001okay if I could have everyone's attention we will uh we will begin our meeting if you'd all join us in the Pledge of Allegiance we'll get started United States of America to the once again good evening thank you for attending tonight uh this evening the board of education is recognizing an outstanding group of Parkway students in schools we're honoring National Merit commended and semi-finalist students and National schools of character so first I'd like to invite Dr Tiffany Holman Bess our Deputy superintendent to begin the rec of Our National Merit students good evening president H vice president Hopper Dr Marty Miss stoer and fellow Board of Education um it is my pleasure and honor to acknowledge the accomplishments of our students uh through National Merit let me give you a little bit of background 35 Parkway
002students have been recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation an independent not per non for-profit organization that conducts competitions for recognition and college undergraduate scholarship ship through two programs the National Merit Scholarship program and the National Achievement scholarship program the national mer scholarship program is an annual academic competition which identifies seniors who represent the top of their graduating class commended students Place placed among the top 50,000 students who entered the competition by taking the preliminary SAT National Merit Scholarship qualifying test more than 1.3 million Juniors and over over 21,000 high schools entered the National Merit program by taking the SAT National Merit Scholarship qualifying test which serves as an initial screener about 16,000 students representing less than 1% of the United States High School seniors qualified as National Merit semi semifinalist 20 Parkway students earned
003National Merit semi-finalist status and additional 15 students are recognized as Comm end it National Merit semi-finalists have an opportunity to qualify for nearly 7,140 merit scholarship Awards worth more than $28 million that will be offered next spring some students were unable to join us for this evening for recognition but we will still announce their names first please welcome Dr Tim McCarthy principal at Central High School who will recognize his students students please come forward as your name is called good evening I had uh several prepared uh remarks this evening but then three of the boys told me they have a physics test tomorrow so I'm just going to get right to announcing the names per their request very honored to recognize 10 Central High students this evening again as I call your name come forward
004shake hands with the board uh and again we're very appreciative of you taking time to recognize these wonderful students first up Jeffrey Lou Maya Saget torini carna Davis Brown and Central High semifinalist AJ Eisenberg Rachel Lee William Leon Manan Sharma ashkash varth and Matthew whing it's now my pleasure to welcome Dr Ronda page assistant principal from North High students we are so proud of you your dedication and willingness to put forth extra effort as it pertains to the classroom is commendable your hard work is noticed and it makes North High incredibly proud North High's National Merit committed Scholars are diksha Anan Joshua [Applause] goopi Ben vaa William Yater North High has one National Merit semi-finalist and his name is Phillip pernick at this time Lindsay Perkins assistant principal at South High will come to present
005her students I think I'm right in between you guys there we go um good evening I first want to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our honores this evening you each exemplify what it means to be model citizens in our school School communities both inside and outside of the classroom we are incredibly proud of each of you and know how hard you have worked to make this accomplishment so congratulations to you our South High commended students this evening are Philip bassand maszenan nadf and Samantha walk and semi-finalist this evening are Owen GA Shri Val Coya and Alan Zang congratulations and please welcome John mccab principal of West High thank you so much and uh but as we recognize our wonderful students and being the last school I think it's really important for us to
006also recognize the incredible support systems that these students have our parents and the the people in families that help our students be all they can be in the classroom thank you to all of you as [Applause] well and with that I get to uh announce four incredible uh Longhorns who received commended marks Ria asoke anv Maman Eric Oswald Ryan Smith and 10 Longhorn semi-finalists Michael Emerson Audrey go David hoager Raj gelotti Serena louu audo Paul Nora rowski Santos sahu Jason Zhao and Ethan weem thank you board and congratulations to all of you students for all of your achievements uh next please welcome Dr Greg mat and Erin schy who will share with us the news of our national schools of character good evening president Todd vice president Hopper esteemed members of the board Dr Marty
007Miss do and all the wonderful people here uh uh I know we all just clap with congratulations to our national mayor commend in semi-finalist students uh not only do you have academic smarts but in Parkway we also are are are all about our character and I'm certain that you guys have solid character as well so we have three schools that um this year we have for National schools of character and I want to introduce Dr Aaron schy our coordinator of School counseling and character [Applause] education thank you um each year the national school School of character recognition program is run by character.org which is the national character education organization our schools apply to be recognized at the state level and then if chosen for that schools move on to the National level this is a
008rigorous process that requires schools to outline their character education practices that align with character.org 11 principles of character education schools are also required to submit data and artifacts that show the effectiveness of their efforts evaluators from across the state and then across the country read the applications and score them this year I'm proud to say we have 100% of our middle schools now recognized as National schools of character um because South Middle received this recognition for the first time in 2023 we're also very proud to have two renewals this year um two schools so every five years you have to reapply and prove that you are still um showing good data and showing good practices that you are continuing on as a national school of character um it is it is also equally as rigorous
009as as when you do it the first time as I'm sure Kathy back there can attest to since she just went through it um but this year Central Middle renewed their status as a national school of [Applause] character as well as the Early Childhood [Applause] Center both of these schools were first recognized in 2018 and again have proven that they have maintained um a rigorous status as a national school of character sure yeah so last week um I along with um Dr mat and several of our schools um the three that were recognized this year um all attended the um National forum for care .org in Washington DC um we attended a lot of different sessions um Dr Loren presented um for Central Middle they presented their standup stand up upstanding against bullying practice um
010they uh our school Oakbrook also presented about um having parent involvement um and we also had green Trails principal Dr Erica Niles present um a about her research with um character education and teacher retention um we also had several schools get recognized for what's called a promising practice so that's a little bit less of a rigorous process but um we were recognized at I think it was five of our schools and I am very proud to say we got recognized at the district level for our ethos policy and um I'm not sure board members if you're aware that we uh lovingly refer to as the Dr Marty sermon and now it is an award-winning Dr Marty sermon so we were very proud of all of our schools um and got to really showcase that in
011on the national level in Washington DC and I will say that folks were saying man Missouri is a really good place to be for character Ed and you all are really doing some things right so we've got a lot of people asking to come see what we do and a lot of people asking to actually conduct research in our in our district for how well we're doing with character education so very [Applause] proud once again congratulations to all of our students and your parents uh and our schools of character you're all doing some great work here in Parkway and we really value that at this time we'll take a brief break and we'll resume our meeting shortly are we uh are we all here we're all here uh got a few things to read here
012those are the uh additions Corrections and or modifications to tonight's agenda uh they include 7.01 addendum to agenda item 11.0 approval of personnel items addition uh 7.02 addition of agenda item 11.28 approval of gifts from the public Parkway parents's teachers program and 7.03 addition of agenda item 11.29 approval of gifts from the public B re Elementary next up we have uh just a couple of Citizen statements um it's during this time that we provide an opportunity for citizen comment in an effort to maintain an open and respectful dialogue with our community the public comment session is not the appropriate form for addressing individually identifiable student Andor Personnel matters therefore due to privacy laws protecting students and employees comments about these matters should not include personally identifiable information about particular students or employees members of the
013public staff and students are encouraged to utilize established policies and procedures for offering suggestions or addressing concerns and complaints prior to bringing the issue before the board please be mindful that the meetings of the board as well as your comments at the podium are broadcast and that you are responsible for any public comments you make in Li of a public statement you may choose to submit your comments to the board in writing also due to time constraints and the need to complete the primary responsibilities of our meeting agenda we cannot respond during the meeting so you will receive a response from us in writing we're always available to have an open and uh open dialogue outside of our meetings and can be reached by email or phone using the contact information on the parkway website
014uh as I said we have two speakers I will call on them uh in the order they signed up uh you'll have three minutes to come to the podium and uh reintroduce yourself and tell us your affiliation or relationship with Parkway and uh then share with share with us what you would like uh we have Darlene Hawkers self and Wayne Hartman so miss Hawker self you are up first thank you uh good evening Dr Marty uh president Todd vice president Hopper and members of the board my name is Darlene Hawkers and I'm a science teacher at West Middle School I miss last month's meeting and I apologize um because I wanted to share information with you about lgbtq history month and coming out day I was going to reassure everyone that everybody really comes out
