've stayed about 95 throughout my four years here. You know, 95 is
067my sweet spot. I'd say about 25 of those kids want the online, they want the hybrid, they're wanting something different. About you know, 70 to 80 really want the traditional Fernridge. They want to come to school every day. So my hope is that if I can become more, you know, part-time here, part-time there, we can have more. Um so, you know, right now I I'm I'm feeling like the different things we're piloting I think it's going to be really beneficial to help more kids. Something that Sarah and I have talked about that comes my way that I I share with her often is our students that are wanting a exit from their home high school for a variety of reasons and they want to go fully virtual through MOCAP. My concern with that is then
068sometimes we don't have access to them next necessarily if they have social emotional needs or then they're at home and they're more isolated. So that's some of the things that we've talked about too is, "Okay, let's do a few virtual classes and can you come in one day a week?" And let's make sure that someone is there to help you with math and your English and making sure you still have a connection for someone to put you in front of the right resources if it might become a need or that you still have a connection to a school community that might be more of a fit for you. And so we're trying to figure out some ways to fit those puzzle pieces in appropriately so students still feel a connection to our community because they
069might just not have found the right connection yet. Mhm. Okay. Thank you. Had some similar questions about the hybrid concept. Is is one day enough to have them in the building? Depends who you ask. I would say so if you're asking my pilot who has already passed like seven classes as a freshman and she's crushing life, she would say it's been enough. So I think as we as we take on more, as we try more, I think, you know, we're going to have a very clear contract of what it is. If they're not meeting those expectations, if they're not doing what they need to do, we'll we'll add more days. Um we do want to have a sense of belonging. So, we're having them come in on Mondays when we have our community choice time,
070which is, you know, where where they get to do clubs, activities. Um we're you know, we're mindful of that that, you know, Jeff that it was something that our counselors talked about. They're like, "We don't know if one day is enough." That's why we tried it with her. You know, she has said that she's probably going to come more next year. She's like, "Yeah, I think I might want to do, you know, more." And I was like, "Okay, what could that look like? What can we do to support you?" Um because she again, I think like that sense of community, but I don't think she was ready to be a full-time FernRidge. So, again, being again flexible, just literally what the stakeholders have asked for. How can we be personalized for those needs? And when
071you're successful, are you prepared to educate your peers at others other schools and and how to These are my life goals, Jeff. So, saying >> her language. I can feel the heat coming off of that. Yeah, so I mean I what I what I I call it a greenhouse. I think, um you know, we have a new digital lit class talking about, you know, talking AI. So, I mean, our class is unbelievable. That would be what hoping other schools would, you know, try it. I think we are able to try and be more flexible and if it flops, oh well, we tried it. You know, kids will give us good feedback. Um my hope is that all the different thing that we're trying, some of it can go to the home schools and they can
072pick it, you know, again, we pick apart what they use and we use what's good there. So, just being able to again, dual enrolled, all working together Parkway. I want to uh go back to one of your earlier a couple of your earlier slides where you talked about the percentages of of goal-setting ability and having a sense of belonging in a school. Are we measuring that after students have been at FernRidge for some period of time? So, this is their application data. So, this is their saying what they struggled with. And so, it's interesting. So, we you know, right now we're doing the Panorama data and so, I'm like, "Huh, you put that?" But, you know, so I think we look at the data, but I think we're trying to find a better way to
073measure is that really what it is based on like the actual like assignments that we're doing. So, how do you know, we have an executive functioning assignment. Have they done it well? You know, and did did they did they turn in all of their assignments at the end of the week? So, that's kind of what our MTSS system that we're looking at to try to clearly define that data. Um we're not there yet, but we've been looking at it more, especially through this lens, especially after the four years of and like we actually looked at 10 years, but the four years is actually what we've been focusing on. After COVID. After COVID, yeah. Um but um I do think um if you ask our students, so I I asked a couple kids today. They knew
074I was doing the board presentation and I said, "Is there anything that you would want to share?" They'd said, "FernRidge is the best place. We don't know what we would do without it." Um and I said, you know, I think data or no data, I think anecdotally they would say, you know, I think you know, we're we're we're graduating more kids. They feel they're, you know, [snorts] excited to come to school. Um so, we're just excited to try more things. Uh well, speaking of trying more things, you talked about an expanded course catalog, but then you're also talking about partnering more with the home school or encouraging them to to Yes, Jeff, I like to do it all. Find find that balance, which if if those some of those specialized courses are available at their
075their home school, what what kind of course expansion are you looking to So, we're looking at more of the full course codes. So, so like if you have a class like uh contemporary issues and that, you know, our film studies in media America, if they're combined and the essential standards are very similar, if we can combine them. So, African-American lit, that's one of our full course codes. We have an I design full course. You know, we're trying to get the drama, speech and debate full courses. I think being smarter on how we teach those essentials cuz a lot of them are cross-curricular and they're taught at the same. They're the same standard. And that's why and I think we can get credit quicker for some students who've been unsuccessful at their home schools. Does anyone
