001so let's call the Open Session to order we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance foreign statement learning today leading tomorrow so next we'll move on to the public comment period This is a time in which uh residents or staff can address the board as you see on the screen here we have a policy that governs this each speaker will be given three minutes to address the board we ask that adults model Civic behavior when addressing the board that being said I'll start off with the first speaker on my list as Bob under thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening with my background I speak to a great number of parents in our region especially in St Louis and St Charles County concerned about the direction of education and the governance of our schools
002and particularly many of them are concerned about application of the Missouri Sunshine Law so as an attorney and as a former state senator who had to follow the Sunshine Law I just would like these remarks to serve as a reminder hopefully a reminder that isn't needed because the district's already following the law Missouri's Sunshine Law is in chapter 610 rismo in states it is the public policy of this state that meetings records votes actions and deliberations of public government bodies be open to the public unless otherwise provided the law shall be liberally construed and it's just exceptions strictly construed to to promote this public policy in other words pretty much everything we do as public officials is open to the public and courts have indeed strictly construed the Sunshine Law exceptions to the law are
003very narrow one such exception relates to Legal causes of action meetings may be closed for quote legal actions causes of action or litigation involving a public government body and any confidential or privileged Communications between a public government body or its representatives and its attorneys note that it does not say that whenever a lawyer is present in the room the body can do whatever it wants in closed session if there is say ongoing and ongoing personal injury lawsuit a school board may go into closed session in order to discuss uh the settlement or whether to go to trial but matters of public and School District policy that may be controversial let us say whether Pride Flags or LGBT groups are allowed on campus whether there's porn in our school libraries or whether girls May boys may
004use girls restrooms these are not the subject of current litigation and they are exactly the kind of issues that must be discussed in public not closed session indeed someday we may get sued that applies to most everything we do as public officials for instance if boys are allowed in girls restrooms someday a girl may be sexually assaulted and you know what there probably will be a lot student probably should be or the ACLU could bring a nuisance lawsuit against you because you keep pouring out of our libraries but these are matters of public policy and open discussion and if you hide behind closed session or hide that related documents we're breaking you're breaking the law the law provides for penalties including attorneys fees and costs for government bodies remember medical members of the district your
005staff your attorneys work for you and you in turn work for the people of our district thank you very much next up I have Harry Dahl everybody my name is Harry Daw 340 Point Loma Boulevard I live uh walking distance to both Liberty High School and Discovery Ridge Elementary School I met with Josh uh I don't know a couple three weeks ago you guys have this coming way when it comes to the number of students that you guys are going to have coming into your district and I don't really think that you have a really good handle I mean maybe you do have a good handle on them but I think when I was talking to him I was like how many kids in the next five years and I think the answer was around
0063 500 kids but not in a million years okay just uh every land guy in the uh in the planet you know for the builders picks up the phone and calls guys like me saying hey do you have anything um you know you have 894 McBride homes going in down Hopewell Road you have another 606 homes going in streets Caledonia you have 45 homes uh being presented it's going to get squashed across from Liberty High School but it's going to be it would be 40 homes you have another 100 homes Summerlin Estates I play poker with the once a month with the guy who's building that new sewer plant down uh Hopewell Road capacity for 18 000 new homes okay two-thirds of those are going to be in the Wentzville School District okay that's not
0073 500 kids uh the last thing I'd say is when you guys are looking at plans for these new buildings take a look at I was talking to Matt Swanson I was like man how come the how come the schools aren't building multi-purpose buildings okay Discovery Ridge Elementary what are you going to do with it in 30 years it's a single-use building you can't turn it into a uh Warehouse building you can't turn it into a distribution center you can't get a semi into it you can't you can't mothball it you can't knock out and put a dock door in it you can't you've got slope and buildings you you don't have flat roofs you can't uh put a drive-in door into it you can't make it an office Center you can't turn it into
008a post office or a bar you can't turn it you can't look with archdiocese to deal with right now okay you have to start looking at your design and say what are we going to do with these buildings 30 and 40 years from now I mean Zumwalt already has open classrooms they've got eight students in classrooms since in in sometimes in some classes they got 35 in other classes so I would take a look at maybe a multi-purpose design okay but you guys are going to have 12 000 new homes you know just because of that sewer plant and I just wanted to you know I mean it's it's it's coming but it's coming in a higher wave than what you guys think it is thank you [Applause] okay moving on superintendent comments Dr Toronto
009thank you Matthew's gonna pull up the presentation real quick for us here we go all right so as we go through the summer we do have a lot of new hires that we'd like to highlight Dr Laura rohaller was our principal at Frontier Middle School and she is now serving as our executive director of student services Dr Jill Klein Smith took over the role of director of data assessment and school Improvement Dr Catherine Greer is joining us as our new principal of Frontier Middle Eric Eubank is joining us as the assistant principal at Frontier Middle and we're excited for the team that we have coming together so this summer too we've wrapped up summer school we also provided some some summer stem programming for students as well so lots of learning occurred last week we
010also um kicked off our planning for next year we brought in all of our administrators for three days of a summer Retreat of really working together around District priorities and procedures and scenarios and it was a great learning opportunity for everyone involved on August 9th we are bringing in all of our First Responders and all of our facility um individuals and our administrators for all of our schools to look at our emergency and crisis planning processes to make sure that we are as tight and as efficient as possible with our communication strategies and our processes for keeping our schools safe and responding in emergency and crisis situations we are very excited to announce actually two really great awards for our transportation department at this year's Missouri people Transportation conference Jack brazel from he's our district
011mechanic he won first place in the Missouri's best school bus technician and inspector competition so we are excited for him to bring home that very deserved award and to be the best in the state and then also from our transportation department Doug Schulte was named driver of the Year by the awards committee and so those are two amazing recognition Statewide recognitions for our transportation department so I'd like to just give a moment for a round of applause for them because that's pretty awesome we also are excited about some of our students who attended the Lewis and Clark career center last year they went to the National level for skills USA competitions and two of our students from the web design team came in sixth in the nation and our student from the nursing category came
012in 22nd in the nation so again those are amazing results too for the caliber of the students that we have here in Wentzville so we can give them a round of applause as well thank you we are excited to talk about just real quickly about care to learn as many of you know we started this non-profit um in the middle of last school year and we are excited to say that for this upcoming school year we have been able to provide every school a clothing closet stocked with all items of clothing and hygiene and things like that and we're also going to be able to provide food uh food banks food closets for our high schools and peers to make sure that we are doing a a good job of starting to meet the health
013hunger and hygiene needs of our students that could be barriers to learning so we're excited about that we also have a partnership with Walmart so if students need other clothing items that we're unable to provide we're able to help assist with that and so I do want to let everybody know our back to school fairs at Liberty High School on Saturday August 12th from 8 to 11 A.M it is a great event all are welcome there will be lots of Community Resources supports supplies and it's a lot a lot of fun and if anybody's willing or wanting to volunteer please reach out just a reminder if you have a student going into kindergarten it definitely is time for us to enroll um and you can do that at your local elementary school and so students
014need to turn five before August 1st 2023 and if so then they're eligible for kindergarten and then we do have some important upcoming dates next week we are bringing in our approximately 150 new Educators to our new educator Summit so they are coming on campus and they will engage in professional learning for several days we also have our staff our 9 and 10 month staff they are returning in the next two weeks as well some are coming back on the 7th the 14th or the 15th depending upon their specific work calendar but we're excited to bring all of our wsd family back to get prepared for the school year we have our back to school kickoffs scheduled so August 14th and 15th we will be celebrating and walking welcoming back each of our feeder patterns
015with all of our staff members and August 21st we will be ready to welcome our students back here at school um we are excited to um report and you'll hear a little bit later from Mr Bishop when he does his HR update the come home campaign has been very successful for this year um residents living in the Wentzville School District and graduates from the Wentzville School District have special opportunities for additional incentives if they come home and join our wsd family and so that's an exciting thing we are looking for positions all positions really are open you can scan the QR code here or go to our district website to see the current available opportunities the last thing is just to highlight again first day of school is August 21st those sweet little kids are
016coming back and we can't wait to have them so with that I'll turn it back thank you Danielle so moving on to the consent agenda I need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented Julie second that was Shannon on the second Matthew she didn't say her name actually supposed to just kidding okay all those in favor say aye hi hi all those opposed okay eyes have it motion carries moving on to reports and presentations I think I'm turning this over to Mr Bishop as it relates to Human Resource Staffing updates push the button that's going to help I'll start by saying this is my first presentation so I'm a little bit nervous so if I stutter or anything like that now that ahead of time um I don't have a clicker either so
017are you going to do it for me Greg oh okay we're gonna hit three kind of big points uh in order to keep the the meeting moving if you've got additional questions at the end please ask but I'm at a really high level overview these things so we're going to talk quickly about the year in review the different things we've done we're out of current reality is with our open positions and then what our future plans are to fill those and moving forward uh so we really focused this year on recruitment events and you'll hear that when we talk about the csip thing we attended over 11 College fairs we hit every state school with the exception in Northwest Missouri State that said I think we've got a very few number of Northwest Missouri State
018teachers but we are trying to get there next year we hosted three different job fairs we've had three career fairs that we attended including technical colleges trying to recruit skilled labor force as well and we had two what we call open interview sessions where people could just come in and interview with us for different positions the referral bonus so we had some good success this year we only offered the referral bonus if you have referred somebody to a job fair and they were hired for that position then they got the referral bonus we are hoping to kind of extend that to any employee who offers a referral we'll get a bonus for that that's something we're working with with Rick Angel Vine to see if we can afford that in our budget but we're hoping
019that will be an additional recruitment effort to help kind of promote and get our own people hiring or referring our own people come home as actor tormal it talked about was a huge success so we had 68 new employees for the come home initiative you can see 87 or 57 of them were Wentzville residents we had two first-year teachers come to Wentzville so they graduated from Wentzville their first teaching job is in Wentzville and we had nine Wentzville grads return as well so we're pretty happy with the way those numbers looked we'll see what next year holds if that's something we're going to continue to do or not but it was absolutely successful in our eyes if you had a chance to talk to our administrators they're going to talk to you their talent levels
020went significantly up they were able to really select from some really highly qualified teachers so we're really excited about that salary increases these were all part of negotiations so our average wage increase was eight percent for the wsd staff 12-month employees not at the cap got a minimum of four thousand dollars I know you guys have heard all this but these are kind of the the focal points of what we did minimum starting wage for all permanent wsd positions was 15 we increased mid-year sub rates to try to be more competitive in getting Subs I wish I could tell you that was overwhelmingly successful it was not we're still having the same issues trying to recruit Subs so we've got to look for different ways obviously money's not going to be the only way to
021do that so you can look at that and see what we've done to try to encourage longevity and people to continue coming back once they've started so that's kind of a quick update on what salary increases looked like so we do do an exit interview we had 102 submissions from 7 122 to present uh the and this is their number one reason for why they were choosing to leave number one was retirement thought closely by personal and family and then compensation was the third number so you can see each one of those there and kind of what that looks like just for an overview so we had 102 submissions we had 330 resignations so one of the things we've done to try to help encourage that a third is not great it's not terrible it
022is not mandatory that do that in order to leave so it is completely optional one of the things we did do is change our platform for how we're doing the exit surveys and we reduced it to make it a little bit easier and less timely for them to do that so we're hoping that we'll see an uptick in that next year as we move forward foreign reality so here's where we're at as of Monday so bus drivers we are 96 full with four percent sitting there now what does that mean that number is based on the 2023 routes so 22 23 routes we have not finished routes for 23-24 so could those numbers change slightly yes they could could they change dramatically if it's what we experienced last year after August we saw retirements and
023resignations I can't predict that we're hoping that doesn't happen but we're in pretty good shape with our drivers better shape than we've been in a long time knock on wood uh custodians we're at an 88 with the 12 percent still needed uh what that amounts to is 16 custodians and three leads so drivers that's a physical number of seven drivers that we need to hire as well IAS we're at an 86 percent number um this one's still really concerning to us we we have a pretty high number of IAS we still need so that's just being very transparent with you um we're working right now we're exploring some additional ideas Pam and I were just talking about we really haven't done job shares with IAS so that's one of the things we're looking at where
024maybe they work in AV day so they work part-time and it makes one roll so there's going to be some different things that we're trying to do there to to encourage you know people to apply that maybe wouldn't have applied before Brian can I just clarifyas are yeah I'm sorry instructional assistance yes in the classrooms good point or some people refer to them as Paras so or teacher assistance yes teachers were in a really good spot we're 99 full so we have seven spots left out of the entire District most of those are sped or they're foreign language we are currently looking towards retired teachers for that so if I've got any retired teachers looking or listening right now that are interested in that make sure you give me a call because the money you
025can make is really really strong and remember you can you can draw your full pension can I do a whole full-scale recruiting play right now so you can draw your full full pension Plus benefits plus a full salary so reach out give pamara a call other support staff that's basically anybody that we didn't identify as a high need area we are 90 percent full uh so we've still got about 10 percent left that we need to go with that future plans again going quickly here we're going to review and revise the application process one of the big things I talk to when I talk to new employees it isn't cumbersome I remember doing it myself a little over a year ago there is a lot to it so that's something we're really trying to simplify
026a little bit and get it down less where it doesn't take you hours to fill the thing out we're going to revise our job posting process and expand the platforms we post to so we currently post to Apple track indeed Mo reap aim edgy openings handshake some on mobile just different things like that we're going to see if there's additional platforms we can expand and see if they work we're tracking the numbers that we get with that so I can give a report on that at a later date if you want to know that but as we want to see where we're getting the volume from how are we getting that in addition to our social media posts and things like that those are things that we're doing as well review and revise the hiring
027process so the other thing we really need to do is expedite the process and procedures for selecting applicants and then for interviewing to the start date there is too big of a window that goes from the time we post a job to the time we close a job to the time we recommend a job to the time that we get somebody hired and we're losing candidates in that process so that's something we're absolutely trying to review and revise right now recruitment and retainment these are just a few things we're talking about I briefly touched on that open interviews we had our first one yesterday uh we were able to to have what looks like eight quality applicants that that are probably going to accept jobs and those are directly related to custodial Child Nutrition services
028and transportation so we're we were pretty excited about that we're going to expand what we're doing with college and Technical fairs we're going to go to more of the technical type fairs looking for some of our maintenance type guys and things in different positions we're having a hard time filling uh the job fairs we've seen success with those uh the problem there is we had something like 25 people show up at our last job fair we only got to hire two so after we got to a point where we interviewed him we got them through the process we were only we only got two of those so we're really trying to figure out what's causing that again I talked about referral incentives and social media ads wage comparison we talked a little bit about that
029that's what led us to determine what the rate the rate of pay needed to be we'll talk briefly when we do our our sip uh where we talked about the comprehensive wage analysis we're pretty close to having that done where we ran into the issue is we did not get the number of job description feedback that we wanted we got a 40 threshold we needed a 60. so we're going to wait and come back in the fall when everybody's back and send that out again to try to get that 60 percent basically what we're asking those people to do is tell us does your job description accurately reflect what you're doing and if not what does it look like and then the company takes that job description Compares it and matches it up with different
030districts both locally and Statewide and and rewrites or helps us rewrite a job description which is more equivalent to what they're doing so then we get a better way to to accurately compare pay moving forward staff recognition one of the things our staff we heard from is they really wanted to get recognized more for some of the great things we're doing they see what Dr tormo does recognizing people at board meetings and things like that so that's one of the things my Department's going to try to do as well all right questions from our board any questions director Lewis yeah Brian with the slide where he had four percent and twelve percent one percent of vacancies yeah at the beginning of last year where did we stand with the bus driver vacancies and how do
031we compare it so we were trying to look up that number yeah um at this time last year we looked pretty good by the time we hit that uh board work session in the first week of August we were in Dire Straits all of a sudden we had about 20 new openings and so we felt like we were in pretty good shape so I'm really hesitant to say that we're in great shape uh but that's that's where we're at this time last year was very similar to the number but then two weeks later we we really took a dip um I'm hoping that won't happen I don't have a reason for why that happened I I've got hearsay reasons that I'd rather not really get into but um okay so that's really where that was
032any other questions from the board I have a question yes I just was curious about Chautauqua Staffing um I didn't see them specifically highlighted but I know that's kind of previously been an issue and you know in terms of number of students they'd allow in the program and things like that yeah so they're part of our other support staff we picked up a couple of talk with people hopefully last yesterday um we're exploring some other options with the director of Chautauqua looking at other possible ways Maybe up to and including people who have completed their A Plus hours maybe that did that at Chautauqua and would like to look at positions before they go to school like high school seniors and stuff like that so those are things we're kicking around none of that's been