015all the time we just tend to be uncomfortable with some people more than others um I was also going to hint at the importance of Developmental autonomy or at least suggest that schools have no place in monitoring and Reporting the gender or sexual orientation of students uh to anyone without a child's Ascent uh but I was going to be sneaky with allegory um so um my grandson rocket he's five last Sunday and just before he turned five the topic of gender came up and he asserted he wants to be a boy he would also like to be called Rock and Rocket not not baby cakes so here comes the allegory at school where he's learning to write his teachers report he's right-handed however when we throw footballs at chuckecheese I promise you he's a lefty
016now you can remember how schools once required uh people to have right-handedness and that was a res a lack of respect for developmental autonomy yet curbing developmental autonomy is what our state politicians have been doing with their judicial bureaucratic and legislative actions I learned last year Title 9 does not pro protect lgbtq people in Missouri schools our attorney general created a website with State money and collect Sunshine requests from schools on material with keywords related to lgbtq content and it's being used to mign people children in public schools finally our law um our state polit the finally the law the state politicians made preventing girls from participating in sports when they're not cisgender I'm here before you and the community because I am afraid I know part way does not want an asterisk on their
017non-discrimination statement yet when ignorance is so loud and the relief is so quiet children are left in the Lurch and it's in these conditions that we now have November which is National homeless youth month this week transgender awareness week and November 20th transgender day of remembrance thank you for your time Mr Harman hello my name is Wayne Hartman and I just live in Parkway School District uh couple years ago I believe it has been that long because it's been a while I think you got three new board members since this but the um the SRO security uh questionnaire that went out to the students and all them there's been no followup since they had a report up here took them about an hour or so they you know went over some of the things in
018the in the report but I haven't heard anything since then they stand up they stood up here and then then that made it public but I haven't heard any followup did have they made new hires have they changed protocols that sort of thing that's what I'm looking for um that's why I came up here to bring it up thank you thank you very much all right uh next up is the approval of our agenda may I have a motion in a second to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of the board of education is scheduled for November 15th 2023 so moved second all in favor I any opposed motion carries 7-0 uh next up 10.01 is our calendar of meetings and the next regular board meeting will take place on Wednesday December 6 2023
019beginning 7 PM right here at the Parkway Welcome Center a board of education Workshop is scheduled for Thursday November 30th beginning at 5:00 P pm at the Parkway Welcome Center uh next up is board superintendent reports starts all right tonight I'm going to be a little the cheerleader for Parkway um since the last board meeting I've had a chance to attend a project Parkway focus group with fifth graders at Green Trails just today had us opportunity to join some staff in their focus group project Parkway I had the opportunity also to um go to the Missouri School Board Association conference talk to other districts and then I actually had the opportunity to zoom in to a class of Educators undergraduate level at Kansas State University to kind of discuss both my role on the board
020and discuss a little bit about Parkway I just want to thank our students our parents our residents our teachers our staff our Administration and our school board we got it pretty good I I got a good dose of what's going on in other states what's going on in other districts around Missouri and just the challenges and distractions that are out there right now that are knocking other districts off the focus of kids I think today really with the um staff focus group it was all about the kids how can we do things better to help the kids how can we do more to help improve both the mental and the academic and just really that was the focus and it was very enhe heartening and enjoyable be part of that group and then I'll also
021add in too with the um Kate um class session after I got a chance to discuss Parkway discuss what we do here the teacher says well I guess we're all going to apply to Parkway once we graduate so I was like please do so I just I think sometimes we need to step back and look beyond our own little borders see what's going on around us and really appreciate what we have here we still have things to do definitely ways we can improve but there are some very nice positives here in Parkway one more thing I forgot um because the next thing on the the agenda is actually um candidate filings is that I am so excited about Parkway right now I am going to run for one more term come coming up in April
022wonderful um along with Matt it has been a busy busy month um I also attended the mspa conference and as to Matt's point you kind of see where everything is kind of not in the best shape at some of these other districts compared to Parkway uh it was very refreshing to just see how great we are doing um earlier in the month or later in the month in October uh I attended the Parkway Central Day of Service one of my favorite times of the year I remember doing it as a student it's grown a lot since I I was there uh the entire school is doing some sort of service related activity whether it's doing the special Olympic soccer tournament going off site to different places making stem kits it it really runs a Gambit
023of what they do and it truly is incredible um was able to take my kids to the Central High craft fair uh last weekend if you haven't had a chance to ever go to that this is this was my first time it's pretty incredible uh a little overwhelming for the first time um spent way too much money than I expected um I can thank my kids for that but um you know I know they happen at all the high schools it is a great opportunity to find some local vendors and really support Parkway in the community um you know as many of us I attended a trunk or treat at Green trails and just last night I attended my second graders uh first concert so it's it's really been a wonderful month and excited for
024the holidays and and um things to come yeah Jeffrey you're right super busy month I feel like we're right at that sort of Crescendo of busyness right before um you know Thanksgiving is is right right right in the right up ahead over the horizon I think we're all excited looking forward to that um I I guess I'd just focus on the Missouri Schoolboard association meeting in Kansas City second year I I had been able to attend and it's it's really invigorating to be around all the other school board participants you know you've got school districts that have only 500 kids in it and of course school districts as big as ours and and some even bigger and and just seeing everybody there who's truly dedicated to the kids well-being is inspirational but like some of
025my colleagues have said um it is uh it gives us moments of Pride to see that we um you know although we have our our uh wrinkles and things that we need to improve I really feel like when we look at our peers we have a lot to be proud of and so that was a great few days and I hope to go again next year so um it's a good way to connect with other schools around the state I uh did a lot of what they have said um it's been a a busy past 30 days um during those last this last month I had the opportunity of visiting two of our elementary schools um Barrett's Elementary and Bel ree um we have great leadership at um our elementary schools and those are two
026that have really good leadership and they're doing really good things with our students um I was at B Reeve I think it was last week and it's just amaz I I still get amazed because I'm a parent of three kids and I can hardly ever get them to do exactly what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it and we had all these kids walking down the line I you wouldn't know that they were even there they were so quiet and they were so little and oh I just love it um I also got a chance to participate in one of the project Parkway Focus meetings at Northeast Middle um I think there were about 10 students there and um you know I really want us to make sure that we
027are listening to our kids they have some really important things to say and what they're saying is is important to them and if we actually listen to what they're saying it's probably something that they really need um so I I was I was really Blown Away by the um even though they were a pretty quiet group the things that that that came out of their mouths they were just wise beyond their years um so I I it was very eye opening for me um then last week I did attend a a virtual pamy meeting um and where where we also talked a little bit about um what Parkway is doing right what improvements can Parkway make um and and I I found that to be very insightful as well um Pammy is a great organization
028and I encourage um our our parents of students of color um to to look into that um Dr carelia carelia Lucas is leading that charge um and you know you can reach out to her to learn more about it um and then last but not least I also attended the Missouri School Board Association conference in Kansas City at the beginning of the month um and I too I I pretty much should Echo what they just said because I really don't have anything else to add it was a great conference and well there's one thing that I want to add so I don't know any of you guys that but um that might know the what would you do show on ABC with John kones he was one of the note speakers and he had me
029crying throughout the entire entire thing it was amazing um and it really makes you think about how we treat people and um when we're talking about character we're building kids students that are going to learn how to treat people the way they should be treated and it was just an amazing event so that's the last thing I have to say great I'm very happy you saw some quiet respectful kids Bel re Elementary my daughter must have been out SI um so uh in the past I think we had veter the schools were not in session on Veterans Day at some point that changed and we started the schools started having programs to honor veterans instead and I it's such it's a little tweak but I think it's such a meaningful one because I was able
030to attend the Veterans Day uh program in Northeast Middle and you know what better way you know it's a better way to honor veterans is to be in school learning about veterans playing patriotic music and learning than you know being at home on an iPad uh so I was really happy to be a part of that it was really an impressive uh performance by the musicians and you could tell that the veterans and attendance really meant a lot to them as well uh I also attended the uh PCH Dave of service which was a great experience um I'm particularly struck by how it's so student L you know obviously there's administrators and teachers involved but the students really take control and run the program and run the day and it's just a great experience I
