10/13/21 Board of Education Meeting

001i believe we have some individuals joining us today on zoom in every meeting we like to start off with recognizing our own and today we have kim shironi from all in clayton coalition who's going to be joining us and dr wiens i believe you will be introducing some of the students and i think they are on at the are we still waiting in a couple more we might be waiting for there we go they're coming on there and so red ribbon week is the one of the largest and oldest drug abuse prevention programs and our great coalition here does a lot of activities towards the end of october and so they are here to tell us a little bit about it and we just want to thank them and recognize them for all that they

002do for us so dr wayne's if you want to take it away thank you dr patel tonight we are recognizing a few students alongside kimberly cirone the all in clayton coalition project coordinator tonight i'd like to welcome tucker abele's jonathan gutierrez and catherine nguyen from the all in clayton coalition and they are student representatives working with miss chironi this school year before they talk to you a little bit about the red ribbon events and activities they have planned in the community i just wanted to recognize this group of students for all their hard work we have come so far in growing all in clayton coalition's work and we have certainly been able to expand our student involvement and i have to say if any of you have ever had a chance to visit an all

003in clayton coalition meeting our student reps are go getters they are very action oriented and extremely motivated to make a positive change in our community so i definitely encourage you to join one of their meetings if you can at this point i'll go ahead and hand it over to kim to talk a little bit about what she and her students are working on excellent thank you so much dr wean good evening everyone thank you uh dr patel said red ribbon week uh is happening october 23rd through october 31st and this is really a great opportunity for our student leaders to flex their leadership muscles and to get their school community on board with the importance of substance use prevention and also just how important it is to live a drug-free lifestyle as a teenager um

004and so they have some really great things planned for wye down during the week of uh the 23rd and so we've got uh catherine jonathan and tucker here with us tonight they are three members of the production at wye down we have about 25 members this year which as dr wing said is huge growth for us considering last year we had five student representatives so we went from five to 25 which is just phenomenal and these students have jumped in uh feet first and are really passionate about prevention and we're just really lucky to have them so i'm going to turn it over to catherine first catherine is going to share a little bit about the history of red ribbon week and what this week represents hi um my name is kathryn so it all

005started when enrique kamarina who was a drug enforcement administrative agent was in mexico and he was working against illegal drugs coming into the united states sadly though he did die in 1985 um but his memory still lived on so his families and friends um wore red ribbons in honor of his memory and his activism towards um drugs um schools began to pick up on it and became more widespread so now um it started becoming a national celebrated week in 1988 and schools coalitions like us use this week to educate and kind of educate young people to prevent drugs use excellent thank you so much catherine and um in our meetings we have uh created two different um planning groups this group is very competitive and so they really wanted to do some type of competition

006to engage their peers in um learning more about the negative effects of substance use and uh also talking about you know what are the alternatives um that we can do what are those hopefully healthy coping skills that students can turn to so jonathan is going to talk a little bit about uh the competition that our white owned coalition is planning for the week of red ribbon i've been taking a second mike was being raised but what we have planned for all in coalition is some sort of trivia for students to answer and i'm not sure but i'm we were talking about rewards maybe between pacs and teams uh we also had a plan on people to try to wear red and like the team with the most people wearing red will get some sort of

007reward but we're still finalizing the details on that and that's all excellent thanks jonathan yeah the trivia questions would be all related to different facts about uh substances particularly the top three substances that we know students use which are alcohol vaping and marijuana because as we were talking with our students we realized you know there are a lot of facts out there about substances that students might not be aware of and that might change or influence their decision uh whether or not to use as they're entering these teenage years so tucker is a representative from our communications team and tucker is going to talk a little bit about how uh this group is going to spread the word to their peers at why down about the the fun things we have planned for red ribbon

008week uh hi i'm tucker abele and i'm a sixth grader here at wydam uh so we're gonna basically we're gonna make some posters uh hang them up around the school and they're gonna so they're to be explaining what uh red ribbon week is and they're going to be explaining the activities we're also going to put them on the tables in main street so kids can read it when they go to lunch and so and i don't know if jonathan shared this but every day there's gonna be a question and so and we're gonna lay little easter eggs in the posters and answers to the questions to help them so if they read the posters they may get an answer to a question and we're gonna also communicate to this to the packages excellent thank you

009all so much for sharing as you all can see this group is very organized very motivated and we're just really excited to see them put this plane into action the last week of october so thank you all so much for having us here tonight thank you so much for being here we really appreciate all the work and i know there's a lot of planning and details that go behind this so thank you students for doing that have a great evening thanks for having me thank you okay um next we have one more individual that we're going to be recognizing tonight and he should be zooming on as well his name is danny bowie and he actually this started last year last year dr wien started an asian affinity group and one of the students that

010was part of this group is the one the individual that we're going to be recognizing today and his name is danny and what danny did was he took it to the next level what he decided to do was expand the group have more students join the asian affinity group and it took a lot of organization it took a lot of leadership and the next thing he knew he had a lot of students joining this and he created a safe space for everybody to be a part of a community and so i wanted to make sure we recognize danny today and dr wiens is for you as well for starting this here so i didn't know if you wanted to add something yes thank you very much dr patel tonight it really is an honor to

011in honor danny um in recognition of just his initiative in bringing the asian student association to life at chs you know last semester in light of a lot of the anti-asian hate crimes that we were seeing covered in mainstream media i felt like it was very important for us to create a safe space for our asian american students to process what they were seeing and hearing and reading on social media and so i created this space virtually for students to come join us and danny was one of those students and at the beginning of this school year danny reached out to me and said hey dr wayne's i think that we can take this to the next level and i really want to do it can you help me so i went over to chs

012and met danny and a couple of his classmates at lunch talked through the next steps and he set it all into motion found a teacher sponsor and everything and in just a second i'll give him an opportunity to kind of share his reflection on this experience so far but i also wanted to make sure that i thanked mr de la paz who is the teacher sponsor who is helping danny and his classmates move this organization forward and mr de la paz i know you couldn't be here tonight but if you are listening i just wanted to say salaam all right danny it's all you hello hello can i hear me yes we can perfect i just want to say thank you so much for this recognition it means up very much to me because it

013shows that my like asian student associate is being heard and that's why i wanted from this like little club i made basically it's very nice having this community now because i remember growing up and playing there wasn't like that many asians but now that like planes growing as a school district there's more and more asian students coming in together and now that we have this club it feels more safe i feel more heard it's very nice yeah danny um just i just want to tell you on behalf of the board that we're so proud of you for putting this together and um it's it's a really important club at the high school and um we were we're just thrilled that um you had the courage to to get it together and and we appreciate your

014time and all your efforts thank you and thank you danny for being a great role model were you gonna say something uh wha i prepped up a paragraph for this i don't know if i'm supposed to read it or i was just supposed to send it in you may read it oh okay so i like to thank you for recognizing the asian student association this club was created as a means of bringing together the growing agents doing community and clinton i took inspiration from the vietnamese youth group i grew up in and wants to provide a similar environment to the students in clinton growing up in clan i didn't have as many role models as i wish i did except for those in the youth group i always felt more secured about my identity as

015a vietnamese american there than anywhere else in life i remember going to glen ridge and being forced into english language learning even though i could fluently speak english i remember always being fast friends with the asian students growing up there too but also how everyone slowed up between classes to see the asian community and clinton grow is a very nice thing to me because it allows me to have more people like me to interact with it also allows me to be a role model for the asian students too i am 100 comfortable my identity as a vietnamese american and i'm very outspoken about it likewise i would like other students to embrace their culture because growing up it wasn't the thing to do we had to assimilate or remark as weird for food and culture