033finalized I really want um Miss Kirkpatrick's feedback on that so it's better than where it was this time last year but it's still not where we want it to go a chef I mean please yeah um in a situation where a teacher has left the school district on good terms and whatever reason they left ended up not working out and they wanted to come back is there a wait period for someone to come back or can they be rehired right away as long as they haven't retired they can come back if they've retired then there's a 30-day wait period at least for this year so this is the last year of the retirement waiver unless the government unless the governor extends it but this year you can have a 30-day wait window so for instance
034if you retired and it became effective July 1 we can't technically talk to those people until August 1st that's why some of these positions for like teaching and stuff like that haven't been filled we've got some idea of retired teachers that when they left said they would be interested if that was an opportunity but we don't want to violate their chances for their retirement so we won't talk to them or reach out to them until after August 1st in in a situation just that's not a retirement they just quit and then wanted to come back the the thing the same thing would apply then yeah I'm assuming we're talking about they complete their contract and then they leave for a year or they leave for six months or whatever yeah they would be able to
035come back there's no wait period okay any other questions good job all right thanks so moving on to to Old business 13-1 so the continuous School Improvement plan presentation turning that over to Dr LeBron you taking it okay Jerry's gonna get the clicker so as she's doing that I'll kick it off and then I'm going to turn it over to her so what we have for you tonight is our comprehensive School Improvement Plan update thank you and um our current five-year strategic plan is wrapping up at the end of this school year so we are finalizing um the priorities that the board worked on last year with their board goals that we then aligned with the csip goals to determine the priorities for the 22-23 school year and the 23-24 school year last year we
036also worked with the board to create measurable objectives for each of those priorities and so we are going to report out on that work this process is going to take us um through the two-year period And as we walk through this there are two different types of measures that we have either progress measures or performance measures and so progress measures are more qualitative in nature and performance are more number numbers based and we will categorize things in a progression of a set of three of red yellow and green just because something might be yellow or even red at this point it's not necessarily a bad thing because we're working to get everything to Green by the end of next year so we're excited to be able to show you some of the progress that has
037been made and then we will still have two more updates that will come your way one in Winter of of next I guess 2024 to either December January somewhere in that ballpark and then again at the end of next year at in summer 24 to review the highlights and completion of this csip um I also would just like to note that in um the early fall we are going to kick off our strategic planning processes for the next strategic plan and so that will include some steering committee work we will have Community engagement where the community can come and give feedback to help provide input for the direction of the district for the next Five-Year Plan I'm going to give it over to Jerry good evening everyone thank you guys so much for giving up
038some time for the csip review in going over this we have three main csip goals and I we covered this in one of the community feedback forms as well so three main csip goals that were created in 2019 for the 2019 through 2024 CC iteration additionally we had four current board goals which are outlined above increasing academic achievement improving communication improving school safety and then of course improving culture and climate so with those four board goals we wanted to integrate those with our csip goals to make sure that everything together both csip which is comprehensive for five years and board goals which change as boards evolve matched and married up and so they were all working focused together in One Direction so if you look at this the csip goal one was expanding opportunities and
039experiences for students making sure they're prepared for what comes next um so with that we have three identified goals that are in The Matrix between csip one in each of the four board goals and also if you want to look sorry in that bottom right hand corner of each of those you can see some indicators so Dr tormala talked about progress in performance measures so those little Flags indicate how far we are in our journey with those red either beginning in the implementation have done some of the first steps yellow we're making some some heavy progress in green we have completed that goal and we're continuing on with that so if you'll see two of those goals are shared among two board goals and there are three individuals as we move forward so progress and
040performance measures for ensuring academic achievement for all students so we want to make sure that our administrators and our staff are professionally development goodness professionally developed and that they're all on the same page so we have a level alike building administrators meeting regularly and are making progress in that area so last year they met twice together and not saying that they met twice overall in the whole year they met twice specifically to work on csip work talk about what their sleep Zips look like what are the differences in their building where are they making progress where are they seeing concerns and how are they um progress monitoring going forward additionally we've already had future conversations about next year we have all of those dates plotted out we'll have many more than two we will align
041what our csip looks like so that that is more methodical and consistent throughout the district and those expectations are very similar building to building and even have lots of similarities level to level as well so again yellow in that area we fully expect by winter or next summer that we will be green without an issue one of our areas to grow is definitely our performance measures and so with that we had students 56 percent of our students and you'll have to follow me in the math it gets a little hairy so 56 percent of our students were in quadrant one or quadrant two in math and 57 percent of our students were in quadrant one or quadrant two in ela last year quadrant one and quadrant two two mean either high performance and high growth
042or low performance so students are struggling academically but they're making high growth they're catching up they're moving in the right direction at a rapid pace and so 56 and 57 of our students respectively in math and Ela were in those highest quadrants at the end of 2122 at the end of 22-23 our goal was to have if you'll go back here was to have a 10 percent overall increase as measured by I ready so that's 10 of 56. 10 of 57 like a 10 increase from that percentage so in 2223 we landed at 55 for math 62 for ELA so we are making some market growth in ela still some to be desired you can see the percent change there is nine percent unfortunately in math we did not see those same results so we
043are doing some internal audit review what worked well what didn't work well again with aligning those csip and sharing ideas amongst buildings we're hoping that we can see some math growth we are excited about we'll have I think the um math coaches will be implemented for the second year we'll be making progress there we have a new couple new directors in that area we're very excited about the progress that we're making and the intentional um decisions and intentional paths that we're creating in regard to act services so we are quite hopeful for ELA in making some progress and some changes in the area of math if you look at the next progress measure this is talking about career Pathways and opportunities for Workforce Readiness this is quite exciting I'm talking about how students in high
044school can start following passions for them and start understanding how they can align electives to meet their passions and have more exploration about what their future could look like so you can see that we're Green in this area career Pathways have been developed and clearly outlined we call this our future ready cohort the people who studied and created this initially last minute tweaks coming up they're going to launch action for the Final Phase in Fall of 2024. so essentially we've been working on engagement stakeholder educator we're about to roll out in this seventh grade class that's incoming so the seventh graders that will be in seats on August 21st will be the first students to select courses for high school that's right if you have a seventh grader they're going to be selecting High School
045courses in six months um that are within this future ready and pathways area so students there are five pathways those are being fine-tuned as we speak we'll be ready for rollout on the 10th and students will um kind of have a vision of where they want to go and it's malleable and adjustable and everything counts toward um High School graduation so as we know kids change their mind quite frequently and that's just fine just trying to provide them with some direction some excitement as they're selecting their courses our next one is providing high quality focused PD for all staff we talked about admin collab and PD we've talked about student achievement we hope that that's an indicator that will follow behind you can see that this is green and for some quite exciting reasons so
046this year was the first year we were able to pay for summer professional development and that really spoke to our staff um it was the launch of the summer learning series The Act Services Department got some astronomically positive feedback in regard to the offerings for staff and also the fact that they were able to compensate them um as you can see it says 130 individual life sessions we're excited to Showcase those teachers who earned certain merits for creating those or not for creating for um going through those sessions this summer some of them have gone through multiple sessions and then another exciting point of this is as we embark on our new teacher Summit which is I think the first week of August next week we have 50 personalized sessions so many teachers need similar
047PD as they're coming into a new District right you need to know what's unique to Wentzville what are our expectations what does our curriculum look like what are our structures and resources but also a teacher who is new to the district versus new to the profession need very different professional development a social studies teacher needs different PD than a math teacher a kindergartener a Pre-K teacher needs very different um different access to resources and professional development as a college AP teacher and so the ability to personalize those sessions have some that are streamlined for the for the large group but then also have some delineation and choice in there and we know that when people have Choice they're more invested and when it relates to them better they're more invested and then we hope to
048have the trickle down with the students as well looking into csip gold too um csip girl 2 was about maintaining a safe caring and inclusive environment making sure that we're supporting our kids so that they can meet their number one goal which is academic achievement and learning again you'll see how those intertwine with the board goals and this particular csip goal 2 we have five of them you'll see that one is shared the line the maintaining transparent communication is a shared goal between boards too and our board goals two and four and you can see the flagged indicators on the bottom right hand of each of those we have three areas in regard to continuing to Foster and build relationships with Community Partners supporting the students outside of the classroom we know that if our
049students are supported then they can do their very best and make continued academic progress so one of those is community groups another is the Mercy Clinic partnership and the third is care to learn and talking about those outcomes the Cur the current Community groups you could see that we were yellow we've had continued collaboration and our next goal in order to get to Green is this fall we're working on um becoming very comprehensive and transparent about our community group collaboration we want parents to be able to see which Community groups we collaborate what services those Community groups offer and access to any resources that are provided during that time we do have a very basic outline and sharing of those Partnerships but we want to dig a Little Deeper so that you have full access
050and understanding to what's going on with those Community groups and that will move us to Green once we have that up and live on the website care to learn um you've heard quite a bit about care to learn and rightfully so the advisory Council has been established we've raised over fifty thousand dollars clothing closets in every school and food pantries in the high schools and Pierce Hall great news there and then in addition Mercy Clinic um the numbers again that's a set aside clinic for students and or staff it is individually chosen parent permission like parents take them there we don't have anything to do with it as a district it's just a resource that we offer it has been quite helpful for our staff getting them back in our classrooms often can go over
051their lunch or their plan and get right back to teaching if they're well enough and if not get home and start recuperating the numbers increase significantly in the first year there's a 35 percent increase in visits When comparing early fall to late spring and that's not including I didn't want to put in the cold and flu season numbers because I know November through February is going to be quite inflated and we had probably a 60 increase if you look at those numbers as well um looking at the website Focus I am also speaking for Brent tonight in regard to community relations and Communications so one of their goals was maintaining transparent communication and I think you'll continuously hear that word we're trying to share with our community make sure that you're informed answer any questions
052that you have want to Foster strong relationships and seek that input which I think you've seen over the last year with the additional ways that we've sought input and we'll focus on those in the presentation as well um again progress and performance measures transitioning websites is the progress and the performances those um website survey ratings from the families um looking great in transitioning the website but then a lagging indicator there in how families and communities are navigating that website especially after that transition so that's a focal point for us speaking to the outcomes I've briefed you on that a little bit but again all School web pages have transitioned to new templates we had a couple of ancillary buildings like adaptive education alternative education that needed to be ramped up to the same level that
053our school websites were we've done that they're connected I believe to the Google Calendars the newsletters are embedded trying to maintain some consistency building to building so if you have kids in different buildings or as your child progresses you kind of know what to expect and you don't have to relearn it every single year for every single kid um we did have a little bit of a decrease in finding that what they could find on the website was easy or very easy or extremely easy obviously you don't want or expect a decrease like that especially when you're focused in that area but we are making some targeted changes taking that feedback and communication from what families have given qualitatively and trying to tweak that so that it's more user friendly being very specific and targeted
054and with that hoping that there's some implementation dip as we were transitioning sites building by building this year hoping that as we all transition to one platform as everything starts to look more uniform and consistent and follows the district protocol that that will become much more easy to navigate for families the social media Focus um again in maintaining transparency I think getting families getting Community getting staff and students on board following Along on social media and seeing what good things are happening it's Windows into our schools the communications and community relations department committed to the we are windsville hashtag early last year it was introduced at the kickoff not only has their Department used it but they have also encouraged other buildings and departments to use it and they have seen not only have they
055done it consistently they've seen an increase in the we are Wentzville hashtag picking up um onto a more general focus in regard to progress measure is that communication and strong relationships again we are looking yellow in there again um not the results that we were necessarily looking for but informative nonetheless and provides us targeted feedback so that we continue to make revisions and make progress and move forward in a positive manner so between 2021 and 2023 we did drop um about six and a half seven percent in regard to communication between district and parents being good or excellent some of the things that we're going to work on in reg in that regard is um we've already talked about the website maintaining that consistency making it look more structured more uniform making sure that we
056are branded making sure that what you get from one Elementary looks similar to what you're getting from another that we're providing parents with the same amount of feedback beefing up that District website and providing more opportunities for stakeholder student and staff input so definitely a growth area but feedback has been considered and it's going to be implemented moving forward the next one is um talks about restorative practice um in regard to student discipline so first of all addressing student discipline as it comes to us and you'll see that we revise the code of conduct we'll talk about that a little bit and then second of all I'm putting in some proactive and preventative measures and we can talk a little bit about what we've done there to hopefully um hit some of that discipline before
057it actually occurs so you'll see that our ci3t which is a comprehensive integrated three-tier system of support which I'm sure you're going to remember past two seconds from now essentially it's a three-tiered model what do they need Behavior do they need to belong to that school culture as well what can we do to make sure that all students understand our expectations that we continuously reiterate those expectations and that we model those expectations with all students and then what do we do with the students who struggle a little once in a while what do we do with the students who struggle more frequently and how do we intervene before we have a discipline infraction so again this is ci3t is not unique to discipline that is once our Behavior that's one small facet of ci3t but
058we are rolling out those models to our building teams the leadership teams will be presenting at staff meetings and we'll be working on tier one as soon as we hit the ground running on August 21st with students and then September we'll see tier two and tier three not that we aren't engaging in practices of teaching students expectations or limiting or rectifying if they don't or being preventative but this is just a more systematic way of ensuring that everybody has those same expectations from the get-go and then additionally that code of conduct has been updated and approved by the Board of Education which we're excited to roll that out we had a pretty comprehensive and intensive training complete with staff are complete with scenarios for our administrators last week during our Retreat lots of great questions
059lots of great discussions we had discussions among building admin principles and assistant principles we divided them up in like all the middle all the elementary or all the high got together and discussed we also broke it up where they were in different feeder patterns so maybe a couple people from each Elementary or middle or high were talking together so that not only are we horizontally aligned across the district well first of all aligned within the building then horizontally across the district and then finally vertically as a progression pre-k through 12. admin will be start we'll start training their staff and what those expectations look like as they return and they will roll that out to the the students in those ci3t Tier 1 expectation conversations when they return all right we talked a little bit
060I gave you a glimpse that we'd be talking about stakeholder feedback we're saying that we wanted to add additional avenues for stakeholder feedback which has been done and we this is an area where we don't get green and we're done we're continued to do that continue to refine and improve in that area we increase stakeholder feedback Avenues through culture and climate survey quick surveys in inside the wsd we had a large community engagement event which we were really excited about which showcased this exact document and then a follow-up survey to that as well especially for community members who weren't able to attend which was exciting they were able to look at the presentation and then also provide feedback um we've had more opportunities for stakeholder feedback than in previous years and we want to keep
061moving forward with that we have a board meeting report after each monthly board meeting that shared with staff and community and also current and past issues are now available on the website additionally focusing on connecting with community members that may not be directly connected to our schools perhaps they're indirectly connected they're a resident but they're not a staff and not a student don't have a student in the district but trying to figure out how can we connect with them how can they get our newsletters they can now sign up for those how can we make our website accessible to them and keep them in the know inviting them to those stakeholder events and hear their voices well and I am quite excited as I need a drink to hand this off to talk about implementing
062security upgrades as needed to protect all students and staff in order to provide a safe and learning and working environment safety hi hello thank you good evening uh president Goodson Board of Education uh here to take a walk with you real quick through some progress measures and some performance measures related to uh implementing security so before I started here in 2122 some of the progress measures were a visitor management uh the Raptor system that is complete visitor management system was researched evaluated and selected and installed with training to all applicable staff please report we're in the yellow here but we are pretty much up to date with that the exterior door security system was researched evaluated selected and installed we are done with that the final building was a North Point North Point High those
063are all installed and ready to go we are also continuing to install those where we think they make sense I always want to be working on added security measures uh moving on for 23-24 we have a meeting tomorrow to discuss uh what you see right there interior security system we're hoping to have that done for phase three some of that meeting is going to be talking about Windows safety film secure vestibules things like that so more to come on that foreign outcome I'll read it for our uh our viewers at home watching on YouTube visitor management system the Raptor system has been implemented and every building key fobs have been set up in nearly all district buildings the security committee is currently exploring options for interior security as I mentioned a moment ago uh to
