001Okay. Want everybody to get their seats. So, we don't even have Debbie. Come on, Debbie. You're late. Actually, it's 7:00 30 seconds ago. I can do that. You're good. And the people are still getting their seats out there, so. We'll give them a minute. Yeah. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. You can find a seat. We do have some seats up here. Uh so, not everybody has to stand. There's I think there's some seats in back, too. But good evening. Tonight we are pleased to honor 31 exceptional Parkway teachers chosen by their peers as teachers of the year. They have shown dedication to students, fostered community spirit, and consistently demonstrated a commitment to excellence. A special thank you to our Parkway Alumni Association for sponsoring the Teacher of the Year program. The
002Alumni Association provides monetary awards and crystal apples to the district's elementary, middle, and high school teachers of the year. So at this time I'd like to welcome Dr. Tiffany Holman Bess, our deputy superintendent, to introduce our 2026 Teachers of the Year. Good evening, President Todd, Vice President Hopper, Dr. Schneider, members of the Board of Education. This evening I am honored to have the opportunity to recognize a group of teachers who have made it their life's work to pour into the students into our students each and every day. They are in fact co-authors of our students' stories and have a significant impact on the future that awaits each of us. Our teachers embody what Carlos Moreno so eloquently states in his book, "Teaching is about helping others achieve their highest and greatest purpose." To the educators
003we are honoring this evening, congratulations and thank you for your commitment, authenticity, and passion for serving young people in Parkway. As I call your name, you can come up and be recognized by the board. I'm also going to read the names of some more teachers who could not be with us tonight. So from Bales from Bales Elementary, Julie Weiss, second grade teacher. From Bellerive, Becca Austin, second grade. Carmen Trails, Rebecca Carroll, music. Special educator from Claymont, Missy LeBrant. From Craig Elementary, Amy Monroe, physical education. Our early childhood, Susie Steiger, special educator. From Green Trails, Marty Hick, fifth grade. Our instructional coach from Hannah Woods, Sarah Yates. From Henry Elementary, Rachel Emmanuel Proud, ESOL. From Highcroft Ridge, Jessica Grojean, first grade. From Mason Ridge, Emily Meyer, fifth grade teacher. Also our district elementary school teacher of
004the year and district teacher of the year. McKelvey Intermediate, Glenda Petroshki, fifth grade. From McKelvey Primary, Kristen Barron, first grade teacher. At Oak Brook, Madeline Fellows, ESOL. From Piedmont, counselor Karen Flutcher. >> From Riverbend, Claire Carriola, first grade. From Ross Elementary, kindergarten teacher Danica DeBoard. From Shenandoah Valley, Rachel Yzaguirre, fifth grade. From Sorrento Springs, Kim Sanchez, special educator, speech pathologist. And from Wren Hollow, Piper Lender, special educator. For our middle school, starting with Central Middle, Courtney Varner, ELA teacher. Northeast Middle, Jayda Franklin, math. From South Middle School, Megan Lytle, social studies teacher. From Southwest Middle, Julie Mazur, ESOL. Also Also serves as our middle school teacher of the year. And from West Middle, Marissa Nauman, family and consumer science. Next up is our high school teacher of the high school teachers of the year. From
005Central High, John Viser, special educator. From Fern Ridge, Diana Warren, art teacher and high school teacher of the year. From North High, Melody Barger, social studies. From From South High, Shannon Lesko, ELA. And from West High, Christie Mollering, math. Congratulations to all of our teachers once again. Thank you to the members of our Teacher of the Year Selection Committee chaired by Ann Earhart from South High. Although I know they enjoy reading the nominations, it's not an easy task to narrow it down to the elementary, middle, and high school, and district teachers of the year. Thank you to our teachers, their families, and friends for joining us for this special recognition. This time we'll take a brief recess and we'll resume the meeting shortly. >> Mhm. >> Okay. We didn't officially begin the meeting before we
006did our recognition. So, uh if everyone would join us in the pledge of allegiance, we will officially call the 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 Okay. 7.01, the first item on our agenda is uh our 7.0 additions, corrections, and modifications to the agenda, those include the following. 7.01, addition of agenda item 11.32, approval of gifts from the public, Oak Brook. 7.02, addition of agenda item 11.33, approval of gifts from the public, West High. And 7.03, addendum to agenda item 11.07, approval of personnel items. Uh next up is citizen statements, and I believe we have just one, Mr. Wayne Hartman. I want to congratulate the teachers as well, as I've done
007for the last 5 years. And I've always talked highly of this board as well, until I saw the video from last month. We got three bad apples sitting at this table. I hate to say that. And when I asked Mr. Todd to look at the video, his response was, "It's a reminder to all of us of the importance to remain respectful, composed, and attentive during citizen statements, no matter how we feel of the message being shared." Well, you didn't even hear the message. You didn't hear the message. You started that the minute my name was called. And the worst thing about the whole thing, the lady that spoke after me from Parkway, about what something that was going on, you didn't give her any respect either. You were worse than when you you didn't look
008at me. That's there's three bad apples. You ruined everything that I've said for 5 years talking to people all over the place. I've got three nieces that that teach all over this state. And when we have conversations about things at their school and in their districts, and I tell them about all All things that happened here, it's gone in 3 minutes. So, I I don't know I don't understand. And when And when you say the message being you don't care about the message being shared, that's disingenuous. And when I asked you about something that you you wrote to me and I and I used your words and you write back and say, "Well, I didn't mean XYZ. I really meant ABC." And when you said you wanted ABC, no, you got caught with your pants
009down there because you meant XYZ or you wouldn't have said it. But when you wrote this in your reply, you wouldn't throw those three under the bus. You put yourself in that hole and all you had to do was just be honest and say, "I'm sorry, they screwed up." And you didn't do it. So, you get to stay in the hole and protect them instead of calling them out and you can get out of the hole, but you're not going to do that because that's how you That's how you are. You're You're a good person. Because you'll take the brunt of it. I want all of you guys to pay you I'm over here, dude. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. Here's Here's here's couple things from you. When when you talked last week at your
0105 minutes, you talked about your fifth grader and your eighth grader. And I thought to myself, you know, if I my son started his family when he first got married, I'd have kids getting ready to graduate college. I thought, "I'm 30 years older than some of you." And so, now I know how my parents felt like when the younger generation didn't respect them. So, there you go. And another thing you said, your your Johnny Carson moment. You always want to have a Johnny Carson moment and so, everybody get a little laugh. Feelings, the change of life. Say that when you're in your 70s. Have a good night. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next up is approval of our agenda for March 11th, 2026. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda
011for the regular meeting of the Board of Education as scheduled for March 11th, 2026. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. The next regular board meeting will take place on Wednesday, April 15th, beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the Parkway Welcome Center. Board's annual organization meeting will take place that same evening, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Uh now, 10.02, Board and Superintendent reports. Matt, you want to start us off? Sure. Um yesterday, John, Debbie, and I got to go to Jefferson City as part of the Missouri School Boards Association Advocacy Day. I won't steal all the thunder, so I'll share two things, one good and one bad. Um for the good, um I've been going to this for a number of years, and this year we actually had some Parkway students there
012as part of the student showcase, and they wrote time. So, it's kind of fun to go see them. Other school board members that definitely went by and saw them and their table, and then also, hopefully, a few legislators we talked to actually maybe got out of their office and went by and saw the students, too. So, um it was really fun to see them and talk to them as part of the event. On the bad side, um I've been going to this event for quite a number of years now, and I think in the past, it's been more for public schools in general for Missouri. I didn't feel like some of the legislation wouldn't directly affect Parkway in some ways, it'd be more impactful on other school districts. This year's different. There are things both