076else have any questions? One other question I have I just noticed um in the report >> [clears throat] >> from the students, one of the comments that was made was that they wanted to have an open campus like the other home schools have so that they could go off campus for lunch. And I was like, "Where are they getting that idea from?" So, because I know at least at West it's not open. So, >> I think that's what they would hope and I think that's what they're saying, "Please, we would love to have an open campus." Uh we do if they get the Falcon pass, they can leave on Fridays. So, we do have uh where at lunch they can leave on Fridays. Yeah. Okay. And and and they come back? Yeah, cuz that's the
077rule. [clears throat] That's where they don't get the Falcon pass again the next year. Taco Bell is within walking distance of the school. >> West was your experience with how they come in and out of campus and I can speak to South and a few of the other buildings. It's usually incentive-based and some of these students don't qualify for that opportunity because your grades or your attendance have to be at a certain place. Okay. So, this provides a fresh start and opportunity to say, "I can meet these goals and then what are my incentives here?" And so, sometimes kids just need to know that it's available and ready to them and it's and we look at it every week. So, a home school might look at it every quarter every semester. You can get the
078Falcon pass each week depending on how you're doing. Thank you both very much. >> Thank you. Have a great night, guys. Thank you. Next up is our gifted program evaluation. So, I'd like to invite Dr. Molly Blazers, gifted program lead and Kevin's going to sit there in the wings again. It's all you, Molly. Um thank you, Dr. Tied. Um Mrs. Hopper, Dr. Schneider and the board. Um I am excited to share with you more about our gifted um program evaluation. Um so, we had a long journey. Um we began in August by um having Nathan Tyson visit with us, coming up with our different categories, coming up with different guiding questions. Um then we had a smaller leadership group that was kind of helping you with our evaluation. And um we took those, sorted those
079into categories, started writing um our um kind of research methods that we were going to be using um and answering some of our driving questions. Um then we um in February and April started giving out all of our surveys. Um and then once we got them back, we started um separating it, looking for trends, recommendations and areas to grow. Um so, we have um five different areas that we were um looking at. The first being developing a mission and vision. The second um a looking at our program structure and how we are um communicating our message. Um we were also looking at um like the overall curriculum with standards and how are we measuring growth and um the assessments used to qualify for the gifted program. Um the social-emotional and then also gifted identification. Um
080so, this is our group that we had um participate. We um were very lucky. We had two administrators in mis- mi- cannot talk tonight. Two administrators um as part of our team. We also had leadership from elementary, middle and the Mozaix Academy, which is our um exceptionally gifted group. We had one of our gifted testers as well as um Carter Snow um from um assessment. So, just to kind of give you an overall um view of Mozaix. So, we have 11% of our population in Parkway, which is about 1,800 students are um identified and participate in our program. Um we also have um a gifted specialist at every single one of our buildings from um kindergarten all the way to um eighth grade. Um each school has at least one gifted specialist. Um as far
081as how we service students, so our elementary is a pull-out program that they meet once a week where they um see students for 150 to 250 um minutes per week. Our middle school is offered opposite of PE and this is like an actual class that they would take. Um in high school, we service students um through a consultation model where we have a gifted liaison visit and meet with students um in a smaller setting. We also service students in the Mozaix Academy, which is our program for exceptionally gifted students, which begins in third grade um and ends in eighth. So, we looked at three different areas that we wanted to gather our data. We looked at focus groups. Um so, Nathan Tyson met with um all of our different groups, elementary, middle, the elementary academy
082and middle school academy. Um we looked at surveys. Um we surveyed a lot of different groups. We surveyed our teachers, our um parents, all the students, administrators, current and former students just to kind of get their perspective of what's working well, um what could we look at for areas of improvement. And then we also looked at current research, um doing some professional reading, and also talking with other districts and finding out um what they are doing in their buildings. For our focus groups, um some of our large strengths um is that um students are finding that the curriculum is very engaging. Um they um also find it very flexible. Um teachers are finding that they um are able to um collaborate. There's a lot of sharing of resources. Um there is a supportive leadership and
083communication um feel from the staff. And um teachers in particular, and um I think the parents are really excited to see that Mosaic has turned really into focusing on the full child, and it's not just like an academic um push. Um some of our areas that were coming up in focus groups for growth, um staffing inequalities. Some buildings will have a full-time gifted specialist, while other buildings will be split kind of just based off of enrollment with like how many students are in the Mosaic program. For our students that are in buildings that have a split gifted specialist, they may have shorter instruction time than some of our students that um have a full-time person there. Inconsistent resources, um we have both a Mosaic budget and um building budget that they have, but some schools