064complete phase three I'm back briefly as your friendly narrator to talk about csip goal number three so again um going with the matrices and the board goals one two three and four we have csip goal three which is to provide Financial Resources to support the ever-changing needs of the students staff and Facilities so this is Staffing and operative in nature um Mr angivine is going to come up and talk about a couple of these as well as Mr Bishop but looking at these it's focusing on attracting and retaining staff again you can see that that's in the green continuing to be proactive and financial planning for growth green we've got a red and a green on this one so we had a qualitative and a quantitative measure providing and maintaining safe clean and aesthetically pleasing
065facilities that accommodate student growth and also really honing in on improving and upgrading those older facilities and then finally looking at those competitive salary and benefit packages as Mr Bishop showcased previously and that is in the green according to what the goal setting was and really making sure that we're competitive with our area districts all right I'm just going to do it from here because I don't like my back facing everybody so I think it's kind of rude so I'm going to break the mold here and do it right here so looking at this it's a collaborative effort between the human resources department and the academic Services Department the updating of the first and second year Mentor plans are directors of early or secondary and Elementary education are the ones that wrote those they went
066through and set up a pretty high standard one that we the feedback given was pretty positive on the support that they felt like they were getting that area has become more and more important as you guys know the number of Educators at a very young age or young part of their career are leaving and so part of that feedback Nationwide is that they need better mentoring plans better support systems in place and we did that with teachers I would like to kind of continue to extend that to some of our support staff positions hooking them up with mentors and looking at plans for that so that's on there our second measurement was collaborate with four universities we actually met with 10 this year we talked about going into 11 different job fairs or college fairs
067with them the double up was UMSL we met with them in the fall and then again in the spring so we've got some pretty good relationships there we're really working closely with a couple of them to play student teachers and working to get them here in the first semester and then figuring out how we can hire them so they don't leave Wentzville in the second semester with our administrators same thing we talked about with our teachers a lot of burnout from administrators they're leaving the profession very quickly the average administrator life right now is two to three years and then they move on to another or they go back to the classroom so we help five new administrator meetings this year and completed a book study with them on things a lot of that was
068bringing in their current administrators having them talk to them about what has worked best for them and then mentoring them throughout the year assigning them a designated Mentor so you can see the outcomes I really hit on a lot of those already kind of at the bottom if you look at that PD surveys those are things that they're going on through the academic Services same with the opportunities for staff we we promoted continuing education one of the things we intentionally did this year in the salary structure when we rewrote it is for our new new teachers it's set up in a place where their highest steps will be kind of along the line so as they as they progress in their education if they follow the path that's prescribed which is every three years they'll
069get their maximum number of raise they can get if they fall out of that then they can get back into that but that's really designed to help continue to get their continued education which is incredibly important in order for them to remain certified they have to have that continuing education to remain certified regarding csip in the financial area we had six performance measures we have completed all six performance measures what they were first of all to continue to be proactive in financial planning we of course had to perform at demographic study that demographic study as you know has been has been done and we're in the process of analyzing that right now we were to obtain a third party consultant to outline new investment strategy we have hired that third party consultant and we have
070got our new investment strategy in place uh we have already well last year when that investment strategy was put into place we have already uh I collected more than two million dollars more on our investments annually than we previously did granted most of that is because of the increase in the Federal Reserve interest rates but at the same time uh it's a very good strategy and we move forward with that the fourth the fourth item was develop a long-range five-year Capital plan which includes the reach Early Childhood Center newer updated welding facility phase three of the security plan and major HVAC and maintenance needs that Five-Year Plan was included in the budget that was given to you in June and all those items to the degree that we're going to do them has been planned
071and is in that five and is in that budget fifth item plan proactively to maintain a 25 operating fund balance and keep The Debt Service balance within legal requirements we have done that and we are currently as we closed out the year at a 27 operating fund balance last item include a five-year financial plan for all funds in the annual budget all funds Have A Five-Year Plan and are all positive Rick did you steal the clicker didn't have that oh never mind just me again uh here to talk about um some progress measures related to new construction and progress measures for maintaining older buildings as you can see progress measures for new construction has a three-year Outlook from 22 to 25 and the lower one for maintaining some of our older facilities has a my
072division is bad is that 22 23 a two year outlook so starting from the top perform a demographic study my eyes are horrible so I'm going to go referring to this you're with me one second perform a demographic study to determine the need for new schools and design and choose options for a new reach and Early Childhood Center also design and choose options for a new updated or updated welding facility I'm pleased to let everybody know in the room that the welding facility is about 95 designed so when we go to make some of those changes at Holt High School some of that existing welding shop over there will have that ready to go so while that red was up there wherever it went don't be discouraged by that that's actually pretty good thank you
073Dr LeBron 23-24 finalized detailed drawings for reach in early childhood that will be a finalization of the design that we're currently working through right now that design is at 90 percent for reach in the early childhood buildings looking forward to hopefully hopefully presenting that to you soon and hopefully uh you guys vote Yes on building an early childhood or Reach Center and maybe early childhood also obtaining bids to build the the welding facility and then start that construction for the reach in early childhood uh 24 and 25 hopefully that will be green and uh will be complete with all this construction that uh we're hoping to get completed some of the progress measures that uh specifically pertain to the older facilities maintenance will complete the plan District bipolar ionization schedule that was underway and completed
074before I began in this District those are all installed and operating and maintenance will also complete the construction of a lactation facilities in all required buildings that was also done before I started in this District so uh the superintendent will conduct facility walks at all the buildings with principals CFO and executive directors of facilities and maintenance Dr tormala take care of all most of those walks before I started here and just to double check her work I came in and redid them all as well and so what I did was took all of that data and I was able to plug it in and and and and pair all of that with an energy study and uh soon I'm hoping to have all that information uh completely done here uh this week and maybe uh
075we can talk about that sometime soon but uh Josh so we can let them know that some of these items will be on the August 24th board meeting during the regularly scheduled board meeting and then we also have a special board work session on August 29th where we will really talk about all things facilities the energy study building capacity things like that so the conversation about growth in the district where we're going to start engaging in that process here in August absolutely I'm excited to share that with the room and whoever whoever wants to sit and have a conversation about that as I call it the facilities Wentzville facilities Bible because there's a lot of information there from playgrounds to buried utilities to fiber to energy study there's a lot of information so I'm looking
076forward to uh being very busy here in the next probably five years of uh we end up building so the outcome again for our viewers at home demographic studies complete and under review by the Admin team the design options for reaching early childhood and Welding Facility have been created the board will be focusing on those items as Dr tormwell pointed out at the schedule regular scheduled August 24th board meeting and then the special board work session on the 29th thanks okay so I'm not going to belabor the point this is really what the human resources update was all about so you can see we we did complete within 75 percent of that to a hundred so a couple of quick outcomes I want to hit that we didn't talk about before two of the big
077things we did if you can flip to there you go uh interest-based bargaining and after each negotiation you heard the different groups come up and talk about the benefit of interest-based bargaining so that was a pretty productive and and satisfying experience for everybody involved and and the union said that that the district had said that the board members had had a chance to be involved with that said that so it really went a long way in establishing what we were trying to build which was trust and a feeling of being valued and things like that I already talked about minimum pay up to 15 talked about 12 month employees not currently the cap getting four thousand dollars and then our hourly employees received at least a dollar an hour raise so those were kind of
078the big outcomes from that so we feel good about that although that was green that's an ongoing effort that's something that we have to continue to stay on top of part of the reason we got where we were at is we weren't staying on top of that so that's something that really needs to continue to be focused on and we'll work a lot with our Union and with Mr Andrew and the CFO to see how we can make sure those things are occurring foreign as we wrap up the three different csip goals that combine with those board goals we've given you an overview of what that looks like where we are year to date we've been through six months of the iterations of this progress and we have another 12 months to go as Dr
079tormala said we'll have an update in the winter and then again another update next summer and we will also in the next 12 months begin embarking on our next csip which will take us 25 through 20 or 24 25 through 29. so exciting times any questions from the board president Goodson vice presidents Julie um so I think we should just go ahead and dive into the student achievement what do you guys think about that so um I did want to have a discussion surrounding the i-Ready data I know you didn't provide a um more specific breakdown in this high level presentation but you did provide that to the board um a breakdown by school by grades well I don't know about grades but anyway you provided a very specific breakdown I kind of wanted to
080learn more about the stretch growth data and what that means for our students and where our students are and how that correlates with quadrants and things like that I'm gonna let Dr Brett Schneider speak to that as she oversees academic services and give you the most specific information I'm good back here um so one of your first questions was proficiency by grade level so I do have that information for you I can share that with you um we currently um we broke it down by grade level I had Jill kind of pull that data for you because I know you wanted some of that proficiency um and so we take our ready through eighth grade and so when kids are assessed in the fall and they're given their beginning Benchmark when they come in typically
081the first few weeks of school we use that data and what iready does is they formulate the stretch growth targets what they typically look at is how far kids have to go within a three-year period so what we do is we have conversations with kids about how we can break down those increments to begin closing gaps over those three years those goals are set individually with each student by the company I already sets those measures for us so it's not something that a teacher is you know taking numbers and just formulating what they think think and where they think they should be it is done through the curriculum Associates in the I ready assessment in reading and in math so are you are you able to provide us just a roundabout I mean I don't
082want to ask you for a specific number and put you on the spot but just around about where where are the students where are our students k through eight on meeting their stretch growth um their stretch growth I don't have their stretch growth in front of me I have Proficiency in front of me but I'm happy to pull stretch growth and give that to you um do you want me to share with you proficiency numbers by grade level um sure I mean you can have that yeah I mean I was again I think it's important I mean it's it's very positive to see the growth in our in our students but um I think it's also interest it would be beneficial for the board to hear what that means with stretch because as Dr tormala
083said this is going to take some time so we just having a better understanding of that yeah so if we look at um typically we can't tip we don't typically talk about growth until winter obviously because we have to have two measures to calculate that so in some of that documentation I shared yesterday when we ended the year last year my mouse doesn't want to work now our overall placement as a district was about 63 percent proficient um so when we look at just looking at that um you know as a whole we obviously want to get better in those regards I can pull that data that stretch growth data I believe it was included in that information yesterday as a district last year ending in March we had about so our median progress towards
084typical growth for all schools in the district was about 129 percent for typical growth and so that is saying that based on their Baseline placement level and where they ended the year typically mid-year we look at kids to be about 50 percent growth that's kind of how we gauge instructionally if we need to make changes and what changes need to be made and so to end the year above 100 for typical growth is is good is really good so I will definitely pull that stretch growth information for you I do have another question but I does anybody I don't want to monopolize the conversation on achievement any other questions from the board go ahead vice president store um can you also I mean I mean and this was a question that I asked about it
085when will we be able to offer them and implement success plans for them so we currently um we actually had our first academic Services meeting today with our new staff so that was really exciting when we're looking at reading success plans within the school district um we currently address some of the components around the reading success plans currently in our C step we look at academic achievement we look at growth we look at attendance how attendance impacts education and when we are looking through our reading success plan we will be implementing to start the year meaning we will take our first Benchmark in August and then our reading success plan as a district what we're doing is still taking our literacy plan our dyslexia plan aligning those to the new standards and then after our
086first Benchmark those those processes will be in place parents should be notified I would think around conference time which is about the end of October you know it could happen prior to that as well when we look at just some of the different interventions and how we can Implement them in the classroom and then outside of the classroom based on scores and numbers within each individual building so as we talk about interventions um obviously that's going to look different building to building classroom to classroom will students have access to the same resources throughout the district so we do we have access we do guarantee access to all of the same resources there are some buildings within the district that have made some additional purchases with title funds and that's just based on need and some
087of the things that they're seeing from their kids at school we you know reading strategies within the classroom are less left to teachers discretion we do follow our curriculum and we do use our resources that are provided um we also have added my path reading for this year so students will be able to have some differentiation and some intervention within um the class that is that is based off of their i-Ready score and some deficits that they're seeing within that work but we do allow for buildings to purchase additional materials based on needs of what they're seeing by their from their kids we have all of our reading Specialists are currently being either in year one or year two of letters training all of our literacy coaches are going to should end the year and
088all be facilitators by the end of the year so we're really excited to have that opportunity within the district and just really going through we're currently in a Ela adoption cycle now so we're in phase two starting this year which means we will have of reading materials that we'll begin looking at for next year that are based in the science of reading we're really excited about that is it van Goodson may I add clarification to the reading success plan thank you um vice president stully in addition to the reading success plan and looking at those um I ready results from the August assessment period we also still have results from the spring assessment period and so we already know students that we've targeted last year students that should be on the radar moving in to
089the very beginning of the year teachers are already going to be made aware of that they will have those informal plans in place start talking about placement for intervention and and the sort but also we want to make sure that we have in addition to that we want to make sure that we have a good read and assessment on them in August because students could have progressed over the summer but it is very possible that students could have summer slide in reading and we want to make sure we that have a real-time assessment of where they are and not just go on what we have in May so in addition to what Dr Brett Schneider said in regard to identifying those students who are flagged in August we will also be taking a look back
090at May to see if we have any things that we need to address immediately thank you just to kind of expand on that too Jerry is so at the end of the year in all the buildings the reading specialist worked within the buildings to identify any child that was flagged like tier one tier two tier three and then they actually went ahead and worked with teachers to start making caseloads so they could begin immediately assessing and placing kids during the first few few weeks of school which that's great because typically within schools trying to collect the data and get them all organized and get them ready to go it you know it can take a little bit of time but they're they're ready to go and hit the ground running when we get back and
091get started secretary Eliza thank you for everybody could you tell us what a reading success plan is who qualifies and then it sounds like if we have the data from May and then at the beginning of the school year in August according to i-Ready why would just explain to me why we would be waiting until October to put children who are on and maybe I'm misunderstanding to put them on the reading success plan you're correct Katie we're not waiting until October to start reading intervention we will have the data way before then but part of the reading success plan part of the law states that notifying parents having a meeting or a conference with parents letting them know things that can be done at home and just some of those different things those meetings typically
092it's natural for them to happen around parent-teacher conference time but we're not opposed to having them earlier if we need to we in no way will hold kids back from starting intervention they will start as soon as we possibly can sorry for that confusion so what is a reading and success plan and who qualifies so when we sorry when we look at reading success plans within the school district so um it is part of Missouri's new literacy initiative um within the state um and what that does is it says there's different criteria for each grade level and so we look at where kiddos are falling behind within each of the five domains of reading if kids are identified at risk within the area of phonics phonemic awareness fluency vocabulary and comprehension then we would write
093a specific plan to address the needs ensure that a goal is written and action steps are compo are written as well and shared with families that intervention based or that research-based interventions are provided for those kiddos and that we are taking progress monitoring so we're monitoring those kiddos along the way and then sharing that information with parents so currently the parts that we have in place I was very pleasantly Supply surprised today is we have kind of our template finished our processes ironed out we did some scenario work with administrators last week and we really look at on August 9th just really digging into administrators on facilitating that process because we do think it is going to be more kids than we typically talk about especially when we look specifically within each domain of reading
094and so you know we look forward to to teaching the administrators and working with them to ensure that we're meeting all kids needs does that help okay other questions sorry I have more questions sure so when the parents are brought in you said you were gonna that we're gonna bring parents in so that they have an understanding of the reading success plans do they have input on the reading success plans I think absolutely yes I think we are always looking to collaborate with families and with parents about um you know what what deficits and things that you're seeing with your child um so that that is definitely the point of having that collaborative conversation is showing here's the data that we have this is the plan that we have these are some resources that can