031think for for everybody involved you heard uh Matt talk about running for uh School Board the upcoming election you know Matt and I uh faced off in a School Board Race some time ago and uh Matt beat me by 1100 votes and I'm not going to let that happen again so I'm running I'm looking at you Shindler um so since the last meeting I uh had the privilege of doing opening uh welcome for the all district secondary vocal concert that was held at the two Hill Performing Arts Center on October the 30th and what a fun evening and again the parkway Pride just came out seeing these students uh performing and singing These middle school and high school students and then um there were guest conductors who each went and did their um conducting of
032of the of the groups of students was just a phenomenal and then at the very end so the middle schoolers performed on their own high schoolers performed on their own and then all together middle school and high school together joined and they did a patriotic song um America and it was just AB it gave you chills so Goosebumps and um just so proud of those kids and uh you could tell they were being on stage and uh really happy that we had such a large turnout as well for all the parents and um whoever there people were that they wanted to have their in attendance that evening um we're also I'm also on the St Louis School boards PLC the professional learning committee planning team uh we are working on our December 2nd meeting uh
033this compilat all School boards around St Louis and St Charles County St Louis city is also invited to attend as well um so we are planning we're actively planning that meeting now and uh will be coming out to to go to that um on Saturday I also had the pleasure of joining uh the West High School's um parent teacher organization PTO on a school campus beautification project and I just want to say um this was so fun uh to go and work with other parents and some of the staff at at West High to to just clean up the leaves the fall events um that have been taking place and and to do some very much needed weeding and raking leaves and uh trimming bushes and trees and things like that it was a lot
034of fun and even some students showed up and I know we've been doing this there's a number of schools throughout uh the district that are doing the fall beautification projects clay Mon and I know there's other schools so I just want to give a shout out to our PTO leadership team and and the PTO members that are going out there to to help make our our school camp campuses look as as good they as they possibly can and the involvement of our parents is just phenomenal so I'm really happy to see that we got some recognition of the character.org um Organization for parent involvement because it is just the best here in Parkway thank you thank you uh since last meeting uh Keith and I attended the health advisory panel uh that meets every three
035or four months and um and I just really appreciate the opportunity to to hear from medical professionals in our community um within Parkway that that uh take the time to to help us look at things from a a doctor's perspective and and make sure we're doing things right uh for our kids um Debbie and I participated in the pnaa OR P PNA steering committee um which was uh which was always nice to hear uh from the nurses perspective um I attended the PCH Day of Service service with Jeffrey and Kevin I also that day went to one of the off-site locations at the food pantry we had a number of students that went there for the day and they uh excuse me they had uh none of them had ever been to the food pantry
036before that day and so their their eyes were open to the amount of work that goes into uh to feeding families in the Parkway School District that can't uh can't always have the same access to food as other people can so um they were uh they they were making soup uh soup mixes and all sorts of other things that uh they're really excited about um excuse me I'll take a drink here in just a second uh I also want to report that the alliance for Healthy Communities met U just last week and they've really been involved with our schools this fall um a lot of work that they do is centered around anti-drug abuse use uh programs and specifically uh anti you know underage drinking programs around homecoming they do they have some of these
037activities again in the spring ahead of ahead of prom um they also trained over 50 students in the Red Ribbon Week festivities and so uh that's has been for a number of years has been a a pretty important part of our fall program in our schools especially middle schools so I appreciate their work in that and uh also learned that this is no Vape November so they have an anti- vaping campaign that's going on um and uh we we obviously support that um and I also wish everyone a a national happy American Education week uh and specifically today is National Education support Professionals Day so that's everything from secretaries to custodians to facilities to uh bus drivers and and teachers AIDS and and even some people even some people that are here tonight uh so
038we really do appreciate everyone that that goes uh the extra mile to make sure that our educational environment is just as good as it can be for our students um so happy Happy Day to all of us well board members thank you uh we really appreciate your involvement and your engagement in so many activities I'll try to fill in a few others I won't repeat uh this is a fall season of plays and so I had the pleasure of going to uh The Importance of Being Earnest at North High School wonderful performance and then uh that last week two weekends ago yeah two weekends ago U the West Middle School bedtime stories they do some wonderful little bits there in their cafeteria West West M midle school so that that was a pleasure I really
039enjoy attending those and um on Saturday night uh something that started a number of years ago our West Orchestra has a a chili cook off with the Pattonville Orchestra and I went and I test tasted about about as many there there 30 entries I tasted about 15 until I just couldn't taste anymore uh got to vote on but uh it was a wonderful night uh unfortunately Pattonville won this year so uh but what a what a wonderful that event has really grown and I give H the West Orchestra and Ed uh his uh did do a great job and a lot of families participating um last weekend we had a just a wonderful uh success story at the boys U Misha uh class one swim state meet uh Central took number one uh West took
040number two and South took number four Lafayette got in at third at the third place there and we had some swimmers from North too that did did well so uh we'll be recognizing those students next month right Nikki some athletes next month so what a wonderful achievement that was uh I just want to say even though I was mentioned what a wonderful Veterans Day uh I was out of town at the conference but what a wonderful Veterans Day our our schools are doing wonderful work and here are so many comments and and Veterans really do appreciate the that recognition on Tuesday morning we had a PTO uh meeting of our leaders had well well attended I will say Moira McCracken and I had a chance to talk to the PTO encouraging them to continue recognition
041of teachers and their good work and they were very receptive and I appreciate Moira coming coming to that meeting with me and then West Middle School is doing a a week of walking West and they're inviting a lot of people including internal staff to visit classrooms and I know Dr vas was there today I was there and I know other staff will get there or other people before the end of but what a wonderful activity and I was in an out of about five or six classrooms there was just busy busy activities going on and then finally I get to leave tomorrow and we talk about recognition tonight of character but uh tomorrow uh and Friday our pel elementary will be one of uh eight schools of Missouri to be recognized as the Blue Ribbon
042school so I'll be with Gina Pini and in Washington DC to receive that recognition I'm very excited about that my third opportunity since I've been superintended to go in and this is a wonderful event in at at the Omni in in Wasington DC so I'm very very proud of Pont and they'll be recognized next month at the board meeting as well uh thank you again board members for all the the activities like was mentioned a lot going on right now we really appreciate you're being out there and being supportive of our students and staff very much appre appreciate it I did also forget to mention that Rob and I attended the student services committee meeting last month and um I just want to thank Dr mat and his staff for keeping us in the loop
043and keep providing the opportuni for us to give feedback as board members and hear kind of what's going on so thank you uh let's see next up uh 10.03 we uh we heard there was there's a couple of people running uh for reelection so we'll talk about that um that is the board candidate uh filing uh two director positions are open on the parkway Board of Education each for a three-year term in the April 2nd 2024 election the terms of Matthew Schindler and Kevin Seltzer expire in April 2024 filing for the Board of Education Election will begin on Tuesday December 5th 2023 at 8: a.m. and continue through Tuesday December 26 2023 at 5: PM candidates must file in person at the St Louis County Board of Elections 725 Northwest Plaza Drive St an Missouri
04463074 no filing will take place at the district office candidates May file between 8:00 a. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday filing ends at 5 P.M on the last day of candidate filing only the board of election office will be closed in December 7th and December 25th and may also close due to implement weather for the first day of filing a lottery will be conducted to determine ballot placement candidates who file after the first day will be listed in order of filing if you have any questions regarding candidate filing please contact Nick East Stover at 314415 80002 or Nick endover at parkle schools.net or for the St Louis County Board of Elections at 314 6151 1851 uh next up is our consent agenda uh it's a reasonably sized consent agenda which we've all had an
045opportunity to review so may have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented in the November 15 2023 board materials so second is there anything to be pulled to action or closed okay all in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries 70 next up one of Patty's favorite nights of the Year this is the approval of the audit and financial statements for June 30th 20123 so we would like to invite daddy bedo our CFO Don Troi Executive Director of Finance and Britney Wolfram from Kerber e and brael LLP awesome thank you very much um for this invitation um I'm here more or less just to be the introductory um these two women that stand behind me have done the bulk of the work with the audit um as you can see Britney