084have more resources than others. And another big area is just the need for us to incorporate more SEL time um in our day. Um different opportunities, um we want to develop a like consistent SEL and executive functioning um support. We want to also look at the identification um and just what assessments we're giving students. And we also feel like um our communication around um just what our program is could be an area of strength, that it's not just like core academic um I would say moving at a faster pace, that we are looking at like critical and complex reasoning and affective processing and creative thinking. Um another area for us to grow in for like an opportunity is to really work on our tran- um transitions from elementary to middle to high school. And um
085making sure that um students feel supported while they're making those transitions. Um some of the risks that we were finding from our focus groups were um teachers were um having some burnout. They're feeling like they have a lot on their plates with this. Um Enrollment um loss, um especially I would say at the middle school just because of scheduling conflicts, that being offered opposite of PE um was a risk um that we were feeling like we're losing some students. And equity challenges, um we have guidelines um from DESE about um that took some of our identification, like looking at different subgroups um away essentially. And so um we um really are looking just to like diversify our program even more. From our surveys um we have um 80% of our 80 to 90% of student
086engagement, which is awesome to hear about. Um 100% of our teachers report the curriculum meets their needs. Um positive student outcomes. Um students are reporting that they're feeling very confident in Mosaic. They're feeling independent. They're also learning about themselves as a gifted learner. And the um positive culture. They um students enjoy coming to Mosaic. A lot of times they say it's their favorite um day of the week. Um they like being with like-minded peers and also in um collaborative environments. Um through the surveys, we um noticed some needs and opportunities also with the staffing and access. Um we were looking, you know, at like inconsistent services across different schools just because, as I mentioned before, like a full-time gifted specialist would be able to serve students more um in depth than some of our um
087split schools. Um high teacher workload, especially with screening students. Um student support, we realize that this is an area that we can definitely grow in to strengthen our SEL and executive functioning support that we're providing students and some of those resources, and also improving the transitions. Um Improvements that were coming from our survey is if we were able to ever be able to increase staffing, um help with the just consistency from one building to the other in Parkway. Um clarity around what our program is and what we offer. And also um have mentorship and real-world learning just embedded even more within our program. Um as far as the research, um we realized that um there's the core components um that it's a um advanced, abstract, complex curriculum. We wanted um students to be able to
088be grouped um with some flexibility in there. Um there's also um our high-yield assessments to really guide instruction and differentiation is even needed within a gifted class. And I really believe strongly that even um you you know, there is so much within a gifted class. You may have a student who is very gifted in math per se, and another one who is very gifted in writing, but then those other areas maybe are not quite as strong. And then when you have them in your classroom, um really kind of um meeting their needs and being able to um help accelerate and push some of our students um in the areas of their strength. Um differentiation and um curriculum compacting, looking at opportunities for pre-assessment and flexible grouping. Um and then also to um increase the rigor
089so that there is less boredom, which also allows for maybe not as much like underachievement or acting out um in class. Um some other research that we had learned was just about the asynchronous development, where, you know, they may be, you know, 8 years old, but they have interests that could be more aligned with like a 12- or 13-year-old. Um so there is a lot of asynchronous development. We have a lot of um perfectionism, um strong empathy, and social justice. Um our students also have high risk of anxiety, isolation, underachievement. Um we also looked at the identification requirements. Um we, you know, were reviewing just the importance of universal screening to make sure that every student in Parkway has the opportunity to qualify for the program. We're looking at some of the DESE-approved assessments. Looking
090also at different cutoff scores. And also just like how important early identification is. We found from our research that the majority of students qualify between ages 4 to 8. Um the assessment and growth, um we also started to um do some research with DESE around how do you measure student growth in a gifted classroom. And so um they are in the midst of developing a toolbox for that. Um and just kind of measuring that growth. Um we also compared to our neighboring school districts, um I would say like all across um Missouri. We looked at um how do they possibly um provide enrichment? How are they identifying students? How are they offering their middle school um schedule? And for um our um districts that have an exceptionally gifted program, how is it being run and
091what is being taught? Okay, based on all of this different research and survey and focus group, um we had a list of five recommendations that are kind of broken up into sub-recommendations. Um the first one was um we developed as a staff a new mission and vision for the um Parkway Mosaic. We also modeled it from both the Parkway mission and the vision of um a learner. So if you look over here, um this is kind of going to be our new mission statement per se. So if it was printed on a piece of paper, it would be one side is the front with all of the definitions kind of on the back. Um and then they match over here what um DESE has. We have with um affective, complex reasoning, creative, and then self-awareness.
