9/27/2023 Board of Education Meeting

001I gotta go ahead and get started wow this is loud tonight um it is September 27th 2023. thank you everybody for being here tonight and we we have our tax rate hearing so we're going to go ahead and start with that um so John we'll go ahead and you already came up there thank you I have a few comments before we take public comment um this public hearing is in preparation for setting the 2023 tax rate notice that this hearing was posted back on September 18th in a timely manner for 23 our assessed valuation has increased to 1.52 billion it's up from last year it's 1.39 billion an increase of 126 million 35 million of that was due to new construction 94 of that new construction was in the commercial area as you know when

002assess values rise rates will fall in accordance with that so um while residential assess valuations together Rose about 7.8 percent the residential rate will decrease a little about 5.1 percent which is about 21 cents uh commercial increased 6.3 percent the rate will go down 3.4 percent personal property actually went down three quarters of a percent and it's blend uh its rate will actually go up a little bit 2.4 percent overall we'll expect new revenue of 1.5 million from new construction and 1.17 million from reassessment in this process it's turned out that we've had to lower our debt service Levy which has been steady at 62 cents for a number of years now it's going down 11 cents to 51 cents overall that will save taxpayers about 1.7 million dollars as you know our debt uh

003is about 46.1 million dollars of General obligation bonds today which is scheduled to pay off in March of 29. a little over five about five and a half years from now we have enough money coming in from this valuation or this Levy to pay keep Pace with our requirements tax collections from our operating Levy will be used to pay salaries benefits Services supplies and make Capital Improvements in accordance with our budget that you adopted for the 23 24 year and for Residential Properties they saw assessed valuations increase 7.8 percent but with the rate rollback the their taxes will increase on average about 2.3 percent individual experience will vary from that that's what the average is with that I'm ready for public comment is there any public comment okay um so we are we know approve

004this don't we later we're going to prove it later okay so is this high cut where you want me to adjourn okay so we're gonna go ahead and adjourn the tax rate hearing and um commence the regular hearing thank you John um so adequate notice has been given and let's go ahead and say the Pledge of Allegiance now one nation under God indivisible okay um so Gary um we're on 3.02 I move that the Board of Education adopt the agenda as posted second it's been moved and seconded all in favor aye any opposed a motion assets and Doctor we are now on 4.01 so Dr pool is going to come up and we're going to talk about our amazing students all right good evening everyone so I have uh two students that we are going

005to recognize today our first student is sari gross uh sarri is bringing a national philanthropic organization to St Louis called honeycomb and it will be honeycomb STL so Siri is going to come up and kind of talk about the motivation behind that and the good work that uh she has begun doing foreign [Applause] and I'm a sophomore at Clayton this year and as Dr Poole said my I am starting this like local philanthropic teen thing I guess you could say so I kind of wrote a little bit of speech so I'll tell you guys about it so honeycomb STL is an organization with the goal to create generations of engaged empowered and experienced Jewish change makers and givers honeycomb is building the future of Jewish philanthropy at honeycomb STL member members will learn what sadaka

006the Jewish ethical obligation to give and philanthropy are by doing interactive activities and listening to prominent speakers from our community we will work throughout the term to raise money and eventually donate it to one or more local organizations we will also spend time visiting these organizations volunteering and learning why donations are crucial to them and how they will use that money we've recently had our first meeting this past month and heard from Maxine Clark the founder of Build-A-Bear speak about her life in philanthropic Journey our next meeting is October 15th at the Del Mar Devine from 11 to 1. if you know any 9th or 12th graders from St Louis you think may be interested you should definitely recommend them the best way to learn more if you're interested is the Instagram honeycoma sdl to

007learn any information and specific details [Applause] thank you sarri for your awesome work um if you like to take a picture with our superintendent and our president of the board that would be awesome we have a certificate for you thank you all right our next student who we want to honor is Grace wolf Grace if you want to come on up uh Grace has published her own children's book um entitled may I sit at the table and I love the motivation and the story behind it um even going back to Syrian what she's accomplished just the level of you know the equity mindset and the activists mindset and for advocating for others that they have is awesome so I'm gonna let Grace talk about her book thank you so much I'm so grateful to be

008here so yes I did write a children's book and I'm a senior at Clayton and the inspiration for this book came from a culmination of my own experiences those of my friends in the deaf community and also My Brother Sam so My Brother Sam is 16 years older than me and he has severe autism he did the illustrations for the book and has been such a big part of my life um when he talks he has a very robotic voice and because of that when I'm out in public with him and people kind of hear what he sounds like they stare at him laugh at him Etc and in general are not very empathetic and it's not because anyone has any malicious intent It's really because of a lack of understanding of people who are

009different act different do different things and in writing this book I wanted to shed light on the deaf community and their experiences specifically in schools and how kids can be very cruel and mean so about 75 of all bullying in schools have ends in unstructured time so that would be for example during lunch and the response to this book has been overwhelmingly positive I'm really excited to share it with everyone and hopefully you see Clayton try to implement these inclusion this inclusion in in empathy um in our own programs so thank you so much foreign thank you Grace we will definitely look to get those books in our libraries definitely needed again thank you sarri and Grace for your awesome work um and your commitment to helping others um and that will wrap up our

010recognizing our own portion for tonight thank you okay um I think we are now at uh a couple comment and you have two so we are going to start with uh Michelle avanador come on up okay I want to personally thank Amy Rubin for being authentically interested in the success of all students at Clayton School District when my family and I first joined the district uh let's see seven years ago she reached out and checked in on how my daughter with special needs was doing and she probably hasn't had a chance to do that for everyone but I really appreciated that um so thank you Amy Chris Wynn thank you for attending all the meetings that have been happening since about May um evaluating the success of the collaboration between Special School District and Clayton

011um Cameron pool as well being extremely communicative this past spring with 20 or more emails back and forth and trying to catch up with each other in our intentions and goals Robin weens Nisha Patel all the other people in Special School District all of the people who are trying their best to create authentic and clear collaboration so my name is Michelle abanar I'm an educator a wife a mother of three boys who are 2018 and 16. and I have a fourth child my beautiful extra 21st chromosome carrying girl named Cricket who is in sixth grade at White on Middle School we were drawn to the district by a former Clayton employee who was working with Cricket through First Steps cricket was three two and three years old she was the physical therapist at the family

012center of Clayton preschool and we were Smitten by that school their Reggio Emilio culture philosophy and when we decided to send her their cricket thrived we thought we might move into the Clayton School District but we never were able to find a community that we had already established having three older children in our neighborhood in u-city so we continued to be a tuition ping Clayton family and we plan to do so I have intimate experience personally with five school districts with whom I have been directly involved either as an employee in the classroom or as a volunteer parent I will name these five in reverse order from my experience Clayton school district U City School District Ladue School District Pattonville and Rockwood I also have intimate and direct experience with another District called Special School

013District they do a lot of great things back when I was a classroom teacher my understanding of SSD was vague I didn't get much training at Mizzou nor in the district where I taught I was sort of thrown in I was told to read my students multiple page IEPs but I never really felt like they were my students anyway so I didn't really put in as much effort as I probably should have then I was put on the parent side of the fence the day my fourth child cricket was born in June of 2011 and with our surprise down some diagnosis I now knew I would have to read the IEPs so from both sides of the fence one being the teacher side and one being the parent side I feel like I come to

014the table knowing a little bit more than the average parent I have found consistent and frustrating inefficiencies and I know everyone's hearts are in the right place but I'm here to say is that too long shoot I talk fast but not fast enough there are too many hearts too many hearts and can we talk about it more okay see you tomorrow I don't know what else to say um should I keep going oh okay um if there is any time where we can realize that change is inevitable the time is now if there's any District that can look closely at the inefficiencies of two different districts servicing one child it's this District if there's any educator who is in this field for anything but the child and they shouldn't be here and I have personally

015interacted with some employees of Special School District not just in Clayton more in other districts but they are not there for the kids and our children can't speak for themselves they're constantly scrutinized by and expected to interact with many more individuals than the non-ieep students IEP is the individualized education plan and they have insecurity in interacting with people anyway so every year I personally make a point to connect with all of these people to try to make it easier on my daughter I call these people the cricket crew moving from elementary to Middle School this year my email thread has almost doubled in people with whom my daughter interacts of course because there's individual teachers per grade I get that I taught middle school but there's this whole other set of teachers and honestly all

016of these teachers don't even know each other so how can that really work for the child and the one person who Services the child the most and is the absolute most critical to their success in my experience is the paraprofessional who is muffled and asked not to interact with the parents and when they do interact with me because that's the only way to create success for the child they ask me not to share that with their supervisors because they're afraid they're going to get in trouble these evaluation and simplification so to whom do these students belong Clayton or SSD I can say Clayton school district is very unique in that they have this thing called The Family Center the preschool where they hire their employees under their own umbrella of Clayton to service the kids

017with IEPs they get to know the children there's no attrition there's no movement I actually personally work there now so my ask is this can we take the family center model and try to recreate it in some fashion maybe start with one or two elementary schools or all of them it totally works and I know there now as a sub working there and last year as a paraprofessional I really think we can figure out how we can educate these children better with diversity equity and inclusion all day long Paul Crow okay Paul good evening thanks everyone for taking time uh thanks to the board for your efforts and service it is much appreciated by parents uh of typical and uh my child alike right um so again my name is Paul Crowe my daughter Maggie

018is a freshman at Clayton High School and I want to take you through a brief journey of our experience and most specifically with the administration while everything is good intended we are falling flat uh as joint administrations between this the school district of Clayton and Special School District um we this is not a teacher issue this is not a day-to-day issue this is a systemic issue at the next level of leadership and overall uh I think just overall confidences in the process so uh I'll start with again my daughter Maggie's a freshman at Clayton High School and receives significant services from SSD through the past few years covet on really we have challenged both the SS the school district of Clayton and Special School District to elevate their service accordingly um and I haven't eaten

019dinner yet a little shaky here but um they have really truly unfortunately failed at every Mark last February my wife Jenny and I endured a series of meetings with the Special School District in Clayton admin alike to no avail and driving positive change in August we went on and experienced a series of listening sessions quickly we figured out that this was a process that we were going to arduously have to go through and what you have in front of you tonight is not representative of the Advent of those meetings clearly not so I asked the board that you can either table the Section 8 tonight and vote at a later date when you're fully informed of what needs to happen or you can vote tonight uninformed that's your choice right but I would highly recommend

020that you hear the full story from everyone involved in this we asked for multiple reasons for a third party to host the listening sessions right that was not accommodated we have one of the world-class facilitators right across child Park and Chapman and Company I'll pay for it that's how serious I am it needs to change we need to be heard and it needs to be completely appropriate to drive positive change in this organization so I highly recommend that you do that in this process so that we're heard and we hear the voices of our children with needs that don't have voices so please I implore you table for two weeks be fully informed in the vote we got we got the summary this morning I canceled my afternoon of meetings to read it I showed

