001Uh, I have seven o'clock. So, if you would all join us in the pledge of allegiance. Good evening everyone. Uh tonight we're pleased to recognize numerous outstanding students and employees. Uh Martin Luther King Jr. Poster essay contest winners, PNA scholarship recipients, Missouri scholarsm Academy, Missouri scholars 100, 2025 early college partner graduates, St. Louis Community College, college sports marketing scholarship, Missouri scholastic gold key writing awards and a national scholastic award. But first, I'd like to welcome Mover McCracken, PNA president, to introduce the winners of the Martin Luther King Jr. poster essay contest in the NEA scholarship recipients. Good evening, Dr. Marty, Mrs. Stove, Mr. Todd, Miss Mrs. Hopper, and distinguished members of the board. Uh, as president of the Parkway National Education Association, I really appreciate this opportunity to share some exciting accomplishments of our students
002and our staff with you this evening. The Missouri National Education Association holds a yearly art and writing competition to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. PNEA members encourage students to submit entries which are judged at the district level by a group of volunteers. Next, we submit Parkway's top three entries to be judged at the state competition. I am so proud to say that once again, Parkway has had more winners at the state level than any other Missouri school [Applause] district. So, I'm going to go ahead and announce the winners we have from both the district level as well as those who went on to win at the state level. Uh students, when you hear your name, if you would come up and shake hands with the board of education and Dr. Marty. So, starting
003in the kindergarten through 2 grade category, we have Kiara Kana from Henry Elementary School, who placed first in the state and first in [Applause] Parkway. Next, we have Andy Santag from Tenry Elementary, who placed second in the state and third in Parkway. and Blair Mandel from Mason Ridge who placed third in the state and second in [Applause] Parkway. In the third through fifth grade category, we have City from McKelie Intermediate who placed first in the state and third in Parkway. [Applause] Adia Madi from McKelie Intermediate who placed second in the state and first in [Applause] Parkway and Shrea Yadav from McKelie Inter intermediate who placed third in the state and second in [Applause] Parkway. So through the for the sixth through eighth grade category and 9th through 12th grade category, students can enter both a
004writing and an artwork contest. They can enter one or the other or both of them. So in the sixth through 8th grade writing uh category, we have Lillian Fleeks from West Middle who placed third in the state and second in Parkway. [Applause] Arian Trapathy from West Middle who placed first in Parkway and Isaud from South Middle who played third placed third in Parkway. Then in the art category for sixth through 8th grade, we have Caroline Zimmerman from West Middle who placed second in both State and Parkway. [Applause] Emily Wang from South Middle who placed first I'm sorry from West Middle, my apologies. Uh who placed first place in [Applause] Parkway and Riley Craft from South Middle who placed third in [Applause] Parkway. I have to say I'm especially impressed with the sixth through eighth graders.
005We had something like 70 entries that we just at the parkway level that we went through and judged. So that's pretty impressive. And then at the in the 9th through 12th grade uh category for writing we have Shri Sikall Kumar from West High who placed second in the state and first place in Parkway. [Applause] And while Shri is up there, I will also say that Sheree entered an art piece and uh one and for that place first place in the state and second in [Applause] Parkway. And then also placing in the 9th through 12th grade artwork category, we have Sam Ryder from South High. I'm sorry, boy, I keep saying that. West High, uh who uh placed second in the state and first place in Parkway. [Applause] and Shelby Lane from West High who placed
006third in the state and third in [Applause] Parkway. Congratulations to all of these extremely talented students. Uh, next I would like to recognize the winners of the 2025 PNEA scholarships and grants. So, Parkway NEA loves to support students who plan to enter the education field. This year we've a awarded $5,000 to support such students. For students who are present when your name is called, if you would come up to shake hands with the board members and Dr. Marty. Uh from Central High, we have Jessica [Applause] Shers. From North High, we have Maggie Noble. [Applause] from South High, Ellie [Applause] Phillips from West High, Sydney Tyler. We also have Abigail Mafood, who is a student at the University of Missouri Colombia and who is a child of Parkway NEA member Linda Mafood. And I will say
007this, those of you guys who are going into education, remember us in Parkway. We like good educators here. Please come back. Uh, finally, um, Parkway NEA does work hard to support our members as well. And one of our most noticeable ways is through our scholarship and grant program. This year, we gave our members over $10,000 to support them. On the screen, you'll see the member recipients. Some of the various projects we're supporting including include classes for professional development, national board certification, graduate courses, as well as classroom projects such as increasing book offerings, purchasing classroom equipment, and ensuring creative opportunities for student learning. Congratulations to all of our recipients, and good luck to everybody's [Applause] future. Next, please welcome Dr. Dr. Kevin Beckner, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning. Well, good evening. The Missouri Scholars Academy
008is a three-week academic program for 330 of Missouri's gifted students ready to begin their junior year in high school. The academy is a residential program held on the campus of the University of Missouri. Students are selected by their GPA, their standardized test scores, IQ's, recommendations, and formal essays. 11 Parkway students have been selected to participate in the Missouri Scholars Academy this summer. So if you are present, please come forward when I call your name. From Central High, Daruka Kumar. Also from Central High, Henna [Applause] Lee from North High, SA [Applause] Fields, Shawn [Applause] McQueeny, and Amelia [Applause] Regent from South I Abby Kumar, Hannah Kang, and Chang Pang. And from West High, Jonathan Patrick. These students are very busy. They're very, very, very tied up with lots of commitments. Kyler Wang and Zachary [Applause] Jung.
009Next is the Missouri Scholars 100. The Missouri Scholars 100 list is a statewide program that honors 100 of Missouri's top academic students in the graduating class of 2025. Schools across Missouri nominate candidates for the statewide recognition. The selection is based primarily on a formula using the student's GPA, their ACT or their SAT score. Each student is nominated each student who is nominated have to meet the criteria of an academic decathlon which includes 10 events designed to ensure the academic strength of the student. To meet the decathlon requirements, the students must have a minimum GPA of 3.75, a minimum ACT score of 29 or a minimum SAT score of 1900. They also need to be ranked in the upper 10% of their class and have taken upper level courses in mathematics, science, English, and world languages.
