4/29/26 Board of Education Meeting

001to the republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Can I get a motion to adopt the agenda? I move to approve the agenda as posted. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, the agenda has been adopted as posted. Recognizing our own. Cameron. Dr. Poole. Good evening. So, tonight you'll hear from a couple of our student reps from two of our student organizations. One being the Asian Student Association and the other one being the Jewish Student Union. As we come up on May, we celebrate two cultures that are important to our community. One being Jewish American Heritage Month and then also being Asian American and Pacific Islander Month. So, you'll hear from both of the student organizations just about the importance

002of the month and some of the things that they have been up to. Okay. [clears throat] My name's Dante Zuo. I am a senior right now at Clayton and I am co-president of the Asian Student Association. We restarted it kind of my sophomore year. Kind of renewed everything. And we've been putting together a bunch of different events throughout the year. We've had potlucks. If you guys have been at the school, some of the teachers have attended. We've had speakers come in. And just kind of another another one in or at least at the end of this year for celebrating AAPI Heritage Month in May is our Taste of Asia. It's going to be Monday on May 4th, 6:30 to 8:00. And it's basically just a celebration. We'll have things to do. We'll have food. People

003are going to bring in cultural snacks and things like that. I appreciate it if you guys would show up. If you guys would tell friends and family and the rest of the Clayton community to also show up to help support us and learn more because it's not just a month for us, but it's a month for connection to. It is a month to you know, learn about each other's cultures. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks Dante. >> what was the date of that of that again? Uh Monday, May 4th, yeah. Oh, in the corner. Okay, great. And Dante's been a great student leader with the Asian Student Association since he's come into high school with helping get the you know, the group back going and adding strong leadership. So, we appreciate everything that he's doing. So then,

004we're also celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month. A lot of our kiddos from the JSU were pretty busy tonight, but they did make a video for us to be able to view to kind of talk about some of the things that they've been up to. That picture there, you can see um Sarah Foulkoff, who's one of our high school teachers and one of the uh um faculty leaders of JSU with one of our students, Audrey Fine. They went down to the capital you know, to speak out on behalf of the passage of House Bill 2061. So, they will talk about that and you'll hear about hear about House Bill 2061 in the video that we're about to show. I'm Tucker Ableez and this is Raffi Kepich. We are sophomore JSU students at Clayton High School. Thank

005you for inviting us to celebrate Jewish Heritage Month. A time to celebrate Jewish culture, history, and the contributions Jewish people have made to our communities and our country. Here in Missouri, we have something extra special to celebrate this year. Missouri recently passed House Bill 206 requiring every public school in Missouri to have clear policies protecting Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination. This bill passed the Senate 29 to 1, an almost unanimous message that Missouri stands with its Jewish students. It was sponsored by Representative George Hruza, the son of a Holocaust survivor who said, "Jewish students should be able to go to school without fear for their safety, just like their non-Jewish classmates." At a time when hate and anti-Semitism are rising around the world, this law is a reminder that words and actions matter.

006Missouri is choosing to take a stand. Jewish Heritage Month is not just about looking back at history. It's about looking forward to a school, a district, and a state where every student is safe, celebrated, and belongs. We are grateful to be part of a district that sees us, supports us, and stands with us. Happy Jewish Heritage Month. Thanks for letting the students share with the board and the community just you know, about what they're doing within their groups and celebrating these important months. We hope to see you out at the event on Monday for the Taste of Asia. So, please come out and support. And yeah, thanks for always supporting all students and being an inclusive place for everyone where all of our students have an opportunity to have affinity spaces where they can be

007themselves and to be able to celebrate themselves and their cultures you know, with the rest of the community. So, thanks. Thank you. Yeah. And thanks Dante for coming today. Okay. Is there any public participation? No. We will move along. All right, Superintendent of Communications, Dr. Patel. Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here tonight. One of the first things I want to highlight is one of our goals in our district is always to make sure we're connecting what's happening in the classroom to the real world because we're all big believers in the real world learning opportunities that we offer in Clayton. And one of the great examples, of course, is our Catalyst program. And I wanted to highlight this because this is an amazing story. Many of you may know or may

008not know, but the Clayton Chamber is actually coming off the ground again as a new Clayton Chamber Collaborative. And they had a contest for branding. Like, what is that logo and what's the branding going to look like for the new Clayton Chamber? And two of our students in the Catalyst program entered the competition and they won. So, the Clayton Chamber Collective, you see the logo up there, was from two of our students. And Justin Hildebrand, one of our teachers for the Catalyst, has been on the board um of course, ex officio member, but he's been helping get the Clayton Chamber off the ground. And we actually have two of our students on their board as well. So, that's pretty impressive for our students to have that real world experience and making being a part of

009the new Chamber. And moving into the following year, we're going to have two new students on there as well. So, it's just a great way to connect classroom learning to the real world. So, I wanted to make sure I congratulate the students who created the logo and really just highlight them as well. Speaking of amazing students and student success, I also wanted to highlight one of our students, Agastya Dewan. He won a gold ribbon in the Honors Division in the St. Louis Science Fair, which is one of the highest accolades that you can get. And his project was titled, "How do living organisms sense zinc deficiency?" I don't know if you want to know, you can read the report. So, I'm sure he did a great job with it. But I just want to make

010sure that we highlight him and congratulate him. And part of the process was the judges also gave him feedback on how do you get better on your objectives, the use of strong data, the thoughtful interpretation that he made. So, it was a wonderful learning experience for him and he represented Clayton very well. So, congratulations to Agastya. And then recently, the Clayton Education Foundation, I want to highlight them and thank them for all of their support. Since 2009, I believe, the foundation has given our district over $500,000 worth of grants in supporting teacher innovation in our district. This year, we went on the price patrol where teachers fill out grants and then the foundation decides which grants they're going to give. So, we actually announced all the winners and this year they gave around $25,000 were

011awarded to various teachers in various schools. And again, continuing to support innovation in our school district. So, thank you to the Clayton Education Foundation for always supporting us. And then finally, next week is Teacher Appreciation Week. So, I want to take a moment just to thank all of our teachers for what they do every single day. We have a number of them in the audience today. So, we're very glad that you guys are all here. Going to be part of the presentations later. But truly um they're the safe space for our students. They make connections with them and they really are in the day-to-day work. So, I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for all that they do. We celebrate them each year in different ways. The long-standing tradition in Clayton

012was that every school would get a um like a big cheesecake delivered from the district and then they would enjoy that. But we realized that there's so much food and celebrations that week. So, we decided to celebrate them the week before this week. We liked it. Yes. And we did a coffee truck at each of the high school or each of the buildings. And so the staff got to get out and just have some coffee. So it was a good treat for them. Small way, small small way to say thank you for all that you do. So happy teacher appreciation week in advance. And then next I would Oh, next we have the presentations tonight. We're going to have four presentations. We have of course Prop O, yay, projects update. We have our design team

013and the representative from BSI here who is just going to give us a quick update on where we're at and really what's coming up in the next few months. And then we have three board presentation with Dr. Garganigo and our coordinators who will be here to give us curriculum updates. And I really want to thank everyone, especially the coordinators in advance for all of your work behind putting these um presentations together. And I know it's two years worth of study and committee meetings and conversations and setting goals for the next few years. So thank you in advance for presenting tonight. And now I'm going to hand it off to Nina and Nina is going to be excused to leave after her board um report because Nina has a lot of AP exams that she needs

014to study for. So priorities. Take it away. That is a great thing to start off with because the first thing I'm going to talk about is how AP testing is almost in full swing. With test starting next week, it's safe to say that Clayton High School students have been very locked in these past couple of days. Additionally, Compass or Link Crew, which is the group of upper classmen who facilitate team building for underclassmen and help freshmen adjust to the transition from middle school to high school, recently completed their interview process for the 2026-2027 school year. So this newly selected group of leaders will have their first training meeting, I think Tuesday of next week, so that's very exciting. Um it's great for upperclassmen to get to kind of help the underclassmen and get for the

015freshmen to be able to see, you know, what older kids are doing and how they speaking. We have some um big extemporaneous speaking speakers clearly at Clayton High School. Senior Amelia Lewis placed first in radio speaking and Amelia and I placed first in public forum debate, which was pretty exciting. And of course, none of this would have been possible without our amazing coach, Mrs. Stiak, and assistant coach, Mr. Hammonds. Um but that's not even where the spring excitement ends because we have even more. Um and although we are for a few piece a few weeks past election day, the buzz about Prop O has yet to cease among the student body. Many students are excited and very ready for the changes that Prop O will bring. In fact, I have a little anecdote. Two weeks

016ago, we had a track meet and there was pretty much nowhere to park. Um but as I walked towards the field with my friends, I heard a freshman in front of us say um sigh and was like, "Prop O will fix this, the whole parking situation." >> [laughter] >> Which I thought was pretty hilarious and very telling of the district's excitement about the updates. So all in all, Clayton seems to be having a great spring and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester has in store for our amazing students. That's great. Thank you for that and good luck to you on your AP exams, Nina. >> much. You are you are more than excused. Um okay. So we have four presentations tonight as Dr. Patel said, so we will start with

017John and company with the uh facility update. Good evening, everyone. >> [clears throat] >> Uh we had a lot of activity on our projects up until mid-February, in which time we paused so we could uh for the election. And now that that passed, we've advanced the projects into design development. And we're here to give a brief update on that process uh restarting the program. So we'll go with the first slide. The next slide, please. All right. Well, good evening. It's a pleasure to be here. So first of all, we just wanted to say congratulations on Prop O passing. It's uh great news and had a lot of great support. So now it's time to get back to work and uh keep this momentum going. So I'm looking forward to it. Okay. So just yeah, uh

018just really looking focusing on the next steps in the process moving forward tonight, but also just recapping the uh pre-bond schedule, looking at the Prop O projects, the budget-funded projects that touch on the modular campus, uh BSI to recap the cost estimate. And then just touching on the future phase projects as well. Uh just introduction. I know we've got a couple new board members and it's been a while since we presented, so I'm Michael Youngblood, project manager with Paragon Architecture. Uh Brad Irwin, our president, wasn't able to be here tonight, but wishes uh his best. Uh we also have Perkins and Will our architectural partners. Uh Steve Turks and Amy Eckman and on our team as well. John Whitlock, BLDD Architects. Anna Sutton with BSI. We also have Steve Shraggy and Paul Sherameti on our

019team that are not here tonight. So you'll recall the Prop O projects to be funded by the bond issue are fully full renovation of Glenridge Elementary. Uh in that process, we're going to remove part of the back of the school, got renovate the front and replace the back part with a new gym and additional classrooms. Uh a learning lab or CTE wing will be added to the Clayton High School. And Gay Field will be upgraded uh to improve safety and accessibility to the community. Uh we wanted to take a moment just to look at uh all the work we completed prior to the to the bond. Uh you know, and celebrate that. Uh there was a lot of hard work completed going all the way back to last June. So I can't believe it's almost

020been a year ago. So that started out with some building tours to really get a good understanding of the existing facilities. Uh we had uh several workshops at the elementary level, high school, and uh athletics, really getting the user groups engaged and getting their feedback. Also got the community engaged as well with some sessions and the survey. Uh met with the board several times and also had a couple of retreats for their feedback as well. And then uh most importantly, too, is that we were able to go through schematic design and really establish those designs so that the the district and community could see what those projects are going to look like and uh an opportunity for BSI to uh develop a budget for the bond vote as well. Uh so yeah, really moving forward,

021we're digging into design development. So it's um uh adding more layers, just building more detail into the design from that schematic design phase. So we'll continue to uh meet with the user groups uh every step of the way, uh having more detailed discussions. So we're now getting into furniture, fixtures, and equipment, looking at materials, the interior design a little bit further. Starting to look at technology, the mechanical electrical plumbing systems further. So uh have a lot more meetings. We'll be building that into our designs, also working with the City of Clayton as well, and uh BSI to uh further define and check those budgets as well. So we'll have design development over the next few months, and then later this year we'll be rolling into the construction document phase. So really with that phase, we're

022going to be finalizing our documentation. Uh we'll still be meeting with the user groups and the district to just finalize any any final feedback. Uh working with our consultants as well, but really that documentation will be utilized for bidding out to the contractors. Uh used to construct the building and also for permitting with the City of Clayton as well. And then uh as we mentioned, we'll just uh have a lots of owner meetings as we move through the these next few phases. Uh we've already completed several, we've got more uh upcoming, but really uh we want to make sure that we're listening to the district, uh meeting their goals and identifying their needs correctly, making sure that uh we hit those major design decisions so that uh we're aligning with the cost schedule and scope.

023Uh so yeah, just taking a look at the owner meetings. Uh we've already completed a few and got several more upcoming over the next several weeks, and we'll have plenty more to come as well. So at Glenridge, uh we completed a user group meeting on April 9th. Uh we met with a lot of the uh teachers and staff there and went over their individual spaces and how uh they utilize them, where whiteboards would go, touchscreens, furniture, their storage needs, so how they really want to use that space. So got a lot of great feedback and we're going through those revisions right now. And we'll come back on May 13th and 14th to present uh some uh revisions and get another opportunity for feedback from them. At the high school, there are career technical education addition.

024We also had a meeting last week on April 22nd. Uh similar to the Glenridge, met with the teachers there and got their feedback. Uh we also had our uh MEP engineer there as well to really get some ordination going on the equipment needs for uh that addition and also reviewed the exteriors there, too. We've also got a performing arts center improvements meeting coming up on uh May 13th. And then we did meet with uh Jim Brunell, the director of facilities, for a facilities standards meeting just to go over his preferences on materials and systems just to make sure we can kind of streamline and ease the maintenance for those facilities as well. Yeah, and athletics is very similar. So the first couple weeks of May we'll meet with user groups, confirm the program that we

025know today, and then get into way more detail. So, um our projects aren't having to push as fast, so we are in good shape to where we're doing all of that. All right, so a little bit more with the design development and building that detail into our designs. So, architecturally, if I just look at that image on the left, it's a a wall section. So, if you imagine just uh looking at a wall, cutting it in half, and kind of seeing the interior guts of it. So, we're starting to look at how those exterior materials are anchored to the framing system. Uh we're looking at the air gaps that are needed, the insulation requirements, the weather barrier, the uh flashing systems to really provide a watertight envelope and a good insulation value. Uh image on

026the right of that is just some physical samples of the exterior finishes. So, a good example is like we're trying to match brick at the the Glenridge facility and high school. So, actually selecting the brick sample that would match pretty well. Uh looking at the glazing systems, the type of storefront, the color of it, the roofing systems, uh cast stone, etc. Also focusing a lot more on the interior design and material selections there. So, as I mentioned, we're meeting with the user groups, but uh uh looking at how they're going to utilize that space. That image there in the center is a casework elevation. So, an example of how um a space might be utilized. Uh working with them to develop how much counter space they may need, what type of cabinets, what kind of

027appliances, if they need a sink, and laying that correctly so that they can utilize that space the way the way they need to. Also just looking at those material finishes and that color palette and identifying those uh materials as well and where they'll be located. Okay, and then we're also working with our consultants in much more in detail. So, on the structural systems, we just identified the basic uh structural systems in schematic design, but just getting more in-depth there. They're running their structural calcs, uh refining the framing plans, the bracing requirements, uh refining uh column locations, and also looking at the seismo- seismic retrofit requirements for Glenridge for uh specifically there. Uh site and landscape, working with our civil engineer to refine the grading requirements around the building and the surrounding sites. Uh looking at

028storm run-off water run-off calcs and how to manage that along with the utility locations to the building. Another big one, too, is getting uh landscape engineers involved uh uh at these projects to make sure we're meeting the landscape requirements for the the city of Clayton. Uh mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, um >> [clears throat] >> uh just uh finalizing those type of systems for the mechanical, getting those laid out and where the equipment's going on the roof, where it's inside the building, uh looking at those ductwork runs, those shafts, that sort of thing. Uh electrical, identifying the power needs in that equipment, uh starting to focus more on the lighting design, those type of fixtures, how those will lay out in each room. And then plumbing systems, you know, we identified like the bathroom fixture

029locations in schematic design, but now we're looking more at the fixture types, you know, if it's a manual flush valve or electric, and then how those lines will lay out. Uh project schedules, so just looking at Glenridge, um starting with that one. Yeah, we're in design development, and we'll roll into uh construction documents later this year. The goal is to wrap that up by beginning of 2027, bid that project out early in 2027, and have uh construction take place over the summer of 2027 through 2029. And then CTE project over at the high school, um go through our design document phases uh throughout this fall, bid it out with the goal to start construction at the beginning of 2027, and approximately about a year of construction there. High school performing arts, um uh similar to

030the high school, wrap up this fall, but uh we're have to get inside the high school and those spaces, so we're thinking that's more of a summer 2027 construction project. And then I know uh we're looking at doing a turf field at Captain now, so we're also kind of anticipating that to be a summer 2027 project. And then the future bond, I know the district's goal is to essentially do all three elementaries. So, starting with Glenridge as that phase one, uh if the bonding capacity allows and fund future funding, uh roll right into Meramec and after Glenridge is complete, and then do Captain at after that. For the athletic projects, we really obviously all projects start with the end in mind. It's not just about your goals, meeting them, but it's also about timing of