013really going after property tax, which property tax for us is 90% of our budget. And there's issues around the income tax, too. And one thing moved yesterday on that. And that To reduce the income tax would be 60% of our state budget. There is supposedly provisions there to help protect education as part of that, but removing that large of a chunk of your state budget, it's not going to touch education at some point. It is scary right now. So, I encourage you there's lots of bills out there. We're not quite sure what will actually make it to the finish line in May, but this is probably the most stressful year we've seen, I think, in the legislation. Just all the not just even property tax, income tax, but also open enrollment, when we get to
014vote on um other bond issues. There's a lot out there right now. So, I encourage you to pay attention. It is a little noisy out there, but please pay attention, especially as we get a little bit further into the session. Uh once again, I want to congratulate all the teachers of the year. This I said this to a lot of the teachers before. This is one of my favorite board meetings to go to. Um it's just having being able to congratulate and and support all the teachers is just great. Um few things I did over the past month. Uh we did have West High Special Olympics. Um as a student at Parkway Central, I was very involved with Special Olympics. So, I try and get to as many as I can. It's one of the
015coolest things to to see and be a part of. Um you see students at the beginning very hesitant to be a buddy. By the end of the day, you know, they're they're best friends. So, it really is just a great uh great opportunity. Um many of us were at a joint board meeting with Rockwood School District where we talked about a lot of these legislative issues. Um being two of the old largest districts in the area, um obviously, these things impact us more than most. Um so, that was a great conversation. Um something I got to do. I got to do a read aloud at Wren Hollow to the first graders. Um it was a lot of fun. I They had no idea who I was, but it was great. We had a We had
016a wonderful uh time. They asked great questions. Um and it was just it was fun to be in the school and to read to the students. Um on a personal note, uh I had trivia night at Green Trails as a parent. Uh we unfortunately came in second by one point. Um so, you know, our our goal next year is to win it all. Uh and lastly, just want to wish everybody a good spring break. Uh be nice time to recharge and rest and be ready uh for the home stretch? Yeah, it is uh it's been a very busy time uh since the last board meeting. Um Yeah, we took the trip yesterday to Jeff City, which was I I thought it was a good trip. Um we were able to talk to some of our
017representatives, which was good, at least to be able to talk to them. Obviously, it's always good. Um and had some, you know, good conversation with them. Um It's it's kind of been a legislative theme this last month. So, uh we had the Parkway-Pattonville SSD the uh joint governmental relations breakfast uh back in February uh in this room. Um but, even though it was a legislative breakfast, the the primary program was talking about what the respective districts do to allow students to um get out in the community and try different careers and that's sort of thing. And it was really interesting uh to hear uh what we're doing, of course, but also to hear what Pattonville's doing and and SSD and just those opportunities, which I I hope we continue to to support uh and grow.
018Um we had a steering committee uh meeting um shortly after that um kind of talking about the upcoming community um uh what are we calling them? Community Community conversations. Thank you very much. Uh they're going to be coming out. Um So, you know, we'd encourage everybody to to pick one of those dates and attend. Um attended the Spirit of Excellence uh events uh with Tiffany on February 26th. It was my first time attending. It was an amazing event. Uh it was I was impressed of all of the students, but I was especially impressed by the ones that had received the award from the third grade all the way to the 12th. I mean, just to have that consistency uh in achievement was amazing. Uh we had the joint Rockwood uh joint meeting with Rockwood, which
019was uh very informative in terms of getting up to speed on the legislative issues, which then prepped us for our trip yesterday. Um and it is trivia season season. We had um McKelvey uh last Friday. Uh we got, uh, I'll be part of the Alumni Association one coming up at the end of the month and I think we're doing Ross, too, in April, so trivia nights galore. Well, I I also want to, um, congratulate all of our teachers of the year. Um, it is an amazing, uh, achievement, um, and we are so proud to have you in our district. Um, as far as my other comments, um, I'll touch on two of them because I think the others have already touched on on, um, some of them, so back on February 20th, uh, Claremont had
020a Black History Month Read-Aloud Day and I had the opportunity to go back to one of my students, one of my children's, uh, old teacher's class, Mrs. Piliet's second grade class, and, um, I was able to actually bring in my own book, so I brought in a book that, um, my daughter and I used to read all the time called Dancing in the Wings, Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen. Um, and they all really enjoyed it, so that was a fun time, um, getting back to see the teachers that I, uh, that my students, my kids grew up with, so that was nice. Um, and then I also wanted just to touch on the Spirit of Excellence, so this year was their 30th anniversary. This was the 30th celebration that Parkway has had for
021the Spirit of Excellence and that is an amazing, um, achievement, as well. Um, I'm really proud of Parkway for continuing this, um, this this day of excellence with our students and, um, I am so proud of all the students that received their awards on that day. Uh, 6 years ago today was our last board meeting before the pandemic and I was sort of thinking about that on my way here cuz it was exactly six years ago today and the world kind of changed a couple of days later. I remember you sitting in the meeting and I think I got an alert that Rudy Gobert had left a game with COVID, that Tom Hanks and his wife had COVID, and you know, we kind of huddled up afterwards thinking, you know, what are we going to
022do? How are we going to run the district during a pandemic? And you know, the reality is uh you we did so by figuring it out as we went. I'm sure we made some uh you know, mistakes along the way, but you know, we came together as a district as a board to figure out the best path through that difficult period. And I bring it up because six years later having been through the meeting I was there last week with the Parkway Rockwood joint board uh meeting and uh Debbie and Matt and others experienced in Jeff City. Six years later we find ourselves, you know, facing a different sort of crisis. And uh there's it's obviously not exactly the same, but here we are. And you know, how we deal with this as a community
023and as a district will, you know, sort of dictate how the next years go for Parkway and for public education in general. Uh and so I think we need to be very um you know, intentional with how we do things. And having been through that meeting last week where we really talked about the things that are happening in the Missouri legislature and our communities uh we're being guided by forces outside of this room, outside of this district. And I think it's important for us as board members, for us as a district, for us as community members to be educated because there's a lot of stuff coming through Missouri's uh legislature that are very, very, very bad for public education. They're named things that sound pleasant enough, but I think it's on us as a community
024to educate each other, educate ourselves, and make sure that the people that we elect to office are really carrying out the will of the people, particularly as it pertains to public education. Well, I would agree with that. Um after our day yesterday, I actually enjoyed going to Jeff City. And I enjoyed it because it was informative. We actually had we had very cordial um conversations with the representatives and um that we talked with. And it was such a learning experience. And I think the one thing that I really came away from, even though we have to educate ourselves, we have to do some educating also to our legislators. They need to understand um how school finance works. They need to understand where the money goes. They have to understand how it's reported in a transparent
025trustworthy um competent manner. I I recognize that not all school districts may do that throughout the entire state. And they have that lens of needing to look at the entire state. And sometimes we're learning that the decisions that they're trying to make are initiated and primarily driven by areas that are very far away from Parkway. However, they still affect what happens here in Parkway. So, it is imperative upon all of us that we um as previously mentioned, do educate ourselves on those bills that are out there so that we can go back and communicate with them our legislators how it's impacting us. Um so, I'd I would like to see us maybe even go to actual hearings in person and make some remarks and statements. We could talk about that, but I think it's very,