046um she is due to go out on maternity leave so she was bound and determine she was going to get our audit done so we can get our MIP points um on a timely basis as well but truly Dawn this is her first year um with an acral based accounting uh district and such and she has done a yman job in preparing our financial statements and working with the audit and the audit team also kudos to both the finance department and the HR department and the purchasing department for all the materials that um have to be prepared in advance um for the Auditors as well and with that I'm going to turn over the mic to um Brittany wlfr once again we are so happy happy that um she made Parkway a priority um in
047her her listing and in her work priorities too it's always a pleasure working uh with Brittney and her team um okay so as Patty said I'm Britney wol it is pretty impressive to be able to present a full acral District in November we have no other acrel districts that present in November um um they're all December and very late in December last minute possible so I go out in three weeks I was very happy that Dawn you know comes in brand new her and her team have everything ready for us um we ask for a very long list and then during our audit we keep asking for more and more and more so it's not easy to deal with us but Don and her team did great um and you've seen the report it's like
048over a 100 pages so it is very impressive to get done this early and we are very thankful oops okay so we give three different opinions during our audit so this is what all of our work is for um management so Patty Dawn and her team their responsibility is to prepare that report these financial statements basically all the numbers um in accordance with gap which is generally accepted accounting principles those financial statements as Patty mentioned are on the acrel basis of accounting um there's government-wide statements that are on a cruel basis and then there's fund statements that are on modified acrel and then there's reconciliations between the two of them and then it's our responsibility as Auditors to express an opinion on those statements um so we don't actually prepare them that the work is
049all them we're just saying you know it's accurate and complete to our knowledge so we perform our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards government auditing standards and uniform guidance and the most important part is we issued an unmodified or clean opinion that's the best opinion you can have meaning we did not notice anything that was unusual no material misstatements everything's great so you're doing awesome um as part of our audit we test internal controls over financial reporting we don't give an opinion on those controls um however in our testing we did not know any material weaknesses or anything that we would need to bring to your attention um we also test compliance with laws regulations contracts and grants and we did not know any non-compliance during our testing so our second opinion is
050on the federal Awards the district receives Federal money um that we have to test we have to test 20% of that because you guys are a lowrisk audity um since you're a cruel basis and you haven't had any issues in the past you qualify to test 20% instead of 40% so to get our coverage we tested the education stabilization fund which is the co money that you guys have been receiving the past couple of years the compliance supplement automatically says this is a high-risk program so we keep testing it year after year until all the money is used and then the other um Grant we tested was the Child Nutrition cluster um so it just kind of rotates what we test um we did also issue an unmodified opinion meaning clean opinion it's the best
051opinion you can have so we did not know any issues with those two programs during our testing we tested internal controls over those two programs we did not know any material weaknesses or anything to bring to your attention and then most importantly we did not have any findings so there was no compliance issues um everything was perfect from what we've seen and then the third opinion that we give is over State compliance so Missouri has laws that you have to comply with accurate attendance and transportation records and budgetarian dispersement procedures We performed that examination in accordance with attestation standards established by the aicpa and again we we gave an unmodified or clean opinion so best opinion you can have um there's a few other things we're required to communicate with you so in note a
052of that big long report that's where we disclose the significant accounting policies that's where it says that you present on the cruel a cruel basis of accounting you have a few significant estimates in there mostly related to OPB and pension um so those are the big things that nobody likes to look at that are in the government-wide statements and we did those are based on actu determined amounts so they go to an actuary who predict all this future stuff and it's in accordance with gby 6875 we did not know any transactions that lacked authoritative guidance or cons consensus the financial statement disclosures are neutral consistent and clear we did not have any issues performing the audit this year even though Dawn was brand new and um it's so early we had we had no issues
053we did not have any disagreements with management um we are required to identify significant risks to help plan our audit so one of these significant risks is management override of controls this is required to be identified as a risk in every single audit that any auditor does so whether it's a not for-profit small food pantry or a huge grocery store a Fortune 500 company this will always be a risk you can't not have this risk however there are controls in place by districts um and companies to uh mitigate this risk so we did not have any issues during our testing that would bring something that would be something we need to bring to your attention so although it's identified as a risk it's to help plan our audit and we did not know any issues
054related to it the other risk that we usually have for AC cruel basis districts is revenue recognition and that's just the timing of when revenue is received because you can't just say oh the cash came in you know right the day before the end of the year you have to do any cash that comes in after the end of the year if it's related to that year so we do have a risk related to that but again it's just to plan our audit procedures and not anything we need to bring to your attention we had no issues in testing it um from what we've seen that the district has good controls in place um part of auditing standard dictate that we do have to be independent of the district and we are we did not
055know any financial statement misstatements No audit entries needed to be made we obtained representations letter signed by Patty and Dawn saying that they believe the financial statements are accurate all material information was disclosed to us to the best of our knowledge and that management did not consult with any other independent accountants and again I want to thank Don Patty their whole team it is very impressive again to present this early so they did an amazing job and that's the team that worked on the audit any questions uh I I do not have any questions because in the the time I've been on the board it's it's kind of boring it's a clean audit every year and and that that's a testament to Patty and now Dawn and their teams U and the partnership that we
056have with you all and I know you I've been through lots of audits before I know it's not an easy task to go through so uh we're obviously doing something thank you very much for being here thank you and thanks for being a great District I don't like to play favorites but I do like being done early and getting it out of the way and not having any issues because we don't want findings any more than you do so thank you I don't think we can we can thank uh again Patty enough but also da in her first Don you started in May right so or June June yeah so it's really been uh a busy busy time and so I really appreciate the the transition and you quickly adapted and learned and you know
057really had a lot certainly to take care of in in this audit and certainly some other work as well so thank you so much thank you okay uh so with all that said I have a motion in a second to the board of education to approve the 2022 2023 audited financial statements as presented in the November 15 2023 board meeting materials so move second roll call please Mrs Hopper yes Miss mat Franklin yes Mr re yes Mr Schindler yes Mr Seltzer yes Mr Spectre yes Mr Todd yes car 70 uh tonight we have no policy review and no official reports however we do have a work session or two or three um so we'll begin that uh that uh period with 15.01 which is our bond Project work update so tonight we have Ben El
058uh with Peter preconstruction manager Christopher Robards P her Project Director Ralph knes our Project Director of Parkway director of facilities and John Bandon project Parkway manager of planning and construction good evening um it's been a been a pleasure here I've got to meet a few of you offline and uh see some signatures but to actually be here in person and not behind the camera tonight is is a pleasure so to Dr Marty president Todd vice president Hopper and the rest of the board appreciate the opportunity to share with you this evening we're going to give an update for fall 2023 on the 2022 Bond program um to share a little bit U specifically for Ben and myself I wanted to share on putter construction and who we are so if it's okay with you I'm
059going to just take a three minutes hopefully up up front here um Chuck puer started our company in 1980 Chuck was a Vietnam War veteran serving as a specialist fourth class in the Army in April 1971 he and his unit were ordered into layous to rescue two door Gunners and recover bodies of the pil pilot and co-pilot of a downed helicopter uh this journey back to safety earned him the US Army's bronze star for Heroic service in a combat zone in June of the same year a member of his platoon stepped on a land mine and three were killed the force of the blast Drew uh blew Chuck BL back five yards but a tree saved him from being hit from any the shrapnel uh Chuck laid down his M60 and ran a half mile
060through enemy territory to uh retrieve a medical kit only to bring it back through that same half mile to helpl this platoon after recovering the bod so that they could be properly honored back in the states he prayed that if he made it out live alive he would dedicate his life to building something of value he did make it out alive and became uh came back from the service in 1972 he had nine siblings they were a a farm family however he did not want to uh take on that that honor of being a farm family um and he ended up following his oldest brother Dan who had gone into the trades he joined the Carpenters Union graduated in 1977 and worked his way up as a superintendent in companies throughout St Louis in 1980