021up tonight canceling the trip please do the same okay um thank you Paul and Michelle for your comments we appreciate it and we're going to talk about this um later on in our study session but for right now I'm going to turn it over to Dr Patel for her superintendent comments okay thank you um Amy good evening everyone I want to continue um before we get into the presentation portion of tonight I do want to continue with a little bit more of recognizing our own with one additional student and I want to highlight this person because we just got the news today earlier today about it we have a senior named Rachel Chung who was an awarded a surprise Scholarship today four-year scholarship to the nrotc it's a very competitive scholarship very few students in

022the area received the scholarship it is a four-year um basically scholarship to this to attend this and it's based on academics so your SSAT act it's based on your commitment to the military world it's based on activities that you participate in and her scholarship was for two hundred thousand dollars so I think that's a huge huge um accomplishment on her end so I just wanted to make sure we highlight her and be very proud of taking a different alternative route to post-secondary education so I'm very proud of her so moving on obviously our presentation tonight is going to be around our partnership agreement with Special School District and I'm not sure how many of us in the audience know or people watching but in St Louis County voters through a referendum actually established a special

023school district so they voted for It Special School District was established and not only that they also also voted for a tax levy so we as residents of saint St Louis County fund Special School District and they in turn give us services so for us in the school district of Clayton we have 287 students that are serviced by Special School District that's roughly 11 of our population including about um I want to say 48 49 staff members that are fully employed by a special school district through that tax tax levy that we that was approved um so each year we come to the table we come to the board table and we go through this presentation where we share the partnership agreement which is the same template that's used in all 22 districts that's serviced

024by Special School District today you'll notice it is different we have the template but what we've added is 22 additional action steps to help address all of the concerns that have been brought To Us by our parents and absolutely I will be the first one to say it and we have said that at every Community Forum that we started we have definitely areas that we need to improve on I'm not denying that I'm not none of us are trying to hide behind the fact and the biggest two things for me that I heard from our parents in the last two Community forums one was we need a changing culture the culture of no we can't do this here's a barrier here's a barricade here's things that obstacles that they were facing so we need to

025change our Paradigm like mindset in terms of making it a culture of yes and then the second thing was parent involvement and what does that look like like input from our parents are we truly listening and then are we making changes accordingly to that we have 287 students that we service and yes we have to look at every single child and how we're approaching that right so one of the things that we put together tonight that we're going to present to you is the partnership agreement we're going to go we're not going to go each step into each of the 22 action steps but we're going to give you an overview we put it on board docs and we shared it with the board on Friday and it was on board docs from Monday for

026people to view however I also understand that not everybody can navigate board Docs so tonight we're hoping to go through each one of those steps and kind of give everyone an overview um and most importantly really to say how are we going to know a year from now if we made any progress how are we going to hold ourselves accountable I truly believe that we do need to gain the trust from our parents we've lost it but we need to also be given an opportunity to gain it back and for us this is our first step to say yes we will deploy parent surveys the parents can help create the survey we'll deploy it each semester and you tell us how we're doing are we doing better are we not we'll come back to the

027board we'll do it tonight but we'll come back at the end of the semester and next semester and give you an update here's where we're at here's what the parents are saying that we're still not fault we're still falling short or we're doing great in these areas so that the board is fully informed about that as well third party from the minute I think it was the last meeting that Mr Pro actually did he suggested he's like we need to get a third party in here we need to have someone come facilitate it the superintendent of SSD and I have been talking about that in fact just this afternoon she and I had a phone conversation who do we need to get how do we get that person to come in here we didn't put

028it in the agreement because that doesn't need to be in an agreement that's not part of this this is something that we would fund and take care of and have what does this come what does it look like who's the third party is it a company is it someone that specializes that has knowledge in SSD Services we need to find the right person and absolutely no one is against that idea bring them in in fact help them facilitate it they can be they can give us their opinion based on everything they're hearing from you and based on what we're trying to do and I do think that's a great round so we will go that way we just need to find the right person to do that um our next meeting is going to be

029on October 11th I believe um for or the 12th one October 12th um for another Community Forum to say okay what are we doing now where are we headed and maybe it's time to like now actually start creating the survey or the accountability tool in terms of parent feedback so we do have a lot of things that we've got in place but we need to start that is and tonight is just the first step of that um so with that I am going to now hand it over to our student board rep who's going to also give an update because I know this came up as a topic from the student perspective as well and then we're going to have the presentation at the recent spsa meeting we are discussion revolved around how to support

030fellow student s IEP plans or special needs and what we found as a group is that we agree that any challenges that were difficult for students who don't need extra support were especially hard for students who did and so when we looked at regarding schedules and regarding just year-long plans in general when it came to the start of the year we found that students really needed help and it really needed some more support support than that wool was given and so in general when we were looking at the Clayton culture of inclusivity of our students we saw that it was ultimately really positive on the student side uh with an educational aspects we you know to empathize with someone you must understand and we found that with many of the students at Clayton High School

031they were throughout the elementary school middle school high school were giving the chance to either learn or were open to learn about others at their school and so what we can see is that we have at Clayton a shared level of awareness and overall respect which is really great to see and so when we're thinking about maybe making more district-wide changes or changes within the classroom or outside the classroom students who need that support are and will be um take into account by the student body around them everyone really cares and really wants to see and make a difference and as a group we couldn't even think of a single instance where we saw that another student treated another student who was you know uh like everyone is just really inclusive and great in the

032Clayton High School atmosphere at least and so we also at the sbsa meeting talked a little bit about sixth grade camp we all know it's coming next week and we were thinking about whole level great experiences and how in the Clayton School District that really unifies a class it makes them really excited to go to school and to learn with teachers they've been seeing all week and really creates those stepping stones for high school and eventual graduation and one thing we did find though is that high schoolers who end up going back as counselors or even 8th graders who go back at cits really struggle with workload when it comes to teachers teachers not really recognizing the the amount of time it takes at sixth grade Camp to be working with these sixth graders and

033so we were generally thinking and encouraging High School teachers to maybe attend a day of camp see what's going on see how important it is for the overall Clayton environment and also just in general um you know the high schoolers really make the sixth grade Camp a great experience so it'd be great to see um more uh help put in place for those who happen to attend and then finally this recent Monday we had a c day and this was recently implemented because of student concerns and what we saw was it overall worked out really well you know the goal was to help our Jewish student population and what we found was when we look at for example the profile of a Clayton graduate cultural competency everyone it the students and the teachers really took

034that in mind when planning their lesson plans and you know looking throughout the day um one thing that was really great is students were really aware of like why the C day was happening you know and I think that was very much the goal of making sure everyone sort of understood why we were taking a specific day off for a c day and how we should put that into our day-to-day one maybe wishing someone a happy holiday or just going in going to school and so while most teachers did take into account um the holiday into their syllabus some teachers I heard Still barreled through and just kept going with their assignments and what they were teaching in class however because of the C Day schedule with the 45 minutes per class it really ended

035up not students Miss less than they would have last year and so when we look at overall with Clayton students whether it comes to increasing accommodations or changing the schedule the students are really adaptable to changes made by the board and so we are in general really excited and open to any new changes made in the future regarding any anything that comes that will help out the district thank you so much um that's really good input does anybody have any questions okay we appreciate it um okay SSD partnership foreign School Board of Clayton it's a privilege to be up here to give you an update on the partnership agreement between the special school district and the school district of Clayton I want to introduce Melissa Logan who's the special education director assigned to Clayton from

036the Special School District and then we also Elizabeth School District joining us too thank you for having us tonight the first thing we wanted to go over was the overview so Ida requires States and districts to have an effect policies procedures programs that are consistent with the federal policies and procedures concerning the provision of special education So within that we have the Missouri state plan local compliance plan and then tonight we're going to drill down to our general Assurance documents District policies and procedures so we're going to go into our partnership agreement and what the purpose of the partnership agreement across 22 districts that we have increased knowledge and awareness of expectations the inclusive and collaborative approach the tool it is to monitor our collaborative leadership decision making and practices in seven categories and it

037also guides our conversations with our districts within that we have seven categories that we hit on within each one so we have Staffing teaching learning accountability the collaboration of our responsibilities and resources student services data and Technology transportation and our CTE program Career and Technical education so as Dr Patel mentioned earlier this evening we won't necessarily be going through all the nuts and bolts of the template of the different categories as part of the partnership agreement instead we're going to use our time this evening to focus on some of the action steps that we hope to accomplish during this school year so how did we create those action steps well first of all we have hosted two Community engagement forums and invited all of our families of students with disabilities not just students who are

038served by IEPs but also we welcome to families whose students had 504s to join us as well our first Forum we had several listening stations set up with different facilitators from the school district of Clayton and Special School District focused on Gathering feedback on the student family experience our communication the partnership agreement itself and then transitions between the various school buildings particularly between fifth grade to sixth grade and then 8th grade to ninth grade and then 12th grade and Beyond we also held a second Forum where we presented draft action steps that were created based on the feedback from the first forum and created opportunities for folks to give us feedback on that in addition before those forums and after those forums families were given an opportunity to meet individually we had a lot of

039individual meetings with families who had reached out to us before we held the forums in between the forums and then met with a couple more families after the forums we also met with our principals as a large group and individually to get their feedback on the action steps that we had shared with families and we also got feedback from our special education building leaders so obviously we have special education staff sprinkle throughout all of our buildings and there are specific leads within each building that Melissa also works with directly and we were able to get some of their input as well so we wanted to highlight some of the action steps in several of the categories that are part of our partnership agreement again as Dr Patel said earlier you can find a more detailed

040version of these action steps posted on board Docs so the first category was focused on Staffing and one of the things that uh we were able to glean from our family meetings as well as our forums was really the need to increase our transparency through more frequent and specific communication with our families one of those areas where we could improve upon was our staffing and the communication about our staffing and one of the other things that we heard related to that was understanding not just what our current Staffing model was and how we got there but also what the trends were over time with how we allocate allocate the various staff members in Category 2 related to teaching learning and accountability again a lot of the feedback that we heard was knowing one what the

041data was on the performance of our students with disabilities both at a high level but also at an individual family level and then also understanding how that data had changed over time so what were the trends for a specific student and what were the trends for our entire community of students who are currently receiving special education services another piece of that was making sure that we're communicating that information to our community in a variety of Pathways so thinking about how we share that with individual families about the progress of Their Own Child how do we share that with the building community and how do we share that with um both our teaching staff and our Greater Community in terms of all of our families whose students receive special services Category 3 was around that collaboration

042of responsibility and resources so things we have put in place and we've continued as a special education building leader has been identified and goes to all the building leader meetings and has that voice for special education and then goes back to the team to let them know of what's happening and how we can make sure the students are supported and included in all activities we've also had iPad director principled meetings one-on-ones monthly with the principals where we're also talking about the student needs what's happening and what they need from me we've also created a contact list so you know who to go to for things the first Contact is always that case manager teacher and then we've listed other people that they can go to if they have questions we have an ongoing parent input