092Um we were very intentional also with how we were writing our mission. We wanted to make sure we put affective first. That was done purposely to show um how much like we're caring about the whole child and their SEL needs. Um and we also wanted it to be consistent with our district. Um the terms over here um really go because these align with DESE, some of these are in like education jargon and so we just wanted to be clear um in case someone wanted to refer to those um on the back. Um as far as our um program and structure and communication, we want to continue to support gifted learners through an MTSS framework to ensure that their academic and social-emotional needs are met. Um looking to see how we can better collaborate with um
093different individuals in our schools and within our district to make sure that um we're supporting students when they are not even in our class, but then also collaborating maybe with like mental health specialists for instance um to work with our students as well. Um for the structure and communication, um we came up with a proposed enrichment plan to ensure equity among all the elementary schools. And this what And our enrichment program is for students who do not qualify for the Mosaic's program, but are super close. They had um testing that they met in like certain categories. Um and so we really want to focus in on that to um help gain exposure so that students can qualify at a later time. Um as far as um our program structure and communication for middle school, um
094one of our plans also is to form a committee to research and apply best practices. Um we want to next year get principals involved and teachers to really um form a group to investigate what is the best model for middle school because scheduling has become this big barrier for us and really digging in about the pros and cons of every single model that we've seen kind of out there. Um we also have a goal about um the gifted liaison with how um they support it at the high school level. Um students um right now are feeling like maybe they're not quite as sure about what her role is and we just want to strengthen that communication so that they um A feel like they can utilize her services when they're there, but also making sure
095that when they are in middle school, especially their eighth grade year, um having that information about like I was in Mosaic's in middle school, this is how I can access my special needs when I'm in high school. To strengthen that communication. Um we're also for um communication and program structure recommendations is to just continue to monitor the space um constraints facing the elementary Mosaic's Academy um for the 2027-2028 year and beyond. Um we also want to look at the program structure and communication about um finding the best ways to um get the best staff for both the middle school Mosaic's Academy um so that um students' core subjects are all um being um a I would say met just because especially in middle school, besides wanting to um gather like the gifted program, they're also
096looking for a lot of content acceleration. Um and so that is a large piece of that. Um we also want to um really improve our communication around the structure of the program. So for instance, of how our model is currently set up is that a level four, which is our exceptionally gifted program, families are feeling like I need to reach the top of that when really that is about 1% of our student population that the majority of our um students when they qualify for Mosaic's are getting service within their building and just really I guess focusing on um just ways for parents and teachers and administrators to um know really about what um the components of each part of our program and um like being able to like identify students who would possibly benefit um
097from the exceptionally gifted program. Um we also over here as far as our um third area, which is standards, curriculum, and assessment, um we are continuing to revise our curriculum documents that our team has written now that we've lived them for a year. Um and so um we're excited to work continue our work around that this summer. Um we're also looking to um explore and seek out different resources to um strengthen and improve our gifted program. Gifted is a unique um subject where like there is not a textbook out there per se like that you might see like from um other courses. And so it's a lot of gathering um different sorts of resources um and really looking to see like how does that best fit our needs in the Parkway program. Um we're also
098looking to make sure that we're staying current with our assessments and trying to make sure we're also measuring how students are growing in our Parkway Mosaic's program. Um and then as far as SEL recommendations, um we want to continue to address and make sure that teachers are spending parts of their day when they have them for Mosaic's on the social um unique um needs of gifted students. We also want to um continue just looking at the different literature and the tools and the procedures to make sure that um everything is equitable in the way that we are identifying students. Um we're also looking at options to off offer multiple screening options for students. Right now like our universal is taking place in first grade. Like something that we're considering for the future is to possibly
099have um oh sorry. Um another universal. Hold on one second. And then Hold on. Okay. And then lastly just to make sure from that equity piece making sure that we are being equit- um um having lots of equity in um our testing practices. So um after all that information, I'm sure you have lots of different questions. Um feel free to ask away. I've got one question more on the middle school scheduling. So it's kind of a two-parter. Um is it pretty rigid? Like if if they don't want to miss physical education, they can't do the gifted program. Or I know there's a lot of schools that have it in you know at Parkway Central Middle it's an advisory um where it's not a core class, it's more of a a way to go and do