026very important that we start getting public education faces um more in front of the legislators so that they can all understand. I I feel very confident um that our legislators that we work with and that we meet with regularly are are getting it, that they understand. But I I'm not convinced that that's true across the state and perhaps around the nation. So, I really want to start thinking [clears throat] about how we can send those messages to our legislators across the state. Um so, in addition to the other comments that were made, the one new item that I will bring up in addition is the I attended the Special School District Governing Council meeting on March 2nd. The big item of business there was the election of the Board of Education directors, which is a
027primary responsibility of the Governing Council. Um I am pleased to report that in subdistrict one, which includes the school districts of Hazelwood, Jennings, Maplewood, Richmond Heights, Carmen Meeks was reelected um to that subdistrict to serve a 3-year term. In subdistrict um Latoya Nelson, she was elected to a 2-year term for subdistrict four. She was actually appointed by the SSD board last year to finish a 1-year term and now she's up for us to elect her to finish out that term. And that subdistrict four encompasses Ferguson, Florissant, Pattonville, and Riverview Gardens School District. Then we also elected Dr. Julia Burke to subdistrict seven, which um there were two [snorts] new candidates because the incumbent did not run for re-election. And that serves Rockwood and Clayton or represents Rockwood Clayton school districts. And then in sub-district two,
028which represents um Affton, Bayless, Hancock Place, and Melville, there were two candidates running, one incumbent, one new candidate, and there was an impasse on that election. So, we will reconvene at the next uh governing council meeting in June, um where this process will go again to try to uh come to resolution on that position. Is it? Okay. Thank you. Um in addition to to some of the uh things that we all attended as a group, uh I attended, I'm not sure which one of you said something, but we uh Debbie and Jeffrey and I were at um the Special Olympics at West High um couple of weeks ago, and that was as always a great event. Uh they're talking about branching out next year and possibly incorporating uh day of service activities outside the building.
029Uh so, that was good to hear. Um I got to also read uh Jeffrey was on Monday, I was on Wednesday reading to Wren Elementary first graders, and got to bring my own book, uh book titled Outside My Window, which was my favorite book in like kindergarten first grade when I could actually read. Um and so, it was it was special to be able to share that with with these first graders saying, you know, here's my book when I was a first grader that I loved, and and they all enjoyed the book. So, uh had a good time doing that. Um we had a communications advisory meeting last week, um which Dr. Schneider and I and and some other administrators attended. It was it's always great. I love that group because they they give us
030very raw uh authentic feedback on our processes of communicating, and um the communicate the community conversations that Dr. Schneider will share a little bit more about um we we kind of bounced some things off of them, and and they helped us narrow our our focus into the message that we're going to present. So, um I I'm always appreciative of them. Uh and lastly, I'll just say uh I I love celebrating all the teachers of the year, but Northeast Jayda Franklin is the only one that stayed after the >> recent So, I think she gets a gold star. It's a little little applause at the very least. So, thanks for sticking around. Good evening, everyone. I am going to do my superintendent's report in two parts. First, the normal report that I give, and second, I
031would like to recognize our Board of Education during Board of Education Recognition Month, which is the month of March. So, the first part I I can say that many of the things that have already been mentioned, I I was delighted to be a part of. There are a few things I'd like to add that I was able to see in the past few weeks that were firsts for me, but also points of Parkway pride. Uh the STEM Festival, which was down at Southwest Middle School a couple of Saturdays ago. Uh it was it was a like a circus of science there. It was absolutely amazing. Parents, kids, uh high school volunteers running booths. It was such a great community of learners and celebrating science and things that kids have questions about. It was It was
032neat to see that for the first time for me. Um also at the Special Olympics Opening Ceremony at West, and I'll I'll add to Director Spector's uh perspective of it's just such a special event to be at. No matter which high school you go to that they have that um it it never gets old. Uh I was able to attend the All-District Orchestra Concert. I believe that was just last week. I'd never seen a roomful of so many string players at one time. It was massive and I I was just amazed by it. It was so neat to see kids from all of our ages in the whole district playing their instruments together. It was powerful. The music teachers did a fantastic job doing that. Students sounded great by the way, too. I also had
033the opportunity to another first for me is to attend our Alliance for Healthy Communities committee, which is really warmed my heart to see a group of community members who come together to really think about our kids who might be struggling and what is that they can have for them. And I'm talking struggling with substance abuse or alcohol abuse or other self-sabotaging behaviors and ways in which that they have outreach for them. A lot of it is getting them incorporated to activities. I I truly believe that busy kids are less likely to get into some of those troubling behaviors and spaces in their lives. And I when I thought about that, I thought Parkway School District has so many ways for kids to find where they belong, whether it's music or sports or after-school clubs. We
034have so many ways that kids are involved in in befriending each other with the same hobbies or interests and this group of people really talked about how they can plug kids in and get them involved, get them off of the isolated things that they may be doing that are leading them down the wrong paths. And I was I was excited to learn from them and meet some new folks that are caring about our kids in our communities. Um I was also able to attend Shenandoah Elementary's 50th anniversary. And that was the celebration a couple of weeks ago with photo albums all the way back from the opening days and it just was a neat thing for me to see, a stroll down memory lane for all of them. There were folks that had come around
035who had been there during maybe some of those first years, teachers who had been there for a good chunk of that amount of time and they had all kinds of ways that they celebrated that day. So, it was neat for me to be there as well. Um something that's been mentioned across the other board members' reports is our upcoming community conversations that we are having. They will There will be four of them and every single community member in the school district will be receiving a postcard inviting them to join us at one of four of the high schools. These community conversations are about 90 minutes in length. I will be presenting at them along with our chief financial officer and it will not just be a sit and get is a two-way conversation. We want
036your input. We want to know what we need to prioritize and protect in a time of a perfect fiscal storm, a time of losing funding sources and a time of rising costs. And we invite everyone who cares about Parkway, whether you have kids in our schools, had them in our schools, or never will have kids in the Parkway school district. We believe in the Parkway community and we really do want your input at these. So, please be looking for that in the mail. So, that concludes my superintendent report about kind of the everyday today things that I do and what I enjoy in the Parkway school district and now I'm going to go to recognizing our seven board members. So, March is school board recognition month and while thank you is a simple phrase, the
037weight behind it tonight is immense. It is my privilege to be here and recognize the seven dedicated individuals who govern the Parkway school district. Many people see the board during these public meetings, but not everyone sees the hours of individual preparation and service outside of these meetings. We are thanking you tonight for the gift of your time. You've sacrificed evenings and weekends with your own families, as well as taking time from your own jobs to show support for Parkway's community and students. Your vision for our future. You wholeheartedly want to ensure that Parkway remains a leader in innovation and academic excellence in an ever-changing world. Your pride in Parkway. You are a board that makes the district proud by upholding civil discourse, listening to students, staff, and community members, and recognizing Parkway's history and traditions
038in your decision-making and celebrations. Being a score school board member is often a thankless job. You are the bridge between the community's expectations and the reality of our classrooms. You listen to concerns, celebrate our wins, and most importantly, you stay focused on what is best for the students. You are true public servants in this community. In closing, you're volunteers, but you are also visionaries. On behalf of the staff, the parents, and most importantly, the students of Parkway, thank you for your service, your heart, and your unwavering commitment to the Parkway School District. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is 11.0, our action items uh consent agenda. We've had an opportunity to review the consent items and clear up any any initial questions. Does anyone have any further they they would like to discuss?