043through our communication engagement forums that we've created and pack Ed we've had two events already the morning meet up at Glen Ridge and charting the life course event that we've also been part of and within category 4 student services so this is where we are looking at our transitions from Early Childhood to kindergarten to fifth to sixth grade eighth to ninth grade and even post-secondary how can we help smooth that transition and have everyone Together part of the table to know what what's available beginning of the year activities we were part of the meet the teacher curriculum night we even host it for the ninth grade families an opportunity to meet the um their case manager engaging with office of equity inclusion we've pulled in Dr Poole and Dr Macklin from Special School District to

044help us come up with some PD opportunities for the teachers SEL data collection through the Panorama and then we're exploring some additional summer experiences for our students some takeaways from our community engagement and how we're going to track how we're doing is really looking at that relationship and Trust so communication we're really looking at that building to teacher to families to make sure they know what's happening within their school and what the opportunities are we're also personalizing that communication to families too to let them know what to expect what it will look like such as the Panorama we let them know what was happening how we were going to make sure visuals would be provided for some students and things like that we're also looking for that stronger feedback loop from the parents to us

045at the school setting too and then we're going to be able to see how we're doing through the surveys that we've mentioned that we're going to create together the student data looking at that academic and social emotional data and the professional learning that we're providing to the teachers foreign open it up to questions I also want to share with the board that as a participant in many of the family meetings that we've conducted individually as well as a facilitator in the first two Community engagement forms I want to reiterate what Dr Patel said earlier is that we absolutely know that we can improve in this area and that we are very committed to improving the quality of the experience that our families of students with disabilities have had and we know that we need to

046put a lot of work into improving those relationships to re-establish the trust and as the assistant superintendent of student services I want to let you know that I take full ownership of the missed opportunities where it could have led differently to make this work be elevated much quicker and so I assure all of you that I am very invested in making sure that I partner with Melissa Logan as well as Dr Keenan's team to make sure that we are continuing to make decisions that are rooted in the data that we collect from our families and from our students and from our staff to make sure that moving forward we're continuing to make progress and really improving the experience of our families overall and if I may um I'd like to make a comment too in

047terms of the listening sessions with our with our parents was very valuable in terms of really kind of from a first-hand accounts around the frustrations that they're feeling around a dual system and being in a single District being in a desist District where you had your special education that has a tendency to happen there too however we are committed to making sure that this system does not create a dual system for students and that the parents don't feel that way there's a commitment on both Clayton and SSD to make sure that we are cohesively working together around that student experience parents were really clear about communication separated out how do we make sure when we have communications going out that we're specific about their students and their needs being met and how do we make

048sure we're communicating that effectively the inclusivity part of it is so important we don't want to other our families but we also want to make sure our students are taken care of and that they're recognized and that we're also making sure that we're really clear about what those needs are and that we're addressing them the other part of it too was transitions were really clearly that we need to make sure that the transition that parents are informed not only for kids going from elementary to middle school but Middle School to high school well in advanced planning preparation parents want to prepare their students over the summer so they don't find out about this classes and their courses in the in August they want to know prior to that and we can do those so the

049the goal around this is this feedback that our parents are giving is to give us the time to continue to work with them to build out the surveys to build out get feedback we're not saying that we want you to adopt this without parent input the timing is we've had we've always had this done between we offer this we go over this with our board in June we have the boards adopt this in September and the final signing of it in October so where we are saying is engaging with our families here in Clayton the commitment to make sure that we're supporting them we started that in August we've done it in September we have a long ways to go in terms of it but the information they provided us we need to continue to

050build these pieces out it's not that we're waiting to advance on any of these action plans until we put it all into a one plan we're already implementing pieces of it and we can be able to bring our parents together to be able to facilitate this and to say how is this working and how do we improve this one of the other biggest things that our parents really said was and this really kind of spoke to me in terms of how do we support our students with special needs in claim when their experience of going to college unless you're going to Princeton unless you're going to Harvard the parents are special needs students don't really feel like they're having that experience to be able to say what are options for my child I want to

051go to college but what's worked through that um outside of a sheltered workshop we need to make sure that we're supporting our families and that we are giving them opportunities to think about starting in middle school where is their child going to be After High School and that was really clear that that has been a true missed opportunity to build in one of the things that we do have and we will be offering and we just had it um the we had a participation on it's called charting the life course it is a great opportunity for our families to sit down and to map this out and I think that the more we can include that and include counselors and include how do we get access to information for our families to better prepare them

052that's ultimately what our families are asking for we need to make sure that we're including the inclusivity the communication the supports and to be able to say how do we make sure we are individualizing this but also recognizing the areas that we need to improve upon to make sure that we are cohesively doing this so that every child coming through the system has that opportunity and that we have expectations for them no matter where their levels are at the last part of it that they've talked about too is activities after school and that is a big thing too how do we have students to be able to participate and to be able to be supported in those participation whether it's in sports or activity or clubs after school we had a great meeting with the

053principals they accepted you know like how do we plan for this to make sure that if a child has a support system to be successful in the school day that we automatically start planning for that so that they are able to do the same thing after school I don't want to go too much in this but what our parents have said is we it is not falling on deaf ears we are wanting to make sure we work through these things this will help us all get better we can do this there's a willingness to do it and we want them to drive it we want them to continue to feedback give us feedback to drive it and to say how we're doing the recommendation that was at the last meeting at the very end like

054Dr Patel said was to have an outside facilitator and that is actively being being pursued to be able to get that right person to be able to work through it understand it but really be able to give that freedom what I also want to say is I what we all need to do is to be able to build that trust but we have to be open to that trust and be able to build that so it's put the board in a strange situation where do you approve this but whether we go forward we're going to go forward this this agreement's been put together 22 districts do it we've had other districts where we've had to keep working through it and this just helps us to really create well how do we make sure we're making

055this unique to Clayton there's a template here but we know that there's different needs that we want to establish here and we're open to that and not just open to it we will achieve that and so we just need the time to be able to build that out and update the board and make sure by next year even in the spring of the year that we know what this is going to look like and it's customized for here and for Clayton and it's and it's driven by parents input um okay thank you for the presentation I know we all have a lot of questions so I'm gonna um go around the room and start with Jason to make sure that we all have a chance to to talk tonight uh first of all just want

056to say I appreciate all the comments that have been made about this agreement and uh Robin I just want to especially your comment at the end about just taking ownership uh over the program for the district that I thought that was very well said and uh I I appreciate the accountability that you're taking you know that you're taking for yourself and for all of us so um I just have a few questions wanting to drill down and getting a little more specific about some of the good stuff that you guys were saying um this is all in this in the mindset of you know making sure that we have a culture of you know Improvement open communication all that good stuff that we all want right so can you and and also just educating me

057a little bit so can can you guys talk to me a little bit about you know I heard some of the activities that happened but like what does that actual parent feedback look like today what is it going to look like under this under these action steps and how frequently does that Loop happen yep so it's going to take the shape of many things but I'll outline a couple so the first is that uh We've across both central office teams we've met with quite a few families individually who've either we've reached out to to get additional voices or to learn more about some of the thoughts and the feedback that they shared in those particular forums as a follow-up and in addition to some of the other things that were shared already by folks who

058have spoken uh one of our ideas that we'd like to set off into motion is to improve the feedback loop after the IEP process and so right now families who have gone through the IEP meeting process when their students final IEP is finalized in the online system um they do receive a survey automatically once it has been finalized so one of the pieces of feedback that we got at the Forum was that that survey is really long and then the time between uh when they have physically met with the case manager and the special ed team and General Ed team and the time at which they received the survey that there is some lag time so one of the ideas that we'd like to work on is figuring out what is a more abbreviated version

059of a feedback loop so right when families finish their meeting process we could share it with them and get really quick and fast feedback that's more immediate that can be shared back with the team as well as what Dr Patel shared as well is co-creating a more family-facing survey that could be given twice a year so we can take the 10 temperature basically in the middle of the year make any mid-course corrections and then to give it again toward the end of the year and one of the other pieces of feedback we got from our families was that when we do set these feedback mechanisms off into motion to make sure that we're being really transparent with the feedback that we're getting and making sure that we're sharing back out to the community of this

060is what our parents are telling us their IEP experience is like and this is what our parents are telling us what their overall experience in the district is like as it relates to their child who has a disability so we're going to be working on that and making sure that we are sharing that information back out that it's not just being looked at by the administrative team here in Clayton and at SSD but we're also sharing that information back out to our families and letting them know what we're doing about it uh next question um I know you guys had the second meeting to get the feedback from parents who attended uh on the agreement can you give us maybe one or two examples of a place where you tweet in this year's action steps

061directly based on that feedback yeah that's a great question so one um example of the evolution of the action steps was after the initial Forum one of our action steps was about providing professional learning specifically around charting the live course for staff after the second Forum we got additional feedback that there was a lot of interest in providing staff with more training through SSD around social emotional behavioral support for students and using one of the Seb Specialists from special to lead that training for Clayton's staff and then in a follow-up meeting after the second Forum with a individual family that I met with was talking more about our social emotional learning survey tools and really digging deeper into a concern that was shared at the second Forum that our Panorama surveys are not the most

062suitable for our students who are non-verbal or have limited communication skills and even with modifications in the administration of that that the data that we're getting from that is not valuable and helping support those students so I had a great meeting with an individual family about what it could look like and then getting pointed in the direction of some other resources and then also it has given me some ideas of looking at some of the tools we currently have and how we might be able to alter them to get feedback not just from a parent but also from the teachers who are supporting a student who might be non-verbal so in that professional learning action step it is now more comprehensive than just charting the life course but also focusing on social emotional behavioral work

063post-secondary opportunities in terms of educating counselors and other folks who help guide families through that process and then executive functioning and then looking at social emotional learning tools so that's one example if there's another one you understand government awesome thanks um can you talk about someone made a mentioned that just you know this action plan sort of indicating that this may be sort of like an ongoing evolving thing maybe talk to us a little bit about how what happens this action plan from here how does it get how does this plan get to improved how does this set up for future years and how do parents have you know their their say in that of their input and fingerprints on that um part of it is Robin and I meet and kind of go over

064where are we and continue to look at our action steps where have we improved and where do we need to continue to grow in and so we're always evaluating beginning of the year we do it at the end of the year and again at the beginning of this school year too again just to see to wrap everything around and make sure we have everyone's voice too and that's why we also gave it to our building leaders to get their feedback so the way I you know we're envisioning this process is to make sure the initial first one was the four areas to get feedback on it the parents are wanting to make sure that they have input into this agreement so going into this October meeting is to be able to look at this action

065plan but also the feedback that has been provided by one of the parents to us to be able to kind of say now what's what's make sure we can tweak this to make sure that this is part of building this in as a plan going forward the other part of it like Robin had said we want to make sure that they have they're having input into designing the surveys that are going back from the feedback from an IEP meeting and then being able to look at the process of when we're serving the students what are those questions the parents want to know those pieces so that we're preparing the students so they're going to be able to see those questions and to be able to participate and saying how do we know when is this