010The student must also have excellent attendance, be an exemplary school citizen, and be involved in the school activity program. And we do have six Parkway students who have been selected for this prestigious honor. Please come forward as your name is called. from Central High, Grace [Applause] Lee. Also from Central, Zayen Razu from South High, we have Grace Fu and Sophia Kalis. And from West High, we have Risa Synindon and William Gonzer. [Applause] Lindseay Perkins, director of choice programs to introduce us to Parkway's Early College Partnership recipients. Thank you. Hello and good evening. The Early College Partnership known as ECP is a full immersion early entrance to college program on the campuses of St. Louis Community College, Wildwood, and Marramac. Students attending ECP replace their junior and senior year and are fully immersed in an engaging
011curriculum consisting of college coursework with professors from St. Louis Community College. Upon successful completion, these students not only have earned their high school diploma, they will also graduate with an associates degree from St. Louis Community College. These early college program students have worked incredibly hard over the last two years, excelling in a challenging college environment. They've balanced rigorous coursework with activities at their high schools as well as activities on the college campus. They are exemplary representatives of our schools and we are very proud of the work that they've done and excited to honor them this evening. So without further ado, from Central High, we have Nadia Agarwal. [Applause] Ali Havsa, Vamila Krypa from North High. Matt [Applause] Andrews, Malik [Applause] Ojiara, and Matt [Applause] Stoulce from South High. Samir [Applause] Power, Christopher Ross, and Llaya
012[Applause] Wall from West High. Lacy [Applause] Disa, Lacy Hubert, Peter Reini, Jamie T-ire, and finally Sophie [Applause] Tyrell. Congratulations, Next, please welcome Erin Schulty. Erin Schulty Hamilton now, uh, coordinator of counseling and character education. Thank you. Good evening. One of our sports marketing partners, St. Louis Community College awards seniors a $1,000 scholarship to attend St. Louis Community College. This scholarship is a testament to their hard work, academic excellence, and commitment to education. This year we have five students receiving this scholarship. from Central High. Gloria [Applause] Hegis from North High. Pearl Patel also from North High. Aurelia [Applause] Warren from South High. Ahmad [Applause] Akar and from West High, Devin Meltter. [Applause] Next, please welcome John Duval, middle school interdisciplinary coordinator, ELA, social studies and reading, and Adam Keelin, West Middle principal. Good evening. Uh, so
013tonight we have the pleasure of introducing Parkway students who were recognized as gold key winners of the Missouri Scholastic Arts and Writing Contest. This is the longest running and most pre prestigious program for creative arts and writing in our country. The jurors of the program select winners based on three criteria. Originality, skill, and emergence of a personal voice or vision. Most impressively, our winners did so did what our winners were recognized by being blindly drawn from a group of students between the grades of seventh and 11th grade. The nine students we recognized tonight competed against hundreds of other Missouri students of varying ages and grade levels to earn the highest recognition as gold key winners in the Missouri region. Students, when you hear your name, you come up and shake the hands of Dr. Marty
014and the members of the board. from West Middle. Casey Bradshaw, Leaken Jagger, Claire [Applause] Masterson, Ella Wang, and Jackson Wilks. [Applause] From Central High, we have Hannah Matthew. And from West High, we have Felicity Jackson, Isaiah Candaloo, Kandulla, and Alicia Yin. Congratulations to the Missouri winners. Dr. Keelin will introduce our national award. Good evening. Uh the national scholastic go writing award is preceded award receives between the grades of 7th through 11th grade enter original works of art and writing. This year 110,000 teenagers entered more than 310,000 original works from across the country. To be selected works are viewed by some of the most foremost leaders in the visual and literary arts uh for excellence in originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision. The past winner of this award was the well-known
015author Stephen King. This year, West Middle School eighth grader uh Claire Masterson was named a 2025 Scholastic Art and Writing Award National Winner. Later this summer, Claire and her family will travel to Carnegie Hall where she will be honored in a ceremony. So, please join me in congratulating Claire on this prestigious award. Congratulations again to all of our students and the teachers and staff members who have guided you along your way. At this time, we will take a brief recess and we'll resume the meeting shortly. Are we ready to continue? All right. Um, all right. Next up is uh 7.01 uh which is addendum to agenda item 11.10 approval of personnel items. Uh next up is public comments. Uh it is during this time that we an opportunity for citizen comments in an effort to
016maintain an open and respectful dialogue with our community. Public s public comment session 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 a particular student or employees. Members of the public, staff, and students are encouraged to utilize established policies and procedures for offering suggestions or addressing concerns and complaints before bringing the issue 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 lie of a public statement, you may choose to submit your comments to the board in writing. Also, due to the time constraints and the need to complete primary
017responsibilities of our meeting agenda, we not respond during the meeting and you will receive a response from us in writing. We're also always available to have an open dialogue outside of our meeting and can be reached by email or phone using contact information on the Parkway website. Uh I will call on speakers in order in which they have signed up. Uh and each of you will have three minutes to come to the podium here. Uh introduce yourself, share with us your affiliation, relationship to Parkway. Um and then uh we uh will proceed. First up, and I'll kind of give you the order. Uh we we have Janice uh Jonas Peter uh followed by Jessica Bogen, followed by Dr. Robin Drake, followed by Anna Salfrank, and followed finally by Jonathan Gunning. Get it? All right. So,
018first up, uh, Janice Peter. Hope I pronounce you. Yeah, come right up here. Good evening, dear uh, board members. Uh, my name is Jiannis Per. I'm going to Parker West High School as a junior. I'm here with an exchange program from YFU. And I came here this evening to thank all of you guys that you guys um, create the opportunity for exchange students to be at Parkway and I'm having a great time here. Um, I engaged in cross country and now I'm doing track and field and I made a lot of friends and I've learned a lot from them and I'm sure they learned a lot from me and yeah, I'm just here to say thank you to all of you to uh make that happen. Next up is Jessica Boen. Hello board. Um, my
019name is Jessica Vogen and I'm mainly here today to really just try to get some clarification on what can be done when the kids are in this bullying stage. My children are all been straight A students at Parkway Central Middle and I did lose one of my children to suicide because of the bullying. Um, we got through it because the team at the actual school, they really did dig in to try to help. What I'm not understanding is now they're bullying my other daughter and um because of this she's been actually They actually fought her when we had gone through every motion that we were supposed to to try to protect her. And now at this point, I'm really wanting to see if there's any other school districts in our that could take her for
020a new start because to me, she deserves to be able to go to school without having to worry about such, I don't know, barbaric situations. And that's pretty much why I'm here. Next is Dr. Robin. Good morning or good afternoon, good evening. I'm Dr. Robin Drake. I am Jessica's sister. I am Skyler's aunt. You all probably have seen my any many emails over the last few days. I really apologize for uh overwhelming you with the emails, but not for the content that was included. Um, with her daughter passing just six months ago, Jessica doesn't have the ability to fight, to ask questions, and to help support her 12-year-old following the loss or the suicide of her 13year-old. Jessica needs a lot of help. She's crying out. She's asking for help. She didn't know where else
021to go. And as her sister, I was not going to just stand back and allow her to go through this by herself. I don't know if any of you have ever lost a child. I have. I know what it feels like. And in six months, you feel like history is repeating itself. You are going through exactly the same thing with the 12year-old Skyler as she went through with the 13year-old Zoe. Zoe was Skyler's hero. Skyler looked up to Zoe. And my concern is we want Skyler to have a way out without using the same method that Zoe. You all have to help us. This is tragic. I talked to her on the phone the other day and she was saying how she doesn't want to have to fight and this was before the assault. She
022does not want to have to fight, but she almost feels like fighting is her only way out of this and she she shouldn't have to. We're telling her walk away. Get somebody. Tell an adult. It feels like white noise because she's doing everything that she can. She's trying to We're grasping at straws at this point. I need somebody to help. You all don't have to respond to me. I understand that and respectfully. I understand where I am in this. However, we would like an action plan. Jessica would like an action plan if you all would send it to her. She did get a call from quite a few people yesterday. I also feel like that was a tactic that may have been bullying. Um, four staff members called her. They had an opportunity to think
023about what they wanted to say. It was probably rehearsed or something that they had come up with that they wanted to call and talk with Jessica about when she hadn't had a chance to think about a conversation. It would have been more professional to call a meeting and say, "Hey, can you sit down with us on Thursday?" Then she could have at least got someone on her side, on her team, someone to support her and help her think through the job. It's been six months. She lost a child six months ago and she's going through this exact same thing. She's not thinking clearly. Again, I don't know if you all have ever lost a child or ever experienced bullying, but this y'all got to save Skyler. You've got to do something. We need some help.