039Okay. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented in the March 11th, 2026 board materials? So moved. Second. Is there anything to be pulled to action or closed? Yeah, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries 7-0. Next up, we have an an annual guest. Uh That's you, Mike. Uh so, I I I always look forward to uh the March meeting uh whenever Mike can join us. So, please welcome Mike Seppi, the director of the Parkway-Rockwood Community Education Program. Thank you. I appreciate that. Uh members of the board, Dr. Schneider, Ms. Stover, thank you so much for your time tonight. Um I too look forward to this uh evening every year. It's an opportunity to share where we stand in the world of community ed, and I can start
040by saying our we are um doing quite well. Um the state of community ed is strong. Um it has We have had now, this will be our third consecutive year of a pretty pretty solid uh performance and service uh to patrons of of both Parkway and Rockwood school districts. I will tell you, every year I forget how to do this. I'm sorry, but Oh, I see. I went the wrong way. There we go. So, the hardest part of putting this presentation together, because I enjoy putting all the information in, is figuring out what pictures to add, because there's so many to choose from with over 40,000 seats filled in a year, trying to figure out how to encompass everything that we do. So, I hope you enjoy as we go through this tonight. Um some
041of the pictures uh that that have been taken uh primarily over the last year. So, um what I want to point out is we are in year 12 of the partnership. Uh hard to believe for those of us that were around at the beginning, way back in uh 2014, here we are in year 12. So, um it it it's been um quite an experience, and um if you recall, every year I do show this slide. Uh I won't read through it. I just point out these were the three main bullet points that we shared with both communities when we were working towards the creation of the partnership. Uh I am pleased to say that all three of these bullet points have are being achieved. Most important is our ability to provide enhanced and expanded experiences
042for patrons of both districts. Okay, so here we go by the numbers. So this is a look at at the top you're looking at the last 5 years worth of program participation. And just as a reminder, these are seats filled, not unique individuals. So because we are a fee-based program, every time that we sell a seat, that counts as a seat seat filled. So you can see there that we did have an uptick from FY FY 24 to FY 25. A large portion of that, if you may recall that second bullet point there, out at the Babler Outdoor Education Center, we had some staffing changes in FY 24 that sort of rendered us kind of silent for a few months. That has now come back and and we are seeing lots of folks come out
043to the park to enjoy the outdoors. When we look at just kind of a few highlighted areas that I thought might be of importance that you'd like to see. I won't go through all them. I would just touch on two of them. Adventure Club. So these numbers were ran as of last Monday, March 2nd, so that I could submit this on time. And I'll tell you in a minute one of the next slides we have we have had just a slight change since then. But where we stood of as of last week in Adventure Club, there were 1,080 active contracts. I will point out that that is typical between now and the end of the year we will see a drop in that. Typically what we see after spring break is some of our fourth
044and fifth grade families use this as an opportunity to say, "Okay, we think you can be at home now after school. We don't we don't necessarily need to be before and after." So last year alone, just so you know, we dropped in Parkway it was right at about 67 contracts dropped between March and May. So we expect that number to come down by the end of the year. What you're looking at in FY23, 24, and 25 are year-end numbers. What you're looking at in FY26 is where we were as of March 2nd. So, that number is expected to pull back a little bit before the end of the year. And same thing with the swim clubs. I know last year I spent some time diving in. Um Hey, diving in. Uh the swim club issue.
045Um but where we are for this year is where at 633 uh members. Again, this was as of last week. And same thing, we will see some um people drop out between now and the end of the year for variety of reasons. Last year, it was around 40 people total between the two separate clubs. And now, obviously, it's a combined club. And I did just learn because I happened to be there last weekend at Rockwood Summit where the eight and under champs, I hope I'm saying this right, kind of the season ending uh uh for the Ozark region, which is what uh uh Gateway Swim Club we are in. And our eight and unders won the Gateway region. Um uh meet. So, that's exciting for them. Okay, I did add this slide this year because
046I realized this is probably something that I don't pay um provide um enough talking points about, but it's really important to understand what it takes to make this happen. And so, when we looked at FY25 um throughout the whole year, you can see the breakdown there of our full-time and part-time staff. And that's a big number. So, 76 full-time staff, almost 850 part-time staff. What I'll What I will say to that is that's not all at one time. So, at any given time there will be about 300 people working within Community Ed. It's all seasonal. So, you know, when summer programming happens, we hire more people. Or Or when basketball season, we need score keepers. So, it kind of goes up and down throughout the year. Uh but over the whole year, that is how
047many people it took to make this happen. Um and you look at kind of how the staffing changes throughout the year at the bottom of the slide there. You know, it is a very much a turnover program just by the nature of what it is. It's part-time seasonal, and so they for the most part these are not positions that have, you know, multi-year commitments. So, we're always always hiring. I like this slide. This is my favorite slide every time. So, here we are today as of March 11th. What's happening? There's over 2,500 people participating in community ed programs. Our youngest participant is a swimmer learning to swim, 3 and 1/2 years old, and I had to put all four because there are four residents over the age of 80 who are participating in programs today,
048and I will tell you if we hurry. Oh, just ended. Beginner country line dancing was at West Middle till 7:30. So, we almost could have caught the end of that. But but it's always good to see the variety of age participation in community ed. And so, started this a couple years ago where I just try to provide you a little bit more in-depth on a specific program area. Last year it was swim club. This year I thought we'd focus on adventure club cuz we have a couple adjustments that are coming in the next year. But again, here's what you're looking at as of March 2nd. I did pull this number right before I left. So, that 1,080 active contracts is now 1,084. And pending contracts is no longer 57. It is 48 as of today.