061Chuck started his own company and that is puer construction um actually 1986 he began a relationship with uh smaller company you might know as Walmart and we have been working with them and and many others for almost 40 plus years now so um puer is is built on building those relationships and that's what we value we live by the uh the Golden Rule so sadly Chuck passed away July 17th of 1921 but now his children and the rest of his Peter construction family did I say 20 19 1921 it's 2021 I'm sorry thank you yes uh the rest of his construction family also still run the business um we have three offices headquartered in Breeze Illinois we have an office in Charlotte North Carolina and then we have one here locally in Cree Corp um
062our CM Services have largely been routed around the educational market and Parkway selected Peter construction as their construction manager for its 2022 Bond program and we couldn't be happier so I'm going to share here a little bit about what is ongoing right now um some of these projects that are listed are are currently ongoing and some have already been completed so if you can't see really well we've got the district storage building West Middle School gym Hannah Woods Elementary it's a site civil Improvement Fern Ridge High School a special project Mason Ridge Elementary also a special project and South High gymnasium um I'm going to go I guess a little bit more into detail here before I hand it over to to uh Ben but on the gym floor replacements we have met West Middle
063School and South High So currently West Middle School has actually been completed this summer it was a new gym floor with bleacher uh replacement system that was installed over the summer work included that floor replacement bleacher replacement as well as wall pads and volleyball equipment and then we're also nearing the completion for the new gymnasium at South High the bleachers have been reinstalled this week and the floor standing and stealing is ongoing that project is expected to be completed in Winter of 2024 uh the district storage building uh it's well underway behind Central High School this 4800 foot pre-engineered metal building will serve as a much-needed storage facility for the district the steel structure has been erected and paneling is in progress this project is intended to be completed this winter as well Hannah Woods
064Elementary has plenty of site improvements taking place uh including a new Drive Entrance parking and a playground area with new storm drains and a bio retention Pond uh while permitting kind of unfortunately uh delayed the original project kicked off the parents and staff have been uh wonderful to work with and have helped make this invasive construction project go as easily as it could be and yes I did say the parents um as well we know construction during uh operations can have quite an impact and so it's kind of been pretty cool to to hear from not only the staff but the parents about how well things have been going um and and their own flexibility but uh down to hearing us specifically uh how one of the ladies holding the construction traffic stop sign out
065in the morning has kind of brighten some people's uh days as they come in dropping their kids off that's been kind of cool um I'll give a big shout out to Dr Melissa Shu who in particular has been extremely flexible and willing to work with everyone to make sure her students get a well-deserved quality finished product uh the site improvements here at Hannah Woods is just phase number one the existing roof and damaged decking is set to be repaired next sum along with the replacement of the doors windows and some solar tubes sir we also had two special projects completed at Fern Ridge and Mason Ridge elementaries new doors were installed between the main level and the gymnasium at Fern Ridge stairs were constructed with proper handrails and a wheelchair lift has been installed finish
066and touches were completed in this area a new power and water was ran to serve the washer and dryer within the utility room and then at Mason Ridge an emergency wall repair was performed to a classroom at the exterior wall again I'll add that the parkway staff was tremendous to work with just another shout out specifically to Jen and her team um everyone with the school was very polite and kind and it I think it says a lot about who Parkway really is um on a level like this where there's small projects to go out of their way to you know just say how well everything went that that's meant a lot to us um both the District staff and our our team so I'm going to pass it off to Ben now and let
067him talk a little bit about what we've got coming up down the pipeline and uh kind of working through preconstruction good evening everyone Echo Chris stat Chris's statement thanks for having us here um we're honored to be working on the program with you guys uh you know working at schools is something I do almost exclusively and um I love working with kids hopefully as much as all the uh staff and administrators that you guys have um as Chris mentioned I'm the design preconstruction manager so I work with the uh design firms as well as the facility staff and the and the upfront front ends uh getting the projects planned and off the ground out to bid and then um successful bidding um upcoming here in the next uh you know say 12 to 18 months
068from a preconstruction side uh starting with the administration parking it's a um I call it we would call it a minor uh parking lot replacement but as everyone knows no projects are minor exactly um that is um planning to be kicked off or bidding in early 24 we're currently in construction documents the latest stage of design development before going out for permits um that work will be uh executed next summer of 2024 um we are doing that um after talking to the Ralph and his team we feel that it would be best to delay the start of that while it could be started earlier um just the impacts it would have to the schools that use that parking lot over there it would be uh much easier to just um wait a few months and
069do it over the summer um oh I missed one thing a general comment um Chris mentioned a little bit with Hannah Woods um and then we'll kind of talk about these next two as well um again a kind of policy or procedure that we've been discussing with Ralph is and his team is to um not go out forbid with projects until we have at least the first round of Permitting comments back um there is an opportunity to bid projects you know before you have a permit um to where your getting your permit while you're doing your our preconstruction effort or our mobilization efforts however there's risk involved with that um depending on what the county Andor other jurisdictions have as far as comments and changes that they may require So after talking with Ralph and
070his team we've been we've decided to get all the way through permitting or at least say 75 80% where we know what the the municipalities are looking for um so as we get into some of these with a little bit longer preconstruction effort than um maybe we were expecting that's kind kind of the reason and the logic behind why we're doing what we're doing um that moves into uh North High we are currently doing our quality control it has been submitted for permit as of last week so it's in the hands of the jurisdictions they're making the reviews and we hope to have those comments back by Christmas but as everyone knows uh the time of year is not the most timely for response on some things so we're hoping fingers crossed to get uh
071those comments back around Christmas so that we can get it out for bid early 24 um with a planned execution start date of spring to Summer um there's some abatement that we've got to work around um we want to make sure that we're hitting those Milestones that we're getting the abatement done over the Summers or over breaks whatever we can do to avoid any um disruption with the occupancy that project will continue through uh fall of 2026 um moving on to uh Riverbend uh Sim similar comment on the permitting side um we had that project in for permit at the end of September um and the City of M Chesterfield uh came back with um a requirement to go to what is called the Architectural Review Board as well as a municipal zoning Authority and
072both of those reviews had to be completed before we could submit to the county which has its own lead time with permanent reviews um and the Architectural Review Board unfortunately meets once a month and we had to wait almost a whole month to get onto that agenda so that has been delayed uh from a permitting side so far the comments received have been minor so we we're hopeful that that'll be right along the same timeline for bidding as North High um however whichever one uh we get comments back first um we'll we'll out forbid first and we're going to stagger those two with them being large projects um kind of being in the Market at the same time we want to make sure we're staggering that bid effort to maximize the competition that we're seeing
073from the market um moving down to Craig Elementary School a little bit further out that project is in design development we recently had the schematic design review with the end users as well as Ralph and his team um and identified some opportunities for scope changes as well as identifying alternates um to get it aligned with the budget um and then that project is is also being evaluated for a two to three phase depending on what some of our field investigations find um planning on starting that fall of 24 if we want to if we elect to do an early site package for the site improvements that are being considered um the building renovation portions will be summer of 25 and summer of 26 uh sento spring sewers that's a a more of a special project
074focused solely on just the sewer Replacements um that is in um says design development it's kind of in between schematic and design development we are in the process of getting cameras and field work done to clarify the scope of what we want to do and that project will be executed next summer as well due to having to shut the services of the school down we can't do it during the school year Central High is in uh schematic design um we've been regularly meeting with the uh teams over there the end users for the Food Service as well as the locker rooms and and some of the other spaces um and that project will be executed over the summer of 25 and 26 due to lead times with some of the mechanical equipment and design development
075that we're facing um and lastly the South area ECC um we are still in SD we've been in SD for a little while on this one um the original site selection was evaluated um budgets were presented and uh we identified some extensive site Improvement cost um so Ralph as well as Bond Architects and their subc Consultants have been diligently working to evaluate Other Side Opportunities as well as we've been providing feedback on our cost opinions as well as um site Logistics and things of that nature um we are make sure I look at my date here we're looking at trying to get that project um out forbid late spring of 24 and it will start immediately following it's a green green site so um as soon as we evaluate the material lead times and evaluate