031construction and when you need to be in these projects. So, for Gay Field, um we had to determine what made sense uh for the window. They working closely with the users and BSI about the construction schedule of about a year. So, that would start, so Gay Field would start um at soon as weather breaks in spring of 2027, and take a year. So, that that um facility would be offline for that entire time, but be ready for uh the fall sports spring sports, sorry, the spring sports in 2028. Um that requires us for each one of the projects um for the same reasons that Gay Field, Widen, and Aztec, um you know, we'll have design development wrapped up around middle of July, the construction documents around middle of October for bidding in the fall, and

032then these projects would all start construction in the spring of 27. As I said for Gay Field, as soon as um weather breaks. For Aztec, as soon as baseball is over, or that summer, then go into the fall. And then for Widen, um trying to get into that again as soon as weather breaks in 2027, so it is ready for fall occupancy uh for that project. All right, so we'll talk about budget a little bit. Um so, just to preface a lot of this information I'm going to talk through tonight, um we've kind of been through at previous meetings, so I'll try to keep it fairly quick. Um so, a few months ago before um schematic design, we had established an expected range budget range for all of the uh bond-funded projects of 110 to

033135 million. Um and then fast forward to this past February when the design team completed the schematic design documents, um we developed a more precise estimate of about 114 million, so so well within the 110 to 135 range that we had projected. Um did I go? Yeah. So, just a reminder, um the the 114 million is all-inclusive. It's not just construction costs, it's soft costs, the contingencies, and escalation or inflation. Um and then And then this is just a breakdown project by project. So, Glenridge is about 74 million, Clayton High School CTE addition 17 million, and then the Gay Field complex is 23 million. Um So, when we look at estimates, we're we're trying to estimate to the level of detail that's provided. Um Mike talked through a lot of details and systems um that

034they're that they're working through right now um and getting decisions made and documented. So, so once he once their team is uh done with that design document phase, design development phase, then they'll hand us a big package of documents for us to do an even more detailed estimate on. We'll be able to um estimate even more quantities than we did before, maybe some structural concrete, structural steel. Um so, we'll just be able to to layer in all those additional details um and prices for those uh in DD. Um And yeah, so so we'll be updating that estimate over the next few months. Um and then once the construction documents are completed later this year, um I think for all of the projects, um then then they'll be put out for bid, and we'll be able

035to establish our GMP contract pricing. The other projects will be budget budget-funded will be proposed in the uh next year's 26-27 budget um in part, and the balance in the following year. Um we're also be scheduling some funding for the bonds. I anticipate that we would uh sell bonds this fall uh somewhere in the September-October range, be the first tranche of that. Those dollars would be uh segregated from other funds and held probably by a third party, so that we maintain our integrity with the public that those dollars are only spent on these projects. Uh we're already having those conversations uh to take place. And just looking at those budget-funded projects, uh we're looking at the Clayton High School performing arts area, so still looking at a light renovation of the auditorium and uh adjacent

036restrooms along with an ADA lift backstage to improve accessibility from the stage itself for students. Uh looking at HVAC noise improvements at the band, choir, and orchestra, and getting a new school store along the main entry of the high school. And for Aztec, it is really completing the project from previous, uh putting in permanent structures for the for the uh bull dugouts and the press box. And Widen is providing turf and a running jogging track um at their play area, outdoor area. And then uh yeah, looking at the elementary bridge campus on the front lawn site that we'll talk about more here in a bit, and uh turf field at Captain. >> [clears throat] >> So, with regard to the Bridge Campus, we're in conversations with Washington U about the use of their campus, and

037we're in conversations with a company called Mobile Modular about supplying the modular units and setting them up. We've recently got some cost estimates from them, and we're reviewing those to see how make sure that they are compatible with our needs. Um so, we'll have more to update on that in the near future. Here's a proposal of as it stands today, the modular school is there on the lower right. Uh where it would be located on the campus is there shown on the left. Um the lower left corner red shaded area is where the modular buildings would sit. The parking lot to the north of that would be available to us, and in the center right is the Denham Center, which we would use for the gym and cafeteria services. The The budget planning for the

038budget funded projects are currently in this estimated range of 17 to 20 million dollars, and that will be funded over probably a two-year period, maybe three, to make complete those projects. And just to keep in mind that we still have those future proposed bond funded projects for phase two and phase three. So, Meramec Elementary would be phase two, very similar scope to Glenridge, a full renovation of that facility and a large addition off the back of the building, and then looking at Captain Elementary, fully replacing that school, so a brand new school possibly on that same site, just a little bit further down from it as part of that phase three project. And then the district has set up a website to stay informed of the facility improvements, so please check that out at claytonschools.net,

039and it looks like they have a QR code available, so they'll be continuously making some updates so everybody can stay informed. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that presentation. Uh wants to go Any questions? Going once, going twice. I I [clears throat] have one question. Is so is is our BSI are you guys involved with our not the non-propo funded projects like the Bridge Campus and all that? Are they part of the team for that as well? Okay, got you. Thank you. John, quick question for you. You mentioned segregating the funds raised from the from the debt offering. Is there like a best practice in terms of the controls on that that we just basically copy and paste and and adopt? Yes. So, you know, just to ensure compliance with the purposes of propo, generally

040we commingle our funds and keep them separate in our accounting records, but for this particular transaction, we'll segregate those funds, probably with a third party, a trustee, to hold those funds and then disburse them for us. Okay. Great. Thanks. Thank you, guys. No other questions. Thank you. Yep. All right. Moving along, we have uh Dr. Garganio for English Language Development. >> [laughter] >> Couldn't come up here without your drink, yeah? >> [laughter] >> Start the clock. All right. Good evening. Um so, tonight we're going to continue with our series of curriculum reviews. Um so, just to get you regrounded in um the work the committees uh the curriculum committees spend two years in a self-study. The first year, um it's a lot of refining some of their work, so studying their um enduring understandings, doing

041a gap analysis, um studying their old goals and their progress towards their old goals, and then starting to identify um some areas of focus. Uh during that first year, they um come to the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council to present information um to that group of parents to get input and feedback um early in the process. Uh some groups do some site visits, some groups do some surveying. Um it just sort of depends on what the work is um that we're doing. So, each coordinator tonight will present the work of their committee, um and then what were they'll give a basic overview. The structures are going to look the same for most of these. Literacy's going to look a little different. Um but they'll give a basic overview of the department and the work, share

042their long-range goals um that they've developed, and then share how working on those goals as a consequence of working on those goals, how we will be better um as a district. We'll make connections to the CSIP, we'll make connections to the profile of the graduate, and then you'll be asked to approve those long-range goals, the financials, and to reapprove um the curriculum. So, one thing that I want to sort of state, and I've said this in the reports, but then I want to say it again, um is that we know that the elementary curriculum is not stood up on the new website yet. Um so, in the fall, we're going to do some work over the summer, and then in the fall, we'll ask you to reapprove all the elementary um curriculum. So, what you're

043approving now is really just what's stood up on the website, so 6 through 12. Um so, I wanted to clear that up because I don't think I was very clear um with that piece. Um the other thing that I want to say is the financials for each of these departments um tonight uh we will not be asking for any additional money. Um so, it will all happen within my existing budget. So, as groups come through the cycle, I shift money to the different um departments in order to cover that. If we decide that we're going to purchase a larger resource as a part of these goals, we would bring that to you separately. Um so, what we're asking tonight, so the financials is really just asking to stay within my budget. Um okay. So, that

044gives you the context of that. So, now I want to introduce Sarah Gatta Miller to you. Um Sarah is our English Language um Development Coordinator. I'm going to ask her to um introduce some of her I think actually all of her team um is is here. Um so, I'll have her introduce um and then we'll start with the presentation. I'll get you a little bit grounded, and then Sarah will take over um with her information about from her committee, and then we'll take questions at the end. So, do you want to introduce your team? Hey, good evening. I'm really excited to share with you the work that we've been doing. I'm Sarah Gatta Miller, and I teach uh English Learners at Captain. We also have um Alejandra Bergstrom, who is the English Learner teacher at

045Glenridge. Um Nancy Gamble, who teaches English Learners at Wydown and CHS. And Amy Shipley, who's the teacher at Meramec. Great. Okay. Um so, like with all of these presentations, we like to start by getting ourselves grounded in our profile of the graduate, which is um what helps us determine some of our goals and some of our areas of focus. So, keeping us focused on the work of um that we do with children, because that's why we exist as an organization. Um and our CSIP, our three goals of our CSIP, Sarah's um long-range goals are going to center really around goal one and goal two. Um so, that idea of a place for everyone and then the the growth of learners. Um it doesn't mean that their work is void of goal three, but it's just

046amplified in goals one and two. Okay. So, um last year we revised our enduring understandings. We spent some time looking at them and combined several um we had seven, and now we have four. Um I think that they really speak to our um understanding of our students as assets to our district and how their home language and culture really enrich our school culture. Uh our elementary program has newcomer classes for our beginning um and beginning intermediate students. They have classes um daily with the EL teacher, and also receive support in the classroom. Uh we work together with classroom teachers to help modify curriculum as needed and find resources to help students. And we also teach students how to use tech to um access the content in their first language and to share um their brilliance

047that they gain um by using translation. Um in secondary, we have classes um two or three times a week. The classes focus on academic academic language support and reading strategies to understand the grade level content. Students also get support with assignments, and um the EL teacher collaborates with the content teachers. Um because of the schedule at Wydown and CHS, it's because of the block schedule, they are at Wydown one day and CHS the next. It can sometimes be difficult it's with content area teachers and also um students who are newcomers and need daily support. We We may have to be creative in how we provide that with um maybe other personnel in the district that can help support a student on the day that EL teacher is not in the building. Uh we have two

048assessments that we give um regularly to students. The first is a screener. When a student enrolls and speaks or understands another um language, we screen them and if they get um below a 5.0, then they qualify for EL support. And then every year we give the ACCESS test once a year. That's our progress monitoring tool and shows if a student is a 4.7 or above that they are capable of accessing the curriculum without um EL support and can move to monitor. Um we also work to ensure that our students receive the accommodations needed for district assessments. Um and we're kind of putting some systems into place so that will be a little bit more streamlined in the future. This is um something new that we're doing uh this year. So, a language access plan is

049uh a document that gives more information about EL students, gives information about their background and um their strengths and their goals, provides um kind of outlines what accommodations they might need for assessments. This was the first year that we have them available on Edgeclimer, so we're kind of um working through a few things that we might change for next year, but we think overall they're going to be a great tool to help um teachers know their students and their needs more. Um our PLC, we're a a small team and we um get together to work on these goals um a couple of times a month and we're working on uh identifying some priority learning standards and creating proficiency scales so that our students have a very clear picture of what it is that we want

050them to be able to achieve and where they are on the journey to achieving that. Another thing that we've been working on is looking at um how other districts in the area are able to provide support for their students. So, we're considered a low incidence district because we have less than 20% of our students are ELs. So, a lot of the systems that um are built for EL students in districts where they have a larger percentage of ELs, we don't have them here. So, it's like trying to figure out how do they do it in Ladue or how do they do it in Kirkwood and how can we try to take some of the things that are working well for supporting students there and replicate them here. So, the last two years we've worked very

051closely with the literacy department to try to refine the way that we teach EL to match um and better support um some systematic reading instruction. So, our elementary ELD specialists are doing letters training last year and this year um along with the elementary classroom teachers. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. So, we have um 102 students who have received services this year or receiving services currently, sorry and 119 who have received services this year, which means that we had some uh students who have left and others that have come. Um we've screened over 95 students for services this year and we have uh 27 languages currently and we've also held uh six international coffee parent meetings in the elementary schools. The um some of the topics that we've covered at our coffees are just an overview

052of the school um events, um how to volunteer how to join the PTO, how to get um parents as teachers. We've had um a chance for families to come to the Mid-County Library and get a library card. We've had an outside presenter about supporting children with anxiety and how to set screen time limits. Um so, we think that parent and family outreach is an important part of our program. Okay. So, here are our goals for the next few years. We want to ensure that our students and families feel welcomed, supported, and included in the school and community. We want to engage our learners in comprehensible content through authentic interactions in the classroom to ensure high levels of academic achievement. We want to expand the expertise of our educators to teach English learners through school and

053district structures for collaboration and professional learning. And how will we be better? Um >> [clears throat] >> so, I really think that this two-year process of reflection has helped us to zoom out and kind of think think about things more systematically. I feel like we are so busy doing the work that it's sometimes hard to think about things um more systematically. So, I I'm grateful for that. Um we're excited about the goals that we've that we've created about helping students to have improved access to the resources and helping with um creating some ways for teachers to be able to receive more professional development. I think that will be really helpful as well. Okay. Um our next steps we really want to look through the lens of an a family that speaks another language and help

054to clarify and simplify district communications. And then um a lot of our action steps are working closely with others in the district to help students and family get access to resources. What questions you have? Yes, questions. Who wants to start? I'll cold call. >> [clears throat] >> Do we have a mechanism to um kind of survey the parents um and and collect that feedback? And then my second question is like of these students, what is their tenure with Clayton on average? Um Yeah, those are good questions. We have um surveyed families in the past and we did not this round, but um we've put it as one of our action steps for one of our goals to do a survey in the near future. I think it's hard for us to always know if the

055supports that we're providing are meeting the needs of each family because each family is different. So, you know, if you have an international coffee in the morning, does that necessarily include everyone cuz some people are working. Um so, things like that we would be asking questions about in a survey. And then um I think our families um average tenure is so, it really depends. We have some families that come and stay. We have some families that are here for one, two, or three years because they're doing a doctoral program or another um study at Washington University or SLU. We have some families that um we don't have very many families that are transient. We've had a few families that are, you know, here for a short time. But most of them are here for one,

056two, or three years or here to stay, I would say. Midge, do you have a question? Thank you. Um thanks for this report. It was really interesting to learn about the program and I I was at the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council when it came through, but um this like painted a whole bigger picture, so thank you for that. Um I asked this question and I still don't understand. >> [laughter] >> Sorry, over your email, but the percentage of students that um are considered um their primary language is considered English, but yet they're part of the EL program. Yeah, that's um why don't we classify those under their other language? So, the answer that I got was that it was they used English primarily, but also have a second language at home. Why do we

057still count them under English? So, I um I'm not sure I I think that the way that we ask that question is what is your primary language and so that is why it's counted that way. But um we do have families that have multiple languages and then we're required to test them um and if they qualify, even if English is their primary language, they still receive services until they can get the 4.7 or until we um use a portfolio to move them to monitor status. So, there is a you know, a caveat for students that for whatever reason we can't um get the 4.7, sometimes we can move them off using a portfolio of other evidence. Okay. So, they they speak English primarily at home or maybe there's just also like a Yeah, a lot

058of times um if a if a family speaks um another language, maybe the child goes to a preschool where English is the language, so their preferred mode of communication is English, but they're still um responding to their families whatever the language is. Okay. Great. I was just mostly curious. >> not be testing a child who both parents speak English and they went to immersion language school for preschool. We would be testing students who have another language at home. Right. Okay. Great. Thank you. I think I think that's it for me. Anyone else? Next? I don't have I'll go go for it, Leo. I don't have any questions for you. Thank you for this presentation and I really enjoyed learning more about it. I did think when I read through it, you know, you kind of

059soft sold or undersold goal three, but there's a fair amount of goal three in here and I think you should take take credit for the work you're doing in that area. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Um So, one of the questions I had asked you via email, but I just wanted to also bring to this table is that you shared with us in the presentation is the overlap in the work that you're doing in collaboration with the literacy department. And um after I read the world language department presentation and sat in the world language teaching and learning presentation, I thought, "Wow, there's so much overlap here." And so, I just wonder if you could speak to um I don't know, the idea of partnering with them in some way

060and how you could help them and they could help you. Yeah, I think one of the ways that I hadn't considered is this work that we're all doing to clarify our priority learning standards and the proficiency scales because I can see that looking at what you want a student to learn, let's say, in Spanish one or Spanish two and how we would measure progress towards those goals could be very similar to looking at what a newcomer English learner is going to learn and how we would measure progress towards those goals. So, that's something that I can speak with um Michael and work together on, I think. Um we do have uh I was going to say, we do have a couple of EL teachers that are also Spanish teachers, so we're kind of yeah, we're

061kind of inclined to uh >> [laughter] >> So. Thank you. Um And I just wanted to say thank you. I said previously that um you know you all of you in the ELD department or maybe just EL department, anyway. Um You have to have such specialized training and experience and I imagine also a heart. And the fact that we have, I think, four or five of you who I I feel very lucky that we have you. I thank you for your work. Um you're special people. Thank you. It means a lot. We really feel like we're lucky to get to work with the families and the teachers that we get to collaborate with. Aaron. Thanks. No no real questions, but just again, um always struck by the number of languages that you're working with as

062well and just again, speaking to the the tremendous work that the department or group has to do to meet all those different needs across different languages, so just really impressive. Thank you. Chris. Um thank you for this presentation. It's always exciting um to hear about how we are so intentionally bringing in the culture of all these folks that come to our schools. And I have seen firsthand from a parent point of view, but now just as a community point of view, really, cuz I've been here, you know, so long, how much that enriches the lives of our students. It just does. It's so obvious. Um and it just feels so good. It goes so along with our profile of a clean learner. It's just a really wonderful thing and it um I'm super excited to