024And she asked for a change in the district. She wants a change within the district, not another district. She wants a change within the district. Is that correct? To try to get her child to another school where she does not have to face such adversity. We celebrated all the children that were here today, but we can't celebrate Skyler because Skyler is not able to participate because she's being excuse me being bullied. She's not even able to to be at school because she's so afraid. Please help us. Next up is Anna Sing. Um, good evening devote members. I'm here for the same reason as Yan Pka. Uh, I'm an exchange student from the YU program, too. I'm from Germany and I'm currently also a junior at Parkway Central High School and I just wanted to thank
025you guys so much for giving exchange students the opportunity to attend Parkway High Schools. It's really been like an amazing experience and I'm so thankful for everything. I've been part of the dance team and involved in multiple theater productions and my exchange here has been great. Uh cultural exchange is so important and I feel like everyone involved with the program benefits from it. Yeah. And that is pretty much it. Thank you guys so much. Finally is John Esteemed Gourd members, my name is Jonathan Guinnessingham and I am one of the coaches in the Parkway Ultimate Frisbee program and I'm here with the end of season update for our teams. Two weekends ago at the Missouri State High School tournament, our JV team placed second for the second year in a row. The girls varsity team
026placed third and the boys varsity team after placing second two years in a row became state champions. Dr. Marty, we heard you were retiring, so we figured this would be the best year to win it for you. Our accomplishments are the sum of support and actions by many individuals whom I'd like to acknowledge right now. First, the athletic directors of the district, particularly Corey Johnson, Dr. Brian Gilfoil at Central High and Josh Martin at North High, have been extremely helpful in making sure that our niche program has access to fields and facilities for practices, games, and our annual traditional senior night game. Second, we have a village of coaches who volunteer their time to coach these athletes. Our JV level coaches are Warren Kessler, Nick Mahula, Parkway alum, myself also a Parkway alum, and Shawn
027Mcnet, who is a Parkway parent and first-time coach. Our girls varsity coaches are Mary Roseen, Emily Timmy, Tim, and Ella Yang, all of whom are first year coaches. Finally, our boys varsity coaches are Tim Dorsch, Paul Runge, and David Weber. I would like to draw special attention to both Tim and Paul, both of whom are or were Parkway parents. They have taken on more and more responsibilities and critical positions, not just in our program, but in the greater St. Louis Ultimate community. Tim's dedication and efforts have led to significant improvement in the performance and success of the Parkway team, leading us to be not just one of the best teams in the city and state, but the overall region as well. He additionally coordinates a fall clinic for younger players which has grown the youth
028ultimate community immensely. All of this does not go unrecognized by leaders in the St. Louis Ultimate community as Tim was awarded coach of the year for the St. St. Louis youth ultimate league last year. Paul has continued working with the program despite his son graduating nearly seven seven years ago. He also coordinates a week weekly pickup game and the Chesterfield Summer League which welcomes players from all around St. Louis of all skill levels and ages. With the varsity team winning the state title and Paul announcing at the end of our season picnic last week that this would be his last season coaching youth ultimate. I wanted to take this chance to recognize publicly and in person two incredible individuals for the contributions and accomplishments not just to Parkway but ultimate in St. Louis overall. Please
029join me in recognizing two people who I've had the pleasure of calling not just colleagues but friends. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to seeing you at a game next spring. Thank you. All right. Uh next up is the approval of our agenda tonight. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. The regular meeting of the board of education is scheduled for May 14th, 2025. Second. All in favor? opposed. Motion carries 70. Uh, next regular board meeting will take place Wednesday, June 11th, 2025, beginning here, beginning at 7 p.m. right here at the Parkway Welcome Center. It will be Dr.'s last board meeting. Uh, next up is board and superintendent reports. Yeah. Um, first off, I'm excited for graduation season. Be fun coming up. That's one of the
030best parts of being a school board member, being part of the graduation ceremonies. And then I just um want to shout out to um Roshan, Tommy, and Camden. They are seniors both at Parkway West and Parkway Central. They're part of Sparks um technology solutions. They actually chose Seed St. Louis where I work as one of their projects for um mapping ArcGIS. And they did a wonderful job. It's not publicly available through the Spark program to go look at their maps. And the fact that um we previously had a board meeting for SE St. to us week before and the board had some questions and I could literally point them to the map to show them the impact and the questions that they had answered through their mapping skills. So, it was great having them be
031part of a project this spring. They did a great job. They're professional. I got a chance to actually interview them as part of the process. And then I just have always been a big champion of the Spark program and got to experience it directly with my nonprofit too. Uh so since the last board meeting uh I was able to attend the operations and HR subcommittee meeting with Mr. Seltzer and Mrs. Hopper uh where we talked about a lot of different topics uh regarding anything operations in HR. Um something that Matt did not talk about was the appreciation evening that we were all a part of where Matt and Kevin did a wonderful job MCing that night. I heard nothing but rave reviews. Um, no, they did a great job and it was truly a special
032night. Uh, seeing all the staff and teachers and members of the community being honored. Um, just last week I was able to MC one of the um, celebrations for Dr. Marty at Parkway Central uh, as part of his farewell tour. I think it was his 50th event uh, that he's that he's had. Um, it no, it was it was an honor for me to be able to do that for Dr. Marty. Uh, and then on a personal level, I was able to uh, go with my daughter to Junior Achievement Biz Town. Um, for any fifth grader, uh, they get to go to JA Biztown and learn how to balance checkbook. Um, figure out how to use their money wisely, work. Uh, it's a great, uh, time for both the parents and the students. I had
033a great time. My daughter worked for Mastercard while she was there and had an absolute blast. Um, so I know for any fifth graders, it's truly probably their favorite um, school field trip that they have. And I know it was great for me. Deal. All right. So, yeah, it's a busy time of year, as everybody knows, with graduations and end of year and getting ready for the summer and all that. Um, so I was also going to mention appreciation night. Uh, I think it was my third or fourth opportunity to go to that. Um, I I love that event. It's a real feel-good event. Opportunity to recognize our teachers, uh, teachers of the year. Um, also our, you know, staff members, our Pillars of Parkway. Um, just just a really a good night. And yes,
034both Matt, Kevin, you guys did a great job. Um and then uh earlier this week was the granting dreams uh ceremony. Uh the Parkway Alumni Association, it's their uh grant program where the kids write in for grant opportunities and and the uh PA awards those. Another great event to attend to see the kids and the kids do their own, you know, supposed to, right? But they they do their own applications. It's really fun to read those and then hear about the uh the ways that they're going to use those grants over the summer for their their different interests and everything. So yeah, it's just busy time of year. Good evening. Um, so last week Debbie and I had the honor of attending um the West High or the West area celebration for Dr. Marty. Um,
035and I think he really appreciated the the the turnout of the the that area and um we we will miss him. We will miss you. So um that was a great event. Um, I also attended the appreciation night as as our other board members and it was an also an amazing night, fun night. I love attending those. Um, I was going to talk about something else though. So, I know many of you might have heard that the state has passed a bill. It hasn't gone to the governor's office yet, but um on our cell phone policy and we as Parkway had just updated our cell phone policy. Um, and it looks like we will be updating it again. And I'm actually, you know, when we first had this discussion a couple months ago, I was
036a little I'm not sure about some of the things that we're we're moving forward with, but um especially at the high school level, which is why high school got a little bit less restrictive policies. But as I have um started reading the book, The Anxious Generation, which I know many in Parkway have uh been reading, it makes so much more sense why this policy is would be a benefit to our students. Um I encourage you to look it up. I I was able to um listen to it, listen to the audio book uh from the library. It is a very long wait. Um, it just turned out that I had held it a long time ago and it popped up right as we were doing the policy stuff. So, um, if I had read it
037earlier, I probably would have made some changes in how my children's cell phone lives were. So, we'll be making those changes as we go forward. But, I am looking forward to how things will progress next year with um, these policy changes. Well, not to turn this into the schoolboard meeting book club, but I also read Anxious Generation because I'm involved in education and we all have to. Um, and I totally totally agree with everything Tiffany just said. Uh, in fact, last year when we were running when Matt and I were running for election and he beat me. Before we got to that, uh, we had a the forum right here and one of the questions was asked about was about cell phones in the classroom and I think I gave some answer that I thought
038was really really clever at the time about how you know cell phones are devices and we'll all need them our whole life and in high school we should learn how to use this device and man I've never been more wrong about anything. So yes, I agree with Tiffany and I I think this is I think we had a good idea with our policy and the fact that the state's mandating go further I'm wholeheartedly behind. And the other part of that book that's a takeaway is whenever my daughter is around uh anyone parkway, she always asks them say what what could improve and she always says we need more recess. And it turns out having read that book that she was right about that too. Um anyway, uh that wasn't like what I was planning on