076the most effective time to start it would be uh summer summer of 2024 to early fall 2024 and we're expecting a 14 to 16 month schedule and that depending on what what we end up um having for a design on that and then I think yeah so uh kind of a big big picture of the pool and locker room General approach again I've been working with Ralph on some some of this um and athletic directors as well um with doing re refurbishment of all four pools as well as the locker rooms um we're hoping to tackle one School per summer U to avoid taking down multiple schools um if we can identify the scope and make sure that and kind of ensure that we can get what we're trying to accomplish done on a Case
077by case we may try to stack two in a summer but right now North High will be the first one as that's part of the overall project Central High is part of its project so that'll be the next one in summer of 2025 um with South High 2026 and West 2027 again if North High goes really well and we think we can accomplish two in a summer without knocking out two pools into a school year um we may try to stack Central and South so that we're getting both of those accomplished in 25 so that we're completely done by 26 um and the locker room improvements will go hand inand with those pools um and then the fun part is some pictures that the design teams were kind enough to allow us to share with
078you all this evening um this is the North High um North Edition so that is the fax Edition on the first floor and then future science Edition on the second floor and then see around and then off to the West there's another Edition and then uh we'll be doing the pool Renovations new kitchen uh prep area so not so much stuff for students and people to see but the staff will be very happy to have their new kitchen area um expanding that to accommodate the their needs as well as modernize the equipment they have and uh creating some new team rooms and athletic locker rooms in the uh shelter space that is recently completed yeah can just for reference that that's AC so this is um we're standing North looking South at the building in
079the student or the teacher parking in the permeable okay yeah I don't think it didn't get the picture yes Y and then there'll be a new entrance to help improve some of that traffic flow we'll have a we'll have a a real entrance for North High School yes um riverband Elementary uh two additions with a storm shelter being added as well as a full fire suppression system and a elevator um this is a not as big a square footage as North High but is certainly complex in nature um working around the existing footprint um adding an elevator inside the existing building um but again we'll hope to get that started as soon as soon as we can hope hoping that all the permitting goes as smoothly as it has so far um and then Early
080Childhood Center South so this is the latest um rendering that we were provided by Bond at the new site location um between the Middle School and Elementary School setting back on the hillside um the materiality and color schemes have not been finalized and selected so this is a conceptual um drawing just illustrating you know the glass natural light features some of the natural kind of wood and stone look that is the um design intent um as we continue through schematic design design development um getting the staff and uh you know the people work in there speaking to functionality and and what they're looking for you know this may uh develop a little bit more but this is the early concept um of what we are looking at and I'll turn it over to Ralph so
081uh thank you for having us here this evening um thank you gentlemen for your uh information and guidance that you've provided Parkway as we've gone forward with uh the 2022 Bond prop s uh initiative so the playground project we're actually handling inhouse we did use the architect firm wsp to help us with their design in that uh while we didn't get started quite as quickly as we'd like again permitting issues and then long lead times on the equipment that we've ordered um has taken a little bit longer than we thought but we have made substantial progress as we're going forward here hopefully I use the clicker right oh so uh this is barretts and by the end of the day tomorrow the surfacing will be completed there right now this was uh taken earlier this
082week but that is the port and plate surface underneath there is a top coat that goes on that and I will uh get pictures out as soon as I can they have started drilling the uh peers if you will for the to Anchor the equipment at melie intermediate uh this week started so that one is now moving along once they complete this project at barretts the small playground that is immediately adjacent to the building there on the south side that will that has started as well and then uh Hannah on the Civil site once they finish and get all the parking lot done one of those areas that you seen earlier was where the small playground goes and we will get started on that one uh depending on weather concerns will depend on how many
083of the other um how many of the rest of these that we have here which would be the back playground at Hannah Woods High coft and Ren we have listened to the principls the teachers and that we don't want to take playgrounds out any longer than necessary and as we get into the winter months the port and plate surface becomes a little more difficult to get what we're looking for and have a good quality product we are currently um working the 2024 schedule up green Trails Mason Ridge permont Ross sento uh will all be in a package uh what we're going to do at melie primary the small playground we're talking about there is for the ECC folks so as they come out we are going to move if you've been to EC at melie
084primary you kind of got to go down around to a Sandbox if you will we're going to actually bring that back up so when the children come out of the building they will stay in a contained area right there uh we are in the process of putting a retaining wall in right now to make about a 1400 square foot playground there and then once that one is done we're going to fall back to the back side of the sidewalk where there's a grass area that's become very difficult to maintain and we're going to try to do some uh cool stuff there with Elaine and her team maybe some embedded uh sandboxes some raised beds and that for the children and some of the things they like to do there uh if everything continues to go
085well then you can see the rest of our layout there is uh hope to be done in 2026 with the playgrounds with the exception of ECC if things go well we might be able to get the existing ECC update done quicker on Clayton Road any questions on playgrounds so um Ben uh Chris myself are here for any other general questions that you all may have concerning any of the projects as to where they're at and if not this evening I'm always available reach out to us and we will answer anything that you'd like to know appreciate it I'll just say thank you gentlemen for all three of you for being here tonight I know John couldn't be here but um it uh it it really gives us a much better understanding of what's going on
086around the district I I know you got a lot of work trying try to get around to all these different buildings and all the different projects going on and and we certainly don't get the opportunity to to see him firsthand very often so we really appreciate the pictures and the update so looks like things are moving yes they are thank you okay next up we have a math comprehensive program review finally finally supped to have nice so we have Dr Kevin Beckner with us our assistant superintendent teaching learning and Jennifer Abdul Elementary stem coordinator Stephanie Valley Middle Middle School stem coordinator and Jennifer profit High School St well thank you very much president D vice president Hopper M of the board Dr Marty mover uh we're here tonight to have our initial conversation about the
087K12 math comprehensive program review thank you again to our TLA board subcommittee members who participated in this and already submitted questions and so I'll turn it over to our team who for the second year in a row you're seeing as they completed the science comprehensive program evaluation last year maybe there okay um we complete a program evaluation to ensure that our students are receiving a rigorous rigorous math exposure and experience a rigorous math curriculum in Parkway and that is why we have a comprehensive review k12 and each of us are completing a targeted review of our grade bands so I am up first for elementary K5 and and we are answering one question based on a process that we started this summer this summer the math team met to review the Missouri priority standards and
088we took that list of priority standards and we answered three questions does the standard have leverage meaning do do the students use that standard across multiple content areas is a critical for success in the next grade and does it have endurance over the students academic career if the answer was yes to those three questions we decided that it would be a Parkway essential standards once we establish those as once we establish the parkway essential standards that led us then to um make sure that our learning experien that our students were experiencing in class during Learning Time addressed the parkway essential standards so we R revised our learning from units to more narrow Focus to topics once we did that this summer then we had to revise our assessments to ensure that we were able to
089measure progress of our essential standards so we did all of that work this summer and now we have to answer the question What do teachers need to meet the needs of the varied students learning in their classroom so that they could provide the initial step of intervention for the students when they're now that they're able to identify students who may not have learned what they need to learn initially what do they need what do the teachers need to um be able to address that in the classroom initi ially and that's what we're studying this year during the targeted review we go hi I'm Stephanie valy again you guys um saw us last year um so Middle School school is in a little bit of a different boat than um Elementary and high school that's because
090um middle school math six through eight has really um been working over the last seven years so between professional development and then sorry most recently um for the last we're in year three of actually implementing our new resource and new curriculum so um as a result we're really looking more comp comprehensively at Middle School to say okay so what needs exist within our instruction intervention and programming in middle school math to ensure Mastery for all so we're really trying to look at is is what we've been doing for the last three years is it getting us what we need and want for students our students succeeding so we're going to be looking at three key areas um number one will be curriculum so we really um in establishing our priority standards and aligning all our