016i'm doing my best to get all the asian students and claim to join so that they can also have that community flow back to i wanted to create a safe space for the students especially after the increase in age and hate crimes this group was created through word of mouth and i see the underclassmen enjoying it and going out of the way to be active the asian community in st louis is very tight-knit in the most bizarre ways but having that connection in school as well as nice i've never had any doubts about the club because i knew that the other asian students also want that community but i was surprised about the turner and participation while i do have some form of lesson planning for the club it's the members that play the role

017in the activities that we do for example the last club we had i wanted to just bring some food as a form of motivation but when i announced that to the group it was the other students that wanted to bring food as well uh to want to share their own food and culture and just be comfortable enough to bring it to school speaks volumes by how committed the members are i remember a bunch of them bringing their homemade sesame balls tar candies pastries the ghana and also other asian snacks it felt like the club was less of an obligation and more of a community gathering to see students take time out of their busy schedule just to attend the asian student association means the world to me i would like to thank the asian student

018association as a whole for going to the meetings and interacting and the interactions that are outside of the club my wishes for the club is that it can be a driving force and claim and that it will continue past me finally i would like to thank mr de la paz for being the teacher that sponsored the club he was the first asian american teacher i've ever had he's always made me feel welcome both as a student and as an asian american thank you again danny we really appreciate your leadership and you're just taking the initiative and drive have a wonderful rest of your evening unless you're going to want to hang out with us the rest of the evening i have homework thank you though no problem i wasn't waiting for that answer i didn't

019care that's okay goodbye okay so i think we are um on to superintendent communications okay thank you so as we look into next week we are actually about to end our first quarter believe it or not we have parent-teacher conferences coming up next week and so i thought we would just go over a few items here one of the things that we have really been focusing on first quarter obviously is making sure that our students are learning and growing at the pace that they need to be including focusing on our learn at home students and monitoring them one of the assessments that we have given to our students is the standardized reading assessments and we did that for grades one through ten and part of that was also looking to see if any of the

020students fell before the below the threshold that we had set and if they did we were administering additional testing especially grades one through three to look for characteristics of dyslexia per state law so if we want to make sure we're monitoring our clayton students as readers and monitoring our clayton students as mathematicians in the mathematician area we're looking at the nwa math and we administered that from grades two through nine or eight depending on when they took algebra and we're going to continue to look at all that data analyze it and present it to you later on either in november and then also in january and part of that also is just to give an understanding of what we've really tried to focus on in is empowered learning you know what does that mean what

021does that look like in the classroom and so that will be a majority part of our november update when we do that for the strategic plan and so look for that coming up and then a few other things um last week i got to attend the sixth grade why down cadet band performance that was the first live performance in over 20 months they did a great job there was excitement in the theater parents were in attendance and you could just feel the energy there so it was really nice to have finally an event in person and i think everybody was just happy to do that and we did that in a safe manner sports the girls tennis team if you have not followed them they placed first in districts in their class i know they

022were very um energized by that so that was also a very good experience for them and then finally the month of october i want to make sure we recognize all the different groups and cultures that we have here which was we mentioned this at the last board meeting but it is national disability history and awareness month as well as national hispanic heritage month and i'm not sure if you saw but we are actually doing a video series on a place for everyone and just recognizing the different cultures each month and this month we did a video really we released it for the national hispanic heritage month and then finally it is filipino american history month as well so i wanted to make sure we acknowledge that covid related update our current dashboard right now we

023have obviously 585 staff total right now and one active positive case in our student population we have eight positive cases and 26 in quarantine this is an uptake from the last time i presented this information to the board we did have to quarantine a classroom at an elementary level recently and that's why you see the uptake on that and total it's 0.28 percent of active cases the next slide is may look familiar as the one i showed last time the positivity rate in the county has decreased from the last time i reported it it was 7.9 percent and now it is 6.9 percent if you look at the two shaded areas you will notice that it is declining a little bit but again i just i'm optimistically cautious because what you see later on in

024november december and january from last year is a peak and so we're not sure you know if this is what we can anticipate in the upcoming months that's why we just want to continue to be cautious in everything we do and the next slide is similar again is the one that we showed last time again overall we're seeing a decline but if you look again at the two shaded areas last year exactly around this time is the lowest that we went and then all of a sudden it started spiking could be halloween could be thanksgiving it could be around the holidays so we're just going to be very careful and we're going to stay true to our mitigating plan with everything we have in place and that was passed during consent agenda last time we

025are also looking at doing a res board resolution you know to bring it to the next board meeting in terms of vaccination or testing for our staff and we just need to go through a few more details with that before we bring that forward and then finally i do want to touch base on our progress with the strategic plan as you know we have three goals in the plan a place for everyone and then to grow as learners and finally in head and heart so our focus is around equity work it's around academic excellence and it is around social emotional learning if we do the work that we need to do around equity and social emotional learning our kids will learn and that is something that we believe in and that is something we're going

026to stay strong in when we talk about these specific goals throughout the year we'll give you updates so we've given you an update on a place for everyone with our equity work upcoming will be an update on in head and heart and then we'll give you an update of a place for everyone to grow as learners so the academic piece will come next with more data on data on that and one of the things that we talked about when we outlined the strategic plan was that was our road map and the destination is the profile of the graduate and the competencies we want them to leave with so when you look at that you may have noticed in videos and in photographs in social media the hashtag that we started this year and it was

027hashtag clayton experience because we want to make sure all of our learners which include students and staff have the best experience in clayton whatever their identity is whatever their background is they feel like this is a place they belong they feel like this is a place that they can thrive and we want to capture that with that hashtag so when you look at the competencies we want our students to leave us here with so for example intellectually curious we want them to know learning is a constant we want them to know that we will challenge them and we will support them and it's okay to fail forward those are all characteristics of someone who's intellectually curious we want someone to be empathetic which falls under goal three in head and heart show compassion show kindness

028show respect those are all life skills culturally competent we want them to embrace diverse views we want them to challenge prejudices that arise and we want them to be successful in life so those are all the destinations and competencies we want our students to leave with and we're going to continue to stay strong and focus on that work how does that happen we'll always have things that matter we always have things that we can control when you put those two things together that's what you focus on and when you focus on that that's what's going to determine our reality and so our plan moving forward is to continue to do things that matter things that we can control and zero in on that and as we move forward we've always said that excellence is a

029norm here but how do we get from excellent to transformational and that's going to be by laser-like focus and so i just wanted to remind everybody that we do have our strategic plan we're staying strong and we're going to continue to work on that all right thank you dr patel that was those are great words i'll just add to that that yes we as a board we we are all i think very proud of our strategic plan and that it incorporates some really key elements um such as social emotional learning and equity and academic excellence and i feel like um i think that this entire board i believe really believes that the equity our equity work and our social emotional learning is the foundation of of academic excellence and so we're really proud of that

030work and we're gonna plow forward and continue to do an excellent job so um with that said we are gonna move on to our regularly scheduled programming which is itana we'll take you here yeah thank you um so just starting off we've had a lot of sports achievements and events going on with the past couple of weeks with the fall sports season starting to come to an end so as dr patel mentioned the girls tennis team did get first place in district which is very exciting so the cross country team is up there in the top right they've had a lot of meets recently too and actually the clayton shaw park meet is coming up i believe this friday which is always a very exciting need because we host it and we get to see

031all the students run and then in the middle right there is our jv volleyball team so clayton had their first ever annual jv volleyball tournament this weekend and we actually took first place then we also have a lot of achievements in the golf team i believe we have one student who's she's a senior she's going to be going to state this coming week so i think we should all wish her well and then wydown has its very first ever soccer team so that's also very exciting um and then more kind of related sports they've all been having our senior nights so we have the tennis team softball team golf team and the field hockey team who have all had their senior nights so far and there's going to be more to come and for anyone