066going to happen so we can prepare them it's this both documents and the feedback is really saying parents want voice and being able to let them know about it show them this give feedback so that when things are rolled out they're aware and that they're understanding and that they can prepare their students and they they are prepared to equally so the goal is to be able to build this feedback into the to the plan look at the action steps and to be able to say how are we measuring this and really I want to dive a little bit more into what does what are those tangibles markers to show success to show Improvement and to be able to really involve the parents in the process and how we're communicating and getting feedback uh just and

067just one more comment then I'll stop but uh I was just happy to hear Dr Macklin Dr poor working together I had a chance to see Dr Macklin present last fall at msba and it seems like you guys are doing some really great work uh when it comes to Dei work so um happy to see that and hope it continues yes absolutely thanks for the presentation I and the and the materials that you presented and I'm going to ask questions to come in from a much shallower base of knowledge and others that have been attending meetings but when I see the action steps and the action plans that you're taking what's difficult for me to ascertain is what the Baseline is I mean uh how are you going to measure this unless you know where

068you're starting from and so it's very difficult for me as a board member to know it I mean it seems like we are having a Mia culpa as a district as a collective Special School District but a Mia culpa from where where are we failing how badly are we failing and how do you measure Improvement if you don't have a baseline to start with and I don't frankly see that reflected in any of the as evidenced by when I when I go through the document so I'm wondering are you going to share that Baseline is there a Baseline how have you been measuring yourself so far outside of the IEPs and those are the questions that I have just kind of from an objective lens looking looking at this from the outside in so maybe

069let's start with that I don't know I think it's a great question too because as a reading it it's like we have to start where are we at and then get more specific so that's where we're going to start to drill down into pieces of this because you can see even with the feedback from the parents it's like they're saying well how are we measuring that and we have to we have to build those targets so do you not know where you're at is that well there's a lot of information in there so you know it's like there are pieces where we know we're at and so how do we make sure we build that into where we're at currently and to be able to build that so it's just saying and if we don't

070have it how do we make sure we start to make sure we are building what that's going to look like so there's there's seven different areas in the partner agreement there's there's information in the the action steps and then we have to be more specific build that in we can build some of those pieces in and where we don't have it because we have the student data pieces we have the parent survey stuff we have those pieces that we just haven't incorporated into this actual document right now what we're going to be doing is to start building that into it so that we can start to measure where the growth is at Okay so again that's a little bit difficult for me to um ascertain how much of this you have and how much of

071this you don't have um let alone where the things you have might start at so is that information available at all I mean yes we just have to put it in together into the to the document does our district have that information Robin yeah so we would have Baseline data around social emotional learning we would have Baseline data which might not be accurate feedback as far as the students ability to act correct yes and then we would be introducing potentially as one of the action steps is wanting us to look at other tools that we could add into the mix as a measurement for students who would need an alternative um survey tool maybe get more specific let's just go to page three category one Staffing as evidence by teacher fill percentage peripheral percentage SSD

072blah blah blah blah surely you know the Baseline of what your vacancy rate is for teachers what your turnover rates are for paraprofessionals what's your target is for your paraprofessional ratio to students why is it not here and that's what we're saying is we have to build that into that to put those Baseline pieces into it but you're measuring it now or you're not yet we have we have all that information we're 100 filled in the Paris and all the Staffing um there's zero vacancies okay um and I mean it's really it's it's kind of mapping as evidenced by on on every category right when I look through this and again it's very difficult for me as a as a board member of this district and I know that you served 22 districts to know

073where we're starting at without seeing that objective I mean what gets measured gets done so if you're not measuring it it's not getting done um if you've started to measure it that's great you have you there should be a baseline that you could share I'd like to see it I'm I'm guessing other members of the board would like to see it um and then my last question I guess and then I'll pass it along so we can get it around the table here is you know you said that you're going to implement this for our district why would you not implement it across all 22 districts if it's good for our district and there are special needs students in all districts that you're serving why not through the other 21 wouldn't it be easier even

074just from an accountability standpoint within um within the Partnerships that you have if if what's good for the goose is good for the community and that's what we can do with this basically when we're looking at this with each part of this we need to add in that data component where we're currently at and where what is our goal for this year to improve that's the specific information you're asking for and it's absolutely it's it's the right question to ask because what this is is more the generic pieces of it but underneath it build that template to say where are we currently at with the Paras with the teachers the vacancies all that stuff and making sure that that's consistently added in so that is it so your question around why wouldn't we do this

075build this for this area and we can implement it in other districts too okay and I'm sorry I said I only had one more but I I have just one last one so the request for um a moderator my guess is that is because uh there's a lack of a Common Language perhaps between the parents that are asking for this information and our school district the Special School District can you can you give me some insight into why we've now think that a moderator is a good idea to help to Arbor I mean I come from the corporate world right we use moderators and arbitrators all the time and you usually bring them in when there is an inability to communicate directly across the table or there's there is a um there is an issue

076that's especially meaty where you come from two different sides and you and you can't find a common ground with which you start working at is that we're talking about here which is why there's a need for moderation or is it something else I believe the request came from some of the parents because there's a lack of trust so the parents don't feel that we are accommodating their voice and their needs as much as they would want to and that was the request made and so for us coming in we are saying we are willing to work we are willing to do everything that you're requesting but having an outside perspective coming in unbiased without any judgment to listen to parent voice listen to our voice come to a some sort of agreement with that it's

077kind of like our uh uh Jessica somebody like Jessica that we hired for our social emotional Wellness Center okay I have other questions but I'll I'll pass them thank you Al for being here um I think probably clear by now that we all have a lot of questions and one to engage in this in a way that responds to feedback that we've gotten including tonight um I um I would admit that I have not been um recently is engaged in this as um maybe I would like to have been so I have a few questions around some of the timing that has come out um but before I get into that I do want to say that I feel a very high degree of confidence both in our own District here in Clayton and the

078people that are responsible for all of this and implementing all the things that we're talking about here I also feel a high degree of confidence in Special School District and Dr Keenan and your staff and the people that are committed to that I've been I feel fortunate to have gotten to know that that district and and and see how it works and see how the the partnership and the collaboration works and I'm thankful for that um I but those are those feelings of confidence are based largely on sort of direct and personal experience and I don't know that that is something that all of our community and all of our parents can have and have the same perspective and also I know that people have very different personal and kind of individual experiences so I

079think um I I just want to say that up front that I do believe in the way that we do this and the and the work and the professionals and I want to support that and asking questions about that does not in any way reflect a lack of confidence in that but I do think that we need to um to hear some of those questions and from from people who don't have that same level of confidence I'm a little bit confused about the timing um and this maybe again like maybe I have I mean it's an extremely hectic time in my life the last couple of weeks so I may have missed some of this but it sounds like they're both been some parent meetings but also some of this has just only recently particularly

080particularly the action steps based on feedback that we got today been seen by the parent groups um but yet we're talking about a process that we just normally do where we would approve this now um so I'm not sure even who that question is directed to to be honest but I think it would be good to clear that up at least for me so well I think going back Dr Patel and I met with two parents in the summer I'm trying to think if it was July or June I can't remember I think it was more like July um or and so um when we met with them and they've been participating in this and um it was clear that there was some frustration and our the parents have said that they have felt this

081frustration for the last couple years and so um acknowledging that and honoring that when Dr Patel and I asked you know uh you know we understand where they're at so how do we start to engage in this conversation when we the Special School District every year in May and June you know like kind of lap overlapping with this we always have the partnership agreement we go over that we present it at our board meeting we presented the governing Council so it's just a psycho that we normally do the timing of this which your question is is a good question in terms of well the timing of the parent concerns came up and we recognizing it hearing it at our level wanting to do something but this is kind of like coming in at the same

082time we're just starting to engage in some of these deeper conversations to get into it so two sessions we had both sessions were about two two and a half hours with our parents and so it's we need some time to surface and get through this so that we can get into how do we make sure that we're addressing and documenting and getting the right information into this document to show the growth so those two things are coming in at the same time the time is just not there for us right now the time is we need more time to work with the parents to build this and to build it at the same time we are actually not waiting to do some action items that we can still put these pieces and start making adjustments

083but to be able to say let's build this plan so that we keep continuing to follow it and that we keep continuing to make ourselves accountable um to this and and proving it so that's where this is going you know overlapping of it if the board says you know we need more information on it you know we can bring back Pete more of that that's not going to give us enough time though with our parents we're meeting with them on the 12th we're still working for another two hours or with them two and a half hours so it's going to give us some information but it's not going to give off you're asking some good questions about how we can make this a better document in terms of the clarity of what's actually happening in

084each in Clayton and other other districts that's appropriate so we can build that Baseline um so the Dilemma is we still have some work to do we still have that trust piece to work through we have to build that data and we're building that ship right now where there's this on top of it so the agreement approval does not have to be it can be it can be contingent on the ongoing work we're doing and and to be able to say we're committed to that work and that um we'll get feedback and we'll give updates to the board and that I asked if those updates are equally presented and supported with our parents to be able to have that voice too so that you're hearing directly from them too not only did we have the

085meeting in June or July with the parent the two parents to kind of be the Catalyst for the community engagement forums but prior to that we've had individual parents that have come up that have expressed concerns um they've met with Dr Wiens they've met with Melissa they've met with Dr Poole so we you know we had concerns that were coming from before too but truly when Dr Keenan and I sat down with that one family this summer that's when we started saying okay we need to put structures in place and Community forms in place in August to get voices in the room more voices so um I'm hearing a lot of I think good things and I mean this is a good conversation to understand this better um I'm hearing that we want parents to

086drive this that we need their engagement in order to have this process be improved not just when we approve this but throughout a longer term process um I guess the question you know this is also I mean as an agreement this is really um you know it's a partnership agreement it's very much it's a little different than some of the agreements that we look at all the time it's not one party will do this in the other like everything in here is SSD and partner district will do you know that's the whole thing so um in terms of the timing of when it's formally approved um or things like that um it's not as if we're waiting to start doing things um you know until this gets approved those things are happening now we're improving

087on the way those things happening now as it goes I think that's all I think I'm representing that accurately so I guess my question or a a bit of a round around about the way a roundabout to get to that is in light of that if what we really need is for the parents including the ones we've heard from to be more a part of and and feel a trust with you that this is happening does does some amount of time before we say to you yes we're all good and like we're signed off on this does that help your ability and everyone's ability to work together to continue to improve this is that that was a very long question I don't know if I even had ever asked a question actually but um it

088could is some delay in in making a formal statement about this helpful to you in building the confidence that you need to get the partnership to let the parents drive it as you said yeah and Dr Patel yes the answer to this is yes we can vote on it on October when's our next meeting 12th October 12th but what I will say to you is between now and October 12th we'll get a few more emails which we've already received too on things that we could change right so just because you've approved this does not mean that we're not going to go back and change it or you know adjust it accordingly right it to me we've said our strategic plan is an evergreen model so is this yeah right so we had a parent who