095help you at home but also what input do you have and what you know what part of this plan will will parents be a part of I have a question if I may yes so you're saying that we're not waiting but normally the communication with parents is happening during parent-teacher conference which is in October so would it be appropriate to send out the communication maybe the first or second week of school saying we have identified your child and then maybe get that ball rolling a little sooner so that letter piece that communication piece is a very easy piece to to get together and send out we have form a form letter that we plan on using and so we've definitely talked about that so the paperwork piece to that will definitely go out prior to
096that opportunity to have a parent-teacher conference in October I can't say that it's going to be the first week or second week of school though I was meaning like before conferences yeah other questions comments from the board Mr President Goodson yes so I'm glad to see that we're moving forward on on the reading success plans but I would be remiss if I didn't Express that I I I do want to express a little disappointment on behalf of our students and the teachers this is something that I believe that we could have had ready to go at the beginning of the school year um and I know that's in the past but like I said I I would be remiss to not express that I'm glad to see it move forward parents I do absolutely I
097think it's positive that we're we're allowing them to have input but I would also add um are do we communicate the i-Ready scores to parents within Tyler sis so there is a parent report that iready actually produces that curriculum associate produces buildings have discretion whether or not they send out and so that is also one thing that we're looking at this year is just really Shoring up those practices we've been talking a lot about transparency and consistency and so that definitely would be a step in the right direction so I would agree with that and I I strongly agree so much that I mean I I guess I would seek board support in a board direction that we um we don't lead leave that out at a building discretion it's important for parents to understand
098where their students are so students can reach um student achievement as soon as possible so I would definitely look for support and Direction with that and I don't think this requires emotion but I I would like to request that that we schedule a Workshop as soon as possible I know we have a lot of stuff coming up in August Dr tarmala but maybe September just so you guys can break down for the board our district literacy plan what that all entails and speak more specifically to that and looking to the rest of the board just for input on that I just have a question for clarification so parents cannot go on to Tyler sis and access their own child's i-Ready scores and then it's the discretion of the individual building whether or not the parents
099get that data just for clarification so iready provides a parent report so it's what it does is it produces and I'm remembering off the top of my head I haven't looked in just a second but um it what it does is it produces a score what the score is by each domain so the level that the kids fall within that and then some just like instructional points things to do what they've mastered and what where they kind of need to go to to help and to assist um so that is what the parent report looks like you run it in a batch report it's a bit you know it's a big job so it it was not common practice that all buildings sent that information home if parents requested it a lot of times we
100have those reports printed at parent-teacher conferences and they would hand those out um you know so that so that is kind of what the parent report is as far as the scores being in CIS K-12 I am I don't know the answer to that question I'll have to find out um the parent report though for iready is much better than just what you'll get for a scale score it'll just make a lot more sense to parents bye May oh I was just going to add real quick but there's not a problem for Katie to give a directive to the school principals to say let's send it out send it you know send it out by XYZ date that's not a problem thank you so basically there's benchmarks where they take the I ready and after
101each iready test is taken then the teacher could just blast it out to all the parents in the classroom what their kids score was yeah it's just a report that you print it would be a piece of paper that you sent that you print and send home okay so and I'm sure it could be downloaded as a PDF that might be a little more difficult for them to than upload to each individual email but yeah and I have uh I just wanna you know I agree with um vice president Stoli you know um so many times our students have been our and our parents have been told they're going to grow they're going to grow just wait just wait okay we're done with waiting we just need to let's go so so go ahead I
102appreciate that sentiment and we don't have any problem at all sharing those reports share sharing in the workshop we're excited to embark on this we're also excited to start getting that map data more consistently to it and in an expedited manner so that we can start sharing goals around map data as well um to my knowledge I was going to answer I don't believe that the i-Ready is uploaded into CIS the iready scores so I don't think that that's accessible even from an internal view um and so we would have to pull that report like Katie said from iready and send those out but again I I think that would be absolutely beneficial I've received those reports as a parent and again that's something that we can Shore up moving forward of consistency building to
103building because I think that would be very helpful um and I forgot I was gonna say one more thing but um I think that like Katie said her her team was finally able to get together we have um I think 60 of her department is new and a majority of those people work directly in that Elementary domain as well and so we are thrilled to be able to hit the ground running and work together and collaborate to make sure um that we are moving in the right direction because like you said um you can't be fast enough so I appreciate the sentiment and we're ready to take on that challenge so so my two two things can I yeah maybe a chance maybe um so so I do agree with the sentiment around um consistency
104with reporting we're using this data for a number of our decision making and so each building should be treated the same way you know each parent should have an ability to see that data obviously partnering with parents you know sharing where their shortcomings and their students can be is only going to help the relationship with the school and so there's 100 percent should be consistency to ask around the September Workshop I I think that's fair I think we don't have to delineate today what that looks like exactly but but uh vice president Stoli I'm happy for you to take the lead in what that agenda could look like and make sure that we're on the same page as a board and administration thank you and I I would obviously want to collaborate with the people
105up here to see what that should include any other questions comments um I do have one more question so we're talking a lot about I ready is there any other benchmarks any other um testing or anything else that is used to determine a student's achievement or struggles so we have several assessments within the school district um so there are a number of Assessments that we use especially early at the beginning of the year we do a kindergarten Readiness assessment to ensure that kids are you know ready and and can you know be a part of the kindergarten experience so that is information that can be reported out and shared we do letter naming letter sound you know within some of those early grades we take something called the qpa which is the quick phonics assessment
106just to kind of get a quick idea of where kids are falling with their Phonics work I'm blanking on the other one it's another acronym with phonemic awareness we do PPA qpa past is phonemic awareness fontus and panels so they get a reading level um just to kind of see where they are coming in then we Benchmark and I ready typically that I want to say it's probably we start the second week of school now that we go that first full week it's usually that second week and that's in reading and math so we're able to see the different domains within math as well teachers at the beginning are constantly informally assessing and so that's all good anecdotal information too currently we are really excited because at the secondary level in the high school we're
107looking at NWA it's called map testing measures of academic progress not like our map test for Missouri but what that's going to allow us to do for high school students is Benchmark our kiddos along the way and some of those specific EOC areas that we those and of course exam areas that we test in we did a training with high school administrators last week and they were really excited to have just general reading and math information on their high school kids so that's something we're looking at and then we also use act data and some of those some of that pre-work with act to make some of those decisions too so yeah oh and advanced placement I'm sorry but did I forget any other ones that's a whole mouthful of a map and EOC at
108the end of the year so and those are just I mean there's there's a lot that we're doing throughout the year um so so a lot goes into that decision and that's why we don't make all of our decisions just based on one assessment we look at that as assessment profile and how we can best meet the needs of that kiddo in those different areas So speaking of the assessments we just we just talked about iready so I think it would also be beneficial for our students to the parents have that information too have those different indicators and and have that consistent building to building I know that's a lot of Assessments but I don't doubt parents would definitely want to know where they're where their students are and then back to when you said
109teachers are constantly doing assessments what what assessment is that that we do are you speaking to the Running Records um just informal assessments or unit assessments um you know things that they're doing sometimes it's anecdotal note-taking to see how kids are doing along the way conferring with readers conferring with writers there's a lot of ways to formatively and summatively assess I can't say that that is cookie cutter for each classroom it's really kind of what's working for the teachers how they're grouping students and assessing students along the way but when you're talking about a report just kind of a comprehensive report of assessment we do have specific things that we enter into our edge of climber program I mean it does print off a really nice PDF report that we could share and find a
110way we just have to find a way to kind of manage all of that paper because it it prints pretty big so just kind of condensing that a little bit but seeing what that looks like so I can definitely look in to that Shannon maybe we can have a conversation about that outside of here okay any other questions comments so I need a I'm going to need a motion from the board here to approve the continuous School Improvement plan July 2023 update as presented yeah before we do I just wanted to clarify were their directives given in that little bit I think so did you have any that you wanted to that you were I think I think they're clear on the directives right it was just I just wanted to write them down yeah
111okay just our literacy Workshop sharing the assessments with families and that was it that was it you broadened it it wasn't just I already assessments it was the EEOC and the others yeah okay Benihana just wanted to clarify thank you yeah okay do I have a motion motion okay do I have a second 's David all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries so moving on to new business 14.1 we've got regulation zero four one one here pulled uh director Hankey and you and I discussed this yesterday I think is largely for discussion purposes of the board maybe not necessarily a motion to change anything but did you want to kick that up right yep so really the only thing is just two items on this policy just the order of
112our meetings um just adding like a roll call attendance of who is in attendance in the meeting mainly board members and then with notation of in-person or virtual just for better documentation was my purpose on that and at the end of the meeting just have board comments if anyone wants to say anything additional or um possibly ask for an item to be added to another meeting um just kind of a board comment so I would agree with both of those things so can we can I take and break those down because we talked a little bit about it so in the first one I think your concern was around documentation of who's you know virtual or who's in attendance at certain meetings and certainly that needs to be reflected in our minutes that way and
113then thus we approved those things I think you also maybe maybe the way to improve that was to actually go and say I'm here here or virtual you know to me it should I think you can just make sure that this is what's included in the minutes and to make sure the notation between virtual and in person is captured in those minutes I think you said looking back we may not have shown that so I do think making sure our documentation in the minutes reflect those two realities I'm not a big proponent necessarily of raising my hand to say I'm here but you know maybe I'm old school um but I think making that that delineation clear and then when we're approving minutes making sure that those things are captured going forward I think that's
114really our governance around the documentation because even if I say I'm here and then the minutes don't reflect that then we're missing that piece so and then I I think I agree that if we do have someone virtual I think there was some feedback that if there's a board member that's virtual I think having me call out kind of at the beginning of the meeting hey we have director Scott or director Hankey on on Virtual and therefore you know for those at home or in the meeting you may hear a voice from the speakers so that's just clear as we start the meetings for those that are in attendance in person as well virtual so I think that's an easy add to the process does the board agree with that like just make sure the
115minutes are reflective of that I I don't know if that I don't want to raise my hand that's just my personal view I don't know if that's generally agreed but I think cleaning up the documentation and sharing our minutes of reflecting both who's in attendance virtually and in person making a notation to say who is in person before we start the meeting so that's clear I think is what I would recommend but president Goodson man yes so I would agree with that as far as attendance goes okay let's see no disagreements your name yeah I was just kind of I mean if I think there's a good idea for the you know other board members that we wanted to do I'm here or just make sure that it's noted yeah that's kind of what I'm
116looking for fine I I don't like raising my hand either but I think making sure I mean like I said if if it's clear in from our minutes it's not clear then that needs to be fixed I agree with that so I think there's maybe consensus on that the other point kind of got dropped are you going I was going to go to that next that's just a serially trying to address okay okay oh sorry just to be clear at the beginning of every meeting if someone is virtual you're gonna say so and so is virtual you might hear them on speakers because I know that sometimes when viewing from home online it's really hard to hear that so I don't know if we can address that too eventually like have maybe yeah maybe Greg
117look into it or like a microphone right next to the computer yeah got it oh okay go to me I agree I agree with that yeah okay so then board member comments any thoughts from the board on that I don't know I guess putting a oops I'm sorry go ahead because you did it the right way you addressed him that's right shame on you director loose I think the intent here is that the challenge is as a new person that I've seen is how do I communicate and in some ways to to the people about things that weren't on the agenda and it's it's not anything worth shattering but in some cases there's things that I feel like should be shared hey we you know the reason why you look at the consent agenda and
118it was so long and there's no discussion on it I mean we went through nauseum going through and looking at those and we asked a ton of questions that got clarification that made it easier for us to understand as an example and maybe that's too simple of a statement but there's there's times when things like that I think might be appropriate and I'd like to see that at the at the end of the meeting there you go there you go I'm sorry Katie my bad secretary Eliza no I'm in support of comments I guess my stipulation would be not necessarily A Time requirement but that it's actually like on topic and not like a closing soliloquy you know it's not a soap box I guess that's kind of the but you know I guess that's
119kind of my thing director Olsen I forgot what I was going to say Katie I think you're going to say that we had 85 questions that we asked this past week so we bombarded the staff with a lot of stuff because of the volume president um so I guess I'm hearing two different things from director Henke a board member comments versus questions um so I guess I would like a little bit more clarification on what you consider to be board comments and what the purpose of that is um like where that's coming from comments like I said just um you know if somebody just wants to explain something or ask for an item to be on the next agenda clarification I know um like the city of Wentzville Alderman they wish everyone a happy Fourth
120of July just something it doesn't mean that every meeting someone would say something but just give that opportunity there um and then and that is my purpose just to give every board member that opportunity to make a comment if they wanted to and if I can ask another question and kind of to Katie's point where are the parameters around that so it doesn't go on to a soapbox of an infinite number of things in terms of keeping on track like who's policing that because obviously we'd have to do that for ourselves but I mean I I'm not a huge fan of it to be completely honest with you I think there are ways for um communication with the community so me personally I'm not a fan of of board comment section to um to the
121agenda so yeah director Olsen I what I would probably be in favor or be willing to accept a time limit on this like you know somebody can't talk for 30 minutes or whatever just a reasonable amount of time for a board member to make whatever board comments or comments they want as a board member however on the content of whatever they're talking about I don't think it's a good idea for us to put any parameters on that you're going to be speaking in Your Capacity as a board member you're going to self-police yourself as far as the appropriateness of what you're talking about but you have every right in my opinion to speak in that in that time frame if that's what it's designated for as board member comments I think and I think that's
122fair director Olson I think maybe where director Scott's comments come or where some of my thoughts are I think that's fair as long as there's an understanding because I think we know how we work as it relates to for example agenda items one may be requested but then you know privately we decide that the timing isn't the next meeting it's three months from now or that you know the comment being made isn't actually direction to Danielle to do something you can be saying that but that doesn't mean necessarily the board majority says Dr tormal and staff will do XYZ because of those comments and so that you know I think it's all fair I can be supportive of that but I think that's maybe where the the gray needs to be solved for that it's
123not setting an expectation that's different than what ends up happening so we have a disconnect between either what we've said publicly in the public then expects versus what ends up happening so that that's I mean I don't know if it's parameters or how you call that but I think those guidelines are important too it's not necessarily direction or may not be the exact time frame you know that's that's kind of what I'm thinking about thank you I would I would agree with that having a non-directive board member comment section so if somebody were to say I would like I don't know lunch menu on the next agenda you would probably just be throwing that as a suggestion instead of a directive right right that's my idea about on the board it's no directive it's just
124if um yeah you just want to say something so it's a reasonable amount of time we give the public three minutes they can talk about whatever they want just give the board the same opportunity other thoughts I agree that's fair we also have the opportunity to speak during the meeting for any amount of length of time that we you know desire I suppose so I mean three minutes seems like a long time can I have two members of the board volunteer to come up with some guidelines that would at least just structure this in a way and take this offline and then come back with the board I'll volunteer yep okay I'll do that too president Goodson yes first of all you just stole my thunder uh second of all um we do have a
125former board director in the audience today and board president so maybe the two of you could get some feedback about not right now but about how that worked before did you just assign Dale some work I did not so I signed I think we should look to to pass board presidents to see I think that should be good practices okay yeah what worked what didn't what was effective what was productive so okay any other thoughts on this sir okay so let's move on to 14.2 so this is a dress code consideration uh and clarification I think I'm actually going to hand this to Dr tormala to kick off some comments as they head into the start of the school year okay so um last week at our board retreat or not board retreat sorry admin
126Retreat we had conversations around dress code clarification last year I heard a lot of comments from parents and community members about concerns around tightening up our dress code and so we spent time at that that work session to really go through our current policy talk about what is or isn't working at our schools we tightened up some language that we'll share with you here in a second just to provide additional clarification and then um Pat Brazzle also went through with the administrators on a pretty lengthy presentation and put them through some scenarios too like discipline scenarios and conversations around student dress code so in the link uh Matthew if you want to pull up the document we'll kind of walk through it so current board policy really talks about Community standards um and it's policy
1272651 on student dress so it says the Board of Education expects expects student dress and grooming that align with Community standards so that each student may share in promoting a climate of belonging with which the value and worth of every student is honored within the school district this expectation includes the school day and school sponsored extracurricular activities the board may require students to wear a school uniform so that is an option students shall observe modes of dress and standards of personal grooming that align with the educational environment and necessary to maintain an orderly and safe atmosphere for all students apparel is expected to conform to reasonable student standards of modesty and as such no excessive or inappropriate areas of skin or undergarments may be exposed no apparel or grooming is permitted that has the potential