032who maybe doesn't know what a senior night is basically we just honor the seniors on the team and we kind of send them off on our last home game or just at any home event and you can see it's kind of fun and decorated with signs so it's always very fun to watch if you ever get a chance um the speech and debate team had their first hybrid tournament this past weekend and what i mean by hybrid is that all the students were in person they were um at the high school doing their rounds but their opponents and their judges were all online so while it it's probably always a little frustrating that we still have to have you know zoom meetings and have to you know see people through screens at least they got

033to be with their teammates and talk to their coaches and their classmates before and after their rounds so there's a quote someone said i love the atmosphere of being around my teammates and being able to talk to each other in the in team room between rounds even if i couldn't see my opponent opponents in person so i think that really encapsulates just what the feel of tournaments is and they got second overall so so i actually saw this on the white on website but the sixth grade health classes are making these sort of buttons that are supposed to advocate for upstanding behavior and i think it really shows the progress that we're making and you know allowing students to express themselves in classes while also learning and also advocating for things um so yeah those

034are just some of the ones that they made and there's a lot more so lastly um at the high school we had our first intruder drill this monday um and in all the different classes we practice you know what the different like rendezvous points are and where the doors are and everything and we're going to have another one i believe next month to practice our b day classes today all the juniors took the psat it was very long but we all got through it and everyone got to leave school a little early at least the juniors did and then at captain i'm not sure if the other elementary schools are doing this as well but i know that at captain they have three of these mini pinatas which are going to be given out to

035students it's going to be determined by a raffle and this is kind of just to um commemorate the hispanic heritage month so they're kind of like ended off in a good way and i know there's also a raffle involved with or sorry a trivia night or something involved with that so these students are able to learn more about hispanic heritage and you know experience some of it and then also this is another thing that i'm not sure if it's happening at merrimack and glenridge as well but i know that the captain course is starting to meet and they're still separating it by grades so that they can keep their you know social distancing guidelines and keep everyone safe but chorus has always been i think a big part of the elementary school so it's great

036to see that they're starting back up and another big part of elementary schools is the african dance unit i know when i was at captain we did it and i'm sure for years before they did it and i know glenridge had their african dance unit um it was either last week or a couple weeks ago and the other schools are going to be having it soon so it's great to see that that's back i'm not sure if they were able to do it last year but it's definitely a good way to you know educate students and then lastly with the end of the quarter coming up i think a lot of what i've heard at the high school is that there's a lot of people a little stressed out because i mean the end of

037the quarter is always pretty stressful for everyone because you know it's not a lot of time to get up your grades and stuff but they're i think with the teacher grading day that's this friday um students are going to be able to like capitalize on that and take the three day weekend to you know work on anything they need to do so yeah thank you okay we are at our um we're on to number five which is the special school district partnership [Music] hello ladies hello um i'm excited to be here i'm elizabeth keane i'm the superintendent for special school district and we are going to be presenting together um the partnership agreement and not knowing what has happened prior to this but i know that most of the time we have not presented the

038partnership agreement in a very thorough way and one of our initiatives this year is to make sure that we're working on it together in a true partnership between ssd and each one of our partner districts so i have two very talented and smart leaders um dr nguyen and miss melissa mclogan who will also assist with this so we're going to go over what the key points of the um the staffing and what it looks like here first clayton and also what the partnership agreement is looking like so yeah the stacking in clayton we have one director myself an instructional coach 17 teachers 20 paraprofessionals we have five speech and language pathologists we have a social worker we also have an occupational therapist physical therapist music therapist aba associate vision itinerant hearing itinerant and two school

039psychologists that help support the school district of clayton at the five buildings we currently have around 256 students with ieps in the district and you see the numbers up there that we currently have 96 at chs 64 at wydown 26 at captain 34 at glenridge and 36 at merrimack majority of the students are in the least restrictive environment where they're in the classroom at least 80 percent of the time we have 27 that are in the classroom 40 to 79 percent of the time and then five are less than 40 percent of the time in the general education classroom you also see the disability categories that we have other health impairment is our highest at 80 and then learning disability is 55. we also have students with autism speech emotional disturbance language disorder intellectual disability

040blind and partial sight and young child with the developmental delay and then we have two students with hearing impairments in the district so the partnership agreement really started back in 2013 and it's not a legal document it's really kind of a norms document that we work on work with each one of our partner districts and we want to make sure we have a lot of input into this so that's what we really focused on this past spring we revised in 2019 and 2020 and it really is trying to make sure it's an effective and a agreement that really does represent both of the districts so the new agreement was kind of scaled down because they felt like some of the things weren't as related relevant as it was in the past um so we'll talk

041a little bit about those pieces of it um and but we really wanted to really merge some of these categories to really kind of focus on doing several things well instead of trying to do everything that we think we're doing and not doing it all well so we'll go into a little bit more about that great so in terms of the process that we all went through to strengthen the partnership was over the summer ssd gathered quite a few stakeholders from partner districts that included board members directors parents school and district level leaders to take a look at the previous partnership agreement and then to form committees to review the different aspects of the partnership agreement so melissa and i actually both participated in different committees to update the current agreement so the committee had

042over 40 people you can see that there was quite a distribution across the district level leaders within ssd and then 17 partner district directors participated and then 10 partner district liaisons i'm one of them uh participated in the evaluation of the previous agreement to update it to the one that was shared with you we each completed a survey to inform what components of the current partnership agreement needed to be maintained and then put in some feedback around what other categories needed to either be considered or removed and so the committee met several times over the summer and we were able to really discuss in more detail and provide pretty detailed feedback to ssd about the parts that we thought needed to be revised or augmented so a summary of the committee work the original partnership

043agreement had 10 different areas to assess and through the committee work that was condensed to seven and so now what's represented in the partnership agreement is staffing teaching learning and accountability which included professional development clarifying the responsibilities for each district and that also included looking at space allocations and collaboration to make sure that we are in continuous improvement of our programs student services technology and access to student information and then transportation and cte [Applause] so as part of the process uh melissa and i um will be working together uh several times a year to ensure that our collaboration is ongoing and actually she and i meet more than that we meet weekly uh but really the spirit of that is to make sure that we are in constant two-way communication about how things are going

044and what we can do together um to continuously improve the quality of the services our students are receiving and so in our early work together this school year some of the action steps um that we have already determined by using the assessment and evaluation tool that was also included in the partnership agreement is analyzing the panorama data together and developing really specific next steps and making sure that our area uh goal and plan for special school district is very much in alignment with this with what the school district of clayton is doing and also taking a look at how that aligns to school improvement goals for each of our campuses we also are very committed to ongoing collaboration to really improve the correspondence and communication between the different the two districts to promote the different

045activities that we're doing to make sure that we are really providing our families with all the information they need about what's available through special school district and that they too understand all the different things that we are making available and offering to families and then lastly we want to make sure that we are constantly focusing on how we can collaborate on professional learning opportunities um and also taking a close look at our professional learning calendar for both classified staff and certificated staff and really trying to identify more opportunities for working together and then also utilizing each other as experts and a way to help each other's skill sets grow and by acknowledging this agreement both special school district and the school district of clayton will agree to the following endorsing the vision the mission and

046the belief statements that we have outlined in the partnership agreement also supporting our collaboration together of that shared responsibility also understanding the agreement will guide our collaboration and enhance our ability to reach every child to achieve his or her full of potential we commit to work cooperatively to implement these principles into the partnership agreement and through this acknowledgement it means that we will have dr keeman sign off on it dr patel dr cunyo the special school district board president and mrs rubin sign off on this agreement does anybody have any questions yes stacey not a question but i just wanted i was actually at the governing council meeting when we reviewed this so i had a little more background information but i just wanted to point out to the rest of our board too because

047we talk about this a lot that i appreciate in the agreement under each category there are ways to measure each of those categories so that it holds everyone accountable for um for achieving those goals so i just wanted to point that out and appreciate it and thank you all three of you and everybody else behind the scenes for working on updating the agreement i think the changes in the categories were really are really going to be effective so thank you thank you gary this is also probably guilty of not really being a question but more of a comment but i did appreciate this process i think it's really good to have a more um engaged process with members of you know our community to understand this um i also think it might be helpful and