039talking about today. Uh I don't know if any of you heard, but Dr. Marty is retiring soon. And I was also part of one of those celebrations at Parkway North and it was delightful. Uh Matt and I hosted the appreciation night uh which was a really really special night. I think it was nice experience for us to be a part of it. It was nice because uh as uh unpaid parkway employees we we could kind of speak our mind and have a good time whereas other hosts don't have necessarily that flexibility and leeway. Uh but that was a really fun experience. I'm glad we got to do that. I don't think I'll be invited back but uh it was a one time thing. Um oh and also I attended the Parkway North High School Awards
040night. Now, I went to Parkway North for four years and uh they invite the smart outgoing kids to this awards night. So, this was the first time I ever got to attend it. So, that was very special for me to actually see what goes on at that and be there to honor all those kids who are doing such great things. And looking forward to graduations next week. Um in addition to some of the other things that were talked about, I also we also had a board workshop, right? I think since the last meeting it was like in fairness just a couple of days after last meeting. So it has been a while but it was a great opportunity to dig into some bigger issues big issues and and have more deep dive discussions and conversation
041about that and that's also where we do a board self um evaluation and um so that's always a nice opportunity to take a look at how we're doing. Um, I also attended a government relations meeting which was even though we only had two legislators show up um and then one had to leave a little early. We had a significant conversation with um with our representative uh Oler King and I just really appreciate his time. Um, I felt like we finally had an opportunity to dig into relationship building and understanding each side's um, situation on uh, some of the legislation that's out there. So, um, I really treasured that opportunity with him. And then we had a communications advisory meeting. I'm sure Jeff talked about that. I had to leave early. And then I've able been
042able to do a couple of things that I've uh I've had some choir performances to go to which are just the talent in this district by our students is just phenomenal. And then the music and choir teachers that we have are just stellar. Um we're so fortunate here to have that. Um but in addition to that, for the first time, this is the second year that a parkway has had a lead. It's called Lead Parkway and LEAD stands for leadership, empathy, advocacy, and diversity. And it is a high school leadership program which students from across the district gather. They do monthly meetings, participate in weekend retreats, and embark on experiential journey throughout the St. Louis region to better understand the black and Jewish community's history, culture, and identity. Um and so we broke out that
043evening was their graduation of the students that are in the program which are 20 to 25. Um this year they have an application pool of 82 to get into 20 to 25 slots. Um so there's been some really significant interest in joining this program. But we broke out into a couple of sessions called courageous conversations. dealt in it was studentled and it was their graduation night. So, we had these courageous conversations. Mine dealt mainly with um healthc care and some of the uh barriers to health care systems with the the black population. Um and so that was very that was very courageous of a conversation to have there and met some wonderful people that I wouldn't have met otherwise. And then um graduation. So, it was it was a just a wonderful event. I'm glad
044that I had attended that. And then I also this morning attended the West High Honors Ceremony. I had not um had an opportunity to to go to that before and um very much enjoyed um being able to celebrate the accomplishments of many of our students. And then of course the Dr. Marty retirement events. Um we are going to be sad to see you go. the longest serving board member with you and um you know we've had some great opportunities to have conversations and grow together and go on this journey. So um I thank you for very positive experience with that. Uh I won't reiterate uh the many things that we've all been doing uh together as a board the last uh month or so. Uh the couple of things that I've attended without any of
045uh these folks to my left uh but with Dr. Marty uh PTO leadership uh meeting end of the year uh event last week and that was that was great. We have some really really uh talented and giving parents in our district that run the PTO's in their respective buildings and they're always looking for ways to give back to their school communities and so we really appreciate all their efforts. Um, and then Debbie mentioned the communications advisory. U not much more to add other than than it every every time we're together, which is a few times a year. It's just a great opportunity to bounce things off of people that are in the communications field. These are these are communications professionals um like we have in in Lisa and her team. Uh but they're in all
046sort all sorts of different industries. So, it's great to get their perspective on things, big things like budget things and the perspective cell phone, you know, policy changes. Um, things that that we want to have somebody outside of education take a look at. Um, so those are always great opportunities. Um and then I did want to mention um since the last board meeting we received uh a finance and purchasing targeted valuation memo uh from Don Troy and Sophie Settles um outlining some of the the findings that uh we've discovered uh in our purchasing methods and things like that but also with a a number of recommendations we think we make some positive changes moving forward. So, I want to thank you, you and Sophie and everyone that had a hand in that. It's it, you
047know, when we get the consent agenda and it's it's got, you know, 400 things that we're writing checks for that month. Um, you know, we we can only do so much in in doing the due diligence and looking at that. And it's it's reassuring to know that we have such professional people that spend so much time looking at every every last penny uh to make sure everything balances out and we're spending our district's money as wisely as possible. So, thank you. Thank you. Um first of all, uh board members, thank you so much for those kind words. Uh I will tell you I really truly enjoyed last week and really appreciate all of you stepping up and saying such nice things and being part of that and uh the principles of the high school were
048just gracious and so many you know different guests. But I also want to say thank you to the communications department and Nikki who put just I don't know how many hours they spent because the the videos and getting people to make comments. So I'm just appreciative of last week it was a kind of a surreal event actually. So very much appreciated it. Uh since we brought up the cell phone um issue, uh communication has gone out to our community uh and to our staff, not announcing anything other than we're aware of the new state law and its changes, its restrictions. So, uh what we're going to do is further get clarity. Uh sometimes when legislation is passed, we have to wait a little bit until for sure the governor is going to sign it, but
049also what what is Desi going to do in terms of writing um procedures and and so we want to get clarity. There's there's you know right now it looks it looks like we understand it but we want to make sure uh but what we also want to make sure that we also move forward. So, right now, tenatively, we'd like to come back to you in June uh and be able to update uh what likely uh are more restrictive changes. So, then we're prepared to communicate that to our community, to our students, our schools before the school year. And this is since our June is our last board meeting. We want to be u attentive of that. So, we don't really want to call you for another special meeting. So, we'll do our best to gather
050information. Dr. Beckner and others will be doing our best to to get information and and and primarily this will be a high school issue because you know the restrictions in the other levels have already been made but uh this now affects the high school. So just to let you know where we'll do our best to be on top of it and keep you communicate with you ahead of that so you're prepared that night. But we'll likely have a work session and then try to move forward on the update. Um, so that's always interesting. And of course, the legislature, it's got two more days and at six o'clock Friday, they're done. Uh, so we'll be watching anything else. I will say the budget passed last week pretty favorable. Uh, some concern about, you know, more money
051going into the voucher program, but overall a fairly positive state budget that we hope that governor will will sign. Uh, a couple things that I'm not going to repeat uh what a lot of you already said. Just a couple things that um I know some of you were participated. Our we had a teacher signing event with our u our spark uh student our spark program and we had 20ome I think 28 or 29 teachers who were recognized that night and they signed just like athletes. But most impressively, and I think Jeff would agree, uh Matt was there. Uh the they brought an in they brought an inspiration or somebody who inspired them. A teacher educator was introduced and that to me is such a a tribute to our teachers and a tribute to the students
052to recognize those teachers are really touched. Also, we had our all district art show uh which was uh a couple weeks ago at Queenie Park. Always a great event. And speaking of the fine arts, I just got noticed today by Jeff Lackey that once again, I think this must be fifth or sixth year that the Parkway is a best communities for music uh recognition again in in the country. I think we know we got a lot we got a lot of good things going in fine arts and particularly in the music program and I will say during the reception last week it was just great to see a lot of students performing. That was just great to see students engaged in that. Um, let's see. Uh, was like, "Oh, today we had an Oasis lunchon
053recognizing our volunteers and Oasis program." Ken Pish is now the coordinator of that. And, uh, he reported they weren't all there today, but we have 84 Oasis volunteers. It the pandemic number went down to about 30 and now we're building that program back up and we always welcome more people. So, that that is just really that's wonderful program. And uh let's see Spark I also attended speaking of Spark Matt mentioned Spark had a bioscience students presentation also had the med talks in the pre-professional healthcare. Always great to see those students being engaged in that. Other than that um we got a busy time. Graduations indeed are coming as well as middle school celebrations starting tomorrow. Fernidge tomorrow and then Bango Bango the four high schools go very fast. So uh thanks for all your participation