049It's important to notice to know on those pending contracts many of them are partials. So, it might be a parent who needs before and after. We were able to get them in one, not the other. So, it isn't that there are 48 people who are getting no service. It might mean we aren't able to accommodate their full contract at this point. We did new for this year. We did start offering drop-in care available. It's sort of by site based on our staffing. And that's been something that parents have asked for for quite a while. So, whether they are currently in the program or not, we all know things come up that we just can't plan for. And so, we do have an opportunity now for for families where they can go online and they, you
050know, let's say next Thursday, you have something that just came up, you're going to be out of town, you have to have it. As long as we have space, we will take you. So, that's a new service that we're able to provide to families starting this year. Again, it varies by site and that changes throughout the year just based on what the staffing levels look like at any given time. And believe it or not, we just opened registration here in the last 10 days or so for for next year. And so, registration for current families opened a week ago on Tuesday and we opened for new families, meaning families not currently in the program, just yesterday. I can tell you in Parkway, we have 1,089 contracts already for next year. So, that is ahead of
051where we were last year after the first week of enrollment by about 150. So, well well there will be a lot of movement between now and in the school year, but but we're excited to see that folks are are are continuing to see the value in the program. So, staffing update. I do want to call attention to this. This is something that we're paying attention to and this is a change since we met last year. So, in both districts, we understand that we're taking a look at enrollment not just within the schools but how it's affecting community and specifically, as you might imagine, when there are fewer kids in the school then there are fewer kids that need before and after care. And so, we are trying we have been trying to work through how
052do we maintain the quality of the program but still understand that it is a self-funded program that needs to be financially responsible. And so, what we are looking at and this is something that as we've kind of looked around the country at what some other folks are doing, peers are doing, we have found this to be able to work and so we have started this kind of as positions become available. You'll remember each site has a full-time facilitator at the school that kind of leads that school's site for Adventure Club. But what we're seeing is post COVID, some of our sites have half the number of kids that they did before the pandemic. And so as you might imagine, as the cost of everything continues to go up, we're trying to figure out how do
053we manage all of that, keep all the staff. And so what we have identified is when a facilitator position becomes available, we can take a look at that now and say are there opportunities knowing that we now have a you know, 40 to 50% fewer kids in a site than say five or six years ago, can we pair schools up? Can we we call it dual site facilitators. And so we've been using this year, we actually started this year kind of as a pilot and then we had a couple people, you know, leave and so it sort of has grown to what it is today. So what you see on the screen there is we actually have this happening at three different pairs of sites. Five of them are currently in Parkway and one's in
054Rockwood. And and so that facilitator oversees both sites. We still maintain the assistant facilitator positions that we have always had and so when they're not the facilitator is not there that AF steps in and and serves the role as the site leader. So certainly as you might imagine we're learning as we go through this year, but I will tell you that that is what we're looking at going forward. That is the ability for us to maintain the the quality of the program long term while still managing the the financial constraints that that we're within. I will say that to recognize these individuals that are doing these dual site facilitators, currently they we add a stipend onto their salary. And so that's going to go up just a little bit next year because we realized that
055as we looked and saw this rolling out, we needed to do accommodate that a little bit more. So there is an additional stipend for the school year portion of the the uh salary. As I mentioned, we're always hiring. I did just want to call attention um something we started this year which is going great if you're familiar with Calendly, which is an online um scheduling tool. We now utilize that to schedule interviews. And so, um all you have to do, you can try it if you want to work for us, text hire me to our phone number, you will get an immediate link right back to you, takes you right to a calendar, you can pick your interview date, you can answer a few questions for us, you will come in and interview with us.
056Um if we determine that for both sides it's a good fit, then we move to the stage of now fill out the application. The application just takes time. It's a little bit more bulky just by the nature of of typically what the school district needs in an application. So, what we want to do is be respectful of people's time and kind of have that vetting conversation up front to see if it's a good fit. Uh so, that's going very well um and we're getting good feedback from from prospective uh staff on that. And then uh there's one position that we're just going to bump up some pay next year, the AF position that I mentioned, the assistant facilitator. Um to to account for their roles and responsibilities. And all those things at the bottom that
057are a little bit cut off, those are all the things we're doing to get the word out about the job. So, our biggest need, if you know anyone, are morning shifts. We're doing really well in the afternoons because we can utilize high school students uh but their schedules don't work for the mornings. So, when we're looking at waitlists that are probably more sizable, it's almost always in the mornings. We always always always need morning staff. Okay. Getting closer to the end. Um I did just want to call attention to this as well. So, we are making a change to the way we do billing invoicing for next year. And this is actually a result of feedback that we've been getting from parents for several years. So, currently we're billing on a monthly basis. And so,
058what that means is from the 15th of one month to the 15th of the next month you get a bill um and it's sort of think budget bill. So, it's kind of divided out over the nine 10 payments over the year. The last payment of the year is a half payment and it just works. Well, the question we get all the time then is we'll get a call in October or December when the or January when the December bill comes out and say, "But we weren't in school for like 10 or 12 days. Why am I getting a full bill?" Or when you get your bill in um August for the full month ahead, we only have like six school days. And so, we had been creating some confusion um in in questions from from
059uh families when they understand billing. So, in an in an effort to provide greater transper- transparency and full billing visibility, we took a look at what some of the peers around the country are doing. And darn near all of them have are doing a daily rate. So, what you pay doesn't change. How you get to what you pay is is what's changing. So, basically what's going to happen is that we're living with this document here on the right. This is kind of going to be our go-to for families. Um you are able now what's going to happen is your invoice will reflect your actual contracted dates from the previous entire month. So, for example, on September 1st, we will send out our the invoice for any school days your child was contracted to attend Adventure
060Club in August. So, it's like six days, I believe. Five days in the month of August. So, the bill for September is going to be like this. But then when October comes, there is uh a full month of school. So, the bill is going to go up. When December when the January bill comes out for December, it's going to go back down. So, it's reflecting in real time where um what the actual attendance is. And now it's reflecting actual attendance from the month that just was, whereas before we were billing half a month that was and half a month that will be. So, when there were schedule changes, it just created a lot of confusion. And so, um again, it doesn't change the overall amount that folks are paying. It just changes how they're going
061to see it. Uh one thing that we are able to do for families that are still interested in kind of living on a budget billing, we can work with them and and help them understand our system. We'll allow them to essentially pay ahead. So, we can work with them to know, "Okay, if you wanted to do budget billing for the year, this is what it would look like." And they can manage that on their end. So, we're actually pretty excited about this because this is um a direct response to probably the most common question we get as it relates to Adventure Club and how the how the billing works. Okay. Last slide I have is just kind of looking ahead. So, lots happening, all is all is good as I mentioned, but that doesn't mean
062we can sit where on our laurels and rest and and and just keep doing what we're doing. We do anticipate similar um overall program participation in FY27. Um there might be some fluctuations within specific program areas, but one thing we are keeping an eye on it are the district enrollment trends because as I mentioned, um as we all know right now, the majority of what we do in community ed really primary serves the younger students. Um I can tell you we're really focused on adults right now, um especially our older adults. And so, we've actually seen quite a bit of interest and growth in that over the last year. Not that we're not paying attention to the younger audience, but we're really trying to put some attention on our older adults. And so, in fact