048i might put stacey on this box she has more experience with this than i do just to explain a little bit the process by which clayton participates in the governing structure of ssd in general and how we help to select that board and sit on that council and i'm just not sure that that's well understood in general um by our community it's it's another way that we sort of engage in this process that you all are talking about as well and how this gets developed so i don't know you'd want to say a little bit about that or anybody you wanna i can take it i can do that okay um dr keenan yes um so the governing council really is that oversight committee that really kind of ensures that there is a voice at

049the table and so they really that they have three functions so they are to approve our our csep plan they're supposed to approve our budget on an annual basis and then they also elect our board members and our board members we might need to do some slight redistricting this year based on some changes in in the enrollment from the census but i don't see it affecting clayton too much at all so we have a new representative from jan goodman who had represented clayton um for many years for 12 years and then now we have tiffany who is working with that and she's was living in clayton but now she lives in new city but she still represents both of the both of them and you wanna i would just add that so the governing council

050is one school board member from every partner district um so that every district in the county that partners with special school district is represented at these meet monthly meetings and electric dr keenan said unlike our school board elections it's that governing council that elects the special school district board of education it didn't always exist um because a special school district came into play in a place in 1957 which was way ahead of the time for special ed and me being in special in my background and my passion it's really quite amazing that this exists it's very unique because outside of st louis county districts have to pay for out of their general ed funds to support special ed students and the way the forward thinking of the citizens of st louis county really created this

051safety net to support special education students um and so the partners did the the governing council didn't come into play until like the 90s early 2000s and um and because they they really wanted to have some safety nets to make sure that there was that voice at the table and so it was put into legislation that there was that requirement to have a governing council and there's very specific guidelines on how they're elected and how how they elect our board members thank you um i have i have two questions does anybody else have any questions okay um so i i appreciate your affirmation of our strategic plan um i'm wondering if um does does the ssd does the special education staff go through the same professional development that the clayton team members go through yes

052they participate in the building pd and in the district-wide pd days wonderful and then my second question is um i noticed so it says that we have two school psychologists one social worker one occupational therapist is that just for the kids with iep or those that's okay those are all based on the um iep we do we look at the number of minutes and the supports that are required for caseload for students and that's based on the special ed students great okay thank you thank you very much thank you right home i just live across the park thank you for being here tonight we appreciate your time okay so we are going to move on to our legislative update with our we've got two vips here tonight come on up all right do i have

053the um the privilege of being able to introduce our two guests tonight you all don't need me to say much about them but i will try to say just a bit to get us started representative ian mackey and senator brian williams both of them represent districts that include uh all or most of uh the clayton school district i think at least ian's as well and that's totally positive on the map but um but they're they're represent our communities and um we've we've had conversations with them before and we had just talked um as we were planning some of our meetings out this fall about how we wanted to have a dialogue and have an opportunity to hear from them about things that they c affecting public school districts including ours coming up in the next

054session and also a chance to talk about anything that may have happened in recent legislation as well a couple of other things just to add about their background that i've really enjoyed getting to know them and appreciate um you know ian is a former public school teacher and i appreciate that perspective and that education and brian has worked with a lot of organizations uh that are important to kids and our communities and things like that as well before they started doing these very important jobs so i appreciate that i also really love the fact that recently when wydown was recognized as part of the blue ribbon school process there were two people there and they were talking to kids and learning about what was going on there and just reinforcing um all the things that

055were happening there and that was great to be able to watch and see so it's great to have you all here i know we're all interested in hearing what you have to say and your perspectives about what's happening in in our state and the things that might affect us and we're just looking forward to hearing about that and having a chance to talk to you about it so thanks for being here so i guess we'll kind of tag team this one um first thank you to the board administrative assistant to the board of education for what you do and then of course dr patel it was really good to see you at a luncheon that i i hosted a couple weeks ago representative mackey was there as well i i would argue was probably the

056first time we've had superintendents from just all over the region to give you all just kind of some insight on my senate district and just the boundaries and demographics i go roughly from essentially highway 40 north to the missouri river so st charles county so that includes 10 public school districts so it goes from some of the wealthiest communities in the state to some of the more poverty stricken ones so i'm not going to go through all the school districts but easily from clayton to districts like ferguson fluorescent normandy riview gardens hazelwood so a very diverse district forced to focus on an unprecedented scope of disparities when it comes to education and ian and i will be able to kind of cover what's happening at state level you know one thing i will say is

057you know there was emerging issues that we dealt with this past session and i think there will be even more this upcoming last session we dealt with empowerment savings accounts which as in the state of missouri by constitution you can't use to turn vouchers so essentially that's what it is and there was a 50 million dollar fiscal note on that which um you know would be determined what students will benefit from this and and then of course um we'll have to deal with things like a critical race theory and um you know there's a group of folks who are committed to convincing the state and and educators that is taught in schools when even the governor has has come out publicly and said that there's no evidence of critical race theory being taught in public

058schools so that'll be a very pressing issue that we'll deal with i'm sure in the senate and the house and you know for me personally once you start the conversation of of one addressing and erasing history that becomes a very slippery slope next thing you know it goes from false conversation around critical race theory and then ultimately it becomes a conversation of did slavery exist civil rights movement and you know that's something that i think is is one of the the most draconian steps that you can take when it comes to education is um doing something that that i think would erase the past and in history of our country and you know there's always a saying once you condemn once you forget to condemn history it tends to repeat itself and that's not something

059that we want in the state of missouri that's not something that we want in terms of education i'm going to stop there and let ian kind of jump in but those are the two most pressing issues that i see coming up this session clearly seeing how these empowerment savings accounts benefit students whether or not public schools benefit from it at all critical race theory i think it's going to be with an election year folks using it to propel themselves and and whatever their their future aspirations or endeavors are and and if we're not careful um we could ultimately have a issue that should be a non-starter actually creating a trajectory of of erasing history and really denying students of information that really has created the fabric of our country so again i appreciate being here

060i'm looking forward to a conversation and questions and thank you all for what you do thank you brian um it's it's definitely been a privilege and an honor to serve with brian uh these last three years um thank you dr patel uh and uh thanks gary for the invitation thank you all uh for this opportunity um like brian said the the focus on critical race theory defined differently by both sides of the aisle of course will be a huge issue for us next session probably the biggest issue along with treatment of transgender students that's going to be the other big one so two huge consequential issues that are going to affect the lives the daily lives of the students in this district their livelihoods their mental health their constitutional rights all of it and it's

061going to require folks who have complicated and difficult conversations typically in a smaller space to magnify those values on display in jefferson city that's really what it's going to take it's going to take folks coming to the capitol to share their stories and their expertise in committee hearings which is really valuable and really productive i know that sometimes it can feel like you're talking to a brick wall it can feel a little bit futile but i can tell you that when um folks sit down who the committee's not seen before they're intrigued they're interested if they think they're going to disagree with them they're even more intrigued they want to know why they're there they want to know what they have to say and folks think about the remarks afterwards folks change their their thinking

062folks don't jump up and say oh darn it i never thought about that about that way you're right i guess i'll change my mind but you can see even over a brief period of time people pull back step away move aside when they've been presented with new information or when they've been presented with compelling information that conflicts with their preconceived notions and that's what we have to do we need students to do it we absolutely need students to do it folks sometimes think that coming to the capitol is about bringing binders and clipboards and you know stacks of information that have been researched which is great it can be that but a lot of times what's more important is is telling a story and sharing an experience and letting folks know who have the really