091assessments uh we really want to see how clear are students with these standards and are they actually seeing that they can um reach these skills and so we'll be conducting a student survey um to get some feedback from our students with regards to instruction we spent um a really good amount of time for the first three years um that I was here of really just diving into so what does math instruction in Middle School look like um what should it look like sound like feel like um teachers were all a part of that so what we really want to look at now is how well are our instructional practice actually Meeting those standards so um we'll really um the teachers were actually working with me at the professional development day um on the seventh um
092really trying to identify so what are those teacher practices and student practices that exist within a block time so that 90 minutes in Middle School um so that we can work to build a learning walk form so we can actually take that and actually look at our instructional practices throughout the classroom and then also um then take that form be able to give teacher feedback but then also you know evaluate our our middle school math program and then finally we'll also um be uh investigating progress monitoring and intervention um so really we know uh based on our data that we have students that are not at grade level so we really want to invest when students are not at grade level what processes do we have in place to accelerate their learning so we'll be
093looking at different models and then providing some recommendations at the middle school level that would be um connected to this so that's a little bit about Middle School okay at the high school level over the last couple of years there's been just a lot of things going on in a lot of different areas and so for one we have a new assessment K actually K9 called nwea and so with those new score reports as well as things from the EOC and then you've heard the other two talk about the fact that the Missouri learning standards also pushed out priority standards a couple of years ago and then things that are coming down from the state around the success ready Network and of course our cive goals around uh belonging and relevance and achievement um we
094really at the high school level need to bring all of those things together to come up with a way to write curriculum that is more flexible and meeting all of those things that are laid out in those areas and so the goal of the high school level is really going to be to explore what is the best way to write curriculum so that we can have all of these things talking to each other and so that we can build the best program for students as we move into the future so we're going to be having some new learning documents coming out at the high school level which has been really exciting okay and there I just want to know if you guys have any questions so comprehensive last year well and some of us are
095on the TLA committee and so we uh expressed a lot of our questions during that process the rest of us just believe in you you know outside of uh outside of reading uh math has getting a lot of scrutiny uh nationally and and one of the things and recently just some articles about the relevancy of teaching math and you mention it um so I just I throw it out there it seems like you're addressing that at all levels uh that students who are right today need to see some relevance you know what what is what is all these numbers what does this all mean um so I was happy to hear in high school but I imagine all of you are looking at that that seems to be a theme why you go to here
096Stephanie come on up I was going to say just nationally there's just a huge shift because we know that the level of technology that we have available to our students that that is quickly shifting and changing what our students need in math um they really need more of the critical thinking and application than they do the basic computation because there're so many tools now that are available um to students to be able to do that basic computation so um you know it it's really exciting from a mathematical lens because we've been saying forever right like math needs to have meaning but to actually have as a nation this huge shift it's really exciting for students um as we as we move forward speaking of of Shifting can I just bring up the artificial intelligence issue
097because that is my understanding is that that would fall under the math curriculum um as opposed to science so I'm I'm curious if you if you talked about that and how if is Parkway going to ramp up um teaching about artificial intelligence and that or comes Dr Becker yeah I don't think it actually falls in a specific content area I think what we're seeing is that it crosses multiple content areas because there's so many various uses for artificial intelligence obviously the initial concern for many is plagiarism and so we are certainly working on how do we make sure that our students aren't using artificial intelligence and passing that off as their own work but once we get past that we start to see um I don't know how many of you in your careers outside
098your board of education role and find that there's opportunities where they can do just things so much more efficiently than we can we've used it already in our project Parkway work to try to identify themes within a large set of student comment data that would have previous ly either Tak in hours an hour well I I shouldn't say could have did in the previous versions of project Parkway take hundreds of manh hours of work to you know read through all of those sort them appropriately try to code them they're not can be done in seconds and helping our students understand what are the appropriate uses and what are the powerful uses and what are the ways that um it can supplement our work that doesn't live in necessarily One content area if we're talking about
099learning of the intricacies and how it works we certainly know that we've done a lot about around computer programming and certainly that's going to be an area where we see that now that does actually cross into the high school in particular math curriculum not just high school but at the lower levels as well but there's a lot there that crosses multiple curricular areas whether that be Ela where there's a lot of work going on with AI math with the computer science science with the potentials it has you know to just help um create more power in our our experimentation and and the scientific you know process so I think there's a lot of applications for that I think right now to answer your question Miss Hopper directly and there are about 20 conferences out there
100right now you can go to about Ai and education everybody's trying to learn what are the implications and what are the challenges and and how do we leverage this technology appropriately I think we're still very much at the early stages of that and I know particularly we're getting questions right now just even from colleagues who are like so how do you use this okay yeah like that's where we are in that learning process so I think there's more to come on that but I would not pige hold it into a single curricular area other questions thank you all very much thank you we do have one more thing we'd like to bring to your attention if we could um since we're the stem team uh yeah we wanted you to know that there is actually
101going to be a total solar eclipse coming off across the United States on April 8th 2024 in the St Louis area particularly in Parkway we will be at about 98% somewhere between 96 and 98% coverage so and it is a Monday it is a school day that day so like we did back in 2017 we will be planning an all district viewing event you guys are the first today to get um our solar eclipse glasses we will be providing eclipse glasses to all students and staff in Parkway and we've already started started working with our principles on what that activity will look like for our students for the day um so we just wanted you to know we are thinking about it we are planning for it and we're really excited to have another what
102we keep saying is another once in a-lifetime event but yeah it's another another eclipse so thank you you know I I just we have to you you did such a great job uh in the last time and so it's much appreciated it's a great event yeah it was amazing and it's G to last longer right um well it's it's really interesting this time because we're not in total coverage this time so the experience is going to be a little bit different but if you are in the path of totality yes the length of it is is longer than it was the last time around um average in Parkway last time was about a minute you can go just about an hour hour and a half here and it's anywhere from like two to four minutes
103of totality so it's it's really it's really great I'm taking the day off work and driving Southeast with several friends everybody else in event that's four days after election day you're you're not helping they've been bothering me for months months about the I'll tell everybody about thanks a lot a lot we see if we can find some money for like an all district we pitched that we pitched that thanks a lot we know who to go to next first the next time around we did we didn't prep Mr Todd very well didn't we I I didn't know I I had a great time last years thank you all very much we don't have to wear these the rest of the night you can use them to read [Laughter] this all right Dr Beckner you can't
104leave yet I can't so we'll wait for Dr best to join you and hear about a little more project Parkway well as we heard up front in our U board and superintendent reports we've been doing focus groups and we're tonight we want to provide you an update on those focus groups and some of our next steps um so project Parkway as we all know is an 18-month process that we've been engaged in and we're currently in that last six month well I shouldn't say that we're about to enter the last six month stretch in preparing our next fiveyear strategic plan and in order to get there we are talking to our students our our staff members both certified and non-certified and we have our steering committee talking to parents and other um individuals who might
105not be within those other groups um this is that third phase where we're trying to create uh this plan will actually last until uh we're calling it our path to 2030 we're cheating a little bit right because it'll end in 2029 but it's getting us to the end of this Century so we want to make sure that we do this work well and thoughtfully to put us on a path um for the utmost Student Success and the best experience students can have in our schools so we do have six focus group questions one of which we only ask to the adult audiences but those questions are we start with what are we doing well we want to know what are those things that right now uh we can celebrate and say okay we think we're
106we're doing this and want to make sure we don't lose those things um our steering committee this was their number one question they want to ask they didn't want to ask we know ATT tenant is Nationwide and schools is down we didn't want to ask why do you think kids aren't coming because what makes kids excited to come to school we then asked um what needs to happen to better meet the needs of all students in park we know that we are a very large very diverse District uh we learned at state of the district last year that we're more diverse than 94% of all um districts in the state of Missouri when it comes to race and ethnicity and we know we have lots of learning needs so we've been asking what do we