063be able to continue to support what you guys do and the fact that you've thought so um in depth about the way to connect with families and all the things that they need in terms of resources. It it's phenomenal. I I'm just so appreciative of your work. So, thank you for all of that. And and what Pam said about bringing in that literacy and the world language, fantastic idea to continue to collaborate in those ways and um yeah, keep up that amazing work. Um the one thing I'll also say is uh I've gone to the teaching learning committee a couple times when I was needed, but I love and I think that it is important that we have a parent there that is an EL parent because that's a great avenue for parents to be

064able to say, "Here's what, you know, how it plays for me as a person that doesn't have English as a first language." Easy way for you to get feedback. I I heard a lot of it that you said tonight, I heard it in that room, so I know you're really hearing it. So, always paying attention to that, I think, is a great opportunity in terms of having, you know, those parents at that committee. Yeah, and I was going to say one of the things that we talked about is having a um international parent as a liaison to the PTO just so that PTO is thinking through that lens as well. Exactly. And um you are all welcome to come to an international coffee. We can invite you. I'm not sure if we will have one

065more in May, but we'll send an invitation in the fall, so you're welcome to join at elementary school of your choice. Come and get introduced. I I was just going to say quickly, I think, you know, when I first started reading this report, I was like, "Boy, the family engagement is just got to be such a critical component of of our work in this area." And you mentioned it in the report, of course, then you expanded on on that now and that's something that has been mentioned in the report now. >> take a lap on if you could, you know, because the the work that you're doing to engage our parent those parents not only in the work of the district, but it sounds like the work of the community is really critical to our

066kids' success. So, so thank you for doing that. Uh Pam wanted to say one more thing real quickly. I wanted to share one sweet story. Um my son, who's in sixth grade, had a friend who was with him at Glen Ridge for a few years who came in speaking almost only Spanish, almost no English. And he has now gone back home to his home country. And they were playing video games together, you know, they can talk when they do that. And my son said something like, "I'm so glad that you called me." And he said, "Well, I have I learned English. I have to keep practicing it." >> [laughter] >> So. Thank you for sharing that. Um okay, so I think we need a motion to Um I move to approve the ELD review goals,

067the district written ELD curriculum and the financials as outlined in the report. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, it passes. Thank you. Oops. All right. Ready? No, we're not ready yet. Can I get a motion? We're going to do this the right way this time. No, no, no. Just start the discussion now. Cuz it's an action item. All right. Oh, okay. All right. I bet. All right. Okay. Yeah. So, yes, we're ready. Yes. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Now we're ready. Okay. Yeah, ask us if we're ready. Yeah, great. So, similar to the ELD world languages um has a set of long-range goals determined by input from their their department, the the community, the committee and the team's study of world language programming. So, I would like to introduce I actually just

068learned that I've been saying his name wrong for a while and names are really important to me. So, I would like to introduce Michael Crowell. Yeah. That's right. Well, he said [laughter] that I like roll it all together, so it's like Crowell. But it's really two syllables. Um so, I'm trying. I'm learning. Um so, I'd like to introduce Michael to you. He is our world language curriculum coordinator. I'm going to have him introduce the members of his team who are here. Um I I will say up front that um we we say to people who are on the committees and and the teachers that like come if you want, watch online if you want. So, like um I I don't want that as a reflection of like who's here or who's not here or whatever.

069Like people are watching, people are paying attention, but I do want Michael to introduce the members of his team who are here um tonight. Yeah. Thank you all. Um I as she said, my name is Michael Crowell um or Crowell or Crow. Um and back here we have Laura Hartman, she's a French teacher at the high school. Uh Dorotea Lakova, she's our department chair at the high school and Spanish teacher. Gwen Kennerly, uh elementary Spanish. And Heather Movie, Spanish at elementary. So, thank you all again for having us. Um Are you going to drive for me? >> [laughter] >> Um so, so back to um just making sure that we're grounded in the profile of the graduate and then with our CSIP, Michael's focus is really going to be on all three goals. Um and

070I'll let him sort of articulate how he sees it focusing on the three goals of the CSIP and then he'll give you the background of his curriculum area and um their long-range goals. Uh yeah, so currently um the world language and cultures uh department encompasses uh first grade through 12th grade language learning uh and exposure. Uh so, we have elementary Spanish at uh first through fifth grade in all three elementary schools and then when students combine at Wyndemere, they have exposure to choice language, which includes French and Spanish and Chinese and Latin. Uh our focus is not necessarily on task. It's more about uh getting the students the opportunity to communicate and really try to embed cultural understanding with throughout that. Um our program is very strong. We're one of the few programs in the

071state that offers elementary uh language exposure. Um so we're very lucky and we're very happy to have that. Um and we have a variety of ways that students can get into language uh learning opportunities in the district. So that happens at the elementary school, but also at the middle and also at the high school. Um because of these variety of ways that students can kind of jump in, we do have some inconsistent clarity with relation to trans- transitions and the expectations. Um so the current reality is that the courses do exist from 1st through 12th. Um we start out with elementary Spanish, and then students move from 5th to 6th grade where they um can continue Spanish or they can jump into French. 7th grade, they can choose to go into Latin or Chinese, and

072then at the high school if they haven't had any opportunities, they can hop into any one of those. Um so the transitions between the levels can vary depending on when they hop in. And the growth isn't necessarily always visible to students or families. And we anticipate in the future with the the goals we've set that we are going to provide a clear pathway to a student to be as proficient as they can be within the the language they've chosen. Oh, can you go back? Thanks. Um so that dif- that will be a defined transition points at 5th grade, 8th grade, and at the high school. Um and we're going to work together to align all languages so that way it's not unclear depending on the language of your choosing or the level that you're at.

073And lastly, the hope is that we are going to make we're anticipating that >> [laughter] >> that uh learning language becomes more visible and trackable through through portfolio at the creation of portfolios. So content creation will be done with curriculum alignment. Um we want to be more clear about where we are vertically across languages and and the grades. Um portfolio and growth tracking is uh is is paramount to help us see and hear what students are able to do within language and helps students see their learning visible across time. And then ultimately provides students with opportunities of real world application of language to connect that learning to authentic experiences with language. And uh the hope is that clear expectations at every level uh provide students with stronger transitions between schools, uh that we have increased

074student confidence and ownership of their learning in language, and that more students progress through the system to continue into advanced coursework which culminates not just in advanced placement courses, but also with um French and Spanish elective opportunities within the target language. And that growth towards proficiency will be made visible over time with the implementation of what's called a pathway to proficiency, which is um a are stepping stones towards ultimately getting the culmination of a seal of biliteracy which shows a proficiency in English as well as a second language. And we just awarded 50 seals of biliteracy. Um was that last night? Yeah. So um our next steps in year one, we're going to try to find the pathway and the proficiency benchmarks, which we've already kind of started working on. Um just through our work

075naturally occurred. And then year two would be pilot alignment and portfolio exploration and practices and defining what that means. And then year three and five, expanding that implementation and refining uh our work. So what questions do you have for us? Let's start. You want to go first? I'll do the motion. Oh yeah, do the motion. >> [laughter] >> I move to approve the world languages review goals, the district written world languages curriculum, and the financials as outlined in the report. Second. All right. That's discussion. >> Yeah, so yeah, yeah. I'm trying to see who wants to go first. We'll start over here. Chris, you want to go first? Sure. Um thank you for this report. Um yeah, it's wonderful to hear about again, sort of like what we were saying with the EL, how much

076um having all these opportunities for students to learn these languages and how much the content isn't just about the language itself, but about the culture. I think it's a great an amazing thing. Um uh what what what what was my question? Um I have a kind of a random question. How much are we cuz one of the things you said on there, so it's not random, is you want authentic experiences. And I remember way back in the day, there was a lot more of these trips that happened at various grade levels, and I think COVID is part of the big reason why that may have stopped, who knows what else. But yeah, I do think that it's it it's amazing to actually put it into the real world practices like, you know, Nisha was talking

077about it earlier with and um and I think I mean, this is a guess, but I I think it's a good one, that you know, students get more excited about language knowing that if I go into this class, I'm also going to have the opportunity potentially to go to this place. So anyway, just talk to me about how that's um what your thinking is around those things, what's what you think has worked in the past, what your plans are, etc. So I'll start and then Michael's going to take over. So um as a consequence of COVID, we we sort of suspended all international travel for a while. Um and then regrouped in in our thinking related to that, and so have gone through a a span where essentially all international travel has happened independently of

078the district. >> Okay. Um and so the teachers have operated as individuals >> Yeah. um through often times through companies um partnering with companies inviting students to to to be a part of that, but that has been independent of the district. Michael and I have recently had some conversation about rethinking this in conjunction with some of the work that Nisha and I have talked about with global education and and those types of things of like, what are the ways to um to rethink what international travel can look like. Um and one of the sort of philosophical pieces that I would say is um I believe really strongly in programs that have homestays or um connections with um people in the culture. I I um tend to lean a little away from things that feel like

079tourist trips. >> Mhm. Um so service trips I think are really important. Um opportunities for children to live with other families um I think are really important because I think they just have a different level of of importance and a different level of practice with the language. So if the intent is for children to practice the language, um when we're all together as class and students traveling on a bus together, that doesn't happen in the same way. Mhm. Um it can still happen, it just doesn't happen in the same way. Um often times also the cost of um some of those trips is really high in comparison to when we can partner um with schools or companies in in other countries. So I'm going to let Michael talk a little bit about what we've been

080exploring as opportunities um like pretty soon. Yeah. Yeah, um it's exciting stuff. And we and as soon as we were allowed to start doing student travel, teachers at the middle and the high school both jumped at it. So just to let you know that we do have a trip this summer in June to Spain and Italy with uh 7th and 8th graders. Um and then at the high school, we've got um and actually the French department at the middle school also does Canada. Um just so they go to Montreal or Quebec, sorry. Um and then at the high school Amy Dean is is that cuz I before this district, I had never gone before, so this is awesome. But I interacted with our Ladue colleagues um who are friends of mine, and um I was

081on the board of the Foreign Language Association of Missouri with, and they informed me that they had found a company that they work with directly in Madrid or in Spain to do exchanges. So um I was in contact with them, and then I worked with Milena to figure out what that might look like as a pilot for our students this next year. And the company doesn't just do exchanges in in Spain, they also do it in Italy. Um and they also do one-way exchanges where our students could go and live with a family and go to school in France. So those are some things that we're kind of working on and figuring out logistics is if the students want to or if we have enough uh interest in that. Um and a lot of the

082students learning about it are very excited to to see what the po- possibility, the potential there. So it is a this this Spanish will be a pilot um opportunity this next year. And if things go well, the idea is to expand it. And they also have other options, too, um for real world application and learning not just in within language, but also outside of that. They also have a service project at an orphanage in Kenya. And they also have um language learning opportunity in India, as well. So those are other areas that we could kind of work with maybe even business department or the history department or English department to talk about ways that they could get some real world application to what they're learning in classrooms. So those are some some baby steps in

083the direction of getting kids out there and experiencing things firsthand. I think the other thing that's appealing to us about that is a true exchange. So us receiving children because that has an impact on our community as a whole Yep. um as well as us sending smaller groups of of students out. Um but like the benefits to our community um are similar to like the ELD department. Um but having those opportunities to also um sort of expand that reach within our own community. It is exciting to us. Um I also think, you know, with CTE, we still are looking at the global STEM squads um work um in Central America and things like that. So, the connection to service I think is is one that's interesting to us um as well as this idea of

084of true exchanges and living like home stays. Beautiful. Right. Okay, Leah. So, you answered a couple of my questions in the way you put it together your presentation, that's great. Um I did want to get you to expand on this idea of portfolios that you mentioned. Explain that a little more. What what's going on there? Yeah, so it's a theory, right? So, the idea is that we see a first grader with their language exposure and we record it in some fashion. We're going to explore what that might look like. And then, in 12 years, that same student could look back and see how they've grown over those 12 years. And and some some maybe it's a recording, maybe it's a written, maybe I don't know what it would look like. So, that the idea behind

085this is the to explore the possibility of what that could be. If if if at the very least, the setting up of the pathway to proficiency, we already do standardized sort of test at 5th and 8th and and at 10th grade-ish levels. So, so it's I say ish because it it depends on what grade they're in in that course. Um but those points of time at least give us hard data to point to the students and say, "You are learning. Look, you've grown over time." This would just give us some more visual, you know, evidence to support it as well. Because saying, "Oh, look, you have a red dot here and now it's yellow." doesn't speak much to the student. We want to make sure that it's visible for them as well. It speaks to

086us as professionals, but we want the students to see their growth, too. And parents. Yeah, I I think that I was going to say the parent piece, also. The One of the pieces I think that came out from the teaching and learning advisory council is it's not and Michael sort of said this in the presentation that it's it's not overtly obvious to parents what what language growth is looking like for their children and what does proficiency mean? So, he did an exercise with the teaching and learning advisory council about proficiency because there's a difference between this idea of fluency in a language and proficiency in a language. Um and and I think for as long as I've been here and the elementary program has been in place, there's been a little bit of a misconception

087about what the what the goal is. Um and so, people often will say, "My child is not fluent." and that's actually not our goal. Um so, so the the um the idea of a portfolio can help to make like that thinking and that learning visible to the children, but also to the families of of what children are capable of doing with within the language. Uh and then I'll just this is Chris said similar things, but I do think that this program really reflects some cool things we're able to do in this district and some things that this community really values and supports and thank you for all the work you're doing and I think it's it's great. Thank you. Aaron. Yeah. I had similar questions about the portfolio, so that was great to hear a

088little bit more about what that might look like. Um and then kind of also piggybacking on the um sort of real world experience and opportunities. Um you know, the international piece is huge and really exciting. Um I guess I was also wondering about what sorts of domestic opportunities and local opportunities. I know this is not quite as exciting as going to Spain, but I know the Latin class recently went to the art museum to see the the new exhibit on Trajan. So, you know, I thought that and then they went to the zoo, actually, to >> [laughter] >> practice their Latin on Yeah, I know, it was a great idea. I was on that field trip. >> Yeah, so fantastic. [laughter] It got two thumbs up, so um but yeah, if there might be other

089opportunities like that. >> Yeah, glocal is fundamental, right? So, the Spanish uh we went to Cherokee Street um earlier this semester and they got a chance to explore some of the shops down there, go to some restaurants, and try It was the pop culture class and try and order in Spanish. So, we are doing our due diligence to make sure that students that who maybe don't have the opportunities to go abroad still have a way to practice here. Um and we're going to continue searching for more and more opportunities like that um with our revamping of our world language lab. The plan is to bring in speakers this next year and start bringing in people that can speak to, you know, how do they use language in the workforce um or beyond. And so, I

090think that those are going to be things that we're going to slowly percolate into our program that are going to that that sort of comment is encouraging. So, thank you. I think also with the seal of biliteracy um up until this point, there's a component of the seal of biliteracy that's like a socio It's a it's a it's a cultural reflection on how language has impacted them, but they get to write it in English and it's one page. So, we so Michael and I have talked about what what what opportunity do we have there to use that component of the seal of biliteracy to think a little bit differently about getting children into the community um and and other ways of being able to use language and then being able to reflect on that impact

091for them. So, I think there's an opportunity there that we can grow um that could create a a connection in in a similar way. Yeah, so the the cultural project is an option instead of doing that and we opted to just to get the program started, we opted to focus on the cultural essay connection rather than the cultural project. And so, with the new advanced placement revamping of how it's going to flow, there's a cultural project component to that. So, we think it's going to marry nicely with the seal of biliteracy. Pam, you want to go? Well, that takes me to one of my questions. Um can you talk about the participation rates in AP and the seal of biliteracy for our student group? Um and then share your thoughts about that. When you sent

092that, I pulled the data for you. Um the when we and I assume when you're talking student group, you're talking really like racial the racial breakdown. Yeah. Um so, in our AP courses, um the and so, this is all AP all AP language courses together in comparison to the total population of students who can access um AP courses, if that if that makes sense, cuz that's not the total population of the high school. We generally don't offer AP to 9th and 10th graders. So, this is really looking mainly at the 11th and 12th graders um in comparison. So, the um the places that I that I see sort of disproportionality are black students. Um so, 2.9% were reflected in the AP courses and there's about 15% um of the total population. Our Asian students, it

093was 18.6% in the AP courses and 13.5 is the um total population of that group. 5.7% of Hispanic students and 2% is the total population. 10% of multiracial students, 10.8 is the total population. And then, 62.8% of our white students and it's about 58% of the total population. Of the white students? 62.8. So, that's the AP. Um and then for the seal of biliteracy, so of the students who qualified for the seal of biliteracy this year, 0% were black. Um 24% Asian. And this the total population for that is the senior class. Um so, only seniors qualify for the seal. >> you say 24% were Asian, 24% of the >> of seniors who got a seal of biliteracy are So, 24% of that 50. Yeah. Um 10% Hispanic, 8% multiracial, and 58% white. So, And

094I'm guessing the white white not Uh correct. Correct. I I only pulled it by race because of the way that you worded the question. I didn't pull it by um EL or IEP um or qualifying for like direct cert. I didn't I didn't pull that. I I just pulled it by race. Um so, what what I think we my assessment of that is similar to what we see um in in our other work um with our student group is that our black students are underrepresented in both of those both in the AP courses as well as the students who are qualifying for the seal of biliteracy. Um that's the that's the starkest number. Um the other numbers are are somewhat comparable to the total population, but it's our black students that um we see a