063uh just today, one of the we're we're in the middle of a adult needs assessment where we're basically asking the community, "What do you want to see from us?" So, just today actually, uh a survey went out uh to adults that have been in our programs asking them things like types of programs, days of week, time of day, all of these things. So, we can better understand how can we best meet what you're looking for. So, we're really excited about that. And then I will just send with we're always looking for continuous improvement. So, for us, we believe if we're standing still, we're moving backwards. So, we're always trying to say, "How can we better serve our communities?" Um and and you're you're probably aware of this, you know, we take great pride in what
064we do. We think we do a really good job. Um but we're always wanting to do better. But every time we try to step it up, it's a little bit harder every time you're trying to make a one one more percent or two more percent increase when you when you were really good base. But, that doesn't mean we don't stop trying. So, we'll keep working hard. We'll keep doing all the things we do. And we are just so appreciative of the ongoing support of the Parkway board because we cannot do what we do without your support. That went a little longer than I wanted. I apologize. But, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to try and answer them. Well, thank you very much, Mike. As I mentioned, I always look forward to your
065report. Um love the slide of the youngest and the oldest and it's it's impressive and inspiring that an 85-year-old is taking a beginning class of anything. It's It just It reinforces you're never too old to learn something new. So, I I like that. Um And I also like your focus on continuous improvement. You know, it's it's something we try and do here in Parkway and I'm glad to see it's carried throughout the Parkway Rockwood community ed program as well. Um I just have a couple of quick questions. One is what is your communication plan for informing Adventure Club families of of the pending changes cuz I know sometimes people have you know, they they don't quite they all don't quite get it at the same time. Um and then two, uh we've talked about it
066many many times obviously over the last few years, the swimming program. I understand from what I hear it's it's going well, but now that we're now that we're a ways past the the merge, uh how's it working out? Great. Um sure. So, for Adventure Club, we have been trying to over communicate this. So, uh and we do have a plan. It will happen many more times between now and the start of next school year. So, we understand there's going to be a gap, right? So, when school's out, people they're they're unfocused. They have other priorities. And so, uh in February we start we rolled out um the main communication. It had links to all kinds of different documents um as well as our contact information. Um, we have done, uh, printed, um, uh, QR codes
067that our facilitators hand to parents that say, "Hey, make sure you scan this to see what's happening." Um, it's in been in all of the registrations when they go online to register now. Part of when they sign up, there are screens, you know, they have to sign a a participation waiver, but we also have another screen that actually here's the information, please acknowledge that you've seen this information. And so, we'll continue to do that, um, between now and the start of next year. I'll just be honest with you where I think we're probably going to get the most questions is October 1st, because September 1, it's going to be like, "This bill's great, you know, this fantastic six six days, it was great." October 1, now you're going to see a full month. So, we
068will make sure we're communicating when school year starts in anticipation of that, um, but that's where I think we'll have, um, the most questions come up. But, we're doing the best, uh, we're we're trying to, uh, we've we've texted, "Hey, check your email, you have important information about next year." So, we're trying to hit hit families in a bunch of different ways. As it relates to the swim club, I can tell you, um, I think I think you many of you have been over to our office. So, the swim club room is right next to my room. So, the doors open all day long. And so, I have to tell you how much I enjoy There's a couple times a week. Now, they're not always all in there at the same time just by the
069nature of the program, but there's a couple times a week where the majority of them are in there together. And it's so great just to see them talking and and doing all the things that they do. Um, I I don't I I think I would be disingenuous to say we're not learning a lot this year. We certainly are. Um, just simple things in terms of ordering that amount of merchandise, um, apparel, and there was some issues with the order because now it was 650 people versus a 300 person program. Um, one of the areas that we're hearing from parents and we're already making changes on is the way that when you attend meets and how the meets are charged and it's a long story, um, but we are uh, working with a parent uh, booster
070group because they play a big role in the meets so that we can better communicate to parents um what money is being collected, where it's going, and how it's being spent. So, um I I would say you know, the coaches are in there, they're engaged. I I think everybody is um committed as we move forward. Um the first year is always a learning year. We do We just did send out. So, all of our year-round programs, we send a mid-season evaluation. It's like a two or three question evaluation. So, we just did that in February. Um and then we will do a full year-end evaluation. And so, that'll give us a lot more detail on on what parents are thinking. And I And I do think there's a difference. I think as we see based
071on the age of the child, right? So, if I've been in the program for a long time, I know it when it was. If I'm new this year, this is what I know. And so, it's great to hear those different perspectives. Um because I will tell you this, the parents aren't afraid to give us really good feedback on how we can do better. So, we're always willing to listen to it. Doesn't mean we can do it all, and there might be really specific reasons we chose A instead of B, but we're happy to listen to it and see how we can continue to make it better. Thank you. I have a question for you and then maybe a suggestion. So, I'm hoping I'm on that list that I can do the survey. I will check
072my emails after the meeting to make sure that I got it. But, if not, on one occasion, I had looked at the um the Parkway Rockwood Community Ed registration brochure to see if there was any offerings for like basic first aid, CPR, um Heimlich maneuver, and I didn't find anything. And I was kind of disappointed. So, maybe there's a a good reason for not having that, but I'm just curious if there would be opportunities for the community ed program to offer. Great question. And actually, um so there's two ways that we can do that we do the programming. Sometimes we'll create the program and then seek out an instructor. And other times, instructors will come to us and say, "I'm really good at." Great, let's do it. Um I actually can tell you CPR, we
073actually um did have a class. Um it actually supposed to start in about 2 weeks. Um that was one that we put out there and tried to find an instructor. We were not able to find an instructor. So, we are not going to be able to offer that, but that doesn't mean we won't keep trying. Um but that's typically how it works. Um a lot of times it'll either be uh by the instructor driven, or if we just know there's something a demand, a need, or something popular, we'll put it out there and do our best to find an instructor. It's an imperfect science. Um and also, by the way, there's there are times throughout the year where we have an instructor and, you know, they're doing this on the side. is kind of an
074interest-based, and 2 nights before, their whole life changed, and now we don't have an instructor. So, um it's always a moving target, but but I will certainly make a note And I would I should add AED in there, too, because you see those all over the place, and it's like, who knows how to operate one of these things. So, anyway, thank you. Are the CPR classes one day? It depends on the type of class that we're offering. There's a there's a lot of different ways you can offer it. And I can't remember off the top of my head if this was a one-time or like a multi-week uh one. I just know I cuz I just got the email today to take it down off the Calendly site that we've been trying to hire people
075on that were we're now too close. We we don't have enough time to turn around the hire and get it ready. Uh I I don't know the specifics of how often that was going to run. My daughter's an instructor. Oh, send her our way. >> state, but yes. >> Oh, okay. She's National Association. Okay. [clears throat] She could be Yeah. Well, we're not opposed to online classes, either. Oh. So. You can do CPR online? Hey, I'm willing to give anything a shot if we can do it. Oh, get my little dummy by Amazon and we can What are we doing? Anyone else have any questions for Mike? Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Next up, we have a work session, which is on CSIP, so I'll invite Dr. Tiffany