089was emailed saying um a lot it gave us a lot of feedback on terms of like and I have heard draft year as a matter of fact and one of the things is like under as evidenced by give us like parent survey results the 360 degree performance standards which is already included in the action step in the back where we're saying we're creating a survey from parents that's going to be developed by parents we're going to deploy it once a semester so I think there's just like verbiage things that we need to clean up for sure I think that was yeah that was enough okay um so I um appreciate the presentation um I don't have a problem necessarily with the agreement per se I think it's lacking a couple important components for me as

090an attorney that I would want in there um and some of this is like anecdotally what I've heard from parents what what I'm hearing is one of the things that's one of the major frustrations is some of the Staffing that is being sent to the district from SSD that there's a disconnect between the parents and the people and that their you know parents aren't feeling heard they're not able to connect with the person the person isn't you know there's a lot of raw emotions I think and there's a lot of um you know parents with um special needs children I think there there's there's a lot going on I think it takes a special personality probably to be able to connect with the parents and we want as a district want to make sure that

091we have the right person there um and so I think you know what I see lacking in here is our ability to say okay you know we we want to be collaborative but if it's not working then we have the ability to request a change in Staffing at our Sole and absolute discretion and that that gets promptly accommodated um and then also our ability to amend the agreement um I mean I would vote on it tonight or on the 12th and just our general ability to amend this agreement on an as you know we'll collaborate and the ability to have it amended on an as needed basis um so those those would be um my two comments and I don't know if that's like um SSD needs to take that back to their to legal

092or um well that was what I would like to see that see those two things added to the agreement sure so that it's as we start to continue to work with our parents and as things come out of our meetings we can add that in there and we can update that to the board and that that will be that continuation um as you were saying Dr Patel in terms of we don't have to wait and build it all in there right until the end of the year we can build it and say we've got that this is the survey here's the results on the Staffing pieces and get more data so that we can update that um and that the board will be getting that if anything through this piece of it this is going

093to make everybody much more aware of how we all work together and I think that is truly the spirit of this document our parents are just saying we need to live that on a daily basis and that the more we do that and the more we show this in this document the more it keeps everybody accountable for those for this agreement but if it's not working I mean we we as the district don't want to have to wait a year before we get a new person exactly we need it to happen we have to work through this piece promptly right well let Stacy go and then you go because I just want to make sure that if is it okay okay oh yeah yeah yeah sorry I don't know I mean I think that what

094Dr Patel is saying that is that we've circulated this I think we asked for parent feedback a few parents gave us feedback I don't know that it's like totally critical I mean if I'm saying something wrong that it could vote on it tonight to vote on it tonight but I do think we want to get have it voted on soon so we have the agreement in place because I feel like Kim that's like Gary well this is like out of the blue for me you know like this is incomplete it's missing data I mean we I'm sorry I don't mean I don't mean it's on the same line we haven't done I'll be quiet I'll skip my turn but I'm just saying you know when I you know when we read this it's like so

095some of the things I think that we're talking about I don't think necessarily Gary you could chime in are necessarily things that we would incorporate into the agreement per se I think they're more um they might be action steps or additional um I don't know that they're they're they would get incorporated into the agreement but I do think that it's important that as a board we have an understanding of what what what they are um and that's why I say that's how I went back to that we have the ability to amend it so that way if we're not seeing the data that we want to see that then we can we can always amend the agreement not to necessarily incorporate it but to require something additional like terms and conditions well that's why I

096just said that I want there was two things that in my brain were lacking from the agreement and one was the ability to um you know that to him to amend it if if the district feels like it needs to be amended to include additional terms because something isn't working that we can amend it and then um the Staffing issue that we can well what about just one last question so one thing if we vote on it tonight what's the incentive to people rushing to get this stuff done fast enough get everything we need to make a complete document am I going on tonight we can scratch this out till December well no because they would be in breach of the contract if they they would be in breach of contract if we if we

097weren't happy with some of the terms and they weren't willing right no we provided there was there needs to be a clause in there that I mean I I don't know that we have to right that's what I'm saying that we voted on at the 12th there's a few more clauses that get incorporated into it I don't know legally you know without something it's almost like um an mou or an letter I'm saying the same thing they're saying that this is what that is and so that's what I mean I want to make sure I just want to make sure that you know if we were to vote on this tonight that things get done because when I read this document I was like yeah go ahead go for it and now I'm here I'm

098like it's a lot it's a lot going on here I had no idea or anyone else that's cool with it well it has been and there have I think Dr Patel's and all of her Friday memos she's been updating us every week on what's going on and I I need an email I can't just get a buried Friday on Fridays just send me an email man it's what we're going on and keep me updated I just feel like I see the memos and it's cool to read I mean sometimes I have to say man I might not catch that one until like the next week what if we vote tonight and things aren't going to get done till December right like to that point right I can assure you that we have full commitment in

099making this work whether we put it in the document or not we are going to get this done as a superintendent of school district of Clayton I am telling you we are committed to getting it done I believe you put action steps in place eggs we had put actions 22 different things that we are going to be doing I believe you but I also know that we got this document and I was reading it and I was a little to me it was a little incomplete right and I don't know how how severe it is until today and maybe I'm out the loop maybe I don't hang around you know uh Stacy enough I need to get you know go to her house and hang out with her more often but I don't so I'm

100not getting these phone calls in conversation so I have no idea there's no phone calls I'm just saying I'm just saying I'm not I'm not getting anything I'm just saying I'm gonna say I'm not getting any dialogue so to me I'm I'm disconnected and I have no idea and it's been up you know it's catching me off guard and that's all I'm saying is what's the incentive if we sign the night what why would you rush to get it done outside of your commitment the commitment I need to you know I want to make sure it gets done and we need to add a lot of things in there and there's nothing wrong with waiting a couple days to get everything we needed you know we talk about in this document so when you come

101back and make one we vote next time we're ready to roll I feel everyone feels comfortable I mean parents will talk comfortable if that makes sense and we need to build on she did and so I will make sure that we continue to build that trust because that's what it boils down to Community trusting us that we're going to do what we're saying we're going to change so I I want to keep I I want to give Stacey and Chris a turn I know and then we're gonna we'll sir I want everybody to be heard and then I'll we'll Circle back and okay um I I first of all I just want to say to the parents that are here or watching whatever I empathize with you I truly do I do not like to

102as a board member talk about my own children here but I have three kids two on a 504 and one with an IEP and I also taught in a partner district for several years so personally and professionally like I hear you I feel your pain and frustration and I appreciate all the work on both sides here that we're doing to hear our parents and their needs and support them I really do and I um I I thought like Kim said I actually made a note like this is the start of great work that we should be a model for all the other partner districts when we finish this we truly should we like to be leaders and always here in Clayton and this is a really great area that we really could make a change

103throughout the entire region truly um when I saw the statistic earlier that 11.4 percent I think you said of our students are serviced by SSD that struck me because that is large and larger than most other subgroups we look at when we look at data and things and I would argue that the numbers are really even larger because we have kids that don't qualify for one reason or another or don't even know they should parents don't even know they should be trying to qualify them for services so I do think this work is important for all of our students even Beyond those 11.4 which is why um one of the questions I had which you addressed and I'm glad is I think the PD piece is so important for all staff because it will make

104all of our students all of our teachers better to serve all of our students truly and so I would I mean I don't know I know I don't know if the PD you're talking about is are things that would be optional or whatever but I actually think it's important enough to be like mandatory sessions in August or whenever or whenever or throughout the year whatever but I um I don't know if you could talk a little bit about that professional development you have in mind around this work yeah so we're approaching it from a couple different sides so one component is the work that Dr Poole does with the various cohorts of teachers focused on diversity equity and inclusion um and based on their years in the district um every group has kind of their

105own learning pathway and so one of the pathways this year is going to be focused on the needs of students with disabilities and so Melissa Kate and I will be working with Dr Poole in order to plan uh that particular professional learning also as a part of student services having the connections to the social workers and the counselors finding opportunities throughout the year to get them connected with things like charting the life course which we hosted for our families and for multiple whole districts last week as well as looking at some of the professional development days that we have coming up later in the school year and figuring out where some of these pieces plug in in the best way as well as looking at our summer Institute offerings so uh so in that respect

106some of it absolutely would be assured learning for particular groups of students and others would be an opt-in obviously we have kind of developed our list of the types of trainings that we would want to prioritize in the coming year and so I'll be working with Dr Poole and Dr garganego to figure out where those pieces best fit okay good I appreciate that because I think like what our parents said earlier you know you don't learn in college you know so much of this you're not taught and even if you were for some of our teachers that was 20 years ago or 30 years ago or whatever and I'm sure there are current best practices that we all need to be updated on as about you know how best to be handling like the social

107emotional needs of these students especially and other things as well um okay a lot of my questions were actually already asked by everybody else so I think we've had um a good amount I would say um as far as the agreement itself goes I appreciate the action steps I agree I think we need some baseline data although Dr Patel said it's in the appendix maybe or something is that what she was referring to or what was she referring to was in the appendix what were you saying Dr Patel was in the the actions yeah the action steps yeah but not the data around it okay so I um I appreciate hearing that this agreement is not necessarily um set in stone that can't be changed if knowing that I would feel okay approving it if

108you feel there is data we shouldn't be including and can include before our next meeting in October I'd prefer to wait till October to make sure it's in there um I do though I don't look at this agreement as limiting our work I do think and hope and have confidence in all of you that in a few months or in January or in March we see that these action steps aren't working or they aren't producing the results we want that we as a Clayton School District can take action to change that and improve that so knowing that it is maybe changeable or an evergreen document you know I feel better proving it whenever we approve it because I just want to make sure that that option is open and um I would say that I

109attended the second Forum a month ago for me the biggest takeaway was just the parents input in all of our work all like the surveys the um you know IEP follow-up that I mean so much like our kids involvement in extracurriculars or whatever it may be Staffing and so I would hope that we continue to wear appropriate involve our parents because I think it as opposed to most other groups of students I especially think our students with special needs the parents are crucial to their success truly um I mean all parents know their kids best but I think in this case it's even more crucial that we involve parents in you know all of these structures we're putting in place to just make sure those kids are successful so I appreciate your openness to involving

110them I hope we continue to do that in all ways um and that that's a thank you these guys had done great questions and took most of mine so anyway thank you for your work I appreciate it and um I would say one more thing about the agreement itself you it is I think you said a template right that all the partners districts use so it's probably the same one that we approved a year ago it was updated last year and it was the same one that and now we've included action steps is our is the big difference that we're but it's clear that you guys just and it makes sense too that you know everything that we're bringing in bringing that data absolutely if that you know um getting that information to you for

111the next one that absolutely because as board members you need to make sure that you are looking at that information and the data before you're approving it and to be able to include that in here absolutely so before we you know if we just hold on it and then do it for the next one but get that information in there um and I and I do agree that this is highlighting how we can absolutely partner and we're only thinking about Clarity right now but this will help in informing and better informing our other 21 districts so that building this template including the data pieces of it and it's not that there's not a lack of trust but it's like we just need to make sure that people are clear about what the expectations are and