054and I also want to say thank you for all your participation in all the activities you mentioned because it's doesn't go unnoticed. I know that u uh sometime you go to those events but people really do appreciate your presence and feel that they're that you really are giving attention and giving our our students and our staff uh some recognition for all their hard work. So thank you again and I'll add uh Dr. Schneider has been present at a number of events since the last board meeting. She was here Monday, Tuesday, and this morning. She was at the Oasis actually a little bit before she left. Dreamsing dreams. Yeah, we'll continue uh working together. I know Nikki and her and SAP members have been working closely with her and every time she comes, she says she's
055getting more enthused. So, it's been great. Okay, next up, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented in the May 14th, 2025 board meeting? So move second. Is there anything to be pulled to action or closed? All in favor? Any opposed? Any extensions? Motion carries 70. Uh we have no action items, no policy review, no reports. However, we do have a couple of work session items. First of which is our 25 budget and future planning. So, I will invite Carrie Nun, our CFO, and Don Troki, our executive director of finance, to join us. Can I just say as Carrie uh and Don are walking up, uh we know that it's we've had a little more challenges this year in preparing the budget. Uh but I I just want to take a
056moment. Uh Carrie uh is in her first year and still but I just want to say she's she's really grasp this role and uh I just am so proud of uh her leadership and working with Dawn and departments downstairs. But uh Car very proud of you and you know uh you fill big shoes but I think you're doing a great job and I think SAP members agree. We we're so appreciative of all your work and um we just are are so glad you're in Parkway and I know you're going to be such a great asset to Melissa who's all sorry to also start working with you. So thanks so much. Well, thank you. That means a lot. I appreciate that. And I've been told by previous SAT members that one year parkway equals 10 years
057of and you're not new anymore. That's three years. I get that. All right. I think I'm going the wrong way. There we go. Okay. With our budget process, we always start off with our mission which guides our budgeting process which is uh to ensure all students are capable, curious, caring and competent learners to understand and respond to the challenges of an everchanging world. And that mission drives our strategic plan which we have uh three focus areas. And tonight the budget primarily resides in the resources for students and success which is about allocating resources responsibly, equitably, and effectively. So, this is the timeline of what our budgeting process looks like. And so, we've been walking through this journey for FY26 starting back in November. And where we are tonight is at the preliminary budget to you
058guys. And we've only got one more step after this for FY26. So, almost to the uh the end road there. So what our budgeting process is, it is like a puzzle. There is multiple contributing factors, multiple stakeholders that come in and have a voice. Um and the process starts off with setting our goals um and determining what those are going to be and we start our operating expense goals. And then from there we engage our stakeholders, our individual principles and our department leads and our SAT members. Um, and we have them establish their goals and then what they need to achieve those goals. And that's what drives our budgeting process. And the fancy word for that is zerobased budgeting. So this is a graph that I know I've shared with you before and it is
059one of my favorite graphs here at Parkway. Um because to me this graph is a graph that shows hardships and resilience of this district and it reminds me that I stand on the work of people who have come before me and who have done a good job to make sure that this district is financially healthy. Um and to me that is a charge that I want to take up and continue with the work of this district and with you all um to help us achieve long-term health for our students and for our community. So you'll see in this graph that we've been in a stage of fund growth um and we've reached a peak of that in FY23 FY24 um at a 53% fund balance fund balance and um we are now in a process
060where we are wanting to move away from the growth and start a stabilization. So um I believe that a good spot for us would be to be around 45%. Um but as you see in the last uh part of that graph, that last green line, which represents the fund balance, there's a pretty sharp um decrease in the fund balance. And um that is why one of the reasons we need to start with Dr. Schneider is a task force to help us keep that that dip in our fund balance from going down too sharply. Just like it took us many years to grow our fund balance, it needs to take us just as slow and just as long to get us down to where we want to be with our fund balance. We don't want any
061sharp decreases because once you start that downward mo that downward momentum, it's very difficult to slow it down. So, we want to be strategic and slow as we we spin that down to a 45% fund balance level. So let's talk about our revenue and how we um and how we develop that and what is the factors that go into there. So first is u something we should be very proud of and this represents the residential rates in all of the school districts here in St. Louis County and as you can see Parkway has the lowest residential tax rate of all the school districts here in St. Louis County. Um and how we actually achieved this is in the tax year 2024 we actually had a voluntary roll back. So based on that robot, that is
062actually what helped us achieve the lowest residential rate. And with some financial challenges that are coming down um the track at us over the next few year few years, that might be something that we look into not doing anymore is rolling back that tax rate. But even at with not rolling back that tax rate, we still would be the second lowest residential tax rate out of all of the districts in St. Louis County. So that's still something to be very very proud of and something that we should should maintain and continue to seek to to keep low tax rates for our community. So what makes up our operating revenue? As you can see from this pie chart, we are mostly locally funded at almost 92% of our revenue coming from our local um our local
063funding sources. Then our next largest one would be state at 5%, federal at just under 2% and then county closer to 1% and then we have that little other category that's 2%. So we are primarily funded through local funds. Um, and if you break down those local funds even further, you'll see that the majority of those local funds come from our property taxes at 83 almost 83%. Which is why as a district we are very sensitive to legislation um that impacts our local tax dollars, our local property. Um, and then the next one is the next largest one is their other which is broken down into even smaller segments. And then the next one is Prop C our sales tax at just at 8%. So that property tax revenue how how it generates and how
064we receive it kind of goes the best way to look at it is kind of a funneling process. So the county provides us with our assessed value and our new construction um each fall. And from then from there we as a district look at our historical um collection rate um and we say okay we don't we it would be great if everyone paid their property tax bill but sometimes that doesn't happen. So we have to look back at over the years what is the collection rate actually been and we set that percentage. And then we also have another process that we can go through called recruitment. Um, and that gives us the ability to go back and recoup potential lost revenue um that we lost through um property um it's uh protested taxes. And then
065once we get through um all of those steps, the last step that it goes through before it can come to us to be revenue is a CPI um or cost price index. And so we are not allowed to collect more um growth than what the CPI is or through a Hancock amendment 5%. So whichever one is lowest. Um and this year going into this budget season season we went with a CPI of 2.9%. Um that's what it was at in December and that's the the rate that we're going with this year. So these charts there's a lot of a lot of information here. Um but I'll start on the top the top left and go and go to the right. So the first chart you see there is our assessed valuation and that shows over
066the years we've had growing assessed value. We're actually a very privileged uh community and that we have the highest assessed value in St. Louis County. Um, and then we have our collection rate, which is the next chart, and that just shows the percentage that we've been able to collect over the years. Um, and it always hovers around 95 to 96%. And so this year, we've we've budgeted a collection rate of 96%. Our CPI, um, that is not something we get to determine. That's just what the industry sets. And so it can it can vary from year to year. Um with a very large anomaly happening there you see in the uh 23 and 22 and 24 um it started to come down it back into normal ranges. And then we have our new construction um
067which again we had an anomaly year in 2023 but we budget for FY26 in the future years of about $20 million. That's about where historical average is for us in our district. This represents our total revenues for the FY26 year versus where we're projected at for FY25 and then what our actuals were in 24. So you'll see if you go over to the second column on the right that we show total revenues um growth of $172 million and that is the majority of that almost everything of that is is actually comes from our second issuance of bond funds from our prop s bonds of $172 million. So even though uh 2025 is assessment year um we do have the senior tax freeze that is going into effect. Um, so even though we would anticipate growth,
068we're not collecting a significant amount just to be conservative with what we expect for the senior tax freeze. Your turn. It's the green. Okay. Good evening. So, um, I'm going to jump in and we're going to talk about federal programs. and federal programs really don't have any kind of any kind of impact to our budget because it's revenues and expenditures all equal. Uh we spend the money, we ask DESIE for an uh payment and they pay us back. So it there is no uh operating the oper operating impact is zero for our for federal funds. And then the approved changes that went into our budget for FY26 are um our food service pricing. Uh we did have an increase to meal prices and that was approved at the April 2025 board meeting. Um last year