063incredible power of making a decision that impacts so many people just what the consequences of that decision are and so come january you know the education committee meets every tuesday morning at 8 a.m it's certainly not convenient it's going to require a lot of effort um but that's that's really the easiest place to get started you know maybe there will be rallies with signs and maybe there'll be big events and things like that and those are great too but don't discount that january you know 12th meeting in the middle of the winter time with snow in the forecast at 8 a.m when it all gets started that'll be just as important and you know on both of those issues those are really the two um that i think we're focused on stopping um there's other

064issues that we're focused on i think getting getting done in a proactive way too um you know we got a handful of i think good items done last session um and this session you know i plan to really tackle the um k-3 suspensions that's something that has a lot of buy-in from the other side of the aisle um and something that kansas city just decided to do recently i think this month uh maybe a week or so ago decided to be the newest district to ban k to five suspensions so um i think it's it's certainly a topic that we'll take on um so it's not all doom and gloom but for the sake of time let's focus on the doom and gloom and figure out what we're gonna do about it and and really

065work together to bring clayton's story to jefferson city excellent questions well thank you that was really great i'm wondering is there anything there's all this new you know federal stimulus money is there any new i mean is the state going getting some of that through education is is any of that going to education yeah so that's a great question uh steve thank you for that you know so we're we're working on some things in terms of leveraging the federal stimulus funding um clearly we would have to look once we go back in and see how that can impact education i think early childhood education should be a space that we look into clearly all of that has to be within the federal guidelines i can tell you right now my staff and i are looking

066at how do we create opportunities of economic development in particular in areas like north st louis county we're working on a project now with the university of missouri st louis to acquire roughly um it's 39 40 acres which is their south campus because they're consolidating it and moving students to the north campus that can create opportunities for potentially a cortex-2 outpatient healthcare center grocery store in the area that's a food desert so we've spent quite a bit of time looking trying to leverage that funding just for those who aren't familiar with the federal stimulus funding that has come in the state will get close to two billion dollars st louis county will get roughly 200 million and the city of st louis will get 517 million so you know i'm definitely receptive to ideas that

067you think would be beneficial to uh public education and to our region on how to utilize how to utilize that funding clearly it would have to be within the scope of the federal guidelines but i'm more than willing to do that and and you know i'll make it very clear to to you all is if our region in our state is not in a better condition than it was prior to the pandemic with this influx of of money that's come to our state is simply a a result of failed leadership then in that bureaucracy so we have an opportunity of a lifetime to really revamp um in in enhance not only education but our region and in the quality of life for people who live here yeah i completely agree and we won't know um

068what opportunities exist until january we we had the opportunity back in the spring to give the governor at least quasi-blanket authority to spend as he saw fit and we chose not to do that we chose to sort of micromanage how it's going to be spent so we take it little chunks at a time um we'll we'll it'll be you know what it'll it'll be considered um i think piecemeal as we go along um i do think the governor like brian said has placed an emphasis on on early education created the office of childhood which is a new level of bureaucracy in state government that he's focused on spending in early education his party has indicated that's an area where they're willing to spend i would suspect and hope that transportation is going to be part

069of that because we all know how insanely underfunded that is and so you know we're working brian and i both along with other representatives in st louis area work with sam page pretty regularly county executive page to figure out how the county can collaborate with the state spending as well because like brian said the county is sitting on a pot of money the city sitting on a pot of money and the state's sitting on a pot of money and we can't just spend that in silos we've got to figure out how how we're going to the best you know work together to spend it collaboratively so those are conversations that unfortunately and weirdly enough have to wait until january but we'll we'll be having in earnest great one more quick question i'm wondering if um

070another kind of flash issue will be if there'll be another initiative to kind of of expansion of charters is do you think that will be back on the republican yeah you know history tends to repeat itself so a lot of the issues we deal with have been pressing issues that's been going on well before end and i got to the legislature so i'm confident that it'll come up again and and that's a conversation that we'll have to have you know i i have this conversation with folks all the time in charter schools whether it's vouchers whatever the case may be if you have a perspective on what education should be it should not be mutually exclusive to uh access and funding for public education if you want to take private dollars and pursue a pathway

071towards what your perception or or or vision of education is that's your prerogative but as as public elected officials ian and i both have a duty as well as the rest of our colleagues in the legislature and that is to support um fully fund and advocate for public education and i don't think that's mutually exclusive to to any anything else and and i think we've gotten to a point where we we're having a conversation about private entities that that does not have any um in my opinion um visible check and balance system or or oversight or level of accountability uh and we're we're looking to invest public dollars there's no other entity known to man that someone would do something like that if i came to the state and said i had a private business

072business and i want you guys to invest x and millions of dollars and i couldn't tell you what the business did or what the money would go towards or how i would allocate those funds and how it would make our state better they will tell me absolutely no not absolutely no hell no so we we got to be real with ourselves about this and and you know and like i said um i i don't if you want to take private dollars and and and uh execute your perception of what you think education should be that's your prerogative i have no say of that as a public official but as as a stakeholder to how this state spends money i think we should be enhancing public education and and not the latter yeah and i would

073add i don't think the landscape has really changed that much in terms of where the issue lies i think certainly it'll be brought up again um i think the the you know players are similar or almost exactly the same to where they were years recent years past where it's failed um but that is that illustrates an example of where we do hear from school districts a lot and their rural districts we are we are from rural superintendents who write us letters and emails to every i'm talking to every member of the legislature who show up to testify school board members parents folks come down there from rural parts of the state on that issue all the time and they're not afraid to blow back they're not afraid of any sort of you know criticisms or

074critiques they take it head-on and and we need to do the same on the issues that we care about go ahead joe so brian ian thank you for being here it's awesome um to see both so just two things one so i have an idea on that money which would be mental health right mental health for students i mean just the mental health challenges of students in particular in public school districts or um as you both know are are off the chain and covet has just made them you know exacerbated so um but but i have a question for you all so i really appreciate kind of the call to action of coming to jeff city and and uh you know sitting at a the tuesday 8 a.m committee or whatever it is it feels

075like a lot of school boards in this area they love to like write letters as a whole school board and i guess i maybe you could um just help share with us like what's the value of that versus showing up or versus writing a separate because it at least and you know and i float around a lot of different school boards and we even have a you know professional learning community or you know around the st louis county school boards it feels like that's more what they do less show up it feels like the showing up is more important but i just i would love to hear from the experts yeah yeah um i think writing letters do help if whenever we have committee hearings being able to have written testimony especially from folks who

076can't make it up is very beneficial you know committee hearings for me is an opportunity not only to hear about an issue but also potentially get information that i may not have known prior to that hearing so when folks provide those written testimonies especially from experts and school board directors folks that deal with education every single day it's very insightful i've seen members of of committees kind of change their their opinion and maybe uh get a different perspective on an issue because that information was provided so i do think it's power in that but again ian made a really good point i think having the students really become engaged and understand what these issues are and understand that they don't have to talk about these just among their peers these can be conversations that they

077have with adults with leaders with their families and and we get first-hand experience on our first hand insight on what their experience day-to-day is students today and and i stress to folks all the time you know my third grade teacher who i think was phenomenal you know i don't know if she would be a phenomenal teacher in in today's society you know that's just to be determined and and i think um getting that insight from students and and again folks testifying uh sending any type of insight to a comedian hearing that provides a perspective that could be beneficial to to whatever the issue is is important yeah i agree in the in the sense that it is helpful it's sort of though like like when we're campaigning and you have you can write a postcard

078to somebody you can call them or you can knock on their door right so when we do all of those you know because we know that we're going to send postcards to people who read them and we hope they vote for us we call them for the same reason but we know that if we knock on somebody's door and they're standing there and we're talking to them and you guys know because you've done it right everybody here has done it so it's this that's that's what's showing up to the committee hearing is it's like going out and knocking on the door it's just as awkward it's just as off-putting it's just as strange and it's just as effective um and so that that that's definitely set apart in terms of effectiveness from the other two