112how we're doing and where are we at yeah and I I think I would add to um my other big takeaway from The Forum was the communication lack of communication and so I appreciate the attention you're giving that and I think it's important that we focus on not just veteran communication individually with families with how their student is progressing and doing throughout the year but just as a district to the community I'm looking at Luke because I'm thinking of like our website like we publish data for all kinds of things we should be putting this out there also to hold so that the community is aware of what we're doing and also just to share what we're doing well just I think part of it is you know some of these things maybe we've already

113been doing and nobody knew it and I think we need to do a better job of just letting everyone know yeah the work um I did want to just quickly also one more thing comment on what Amy was saying about like Staffing for instance I think part of the communication that might be necessary is it's hard for everyone to understand where Clayton ends and special begins or vice versa as far as hiring staff or training staff or or whatever as an example and so I want to make sure we're clear on like what is our responsibility as a Clayton school board and a Clayton School District in this agreement and in this role like what are you know I just think maybe that needs to be clarified it is hard to have a dual would

114you call it I don't know the partnership it's hard to kind of know who's our staff works for you yet they're working with our students so clarifying that I think would help everybody too well and you know it was interesting before coming tonight I was meeting with two teachers um one was in Rockwood and one was from Kirkwood and they described that dual system but ultimately when the teachers are showing up they work for Clayton they don't want to be known as yes or SSD but they don't want to feel like othered they want to be a part of Clayton they like working here they love the children and the same thing goes with the students because sometimes the students are referred to as SSD yeah that's just another way to remove and when we

115talk about deia and and Dr Macklin in in the way we're trying to approach this with the Special School District is who who has access and who has who's automatically informed and who's not and and how do we make sure that dual systems these are teachers who are walking in and they're teaching and working with our students these are parents who are supporting the students and the students are coming in and they are here for Clayton and so what I feel like what our parents are saying is just that's where we need to we need to be cohesive we need to be together and we need to make sure that parents who are the most vulnerable students in our system are supported and they're knowledgeable and they're included and that they're not forgotten and that's

116really ultimately what I hear from our parents what they're saying and it's like this is this is an acknowledgment that this is where we need to work together and I really think that that's what the partnership agreement is about I think it was like it originated 10 15 years ago where it was like more like a partner like what was SSD responsible for but it's merged into because our parents are saying it's it's a dual system but it shouldn't our kids shouldn't feel that way our kids should our children to not feel that they're othered as an SSD and that they're not as important and how do we make sure we don't do that either because when we open this up we want to make sure that we are a that SSD doesn't get in

117the way of that either right there's an equal ownership on that part too thank you I also wanted to decide on to what Dr Keenan said you know in my role I feel like at the end of the at the end of the day they're all our students and so um I think all of these courageous conversations that we've been having effectively since January have really transformed my thinking about things that we do at the system level so I just wanted to you know share an example of how my leadership practices evolved over time as a result of the parent feedback that we've gotten so um you spoke a little bit earlier about communication and so one of the things based on feedback I had gotten from parents was about communication within a single building

118like not specific to anyone but just in general communication that happens between special education staff and our administrators and our general education staff as it happens um for things like field trips so if there's a grade level field trip and the building sends out an email about said grade level field trip as a if I'm a parent with a student with a disability and I get that email I don't know what that means for my child's experience so at the system level one of the changes we've made behind the scenes is that when folks are submitting field trip request forms for approval by their principal and also by me is now there is a space where you where folks are asked and expected to list who are the special education staff and case managers that

119they have consulted with and notified about said field trip regardless of its size in order to ensure that we are thinking more inclusive in our planning we're thinking more inclusive and strategic and intentional about the communication that needs to happen to all of our families across that building who are impacted by that particular student life experience and that in itself has been a professional learning opportunity not a formal one on the calendar but I have had a number of conversations since school has started and we have implemented that at the systems level again that's behind the scenes but it's again one of those systemic changes that is now shifting that conversation Shifting the culture and shifting people's mindset of how we serve all the students in our buildings another piece that I wanted to reiterate

120to the board is that you know these parent engagement forms have been very transformative for me and for the team in terms of thinking about our work differently how we can Elevate and improve what we're doing but I also think it's important to acknowledge that earlier Dr Patel showed some of the statistics that we have over 280 students who are currently receiving special education students or Services excuse me and we are not having 280 families at our community engagement forums and I have um I know I'm committed to making sure that moving forward that in between the formal events and in between the conversations that we have with our building principles the emails we receive that I am also actively reaching out to parents in the coming weeks and throughout this school year to make

121sure that I am reaching out to the voices who aren't at the table who aren't at those forms because I think that their perspectives are also really important in shaping the quality of our action steps and the work that we do with our principals who are supporting our staff so that is another example of how this whole process you know going back 10 or 12 months has really influenced my thinking and student services of how we interact with our parents and get their feedback thank you for that that field trip setup I I appreciate that example very much and I would just end by saying to the administrators if there's ever any additional asks you need from us like approval for additional resources that you let us know as soon as you identify the need

122so that we can be supportive in that way thank you I just want to clarify to the board because I don't know if everybody knows this so at the last agenda planning with Dr Patel and Dr Wiens we talked about the and I don't know what these steps are but we we had a conversation that very likely the district was going to be taking certain action steps independently of SSD that might not necessarily be part of the agreement per se for example that third party um mediator arbitrator that we've been talking about like that I don't know that that would be part of the agreement with SSD that would be something that we would just we can just do so some of these things I mean that we're talking about we can't legally put stuff

123in the agreement that the district is going to be doing independently outside above and beyond what SS our agreement with SSD just so everybody understands that component when we're talking about what the final document is going to look like I don't want people to say think oh they didn't put that arbitrator in there they're not doing it no that doesn't mean that we're not doing it it means that that's just not our part of our formal agreement with them we've committed as a district to do it and to pay for it out of our own resources but me but SSD might not have necessarily agreed to it so I just want to make sure that everybody is on the same page there can I just for the comment we do agree to that okay okay

124I did a note okay absolutely the cost of that and all that good stuff right at the cost of a mediator um Jason yeah I don't I don't have much really much to say I think anyone's kind of already said a lot of what and then I kind of like chimed in when you were talking Stacy I do appreciate the work that you're doing but I also want to make sure that we do um put a complete plan together and it's transparent and people can see it and understand it and then there needs to be metrics and measurements along the way where we so we're not getting off into more because these are our kids we're talking about in everyday counts every day counts every week counts uh so you know we need to be

125very fast on like being able to measure where we are what the changes are what the impacts have been and what do we need to do to improve those things and and but I still want to make sure I understand if we don't sign it tonight what was the impact of this and what is the impact of this and what happens If All Things Fall Apart we lose money no no the services start tomorrow so we good we're getting we're good so then all right well then I think we should yeah Kim said it best I think we should wait get all the information we can possibly get from you guys all the data so that we can kind of match it up and then make an informed decision yeah that's my point okay well

126let's yeah let's hit let's hear what Chris has to say and then I'd like to hear from the rest of you if you guys all want to wait then final person okay um this is tricky and hard in so many ways for all of us in this room most especially for these parents um I too am a parent of kids with special needs I have a I had a kid with an IEP I have a kid currently with a 504 I have a kid that couldn't be served at this district and had to go to a different District because of her learning disability I really feel your pain um and I'm sitting here today because partly because I felt that pain okay so I will start my my statement by saying that this next thing

127I'm going to say to that is um you guys are doing exactly what you need to do we're here talking about this and Nisha and Robin are so serious about this because of you so this is the start of a big movement that's going to help our kids period it just is um as a parent it's hard to trust that in many ways it's hard to know all the background things that are going on with our administrators um but you've got administrators and board members all of us who um are going to see this through how it all pans out it may not be exactly what every parent wants right but nothing ever can be right um we are going to do the very best we can um and I'm going to make sure I'm

128gonna I'm here to say I'm gonna I'm gonna see to it so thank you for your voices because it's what drives the change it has to happen parents are the ones on the on the ground that know um and the fact that our your voices weren't in this already is it uh you know shame on us really um now we know you know now we now now things will be different this agreement is going to be Evergreen for this year next year it's going to be Evergreen this is clearly we've changed our perspective on this now and we now are going to go forward in a much different way um and I love that I mean we we are a growth mindset on everything um and now looking at this they're like well why aren't

129we on this right so um that feels really good to me and I hope that feels good to the parents um the idea that we can get updates on this throughout this year I think that's going to help a lot because here's the thing as a parent you're like but just change it you know my kid needs it tomorrow uh by the way last week you know um it's frustrating um I was in your shoes I felt very frustrated for a long time I did feel heard and I hope that that we are really doing a good job of that because I know that that's the first step but it is frustrating because education and probably a lot of things in life goes slowly and it feels critical and it is because every month for

130these kids is a month of more learning that they're either getting or not getting um and I get that so I feel I feel both sides of the the difficulty and the time constraints because as a parent you needed it yesterday as an Administration and as a district it can't happen right away it is so tough it is so so tough I think the one thing I can give you and and to to tell you that I have seen this Administration make very fast changes in lots of areas the fact that you know Robin talked about you know my sixth grade Camp you know student did The Forum said what does your child with disabilities need I mean that happened like that so there are certain things that are going to happen like that we've

131seen it and there are other things that are just going to take more time they just are and it's really too bad for everyone but the hope I'll give I'll say about that I guess the Silver Lining um is that our you know students in you know maybe not our particular kids right now they'll see some some great changes possibly but just think down the line of those students in the future will have an even better system in place because of your voices because we will eventually have these longer term things in place um so um a couple things that I want to address just wanted to start out with that general statement um okay so the listening the moderator Kim um that idea I believe I can't speak for Paul exactly but I believe

132I was at both of the town halls and so I heard the feedback from the all the parents there so in the first one it was the four listening sessions about the four different topics and I think Paul's Point again I'm I'm going to say it from my point of view because I don't want to speak for Paul but I think what the idea is if if if we just have either SSD staff or Clayton staffers being the listeners then there's some bias there just is and I think what the idea would be I didn't take it as a moderator type of situation I took it more as who can we have a come in and listen and have expertise around this area that can listen unbiasedly it can be you know someone there that

133that you know comes from an objective point of view so that's how I took that and I can totally understand why parents wanted that um it always helps to have a third party objective point of view and certainly when there are such needs and there are so many um emotions around this great that could be really great um a thing for us to do so thank you for already saying that that's something that you guys would like to do that's amazing uh and again frustrating because it can't happen tomorrow because we got to find the right person to do it it's really so now we're learning and we're going forward um we have learned what we can learn up to this point we didn't you know you can only know what you you can't know

134what you don't know um although you know I could see why that's your point I certainly can but um we can't say we don't know it anymore so here we go you know um that's how I look at that um okay so let me see what else is on my list um to that point Chris I think it was important for the two the first two Community engagement forms for us to be there exactly because we needed to live very good thank you and for the board members who attended for you to listen to it and I think it for me it was important for us to be there at the first two to lead that work that makes perfect sense okay so if I I may have misrepresented what I was saying I of