095a disproportionality. What do what do we think we can do about that? Yeah, so Michael and I had some conversation about One one of the things I think um that we talked about is the partnership with counseling um in thinking about um students who like when we when we're doing course like um registration, what are the conversations that are had that our counseling department is having with students and what's the partnership that that the departments can have with the counseling department about those pieces. Um cuz when you think about like our Spanish program, we start with a essentially 100% of our children taking the Spanish program, you know, enrolled in the Spanish program and then as students age up in the system, things change. There's choices, etc. But I I I think there's a communication

096piece there and um a way of of thinking through how we present courses um to students um that I think we can do some work there um to really be intentional about that partnership with that department cuz they have a lot of they have a many more conversations with the children about their registration than you know, the the teachers necessarily do. Um so I think that's an easy sort of first place for us to to start to have some conversation. Is there a requirement for world languages at high school? How many years is it? We don't have a requirement. So, the state of Missouri does not have a graduation requirement. They have a recommendation of at least 2 years. So, I guess it would be interesting to see the numbers of our black students who

097are taking a language as ninth and tenth or ninth graders, just say. And that could help us see where and is that the entry point or is it progressing in the Okay. Okay, thank you. Um, okay, now I have diff- very different kinds of questions. Um, so all of our kids start in Spanish and then they go to Wydown and they get to choose between two languages in sixth grade and then in seventh and eighth they can choose two more options. What [clears throat] we don't tell our families and our students is that in when they're in fifth grade is that if you do not choose Spanish or French in middle school and stick with it all the way through, you will not progress very far in your language. This was one of the things

098I learned, I think, from you all at the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council. >> When you say you will not progress very far, does that mean you won't reach AP? Because you still have an opportunity to to have 4 years of a language. You can have 4 years of a language, but what I learned is that if you don't start there, then the language you do as a senior, if you start, you know, the the short sequence, as we call it, you start as at what you are as a senior is equivalent to what you would be as a freshman or sophomore had you done it in middle school. It's Yeah. >> So, I have two parts of this question, so we can do that one first. And so, how can we, you know, I

099I really want to encourage you to think about communicating with the fifth grade teachers, with the fifth grade students and their families on making these decisions? Because that seems like a big deal. Um, and then the next piece is what do we do about our kids who come in in middle school? Because if you come We get a lot of students who come in in seventh grade, but if you come in in middle school and you don't have any language exposure to those two, then you actually can't take any language at Wydown. No, you can take uh, Latin or Chinese in seventh grade. You can take Latin or Chinese, that is true. Those are like, that's a whole other um, what is the word? Letter system. There's a word for that. There's another word. >>

100[laughter] >> Whatever the word is. So, if I understand you So, if I understand what you're what you're articulating is you're articulating that there is not an entry point in the middle school after sixth grade for either Spanish or French. That is true. Yes, and I think that that should be changed. And what we also learned is that if you are in learning center in middle school, you don't get to take a language. That that's not that's not 100% true. That is a that is a consideration because there's a limit to the to the number of electives that a child can take and if learning center is taking a slot, it does take up something. And there are children where we have to make a decision, particularly in sixth grade where there's fewer electives slots

101for students, we have to make some decisions. That is true. The we did at one point try to have an entry point for Spanish in seventh grade and it wasn't because we do have a large influx of students that come in to the middle school in seventh grade, so some of those private schools end you know, at sixth and and come in. And we did try it with with sort of limited success. Um, and and it was more about um, interest in it at the time. So, it's I don't know that it's not something that we couldn't revisit again, but we abandoned it relatively quickly because we weren't getting the kind of interest that we thought we were going to that we thought we were going to get. Um, so I I think we would

102have to think through the Like for us, I think it would be a question of thinking through the programming of it and and what because what I think that would set up is sort of the a third sequence, which would be sort of like a medium sequence, right? So, we have like the short sequence, we have the long sequence and then we'd have sort of a medium sequence, which is which would represent sort of more of a traditional what other school districts you would see where kids start in seventh grade and then get through senior year. Um, and the generally in those programs the seventh and eighth grade is sort of the equivalent of Spanish one. Um, so you're getting them sort of a year further, basically. I think it's just a missed opportunity for

103kids to not be able to access a a language that uses the ABC alphabet, whatever we that word is. Um, Oh, that's what you meant about the alphabet. Uh, there's a word for it and we all know it. I just don't know what it is right now. Yes. That's script, right? No. It's the It doesn't matter. Characters. We all know what I'm talking about when I'm asking this. I just don't want us to lose that opportunity for students to get involved in the language, both in the language development and in the cultural development that you all are speaking about. Um, and or is it even something as easy as reorganizing the schedule so that new seventh graders could be in a sixth grade Spanish class? I I'm sure that's not easy, but >> [laughter] >>

104just another idea of not having to start a whole new class. I think the the hope is that we can explore the ways in which we can get students proficient at certain levels and it may be that it evolves to a conversation that requires us to make some adjustments and changes that are hard. So, having that conversation may happen in the future once we figure out how far can kids go if we let them learn. Can I piggyback on that? Just cuz we're it's so so so related. Um, so just This is off the top of my head at would would starting not having language in sixth grade alleviate that problem because everyone would be in Spanish one in seventh grade and that's I don't I'm not saying it would alleviate, but >> Spanish is

105a continuation of the elementary program. I understand, but I I'm just thinking about what opportunities those sixth graders would have for other opportunities like that would help them with their sense of belonging because they're transitioning from fifth grade into sixth grade. I'm just thinking about there's only so many hours in a day, so many We're saying we would love for seventh graders to be able to take Spanish one. Um, that's not happen That can't happen right now. What if everyone just took Spanish one is it Anyway, random thought. Okay. But I do like this I I I appreciate us talking about the counselor being part of this conversation and um, I want to expand on that and say not only do we want to talk to our students, this counselor talked to the student about,

106you know, what do you think about a language? And like that that excitement and that, you know, what what language what kind of conversations are happening, but we also have to have those with the parents cuz the parents don't understand that aspect about if you don't do it here, then it's going to be this and you're only going to get here. Does that make sense? Yep. >> So, it's one thing for the counselor to have those amazing conversations with their with that student is a whole 'nother thing for them to, you know, then translate that over to the the parents cuz that's going to make a huge difference in, you know, the parent being part of actually I think you should do it this way instead and like having that conversation with those especially middle

107school kids. So, I I do think there's room for improvement in terms of that parent involvement and understanding what where they could go, whether they do the short or the long or whatever. And I think the development of our pathway to proficiency that we're trying to do Yeah. will help mitigate a lot of that confusion. Great. I think also like in the report on page four we have that chart that talks about the components of like how long you study a language and sort of what the proficiency level that you possibly can get to. And I think when Pam was at the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council, we had some conversation about like um, like our philosophy has always sort of been a little like get a start early, stay long um, kind of piece.

108And when when students shift into another language, a lot of what's often reported to us from the teachers of the other languages is like they kids already have the um, the skill and the muscle around the learning a language, so we can move much faster in like French one or Latin or Chinese one or or something like that because they're not like trying to learn the language. But what what I think is interesting about this chart, and I think it came up with the parents was like help communicate this more clearly to us of like when we're making this decision cuz it's like, oh, we're making a decision, we're going to middle school. And and it doesn't feel as informed and they were like, if we knew some of this stuff, it it could influence

109the choices that we're making within our family. So, yeah. Pam, do you have other other questions? >> [laughter] >> Um, so the other question is we have a short track for the kids who start in high school that language and we have a long track for the ones who start it in middle school {slash} elementary. And those tracks are basically a a regular or a college prep equivalent versus an honors or advanced equivalent. And I know there's all different names for them. >> Sure. It seems to me that there are levels within those levels that would be worth exploring. Meaning the kids who start in ninth grade, there are going to be some who want to like run with it and some who just want to take it. And likewise, there's some who started in

110sixth grade who want to take it and keep going and there's some who really want to run with it. And so I just want to encourage thinking about that leveling to help more students go further. So if I understand what you're saying, I I like is some of what you're saying like if a student was in the short sequence um and wanted to accelerate their learning to be able to access something like AP or something like that that we provide opportunities for that to be able to happen. Okay. Um cuz I think there are a couple things like Michael and I even talked about this this morning. There are a couple things that um that are in place that we haven't sort of historically used with our um within our language courses but are are

111in place to be able to have that happen. And one is like you all have a policy around content acceleration um that that could allow that. We also have access to virtual learning um that could allow students to do some um some things and like that's a state law that children have access to um MoCap providers um to do courses. So like that could look like some summer learning or something like that where that could allow students to move um further in a sequence. Um like obviously they're going to have to carry the load to to be able to do it but I think there are opportunities that we probably aren't very public about exploring that that we could be more public about. And we and we do have I have I had three or

112four students last year in Spanish one say I I really want to go and go beyond what I could get to. So they did skip level um exams and we have those in place as well. So students that are ambitious enough, we can identify them but they usually identify themselves and they approach their instructors and then we work with them to meet their needs. But I think most people's mental model of content acceleration in the district is math. Um but it's actually your policy actually is not just written for one content area. It's written for for all of them and and we can help with what that looks like. Um and generally what that means is they take a course and then we do some kind of like giving them the final exam or something

113for the course to make sure that they're in in the right space to set them up for success to like skip a level um >> [clears throat] >> or to have taken that level in an alternative like way um to then be able to have access to different kinds of courses. It historically there has not been a lot of movement between the short sequence and the long sequence. Um the I feel like Michael is trying to push my thinking in in that way. Like I'm I'm the one who's holding tight to some things there um but I think Michael has sort of helped me to think differently about what that possibly could could look like um to have some movement because we do have some students who are in the short sequence who um likely

114could benefit and be very successful moving into the long sequence. My reluctance has been the movement the other way um into the short sequence um but I feel like we we are open to having some of those conversations of what that potentially could look like. Good job, Michael. Thanks. It's a gentle push. >> [laughter] >> And then I just wanted you guys to um toot your own horn about the changes at the for the report cards at the elementary level. Speak to that cuz that's great. Uh yeah, so in instead of task focus, it's it's proficiency focus. It's really just the beginning stages of having that conversation and getting people to understand we're we're talking about growth here and not tasks. Um and so that the whole point of that revamp was to begin the

115conversation at the young age that way that by the time they get to secondary, they understand what proficiency is and modes of communication and all that. And that's not just you know, top of the class or something. It's it's more about engaging with the communication of the language and using it. Ben. Um [clears throat] I just think uh look at having you describe our programs and and what we have in this district is just phenomenal. I mean for from a language perspective. I mean the fact that some districts don't have any language at the elementary level, this just is just awesome. And then we have a coordinated effort across our schools. Um I was curious like for for someone who you know, took took language and you know, it was all about conjugating verbs and

116you know, like um what just maybe high level just for those of us you know, from the last century um to understand uh like what what's changed? Like how is I mean I I've heard little bits. I I would like to have maybe just a summary how it's done. >> [laughter] >> Well, I mean that is still important because that's a piece of communication, right? If you're using different tense What are you talking about yesterday or what? So we definitely we still instruct grammatical concepts, vocabulary of course, but the grind isn't that. It's more about can I understand what you're trying to say and at the level that you're at. So again, speaking to the proficiency, we have just like the ELD department or the EL department has proficiency scales, we have proficiency scales and

117we are working to make sure the students know that you're not meant to be saying more than what you are right now and even if you're inaccurate, that's okay because you're on a road and a journey and the end is never in sight. You're going to always be working on it. And so focusing on conjugation does happen sometimes but it is very small in the grand scheme of things. We care more about a student feeling success and trying to communicate and use it in an applicable way rather than focusing on whether or not they got the right verb in the right box. Is that Yeah, no absolutely. Um just from my own experience uh with my kids um I uh I I love hearing about like what happened what happened today in Spanish kind of

118thing because um yeah, because it's like oh, we talked about a topic and we read a piece and I couldn't understand most of it. But uh but I had to work through it with the group and we had to talk through it and come up and present. And so I was thinking that's like that's the way language learning happens in the real world, you know? Um you know, you don't have the answer to everything. You kind of have to figure it out and maybe just get a sense of what what they're trying to say and then that's how the learning occurs. So uh I think that's fascinating. Um I I wanted to go back a little bit to towards the um kind of global connection piece a little bit. Um are there um ways in

119which schools from different parts of the globe can connect? Like I often bring up the tech stuff. That's what I do but um I'm just curious if is that is that a is that an actual thing like where So and do we do any of that or is it something we could look into? I mean it seems like it'd be fun and and entertaining and educational. Well, I don't know like um I mean well, it's like you know, we remember we used to we used to do like sister cities and things like this and um you know, I don't know. I just thought it'd be kind of fun especially in the elementary. I would even almost think that like they can connect with their peers around the world like in a you know, responsible you

120know, but maybe it happens other ways organically but maybe yeah, [laughter] maybe e-sports. I don't know. I'm just curious if that's a um any thoughts on that? Yeah, so um we're already kind of doing that now. Why down, the Spanish uh kiddos are interacting with students in Madrid via via letters. Uh they're sending physical letters uh in those classes. At the high school, again we're working on that exchange possibility. But also we've been uh we're poised to start using this program called Boomalang which gets kids um a few times a year interacting and engaging with a person via Zoom uh that's a native speaker. That's a kind of a expensive program but it actually is is so it's fundamental. The kids just they dive into it and they really love it. Um and so that's

121something that we've budgeted in this next year to get more exposure to at the very least one or two times a year so the kids can actually engage with somebody else in the target language that's not one of the instructors or somebody that we found nearby. And again, speaking to the opportunities that maybe we'll bring in speakers um to the to the labs. People can come in and and listen to individuals talk. But with with relation to tech, I'm hoping and we're hoping that the iPads will definitely lend itself to more interaction and engagement with people abroad. The exchange program I'm hoping to make a connection with that school even if the program ends, we can continue working with them. Um and so it is challenging to find schools that will partner with uh us

122not necessarily because uh they don't want to, it's because it's hard to find a school that you can engage with. Going to the national conference is helpful um because lots of international instructors and admin come to those conferences as well. Um but it still isn't an easy bridge to build and so tech is definitely helpful with that for sure. We've also met with a local high school. So Nisha and I went over to talk with the local high school and then I Michael connected with them also that has a global ed graduation requirement. Um and so we've had some conversation with them about what does that look like. And a lot of it is what you're saying. It's like these opportunities to connect with other children around the world on a Zoom um and talk

123about global issues and and those types of things. It's not necessarily a um sometimes it's not necessarily a language kind of thing but it's more this idea of like connecting across the world. Um and and so being able to sort of explore how they've done that program and what are things that we might be able to capitalize on for our students. >> [snorts] >> Amy, do you have anything? I don't have have many questions but I will say that this uh graphic that you pointed out really sold me on the early start of language. I sort of I mean my daughter loves Spanish. Senior I don't know if she's still here but but I you know I kind of thought of it as like a fun you know nice to have not as like a

124real critical piece of language development and it's so clear to see when you look at this that that's really the best shot at getting a kid to biliteracy or you know just total fluency or proficiency proficiency. So thank you for that and I'm I am really grateful that that language program is here in the elementary schools. Um and the other questions about exchange and travel abroad was something that I was curious about as well so thanks for that and I I really agree with the homestay sort of philosophy. I studied abroad and I lived with the family and it was the coolest experience and just the best way to really make those kinds of connections and develop language so I'm excited to hear more about that. So thank you. Yeah sure. Okay a couple more

125things. Because I've been sitting at this table for a while I don't know if you remember Milena one of the first times you talked about this and I happen to be sitting where me is sitting. I remember asking about content acceleration in this area and I remember saying like how great it is that we do it so well in math. So can you give me examples now of what's happening in terms of I mean I know that middle school's tricky because the time so so if someone if you give the like give tell me what's happening now when you give a seventh grader a test for his his or her entrance into Chinese and they're really at like a ninth you know they really need something beyond some what you guys offer in seventh and

126eighth. Is that a possibility yet? So there's a complicated answer to that but yes. So often times what that may look like is some kind of we've we've often times looked at that particularly at the middle school as some kind of like independent study within a within a larger class setting because the schedule at the middle school is complicated in the way of like when grade levels can do things. It's easier at the high school when it's not like sixth grade is in core at this time seventh grade is in core at this time eighth grade is in core at this time. I also think the the um we we typically like to teach our own students with our teachers right? But the but the idea of virtual education does expand the ability to allow

127students to accelerate in in a way that would allow them to to meet their needs. And then in some ways either fold back into the program at a later date or something like that. I would say that we have very few instances right now of people wanting to accelerate their children in that in that way but we do because you all have a policy we have to have a practice in in what that looks like and so what that looks like is is somebody reaching out to us us collecting data and information and then making a decision that makes the most sense for that child and that family. So sometimes the the family like when we when we say here's what it could look like sometimes the family's like I don't I'm not sure that's

128what I want it to look like. So they family has to have some agency in being able to make that determination of what makes the most sense and the constraints sometimes are hard. The middle school constraints are probably the most complicated. Exactly. And what happens if a eighth grader do they do we test our eighth grader to see whether or not maybe they don't want to go you know where they end up in terms of you're not taking Spanish one or two or you know what I'm saying like So that when they right so in French and in in in Spanish they wouldn't go to so so they wouldn't go back to the short sequence they continue in the in the long sequence. But what if it's that step further? Is there a just a

129blanket test given so that you decide where to put them? You know I know you're not going to put them in the short sequence again but No so so similar to like how students would progress through sixth grade literacy seventh grade literacy third literacy the same thing would happen of students progressing from eighth grade Spanish into ninth grade honors and for French they're going from they're going from eighth grade French into French three. Okay. So it is an it it is an acceleration in what's considered sort of the traditional like what you would consider a traditional track like other schools but it's a part of our normal sequence. So like when you look at those maps on the website the the sequence so a sequence for math or a sequence for literacy is similar that

130there's a that there's a sequence for the languages also. Okay but it's not individually based. Not generally unless there's something really asynchronous that that would require us to have a a different kind of conversation. And then I also want to say because I've been here for a minute the fact that your biliteracy you're now at a number of 50 is way bigger than it was when I first started sitting here and I just think it's incredible. I remember going to a conference and learning more about it and I was like oh our district's you know really trying to amp that up. Well here you did so I just want to give you major props for that it's amazing. I I think that's really impressive too because that's also 50 students out of the graduating class.