069we had an increase in ECC um uh tuition, but that is not that's staying flat for FY26. So that's good. Now we're going to talk about we're going to start talking about expenditures. And there's our dollar bill. You can see um with the updated percentages of for FY26 that we are still using the majority of our operating budget for our people. So um salaries are about 59%. Benefits are 24%. So that's a total of 83% of our operating budget is used towards people. So that's pretty impressive. and purchase and the rest of that dollar is built with purchase services, supplies, and student activity for just that little bit at the end there. So, uh, the enrollment guides a lot of our FTE thoughts and everything when it comes to budgeting. So, here's a little graph
070about our enrollment, uh, what it's been since 2014 and then what it's estimated for 2029. And you can see that ever since, uh, 2019, we've had a slow decrease in our enrollment. Uh and Parkway is not the only school district that is uh experienced this downward trend in enrollment, but it's very obvious right here that we are experiencing as well. And then this shows it by grade level. And this really um does show it uh if you look at the kindergarten and first grade and second grade, those classes th those that enrollment is very small cons compared to the the other years. So um so yeah, we just have some enrollments going on right now. So, let's talk about staffing. Since, you know, the majority of our operating funds are deal with people, staffing is
071very, very important. And this year, we did not add any new FTEEs. We actually removed some and that's the biggest one is due to SSD transportation. Um, SSD is bringing that inhouse. Uh, they are actually staffing those individuals. the services that are provided for our SSD students will not change. The staffing is just coming out of SSD instead of Parkway. So, we were able to remove some of those FF FTEEs out of our budget for FY26. And then with Chartwells, if we have a Parkway um employee that is working for food service in the food service uh area and they retire, that FTE then turns over to be a Chartwells FTE. So, we no longer keep that on our books. So, we did have one retirement this year. Um, like I said, we're not adding
072any new FTEEs. Um, and earlier I said that, you know, that uh enrollment that really drives our FTEES and right now we're on a decline in that, but we haven't we haven't really uh lost any FTEEs at this point due to that. And then, um, we have salary increases that we put in place every year. We are very grateful that we can still continue to do that. Uh we have three uh bargaining units that we bargain with every every other year. It's on a plan now. Uh then we have support staff that we do uh raises for. And really we have a our biggest challenge is with the support staff area is in getting those employees and retaining them. And then there's administration as well that has salary increases in our FY26 budget. So, here's
073just a breakdown of our staffing. Um, the you'll see that the actual 2025 column and the budget 2026 and then the difference and you said I just said we didn't add any FTEES, but it looks like we're adding a lot. We are not. Those are all for due to the vacancies. FY actual 25 does not include any vacancies because that's who we actually have. budgeting for FY26, we are including vacancies and that is even lower than some of the vacancies that we have. You know, for example, we have quite a few uh vacancies in custodial, but we're only going to budget for prior hiring history. So, we're not going to budget for all 46. Although we would love to fill all of those the next year, chances are we are not going to. So, we're
074only going to budget for what we hope to fill. And I hope we're wrong and we have to budget more later to fill all those positions. That would be amazing. Um, but you can see here too the the negative differences is one is in nutrition services for chartwells and the other is our transportation SSD. So those are the only decreases that we have. The rest are all vacancies. And then we have our salary increases for our neg our bargaining units. We have it so that we bargain with one unit a year. So you can see with the teachers, FY26 is the last year of their three-year agreement. And so we will be working in FY26 to have a new salary uh range for them in FY27. Nurses, they go through FY27. So we'll start in
075FY27 to bargain for FY28. And then Puma, we just got finished uh bargaining with them and coming up with a three-year contract that then goes through FY28 and we'll start then doing it for the next year at that point. So then also we have our support staff which is decided each year um and there's the history. So 26 27 is to be determined but this year they were 5% and our administrators this year were 4% increases. So since we just talked about people, you then have to turn and talk about benefits which represents 24% of our expenses and is also um where we're expens where we are experiencing the largest budget challenge. um with we are self-employed uh self-funded insurance here at Parkway which means that we maintain a budget or a bucket of money
076that helps cover all of our employees and their members medical expenses. Um and with that we had at the end of March a self-fund balance of $4.2 million but we have a reserve goal of 12.3 million. So that means we have an $ 8.1 million shortfall in our 20 or in our 25% reserve goal. This is why in the short term we are engaging the benefit advisory committee to help us navigate what our plan changes need to be or what premium changes need to be. Um and then also in the long term we're with under Dr. Schneider we're going to have a task force that engages in long-term solutions for this. Um, we are under this budget asking for a one-time contribution from the district of $5 million. And then we're going to also ask
077for the district premium to increase by 20% which generates another $4.1 million. And we're doing this so that way the full financial burden does not fall onto our members, our employees, and our retirees. that we are asking the district to take the majority or as much of that burden as we can financially um responsibly handle. So although bene that was a was a hard chart to hear about how we are struggling, we actually offer really great benefits here at Parkway. Um we are continuing with our care ATC clinics. We are an award-winning wellness program. We actually just last week um received the MHA Bell Seal Award which is an award that um you receive as an employer when you are trying to strive for creating a mentally healthy workspace um workplace. Um we also are
078continuing our employee outreach and and education. We have a great team um that leads that and provides resources to our members and our employees. Um and then we have multiple programs with our United Healthcare partner for our employees to engage in whether it's um second opinion tea do or we have maven maternity there's many programs that will help our members you know navigate through some health challenges that they might be experiencing and then of course we have the retirement the PSRS peers which um that always aligns with what the salary is. So if your salary increases, then your contribution to your retire to PSRS peers is going to increase. But that is a a benefit that when you go to retire from the school district or as an educator, you're going to be so happy
079we have. I know in in in 13 years, I'm going to be really happy to have that. It's a very generous retirement uh system program. So our projected operating expenses. So we project that uh in the bottom right corner you'll see that we are reducing our expenditures by 0.56%. Um and that comes from several factors that are our our school district engaged in and I have to give everyone a moment to say thank you for doing that. if you were a budget manager or a SAT member, those were some rough conversations and you had to you had to really look at what we had laid out and say we can't do this. And so where did some of those budget savings come from? Um we reduced the carryover at school buildings to 25%. Um we
080reduced supplies and materials and we also restricted travel and meals for district meetings. Um and then we also changed our budgeting practice for vacancies and budgeted based on historic fill rates. And through these efforts, this is what is allowing us to address our benefit issues with rising healthcare. Um why we're able to put $9.1 million um into the plan this year to help with those expenses. If we wouldn't have gone through that that budgeting restriction reduction process, we wouldn't have had the room to be able to give our self-fund this money. So, it's very important that we did that. And again, a huge shout out to all of the budget managers that went through that process. So, summary of the fund balance. So, this shows um again the overall ending fund balance whether we're going
081to have a net gain or loss. So this is so this is the chart that summarizes everything me and Don just talked about. So this is the chart that really matters. This lets you see that we are bringing to you a balanced budget. So we are anticipating a gain of $3 million for FY26 and that is a that is giving us room to account for if the senior tax freeze is worse than we projected um or maybe it'll be better. Um, but if it's but if it comes in but if it comes in where we're projecting and we do and and we do get that $3 million gain, I'll probably be coming back to you in the spring asking that we move that gain to our capital account because as it sits right now, we
082might be able to put recruitment there, but um any funds that we get from recruitment, but right now our capital projects uh based on our expenditures and our revenue, we're not funding them. So, our capital fund balance, which is the third third column, will have a loss of almost $3 million. So, if we get that gain, then we'll be able to move it over and cover it, and our capital fund balance will be able to remain flat or neutral. Okay. So, this is back to that chart that I like so much. So, um, again, the thing with this is that we want to put focus in on is with FY25, which is the year we're in, we're projecting that we're going to, um, have expenses exceed revenue. Um, and so we're going to see a
083decrease in our fund balance, but in FY 26 and 27, we are projecting that revenue may actually exceed expenses by two and a half to$3 million. That is an intentional thing that we're doing in hopes that um we have a buffer for either our senior tax freeze or to be able to support needs for the rising health care costs and if we need to we'd be able to potentially sweep that over into our um over to our self fund if we needed or help support as a buffer for this like I said the senior tax freeze. And then FY28 and 29 from this chart you'll see that we are forecasting expenses exceeding revenue. And that's really when that tax force comes into play where we need that work to happen to help us prepare for