076Holman Best, our Deputy Superintendent, and Dr. Kevin Beckner, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, to begin our presentation. Good evening again. Thank you for having us. Dr. Beckner and I will recap our key components of our comprehensive school improvement plan with highlights of the key work we have been measuring throughout this school year. One of those being multi-tiered systems of support and the other some of the highlights from the achievement report, which is connected to our NWEA data. And then also, we will highlight some key actions for next year and share our timeline for CSIP development. So, as you recall, there's three areas in our comprehensive school improvement plan as well as our strategic plan: student success in school, student success in life, and resources for student success. So, one of the things that we
077when we talked with you before, we do want you to know that we've grounded our work in multi-tiered systems of support or you'll hear us say MTSS. There are four levers that we are working with this year in conjunction with professional development for both our staff, our teaching staff, and our leadership. Those components are SEL, curriculum, equity, and PLCs or our teacher teams. Um We have been measuring. There are several standards that are part of our MTSS implementation plan, but we recognize that our schools cannot do all of the components at one time. And so, on the direction of Carter Snow, in partnership with our district MTSS leadership team, we identified six essential standards this year, and our teams our school teams have measured their self measured themselves using their building MTSS leadership teams on
078the six orange standards that you see here. Belief in all, optimal learning environment, MTSS leadership team knowledge and skills, the implementation plan and curriculum standards. Those are the six that we focused their development on throughout the school year and to date, we asked them by the end of the year to work towards getting a two, which is partial implementation. We have assessed twice, once in the summer, once in the fall. We will do that assessment again to determine where we will be focusing next year. We've already started talking about what standards we may pull in or go deeper around in the coming year. And so, our teams in their schools are doing this work in conjunction with the staff, and then there is professional development throughout the year to support this work. Thank you. Well,
079while everything is rooted in our multi-tiered system of support, we also have several highlights we're going to share just about the work that we've been doing, the amazing thing our leaders have been involved in, what our teachers have been doing to give you a snapshot of how we're making progress in our strategic plan. We've shared this previously, but we've now completed three of our four district professional development days using a new structure that allows teachers more choice, but it's rooted in the four pieces that Dr. Holman Best just talked about. We also have a plan for our leaders to ensure that they are getting what they need. Where we Dr. Holman Best also scoped this out by month, ensuring that we're providing our leaders enough enough headway so they can be ahead of where then
080we're developing our assistant principals or teachers to make sure that everybody is brought together and is hearing and learning the same pieces. Here is that visual about our professional development days and how we've been supporting our teachers. So, on those days, what happens is our teachers get four sessions. One session is always their curriculum session with their either program curriculum lead, coordinator, director, whoever's supporting them in their work in the classroom, and then they have choice sessions around either things focused specifically on MTSS and what that means, sessions around equity and belonging, or around social emotional well-being and how we can support our kids in their learning in those areas. Our feedback from our staff has been incredibly positive this year in terms of what they feel they're getting in those sessions and whether it's
081valuable to help them in their learning. So, we're grateful for Dr. Amy Kerkering Coates and all the work she's done to bring this work to fruition, and we've had over 140 different people serve as presenters. So, this isn't like one person, two people, this is a huge effort where we have lots of people from across the organization. Some of those are teachers, some are assistant principals, some are social emotional behavior specialists, some are mental health specialists, just people from all over leading these sessions, and it's turned out incredibly well. I will confess that in a meeting earlier this year, I told Dr. Schneider, "This is a lot of work. I don't know if this is sustainable." Now that we've done it three times, we believe it is sustainable, and it's actually going really well. We're
082getting very positive feedback from our staff. We also, those of you who are part of the TLA subcommittee and you've been to the nines with the you've seen this big board where we have been doing a ton of curriculum work. One of the things we heard in our strategic plan was that we needed to tighten up our curriculum. We need to be much more clear and help every single student in every class know what they're learning, why they're learning it, where they are in their learning, and where they need to go next. So, we have been working very hard on that project. That's a picture of the big board at the office at the nines that we've been keeping track of all the work. There are currently 427 different courses in Parkway. In terms of
083our progress so far, we've completed new curriculum, new revised documents for 50 of our 68 elementary courses. By courses, that means like first grade has English, math, science, social studies, PE, art, music, potentially gifted if you're in that So, there's just a lot of classes. They add up very quickly. Uh the only ones that we have left to do in elementary school are gifted and counseling. They're and those are in review right now. So, we're very close to getting complete on elementary in its entirety. We have 69 courses at the middle school level. In addition to gifted and counseling, we have a few CTE classes, one music class, and so we're getting close in middle school as well. High school is the one that is going to take us at least two more years to
084complete just because of the volume of courses that we're working on at the high school level. You see up there, 290 high school courses. We've completed 93 of those courses. So, still quite a bit of of way to go for our high school courses just again because of the sheer number that we're talking about at high school. So, we focus really on those classes that all students take or entry level um and in that work, part of what we're doing in our curriculum sessions is helping our teachers learn how to use the new curriculum documents to actually support kids to understand, what am I learning and why am I learning and where am I in that learning and where do I need to go next? And that's what a lot of the development has been
085focused on this year so we can get a lot more clear about student learning. You've seen these before so I won't go through any of it, but just you recall from our December achievement report, we're seeing some incredible results right now from our students and the hard work from our teachers and everything that we've been doing in the classroom. Uh we're seeing strong growth that's currently well above our target of 52% this year, uh well into the 60s. The last several years we've seen decline second semester so we're going to be watching that closely and continue working hard to try try make sure that we keep those growth numbers very high. Uh we're seeing some of those while the gaps are still too big between some groups of our students, we are seeing some of
086those close slightly and strong achievement results from our students as well. Uh you also are aware that we are have now completed our first round this fall of every single every single school completing a social and emotional learning survey. And so our schools have been watching closely things about uh how students are doing with like emotional regulation or their sense of belonging or their self-efficacy. Our schools have been using these to help identify areas of growth and what they might need to do differently and change in their schools to better support students and their overall well-being and that's super important because data you've already seen again, but we want to make sure we connect is that when we start to look at how students are doing socially and emotionally, we see a very strong correlation
087with their achievement. So we shared this Carter Snow shared this at a previous meeting. So to just highlight it one more time, if we ask students, "How sure are you that you will remember what you learned in your current classes next year?" and they said, "I'm very sure that I will remember this." they also are scoring incredibly well on their achievement assessments. And if they say, "I'm actually not really sure." they also are not scoring well on their NWEA tests. So we're seeing a strong correlation between those two things which tells us what we've always said all along which is when students are well, they learn better. When students are not well, they often struggle in school. So we need to attend to both students' academic success and their overall well-being. Uh we also know
088that's all success in school, but we also want to be promoting our students not just be successful in our classrooms, but also be successful when they leave us. So this year we've been running a real-world and relevance task force that has two parts to it. One of those is about identifying areas of where we can connect our students beyond school, connect whether that's you know, internships, externships, client connected projects, things that might make the learning real and relevant to them. Lizzie Perkins is running that group and has been doing excellent job of bringing community members to help enlighten us on how might we do this better. And Jenny Prof has been running a second part of that group, which is we know we have a lot of great opportunities for kids, but how can we