131So it's 20 it's about a quarter of the of the graduating class has qualified for either the regular seal or the distinguished seal and some of those students are qualifying in multiple languages. Great work awesome. And that was really my only one comment just when you think about the profile of Clayton learner and like being culturally conscious right and then empathetic like you know like this is a key cornerstone of that in my opinion so kudos to to you guys and the team. So I guess we can vote. All right. So all those in favor any opposed? It passes. Thank you congratulations. Yes thank you. And then next we have Dr. Julie oh you're here. >> [laughter] >> Here I am. Two thirds done. >> [laughter] >> I guess I got all the policies too.

132Oh that's right. >> [laughter] >> It's a big night. Okay. Hi Julie. >> Hi. So different from the other two reports tonight the literacy both the literacy report and the presentation are going to look a little bit different. That's a consequence of state law and requirements that the state has of us. So if you remember in the fall we came to you and asked you to approve a preliminary version of the comprehensive literacy report to to in response to state law. So you approved about the first 50 pages of no well it's all 50. So you approved about the first 25 pages of this document in the fall. Now we're coming back to you with it really actually completed with the with the long range goals. So that's the reason why this report is much

133longer than the other two. It's also the reason why it the format of it looks very different because we were required to do some very different things with that in order to comply with the state. But now that we have completed it we do have long range goals and I think the exercise that we went through Julie's going to walk you through everything that her team has done but I think the exercise that that we did to get through this is going to make us much better in the long run but I I think it's been a hard good study of ourselves and and I think there's we are recognizing that there's a lot of places for us to to do work and I think you'll see those reflected in in these long range goals.

134So I want to introduce Julie Power to you. >> [snorts] >> Julie is our literacy coordinator. One of the things that I think is important for people to understand of as the literacy coordinator Julie is in charge of literacy reading so all elementary classrooms. So she has the largest department in in the district and is spinning a lot of plates. She also has the largest number of legislative things that she's responsible for. And and so she has to be the expert on all those things so she has to keep me up to speed on that. So I just appreciate her focus on that but that is why her role is the only coordinator role that is a 1.0 coordinator so she's um she doesn't have a classroom that she's responsible for because she's like responsible

135for basically every classroom in the school district. But I but I do think that's important like we we have an important distinction there with her role and a lot of it has to do with the the stuff from the state and I will say that Julie is often working with a moving target. The state changes pretty frequently what the requirements are which means she's sort of starting and stopping. So I just want to publicly say that I really appreciate the work that she does because it's a lot of plates and she does it very well and and she always does it with a smile on her face. So because of the the hour of the night we did that bring her team here but we do have a slide that just acknowledges that that just

136acknowledges the people who have been a part of the work with her on on the committee. So I'll let her take over from here but I just wanted to acknowledge a couple of those things and why things feel a little bit different for this area. Thank you. And thank you to my team I know you're out there watching hopefully enjoying this with a good beverage in hand. It's just a diet coke I think. >> [laughter] >> All right. You can go ahead. Do you want to talk to this? Oh, I'm I'm not going to keep We're going to focus on goal one and two. >> to focus on this piece. >> [laughter] >> All right, a little bit of background. So, our K-12 K-12 classrooms rely on a comprehensive framework that is empower young thinkers.

137The structure is a mixture of direct instruction, small group instruction, um time for reading and writing, individual conferences, peer work throughs, partnerships, and and through um small groups with their our book clubs with their friends. Um we work to balance the need for exploration and choice with more specific shared experiences, including for example, whole class reads of a core text. Um we believe that students need direct or need need to interact with diverse authentic text. Quality literature is critical to helping students see themselves in our diverse world. Therefore, we strive to ensure the diverse identities of our students in our schools are positively represented in the literature that we read in our classrooms. Some of the few changes that we've made have been a quite a few. This is only my fourth year here in

138the district, so we've done a lot already, I feel like in the short amount of time that I've been here, but our very first change that was really looking at was that because of Senate Bill 681. And with through Senate Bill 681, we as curriculum the curriculum court council or not quite a council or committee, elementary teachers, the literacy coaches, K-5, we spent really digging into our K-5 curriculum and examining what needed to be changed based on the legislation requirements. And really the big one right there is like we had to make it more explicit, systematic, diagnostic, and really focusing on those five big components of the state and identified by the national reading panel, the phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, and also layering in morphology, which is more of that just studying

139of the morphemes in our language, syntax, and semantics. So, really studying our grammar as pieces as well. Because of all right, that work, we also thought, oh gosh, we need to give teachers some training behind that. So, our K-5 teachers have gone through letters training, as you've heard, so that we're in the process K all K-5 are now trained through volume one. We just started volume two with our K-1 and two teachers on this January. So, they're starting volume two and they'll wrap up around January of next year and then we'll start with three, four, five with volume two as well. Um because we had that change of having to our elementary curriculum, we knew that we needed to revise our 6 through 8 curriculum. So, we revised that curriculum starting last year focusing on

140integrating of the Missouri learning Missouri priority standards. Um we're also revising next year beginning a new implementation of readers writers workshop in 6 through 8. We're really focusing on the way to increase independent reading and writing in our classroom. So, more is happening in class with the classroom teacher giving students immediate feedback in the moment. It's like I always give the analogy of like playing basketball. We don't just say, "Hey, we're going to watch some people play basketball and then now you're going to go home and practice on your own." And then give them feedback. So, like really teaching kids the skill to explicitly in the classroom and then providing for time for them to practice it and us giving that feedback in small groups or in conferences. Also, within the last four years, we've

141developed a K-12 systematic and diagnostic literacy intervention. So, by using the state and local criteria now, we now are able to identify which students need additional support and which intervention is the best one for their need at that time. Edge Climber has been a great addition to this process because we can now document um all of our interventions, we can monitor their progress, and has all of our data just in one place, which is nice cuz we had a thousand different spreadsheets happening originally. So, this has been great to just go back to remember the sheets. Yeah. So, our first big goal, so that again through the state we this summer in in July, late July, the state gave us this comprehensive literacy plan that came with a 82-page audit that you could do starting

142this year. And so, we quickly turned it around and used what we did last year with our gap analysis I mentioned in the report. Identified which ones of those reports that would really align to what we had already identified through our gap analysis last spring. And one of the first big buckets was or domains was assessment. And so, the assessment domain centers really on our and our goal is going to centers on the belief that effective literacy instruction begins with understanding exactly where our student is in their literacy journey. With this goal, we are committed to providing teachers structured time and resources in their professional learning communities to develop and refine assessments that are authentic, rigorous, and responsive to our um diverse student body. By auditing our current tools and implementing um common data reflection

143protocols, we will ensure that data um is used not just for grading, but also vital tool for teachers to think about timely interventions and adjusting their classroom to meet the students' needs in their classroom. Our second goal falls into the bucket of the instructional. I didn't come up with these titles. Intentional instructional intervention and enrichment by the state. Um and this one is really focusing on um our it's guaranteeing that we have a viable and consistent literacy experience K-12 by implementing a comprehensive model informed by the sciences of reading. We plan to conduct audits of our curriculum and core text to ensure that they're vertically aligned and are culturally inclusive from of our students. By utilizing a systematic data-driven process, our educators can provide flexible grouping and targeted instruction for their learners. This ensures that

144every student, whether they require support or enrichment, receive what they need um to meet their needs. And finally, the last one, the state doesn't have one for student growth, but we really loved the idea of student growth. So, we were like the state said you only needed to pick two. I'm like, "Well, we're going to add our own in." Um and so, our committee and through the listening through the teaching and learning advisory council, they loved the idea of student growth as well. Um so, the goal shifts the focus from passive learning to active ownership. Our goal is to help students discover their personal identities as readers and writers growing in both head and heart. Through our use of learning progressions, teachers will empower students to set personalized goals, engage in metacognitive reflection, and curate

145their own progress. Over the next few years, just like Michael, I think I I think I I think I need to have a conversation with Michael. We're going to explore digital portfolios and our grading practices to really celebrate that learning process. So, thinking about how students can think about what they're learning, how they're learning, like thinking about a writing piece, like you made this great revision. Why did you make this revision? What did it do to the piece? And just having students think about that, especially when they're in their writing conferences, fostering the in intellectual curiosity and self-actualization defined in our profile of the graduate. And then finally, we know this is as a consequence of this work, we anticipate our students growing both head and heart as readers and writers. By intentionally blending student

146voice and clear learning progressions, we aim to be move beyond that traditional instruction to foster self-directed learning. Our goal is that every student develop the metacognitive skills necessary to reflect on their work, set meaningful personal goals, and achieve continuous growth throughout their literacy journey. And then we know this is a big task, and so here are our immediate next steps for next year. Ooh. We're going to conduct an audit of our K-12 curriculum really examining um the diversity of our texts and our authors to ensure that we have all the essential components. So, looking at Missouri learning standards, the reading, writing, speaking, and listening standards for a comprehensive literacy curriculum and are included and are vertically aligned horizontal and towards horizontally as well. Then, we also plan to look at and develop um a K-2

147audit of our our assessments. And so, looking at not only just the universals that we have in place by the state, but also what we make in-house, like our common formatives and our summative assessments to review the purposes, the rigor, the challenges of the text used in those assessments, and inclusivity of those assessments. Um and then implementation of evidence-based practices for support student growth. That is it. Can I get a motion? To this I move. Thank you. I move to approve the revised literacy review goals, the district written literacy curriculum, and the financials as outlined in the report. Second. Great. We'll open up for discussion. Um Leo, can I ask you to start us off? Uh sure. Um there's a lot of great stuff in here. It's a big document. A lot of it seems

148to go very a lot of it is specific to literacy, but a lot of it seems to go to very broad educational themes, too, and I was interested in a couple of those. Um so, one question I had is, you know, there's this shift to empowering student agency, which is definitely the goal. And I I do wonder when I see that kind of thing about you know, kid who's not doing that and how you engage with that kid and make sure that the goal of, you know, empowering these kids doesn't become a barrier because they're not able to get over that. You know, got Do you have something to give them if they're not coming to get it? That's the question. Yes, engaging the reluctant reader, right? Uh yes, we all we all know them.

149Um and I've met a few in my lifetime as a teacher as well. Um and so, one of the real things is is really tapping I think it's really getting to know your students. And I think teachers spending the time to know them outside of the classroom and knowing their interests, that's the way I usually have gotten to engage readers and writers. It's finding like, "Hey, little Julie loves soccer." And so, what if I can tap into like she loves soccer, let's find all the books about soccer. Whatever it is that I can engage her with. And so, um starting with that approach, too, and knowing them outside of just the classroom is is the first step. Um then also like as as far as like helping them set goals, I think the biggest thing,

150too, is like helping them to find like what are those goals that we need to think about. So, like a learning progression is helpful because you can help identify like here are the areas we're working on it right now as a reader. We're working on whether it be like little guys like working on sounding out words, right? Or were is it working on comprehension? What is that area and really limiting maybe one or two choices and then help having them pick their goal from that. Um that's one way is just just to help them see what are those goals because sometimes they don't even know what goals to set for themselves, but giving them a few choices is helpful. I think also the um Julie just did some professional learning in classrooms with our middle

151school teachers around readers and writers workshop and what she was modeling was um really the the small group lessons and the conferring with individual students and the ways to lean in with individual students uh sort of um to be able to have that kind of intimate conversation about their learning. Um and there were a couple different things that teachers observed during that time. So there were times where Julie would just like drop an idea um with a child and come away for a little while and then come back and see what they had done with it. Um so that can inform you. If they haven't done anything with it, then the next thing she's going to do is lean in in a different way and model something. Um or um being able to just have

152like a a specific like mini lesson for that child and then sit side by side with them while they do some of that work. So teachers were able to see Julie model that um of sort of three different ways to approach um what possibly could happen in a in a conference and um we had Jill Ellinger there um sort of voicing over to the teachers what Julie was doing and she's like these are the things that are going on in Julie's mind right now. And here's what Julie could have done with this, but this is why she made the decision that she made. Um and it was probably one of the most powerful professional learnings that we've done recently. It was in the presence of children. It was real time. It was Julie modeling it

153and Jill voicing over um that really gave this sense of like now I understand what like I learned a ton from it because it was like now I understand why Julie's making the decisions that she's making at this time. And how the child presents can influence the decision that she's making at that point. So that was super powerful for us. And I really appreciate your bringing up an example at the middle school level, too, where I do think that can be a more challenging situation for, you know, individualization. Yeah. I think also like Julie doesn't necessarily know those children. She was going into other people's classrooms to do that. So so she also was modeling how to sort of quickly form a relationship with a child to be able to to get them to move

154um with that piece, which it's like I I respect what she's saying about knowing our students well. Like that's our model, right? Like know our students well and respond to their needs, but also there are ways to to do that to get a child to engage um just by sort of what she's got in her toolkit. Um that modeling that I think also was an important aspect of that learning. And then one other question occurred to me while you were presenting is painted a picture and I know this apart from this of a lot of change going on in this area legally and in what's considered best practices and all that and that goes together somewhat, but so it do you feel like um that's still coming fast and thick and you're still reacting to

155it or are you to a point where you're going to set start settling on something? No, it's it's it's still coming quickly. Um I would say the pace of it has slowed a little bit K5, um but that's still coming at like they're still on a a pretty steep learning curve with the letters piece. Like they're only halfway through the letters training and and the implementation of that. Um and then the the middle school piece is coming fast and furious also. I guess I'm asking about the like the outside expectations that are coming at you and whether those are still changing so quickly. No, those are still changing, too. >> [laughter] >> Yes. Like whether you've So you're you're going through this process of updating and then the expectations are changing and by the time

156you finish it, you may be Right. So So we're supposed to get another update from the state in July. Um and we're sort of you know, buckle your seatbelt. They just gave us guidance last summer again when they released the comprehensive literacy plan. They also dropped the 6 through 12 guidance for reading success plans for secondary students. So we've already just got word that they are now revising that guidance. So that new guidance will come out again probably late July and then we'll quickly have to make changes to that. Well, you know, thank you for your work. That's what I'll say to that. Uh it's probably pretty challenging to uh get anything in place with the expectations changing that rapidly, I'm sure. Yeah, this is a lot. So as a new board member, too, I

157was like, wow. >> [laughter] >> I need to catch up my learning of all these things. Um Yeah, I so I think I and I found really you know, kind of embedded throughout this tension between needing to meet all these standards, all this assessment and what you were saying like knowing the student in front of you and how do you get that individual to be, you know, the love of reading in addition to, you know, making these metrics. So um yeah, and I I don't that that's a that's beyond my comprehension and I don't expect you to answer that. You know, like I'm just wow, that's it's just a lot. Um but I guess are there you know, any things in particular where you think that's, you know, there can be additional support or I'm

158also thinking a little bit going as our next policy like um bringing in sort of the the library resource area like working with um maybe some of that individual differentiation issue or finding the interest, you know, can there with the library specialist media specialist be part of this? I know that's not really in here necessarily, but just a thought. Yeah, we definitely lean on the library media specialist. Um they they have their they're always ahead of like what's the latest titles coming out. They know what kids are wanting to check out and things like that. So like So there's a lot of times like, you know, the the teachers even high school all the way I mean K through 12, they're inviting the library specialist into their classrooms like give us a book latest book

159talk, share books with kids. So like they're always partnering with our classroom teachers to figure out like helping kids select text or, you know, whether it be researching skills and things like that, but there's a lot of partnerships between our classroom teachers and our library specialists. Meet. Hi. Thank you so much. This was um huge. Just very big report. >> [laughter] >> I was like, wow. Um but it is clear um just it's really clear how intense this work is especially right now. I know that it's been just like a hot such a hot button topic for the last, you know, 5 10 years. Um and I'm proud to see all this work that you all have done. Um I really appreciated all the explanation around the MTSS and how that ties in with the

160reading success plans. Um so just thanks. I know I'm glad you're just a one you don't have your own classroom cuz I really don't know how you'd also do that. So um and I realize some of my questions I was really curious to dig into the curriculum. So I know that's that's not necessarily possible right now. Um but I am curious so the letters um spelling screener is the only assured screener that that is given several times a year. Can you talk to me about some of the other assessments that are happening especially like with regards to spelling, morphology, um word study? Yeah. What do what what do those look like? Where are those drawn from? So it's the STAR reading assessments that we also give, which is the foundational assessment that it's one of