135course you guys were supposed to be moving forward yes but moving forward and we wouldn't have to have that every time right someone a third party but yes these first two were absolutely the way it happened I think was exactly right now we know going forward what we need that's different from what already happened um so yeah thank you for making that point um okay a couple of other things I do want to have us speak about it doesn't have to be a you know giant conversation but I want to address Michelle's question about how have we um as a district um considered the idea of doing this without a partnership with SSD the way we do it at the Family Center have we considered it if we have why aren't we doing it I

136know that this is a big question but just can you give us just a little bit so that our parents can understand just you know sort of the framework around how you've thought about that um and whether or not you have and what what that brings up for the district because I know there's a lot there yes and I will share with you what my current understanding is and I'm sure there are other administrators in this space who would probably need to add on So based on my interpretation of the Missouri Revised Statutes there is a clause in that that does allow um the creation of overlay districts to deliver special education services um if the voters in the component districts decide that that through a referendum that is what they want to do and

137so that is again kind of what Dr Patel mentioned earlier in 1957 St Louis County voters through a referendum approved it the way the current state law is written and based on my interpretation and consultation with our legal counsel is that there's not currently an opt-out provision for that um that is about the extent of my knowledge at this point in time of the board would like us to learn more I'm happy okay to engage in that but that's my current understanding um yeah the tax libraries with special right and so it's not specific to Clayton right social School District supports the 22 districts um and I think that in terms of being outside a special school district prior to coming here I don't know how many people have had experiences outside this is the

138only District in the nation that has a hundred percent funding for special ed if you're outside in Fox in St Charles O'Fallon you are having to pay whatever you need say 12 million dollars for your special ed that's not fully funded by the state nor the federal government and the state will cover about on a good day 50 percent so out of that 12 million dollars you would have to take out of your general fund six million dollars yeah to pay for all of those services the other part of it you're a smaller District you can't afford to have a full-time otpt all these because you don't have enough students that actually have those Services you would have to extend out to a coracoa yes you would have to pay out there you would be

139missing out on that six million dollars that Special School District right Hayes right there this is that is why I came when I was uh uh proposed to you know interview down here in I had to like what is this District it is so unique it does not exist there's one District down in the Boot Hill that household has this provision it's very small but we are the largest District in the state of Missouri we provide 6 000 staff across the county the ABA services are unmatched if you go outside you will never get ABA services for our students with autism you wouldn't have the unmatched services that we have with our social emotional learning the other pieces that we could draw on with the expertise so it's not just the Staffing that you're tapping

140into it's the other supports and experts that are coming in through your mtss through your if you need additional supports for your your registered Behavior technicians those positions don't exist in other places because Staffing and schools just cannot afford it right and So Special School District really is here to make sure we are supporting that now going back to that model you don't have to have that bit model without Special School District build that model here exactly if you want it's the it's what I'm hearing is it's the culture it's the environment if that's what we need to make sure that we're building that environment and figure out why is it that in the in the Early Childhood Center that you can exist in this way but once you go into kindergarten it becomes SSD

141it comes separated out right so I made that comment like we have to own that piece of it let's work through that together to make it so cohesive that it is a supportive system and what can what additional pieces are necessary to make that happen so the pieces of you know moving away is really about how do you just improve and how do you make it better and how do we do that and to your point Chris that you were saying you know this is bringing this up so that we can do better and that a board is now more informed about what's lacking in this agreement and we are informed in that too from a parent perspective so that's where we can just get better yeah yeah it's not perfect when you're in a

142single district with specialized because I've been a special ed director in a single District and I've been othered as a director of special ed and my staff was othered because when there's difficult times and there's difficult situations and they're saying that's a special ed kid or that's a odlss kid well that's a SSD kid so that quickly turns into that and what this agreement is trying to say how do we make sure we build this together our staff like I said come here to work for it so take that the only thing is were they were the Hiring Agency for that let's make sure we can build that and what do we need to do with the professional development with the culture with the principles interactions the principles feel like they have the ability to

143say I need to do these things right we need to own that okay thank you for giving that background on why the partnership with SSD is very valuable you know for us um and for letting me know that there is no opt out at this point I hope that's helpful for Michelle um next I will say something that came about when I was at the we've talked a lot about what came out Stacy you did an awesome job of talking about the two um forms one of the things I also want to add that I really appreciated about what we're doing is that Cameron has become more involved in helping to advocate for these students um in these families these parents who are having difficulty I wasn't even aware but it makes perfect sense that

144Cameron with you know Dei inclusivity is really thinking about these pieces in ways that we haven't previously as a district so I'm so appreciative of the fact that Cameron even Oh yay good yay yeah I mean all the parents there were like oh wonderful this feels so good to know that we have an advocate that we have a person who really is going to take be able to take steps um systematically and on a family level to really make families feel like we are all of our students are included in everything that we do as a district so so that's a huge step that the district has taken that I feel is going to continue to make things better just to have that extra person involved so thank you to Cameron for all the work

145you've done with that thank you to you guys for making sure that we are following you know our strategic goals and our plans to be inclusive um I feel these things are real examples of us doing that so much appreciated um let's see make sure I get everything here um I am okay with um voting yes I'm also great with with waiting I am I just to put that out there the reason I would be okay with voting yes is because of this document being it's very foundational in my opinion and it is truly not what is actually happening because a lot of what is actually happening doesn't isn't necessarily in this for um it's just historically not been in it as far as I know and in the future it can be what if

146we want it to be it can be but I do want to say that I know that the district is doing above and beyond just like Amy said what's going what this is what's in here and we do have data and yeah the data is not in here but we do have it so if if now we want to integrate these things into the future yeah this can look a lot different but I think I feel very clear that you guys have a feeling of where we're at and where we're going and because it's not in here doesn't make it still feels um authentic to me to to sign this knowing that there are going to be other ways of us you know having data to show where we were and where we're coming in

147other forms other than this agreement um especially because I'll say that by October 12th this agreement could look different but again it's still not going to capture all the things that we're going to do in terms of changes this year it's just not because there's just not enough time but now that we're looking at at okay well maybe in the spring is when we should start you know talking or even earlier about next year's agreement so we're looking at how to change the timeline sort of like you were saying Gary so that we can make sure that all the voices need are that are needing to be heard or heard and it isn't a rush to oh wait we we haven't we we got to plan it out better I think and so that's already

148been talked about and I think that'll be really helpful um I think that's it I really appreciate all the work that you're doing um I know how important this is to you guys it's very clear to me so that makes me feel really confident in that we'll see some great changes so um again parents keep up your good work too because we appreciate you so much and want to hear continue to hear um that's it thank you um Gary do you want to say something can we go to the first page of this so uh yeah I guess second page sorry um I want to make sure I understand what this means and I think it might illustrate where this document lives um so tell me if I'm wrong about this I mean I think

149the intent of this um chart I don't know I don't know what the right term is is to show kind of the the levels of um legal and Regulatory and uh contractual uh things that govern the way we deliver services so it kind of goes from the broadest to the more narrow this document is under the additional resources on the right right Partnerships here that's what that is so that is one of the in the on the innermost Circle it's one of the things on the innermost Circle that is only between Special School District and the component District there's a lot of other things that apply to everybody from the federal state statute stuff so this is one of the things that drills down into how we do this um there are a lot of

150other things there um not listed I think and tell me if I'm wrong about this not listed as additional resources but I think what would be included are the other things that we the other actual agreements that we we enter into and that we approve the things for the ecsc services substitute Services things like that that would also be kind of detailed in that innermost Circle yeah that would be at the top part of that of that square so the early childhood and all yeah that would be the top part the additional resources is the that is a creation of being a part of the partner districts our SSD but so what so things like um the agreement between districts for the CC SC services and substitute services and stuff like that is that more

151parallel to this or is that those are actually when you look at those are actually the legal documents that have to be approved in terms of to go forward this as opposed to this which is exactly what I was getting to yes and I was yes trying to get to that because there's a couple of them on the doc and the consensus which we have on our consent agenda tonight and those are those are more the type of agreements that agreements all the time are you used to seeing as opposed to this document which just as a point going forward I probably wouldn't even call this an agreement if that was I mean a better way to talk about it um this is and it might make us a little more comfortable with approving and

152not approving or coming back or whatever I mean so that's just an observation all of that said I think that our going back to my question about the timeline and I know like I'm getting way more more time than I usually want anyone to take but um I think our parents would be more comfortable if we paused our timeline because of the way this was presented to them and I think out of respect for them if nothing else this can also still be approved we should do that so that's my view on that so thank you for helping me and all of us I think understand that I think I think we need to remember that when we're talking about okay so I think that I just want to kind of bring this full circle

153that um I don't you know I personally I don't have a problem with not voting tonight I do want to remind the board that you know our responsibility of the board is to keep this high level and I think we can all agree that you know our vision is that our kids um that receive SSD services that they're getting Stellar a stellar education um and so that's you know what we're if that's our that's what we're telling Dr Patel and Dr Wiens and Dr Poole and SSD and that's what our high level vision is I think we need to be careful not to micromanage that and to um let them do their thing and give them time and space to do it and I you know I can assure you that um well I know

154I know this board knows that um the parents probably don't know it as much as I know it that when when the three of them say they're gonna do something they do it and they do it good and I've never seen them fail so um I have full faith in them that they are going to do this and do this right and um I think we need to give them to give them space and space to do it and to let them execute on their plan but we we can if you guys if you guys want to wait to vote let's let's wait till the 12th Gary you you want to wait I mean that that's my okay we would all make emotions so would we I mean I think the motion that we would

155actually make is just well we actually don't have a no because it was it was embedded in the the most we're meeting in the 12 right yeah we don't actually need them right if it doesn't you know whatever that's fine it's not really clear to me what we're expecting to have right I I agree and I don't know that it's necessarily I mean Kim you asked for something I don't know like again like let's keep this high level we've told like we've told them what our expectations are and I think that they need we need to give them a chance to follow through and to do it if there's something that you need to see or something you want to incorporate it into the agreement I get well if someone could reconcile the what we're

156asking for yeah yeah we have deliverables so when we when we come back it's not this is not a performative stall right exactly we're not performing this thing I'm just saying we want to make sure that we're what do you all want to see yeah want to come back with some I wanted to see a couple Provisions added to the agreement we talked about that everyone's writing this down you guys got this do you do you all feel like you have some idea of what to come back with I think is what we're asking like I'm wondering what you want to data on Baseline data I mean if we approve through the consent agenda tonight the legally required things right in order for services to continue to suit for students and for the funding to

157occur for the services however good or but poor they need to be received by now and now to continue to happen so to me that's a separate thing okay but as a board if we're going to review this partnership agreement every year and today's the first year that we're actively looking into this based on the concerns that parents have raised over the course of the last six months then we ought to approve the best agreement that we can from the start and SO waiting a couple weeks to have some of that Baseline data inserted so we know where it is we're starting from and if it doesn't exist you can put it doesn't exist but we're going to get it by the start of next year there are I didn't count the number of sub-bullets