089create more and more opportunities for our kids even inside the walls of school to experience learning in a different way, particularly as we get to that secondary level and there are more choices for our students. That work will be concluding this school year and we're going to see what we'll be able to bring to the board hopefully at the workshop or subsequent meetings and some really excellent things that those groups are producing of how we can prepare students for life not just in our classrooms and being successful, but for when they leave us and we go beyond school. And Dr. Holinbaugh is going to talk about resources and close out the rest of our work session. So, if you could recall, area three is resources for student success. And so Dr. Boggs and his team
090are still working diligently with the staffing task force and recommendations coming out of that group. That work is scheduled to continue through the end of the year. Additionally, his team has nearing completion on the compensation study with updates coming soon. Jason works and his team are continuing to work on securing data from our facilities assessment demographic study that we are going to use to inform our facilities revitalization plan. And so, we've already started to identify our key work for next year. Some of what we should have shared on a couple of previous slides is that we are still inside of our assessment windows for winter and in spring. And so, excuse me, our winter windows have closed, but we are still like we have another SEL survey administration that will come that will produce some
091more student uh in that area as well as NWEA windows will close for elementary late April but not in our secondary schools until May. And so, we'll be updating our objectives around achievement and SEL um with the close of those surveys. Additionally, our climate survey is out um for students and so and then we will do parents and staff later in uh May. And so, we shifted a little bit of that um and so our data will be coming in later. And so, um you'll also notice here that coming out of some work that we did with negotiations, um we're going to have some studies around elementary and secondary schedules occurring next year um really so that we can do the work um and make our work for teachers more more efficient so that we
092can serve our kids well in our MTSS structures. Um coming online will also be the evaluation task force that is right on target with the strategic plan where we start that work in the 26-27 school year. So, what's ahead for you? We'll have another work session in April two work sessions or work session in a um at the board workshop as well April 15th and April 25th respectively. Um and then again in May. And then once we close our end of the year windows, we will preview what we will be asking for board approval on at June 10th for our CSIP for 26-27 school year. With that, we're happy to take any questions. Thank you both. Um I have a question for Dr. Beckner. Um you were talking about professional development days and I appreciate
093the update cuz I remember a year plus ago and you said, "Hey, this is how we're going to change it and and this is what we hope to to um to have the result." And and I was paying close attention to Jada's expressions make sure that she wasn't there wasn't any dissenting expressions. Uh but or yeah, I'm glad to hear that your feedback that there are your positive feedback. Do we have plans to formally survey teachers at the end of the year on this new process and is that something you can share with the board compared to how things used to be? Yeah, great question. We actually already surveyed everybody who attended the last session to ask overall how is this going, but we are going to be putting some of those broader questions out
094to say, "Hey, how is this structure compared to the previous structure?" We actually just gathered that information from our principals recently and so then we'll be gathering that from the staff as well. We're also really considering other feedback from staff like people like, "This is great and it's a lot. Like learning four things at every time is just a lot." And so we heard that both through negotiations and through some of that survey data. Even principals said, "Man, they come back to the building and they are tired." Like they're tired and then they got another session with us in the building. So we are exploring potentially how we might adjust the schedule on those days to provide more time for teachers to really reflect on what they learned, consider how they can implement what they've
095learned, and just generally create a All of this is great, but how do we make sure that we're also providing the time for for teachers to really think about, "Okay, what does this mean for my classroom? How do I plan effectively to really utilize this?" Because doing those four things each time plus my building session means those end up being very, very full days. So while everybody said this is great, there's also just sort of that tension going on. So yes, we are going to continue taking the information we've already collected, gathering more information, figuring out how we're going to restructure for next year and just to make it even better, right? It's gone really well, better than what we had before, but that doesn't mean we're there. That means that we still can continue
096to grow and get better. So we're absolutely going to be collecting more information and then making adjustments based on that feedback so that we can make it as productive as possible. Along those lines, how long are each of those sessions? Yeah, so each session itself during the day is about 85 minutes. And so, or you can think an hour and a half, hour and a half, hour and a half, break for lunch, you know, and then the building time in the afternoon. Question for you. On curriculum [clears throat] review, could you explain to us sort of is is there a model that's being used to do that? Is it an in-house program? And who's involved in that in that process? >> Yeah. So, we have a standard template that we use that ensures like consistency
097across all courses and grade levels. There are multiple rounds of review. In fact, there are three rounds of review when we rewrite curriculum. Round one is internal within the curriculum department to ensure that we're being consistent whether I'm elementary math or I'm high school fine arts, that we're being consistent in a in our approach to the work. And we want to make sure that it doesn't matter if I'm a principal, it doesn't matter which content area I'm supervising. I know the documents look the same, they're in the same place, they're using the same language, that we're all on the same page. That's the first round. Second round is we put them out internally to all of our staff. We email directly any teacher who teaches the the course or content that that document is representing.
098Uh because if you have say let's say there's 40 algebra teachers in the district. Well, 40 people in a room are going to write the curriculum. It's going to be written by a smaller group of people that we bring together per board policy, but then we want to share out with all 40 of them to get their input. And then we also put that in inside Parkway. So, all staff can comment on all of the curriculum that's being written. Then we do an external review where we put in our newsletter out to the community. There's always a link at the bottom that says like curriculum review. So, anybody in the community can see those and comment on any of those documents and provide feedback. In that process, all coordinators are required to invite at least
099three outside experts to comment on that curriculum. I'd like directly reaching out to people and those could be people in other districts who are also expert in those curricular areas. They could be university professors who are within that field. They could be people with the state with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education who work within that content area. They might be a professional who works there with any organizations like the National Council of Social Studies. So it might be somebody at the National Council of Social Studies who we ask to review those documents. So that's the process and those are the three rounds of review so we make sure that we get a lot of stakeholder input, that we're being consistent, and that we've got really high quality curriculum in all of these areas.
100Thank you. Uh on the social emotional learning curriculum and survey, obviously that's [clears throat] not what we were looking for. But I guess my question and and this is more probably something for after is seeing what those questions look like. Because I can only imagine third to fifth graders trying to answer some of these questions could be a little difficult. And maybe there's a different way to ask a third to fifth grader these questions. So we'd love to see what you know the makeup of those to see if they could be a little having a fourth grader, I could see where she might not understand exactly what the question's asking which may skew our data a little. Yep, and certainly Dr. Matheson's here. It's his team that is responsible for that. So I'm sure we
101can get you a little more information about that as well and maybe some further conversation. Any questions? Thank you both very much. Uh at this time we will be reconvening back in the closed session. So may I have a motion and a second to adjourn the regular meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion 7-0. Thank you all for attending and or watching from home. 7-0. Thank you all for attending and for watching from home.