161the four that are approved by the state. That also has those pieces embedded because that's aligned to our standards. So that's testing our students' proficiency with standards and it's computer adaptive. So we're seeing how kids are able to use, you know, um across the standards of their grade level and then beyond um their grade level as well. So the STAR assessment is one area that helps us as well and that's STAR early literacy and STAR reading that they take three times a year. That is one of our screeners that we give um K through 12. Um to it um so that's an area that we use. Um that's probably more of a global universal one that we use, but the spelling screener is really giving us more information. For more diagnostics, so if a if

162a student then is like shows an area of need in those areas on STAR, then we start digging in deeper into giving other assessments. So like the SIPPS placement test will give us information around um reading as well. Um uh the all also dig into. There's not a really a lot around vocabulary per se it's really hard to test and progress monitor vocabulary if you think about it. And like Isabel Beck's work around tier one, tier two, and tier three words. Like how do we know? Like how do we measure that? And like um so there's a there's everyone's struggling with that's an area. Like how do you actually test for that? And when you think about hearing about languages tonight, like how do you actually test one's vocabulary and language skills. So it's um

163I would say that's an area everybody is trying to to work on um and develop good tools for um that right now, but we we're using most of like STAR or early literacy or the STAR reading assessment for the for the spelling and stuff. Yeah. But the spelling that we'll use like the letters and then we'll also drill down like the Words Their Way that's a great spelling inventory, too. So we'll use that one to pull cuz it has um different spelling patterns that it's working identifies as well. So there's not necessarily something that's like consistent across all the elementary schools that they're all using or do they all use the same >> use they all use the letter spelling screener three times a year and then they have common formatives built into each of

164their units. So, all of their phonics units have common formative assessments that they're using that they use to talk at PLCs about and then they form their groups based on that in their classroom. >> I I probably should know this, but it So, are the phonics units coming from Lexia then? No. So, our phonics unit is study in phonics is K2 and then we use Benchmark phonics for 3-5. Okay. Okay. Just cuz letters are you know is like the professional development from Lexia. So, okay. Um okay, great. So, I won't ask any more like too specific about the curriculum and we'll wait to see those curriculum maps, but I'm obviously very interested in those. Um So, obviously this report was super heavy on the assessment piece and it's interesting you said like it is such

165a tension between the work that you have to do um that is also I mean it's very important and it it has to be done to know your students, but also like losing some of that like warm and fuzzy feeling around reading um and like reader's workshop and all that. And um just to say I mean I think we've had the conversation of like we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater around that um and you know, this is something that I I have talked about and I asked about the um video instruction happening versus the person in the room um and Melina that I'm talking about like uh videos of someone delivering phonics lessons or videos video read alouds um and just knowing that that the plan is to kind of

166phase those out. And you know, the read aloud I um that's just like such a special part of the elementary classroom and um it's such an interact it's an interactive part of the classroom and that's something that I um loved doing as a teacher. And I think you know, the teacher the kids it's such an opportunity for the kids to see the teacher that they know so well come alive with a book. And um so, and it's also an opportunity for the teacher to see what the children are responding to and reacting to. So, I I just would really encourage us to continue to make sure that the people in the room are reading the books um versus a video um just because I think it it defeats so much of the purpose of a

167read aloud um and I know when we are focusing so much on the assessment and the phonics and we're really those are important. You know, that we're not um exhausting our teachers to the point where they just want to put on a video of someone reading a book and that we're remembering that that's such an important crucial part. Um So, you know, can you tell me how you might help the teachers kind of move away from that practice? Yeah. So, the um I think there's sort of two components there. One is um materials that we purchased as a consequence of COVID that um and that we did not um have an opportunity at that time to provide sort of a comprehensive professional learning opportunity for teachers that now that we have had opportunity to provide

168that professional learning opportunity Julie and I have had conversation about sunsetting some of those resources that we have purchased. So, like they've they've sort of um it it was our best thinking at the time and then we've we've sort of grown beyond that and so it's a it's a time for us to be making decisions about sunsetting that piece. The piece with the with the read aloud um I would say that there we would agree with you that um teachers reading aloud to children and and interacting with real books with children um and talking through like their thinking and why authors make choices and why authors make decisions and everything like that we would believe we believe strongly that that is the most effective way um to deliver a read aloud. We I also have

169um seen instances where we may use something like an author reading their own book um on a video and talking through those pieces. I've also seen teachers stop those videos to have those same conversations. So, I want to make sure that like we aren't presenting this as a way of like teachers press play and and somebody's reading a book and we aren't interacting with it. I do I do truly believe that our teachers are interacting with those things in that way, but I think um the the opportunities sometimes present themselves where there's a book that we may not have in our collection and that that's a time when a teacher might make a decision to to use something like that. Um or like I said, I shared a story with Nisha today about a librarian

170who was using Mo Willems reading a book about Elephant and Piggie um on a video and then talking about how he had made the decisions about what Elephant and Piggie were doing and then had this whole sort of like exercise with the kids on how to draw Elephant and Piggie. Um and so there the kids were super engaged with it cuz they know Mo Willems books. They know that and it's it's a really cool experience to be able to see the author talking about the decisions he made because that is part of our curriculum of like the craft of writing. Um and so I so I think we agree with you and um we also see place and time where some of those videos could be helpful um to to learning and to understanding like

171author's craft and their purposes in writing and stuff like that. So, I think it's the cautionary piece of like how frequently does that happen? Yeah. And and another use case just to throw it out there is I heard an example of someone reading a book that had um words in another language that they wanted to make sure they got the accent right, you know, or So, obviously certainly there are use cases um for that sort of thing and I would just say like so that would be like it would be an exception to the rule um and you know, I think that Pam said it so nicely the other in some other meeting about something else, but I love the phrase. So, I'm going to say it here. I hear my values reflected in what

172you're saying. Um and I I think that we're in alignment on those things um but I do think you know, there were are some habits that are in the classrooms that are more than um you know, during snack time every day or you know, like just things happening um more than just those kind of exceptions to the rule. So, I would just plant my flag as like let's let's move a little bit more. Can I jump in with a like a piggyback question on that a little bit? Sure. Um so, an [laughter] elephant and pig Mo Willems question. A hippopotamus with a watermelon. >> [laughter] >> The this is really a question I think I should have asked a couple meetings ago when we were talking about tech explicitly, but since it's come up and

173I've been thinking about it a little, I wondered if we could get some clarification on the timeline where we might have some written documents laying out what expectations are for use of tech in these classrooms and it ties into the literacy in the way that Me is bringing it up, but it's also just a mulligan by me and a makeup call. So, can I get a little answer on Sure. So, um Luke and I I these two might actually report out on it in the um the committee reports because they were a part of the committee meeting today. Um our the the work that we're trying to do we're trying to accelerate the pace of the work that we're that Luke and I are doing with the technology team to be able to um we

174see an opportunity here of like some things are changing um in the landscape of technology. So, it's also an opportunity for us to to sort of set the sandbox um and and be able to make some decisions. So, our our intent is that we will have some decisions made moving into the fall. Um related to that technology. I don't think they're going to be the end of the decisions because the the committee is working at a clip that like we can't sustain the clip that we're working at right now. Um but I think we can commit to um some some work and the work that that um Me and Ben were a part of tonight um was really like we've we've defined it as sort of like what we would call a model of instruction.

175Um so, as opposed to cuz there's a tension and Me and I have had this conversation of like there's a tension around autonomy and like um lockstep and and what does that look like in a system where we trust our teachers to make good decisions, but we also have to define that autonomy, right? So, that there's some uniformity um connected to philosophy and those types of things. So, the development of this um model of instruction is intended to move us in that direction of like we have a unified understanding of like what we mean when we say purposeful use of technology in the classroom and that we've outlined like so, what does that mean? So, what would you see students doing? What would you see teachers doing? What are the kinds of things that would

176influence the decisions that that teachers would would make? So, one of the subcommittees of the tech committee is doing that work um right now. Um with the intent of rolling something out to the staff um as we move into the fall. That's that's great. That's great stuff. Um and I totally understand what you're saying that it may not be the final work product. But I think it's good to meet the goal of having something in place by the fall and I guess I'd say and think others might agree that prioritizing the the lower grades in the first key stage in particular So, what the So, the committee the subcommittee that's doing the work is a K-5 subcommittee. Great. Thank you. That's all I got. Sorry. Can I keep going? Yeah. Um I'll be quick, but

177um one point about the STAR assessments thing. Um they come home at a time when we're not talking to the teachers. So, it's hard to get um And then by the time conferences come around, you know, so I was thinking about just there's so much good assessment that's happening and you're clearly working so hard on know where all of our readers are. Um just kind of making sure that there's some sort of um like when conferences come around, the assessment pieces are kind of standardized like across the I don't know if it's I don't know, that's up to you for you to decide, but as a parent, it would be nice to kind of come into conferences knowing that I'm going to find out this, this, and this and that's going to be the same

178sort of thing I'm going to find out next year in second grade and third grade and fourth grade and um because I appreciate the standardization of the STAR assessment, um but I never really have the opportunity to fully digest that with um teachers. That's like a parent thing, that's not a >> one um >> [clears throat] >> the one piece I think that we feel a little bit of attention about is so the state requires us to assess students within the first 30 days of school. >> Right. We also then are required to put in place a reading success plan. We can't put a reading success plan in place without having shared the data with the families. So, it like doesn't really line up with our school calendar and those are the decisions that So,

179that's a little of like where we're tied by um statute um that influences that. I think what we could do is um while we're still sending that home, when we send it home, we could build in opportunities during the conference to like review it >> Mhm. with families. >> Yeah. Um but it may not be the first time that families are seeing it because we can't put a reading success plan in place for a child where we haven't shared data. >> And I mean, you don't have to assess them even more. I know they're getting assessed a lot, but just to you know, just something to think about that um and I I will look to hear more about the goal-setting stuff because I think that's really interesting. Um you don't have to go into

180it all right now, but um I would appreciated that you said that we are going to probably need, especially with our younger learners, help them to find what their goals are. Um and just like Yeah. And them being able to see a visual of what those goals are. Anecdotally, my daughter in kindergarten had like a bingo type sheet that we had up in the kitchen, her kindergarten teacher sent it home, and every so often we'd check up there and be like, "Oh yeah, you can do that now." And we'd color it in. And it was just kind of a cool thing and then by the end of the year we had colored in all the boxes. And um just a nice way for the parents to have visibility into the goals that the students also

181know exactly what they are. Um and I was thinking about that in terms of this or world language or the EL, the can-do statements. So, um anyways, just a little idea. And then um Okay, the last question that I'll ask is um I was struck by at the social studies meeting a couple months ago there was talk about the the term paper. And um that is no longer being assigned in in social studies. Um and now it's an oral project which um about a historical event, which I understand um that in social studies the goal is to learn about a historical event. I'm wondering um are we then translating that kind of the term paper over to an English class or I think this is part of the conversation around AI and writing as well

182and I know there's no simple answer here, but I just want to like are we going to expect Are we going to keep trying to teach our kids how to write a term paper? And like how are we going to do that? And I don't know. Just interested in your thoughts around that. Mhm. So, I think it's you know, we have a wonderful program at our high school with the conference program and teachers are meeting with their students. You know, they have nine conference papers throughout the year. So, sitting down having to set conferences with your teacher at least nine times during the school year is a great opportunity. And I think what's helping with that as well is that like I bring in my draft and you're going to give me feedback on it,

183right? Like I get I'm already seeing as a teacher what this piece looks like as a draft. Yes, I don't know if it was written with AI, right? But I do know like the style the students writing in, right? You know their voice, you know their choice in the words that they're using across the year, their sentence structures and things like that. So, you're able to identify that already and then through your conferences you really get to know that student and then be able to give them feedback in those conferences as well. I So, I think you know, we have a great program at our high school and our teachers do a wonderful job of just um you know, identifying the strengths of their writers and then helping them lean into and help them grow

184across the year and the years at the high school as writers. >> I think also our um as we continue to work on refining the the 6th through 8th curriculum and increasing the volume of reading and writing, the um so like kids are coming out of 5th grade with a with a significant volume of writing um that that we're making some deliberate changes in the middle school and some partnership between social studies and literacy um in thinking about that particularly that writing piece um to then feed into to the high school. So, we're doing a little bit of um looking at things like progressions like learning progressions and those kinds of things from the elementary school and the high school and seeing like how do we bridge that in a different way in the middle

185school than how we have previously bridged it. Um so, I I do think I I feel like we're putting a concentrated effort into continuing to ensure that our students are writing. Um I I do think we have a a a a very real-world challenge with the presence of AI um and and how that influences how children write and how it influences the kinds of provocations that we develop for students to write to. Um so, like there's a little bit of a challenge there of us developing things for students to write that won't actually allow something like AI to write it for them. Um and and that's a that's a conversation that we continue to need to um engage in and I think it's going to continue to change and shift as AI gets smarter. We're

186going to have to keep trying to outsmart it. Um so, that that is something that is a real conversation that we're having um and Luke's subcommittee of the tech committee is talking about AI um and trying to figure out some structure and and that to to put around um that also, but it's that again is like a little bit of like shooting at a moving target. And just to piggyback off that like there's a lot of conversations like we're getting ready to do our spring writing screener in K5 and so like the 5th grade teachers are going to start doing some common scoring in their buildings of those writing assessments. So, like we've invited the middle school staff. They're going to come over and participate in the common scoring so they get to see at

187the 6th grade teachers like what are these 5th graders coming in with me as writers, what are their strengths and what are the areas that we're going to need to lean into to grow them. And then next week we're also going to invite the 8th grade teachers are coming over to 9th grade and we're just going to have a conversation around like what are your expectations around volume of reading and writing at the 9th grade level across college prep and honors and then bringing their rubrics, students writing samples so that we have an idea so to make sure that we have that vertical alignment of what our expectations look around that volume and stamina for our readers and writers. And I think Julie hasn't touched on it much, but in the when we think about

188increasing the volume of reading and writing, a big part of it for the middle school is like how do you increase it outside of the school? So, yes, you have required reading part of school, but what are we doing to increase the reading outside of school? And part of that is the goal setting and hopefully the expectation that every teacher has goal settings like you're saying, right? It can be simple even if it's something on the refrigerator, but more middle school-y where the teachers are then can say, "Okay, here we go. We've seen these kids read this many books that weren't assigned." So, you're bringing the joy of reading into it as well. You're looking at data to see, "Hey, the reluctant reader is not picking up any book." So, the increasing the volume of

189reading specifically is definitely a goal at the middle school. >> You guys are doing great work. Great job. Keep up the good work. >> [laughter] >> Ben. Um I think most of my questions have been answered. I I was just thinking to myself um uh I feel like it it um correct me if I'm wrong, but we have come back a bit to um handwriting and and physical writing. Like I think there was a time and perhaps we were not there. Is that Is that a fair like we I mean we were doing a lot more on screens, we're getting back to handwriting cuz like I mean, my son's handwriting is atrocious. I mean, you know, my girl's much better. But um I think and that kind of made me think, "Okay, I just Thank

190you. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. My only My only comment is >> It's like it's >> about actual like penmanship? Yeah. So, so I just that is like in that K5 shift >> Yeah. >> have a pretty significant shift on print K1, cursive second grade. Like I I want to publicly state that the school district of Clayton does teach cursive um and keyboard and keyboarding in third grade. Good. Okay. So, there that is the progression. Um and and when we teach keyboarding in third grade, that doesn't mean we lose a pencil. Like we we still will do things um handwriting, but those are all a part of that K5 um curriculum piece that I think is important to point out cuz cursive seems to be something that people talk about a lot. We do teach cursive in

191the school district of Clayton. Okay. I I'm sorry. My daughter is even in handwriting intervention. Oh my see. Like >> Really? Yeah. She goes to like pull out for that. So, yeah. They're doing it all. Um maybe she can HELP MY SON. >> [laughter] >> UM DO THEY HAVE THAT IN 11TH GRADE? It's bad. It's pretty bad. Um So, um I it So, I was thinking also that like um just in terms of like essentially volume of writing, right? Like um you know, I think uh as I recall, you know, when when I was growing when when I was in the school, I don't know why I had the similar experience, but you know, it was really those teachers that made me just write. I mean, and not don't think about it too much. Um

192and I know I think from what I've seen in my own home like the CER kind of model, which is I understand is obviously very common, but sometimes it can kind of slow down the the thinking process a little bit, right? Like you know, like uh so, I don't know if you have any comment on that um in terms of that balance. Yeah. You're right, exactly. We There's I can't quote the author right enough off the top of my head, but it's like you got to write a lot of bad stuff to get to the good stuff, right? And so like you do have to just the more you create, the more stuff you're thinking through, you're processing. I don't know. I I I'm a notebook person, so I have to handwrite, so it's a

193processing tool for me. So, like just having kids do a lot of like free writing, so doing like some quick writes, just throw a prompt up on the screen the first 10 minutes they come in like, let's respond to this and get do it just some quick writing, so they have to just get to the um point where they're just creating in the moment. Um and we're doing a trying to do a lot more of that um especially in the middle school. You'll see a lot more in K5 right now. And the high school does a great job of it as well. Like they'll just throw a quick prompt up on the screen. Um we're doing a probably a lot more handwriting with them just because of like the AI usage as well as like