128to incite conflict and violence including but not limited to gang-related messages hate bias symbols sexually explicit vulgar violent messages or advocating illegal activities further no clothing or personal grooming that disrupts or can be forecasted to disrupt the educational environment is permitted so that's our policy and so we went through and kind of researched some other clarifications that some other districts have had and worked with the administrators to tighten it up a little bit so while I think that policy really does cover what we should expect in our schools we wanted to Define it a little bit further so it's easier for our principals to share out with all of our parents our staff and our students as we're going into this year so we've stated that each School level building within a school district can
129Implement specific limitations based on considerations such as grade level activities Athletics spirit days class parties Etc so you know all of our schools do special things that might be outside the normal dress code like it might be pajama day you know if they they've earned their class party or whatever it is so um and then we crafted what we're calling um Universal School standards and so a lot of this really is just um a further clarification what policy says so we're saying students may not wear clothing jewelry or personal items that are sexually explicit or sexually suggestive contain threats or promote illegal or violent conduct such as the on unlawful use of weapons drugs Alcohol Tobacco or drug paraphernalia demonstrate hate group Association or affiliation and or use hate bias speech or symbols targeting groups
130based on race ethnicity gender sexual orientation gender identity where religious affiliation or other protected groups or demonstrate gang Association or affiliation so those are things that will be prohibited and then we expect that apparel is expected to conform to reasonable student standards of modesty as such no excessive or inappropriate areas of skin or undergarments may be exposed and then we further Define that under tops tops are included but not limited to shirts blouses sweaters sweatshirts tank tops dresses Etc the expectation is that the top will extend to the waistline where the shirt meets the pants when someone's arms are at rest right like so we shouldn't see a lot of bellies if somebody has their hands up you're gonna probably see belly but if your arms are down at rest we're we're expecting that those
131your pants and your top are meeting we also expect that all undergarments should be covered and no see-through or transparent clothing that would expose some of those areas and then for the bottoms they they must be worn and provide ample coverage including but not limited to pants short skirts dresses Etc and so again the pants should extend to the waistline so they meet the shirt when the arms are at what are at rest undergarments should be covered no see-through or transparent clothing and then the last thing that kind of came up from our principles were was a conversation around Footwear and that it needs to be appropriate for the classes and activities and to be safe for the school environment so those are like they're concern we're like the wheelie shoes and there was actually
132some concern about slippers that they don't have traction so they're falling down steps and things like that the other thing when we talked about like schools or programs might have discretion for adjusting dress code I just want to make sure like people understand especially in our secondary schools we have specialized programs like welding that's going to require a different set of safety requirements for dress code or we might have students that are going to different trades that actually are wearing uniforms or we might have students who are participating in the Caps program that need to dress in a professional business outfit for the facilities that they're going into so there will be some modifications where sometimes the expectations are greater than what is outlined here but this is where we landed we did have a
133lengthy conversation and then we also surveyed our principles afterwards on how people like do we have consensus around this and we had pretty much unanimous consensus across the board from principles of agreeing or strongly agreeing that yes this is this would be helpful in clarifying and communicating and still manageable enough that we're not um dinging a lot of kids non-stop every day about minor infractions for dress code and that this still gives them opportunities for individuality so with that I I'm happy to um answer any questions or entertain comments about that we do um plan on all administrators sharing this information out at their back to school meetings with staff they're all planning on sharing it out through school newsletters or other correspondence with parents and then also going over this with students when they
134go over code of conduct and expectations questions from the board president Goodson yes um thank you Dr tormala I was just wondering so this guidance is being given to the building administrators and you've gotten feedback from them and they're agreeable is this something and you share the policy with everyone here today just to review it is this something that we could make a regulation to accompany the policy or I guess what are your thoughts on that I mean I think we could um I also think that this internal guidance completely is a line that supports our our policy as is and so if this is our consistent practice just like many other things that go back to the back to school expectations we can certainly communicate it out so I I don't know that we
135necessarily need a regulation but I'm also not opposed if we wanted to do that either foreign Goodson if I may yes um the piece in here about when your arms are at rest in a classroom you're going to be raising your hand your belly may show midriff whatever um maybe if it's a little bit or a lot that's typically been standard practices for when your arm is raised you still can't see your belly unless I'm a dinosaur and it's been changed for a long time but that's what I remember when we were in school and as far as the the shorts or skirts the bottoms um it's really vague ample coverage I mean depends on who's making that call I guess them or you know the administration so we actually had a lot of conversation
136around especially the bottom conversation and where we came with the word ample um we also have to be very careful about different body styles and shapes and clothing options and things like that too and there was concern around body shaming and other things where we wanted to be very careful with all of this so we do expect that all areas of your buttocks and all of that are always covered so that's something that if you're walking and you can't see anything great if you bend over and you can that's a problem so those are things that would be addressed by the administration if that's brought to their attention as a dress code infraction and have that conversation and the opportunity for the student to change clothes okay so and the top part of this is
137from the policy that we have right now the 2651. and it calls for modest I'm trying to find the spot I think it said like reasonable standards of student modesty or something like that apparel is expected to conform to reasonable student standards of modesty and as such no excessive or inappropriate areas of skin or undergarments may be exposed so I mean I guess I'm looking for some uh opinions or input from the board as to the hands at rest and and versus raised when the mid drift is showing I would agree with that um it almost counter decks a little bit what we have in that first paragraph when we're talking about modesty so modesty is to always be covered um you know yes accidents happen but I would agree with Jen you know the
138students are going to be raising their hands a lot and so midriff would be showing and were saying there that we're gonna you know skin should not be shown but then it will in certain situations so um I'm just saying we could just take that part out and and just say that um modesty and appropriate coverage or I don't know what the verbiage would be but I don't I don't I don't know I don't want us to get so locked down so when you have girls or boys you know trying to like bring their shoulder down be like I'm not showing anything you know then we're gonna get into that where we're kind of pinpointing ourselves here I feel president good cinema for me so I just want some clarification if you don't mind so
139you're stating to remove from kind of this document the um shirt touching the top of the pants and like just admitting that are you saying that it should be replaced with something else I would say we could admit it completely because in the in the top paragraph um I think it was the second paragraph where it says you know modesty and that um skin must be covered I I don't know where the verbiage is are you talking about in the policy itself or in this kind of document that Dr tormalette just reviewed because this I don't think we were looking for a policy change at this time is that correct like this was just a director hanky I think you're referring to the policy the second paragraph parallel is expected to conform to reasonable student
140standards of modesty yeah so if I may yes would it make more sense to possibly just change it from with arms raised because then it would say your shirt has to meet your pants line with your arms raised sorry may I I'm not that mean please don't I know that way I'm really want to do is ask everybody and who is just wearing a t-shirt to like raise your hand and see how much that would be inappropriate because you can raise your hand like this and it doesn't thank you you can raise your hand like this and I'm not arguing with you I'm just you know saying you can raise your hand like this my my shirt didn't move like whatsoever or you know even like this I mean untuck your shirt let's see I'm
141joking I'm totally joking sorry I'm just just thirsty ready you know I have to stand up that's why I need to do I need to search sorry just my personal views I think the descriptions that have been defined here um are appropriate and they are um enough descriptive versus the where we've had challenges it's not descriptive enough policy so now we are giving at least some clear expectations leaving enough space for discretion from uh the administration on what's appropriate that's my person that's what I was gonna say but I just also wanted to caution us too to remind us that we are governing not micromanaging the exact words of every student walking in the building yeah I agree I'm comfortable with the language I did have a question however every year is political season do
142political t-shirts fall within any of the exclusions that you're talking about not for students they do for staff but not for students okay thanks and I just had one one more point if I may um I know with some buildings like hats are an issue students are wearing hats caps they're wearing their hoodie hoods up do we want to add that in as well we had that conversation as well with all of the administrators and there were like literally a hundred and I'm gonna guess 105 administrators I asked the point-blank question about hats without question they said they're not A disruption to the learning environment and they did not feel that that was something that we needed to then put limitations on um there was one building in the district that does have some limitations
143on hats and we felt that the wording on here would give them that opportunity that if that's part of their school culture and they want to continue it that they have the discretion to do that I would just say that you know when we're teaching our students to be modest to be professional to get them ready for their careers outside of school wearing a hat in the office isn't always appropriate I know we will have like hat day or whatever and that's that's a special circumstance but I'd say in general wearing a hat or even the hoodie is inappropriate in school any other comments questions um anybody wearing a hat in the crowd it just to be clear I'm sure that wasn't meant that way any other questions comments yes so are we amending something
144right now or is this is this just guidance that you're going to be sending out that we're talking about possibly amending so this is the clarification that the administrative group has collectively developed and the plan is is that this will be how we move forward and communicate this to staff parents and students as we move forward for the school year okay so if there were something that I want to make a minor change to would I make a motion or is this just a discussion type thing this is really just a discussion if you have some suggestion that the board has consensus on if I do have consensus I just would like to change it with arms raised are other ones that want to change them support keeping it as is and I heard that
145from director Lewis I I would be fine with changing it I'd support keeping it as this sounds like consensus is to keep as is can we get a consensus on the hats I I got I'm just generally with the way the document reads as is so that's my My Views and I think it's also important to take into account that Dr tormala with you know over a hundred and Educators did not find hats to be a distraction to learning I think that's important to take that into account as well and outside of our personal opinions keep in mind of the people who are doing the jobs experiences I'm fine with the way it is also okay so gonna be moving on I think sounds like I gotta yeah I'm just a general question for clarification
146this is a governing document of the district correct the dress code the policy is correct okay I just made sure okay so moving on we had on 14.3 we had the Chad's Coalition for mental health contract pulled so I won't ask for motion but maybe is there comments I know director Lewis you had to specifically pull but there were other questions from other board members do we want to talk through that sure actually never mind because we can't do a negative motion correct that's correct okay never mind I will make a motion if someone would entertain that if you want that for discussion do you have a motion for discussion okay please that's right make a motion that we open up a discussion on the subject of 14.3 contract with Chads is that good you
147give me that look I'm thinking I'm not not necessary I'm not sure that's an actual motion to be made to open it because normally we motion to to discuss sure motion to discuss you just let me say that I'm looking for guidance from the rest of the board yeah darn it president Goodson yeah Mary please so to be to begin a discussion we would need an emotion I'm happy to make a motion for discussion so like yeah so that's that's what I thought but yeah because you could have a motion you could make a motion for discussion for everything so so we haven't can I just we have a lawyer in the room Pat would you mind clarifying the thoughts on this from a motion perspective uh I would Echo what Dr tormala just said
148that is unhelpful okay all right that was totally I said that we should make a motion to approve and then follow it with discussion okay yeah president Goodson I make a motion to approve the Chad's Coalition for mental health contract as presented I'll beat you too discussion president yes you know it's it's interesting on Chad's not having kids in school I I'm learning on this and by looking at the number of questions that multiple board members asked about this and by hearing comments from from parents this is definitely something that I think merits some discussion um you know as I looked at Chad's I I looked at the Facebook page I looked at their contracts I looked at their website and I came away and looked back a couple years all together just trying to
149gain Insight I came away with some things that I'm going to say 80 90 of it I I think is uh very exciting what they do I think that they have a very difficult subject that they're trying to address um there's some things though that bothered me and I wanted to to bring this up and I think maybe there'd be some other people that might comment as well you know I I believe that the focus is by some of the leaders of the organization or our areas which I have an issue with they include areas with Dei Dei and and CTO CRT items on there and I pulled a couple of them off and I wanted to speak to them one of which is uh when you look at the the component leadership there we've
150got people that are listed on there and and I think as we go back to when when this first started we had a previous superintendent and aboard here we have uh you'd think that it's nice we have retired assistant superintendent Sherry Thurman on here which that'd be great it's interesting if you look at her website until about 5 30 6 o'clock this evening it was covered with about every acronym that is possible this fall underneath Dei and CRT when you look at some of their Facebook posts they have things such as as how can we ensure the well-being of of lgbtq Youth and Foster environments and here's areas where you should donate money to again a lot of that's good but donating money and the subtle ways that they're bringing that into the to the
151mainstream with with the school with our teachers which are kids with our parents I I don't agree with they're talking about bringing in certain therapists that are talking specifically about areas that that again fall within the CRT area we have uh for all those that that celebrate happy Easter for all those that celebrate Merry Christmas on the surface that sounds fine but when you go to let's celebrate Juneteenth let's celebrate pride month they don't say for all those that celebrate pride month for all those that celebrate uh Juneteenth which I've been doing it since the 80s when I lived in Texas just so people understand there's a subtle differences on how Chad's it appears to me is is presenting and trying to insert things that it's a creeping condition that I quite frankly don't support
152and the parents that that I've spoke to and and through the campaign very much did not support that and for this reason I I have real issue with Chad's on that very significant point I know some would say that when you come to the point of of uh you should be focused on the kids and not the parents I believe that the parents are the centerpiece of the family and the center point of what the kids should be seeing and learning and that I believe that we as the board members need to always keep that in mind of of what the parents are telling us about what they want the kids to be taught and how they want them to be taught and for that reason I have issues with Chads and it's uh it's
153not that there's not a lot of positive things there but in that regard there's there's just areas that I just I see a creep of what I don't want to see in our school district who just wanted to make sure and share those points as we give thought about voting for this thank you other thoughts questions from the board if I may and I believe just from the discussions that I've been having with admin um Chads is giving the suicide awareness presentations in health class and for those students who don't have health class they're pulled and given the presentation outside of that um it's every student every year my issue with it is many of the things that David brought up as well as the fact that it's a third party and they're they're obtaining
154sensitive data on our children and they keep that data and when we have certified capable competent counselors that work for the district who could provide the same presentations to our students in the health class or or outside of health class if that's what we choose to do as a district to the students who don't have health class every year the state statute mandates that we have training for our staff and that we come up with a plan to identify students that may be at risk of suicide and how to deal with that which is how we've outlined in our in our district policy that we will provide a a suicide awareness training to students starting in the fifth grade in our Curriculum by our counselors and I don't think a lot of parents are aware
155that it was that need was being filled by Chads and I think if possible we should find a way to ensure that this responsibility to have the suicide training should be brought back in house solely done by our counselors and no data shared with any outside third party no referrals made specifically too because I saw in the contract it said something about referring people to them I I don't I don't agree with that I think that we can have them in a list of resources but I don't think that they should have that in their contract it just doesn't sit right with me other comments questions from the board yes if I may yes so I did I also looked up the state statute there's actually two and I'm I'm assuming we're just following the
156one as the guidance we're going by and both of these though however as Jen had stated are strictly about educating staff having how to identify students that are at risk what to do have that plan in place I also looked at Desi's guidance they have the same and then I looked at their mock policy and hour mock policy it it is similar to desies with um few discrepancies where you know the one thing Desi indicates that parents need to be notified immediately where our policy doesn't exactly say that it's just that parents will be notified with no timeline but um the the law also doesn't State how often in the year the students need to be educated and suicide so I am wondering how often is Chad's coming in and interacting with our students I
157think there was 283 presentations provided by Chads to our students through the various grade levels on the school year if I may yes I believe the response that I got was once a year per child per child every kid every year every student every year and so I also um in this I I agree with Jen also um that we can do this in-house I know when I was in school and of course that was 100 years ago our school counselors did that so my other question kind of is you know if we have our school counselors and they are professionals they are the expert why aren't we utilizing them and why are we having a third party come in that is collecting our students data and I did read their contract with the student
158collection a data collection um they decide when to terminate um or destroy this our students information I do have a problem with that um you know with having our students information and if we did keep it in-house then we wouldn't have to worry about that type of thing if I may yes our counselors are the closest ones to the student in that scenario um the students aren't going to have any sort of relationship with an individual presenting from Chads but they may have in a relationship from a counselor so I believe that's the best option as far as who's giving these presentations and if we cannot if we if we are in a pinch right now and absolutely cannot find the logistics to get the counselors in there doing it maybe we talk about um
159this being just for the health presentation for this year until we can find you know a different option until we can free up the counselors to give these to the health class I have a question secretary Eliza are the so this is fifth graders so that's one Elementary grade and then middle school and high school at the middle school and high school in particular those levels are the counselors like LPS like licensed professional counselors it is it's my understanding that they're more academic guidance counselors and not the type of counselor who would be and to go through just a professional and just a professional development of even if it's five hours I don't think would qualify you know someone to educate on this magnitude and it's not even necessarily the education piece and I don't