079but certainly and i will say too the letters they're super helpful to me um because i represent the district and when you all send a letter that says hey we've all discussed this we've all come to this conclusion here's how we feel about it and we feel strongly about it i mean nobody listens more than we do to that so it's extremely helpful for us to know that but then it loses i think some of its effect when it when it's when it's presented to other members who don't have that same connection oh and in terms of the mental health piece too um we we had um i'm still working on this line in the budget called the school safety grant which is i think now maybe barely underutilized but when i first found it

080was not utilized at all and it started at a million dollars it's kind of dropped a little bit since then but it was a grant that schools could apply for to harden their targets basically for school shootings and hire consultants to come in and do school shooting drills and i proposed a simple language change that didn't move any dollars but said why don't we let schools apply to hire a part-time social worker a grad student an mswc you know hire somebody even on a part-time basis and use this money for that and we got this close to having it happen but um you know with the influx of money um you know something like that i think is is a state administered grant for schools that are short on on that kind of staffing and

081that kind of support is something that that i'll be working on next session for sure brian ian it's good to see you guys thanks for coming out tonight i have a couple questions um one's a follow-up to steve's question um regarding the 200 and the 500 000 i know one is for the city one is for the county and you only really oversee the county um is there any thought to investing in like economic development for like or infrastructure for like families who who really need community investment so that you know we start creating jobs and safe places for families to start building a community thought about that money being used for that yeah absolutely and you know one there should be a regional approach and i should have went a little more in depth

082uh steve and i was just being conscious of time i will make sure that my staff provides the board with just some of the projects we've identified in the region that we're hoping to be able to fund and and essentially jason what it's going to do is we're working towards a shared funding model between the municipalities st louis county and the state of missouri which everyone would hopefully be able to do a federal match with the money that they received from the federal government and again that that project i was discussing at umsl that could be mixed use housing again a grocery store you know early childhood center we're looking at jamestown mall we've identified an organization called a refuge uh restoration right up north and uh near ferguson and dellwood they're looking to acquire

083that old snook's uh plaza right there so right now what we're hoping to be able to do and the governor's waiting to get a tangible document from our office which we're trying to make sure we get all of the as many projects as we can and have them vetted we're working with the county their economic partnership as well and and hopefully he would consider putting that into his recommendation um for funding so when we go back in january that recommendation is is there uh and i think those are gonna day one um be helpful to families on the ground that need access we're talking about broadband also addressing areas in north st louis county that may not have access to broadband and not assuming that it's going to be easy to get to a hot

084spot on a parking lot of the library so we're looking at a very comprehensive approach to this but right now we're just trying to identify a a funding model and be able to to get various levels of government on board to to ultimately invest the city i can tell you i think about how do we make uh north st louis and downtown st louis safe every single day i don't have to live there to care about it so we'll be talking with the mayor as well as uh elected officials in saint louis city on how the state can provide resources to to address things like education crime um unhoused population access to broadband workforce development is for those who have any idea what i was working on last year i dedicated an entire year towards

085criminal justice reform which led to a bill that we passed that change to expungement law so now folks who may have made a mistake and and committed a non-violent offense can get their records cleared and go directly into the workforce and be model citizens we've addressed police accountability issues which we hope would would enhance the relationship between the community and law enforcement to be able to find out who the bad actors are in our communities and then last but not least that motion to vacate provision which you've heard about high profile cases like lamar johnson and kevin strickland that was my bill that anne was very helpful in getting across the finish line that would now help folks who may have children or parents that were incarcerated for crimes they may not have committed and

086give them a second chance to have that evidence produced before courts so you know look this is a multi-layer thing but those are just some some real-time things that we've been working on i think answers your question and again um you know the description of being an elected official is not to know everything but know people that know everything about something so uh if you have some ideas you know i love to hear them sooner than later so yeah so i just want to make sure that the things that you all are working on i'm sure this is this is what you you all are doing uh but my question is is is it data driven like so there's this data out there that says these things are drivers for children who are having tough

087times at learning right or or these things are prohibiting children from getting you know a great education i know we're in a great zip code we're number one all the time mostly when it comes to the blue ribbon but we also have a very wealthy zip code and the wealthiest zip codes and tell me if i'm wrong right joe you probably know more than i do about this but the what the zip codes seem to do those kids seem to do what better on testing and in education than the ones that are are desperate so to speak so it's and you you the statistics and the data matter but i was i was at jennings high school two weeks ago and i tapped the principal and and superintendent dr knight and i said why are

088so many i just see kids walking past and they're crying and i said what is this about and you never really think about the fact that it was a student that got killed in a car accident the night before and the dr fowler the principal at uh jennings high school said you know senator we need to figure out how to get mental health services for these young people because they're traumatized and these are kids coming to school and they're they're grieving over their friends who are getting killed or dying in car accidents or whatever the case may be so you know yes jason you know we're working with groups to get that data but right now we understand what those disparities are you know as a board director for a community health center and i

089advocated for a behavior health center for children the first of its kind in the city of st louis when i took the ace test myself i was like whoa so you know the social determinants are real and and you know it starts with again addressing housing issues where folks live uh clearly providing um the you know healthy options and and access and you know again that's that's something that that i'm committed to and and it's been a tremendous partner in that gotcha all right my other question two more questions right so um how often do school board members show up to uh the january 7th date like those days how often they show up to jeff city how often did you see you know yeah um it depends on it really it really depends on

090a number of things um we see i would say in a given hearing a contentious hearing um that we're talking about a bill that public schools think they're going to be negatively impacted by i mean we don't see a ton but we see two or three um school administrators or superintendents and of course we see the lobbyists for them but we usually see two or three on the ground folks who will come and testify um and teachers too we see teachers sometimes usually they testify in a parent capacity usually they're testifying as a parent of a child but they're also a teacher but we see we see teachers come and testify as well do you think with this national push to ban a more robust black history in school districts do you think that there

091will be even less people wanting to show up and actually fight for something like that in jeff city i think we'll probably see more folks show up who want it um my feet that's my fear is we'll we'll see folks who show up who want to ban it yeah who want to ban an equitable educational experience who want to ban accurate history education i think we will see folks show up my fear is we may see teachers or former teachers show up we may see i mean there's a lot of folks out there with an axe to grind and we may see them show up and do just that um and i you know when we have you know it's it's not atypical for um districts who are doing well to want to fly under

092the radar right to want to avoid the spotlight not just clayton by any means districts all over the state um that's just you know an mo of doing well that's the same with the student i mean you're getting all a's why are you going to go stick your nose in the in everybody's business um but that's what we have to do and so my but my fear is that folks who who do have an extra grind will be the ones who show up and we have to be there to meet them um with our version of events too and with our stories to tell um and to your earlier question too about the infrastructure one data driven piece that i'm working on right now is starting on monday the newly created food insecurity task force

093is meeting on monday that's a bill that i got signed into law last year to create a task force with department of ag department of social services corporate executives from grocery stores food banks and other advocacy organizations to all work together to identify a number of different drivers for food deserts my particular focus is tax increment financing and how we have initially had this perception that tax increment financing in food deserts would bring grocery stores to bring healthy food would help us solve all these problems and what we're seeing from data is that's not working and so we're looking to to jump from what we know exists in that data to potential solutions that we have not yet determined but we'll work on determining through this task force and like brian said if you if

094you're on to something that we haven't thought of bring it bring it our way for sure and just to wrap this up so you know what i want to say this is it's tough doing what you're doing like what being a representative and trying to get to the core of certain issues is tough because you're like this is what's happening now like you're you know we're dealing with uh infrastructure issues when it comes to wi-fi to come when it comes to a lot of things right food deserts it's whatever and we're always trying to fix the problem and fix the immediate issue and not really the the course i do i'm not gonna ever beat you guys up you guys are doing a great job i know but if you can just we get if