194how do we just have kids just respond in a handwritten um response. Um going back to just the handwriting as well, too. Like there's a lot of research around if kids are not fluent with their letter formations, that hinders their process of creating and drafting and writing, too. So, we have to get kids fluent with their letter formation, so that eases that brain, right? To like, hey, now I got the brain energy to focus on that craft, my sentence structure, my word choice, and things like that. So, there's a lot of research around. So, when you think about the writing rope, um there's not a lot of research out there right right now, but the writing rope talks a lot about like what are those skills that we need to make sure that are automatic

195for our kids so they can write. I think when I when I'm in elementary classrooms and I look at a child's writing notebook or folder, there's like from kindergarten on there there are many instances of like different pieces of writing in different stages of drafting, um which is pretty impressive to me. Like when I look at a kindergarten child's writing folder and they've got multiple stories that that they're working on that are in sort of different phases of that process. And sometimes that's like, I'm going to keep working on something until my teacher comes to confer with me and helps me like move this forward, but I can start something new. Um so, I think the the fact that we start it very young um I think is like that continual encouragement of like writing

196is a process. Um there you don't have to take one piece from start to finish. Like you can do multiple things at the same time, which that's a shift in thinking because like when I thought about writing, it was always about writing one piece, and then when it's polished, I then write the next piece. Um so, I I'm impressed with how our teachers approach that process piece with children starting from a very young age and all the way through the system. Like at the high school, I think um sometimes the conferences are not necessarily just on a polished piece. It could be some part of the process that now we're having a different kind of conference. That's very interesting to me to to because it's like zooming in on the different parts of that writing

197process through throughout the So, it's like we don't have to just talk about polished pieces. We can talk about things that aren't there yet and and how we can make change. Uh just final thought is to say thank you so much for all the hard work. This is a incredible mountain of of effort and very complicated and constantly changing. So, thank you. You're up. Thank you. So, we've talked a lot about um reading and technology and the importance of increasing that in the middle school world. And I don't know which one of you responded to my email my email question. >> Team effort, amazing. [laughter] Um I could tell that there was different writing structure within each sentence. You're reanalyzing me. It [laughter] was the process. You were admiring the writing process. Um and so

198what you were talking about is the importance of I was saying like we have all these technology ways of reading. And you guys commented on the importance of reading a physical a physical book. Yes. So, that is amazing. I love it. Keep doing it. One concern I've had for a while is textbooks. If we know from I'll use your words from brain research that we read differently when we have a physical book and we are not having our students in middle school or high school use the textbooks. They're only using the textbooks on the computer. And that is weird. That's that's And you know, my kids the kids who have textbooks in high school, they send them home in the first week of school and then they like never move. Unless I'm like you know,

199and I put it in front of them and then they just move it over to the side. Um so, how can we help and then the answer you get is, oh, but the textbooks are so heavy. I don't care. We all carried textbooks, too. And they ride on scooters now, anyway. Um how can we help our teachers prioritize physical textbooks again? Or am I totally off base and that's a silly idea? >> Well, we we don't have a lot of textbooks. Why? Be um because we we're using different kinds of resources than like a than like a static textbook. So, like we use articles, we use you know, so like we're curating different kinds of materials. Like so So So, why can't we >> model of like a textbook, so like a social studies textbook

200or something like that. >> We don't have social studies textbooks because we're They do for psychology and for biology. For the sciences, they have textbooks. >> Right, but they're I don't I don't think the teachers would say like I feel like this might be a conversation that we have with the science coordinator when she comes to the table, but the the the the way that people are using to the way that teachers are using textbooks, I feel like is very different than like how I learned from a textbook. Like I I don't see a lot of teachers saying, go read chapter two in the textbook. I like I feel like they're using it more as a reference tool than a like a than than a learning tool in in that way and that they use

201things like curated materials like articles and and different kinds of things to to read. And a lot of those are physical. Sometimes they are digital, too. I would agree. Um the the I I just feel like the mental model of textbooks is a little bit different the than what I was used to as a student. Um the the other thing of the benefit of a digital textbook, so this isn't going to be about the reading part, but the benefit of a digital textbook is that um things change. Um and so the the textbook changes more frequently. Um so, the information can change more frequently. And so, that's why we when in the places where we have used textbooks, we we've tended towards that and we've also supplemented sometimes with a classroom set of textbooks like

202physical textbooks um so that there's some choice that the teachers have with within that piece. I don't I don't know. I'd have to think more about that cuz I don't really think about textbooks a lot just because I don't see us using them a whole lot. So, that's what I want to push on is if we read differently with a physical book, a physical text. And we aren't doing that in our classrooms until they get to APs and then there is a textbook. We're we're missing something. So, I wonder if um like so, STEM as they go through they they start their year one next year. I I wonder if part of what we do with that group is to do a little bit of a um sort of an audit of >> [clears throat]

203>> the use of textbooks and like what does that look like? So, what are the teachers expecting to have and and does that look different by different levels? Um and that So, that would be sort of interesting for us to explore to to figure out then what's the decision that we need to make on the other side. Well I Yeah, I would just I'd just be so curious to know like what of the amount of reading that kids are doing, whether it's [snorts] in English or one of the content areas, like what percentage of that is from an actual book versus a versus a screen. >> So, in say in literacy class, it's an actual book the majority of the time because they're novels and But content areas, it's most likely electronic. Yes. I mean

204when you're reading to learn, like you said, you do store the information differently in the brain when you read from a screen versus reading from a book. So, I don't And learning the annotating that you two wrote to me. Like the importance of annotating and actively reading. >> Yep. And you miss that. These kids don't do that when they read on a screen. Yep. But it's still reading on a screen. I don't know. I'm with you. I'm just saying I I don't want to lose that because now we have these styluses to do it on an iPad. You know what I'm saying? >> When you use a stylus, the friction that you don't have from the actual pen and the paper is actually part of what transfers the information to your brain. So, when you

205have like a really smooth structure, that actually doesn't. Okay. We will think about that. Thank you. Um Okay, the next one I want to bring up here is we heard um from Paul Holscher the social studies perspective on the relationship between social studies and literacy. And I would love for the literacy department to speak to us about your perspective of that relationship. Sure. So Paul and I started a few years ago looking at K5 curriculum where we could like really think about like where we could partner if you will. Um and so we really started with looking at our non-fiction unit. So thinking of First of all, we had to pair our non-fiction reading and writing units together. So when students are reading non-fiction we wanted them to be writing in that genre as well.

206So like when you think about the different types of text structures that happen in non-fiction cause and effect, chronological, uh problem solution, those sorts of things. We want the students to be able to read that and then then try those text structures in their writing. Um I was like, "Well, why don't we just pair that with the social studies units that are happening at the same time?" So if you're studying the American Revolution in fourth grade at that time, let's also have kids read about um the American Revolution and then go off and do the research standards around like um you know, like whether it be like the Boston Tea Party or whatever it may be that little small topic and then in their research clubs, they're they're they're looking through that lens and then

207writing a paper informational paper on that as well. So really right now our non-fiction units in K35 are paired that way. Um Mark and I are already talking have Actually, we're supposed to meet with Mark on Monday. Um and we're already thinking through the lens next year for our 6th through 8th. We're working on taking the K5 writing screeners that we have in place three times a year, extending that to 6th through 8th next year. So those writing screeners, how can we use like a So right now when students write in K5, they're given some sort of stimuli. Um so like we give them like two topic We'll give them like two articles to read from and they have to pick Well, K2 though, we read the story to them. Like, "Do you like this

208sport or this sport? Choose it. Tell us why." You know, in words in in middle in more um in K5 in the upper grades it's looking at like um you know, like uh I'm trying to think of one like school uniforms. You know, things like that. They're having two topics they have to read about and then argue that side. Um so we're trying to lean into from 6th through 8th, what's the social studies topic that we can give kids two articles from, read through them and then write their argument based on that. So they're more of an argument essay that we're looking at. Um so we'll use that using that time in social studies to write the essay but social studies and English teachers coming together to score those. So mainly like the social department's

209probably looking more at the content of that piece. We're looking at more of the mechanics of writing. You like, "Do they have the right organizational structure for this piece? How's their claim? Do they acknowledge the counterarguments? You know, um what's the conventions look like?" We're going to be looking at and scoring it for those purposes. So that's one of the ways that we're really working on it 6th through 8th as well. So meaning a student will write one paper and it will be graded by two different content teachers, the same paper? Yes. >> Or writing piece? Yes. That's >> But but co-scored so they would do be doing it together. >> So you and I would be on a team. You would score >> write together [laughter] like the two of you writing it. All

210right. So like we would we would sit down together together and score those. Oh, that's so cool. Nice job. Um okay. My next question, which I think is the last, is this. In the middle and upper in middle and high school teachers are now giving, it seems to me, mini lessons and then they give students time in their class to do their work and they do this one-on-one and they do all that stuff that you guys were have been explaining. It all sounds great. What My question is what is missing from the way we used to learn or the way that it was taught even five or 10 years ago in this model? Something has to be lost and I understand the value of this so I'm not questioning it. I just want to know

211what are we losing and how are we paying attention to what is being lost? Content wise. May I ask a question to clarify? Just so I understand. Of course. >> [laughter] >> Are you thinking like more of a traditional model where the teacher's more like the sage sage on stage if you will and like delivering that way and Sure. I mean that was like 30 40 years ago. Yeah. Um versus even 10 years ago. If we are now having students do more work in class >> Mhm. what is not being taught to them? Frank agrees. >> [laughter] >> I I don't I'm trying very hard to be quiet. I I don't know that I would say something's necessarily being lost. Like there's you know, I think we believe really strongly in the people who are

212doing and the people who are talking are the people who are learning. Um and so providing that opportunity for them to practice that and the teachers to provide feedback immediate feedback. So as I'm writing my teacher is looking over my shoulder. My teacher is conferring with me. I I'm not sure I see something is that we're losing versus adult standing in front of room talking. Okay. So I'm not saying that losing something is necessarily bad. >> Mhm. But I just would encourage you to think through it, not right now maybe, of if the sage on the stage used to talk for 45 minutes and now the sage on the stage talks for five minutes, what was taught in those 40 minutes that students aren't getting anymore? That's what I want to understand that. Well, I

213guess there's what was taught and what was absorbed, right? I mean that's that's something to think about. >> Okay, so that's like a wonderful point. I mean that that is a great point. There's there's a part of it you know, when I when I was >> when I was talking about that professional learning piece that we did where Julie was modeling something, there's there's something I think there actually may be something to inviting you to something like that where one of us can sort of voice over what's happening in a in a teaching and learning space so that you see sort of what that looks like in in practice cuz I I I don't know. I'm I'm struggling to be able to answer that question because I I don't I I think it's the difference

214between learning and and like teaching. So like the the it the the the philosophy that we're looking at um and that we're already implementing in the elementary schools I think is accelerating learning. Um and and it's a shift in the pedagogical approach to to be able to to do it. So so So I'm struggling to think of like what are we I can't remember how you You I think you said losing. Like what are we losing? So I think that's why I'm struggling to to answer that question cuz I don't I don't see a loss there. I see a benefit in the learning piece. So one example I could give is grammar. I was just going to ask do they diagram sentences? >> Right. No, they don't diagram sentence Well, I haven't seen a kid

215diagram a sentence. So I'm and I think what I've been told by teachers is that like the value of grammar has changed or minimized been So I but I do think that grammar, specific grammar, is something that is no longer taught at least to the extent that it was to us. So that's what I mean by something being lost. We have grammar lessons now K5. We're working on that for 6th through 8th as well now as we're we're working on curriculum. But K35, yes, we started last year with a We have a whole grammar sequence um developed for K35 and so um and they have a resource that's helping them teach the grammar. So starting even in kindergarten, they're looking at It's more embedded. So like not how I was taught grammar, probably you probably

216were taught the same way as like I No offense, I love diagramming sentences so I get it. I I am that nerd. Okay, so I get that but like but also like I was taught that to memorize all the prepositions, right? Like we were probably taught that as well. Like that was not helpful for everybody, right? And so like now we're embedding it more like So look at like a mentor text like a Mo Willems text. Let's look at how his sentence structure works and kids are like, "Oh, look he's describing like um maybe like Piggy and Elephant." Yes, you're right. Authors use characters in their books and sometimes they're people, places, or things, right? Like those are nouns. Like we start with that piece and so like the little guys are just noticing things

217in a book. Whereas the older students are really examining like the sentence structure. Like how did this author start this, you know, sentence? Is it a compound sentence? It is a complex sentence. So they're looking at more from like a sentence level approach and what are the the the craft moves that that student So using grammar more as a craft versus not as like as like it like this is like you have to know grammar rules. Um my husband's a writer and he would tell me, "There are no rules anymore." Um so >> [laughter] >> I'm like this, "There are. Like I I know my rules." I will tell him that every time. Um so just like thinking through the lens of like it's may not look the same but we're trying to really get

218kids to look at real text, real real authors and then try it out in their work. So they'll like they'll do a whole series of lessons where they'll be like, "Let's look at it and notice and wonder about that sentence first and then let's try to imitate that as well in our writing." And and so that's a different approach than what the way I was taught. So you just said we just put in a new grammar thing in K35 and we're working on that in 6th [laughter] through 8th. Does that mean that it does not exist currently in 6th through 8th? >> say there's not a resource right now and so it's a little bit different the way it looks like. So there's not I wouldn't say it like if you think about that being

219vertically and horizontally aligned, that's probably not vertically and horizontally aligned. If you looked at the 6th through 12th standards, it just like all it says is that grammar and conventions will be taught. Like it's it's Um no, it's on if you look at our Missouri standards, it's basically it doesn't specify like sixth graders will master this standard, seventh graders will do this. It just is like >> is it on our rubric? that we've created now. >> yeah. Yeah. So it's clearly embedded. Without the rubric you're expecting Yes, yes, exactly. It's in our rubrics, but if you look at So standards are very vague and so like it's now we're trying to figure out for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade is like what are actually sixth grade teachers going to be responsible for, what are seventh

220grade because the standards don't specify that. Okay, in sec- in seventh grade you're responsible for complex sentences and sixth grade you're going to be teaching compound sentences. Like it doesn't tell us specifics in our standards, so we have to figure out what is it and how we're going to figure out what our grammar sequence is um to align with that. those standards. I guess I just want to like I'll end with this. There is some really interesting exercise I think that could be done looking at like what is not being explicitly taught and then explaining that away. Well, it's not taught because it's not important anymore or it's not taught because it's embedded in these other places. But I would love to see that across I don't know, K8 or K12, I don't know. And

221thank you. Chris. I will say that that's a really good question and my thought about that actually is if our outcomes in terms of our kids writing skills, etc. are still, you know, as great as they were when we were doing the things the other way, yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting thing to to debate, you know, cuz I again, we want a love of learning too. So maybe we didn't have that as much before. Anyway, this is a is a great question. I see Frank has has some thoughts about it, too. Um >> I can I can hear him. I know you can't. [laughter] I know you can't, but I I'm I'm kind of I'm sort of giving you guys this understanding that I can see both sides of this really clearly because we've

222changed in the way we teach. And if our outcomes are still the amazing, then clearly you're doing something right. Um you know, but we also it it's a great exercise to understand, you know, why we do these things now. You may be you already know all those, but I understand why that where that question comes from. And I wasn't saying you're doing anything wrong. I want to be clear. Okay. Okay, sorry. I didn't mean imply that, but I yeah, I I just um you guys are constantly have it coming at you. So I just want to say that clearly you're doing several many lots of things right. Um whatever it is or isn't, you know, in terms of spelling tests or no spelling tests and all these things, you clearly have have got, you know,

223your wits about you. Um and so we I I just want to say I appreciate the fact that our our outcomes are what they are. You know, our students are incredible. We you know, we had student rep interview. I mean, these kids are obviously being taught things in by our teachers that are allowing them to write and speak in ways that are beyond many uh people that you know, our school does great job with it, okay? That's all I'm saying. Um so thank you for all of that. Um okay, my questions are let's see. I I I want to echo what has already been said, which is but but from a health point of view that from screens in general are not the healthiest way to to learn because and we have, you know, data

224about this. So I just want us to be really cautious about having our learners learn on screens because of what the learning that happens via screens versus dig- analog, but also because of what they lack when they are on a screen. Obviously, there's really cases, but yeah, let's all continue to be really conscious about the health aspects, social and emotional and, you know, blue light health aspects cuz I'm on the health and wellness SEL and wellness committee. And I can see this potentially being something that we look at really closely in coming years, which is, you know, is this something we really want to look at because we know that our families are really talking a lot about screen time, etc. So do we want to spend curriculum have our curriculum be in a digital

225form or is that actually counterintuitive to their health in some ways? Um So I I want I will say that, you know, I would encourage you to think about health and wellness like we do in such amazing ways as a district in your curriculum discussions as well. Um clearly tech's not going anywhere and I'm I'm I've said you before, Milena, we got to embrace AI. So I'm not anti, but I just we have to do it really thoughtfully >> Mhm. and we have to model it for our families Mhm. because our families are struggling on how to do it. So I love the idea of us as as a district as a community saying this is sort of like our healthy eating, right? We don't allow our kids to just sit down and eat a

226bunch of chips, right? There are few chips in our schools, but you know what I mean. There are standards on that and even we can't decide what the parents do at home. They might be eating chips the whole time, but as a district and as we have we hold these values, we we are going to teach our kids health and wellness in our schools and I would say screen time is part of health and wellness as as kind of what I'm getting at. Um and I'll say too, one of the things that you say in your in sure your on page four where you say we are accountable to learners by you say evidence-based decision-making. So again, that that that includes curriculum, but it also includes how curriculum is delivered. Right? So I I'll just