160necessarily disagree with keeping it in-house I think that would probably be a good practice but the amount of um this the specialized area that this is is extremely sensitive and the referral piece I think is extremely important now whether it's not just two Chads or not because if a student presents to a teacher a counselor to someone at Chad said they have attempted suicide that they have thought about attempting suicide that a friend or someone like that has that referral pieces is a critical part of the help that they would get in the future that's the identifying it and then getting them on the path to get extra help to get the specialized help that they need so to deny the referral piece I think would be a critical mistake on our part now what
161other organizations in St Charles County are in the area provide this you know that's I can't answer that question but I would be adamant not to remove the referral piece I don't I think there's a misunderstanding if I may clarify yeah definitely clarify okay I don't I don't want us to have a practice as a district to not refer students in need to to a list of places what I didn't like was that Chad's was dictating that we refer students to them I don't think we need that in a contract if we have a policy and a procedure as a district to refer families to a list of resources Chads could be on there but I don't think Chads needs to be dictating to us that we refer students and families to them that was
162that was what I meant by that and also to clarify in the state statute it does say that a licensed educator with a certified teaching license would be sufficient to do the suicide prevention instruction maybe that's like the bare minimum of the instruction piece but if we can provide a more specialized higher quality person not to downplay you know teaching certificates expert thank you expert I would always choose an expert in the area um I don't I don't want to remove a very sensitive service and I know it wouldn't be permanently removing and your suggestion to have the contract until we can find an alternative but there if there aren't Alternatives in the area because I know in one of the questions we had said that there was another organization but it was more appropriate
163for the 11th graders if there isn't a different provider where would we go from there if I may actually so I'm gonna go to vice president Stoli she's been not only sudging you know nudging me here so I'm working on better behavior and waiting my turn so um thank you so so I just wanna Express that that I do not have any concerns as it relates to Dei or CRT as it relates to this agreement um regarding the esc's doing the work we were provided information and Dr tormala please correct me if I'm wrong that we still have room for improvement to do there while that might be desirable um we're not at our ratio and um so that we need to consider seriously um it is a one-year agreement as well you know I
164went on the website I found a lot of the stuff the curriculum and how they educate our students a lot of our students are in need of mental health I also watch several videos with families and I do want to quote one one mom said that she did not realize her son was depressed and the school reached out to the parents and connected them with Chad's because that was the wish of the parents and the video story ended with the parent going I'm glad that this service was here because I can only imagine what the other outcome may have been so um I just wanted to share that but the only thing that I would like us to button up if possible and the Administration has provided us this so Danielle if you could speak
165to this just to tighten up the opt out process of that and but I'm fully going to support this agreement and I'm actually going to refer it back to Dr LeBron because she compiled all of the information and answers for you all right thank you guys for your thoughtful consideration and questions too I can tell that we're invested in it and trying to see things from multiple angles um so thank you for taking the time to create the questions and also to review those and have those conversations as well I just wanted to answer a couple of the the bulleted items that were questioned or discussed out loud um one of the things was the credentials um so our escs do have those credentials um but again our capacity for them to be able to
166do that and also to put out the many fires and provide the resources and run the groups that they do in our buildings on a daily basis um they're one to one in our secondary but one to every two buildings in our elementary and so for their capacity alone to do that we would not be able to manage that because they are Treading Water barely as it is in just the services that they provide additionally our guidance counselors are better certified experts in that area of Suicide Prevention than a typical teacher would be but still sometimes their comfort level isn't what it would be if you were a licensed practitioner could they provide intermediary measures could they provide some some initial Universal screenings yes but again our deci counselor ratio the recommended ratio is one
167to two fifty and I believe we have a lot of buildings that are like one to four hundred almost or one to three eighty and so in order to pull those out that would be a strain on the resources not to say that we couldn't ever do that in an ideal situation but that's one of the reasons we don't is because we're getting experts in the field and also reducing that capacity on our staff so that that is part of that answer um additionally in regard to the data there are two surveys that's that Chads collects one of them is an anonymous anonymous survey and essentially just is like a pre-post test about what they learned name is not collected in that one the secondary survey is um essentially a name and I need to
168see someone immediately today to talk about myself or someone else uh I need to see somebody in the next week just to talk about myself or somebody else and I'm good and I don't need to see anyone we provided presentations like President Goodson said to over 283 presentations to over right at 7 200 students and we received 649 at-risk referrals when we receive those referrals those go to our guidance counselors who then know those students and have those names they sort through those they keep those papers um uh it is it is my understanding in past practice as a building principle and also in review of our processes in previous years that those buildings those papers stay in the building and the student data stays with those guidance counselors in the building I'm absolutely happy
169to confirm that because I know that there are questions regarding data and I and I understand why that would be a concern and I think that those should stay in the building um but I'm happy to to Triple confirm that um and then our guidance counselors and escs work through those to screen those students and ensure that those that need that requested to be spoken to that day are spoken to and that if there's an imminent matter that families are contacted immediately even prior to a child be put being put on a bus if that were the mode of transportation um so parent contact should be essential in regards to the referral I I agree that it would be an issue if we were referring only to Chads we have several different agencies that we
170refer to Chads is one of those many times it's hard to find a spot at all whether it's an outside agency or somebody who comes in and services um within the facility and so those those spots are at a premium so we have many agencies that we refer up to um we do speak to parents and let them know what their various options are and Chads does have three different Services they offer one is the signs of suicide presentation that um like you guys mentioned was part of RS Mo 170.048 which then goes into policy 2785 which then bleeds into the also the health curriculum is where that's housed um and so the signs of suicide presentation focuses on the education and the early identification of in prevention we also have two other programs one
171is in our secondary building uh buildings and the other is I think four or five different buildings that have identified as kind of a startup and one is for social emotional um supports for students again that is something a guidance counselor a teacher might see a guidance counselor or an ESC May collaborate with that student and that family and if the student needs are beyond what we're able to meet may tell the family that that's a service that they could pursue it's not mandated but simply an option additionally there's one that's a little bit higher level family support and we can refer there as well again that is something that a guidance counselor or ESC would identify as a need for that child or that family would make a recommendation to that parent directly and
172then the parent would enroll independently in that service so I just wanted to make sure that that we outlined each of those and then can you also highlight the notification of families and the opt out yes um notification films okay so one last thing I was thinking of is that we do have um they are there are under supervision so our classroom teachers are to maintain or to stay in the room um during those presentations our counselors consistently get feedback from those classroom teachers that's how we decide which organizations we want to work with what's working well what's not working well also to put eyes on kids and make sure that they're doing well because you don't want to um you don't want to take it lightly and you want to make sure that you
173have your own people's eyes like you said on our kids so our guidance counselors are you know checking in our classroom teachers are sitting in so those are all important things in addition to the opt out that was one of the csip goals that you guys saw was that we would continue Community partner collaborations but there is a lot that we would like to add for transparency for for information for knowledge for our families of not only who are we partnering with but at what grade levels what is the content of that presentation what does that look like all buildings are sending out communication through the guidance counselor about opt out and there's a a small slip on the bottom that you can sign and return we understand that that process has not been seamless
174and that's not good that's uh room for improvement there what we'd like to do is create a comprehensive overhaul of that process and make it systematic from a district perspective so that we're not making mistakes when students are opted out if for some reason there is an error it's the expectation that the parent is contacted immediately and the student is removed as soon as the error is noticed if that were being enough time um but again trying to create a comprehensive database so that parents can see what's available to their students particularly when it comes to third party and making sure that those opt-out options are coming in enough time and maybe in a variety of modalities to ensure that it gets to the right hands I'm happy to answer any other questions but I
175just notated a couple of things that I wanted to provide more information on um when the questions came up thank you director Scott I think you had a question I do um first thank you Dr LeBron for such a thorough explanation on a lot of these things because I think you did clear um hopefully a lot of concerns up um I did you know I will be completely honest I fully support this contract and as it is written as an opt out and I appreciate your acknowledging that you know the opt-out um process has you know some room for improvement certainly um but I also think you did an excellent job of explaining that just because we can like in theory could provide this all in-house today doesn't necessarily mean that we should because I
176think that that would be doing a huge disservice to our students um for such a honestly life um altering or life-saving resources for our students and I think it's important to remember too that it's not you know these are all yes although suicide you know the the legislative pieces that um are certainly obviously we want to um make sure that we are meeting the law um but again remembering that those are the bare minimums and that people sitting here at this table today have all expressed concerns over student mental health and that goes beyond Suicide Prevention although that's obviously a huge part of it and that Chad's is so comprehensive and does offer so many resources I do think you know I do have concerns that people don't want to approve it based on discriminatory
177reasons that I think that we do need to have this resource for our students so what if I may I would like to strike that right she said what she said I would still make a motion to strike the last word or strike the discriminatory part of that she was making an accusation of a member of this board whichever member it was that we made decision we want to do something based on a discriminatory reason and I would like to strike that from the record well whatever I think so are you making a motion to infringe upon First Amendment rights by board member it happens I'm just a president good thing yeah may I offer so so director Olson if you disagree with our statements you can clarify that you disagree yeah that was I
178I highly disagree with that because I think that making that accusation could put this board in in legal hot water so if I may I like to make some comments on the Chad's agreement one just right out of the gate I support the agreement as recommended as recommended by the administration I don't think it's anyone would disagree that mental health in our country is at an all-time crisis I don't think anybody would argue with my point there um in speaking to teachers who have sat in the presentations that are given to the students at various levels talking with escs that partner with Chads and interact with students that fall into these categories you know they provide materials that are age appropriate for a very challenging specific topic and we are Outsourcing to that very challenging
179specific topic I did look at director Lewis the comments and shared things from Facebook that you shared with multiple members of the board I looked at it as a mental health provider explaining why lgbtq community members or students and or black and brown students may be more at risk and are more vulnerable and therefore need additional you know consideration as what they were talking about not Dei or CRT specifically but really hitting at these are our most vulnerable students and people and so I feel like the Administration has laid out clearly why they are recommending this contract going forward you know caseload is a real problem with escs we've talked in the past about the number of escs we have per building and whether or not that needs to be higher the fact that they
180provide over 200 almost 300 presentations throughout a given school year have yielded 55 counseling sessions over 600 sessions for those 55 students 52 different students enrolled in those supports yielding another 600 different sessions that collectively between the ESC counselor staff and Chads agreed with the parent to do those things removing the ability for that specialized individual support for students that are this vulnerable and reflecting that in a set of questions I feel would be incorrect for this board to do I'm in no way shape or form suggesting we do not have a suicide awareness presentation to the length that Chads provides this service to us and just I can squash this all and just make a motion I would like to make a motion to approve this well an amendment to the emotion to approve
181because it was already made that it's an opt-in only second that give an amendment to an opt-in only with a second discussion on the amendment to the original motion to approve the contract we've had Conversation Over opt-in versus opt out before does anybody remember can we refresh some of those I remember yes so we were told that or we've been told a lot of things but one of the things that I remember is that opt-in could potentially um leave out the kids whose parents aren't paying attention and while I understand that opt out also could include a bunch of people whose parents aren't paying attention so I believe that an opt-in requires you to pay attention and if you are not paying attention um you can I mean we can't go on field trips without
182permission slips so I mean somebody's going to contact the parent or send an email and say hey we're going on this field trip tomorrow I need you to do you agree so if if there is a massive issue with parents not responding to this permission slip being sent home in multiple different ways then we could address it at that time I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for this to be an opt-in it's a third party and I would agree with that and we do have policy similar to that language that a permission from the parent is required when it is not curriculum so is this curriculum or not there's a direct relation in unit 2 of the health curriculum that um talks about mental health suicide prevention I would still agree with an opt-in
183if I may yes I believe I saw in the Chad's contract where they require parental consent that's for the services for counseling and secretary Isaac on your question my my memory from an opt-in procedural well yes we do do that with field trips my understanding is for that example uh the follow-up necessary to ensure all students are included in field trips is a burden and can be a burden to staff to make that follow-up I think the risk on the exclusion of students that need to see this for maybe parents that aren't paying attention and those kids that need that support that aren't getting it at home I think is a greater risk than the opt-in scenario that we have currently especially given Dr LeBron's comments on the improvements we recognize as the district we
184need to make if I may so just to be clear we as a board are making a parental decision for the parents of this District is that is that what your suit because if if it's a third party and it requires some form of consent for third parties to give presentation to our children we're considering not opting out consent we're considering silence consent at this point yes please so just as a clarification when third parties come in our classrooms often will ask for guest speakers to come in and so that is not something that we require or ask for consent on on different topics now we do obviously for human growth and sexuality that's State mandated that that's an opt-in process with the changes that recently happened regarding the county library cards and things like
185that we'll be changing that process for this upcoming year so that will become an opt-in but those are the only two that I can think of I don't know Katie or Jerry if there are any others that you can think of right now that are required to be opt in versus opt out I know you mentioned the human growth and sexuality I can't think of any others off the top of my head but I can absolutely look and see may I continue yep so just because it's required to opt in or it's not required that it has to be an opt-in I still think that it's appropriate when they're retaining records a psychological records of some sort on our children in their third third party capacity their information is proprietary that again they can go
186to Six Flags on a field trip and you have the permission slips it's for health class the teacher and health class can send it home two weeks in advance and for the students that are attending the presentations outside of the health class those notifications can be sent home a month in advance I don't I don't think it's too much to ask and I think we are making this a mountain out of a molehill president Goodson yes I would just like to effort to bring the governing body back I understand we've asked a lot of questions I think the questions have been answered and I think we're at the moment where we need to make a decision um we've had discussion we've had some Lively debate I think we need to decide what we want to
187do and my I said I would suggest that we vote on the the amended motion at this time unless there's a difficult additional information that board members need to gather to help them make their decision I have one more question I can completely empathize with the opt-in only option I think that is completely rooted in in my opinion kind of our failure to recognize that when a parent opts out of something that's not a recommendation from the parent that's a requirement and we have definitely failed in a lot of ways there's I mean there's a lot of stories about that experience I know people in this room have experienced that and you say we have a we want to do a comprehensive overhaul of opt-out processes do we have a timeline for that do we
188have I mean because we can have an idea a desire a want to do something but I think especially for this conversation putting that into action is extremely pertinent because we have we have an either or we have an opt-in or we have an opt out and I can I can completely understand the often only conversation in the argument I think it's a strong one I really do I also feel that the opt-in opt out option is which we've been doing which I mean kind of deep down I want to ask like what are the consequences when we fail the the parent who has opted out what do we do I mean we can apologize there really aren't consequences but I feel like that is something that we need to fix and put something so
189that it we don't make mistakes on that we need fail safes so so and I don't know if Katie wants to expand upon this that this is one of the topics we're talking with our administrators on at our early August board meeting or administrator meeting so that we're going to talk through this process with them we have internally had conversations around additional communication with families like ahead of time when you're sending out your school newsletter towards the beginning of the year maybe there's a section where it says these are the different types of presentations that we have throughout the year here's a QR code that'll take you to the permission slips or here's our QR code that'll take you to their websites or their the curriculum so you can review it so those are things
190that we're talking about that potentially if we could do something that's more electronic and fast and generates lists then that helps us prevent the I sent it back with my child but then somehow it was crumpled in the backpack and never made it made its way to the teacher right like that like so if we can work with our principals to tighten that up increase communication transparency those are our goals with this and we're looking at doing that at our meeting on August 9th yeah I do agree with many of the points you made secretary Isaac around the opt-out process and its need for improvement I take solace in the administration recognizing uh those faults and looking to approve that so I know we have emotion two motions yeah we have we currently have a
191amendment to include an opt-in on to the original approval of the Chad's contract so this vote which I'll ask for here in a second will be specific to the amendment to the original emotion okay well I have a comment and you can tell me to that it's for after the vote but I'm still gonna say it um if we were to postpone this contract this conversation until the August meeting and have an opportunity to start to get the ball rolling actually a procedure in place for opting out a solid plan because nothing says we have to have the Chad's contract before school and I'm sure that they are they have their curriculum they have they can roll it out whenever we say roll it out um I don't know just a thought to give the