084those years coming down the pipeline. Um and that's where the task force helps us with the long-term range of what we want to do with our budget and where we want our our district to go and what expenses we need to really give a second look at. So capital planning. So, with our continued PROPS S projects, we are going to um based on the list that I received from our facilities department in planning with Jason's help as well, we we think that if we are able to achieve and stay on timeline, we're going to need a second issuance of our Prop S funds. So, we will have that potentially in the fall and we'll continue to just go down that list of Prop S projects and get those knocked out for our community and our
085schools. We are continuing our work with facilities 2050. Um and then we also have several nonbond uh capital projects planned this upcoming year. So we're going to do some building ceiling and tuck pointing. We have a speestous abatement that uh we continue to go through and hopefully over time we will eventually get that all cleared up in the district through time. Um and then we're also going to purchase two new buses this upcoming year. And so speaking of the Prop S second issuance, that leads us to our debt service fund. So we are one of four school districts in the entire state that has a AAA rating and that is something we should be proud of. Um and it helps us more than just being proud that we are financially responsible and healthy. It also
086helps us when it comes time to do these bond issuance and get th this funds because it helps us achieve the lowest interest rate we could get um because of that rating. So, um, so we will, like I said, we're going to do that and it'll be about $172 million that we'll be seeing coming through. So, with that, do you What questions do you have for us? I don't have a whole lot of questions. It's always so nice to to It was It was similar with Patty, but but you do such a great job of of communicating a really complicated situation u so that we can understand it. We don't have any CPAs on board and and uh maybe that's a good thing, but maybe it's not. But you but we have you um and
087Dawn and and everybody that that does so much to help us, you know, understand this. U we used to be the only school district in Missouri that had a AAA bond rating and now we've got some competitions but there's anything we can do. Uh but thank you for for everything you're doing and being so frequent in communication about uh about the senior tax freeze and and health insurance and things like that that that are, you know, on the horizon and things we need to be paying attention to. Okay. Well, if you do have questions at any time, feel free to reach out to us. Question. Um, on the senior tax freeze, has the county told us yet how many Parkway seniors have applied? Um, so that is something I can The last time I checked
088in with them, it was growing. So, they have not given us a finalized number. No. Um, and but and the reporting they said won't be available until November. Um, which is after we t, you know, we set our our tax levy. So, that's great. Um, but it's So, but we will we'll know the impact in November. They still have through June to apply, right? Uh, yes. Yeah. Senior. So, so they're still applying. Carrie, by the way, has a I just I think said this in her interview, your your goal is to demystify school finance. School finance. Good job. So far. All right. I'm trying. So, this is really still your first year? Yes. Okay. Next, please welcome Dr. Kevin Beckner to talk about CIP. Good evening, President Tom, Vice President Hopper, members of the board,
089Dr. Marty, and Miss Stoer. Um Kevin and I are here to present to you the first read of the comprehensive school improvement plan for 2526 school year. Um this is our beloved Gant chart that you have seen a number of times particularly if you're on steering as well. And so we start here simply because we want you to know are we are on time and on schedule with our timeline for things um ending this school year for 2425 and things that are coming into the system for 2526. And as we go through the comprehensive school improvement plan, um we'll talk about each one of the things that are on tap for 2526. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Kevin, who is going to walk you through um the objectives that go
090with each one of the focus areas and goals that you see on this slide. What we want you to know is that in service to mission and vision, these things have stayed the same and are also on track with the five-year strategic plan that you approved last year. And so we are still focusing on student success in school, student success in life, and resources for student success. And so we're going to go through what our 2526 proposed goals will be. Um, and Kevin will address anything um that might say TBD as he goes through the next set of slides. Well, thank you so much and we certainly appreciate all the board's engagement in this process. I've been in the district now for this is my 18th year and I think this is the most aligned
091we've been in terms of working a plan and making sure that we are monitoring our progress and staying true to what the community told us they want us to do. So appreciate all the board's engagement. I think this is uh probably the third time this year and after 27 times last year looking at our strategic plan in CIP, we just really appreciate the board's engagement. Um, we do set objectives every year. Uh, just nomenclature, goals stay the same and consistent throughout our five-year plan. So, for example, a goal that we have around achievement is that all of our students are achieving at high levels and are fully prepared to engage in the world when they leave school. That's a goal that doesn't change, but our objectives do change. And we know that several years ago,
092we brought into the system NWA, which is a an assessment that allows us not only to measure student achievement compared to other students across the nation, but also student growth uh between administrations of the assessment. And that window is still open. And for a large part, that's why we have many TBDs still is because some of our high school students who take the English and math assessments do so during the finals time period. And so that means that we don't yet have complete data to be able to address those. So, you know, our plan with that is to provide the board a memo once that window closes with our proposed objectives so that when we come back in June, you'll know what it is that we'll actually be voting on. We did include several numbers
093that um are we do know are going to be consistent. For example, um we do want to continue to meet that 78% number of our students who are performing uh above the national average. But those growth goals, we certainly need to make sure that we're continuing to monitor those growth goals, too. Nationally, the number, the target is is 50. It will always be 50. We want to keep that goal, our goal slightly higher than 50 because we know if if our students continue to make growth, that's how we're going to take care of our achievement goals as well. So, our growth goal won't change. It will continue to be that 50. We know also um from our report at state of the district and some of our previous reports from the fall to the winter
094our students exceeded that growth goal in both English and math which was great. We'll now have another administration where we'll be able to look at winter to spring. Uh it looks right now just based on the results that have come in we'll meet our ELA growth goal. We might be a little short on our math growth goal as a little preview, but just know we're going to keep that 52 as that objective because we want to aim higher so that our kids continue to grow and therefore will ultimately achieve if our students are growing where we want them to. We also have to continue and I know this has brought up uh both at our board workshop and previous work sessions. We have to continue to close the gap between all of our students and
095our students who are identified by the state as being in the student group which is groups um that we know we need to continue to work on achievement and the only way we're going to do that is by slow and methodical and consistent work to close those gaps. So we do want to continue to see a 3% close in those gaps uh over time so that ultimately we get to uh equitable outcomes for all of our students whether they have an IEP, whether they are on reduce lunch and or in any other group that the state identifies as being in that group. We also uh particularly in some of these other categories implemented new measures this year as part of our strategic plan. So we did launch in 26 of our 28 schools a new
096social emotional survey in order to gauge our students well-being. Now that we will have that baseline data, we're working with our friends in student services, uh, Sher McGa, Aaron Schulty to make sure that we identify what are some clear objectives that we want to use that baseline data to see increase so that we can measure our progress over time. And then as you see in that middle column, student success in life, we do have uh many of these areas are not yet coming into the plan. We are just bringing in our first action steps next year with our real life relevance task force that we'll be launching next year and we'll have to identify some new objectives around that. Um we are surveying again with baseline data our new parkway. It will move from a
097semianual survey to an annual survey next year. uh measures about how our community feels about things like our facility usage. And again, we want to just continue to see as we're doing all the work that Carrie and Jason have been engaged in in the facilities 2050 process that we want to see people continually notice, hey, yeah, things are getting better in our facilities. People are feeling like this is meeting more of our needs and we have multiple components of that process going on right now. Whether it be those bond projects, the capital projects Carrie just mentioned, some of our pilots like our uh teacher furniture pilot that we have going on. As we start to roll these things into the system, we just want to see people feel better and better about our the condition
098of our facilities and and meeting our students needs. So, as we continue to analyze that baseline data that we've brought into the system with new measures this year, we'll need to set those objectives and again, we'll communicate those with you before we ask you to actually consider the full CIP um next month. Then in terms of our district actions, Tiffany is going to actually go from the bottom to the top to talk about what will be new in our district actions next school year. And so starting at the bottom, Carrie, um Carrie mentioned the budget task force that Dr. Schneider will be leading and so that will be coming into the system. Um the other thing that uh we will pull in with the collaboration of continuous improvement in seat which is our social emotion