107need to do to better meet the needs of all of our students in Parkway this is the question we only ask to our staff we share with them the current draft of our vision for a learner that talks about students being critical thinkers empowered Learners resilient individuals and connected citizens from that was hard I almost I almost missed the last one but we got all four of them um which is our draft vision of a learner and ask them if if we want to do these things over the next five years what do we need to do it's a little he for our students so that's why we didn't ask that question of our kids um this is the one where we let them sort of dream we say if you could wave a magic
108wand or snap your fingers to make Parkway schools ideal what would you do and that's a really open-ended question where they get the chance to say whatever it is that's on their mind that they would like to change about our schools and then we give them the chance to just is there anything else that hasn't come up that you want to name um and these have been just an incredible experience and and really amazing to be out with our students out with our teachers um and our staff members so um we have as of now um completed the focus groups at 26 of our 28 schools uh we're not doing Melby primary or um Early Childhood because we're doing fifth grade students eighth grade students and high school students so we have already spoken to
109over 300 of our students and they of course have a variety of opinions and and it's just amazing to hear as Miss Matt Franklin said what they have to say in the value of their opinion um those will be those last two schools will be completed by December 1st and those were just some scheduling conflicts with assemblies and things in the school schedule and then certified staff groups uh We've provided nine opportunities for our certified staff certified staff being our teachers counselors Librarians uh instructional coaches I'm sure I'll leave people out and they'll be upset with me but all of our all of our teachers who or all of our individuals who have teaching certificates or certificated staff um we've spoken to 131 certified staff members and which is a healthy sample we also with
110both our students and our staff member use a random sample process so we didn't do um hand selected invites or principles who do you think we should talk to we literally went through the list and and said hey these are the people just randomly chosen that we would like to speak to and on the student side we did email all parents give them the chance to opt out and not participate uh we only had 12 families choose that out of the 384 who we invited so the vast majority wanted their students to come and give their opinion and share what they were thinking um those uh nine opportunities were actually completed tonight with our certified staff and thank you Mr Schindler for attending that last one thank you also to all the other board members
111who attended one of our student focus groups or our staff focus groups I know our our students don't necessarily know our faces um but our staff does and they appreciate when they see you and so thank you for doing that um support staff uh we want to not um exclude any of our staff members so we are conducting um focus groups with all of these groups those started today and those will wrap up by November the 21st and do Dr home and best is going to share some of the topics that have come out of these good evening again um so as um Miss Matt Franklin said earlier our young people have lots of things to share um with us and so some of the topics that are coming out of the conversation with our
112students include things like lunch and talking about their overall School experiences and and looking at facilities um I like to highlight a couple of these just simply because when you start to listen in the silence or in the gap of what our kids are saying they're just talking about um just wanting good quality food and maybe needing some additional Brain Breaks um throughout the day when they talk about recess or facilities and in a great place to um Play and Learn and be at school um one thing that is resonating and all of our focus groups but especially from our young people is that the relationships that they have is what is keeping them wanting to come to school every single day um their relationship with our staff members whether they be certified or not
113um and their relationship with their peers um and then also what's resonating is their ability to have connections and opportunities that's also a place where they would like to see us grow more um but those are just some topics that the students are sharing back with us in their focus groups staff um you'll also see relationships that's another key piece that U they believe kids are wanting to come to school because of relationships they recognize that K our students and our young people um value their peer-to-peer relationships just as much as they value that adult having that a connected adult or several connected adults when they're in a school setting one thing is also resonating as we speak with our staff is that need to focus more on Equity um that's just coming out whether
114it's from an instructional space or a sense of belonging um and providing relevance as we think about achievement for students um time for teaching and learning um both time for preparing for teaching but also time for them to learn um we heard tonight uh just from a one of our one of our certified staff that like they do do some learning but they would also like time um to practice that and put that in play um they also are reporting back having um an interest in investing in student and staff well-being um and looking at solutions for Staffing shortages um also coming up as more student opportunities and Facilities as well from our staff so as we move forward through our process after the conclusion of our focus groups you'll notice on the 28th the
115steering committee will take a look at the themes that are coming up we'll be back with you at the board workshop on November 30th um to look at our commitments and um looking at our vision for a learner and then in January we'll begin our broad-based surveying through thought exchange where we will take the themes that have come out of the focus groups and then grow broad-based Outreach to the community and allow for more participation and input as we start our 5year strategic planning process and at this time we'll take any questions you may have the only question I would have is do you have a sense yet of ensuring that we're getting um good representation from all areas of the district North Central West South sure think thank you for asking um as we
116when we did our staff focus groups in particular our certified certified staff we did Focus Group by area random selection and so we looked at the North Area and did a random selection of invitation um when we got invitations that were declined we then re invited additional staff members from each area so that we could get at least 10 to 15 um I know we had two at least two or four sessions that had over like 19 staff memb members participating from across the areas and so um we ended up actually splitting up this week on Monday night um west and south because we had so many participants and that's happened to us four times yes what's the most interesting answers you got to the what would you do if you could snap your fingers
117and make school better well our students have lots of interesting ideas that involve things like slides and and trampoline parks and yeah so we s had a lot of a lot of you know kids are kids and they're hilarious right and so we had a lot from our students especially our elementary students you know a lot of just really creative interesting ideas um obviously and and we were able to talk to them and say okay we all probably know that's not going to happen what we're hearing is you want to have more fun and we heard a lot we did hear a lot not just from our students but even from our staff that it feels like over the last several years we've lost a lot of fun so we did hear a lot and
118I think that would be maybe not just a silly interesting answer but just something that was a little bit surprising that we want we want more fun we want school to be a place like people like and enjoy and whether that was talking about you know wanting more field trips or activities or engagement or slides or whatever it was they do want more fun and I I would say that crossed um both our student and staff groups I'd also say that both students and staff recognize that like those public education and education in general is the one thread that binds us all together in some capacity that they're ready to experience it differently and so um when you're looking at the creative answers of the wand um question it's really speaking to them wanting to
119begin to experience teaching and learning in a different capacity and I think the last thing I would add just going back to your question previously of are we getting good representation when you pull a random sample you can get a smaller number of people who are really representing the group we also matched our sample with uh like we just did the nerd stuff and said like what percent of our students are xra do we have that percent in our sample and they were almost spoton U it was really good so we do feel like what we're getting from our focus groups is a really good representation of our student body that first question has been enjoyable because people really you you you almost have to stop them you know they they feel pretty good about
120the district but again around relationships they they kids love their teachers teachers love their kids and uh We've we've really heard some really positive things then of course it goes deeper and then we hear some of the concerns but that's okay I think that that first question has really been been delightful to hear some really good feedback from it from the groups yeah it's been super amazing we you know you the same person would say we love Parkway Parkway is amazing and yeah and they'd go on to tell us all the things that we need to do better so I think there's this real sense exactly what you're saying Dr Marty of lot of lot of positivity about the district with a lot of recognition of all the work that still needs to be done
121and ways that we can get better I I one of the things that I I Nikki's been with me but it's been interesting to hear students talk about inclusion using that term almost all the groups it's been you know they they really value wanting to really recognize the diversity have and but also how much they care about one another and how much they really want to have a a site or a school and in the classrooms that are inclusive uh I don't know if you heard would have heard that 10 years ago but the students really are talking that and that that was really wonderful to hear thank you both very much all right uh we have no special meeting tonight so may have a motion in a second to adourn the regular meeting so
122move second favor oppos car 7 Z thank you all for attending Andor watching about