192administration an opportunity to bring that plan back to us before we specifically say you know opt-in opt out because I'll be honest I'm torn either way I don't I really don't know which way I would I have feelings on both sides but I want to see what a solid opt-out plan will look like before I say no I'm just going to throw it opt out the window and go opt-in only personally that's what I would like to see Dr LeBron or Dr troma can you speak to the timing of the contract I have kind of kind of prong thought on that so I don't have any problem for us creating and mocking up something for the board so that you could feel comfortable prior to your vote of opt-in or opt out I think my
193other thought on that is um I don't know that it would have significant complications it could slow down the starting of groups once we start I think we would be fine in regard to the overall um signs of suicide lessons again you want to get things running at the beginning of the year um it could have some implications I don't know that it would be dire if we got right on it in August but also I'd be willing to take the direction of an executed contract and then um creating that opt-in opt out knowing if we were looking in that direction and then creating that process as a follow-up so that the contract was ready and then we could maybe make a secondary motion or direction of the board afterward to know which way you
194wanted to go with the opt-in or out because I don't believe that was contingent within the contract if that makes sense I think on that we could give direction to bring that back maybe before the first presentations are provided underneath that I think is kind of what you're trying to say or then a further decision could be made by the board once that's in our hand to then decide the opt-in out out I think that's what you're saying Dr LeBron okay if I may so postponing signing the contract is not doable or approving the contract sorry I think we could postpone I do think it could be could result in a delay of some services I don't think it would delay the signs of suicide presentations in the health class but I do think it
195could delay the group starting or the referrals to the parents okay so you're going back we have an amendment on the original motion to go strictly opt in on the Chad's contract and presentations specifically to students Matthew wherever you are can we do a roll call vote please director Olson aye secretary lysak nay director Lewis hi director Scott nay president Goodson nay director Hankey hi vice president Stoli nay motion fails okay so going back to the original motion which is an approval of the contract as shown I think if there's board seem like consent agreement to have the opt-in or opt out Pro sorry sorry the opt out process opt-in strictly processed defined and improved before the board before presentations are given to students so that's the direction I think this board seems to go
196on that do I have an agreement with the board there a seed heads nodding okay this is that clear Dr tormala Dr LeBron bringing back the board the revised opt-out process okay all right so then a roll call vote Matthew please on the approval of the Chad's contract director Olsen no secretary lysak aye director Lewis Nate director Scott aye president Goodson aye director Henke nay vice president Stoli aye motion carries in case you're moving on we have 14 4 14 5 6 and 7. I'm gonna lump those together director Hankey I think they're all related um before maybe their motion because we have them all lumped do you want to just maybe ask your questions and clarifications on those four four bullet items around removing the the pea gravel and we're going with mulch so
197I was just wondering according to the Ada what research was done that we are complying with the Ada and that mulch is the best um situation so the research that was done to show that ADA is the best I mean so just kind of going back giving you a little bit of history p gravel that is in most of our buildings throughout the elementary schools throughout the districts anywhere we have playground uh does not meet ADA compliance standards pea gravel does by the consumer product safety commission uh it is allowed technically and technically it is ASTM it does mean AST and fall requirements but uh for some of the mothers in the room and even the dads who anyone who's tried pushing a stroller in pea gravel will tell you you cannot do it so
198in the world we live in with uh you know inclusion and and Equity like we want those students to be able to go into those spaces so when we talk about engineered wood fiber those meatball requirements those meet ADA requirements so it's part of a phased approach starting with the buildings that we have on consent for consideration right I don't disagree with you that pea gravel is not ideal um so comparing you know the mulch choice to I'm not sure what it's called like it's the Rubber like soft pad um was that something that was looked into as well I'll be honest with you uh just knowing the in my history with the the cost of rubberized surfaces and the repeated cost that goes into having to keep keep those up I did not look
199into that but I know that that is costly for our money around here it's a heck of a lot easier from as a facilities director to go in and just put in mulch every time we need more mulch because compaction rate you put in mulch at 12 inches it's going to it's going to compact down to nine inches so from an eight an eight foot fall you need nine inches so um it's a lot easier just go ahead and put fresh mulch engineered wood fiber not mulch really but engineered wood fiber that meets fall requirements so just a little less upkeep and less cost in the long run I appreciate you you know doing the cost savings um and in some cases I do believe you pay you get what you pay for and um
200I I don't know if I need to make a motion or I would be interested in looking at the soft pad over the mulch what that cost would be um I'm looking for direction here I guess um yeah yeah I mean I guess I've asked back a question to you are you looking to do that after we move from pea gravel to mulch or before we move to mulch well as far as cost savings I would say before we went to the mulch director I'm sure I'm just saying I agree okay doctor so in my experience with looking at the rubberized surfacing for playgrounds when uh Mr Schaefer says that is cost prohibitive at this moment looking at a typical sized playground that surfacing can be in upwards of six figures so well over a
201hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars potentially when everything is installed they will tell you that it should last approximately 10 years we'll see on like Elementary playgrounds and Community parks that are used constantly that you don't quite get that 10-year Mark either before you have to replace it so I do know that our current budget does not afford US the room to be able to do that however as we come back in August and we talk about our long-range Master facilities plan and should we need to have a conversation around a no tax rate increase bond issue upgrading playgrounds could certainly be something that we talk about and it's something that's currently on our radar because we do have discrepancies in our playground facilities and equipment and all of that between our Legacy Buildings
202and our newer facilities I may maybe just ask like can you give me rough order of magnitude ratio mulch to the rubber flooring like is it ten to one more expensive eight to one like yes I would say ten to one okay engineer wood fiber um as I mentioned earlier it's a heck of a lot easier and just like putting on my risk management hat for a second it's a heck of a lot the peak Rebels much more difficult to manage to because once I mean anyone's been we've all been to a playground with pea gravel it's easily displaced it gets kicked out onto the pla onto the concrete hard surfaces and then it becomes a trip and fall Hazard becomes a slide Hazard anyone who stood on a driveway with gravel or a rock
203you slip and slide and then we have claims and we're I have to get with Rick and and go over uh a claim with Gallagher Bassett which I'd rather not do so that's been some of the frustration I've also heard with some of our elementary principles it's just it's difficult to keep up with and one more just What's the timing of the installation for for the mulch uh well to clarify if we don't approve this tonight it won't get done this summer and so but that was the question was that was the plan was to get it done this summer correct that is correct then uh I wanna just say one more time this is part of a phased approach that the elementary schools to start getting all this old pea gravel out and being
204ADA Compliant because currently the pea gravel is in absolutely no way uh excuse me ADA Compliant yes sir yeah just just a quick comment on that I had a chance to talk with a a parent tonight and uh you know in the situation that she described you know she talked about how critical it is to get to pea gravel out so that her child could use an and although there's the perfect world there's also the real world and I think that today we need to focus on the real world and we need to get the wood in so that the children who need it can get it right away that's a good point director Lewis and if I can add just a little bit of a piece of that when I say mulch this isn't
205going to World Outdoor Emporium and getting a load of mulch the engineer would fiber the bigger larger stocks so they once they're in place they kind of stay in place so it's much easier to get a stroller or a wheelchair or a power chair across that it's a good point if I may is that rubber I don't know what engineered wood fiber is is it it's it's it's certified it's it's a certified wood fiber so uh so it's not the rubber mold it's not rubber so I did ask how many um schools or how many buildings and it's four do you by chance know those four schools that were implementing this in I have my list behind me okay I had a feeling you were asking that but this started with the Boone Trail uh
206issue that we had with uh OCR we're starting with moon Trail we're clearing that up and then we are I'm going to try to tackle Wabash this uh this summer too but uh before we leave tonight I'll get you that list Greentree was on the list too thank you Dr tomorrow and it is sad is that due to [Music] um the needs of that school we did we did address those prior we prioritize those by need like in our opinion we went out and looked at these at these buildings at these specific playground facilities and we just we picked what we believed were the worst ones Greentree in particular I know the pea gravel there was getting onto that rubberized surface and then it starts to eat away and create divots and pockets and so
207if that doesn't get cleaned up that's just going to continue to deteriorate so are you saying that there are some schools that do have the rubber in the playground we do have pockets of rubberized surface here and there but it it is not abundant it's just kind of some Nickel Dime things once here and there and I I have to go back and check but the district has been very minimal in what they put in for playgrounds and typically those upgrades have been provided by the ptas ptos to enhance what they have but again moving forward if we want to talk about a long-range plan there may be some options for us to start talking about how do we make those things more consistent from school to school and as I take root in my
208role here a little bit more I'm also looking into grants that can fund some of those things too so just something to consider vice president stooling thank you president Goodson I would like to make a motion to approve agenda items 14.4 14.5 14.6 14 14.7 as presented second Julian any other discussion on this topic can I just say sorry one more thing so if we are going to start implementing this into the other buildings um just for more understanding could we get pricing on that rubberized um whatever that stuff is called padding yeah Josh is that something you can just pull and share just again a ratio or a Viewpoint yep that's easy okay I agree okay we've got a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed
209okay thank you yep thanks Josh moving on to 14.8 we need a motion to approve the Missouri Eating Disorders Association contract as presented so moved oh my God second Julie um director hanky I think you had this one pulled up I'm sorry who was the first on the motion uh vice president Stoli and then Julie was a second thank you director Hankey was there some questions comments here I did so I did ask a couple of questions so it seems that we are only doing this service in two of the high schools I'm just wondering then what are the other high schools doing um and is I'm I think you did say this is part of the curriculum but um kind of speak to why we're doing it at two versus all four if I
210may president Goodson in this particular instance this is a bit more of an informal mou to my knowledge moeda previously partnered with a couple of the high schools upon their request um to provide like um guest speaker presentation to go into the health curriculum regarding mental health disorders regard around eating and that's a call out in the curriculum and also connects to a statute as well about partnering with educational institutions and moeta so in this particular instance I believe the historical perspective and I was not here at that time is that the teachers reached out to them knowing that they were experts in that background area and asked them to come in and present during that unit from my understanding it was just a couple of the teachers at the time and moita asked us
211to go ahead and create an mou on their behalf due to the partnership it's at no cost to the district I I would expect that if this were to move forward that additional buildings would have interest as well and so and it's just a presentation so they're not collecting um student data or anything like that talking to them 101 one-on-one it's just a presentation my they should only be presenting in a guest speaker format yes okay any other questions comments get a motion in a second all those in favor say aye all those opposed nay motion carries six one sorry I just got my thing out of order okay so I think that closes new business so we're moving on to resonant agenda items uh so this is a brand new policy so Lindy and
212Candace please bear with me and the board as we navigate the five minutes and the questions in the back and forth but to start with I've got Lindy Williford here to talk about Library policy so again we'll have five minutes up here you can you know the board can ask questions the board at its discretion can extend time and do that as well okay you can okay good evening I'm speaking tonight in hopes that the board will consider revisions to current Library policy as well as consider new library policy I've attended board meetings regularly for the past few years and the one thing I've noticed is that board policy is frequently written or revised in response to new laws that are put on the books in the state of Missouri for example the new law
213and why I'm standing here tonight presenting an agenda item for the first time the district made a policy in response to Missouri statute 162.058 I am requesting that the district do the same in response to Missouri statute 573.550 known also has sv775 I provided a copy of the statue to each of you as time constraints will not allow me to read it I feel it's important to point out that the district recently did violate this law and admitted to same to me in an email on June 14 2023 a book titled this book is gay has sexually explicit images on pages 171 and 178 the district stated it would remove the book permanently from the Holt High School library and ensure it would not be placed in any other school library in the future I
214guess my question to the board is how will this board ensure that the district will not violate this law again with perhaps a different book I'd also like to point out for the record that the penalty for violating this law is the class A misdemeanor and Class A misdemeanors carry up to one year in jail and a two thousand dollar fine the district cannot continue to violate the law and put our children at risk for exposure to sexually explicit content nor can it continue to put its employees and staff at risk for the penalty of such violation I really think we need a ride a board policy to protect our children and protect our staff and let's be honest we're all really sick and tired of talking about this our current board policies and regulations
215do not address this law specifically policy 6310 and regulation 6310 which I have provided a copy of those to each of you and highlighted the revisions I'd like to discuss to these policies uh the first paragraph is regulation 6310 it states that Library guidelines are based off the Ala Bill of Rights I ask that we strike that portion of the policy as the Ala Bill of Rights does not follow Missouri law in fact the ala has recently issued statements on how to dodge laws as it relates to obscene and sexually explicit materials I request that the board work with the administration to create our own Library guidelines that do follow Missouri law in the same regulation 6310 there is a paragraph titled weeding procedures it states removing materials from the library that are no longer
216useful is important in maintaining a collection which is timely reliable and inviting the librarian will examine materials while doing the annual inventory and routine day-to-day circulation materials anything meeting the criteria for reading will be withdrawn from library records and discarded If an item for which there is a still if if it is an item for which there is still a need a replacement will be purchased criteria for materials to be weeded States number one items which are soil damage or torn Beyond repair two items which have exceeded age Sensitivity I asked that the District of fine age sensitivity in this portion of the policy um age sensitivity according to whom maybe break it down by age number three items found to contain unreliable information I ask that the district here add a number four under
217weeding procedures to State items which violate Missouri statute 573.550 your policy 6310 paragraph 1 States selection of an access to library media materials will be based upon the contribution to the education program and the age-appropriateness of the materials I ask the district again to find age-appropriateness in this policy as it relates to the selection of an access to library media materials I did ask our Administration to list how many access points and apps our children have available to check out or read books um I was really kind of shocked that there were over 14 different apps and access points that our kids can use to get books my question is who is monitoring the apps to ensure the books available don't violate the new law and further do parents know about all of these access
218points and or do they have the ability to opt their children out or set their own age-appropriate parameters um how will the board move forward knowing the district has broken the law and what we'll do to make sure it's not broken again in the future that's really the point of of what I'd like to talk about um I do propose a new board policy specifically you know outlining the statute um called providing explicit sexual material to students I gave each of you a copy because again time constraints do not permit me to read it in its entirety but this is a policy a neighboring district is working on as well and if nothing else I hope it helps create you know dialogue between board members to create new policy and to protect our kids and
219our staff so thank you for the time to discuss this I'm completely out of breath if there's any common questions or comments please let me know yeah um for if I can real quick so I know that um thank you Lindy by the way very well done you can say that that's great um so I I think there is no numerous board members including myself that agree that the policy needs to be updated specific to the law that's been cited here uh and obviously to ensure that that we're not violating the law for the board because I think I've responded to I know director Olson direct question I was um uh I know that um because of those requests I've we've asked the administration and Pat to adopt or provide a first reading of a
220change in policy regarding these things certainly the board as we as we think about that coming forward in first and the second reading it will follow that normal process you have the feedback like Lindy's provided you know I will want the board's input to those to those changes but just so the board's aware Direction has been given to work on those because it is agreed there's a there's a hole in the policy specifically there okay thanks yeah questions though for the word thank you president Goodson Lindy if I just may ask you said a neighboring School District the policy example you provided that a neighboring School District may ask which neighboring School thank you president maybe a question to the admin uh you know the The Challenge and I think I have this right but
221we order books in bulk and there's not an opportunity to review all the books before The order they come in and then they have to be weeded through once they're here I've seen requests that have come through different board members on asking for lists of books does it make sense that we share that up front so that more eyes are seeing that is that a something that would help at all you know clearly it's something that is being talked about here in our first presentation comment yeah I actually agree with that I mean it's asked every time series might as well put it up there every time we have them so that's my thoughts got a head not over there any other questions comments if I may yep um if I have a board consensus
222or for the uh policy that Pat's working on to kind of make sure that it defines who oversees the purchases of the books and the access of the students on these third-party portals to include the county library as well as the definition of artificial barriers in policy 6310 I agree with those I have no issues with this I agree any other questions comments from the board on this one I did have a question um and it might just it's probably for admin though I was just wondering um when this law took effect what what is the process what was the process of identifying these books and how they were removed do you want to take care of one of me I can try I'm fill in the gaps um I was present on the cabinet
223at the time but was not part of that process or that department at that time for my recollection the instructions regarding the sexually explicit material and the pictures were sent out Librarians as well as ELA teachers went through their books collaborating with each other or communicated um as they as they looked through those things if they found anything that met that or if they even had questions that they met that those were pulled aside then they were further reviewed within that department I don't know the specific information but I do know that it was site-based um Direction I believe to ELA teachers and library and then further review at the departmental level yeah so the the list of books then float up to central office administration and that's where the final review took place yeah
224and if I if I think as I was around for that process I think they also had legal review on that to Define because you know that law is not necessarily um can be interpreted on pieces of the definitions and so they had legal review those books I think 20 or so books may have been removed so I think for that process something somewhere in that number and over 200 were pulled correct physical review by multiple levels so this was done physically not because I know students can go on their Chromebook they can go to the library type in a book they can even type in a topic and then books suggestions would come up so that process wasn't wasn't used Katie so one of the things and we've been meeting um with our head