099action team that's read by Sher McGa and Erin Schulty is the implementation of a problem solving form through educ which is just a platform that allows us to record um information when we are doing problem solving at the school level and an observation tool that is designed to support teams um and give them feedback um through the uh district MTSS multi-tered system of support um leadership team and through members of SEAT. Um going up in all italics, you'll notice Kevin mentioned the launch of the real world relevance task force. Um we're developing that task force and their charges to ensure that we're developing learning experiences um that help us meet the vision for a learner. Uh I think that's the last brand new thing coming into the system. You'll notice a lot of continue or
100complete or begin. That is work that is currently going on in 2425 that will come to full completion at the end of 2526. To close us out, um you may be wondering how we are going to be supporting our educators and leaders as we journey into uh this new development within the strategic plan around curriculum and many other things. And so I'm going to let Kevin close out with um professional learning. So we are modifying um for the the first time in a very long time in Parkway's history the structure of how we provide professional development for all of our teachers. This is a graphic that our talent development coordinator Dr. Amy Gerken Coats created to capture within student success in school the strategies that we have to achieve student success. There are five of
101them and they're listed there. We know that we have been doing a ton of work and our teachers have been deeply engaged around rewriting our curriculum this year to get really clear about student outcomes so that we can target student needs and better support all of our students. MTSS stands for multi-tiered system of supports. How do we make sure we have a comprehensive system that is providing highquality instruction in the classroom? That's tier one. Additional time and support for for students who might need that. That's tier two. and then intensive support for students who might need remediation and and that's a comprehensive system that we have been building out and will continue to do that work. We know that we have a commitment to ensuring all of our students achieve and so that's our equity
102and belonging area. And then finally, we not just want students to achieve, but we want them to be well. And so that our social emotional strategies around that. But then there's one that wraps around the outside of that and that's that systemic professional development. None of these things happen by accident. they have to be intentionally brought into the system. We have to provide our teachers with time, resources, support, learning around these pieces. Um, and we recognize that the way we've historically done development in Parkway hasn't necessarily been guided by the work, but has been rather guided by time. In Parkway, we've always divided professional development by it's half led by the building principal or assistant principles or the building leadership team and half led by curriculum coordinators or people who support the staff. And that
103means the work was really organized around who owns that time. We want to instead organize the work around what's the work, how do we make sure that we're providing really great development around all of these pieces. And how do we honor feedback that we've received from our staff that says, "Hey, just the who owns the time model doesn't always provide me the most relevant stuff that I need." And there might be things that I need that they don't fit neatly into my principal does this or my coordinator does this. Uh, an example this year might be like our cell phone conversations. As we've been doing that work, we have to steal time in order to do that work with our staff. So, reorganizing this time to create a clearer focus on these areas of our
104strategic plan, but also be able to provide our educators more flexibility in what they need, bring in some choice sessions, and you don't need to worry about seeing anything on there. Just know it's very complicated. Like, we're creating a new system. It's like a conference structure. If you go to conferences sometimes there's a keynote like this is a main thing that everybody needs to hear and that might be in this case you're still going to have time with your building principal you're still going to have time with your coordinator those are your sort of your keynotes that you need to go to but then you will have some choice sessions and those choice sessions are rooted around those four areas of our strategic plan whether that be around our belonging work whether that be around
105our curriculum work whether that be around our MTSS work our well-being work this also allow us to respond to requests uh that we've received For example, many of you have participated in communication lab with with some of our organizations like our Parkway NEA which represents our teachers. And at that last meeting, I I think all of us were there or almost all of us. Uh we heard we really need some training on deescalation, how we help students when they're, you know, uh you know, disregulated in the classroom and how do we help bring them down? uh that falls into that well-being category. And our old process did not allow us space for us to be flexible enough to say if that's what you need, we want to offer that and have you be able to
106opt into receiving that development. So, it will allow us to be more responsive to our teachers, bring in more choice, and also be rooted in our strategic plan. So, just a couple highlights. Um each level will be at at the same location, which sounds like that why is that a big deal? We've always had, for example, if you're uh a teacher who teaches business, you might be in one building, but the teacher who teaches English might be in a totally different Parkway building on a development day. We spread out throughout the district and have development going all over the place. We really need to bring them in one place so that we can offer all these choice sessions and that we can provide a consistent message and consistent development. Um, our administrators, our teachers, all
107our certified staff will be together, which also doesn't seem like, well, why is that such a big deal? But if you're say the principal at West High, you might only be able to go to one place in the district and you might not be with your teachers who are learning something important now. They'll be in one place so that they can hear the same message, learn together. Um like I said before, we our teachers want choice. They want to be able to say this is what I need. This is what I need. So certainly not unbounded choice, but choice within some constraints. So yeah, sure. If if you have specific things you want, we want to help provide that. Um as I also mentioned, there might just be some things in our old structure that
108didn't fit. Now, we might have a place where we could potentially bring those in and say, "Yeah, we can totally offer that." And then, um, realize this right around that strategic plan so that we can make sure the development we're providing is aligned around all the things that we're talking to you all about during these meetings and we're providing that development in a way that it's needed. Um, so our next steps, just so you know, we did survey our teachers back on our last PD day of April 8th, which was asking them, hey, if we did a different structure, what kinds of classes would you be interested in? So now we're building out those classes and that means meeting with many of the leaders you see on the screen to say okay how would we
109provide that and then we'll finalize those top those topics to be able to offer that next school year. So those are some of our next steps. So uh pretty big uh part of the strategic plan. We need to make sure that our teachers are getting what they need if we want them to best serve our students. So this is an effort to certainly do that and honor uh their voice and what they've said they want in professional learning. So that's those are the key actions from our from our comprehensive school improvement plan and Dr. Holman investment. I'd be happy to take any questions that you have. Got one question. Uh I know at the beginning of the year and this is a state problem. NWA NWA might have gone away because it wasn't quote unquote
110approved by Missouri. Do we know if that's still going to be something that's, you know, a yearby-year uh experience that we're going to have or do we have any clarity on that? Yeah, the state has said that we're next year they're going to bring together a group to do a request for proposal on RFP to identify what assessments um let me take one step back and thank you for your question, Mr. Spector. There's two different we use NWA in two different ways because they have two different tests. They have the test that we just talked about that measures student growth, but the state also requires we need some dyslexia and early reading assessments. NWA also offers that. So, we've purchased both and we use both because they talk to each other. It's the dyslexia screening,
111the reading, the early reading assessment that really is the challenge. They're going to go out next year and decide what will be the the new approved list of products. Once we have that, yes, we'll have to decide if NWA is not on that list. We really only have two options at that point. One, and use a different tool for both the early reading and the what we would call the benchmark assessment. Um, or switch both to align with one tool. So, that'll have to be a conversation we have after Desi produces that list and says, "Here's what's approved, here's what's not approved." But it is certainly possible that we could be in a position where we have to move away from NWA to something else if that were to come to pass. I'll just say
112I appreciate that we're we're thinking outside the box or at least thinking of new ways to approach professional learning. Um I know we surveyed teachers. Have we ever looked at or talked with teachers who come from a different district uh maybe a year or after they've arrived here and ask them specifically, hey, how how is our professional learning compared to where you came from and are there things that that people new to Parkway uh might be able to provide? That's a great question. Um, we certainly hear that from teachers when they come. They say, "Well, here's what I experienced." We've never done that formally like you're suggesting, but we do get a lot of input just from, "Hey, we came from this district. We came from that district." We actually do get a lot of
113positive feedback about the amount and and types of development that we provide, which tells us a lot of other districts maybe don't have as robust a program as we have. That doesn't mean though that there aren't things we could learn from if we if we did that. We've never done that in the formal way. I think you're suggesting questions. Thank you both very much. Okay, we have no uh other items on our agenda. So, may I have a motion in a second to adjurnn the regular meeting? So, move second wonder if there's going to be a second. All in favor? 70. Thank you all very much for attending and or doing your vote.