100your work. And is there a potential to use that for gifted? >> Yeah. The um that is a really good question. Um so right now students do have to choose between either doing PE every day or also like participating in Mosaic's like that every other day type thing. So like some weeks they have it one time a week, the um next week they would have it two times a week. And so there's like that rotating schedule um with it. Um the other part that you had kind of addressed is um like for instance at South and Southwest, they have in their schedule kind of a unique way of making sure that students are accessing both um PE and gifted by splitting like their class into two. And so I really think like especially when Parkway
101is looking at like the middle school schedule in general um in the next couple years, like this is an area that we definitely want to explore um because you know we do realize that we are losing students in middle school just because like PE is like so important. Yeah. Mhm. I I just wanted to add one piece of context. We actually did have a group that came together um several years ago specifically to study this question of is there a better way to do this? In fact, Dr. Bogus was on that team as was he was still a principal at Central Middle School and that team ultimately did not come forward with any other recommendation cuz they really did try to explore that barrier and say, "Hey, is there really something else we can do?"
102You start to get into some other pieces about equity of time as Molly has talked a lot about. Um but also there are some districts that for example, that is their English class rather than attending a regular English class, but that would require all of our us to essentially abandon our entire gifted curriculum and say you're teaching the English standards for the state of Missouri. So ultimately that team didn't come forward with any other recommendations, but it's something we've certainly been looking at and studying for quite a while to try to make sure we have the best possible uh program for our students, but we know that that's an existing barrier that we haven't yet come up with something better than what we currently have. And also to address your question about like the academic
103advisory, um right now our teachers are utilizing that time to do um gifted like SEL and pulling like um I would say the focus on their um that has been like a lot of like how they're using their time versus like the rest of the time that they are in their classroom is really focusing on like the complex reasoning and the creative thinking parts. Um, and so like that time I guess we're already trying to be creative um, just because like, you know, in middle school again like the struggle the struggle is like making sure that we are getting all of our gifted minutes in. And then along with that, I know there were there was at least one bill that was put forward making physical education mandatory. >> Yes. How would that affect this
104uh, in middle school especially? >> I I think you know, again like forming that committee about um, what type, you know, when we are offering mosaics, you know, some districts do it opposite like or I'm sorry as like an elective or during like social studies or ELA. So like I think you know, if that bill were to pass, really looking at and examining um, what time of day we're offering our mosaics program. Yes, uh-huh. Uh, well first of all first of all wonderful presentation. Oh, thanks. >> Second of all as a parent of a kid involved in this program, it's just wonderful. Thank you. The amount of things my our daughter uh, experiences through the program, the different things she's exposed to, the just you know you know, it's wonderful so thank you for what
105you're doing. >> Uh my question though is do we do anything like track what I was going to say what becomes of these kids, but you know, after they graduate, you know, what their how this you know, some sort of long-term Mhm. evaluation of what we're doing and how it changes their lives or anything like that. >> a really good question. So in our survey data, we did um, seek out some of our high school and our most like recent graduates um, to see um, but really just of how these skills maybe have helped prepare them for next classes or for college. And so we were getting like um, that type of data back which was very high that they felt prepared um, but we have not been tracking per se like um, where they're
106going to college or um, like the different types of careers or how how it is that they're utilizing um, some of these skills um, but that is something that we can definitely um, look at and continue to track. >> Not trying to give you an extra assignment. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I mean it's definitely yes, something to look at. Well and I appreciate the emphasis on the scheduling pieces too because I I remember when I brought her to get to middle school, I mean it was just more and more challenges of trying to keep her happy with the things that she wants to do. She loves to do but then you know, some of the other other things she was missing out on so I'm glad there's that we're looking at that. Uh,
107you talked about possibly increasing staffing. What what what staffing needs do you have immediately and in the foreseeable future? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I would say you know, our elementary staff would love to have a full-time gifted specialist at every building. Um, that right now just financially with especially with budget cuts um, is not something that we're able to do, but we think that that would be a way to utilize um, our staff to also work more with students who are not formally identified as gifted or help with like exposure. So like that would be an area um, I believe um, adding like another tested um, full-time gifted psychometrist. So we have one and a half psychometrists um, in Parkway. And um, a typical day for them will be testing between three and four students.