225librarian who has joined us here tonight so thank you Marnie for being here um one of the things with the St Louis or the St Louis the St Charles County Public Library is that no we do not we cannot put restrictions on the public library as a school district students have to sign in with their library card credentials in order to access it and so in order for that to happen what was explained to me was that um previously that was an opt out getting confused with my opt-ins and out that was an opt out procedure um because if parents didn't want their child to have access to a library card then they wouldn't be able to sign in with credentials to access that material I I was more speaking to our in-house libraries that's
226okay um so I also I believe all students I know my my children have showed me they can go to their school library and type in either a topic or a title or even an author and then those suggestions would come up so that might have been a an easier way to maybe it just seems that there's been a few that have been missed and maybe a double check needs to happen or something like that if I may yep where do classroom libraries fall in here if teachers aren't aware that certain books have been flagged for removal how how is that updated for their classroom libraries so as Katie and I have come on board in this area Dr tormal has asked us to create a um kind of a list a comprehensive list of
227what we have and then double check with our neighbors as well um in doing that Bernie has been instrumental in explaining to us um what different Avenues we have what the restrictions are what do we need to share with parents in a very similarly to how we're going to share out third-party information we'd also like to create like kind of a library landing page that shows parents this is what your kids have access to this is how you log on so that you can use it and then also if you have questions or concerns want to you know filter things set restrictions that you're able to as well from our understanding and to be very honest um Katie and our learning too and we want to make sure that we make the best decisions and
228give you the best accurate information that we can from our understanding we can um not filter out it's not strong enough of a word but we can restrict certain things in many of these Avenues the county library is not one that we can and and that's why we're bringing this um to take a look at as well and looking at that opt-in versus opt out process so just making sure that parents are aware that we're double checking with neighboring districts that we kind of are looking at those lists that are getting hit quite frequently I do believe we had more books pulled for initial review than most any district and so just making sure that we're continuing to share that information out not only with our Librarians but with our Ela Department chairs and our
229administrators in doing the very best that we can to ensure that we're in compliance with the law and kind of adding to your comment to Marnie correct me if I'm wrong but whenever we have removed a book from our physical library then all of the online databases that we would use to search or other like apps those are removed as well is that correct [Music] we have the receiving so an elementary students do not access place problem s before that but anything we have the opportunity so so just to summarize for the people at home we can everything on overdrive is what the student has access to at their grade level correct except for when their their parents have opted them out of something is that that final piece that you stated Sora Public Library
230those ceiling services so if someone logs in with their credentials to Sora they only have access to what the district ceilings are okay thanks for doing that I was actually going to pull her up here but okay appreciate that so I mean my my viewpoint I think many of the points you raised Lindy in terms of the apps that we use you know the policy that needs to address kind of an all-encompassing view you know especially with with the law that is in place and already signed so any other questions comments I don't know that I got an answer about the classroom Library how that's addressed I was actually lumping that in I think it should apply my view is sorry I should have said that because you're right my viewers should apply just no
231different than the apps the classroom you know the teachers libraries should also apply as well can I ask one more question sure what is the policy that maybe you guys can discuss about future books because it's going to be impossible to go book by book I mean really I think it's got to be a regulation that talks about our purchasing policy which I think is what director Lewis might have been alluding to a little bit there but okay and there has been some some discussion around that and like right now and again Bernie you might want to chime in on this so I think that as they are purchasing for their collections they're looking at multiple reviews to um determine the book and then before the book when the book comes in before it goes
232on the Shelf they are physically looking through them so if there is something that slips through they physically have that and they pull it out before it hits the shelves is that accurate elements feedback prior to purchasing issue is stated the the difficulties with assuming that how much things looking for the topic it's just a lot of things instead literally have to have fun if I may um and I don't want to say any of the names of the websites but I can 100 give that information to you guys afterwards but there are several online resources where libraries and families across the country have come together and and identified books that and it'll say images graphic imagery and it'll show you the images um and like typically what I've been doing is just going through
233to make sure that in the book list that we do get at this point make sure none of those titles are on there and I just type in the title to those and see if it comes up so there are several other resources to try and pinpoint future purchases as far as older ones I think that would just be going through the library one at a time but that's going to take time okay thanks thanks Lindy God Linda you took way more than five minutes just kidding Candace she take all your time you have 30 seconds I'm just kidding completely last I was just kidding the levity that begins at 10 o'clock good evening members of the board parents and stakeholders my intention intentions tonight are not to make this District look bad I love
234wsd and appreciate the work that is put in to make it one of the best in the county tonight I want to clarify information that was given to the public during the June 7th meeting regarding the leader and me program which was piloted at Discovery Ridge Elementary this past school year the 1.8 million dollar program was approved by the board to be implemented district-wide based on the data that came from Discovery Ridge the information to the public needs to be needs clarification as it appears unethical test testing practices occurred at Discovery Ridge in an attempt to prove the efficacy of leader of me in academics this is what I've discovered based on my research Sunshine requests and information given to me directly by parents whose children attend Discovery Ridge at Discovery Ridge 56 out of
235611 or 9.2 percent of students took the math I ready four or more times 83 out of 611 or 13.6 percent of students took the reading I ready four or more times those statistics seems excessive to me since I since the I ready is only supposed to be taken three times so I Sunshine the request so I Sunshine requested the same data but for my kids school at Moon Trail when I compared the two schools testing frequencies related to testing four or more times Discovery Ridge took the math I ready 61.4 percent more than Boone Trail and took the reading I ready a whopping 81.3 percent more than Boone Trail why five students at Discovery Ridge took the math I ready five times four students at Discovery Ridge took the math already six times why
236six students that took the reading I ready five times forty four percent of those students took the test twice on the same day 78 percent of the students took the iready math were only second graders one student took a test four times in three days and all scores were worse stress maybe a fourth grader took the math I ready six times two of those times testing twice a day apart in January and twice a day apart in May another two student took the test three days in a row this diagnostic is not is only intended to be taken three times a year and it's not the end-all be-all it's not mandatory it is only used to is it is not the only tool to use to determine the needs of students and a lower score
237does not mean they didn't learn or lost skills why are these students being subjected being subjected to repeated testing on top of other classroom tests and men and mandated tests these kids are over tested based on the information alone appears there are more support for to prove a pilot program works over educating students and focusing on academics I asked the board which test scores were used in the finalized Discovery Ridge data to determine the leader me program was appropriate district-wide the third score fourth fifth sixth if each test takes about an hour 83 Discovery Rich students took the reading I ready four or more times and 56 students took the math I ready four or more times how many hours of learning loss was incurred for a diagnostic that's not even State mandated I will
238allow you all to decipher those calculations parents and students who attend Discovery Ridge inform me that their children took the I ready a fourth time despite being on level per their third eye ready in an apparent attempt to increase their score in fact many students who were on level repeated the test regardless why on Earth would a student retake a diagnostic days apart when they're on level if there's an attempt to achieve a higher score regardless of being on level many students drop below level on their fourth fifth or sixth attempt if I ready is not just if I ready is just one tool to understand what a student needs for learning I asked the board why were students success excessively tested at Discovery Ridge and will what will this board do to address possible
239unethical practices over testing students Piney has ranked number one in wsd for the past two years meeting annual growth in math I ready without Leader in Me Anne has been leading the pack for the past two years Lakeview Elementary annual growth Target dropped 25 percent per their math I ready and half of our district schools have not met annual typical growth for math yet we invested 1.8 million dollars on a program that doesn't even claim to increase academic proficiency on a positive note 11 out of our 12 elementary schools who did not have Leader in Me had or sorry 11 11 out of the 12 elementary schools did not have leader in me yet 11 out of the ten had year-over-year growth in i-Ready so that's a positive so it just shows that we don't
240necessarily need Leader in Me um let's see wsd ranked third in Saint Charles County an academic proficiency Fort Sue Walton Francis Howell do not use literally me or I ready and their straight proficiencies are better leader me cannot show its causal to academic achievement leader cannot fulfill wsdc I just have like okay just just real quick okay areas in which 1.8 million dollars would have been better invested first and foremost addressing learning loss hiring additional special education teachers investing in additional evidence-based special education programs more school counselors new equipment for students with special or unique needs hiring and giving raises to support staff with competitive pay completely funding summer school and purchasing items to upgrade classrooms and I do plan on continuing to Sunshine all the statistics for iready for last school year and this
241past school year and I'll present them at another time okay maybe I can ask Katie to speak to some of the testing and some of the data that was provided there so ready you've been giving already for four years so iready and Laramie are completely separate from each other they are not um you know related in any way shape or form we use iready data to measure achievement and to measure success of our kids and we have for the last four years and you know we will continue to to help it help meet our instructional needs in the classroom um so that is one part that we look at I mean I can't look at you sorry um and so another piece to that is the retesting um that is something that um buildings or
242teachers have the ability to reset reassign diagnostic assessments um you know if kids approach them that they don't feel they did their best or if um a child had been working really hard and they got a rushing flag through the program so it Flags kids with like a red flag or a yellow flag just depending on some of the habits that they display during the assessment um some of the kids even if they're on grade level do requests because they had been you know working hard I did address one teacher this year that I did notice multiple times and I believe that you had Sunshine some emails as well and there was an email to a teacher you're you know just questioning like hey I just went in here and saw that you know this
243was done and so we had a conversation about purpose and use of assessment and and why we give assessments and what those assessments are for um you know along the lines of um when you're looking at on average out of 610 students on average I believe we gave three assessments if you if you look at it as a whole as a whole building um you know like I said um kids are able to retake tests we allow them to retake Assessments in multiple areas throughout their day um you know and and you know that is something that teachers have the discretion to do to help their kids and and to to help them see growth and achievement because they do work really hard in the classroom okay any other questions comments from the board I
244have questions sure on when there okay sorry when you say that leader in me and I ready are completely separate from my understanding Leader in Me Is there it's like this because when we were being sold on it it was like Discovery Ridge had these amazing i-Ready numbers and they had great attendance and um all this other stuff and then the goals that you set for a leader in me are your I ready goals which is what you're doing with leader in me so I mean I think it's like a brother and a sister relationship or they're they're neighbors they're like that's that's how I understood it when we the reason that we passed or needed leader in me was for the I ready stuff well and I think Katie might want to add to
245that but if we didn't have I ready we would have some other form of achievement assessment for students and then we would use that instead to monitor the achievement so and I guess the thing that was the flag for me when Candace was talking was that the rate of retesting or over three tests at Discovery Ridge was far greater than the other districts who aren't struggling in certain areas or who are struggling in certain areas or whatever so that which test scores were used is it every single time they were tested that sort of thing and these are I got a lot of questions but I mean I could still send in some questions um one of the other the first question that you asked Jen was um about um what was what was the
246first question that you asked about the leader and me and I ready being neighbors was that was the comment you made um so like I said before we've already tested for four years um I ready was one Avenue one tool that we used to to set goals this year um we've been setting goals for a significant amount of time I think that's just a common practice through curriculum associates they give protocols for data chats and setting goals with kids and coming up with strategies so that was something that we did and we celebrated through our building when we presented the leader of me information one practice that we typically do in education is related to successes that we've had in our building and we did see good growth in our I ready scores last year
247um you made the comment that Discovery ridge's scores were higher than other districts I'm not sure that that was that something that you shared that we were higher we tested more than other districts no I was talking about Boone Trail okay so we tested more I think potentially than one building in the district um director Olsen was meaning to say schools not not District then once so we were compared to one school they had time to do one yeah oh no I get it that it's a lot of a lot of data it's a lot of information so any other questions comments but but the the school that you used as the example had can you refresh my memory what you said the balloon Trail sorry 81.3 percent Discovery Ridge did reading I already 81.3
248more than Boone Trail okay that's and I can't even like I don't know how that can even be justified and that's obviously I said that's just one school I only had time I my my research has been in layers so I haven't been able to get all the information I need this is just everything that I've been able to compile for the past like two months and that's kind of my question because I think I guess I'm asking for you know I don't know a graph chart how many how many schools are testing way up here and how many are testing here and then what's the overall outcome for each school because it was pushed on us really hard for this I ready not leader in me stuff that it was we needed it for
249iready so I have a question I don't want to interrupt if she's so when a student logs in to take their their eye ready I'm just curious and I'm not assuming it does or it doesn't but when a student logs in to take it does that count as like if they've logged in just one time to take the spring one or the the fall one the winter the one the spring one that would calculate as three tests but if it takes them double like so I personally have a child with a 504 and it's written in that she gets longer she requires it so um she might log in five times for one session does that make sense so diagnostic assessments are assigned so they're assigned by the teacher so what Candace is saying is
250that there were students that took the assessment five or six they were assigned that test by the teacher that many times for and I mean I don't know specific reasons as to each particular student you said there was how many students 50 83 out of 611 took the reading I ready and 56 out of 83 students or 83 extra assessments 83 students let's see 83 out of 611 students took the eye ready and then 56 out of 600 took that math I read yeah we can we can absolutely look at I mean what that looks like across the district I tried to get information from the previous year at Discovery Ridge to look at their I ready but I don't want to say the districts it's not being forthcoming with information but it feels like
251but it feels that way any other questions comments go ahead I think that we probably want to clarify that last statement so the the data from the previous year so um so there was a sunshine request um I don't believe it was from you um I actually called to clarify that information today and I um I couldn't catch up with that person but um so that report the report of the frequency of Assessments we got notification from my ready that they have discontinued that report um moving forward there's about six other options that they choose it was not an option for us to go back and get 2122 data in that format that you requested of number of times of tests with scale scores attached to they don't save that data like we're just we
252don't save that data no they don't I mean it's live data on there on their website based on the test so they they had made upgrades this year um and I don't have the email in front of me but we did reach out to our rep to see kind of the parameters and what was going on with that so all the iready data from any previous year is gone no it is not obsolete but that specific record that you requested of the date the scale score that that that report has been discontinued for I ready our poor curriculum and Associates any other questions come I have a question sure so so with students retakes the I ready because of rushing because of you know it's been flagged right um what score is used then their
253most current scores so their last score is used to measure their growth so if they took it four times their fourth score would be used as their end score so if we're seeing a student yeah so if a student scores I don't even know what the scores are okay on the first one retakes it scores lower um takes it again and scores even lower that last lowest score is then used I don't know Renee I'd have to look into that specifically I'm not sure the answer to that okay because I have to look into that I I think that matters which score is being used then because which one is truly accurate you know right any other questions comments president Goodson may I provide clarification sure director Hankey in looking as we've had these questions
254and looking at one student in particular as a case study um let's just say student a scored a let's just use raw numbers 300 in the fall 600 in the winter and these are just random scores 300 600 then drop to 400 and the teacher said like you were 600 in the winter that's really strange that you dropped to 400 in the kids like can I take it again and then this child scored 500. from what I understand and we can look further to clarify that 500 would be that score they wouldn't even get the 600 that they scored in the winter as far as meeting their goal it would be that most recent score of that 500. from what I've researched this far other questions coming yeah so what I'm hearing is it is
255common for students to retake the same assessment um and I'm going to look for support here maybe we need to say you know since I ready is just one aspect of our testing what we're collecting um if I ready says hey we see that this student needs to retake it maybe notate that but don't have them retake it because we are using other assessments um we're not just using iready so maybe we just have them notate that it was suggested but then move on president Goodson so director hinke I understand the concern and I think we've heard tonight that you're going to look into more deeply why there's more frequent testing right and generally speaking but I would caution us on doing a blanket statement of we're only going to test our students three times
256a year because we don't know um if we if we make a general give general direction like that we don't know about 504s or IEPs or what you know individual parent requests or student requests so um we don't know what the catalyst is for the test we don't know who's driving the Catalyst for the retesting it could be the student it could be the teacher we don't know what that variable is personally my view as a board member how a teacher decides based upon what I've heard to assess again or run a test again is their discretion and I don't think the board should be dabbling in policies or procedures that are going to be specific to how an individual teacher or building is addressing those things still trying to wrap my head around kids
257volunteering to take tests Fair statement so any other questions comments on the board okay thank you Candace okay with that I need a motion to adjourn Open Session so moved Julie second David second David first Julie all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed motion carries 18 30.