095there's some way we can focus on the core like the origin of the issue then i think we'll be in a great space well my last question is is back to um this idea of crt right this this this made-up thing um what um what's the fervor like like how is it catching fire right now up there and and uh and why do we gotta wait until january 7th to get busy why can't we go up there and just you know jump down on it now no one will be there there you go that's why we'll wait till january nobody nobody will be there uh in the meantime so unfortunately we'll have to wait till january but to your point about getting at the core um you know that's that's really what i hope happens

096from folks who share our view of this issue will do um you know at the end of the day whatever they pass we can take solace in knowing that it's going to be ineffective in clayton it will be it will be ineffective and in other districts because you can't you can't prescribe in law how teachers shall or will teach you can't do it you can ban a thousand books there's a thousand and one a new one will be written tomorrow um you know what what's a teacher who wants to get at the core of this issue gonna start by teaching maybe the current events maybe the fact that the legislature banned critical race theory well gosh kids why would they do that well what's critical race theory well why would the legislature ban it what

097we can't teach about what the legislature just debated of course we can you teachers will find a way as jeff goldblum reminded us life will find a way teachers will find a way this they will they will not succeed but to your point about getting at the core that's why we need folks in jefferson city because we know that critical race theory is not what they're after it's not what it's about it's about what do you think it is segregation getting back to segregation getting back to separating black kids and white kids putting people in different camps that's what it's about and that's what we have to combat brian i appreciate you taking your time answering my question thank you very much man yeah yeah go ahead stacy um i have a question but i

098wanted to first say that jason asking you guys like do school board members ever show up and and your answer to that and then certainly following up with that um when this topic comes up in january you think there will be a lot of people um who want to ban it that show up and like joe mentioned you know we're part of a group of school boards you know that that get together um and we also have this legislative advocacy advocacy group with with area school board members that meets it just got me thinking that um you know there are there is strength in numbers and maybe we need to be reaching broader than our local area and reaching out to some rural districts who feel the same way we do to kansas city districts

099who feel the same way we do and either writing more letters or showing up together or whatever whatever we think would be most impactful but it just got me thinking you know we are we're like in a little bubble here but there certainly are other school districts across this state who value the same things we do and i think it might be worth our while to to find them so yeah and stacy let's be clear you know and i guess because it becomes so inside baseball and and you guys understand this uh as elected leaders as well so what happens is partisan issues they take hyper partisan issues and they raise them which even forces folks to really kind of play to a litmus test within their party yeah so you have several republicans who

100are in more than in favor of public education but then when you take a hyper partisan issue like this it it almost the the extreme arm of their party forces them to have to react so what we see in the senate is that you have the the majority party and then you have this this faction of it that would force them to have to take a vote or or engage with an issue and if they don't it it it makes them look as if they're not in line with their party to the the population or their base that's what's happening so you have folks who truly know like this should not be an issue that we're dealing with but you're going to have an extreme arm of folks i mean and it's on both sides

101you know i mean you can have someone on our side raise an issue and you're like you know i don't think that's a practical thing to do but the reality of it is that if you're not voting as with the republicans who are you voting with or vice versa so we have to get sophisticated as as a as a state and as a region to be able to kind of see through that fear-mongering and and and pandering and and and what it's doing is squeezing really the the practical and sophisticated leaders to where they almost don't really have a space right in in this and and that's what's happening jason you know it's not a thing where you got you know i i can tell you right now uh one issue that we'll be working

102on um last year last session we passed a bill which was called the second amendment preservation act which simply would nullify federal gun laws in the state of missouri i have a colleague right now in southeast missouri who's already come out publicly saying we need to change provisions because this is just has went too far it's even creating dangerous environments for law enforcement so we're going to work together to address this but fortunately he had the courage to do that there was a lot of folks who voted for that that knew that one it was unconstitutional two it was by far a overreach of the second amendment but had they not voted for it guess what their their colleagues would have said well this person didn't vote for us so they're not pro second amendment

103they're anti-gun and and and the first thing that goes to someone who's not who doesn't spend their day-to-day uh divorce you know indulging in policy in in in statute and and engaging with people they're just going to assume you're trying to take their guns as a republican so we need to vote you out right yeah yeah that was i mean that's the perfect example it was never that bill was never supposed to pass they sent that to jay nixon you know right away every session oh it's got to get veto going to get vetoed oh look what we did we passed it he vetoed it parson got in there it initially didn't pass it didn't i mean we i think we passed it in may i think the last one of the last two days

104right it finally got over the greenish line and the eyes of folks on the other side of the aisle who voted for it are as wide as mine right now realizing what they'd just done immediately in real time this wasn't supposed to this we weren't supposed to actually take this step that's where they are that that's that's kind of the environment we're in yeah thank you for that insight you're you're i totally understand what you're saying um my next question was um ian you mentioned one of the topics you see coming up in the legislature that affects schools is our transgender students and i'm just curious specifically what you mean by that like in athletics or other are there other areas of education where you see that coming into play um i i think the

105athletic um fight is going to be the biggest we'll see the the health care fight again we'll see maybe some other aspects of it but i think really the biggest push will be that athletic piece because that requires some explanation to folks who don't have any experience with the issue who might be inclined to agree with our view of that issue but who haven't been presented with the facts yet and it requires a lot of a lot of work just like the other issues we've been talking about requires a lot of work on our part to um educate yeah yeah to put folks on notice and and um you know i think we can stop it i really think we can stop it but it will take a lot of effort and it'll take folks

106who the other side doesn't expect to show up i don't really think they expect that to be a school fight you know i think they expect that to be in the social issue camp schools don't usually show up to talk to us about you know social issues in terms of gays guns and abortion those social issues you know schools don't really show up to talk about that and they put it in that bucket they try to um i think they've been surprised even even you know last session and even with covid how many at least written responses they got but even in person how many folks that they didn't think were affected by this showing up and and testifying and i think if schools get involved i think this is the perfect opportunity to get

107rural schools involved too i think that was and i mean that is really where i feel like letter writing and emailing and that impersonal communication can be super effective i i don't know if brian's identified any i haven't really identified any i went to a rural school that has been having a lot of problems with this um i i'm still friends with teachers and counselors down there and friends of their friends and i see what they post on social media and it's awful um and you know maybe there's maybe there's a a teacher in there though that's that's um you know willing to stick their neck out uh maybe there's an administrator willing to do the same so i think that's a great idea i think i think we really need more of that for

108sure yeah thank you yeah yeah so thank you both for coming so just two quick questions on the to follow up on stacy's question about the transgender issue does that is there any possibility that also extends to public expenditure on things like transgender restrooms in schools so that's my first question and then the second is a follow-up to what you guys were talking about as far as legislation becoming hyper partisan in this day and age and and the example that she used about the overreach on the second amendment and does that is that the future of missouri and national politics and in general is that bills will get passed that nobody intends will get passed and then there'll be a walking back of the bill after that as we're seeing now because there are rural

109sheriffs and um you know law enforcement officials that are saying you know we we can't do our jobs well it's going to be it's going to be two sides to it it's going to be legislation and policies and it's going to be folks electing people consistently who aren't really trying to govern but really trying to kind of gaslight their way through through the process so you're going to have folks that'll just go and say you know ban critical race theory vote for me and you know just become really this this cancer in in a body and never govern and like i said it's both sides so i don't know what the answer is but i can tell you there's a lot of smart competent people who don't really have time for it and you're going

110to lose them as elected leaders and then you're going to start finding a lot of people that can just go on some platform say you know ban this or or get rid of this or whatever and here you are so you know it's going to be really i think my time here is to probably i guess do whatever we can to to lead and engage the public as much as we can around issues and hopefully that that translates into folks making the right decisions when they vote because i'll give you one more example that just came to mind that's very important the past couple election cycles we increased minimum wage we dealt with uh ethics reforms um at the state level we passed medical marijuana we've done all these different initiatives that have been voted