158in the um in the as evidenced by but there's probably 60 of them in there do you have 10 do you have five show us what you have and and I think we're all committed together and the parents obviously are the most committed to working together to find the missing data that doesn't exist and improve the data where we need you know where where we need to see Improvement but without that are you I just typically in a in a contract you wouldn't see like data it's not a contract this is it is a contract ultimately um yeah it's an agreement that sets forth the expectations that's not a contract the two parties so I mean there are okay I went to law school there's all different kinds it is letters of intent there are

159Partnerships agreement which are binding are you asking for the data to be attached as an exhibit to the agreement I'm asking for there's already information in here there's not a need to create a separate I don't understand what she says yeah and then do you want it in there that okay that the two school districts agree I just want to make sure they understand what their charging orders are that they are they're agreeing that the Baseline data is going to improve by x amount each year no I'm not even asking for I'm asking for where we have something show us what it is like she uh Kim is asking the measurement currently right and where we're going with this new and where we're going with this new data what what there's a new information but

160the measurement of interesting it sounds like they need time to figure out where it's going to go but I need to know where it starts that's all I'm asking go ahead okay so are we going to vote on this then we're gonna we're gonna wait to get that data we're gonna make a few more edits to the agreement and then we're going to um vote on it on October the 11th we did we don't actually have a posted motion I mean it was no no it's not even it's embedded in the presentation I asked that earlier too well 801 I mean it's recommended that the school district of Clayton approved the SSD partnership and no one has made that motion I I don't think respectfully I don't think we need to amend anything because I

161think we did have the problem I agree with Gary yeah just blame me if it's wrong a lot of legal stuff going on tonight it's really not what anybody before we walk away from this just do we know our deliverables or not just Robin can you reconcile that what we have here what we're asking for yes my takeaways are two things one that we need to work directly with Amy to get some of the language around some of the provisions or you're or legal yes um of what could be added to the partnership agreement and the second thing to Kim's point was any Baseline data that we have for any of the uh indicators that we included in the partnership agreement to add those in in some way shape or form so the board knows

162where we're starting from yeah and maybe if we can get that Baseline data in our uh do you think we could have it on our Friday uh in one of the Friday Friday memos before so we all have a chance to look at it before the meeting and by the next meeting is this is this doable to get that stuff in to the document yes yes all right we'll make sure we need more time we can do car wash one more time as part of the improved communication with parents should that not also be shared with parents at the same time so that they have an opportunity to comment on it before the 12th or the 11th of October not change their travel plans yeah okay okay what about what about the legal stuff we

163talked about amendments and all that stuff is that in there she said oh you said that all right cool all right do you guys have one talks more go right ahead Jason have at it can we argue about whether it's a contract a little bit longer yeah we could go back super interesting sorry it's it's we're getting a little Punchy now okay so let's let's um let's wrap this up okay so we think thank you to everybody for being here um and let's I think we're going Dr Keenan has other staff here too thank you all for being here yes um Chiquita no more is the partner just chief officer for the partner District so she's directly supporting and works directly with Robin and then Dr Mike Michael Macklin he is our our executive director

164of deia and he works very closely with that so thank you guys for being here we appreciate it um okay [Applause] and I just want to make a comment I thank you for all the thoughtfulness I appreciate the parents and their cut their comments too and um I agree it was valuable to be at those first two meetings to really hear from our parents and then being able to bring in a media moderator to kind of facilitate it but it was very valuable to hear it firsthand and understanding it too so that's important and we will bring this information back to you look at our notes and we'll be back here on October 11th well it'll be just as long too so just yeah I just live across the park so I'm good all right

165thank you ladies um okay Jason where'd he go okay so I think we're gonna just take a few minutes um you want to celebrate just just like three minutes okay we're back ready okay 9.01 I move that the Board of Education approved the 2023 property tax rates as follows three dollars and point three point eight seven seven two dollars per 100 assessed valuation for residential real estate 4.6025 dollars per 100 assessed valuation for commercial real estate 4.447 dollars per 100 assessed valuation for personal property all right a move that the Board of Education approved the insurance providers the plan designs slash benefit summaries premium rates and District contributions from 2024 as presented in authorized District administration to execute contracts to facilitate these employee benefits second questions around yeah John how often do we review employee

166benefits is it annually okay and are these increases that we're seeing uh I mean I know that there's increases kind of across the benefits specter everywhere but how do these increases compare to a year ago a year ago in the health uh coverage we had no increase so this six percent increase is really spread over two years uh looks pretty good um we had no increase in dental coverage a year ago this year is 15 percent spread over two years that still doesn't look too bad this is actually the two prior years on dental coverage that did not have an increase no other coverage is increasing this year okay it's just yeah the only one that stuck out to me was the fam family premium subsidy which um more than doubled yes uh and that's

167kind of a structural change of uh as our premium rates before now did not totally reflect risk so I'm trying to trend premium rates to risk and as I do that to minimize the impact on staff I'm putting that money into that subsidy versus putting it all into the employee rate and you think that on a um aggregate basis that minimizes the overall District liability and employee liability as a whole and cost okay okay I'm good because if I put it into the employee rate it comes with additional costs because it's subject to pension contributions yeah and then it makes it harder for us when we go to negotiate with employees the following year too so I I get the the movement I just wanted to make sure that at a net aggregate that we're

168not disadvantaged and it sounds like the answer is not as is we're not and in fact it's better for us overall so cost wise it's much more efficient okay fun benefits that's it okay any opposed good um 9.03 I move that the Board of Education approved the fiscal year 2024 crswc budget as submitted second it's been moved and seconded are there any questions or comments okay all in favor aye aye any opposed okay that passes and with that I just I do want to say we'll continue to have like meetings so we can continue to monitor that and not wait till really late so I'll have a meeting set up soon okay um um let's see 9.04 I move that the Board of Education approved policies i g a b igc i-k-e-i-l-n-i-n-d as presented been

169moved and seconded are there any questions or comments okay all in favor aye motion passes consent agenda 10.01 I moved at the Board of Education approved the consent agenda items 10.02 through 10.14 okay second it's been moved in seconds second did um are there any questions I just would point out that some of these things that we've been talking about in terms of actually implementing the agreements with or the services with special school districts are what we're approving here all in favor aye okay um okay board Communications um let's see uh what do we have Parks and Rec we had a great Parks and Rec meeting three and a half weeks ago um lots of really good updates I don't remember I remember them nothing that is significant to share our update the board on

170okay um Clayton Education Foundation I missed that one yeah were you there I was there two years in a row how'd it go uh Clinton Education Foundation uh had a good meeting a couple weeks ago we revamped the mission statement or they revamped in the mission statement um so that was I think a good step forward in terms of thinking about their own strategic Direction I will say there does seem to be a good group of people sort of a new nucleus that's developing of people who you know want to push the organization forward and do some good things for for our kids so that's good to see um it's not going to pop up but it's worth mentioning that for the center uh one of the Commissioners in case anyone knows Alex morenstein uh

171passed away last Friday's worth mentioning yes he had a he he was sick for most of the year and um anyway he I didn't know him very well but he was a you know he was a good question he contributed to meetings well and he took the role seriously so yes um we'll be filling his role but it'll be big shoes to film yeah and we're uh yeah we're you know on behalf of the board sorry yes hear that news um on more positive note and for that CEF even though I wasn't there one of the one of the members is kind of a local celebrity this month and Ben's Shakespeare play so yeah yeah I mean we do too oh you did too yeah wasn't it great yeah that was really good the Shakespeare

172in the park or Shakespeare in the streets presentation at the city soccer stadium Alum and um and he he talked to one interview I saw about writing a play in high school here and so too so it's cool to see that highlighted yeah um Chris social emotional Wellness we had our first meeting I went it went great what I'm excited about with our social uh social emotional learning and wellness committee we've the fact that we have both of those in the title is extremely important so there that's I want to point that out and I appreciate that um is that now we had our Wellness coordinator as as part of this meeting and so again it's I feel like things are really working together well um in terms of you know we've had this committee

173for many years but when we had this committee prior to this we didn't have a wellness coordinator so now all of this is just going to be working together even better we'll be getting more things done for our students serving our students in more ways so it's gonna be great Jessica was fantastic and has so many amazing ideas for off on a really good start I will just assure you our Wellness coordinator Justin Jennifer 's Jessica is you know nobody but Jennifer is the wellness coordinator and she is doing an amazing job I'm sorry Jennifer if you're listening Jessica's the consultant that's why that's why thank you just because the consultant I knew there was a Jessica anyway they're working together really closely Jessica and Jennifer and Jessica's amazing and Jennifer's learning everything and it's

174I'm feeling really great about it um you want me to do my other committee right now too or wait do it SSD oh yeah okay so I am on the SSD governing board we just had a meeting on Monday it was our first meeting um I just want to say that SSD um you know they are an incredible organization they have a lot of they do a lot of good work in around the state um they're they there's a lot of um bureaucracy that goes along with what they do which makes everything they do harder but um uh I feel good about what the you know our relationship with SSD I feel I feel like um SSD is doing a good job of making changes and having um really honest conversations about all the way

175down to the level of you know parents you know concerns and challenges so it's not just our district that is getting to hear you know um about these concerns and having these concerns you know ssds being rarest is responsive as as they can be and um you know the governing Council does a really good job of helping make sure that the SSD board itself is functioning you know the way it should and making sure students needs are being met so um that's all I can say there's there's more meanings to be had obviously but um I can I feel um the things are going smoothly and in in terms what am I trying to say I can assure you that that the the SSD is doing um a good job of trying to better itself

176awesome yeah so I missed a meeting with camera okay we're not going to get together right Cameron yeah the other inform you and everything I just wanted to add that um Niche and I attended a meeting of the St Louis uh the organizing committee I guess you would call us of the St Louis School boards PLC which I think you put in the Weekend Update um and those legislative advocacy meetings that we used to have um once a month when we were in session we have kind of transformed into including the whole region St Louis County St Charles County Jefferson County and the city right all districts there are invited Nisha offered Clayton's services with the help of Luke to kind of first of all create a a website for the St Louis School boards

177PLC where you can go view past meeting information and and other information and you all got calendar invites to the monthly the what has now taken over that the monthly Zoom meetings on legislative advocacy so they're in your calendars Friday mornings is it you know 8 A.M if you can attend it'd be great and we also started brainstorming about the next in-person event which is Saturday December 2nd from nine to noon I know some of you have been to those before I always leave them feeling very motivated and energized to collaborate with other districts and you know do some great work and we felt like especially around legislation especially now it's really important that we collaborate together because they're strength in numbers and so many of us were kind of duplicating the exact same things

178or lack thereof really so and a lot of districts have been doing some really great work around it so we're hoping to kind of broaden that to the region so hopefully you can attend the zoo meetings when you can or the in-person event Joe Miller's still kind of heading that all up and he's doing a great job through U City the next event in December is going to be in Ferguson Florissant School District at their steam Academy awesome thank you for that update um okay so I think we can um adjourn so um that the Board of Education adjourned all right all in favor aye so I didn't sign these I guess