227say that because it's right there and it's amazing and it should be and so that it extends now that we're using so many digital again, like are we going to now accept digital annotations? Is that really the right thing to do? We really have to think about that before we just say it is okay, right? Cuz if the outcomes aren't any better when they're doing it that way, we do think there's some losses there in doing it that way. So you'd have to prove, yeah, it's way better to do it this way, you know, or it's, you know, not. So we want to think about that and not just sort of do it. Um I'm not saying that you've ever done that in your life, Milena, but it we have a new aspect now because

228of tech. Um the other thing that it says in your um your page on page four it says ensuring the curriculum instruction and assessment are dynamic, intellectually stimulating, and developmentally appropriate. So I'll just echo what Leo said about K you key stage one, I'm not sure there are many people that it'd be hard for I think for you to justify to me that screens of any kind for curriculum or otherwise, recreation, are developmentally appropriate for those ages, truly. I I I would have you'd be hard-pressed to convince me of that. I don't know that there is any data that would say that and that's why you'd be hard-pressed to convince me of that. So if we're going to say in here that we're doing a developmentally appropriate practices in our classrooms, we really got to

229think about technology being part of whether that's healthy and developmentally appropriate. Um so that's that. The other thing I will say is I love this whole ownership and agency you're doing and people and the kids really knowing what they're good at. I think that's the most amazing thing. I know that that works for that way they are they're understanding reading and writing in in skill sets, but then they also have like the love of it, but there's so much confidence that's gained by knowing I have that skill. I know how to critically look at this. I know whatever all those I think that's just this fantastic thing you're doing and I appreciate it. Um the other thing I'll say, I think it's my last thing. Um on page Oh, okay. Yes, on page 10 of

230this incredibly long, but very informative report, you do say >> [laughter] >> I I I read every word. Um you do say that of the this multi- you're talking about multi-tiered system of support. You say the integrated supports are provided in varying intensities through multiple levels, universal, targeted, and intensive. And then you say based on needs-driven decision-making. And I want to expand that. I know what you're getting at in this particular sentence. Makes perfect sense, you know, what we've already talked about, but I want to expand that out a little bit, do a little out of the box thinking like I've done earlier tonight. Um and say if we're going to talk about needs-driven literacy curriculum, etc., you know, individually based, is one way we can think about allowing [snorts] our kids to catch up

231who need to catch up because they're, you know, a year behind or whatever and all those benchmarks um could it be that in in in the elementary schools we aren't having kids that are behind in their literacy skills be pulled out for Spanish? Cuz again, needs-based, right? The needs are always more important. Spanish really in elementary schools is fantastic. I just talked about how amazing world language is for our students and how much enriching it is, but I also want to give kids the opportunity to catch up in during K-5. Is that again, these are all logistical problems, too, I know, Milena, but, you know, I as as a learner, I I I think it'd be more important for me to master and catch up to my peers in my grade level in English versus

232then having some time away to do Spanish. That's what I'm throwing out there and again, I know there's pros and cons to all these things, but I just want to give our learners that are behind in literacy a chance to catch up by fifth grade. I would love to see more opportunities for them on a daily basis. Spanish is one idea. There's all kinds of other ways we can do it. But what else can we do, you know, to pull them into the need that they have, which is they have to be able to, you know, catch up to be at a certain proficiency in order to really be successful as they move to the higher grades. So, just thoughts. I don't need a response. If you want a response, you can. I'd love it,

233but I don't need one. Um I will respond. Um the the There are um very unique instances where we will make a decision like that. >> Okay. Um but it's unique because and it requires a lot of conversation and a lot of thought about what we're denying a child when we make a decision like that. So, it's not going to be the first place that we would draw from. Um children who um have um who are doing a lot of work um to become proficient with reading. So, with reading for example, who are doing a lot of work with that. It we we have systems in place right now and the RSPs I think are really helping us to be much more systemic about how we're approaching that. Um that we have systems in place

234for them to provide support to them that if that's the only thing that we focus on. So, if we take every other special away from them in order to focus on that, I don't think that's actually healthy. I hear you. >> Um for for children. And so, the so the space is like you I think an easy place for people to think about it cuz I I I think we would philosophically agree with you that children reading is important. Um >> [laughter] >> Right? >> you thought that. So, NO ONE'S GOING TO NO ONE'S GOING TO ARGUE tonight that you actually think it's important. >> agree I think we agree with that. I think the the the challenge that we consistently have is what's the right um sort of allocation of of support and that

235type of stuff. And um I did an interesting exercise a few years ago where we where I followed a child who was receiving multiple instances of support. >> Um and and what what that did to influence our practice was um what we recognized was multiple people were supporting this child all in different ways. Um and so, that was not effective. Um >> so, what it influenced us to think through was like if we have multiple instances of a child being supported that we need consistency across that support, which sounds like duh, right? But um everybody was doing what they thought was best at that time, but nobody had actually looked at the child's experience until I followed that child. >> Right. Um so, I so I think those things influence our decisions about how we're

236supporting children um particularly in reading. I think because of the changes that we've made um really in the past 4 years, the I think everybody would agree that there's a must a much more systematic approach to supporting readers and what we're seeing um slowly with data is that we're seeing that kids are graduating out of of those supports um because we're being much more intentional about the the way that we're doing it. So, I just want to caution like I sometimes I think like the parallel is like with school funding things where people pull things from specials um to in order to put things into like core things and those types of things. I think the same thing with this of like experiences for children. I think it's important for kids to have experiences in

237music, in art, in Spanish, etc. So, I I I So, I wouldn't say we would never do that. Yeah. But it's very rare that that we do it and it's not without a lot of like blood, sweat, and tears and and like hard conversation because I I I think ultimately the goal is we need kids to be able to read. Um and and so, what are the right ways to do that? And I don't think that's necessarily the same for every child either. Like there's a kid who could experience a lot of success in Spanish because what we're focused on is like especially the early ages what we're focused on is like receptive language and those types of things and like acting things out and singing songs and those types of things, which are important

238things around language acquisition. Um and if a child feels success there, I don't want to pull a child from every place that they feel success. Correct. And I would I would never think that that would go I totally agree with you. Okay. So, I think we're Yeah. in the same ballpark. >> Yeah. Just pull it from where you can when you can for the kids that absolutely have to have it. You know what I mean? I think also with the reading success plans like part of graduating from an RSP is that you're able to independently sustain in a tier one setting. Um and so, it's not always about pulling, sometimes it's about pushing in and providing support in that way because that's ultimately what we're building towards because a kid cannot come off of an

239RSP without being able to have two clean data points in only tier one instruction. Okay. That's a that's a big that's a tall order. Yeah. Um especially when there's a lot of complexities going on. Like when there's something really tricky going on, that's that's a pretty big like that's going to be a long haul. Yeah. Um so. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. >> want to comment on um so, if I were to say if I were to look back at my experience being a parent and and Clayton, um one of the highlights for me would be when my son needed needed some special help for reading. This is a long time ago. He was little guy um and I got to say it's like the the all the thinking and the kind of collaboration

240that came came with that. Um And also the sort of I think maybe you were touch touch touching on a little bit, Milena, is the kind of de-stigmatization stigmatization of that. You know, cuz it's like it's hard when kids like, "Why am I doing this, but nobody else is doing it?" So, I think there's there's a lot to it and I got to say it's like people ask me about Clayton School District, I'll say, "If your kid needs help that needs some kind of special Of course, we have incredible performance academic, but if your kid needs special help, like this is the district to be in. I mean, for for these kinds of things. I think it's like tremendous. So, thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Going once, going twice. All right. Then I guess we'll

241take a vote. All those Yeah. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. It's approved. Y'all tired of me yet? Cuz I got I got another three. Thank you, Julie. >> All right. Next up is Hi, again. Oh, you were so excited you were just sitting there already. All right. [laughter] All right, um, moving on to policies. So, can I get a motion to bring policy No, this is just a first It's just a first reading. >> Oh, first reading, okay. Sorry. All right, first reading. All right. Milena. Sure. So, policy IIA around instructional materials, um, the I would recommend that you, um, accept these changes as, um, presented. They're they're relatively minor changes and they're related to, um, essentially kind of scared to say this, um, digital materials and >> [laughter] >> and

242ensuring that digital materials, um, like when when we're purchasing digital materials, that we have a process for protecting the privacy of students and being in compliance with policies and practices related to privacy, security, legal expectations. So, those are really the changes and everything else is just sort of small language, um, type changes. So, I would recommend that you accept them. Okay. As presented. Any, uh, questions or comments on this policy? I just have to observe, since we were talking about grammar instruction, that we've correctly switched the restrictive clause from which to that. In the second to last line. That's that's a big improvement. >> I I really have no responsibility there. MST did that for us. It's It's good work, whoever did it. It shows grammar fundamentals are still And you knew the name of

243that grammar fundamental. I Googled it to be sure, but I did, basically. All right, any any other pieces of feedback on this policy? Mede apologizes, but she has something to Sorry. Um, the only thing I'll say is that, um, I went and looked at the referenced, um, EHB and EHBC, which are part of this. And, um, with regards to what the staff making selections need to do in terms of So, the the sentence that's added is district staff will evaluate and select materials that meet district expectations for privacy, security, and legal compliance. So, those two policies that I just mentioned deal with what staff should do. Mhm. There's a lot of pretty loose language around staff are encouraged to do such and such, you know, and we try to select materials that are just There's

244just language that I think should be tightened up, um, especially in light of just all the concerns around privacy and data, um, I would hope that our I think that the policies that are probably already in place or procedures that are in place, I should say, probably are up to the standards that we would want. I don't think that the policies reflect the probably what we're doing and how important it is to make sure that our systems are secure and that we have content filtering. There's There's talk about content filtering and all those. So, um, just that we might want to go update those in the future. I'll leave that to Luke. Any other comments on this? All right. Okay. Um, so then, policy IIAC, um, again, I would recommend that we accept the the

245changes there. It's also language about, um, the language is being updated to provide better language around material selection and and clearly state that parents can engage with the district on matters of materials for their own students. Um, the policy that's or the ad- administrative procedure that's attached to this, um, we've done some work, um, both with that and with our materials review stuff. So, like we've done that work internally, um, to update those things. And so, this language in this policy reflects essentially the changes that we've made in those administrative procedures. Any questions or comments, Aaron? I said two quick questions. Um, one, and this may be so trivial as to not be necessary, but in the sh- like the paragraph that starts, "Although parents and guardians," that paragraph. The very end, um, cuz it's

246it does already specify that, um, that the inappropriate for their student may request that the school not make those materials available to the student. Could Is there any value to saying "their student" again, um, just to be super clear that what the student refers to. Um, and then the very last line, I noticed, um, that individually identifiable library record records weren't That wasn't changed to personally as the two, um, changes above. So, we might want to The very last line of the On the first Yeah, the very Sorry, on your confidentiality, last line of the first page. Sorry. Sorry, you mind Now, that first page. >> [laughter] >> I hear my values reflected in what you're saying. >> [laughter] >> Okay. All right, and then the last one is Yeah, the last one >> what's

247happening? Um, sorry. IIAC R1. So, this regulation is being rescinded because the contents, um, the contents exist in a different, um, reg- in a different administrative procedure. Um, so we would again recommend rescinding this because we have it, um, in other spaces. Any questions or comments on that? It at the top it says, um, it's the content has been updated and recode rec- recoded to IIAC AP1, which is also in this update, but we didn't get that. Yeah, because you don't get the administrative procedures. The our team does That's Okay. Yeah. So, all of this is just we don't need this cuz it's now an administrative procedure. Correct. Okay. In all my piles of papers, I lost that. All right. Sorry. Milena. I think you made it. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so we'll make those

248small changes and bring them back the next meeting. And then I'll be back with other coordinators. Um, okay, moving on to consent agenda. I move to approve consent agenda items 8.2 through 8.6. Second. Great. Uh, and before we vote, uh, just want to recognize the, uh, recent donation on behalf of the district. The Board of Education would like to thank the Optimist Club of Clayton for their generous donation of $3,500 to the high school robotics team. So, thank you to the Optimist Club of Clayton. Is this the club that used to be like a speech when we were growing up? I don't know, but >> how to give speeches. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great, it passes. Board communications, Aaron. By chance, has there been an equity committee meeting recently? There has. >>

249Great, tell us about it. So, um, the Equity Committee met on the 22nd. Um, we discussed that the staff affinity space questionnaire is out and, um, being completed as we speak, hopefully. Um, the survey will be open until mid-May and then, um, we'll discuss, uh, the results of that at the end of the May at the end of May meeting. Um, and then also had a discussion about, um, 2026-2027 professional learning, uh, priorities, uh, uh for the group. And, uh Dr. Poole shared a link for a survey for committee members to fill out looking for areas uh priority areas for staff learning, gaps in current knowledge and practice, and opportunities to better support all student groups. So, that will be um coming later. Great. Um Pam and teaching learning. So, it was a world language

250um presentation which we just got, so there's not much I can add. I would just want to share two quotes that were fantastic. Says, "We believe that language learning is about more than vocabulary or grammar. It's about connection, identity, and belonging." And I thought that was beautiful. And the next one, "The goal of their work is to make our curriculum cohesive, our expectations transparent, and our students' growth visible." And all of the content we were presented here tonight. And uh Ben and Mead, uh head of technology study committee. Um Yes, so uh as [clears throat] mentioned, um the tech study with the uh having completed the student device uh piece, um uh has now is uh in addition to AI, um which has always been a kind of a thread going on. Uh we have

251now model of instruction which which um uh with Milena led, um and we mostly sat in part as part of that. And then there's also a um a group focus on um parent survey uh information, so they're talking through the the various kinds of questions and how they want to um identify, you know, those that have concerns and then kind of dig in on that more or those who have fewer concerns and then uh and then also at at age-appropriate as well. Um I don't know if Aaron if you want to add any. Oh, um Yeah. So, you know, I'm thrilled to be going to these meetings. Um I thought it was awesome. Um Just hearing the teachers talk about kind of they they split in the instructional um instructional practices group, they split up

252into one group was focusing on sort of teacher-facing materials that they might that they're kind of workshopping to provide some sort of a playbook, as Milena called it, um for teachers. And then another group working on information that would be parent-facing. So, explaining the resources that technology resources that are used, why we use them, um and there were some cool ideas floating around there. And then the AI portion, um Luke is working on kind of essentially establishing some goals that they're then going to hopefully flush out, but really I think with AI, it's constantly evolving and um they have to almost you guys almost have to like do pre-work before the work to then finish the work. It's like there's feels like a lot of steps um to determine kind of like what the priorities

253are. Are we putting guidelines in place? What are our guiding questions? Um it's just like such a big vast topic that it's hard to narrow down. All of it is. So, anyways, it was great. Thanks for letting me be on the committee. Yeah, and I'll just uh a couple more things. So, I I think um just as having been an observer since the beginning of the school year, I really feel like this group is really like first of all, they're kind of feel like they're really accelerating what they're doing with the uh the level of thought and the way the collaboration is is going. It's really it's great. I mean, it really is. And um you know, I think one of the things that that Milena introduced today was had to do with kind of

254sort of like a uh you know, if we're using technology, this is particularly for the for the younger grades. Like, what are some of the kind of um criteria for why that's a good idea or not a good idea. They call it the analog option. I remember it's one of the comments. So, so I think you know, it's just like it's becoming more and more infused around this intentionality of use, you know, which is really what we're striving for, you know. So, anyways, that's it. Thank you. That's great. Um sounds like some really good work. Um I'll just mention that last Saturday, Ben, Mead, Aaron, Leo, and I and Dr. Patel were all at the uh CEF Hall of Fame gala dinner and uh it was good to spend time outside of the board meeting

255with these folks, but also I just think, you know, the CEF seems to be headed in a really good direction and and there was, you know, it was cool to see these people being honored and and people like talking about their their connection to the Clayton School District after all these years. And so, it was really, you know, it was it was well done. All right. Oh, yeah. Okay. Um I not an official thing, but I wanted just mention that last night I was at the CHS award ceremony. Um Dr. Patel was there. It was just a fantastic event. Of course, obviously feels good [snorts] to see kids getting um recognized for their incredible work. Um and it just is it's amazing to see the faculty be excited about it, too. So, um I just

256want to give a big shout-out to all those folks that that won an award um because uh yeah, we we have incredible students and it's it's wonderful to have a night where we really are looking at them and saying, "Look at this amazing thing. We recognize you being, you know, your growth and your um excellence in these areas." It was, you know, awesome. So, yay. Oh, yes, thank you. That was the other thing I was going to say, Nisha. Um >> [laughter] >> Um Leo and Dr. Patel and I uh fin- finished up our board rep interviews today. We had our second round. Last week was the first round. This was the second round. So, we have officially um seen all the folks that we're going to see, and we um will be talking and

257in in picking a board rep, and that person will be announced in in the near future. Um Next board meeting, in fact. So, they will be here, and we're excited about it. Again, we had incredible candidates. It's not an easy choice. We've got students that are passionate and articulate and um wise beyond their years. It's we are just totally impressed. But we do have an excellent uh person coming forward, and we're very excited about it. Great. All right, motion to adjourn. I move. I move to adjourn the meeting. I second. All those in favor? I. Opposed?