108However, we I think she has tested like four to 500 students like that we have this huge spreadsheet going on and the wait time in which um, it takes students to um, get tested I think is something that we would love to like not have kids have to wait as long. Um, that would be an area um, the middle school mosaics academy, we would love to hire like a full-time science teacher um, for the academy. Um, and so you know, I think utilizing all of those um, different individuals um, we've also mentioned like collaborating with like mental health specialists like if there was ever an opportunity if like our budget presented itself um, to have like a dedicated counselor for like the mosaics program as a whole um, to just service an additional resource to
109buildings um, because honestly when I'm called into meetings about students, most of the time it's with like SEL concerns when they are not in their mosaics classroom. And just kind of following up with that sort of the counseling services, how does that how does that piece get addressed now at the academy? Yes. Um, so right now um, the academy has a counselor Lindsey Hoff and she supports our students both at the elementary and um, the middle school academy. So she is um, trained also I would say on gifted students like we've um, had her like attend gifted conferences so so she has the perspective of um, a counselor and then knowing our gifted students. So she pulls them a lot one-on-one, she does small groups with them. Um, she helps with transitions like because all
110of our students essentially for the academy are coming from other areas of the district and so supporting them because it's a lot of big emotions for them where like they're coming from maybe being the smartest student in their classroom to then being in a classroom full of third graders where like everyone was at the top of their class and helping students to deal with some of those emotions where like all of a sudden, you know, um you know, you've you've got um, just lots of different like Doogie Howsers in your class. So um, she supports them that way. She also does whole group lessons with them. She is a great asset to our um, academy and I wish you know, we could just clone Lindsey and have more of her um, to provide for the
111whole gifted staff. Yes, uh-huh. Um, if you [clears throat] if you addressed this, I apologize if I glossed over it, but when do you are all students tested Mhm. for gifted and then what age do they That's a really good question. Okay, so we have our universal um, and that takes place in first grade. Um, we also have a creativity screener that we also currently give to all first graders. Next year we are implementing a little bit of a change where we want to begin doing our creativity screener in kindergarten because we're hoping that that also could speed up the testing process where like they would begin first grade automatically with like some of that data. Um, we also um, use NWEA as one of our data points and so um, if a student scores
112um, a 96th percentile in either math or ELA and above 85th in another area um, that information the gifted student um, teachers have access to and those students are automatically put on that teacher's radar to like rescreen. Um, if they are um, eligible for retesting. When did the rescreening start? It seems to me like that's not always been the case. Uh So I have been in Parkway since 2010 I guess and we've rescreened since then. Um, there are different waiting periods so depending on like the test. So for instance, the quicker screeners that our gifted specialists um, administer and we call these like the building level assessments those have a wait period of 18 months before we're able to rescreen. Um, if you take an IQ test at our district level, we have a required
113wait time of two years and a lot of that has to do with um, the testing itself like recommendations from the company making sure that we're getting a true reliable score um, from students. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. Before we leave program evaluation, I just like to publicly acknowledge all the people it takes to make these run. As the board, you get to see the initial presentation and then get the report and the presentations that we saw tonight. And I just want to acknowledge all the amazing teachers who participate in these processes uh, who whether they're participating as part of the actual program evaluation team or they're participating in surveys or in focus groups, they are just hundreds and hundreds of hours of our teachers' time that go into these and
114they place a high value on them and they appreciate you as the board listening and asking such great presentations. So want to just thank all of our teachers who participate in these processes and thank you you all for engaging in these. Thank you Dr. Blazer. Dr. Beck. Okay. Uh, we have no work session and no special meeting. Uh, so at this time we will reconvene back in closed session. Thank you all for attending.