111into law you know unanimously they several folks have voted throughout the entire state but then they would turn around and vote for someone who is strongly opposed to all these ballot initiatives so how do you explain that you know and what happens is you just elected someone who is strongly opposed to initiatives that you voted for at the ballot like medicaid expansion so you voted for medicaid expansion then you vote for someone who's strongly opposed to it and then you're confused on why they they tried to to roll it back that's that's just one example on you know and i can't explain the thought process on why it happens but you know you you vote for someone who who wants to roll back medicaid expansion and and and instead you you want it in the

112process so you know it i know it sounds a little bipolar but it's wild yeah and that's what's happening yeah it's it's you know union members voting for donald trump you know we saw a large percentage of that happen right after no one a was another example folks batting down right to work and then donald trump winning the state by 20 points right after it's it's it's a lot of cognitive dissonance and it's um because folks are tribal right now so when they are presented with an opportunity to parse out an issue they'll apply some critical thinking to that make a good decision when it comes to electoral politics tribe tribe tribe tribe tribe and how we get beyond that is really an open question and yeah i do think the bathroom piece will will

113be brought up um the guy that gave the bathroom bill to last year was really incompetent i don't know if they'll give it to him again or if somebody else will take it up but we'll see he knows it too [Laughter] anybody else go ahead itana um i just wanted to say that i really appreciated how you guys mentioned that um like student voices are really going to be valued in this situation because i think um what i hear from a lot of my classmates is that they want to share their stories but they feel like no one's going to listen and like they have nowhere to um take the stories to so yeah i just want to say thank you for mentioning that yeah absolutely and i i don't want to steal you from

114your responsibility here but i have a phenomenal youth advisory board that advises me and we have it on my website we got some awesome people from schools all over the region so if you have time on your busy plate we have some phenomenal leaders that you know from ledu to ferguson flores and all over that advise me on policies they're my boss so if like i said again i don't want to take you from this responsibility but we have an awesome youth advisory board yeah you should do that you should definitely do that um and and um you know email email either or both of us um you know if you go to house.mo.gov you can find our pages our email addresses are our names with that format on the house website email us so

115that we can be in touch with you once you email us i'm i you know and i'm sure brian too will put it in our announcement list that we send out that way you'll you'll get the information about the hearings and we can plan ahead of time you don't have to just randomly drive down there and try to find your way around the building and find out what room and sit in that you know we'll plan how to testify you know we'll plan how to how to um talk to a group of legislators and it's only like three minutes it's really brief um it's a nice experience too it's a little intimidating but it's such a neat experience and it's really cool and and for the the board as well as you uh dr patel

116um i have a website um just senatorbrianwilliams.com and we provide all the updates as well and json things that we're doing in terms of economic development so please check it out it's there for you all it's not there for me so please check it out and again we provide updates i don't know if you're on there or not gary absolutely but we do real-time updates uh we'll be doing a couple town halls one with the league and women voters talking about medicaid expansion um we're doing one on domestic violence awareness month next week i believe and then i also lead the human trafficking day at the capitol and we're doing it virtual so you can get on from anywhere in the state or come up to the capitol if you choose and i work for

117ian and as well as the rest of my colleagues in the senate district in the house so wherever they tell me to be i'm there as well same same and i want to thank both of you for taking the time to be here tonight and truly being for advocates for public education i know every time i've met you you've been very open to the dialogue and you know you have a lot of information and you're not just there to say well this is wrong and this is wrong you actually come to the table with solutions an example of that would be the luncheon that you had where you know that um our young african-american students are struggling and how do we create a safe space for them and you provided an option and a solution

118through the sab chapter that we're looking at actually to create here yeah thank you and and what the superintendent is talking about as i uh hosted a luncheon which ian joined colleagues in the legislature all of the superintendents from this region so all 10 school districts dr patel was there and we had a gentleman named dr bledsoe who is partnering with missouri state in springfield but started an organization called saab which is focusing on a safe space for black males addressing mental health disparity being able to to really promote um positivity among them and and for you to show up it was tremendous and and again i i would argue that's probably oh we had the state board of education there so we have members of the state board there the pamela westbrook's hodge from

119the first congressional district who asked the governor to appoint she's been doing a phenomenal job so far a normandy graduate and i mean again it was it was phenomenal so thanks again for coming absolutely we just appreciate all the options and you know again like i said solutions that you come to the table with so thank you again for being here thank you thank you guys appreciate it not saying one last thing i don't know upstaging but you all did a great job go ahead um i do want to say man i do appreciate you two um for being just being outspoken about these things because you know i i see a lot of a lot of politicians a lot of folks in general who are ambivalent who are apolitical who are scared about these

120things more so the former of the two of the three things but um i do appreciate you all being outspoken about this because it needs to be talked about they need to be addressed and we can't be afraid so thank you all very much i appreciate it absolutely yeah definitely definitely thank you guys for what you do and um like i said reach out we are neighbors you know so yeah you know we live in this community and uh you know jason's one of my fraternity brothers so with cameron so um you know i got a lot of accountability in here and y'all can all vote for me so that's that's a lot of pressure on us but again i thank you all for what you do and and please um stay in touch when

121i tell you it means a lot to hear from you all anyone that's ever dealt with me knows that i take great pride in being accessible and present so does ian i don't normally speak for people but in this instance i am so yeah keep in touch and you know let's grab coffee or whatever you feel appropriate so we can really stay plugged in this upcoming session thank you very much okay that was great gary thanks for um coordinating yeah and i think um i i definitely think we're gonna have to remind each other about that january 8th committee meeting just like be proactive in a way that we haven't before to to stay involved ourselves and be a part of this so i appreciate that that prompting okay um we are on to number

122six which is um the first reading of igcd virtual courses and i gcda hi hello uh so you all approved a version of in december of 2018. and then since then the msba has decided to separate out the missouri course access and virtual school program so mocap from all other virtual courses so igcd would still be the overarching policy for all virtual instruction but then igcda would be specific to mocap so a lot of the changes are just removal of language related to mocap into ig cda and then a couple things addressing student responsibility and behavior when in a virtual setting um so things related to school codes of conduct that we can still investigate things with students related to those and then the display of different things within the family home and how those

123things are addressed so my recommendation is that we move forward with the way that msba has asked us for this i did reach out to msba to talk about from my perspective i don't feel like mocap should be removed because we're supposed to treat mocap exactly the same way that we treat all other virtual pieces their suggestion was while that is true they felt like it was more complex and too complicated when it was all wrapped into one policy so that's why their suggestion is to break it into two so what questions you have for me um does anyone have any questions it looks like one of the policies the appeal process says that the um uh superintendent or designee makes the decision on the appeal and the other one it says that it actually

124goes to the superintendent designee and then to the board should they be the same so the way that the appeal process happens for um mocap is a little bit different um and i we have it posted on our website what what it looks like but the appeal for it is um it actually skips over us and moves straight to you um oh no it goes from us straight to the state i think i have to double check on it but i have it on our website the way that it the way that it is but mocap is handled a little bit differently than like a local appeal kind of thing so yeah i noticed that there were two different appeal processes and i didn't know if they should be the same okay let me follow

125up with msba to make sure thanks um stacy um yeah thanks so on the i think this is the i g c d um it mentions i'm trying to find where uh on page three there's a statement that says before a student independently enrolls in and pays for virtual courses students don't indepen independently pay for so there are a couple virtual courses so i was confused by that there are a couple instances where a student would pay for it individually so if it's above we're required to pay for a course up to a full-time enrollment um so at the high school that's like three credit hours okay if a student decides that they want to take something above a full-time enrollment then the family would be responsible for paying for that or if they want

126to go outside of a mocap provider oh okay thank you um okay i have a couple more um little questions so it mentioned um somewhere on here also about the district will accept all grades earned through the district sponsored virtual instruction and mocap are is our grading scale though how does that work when our if our grading scale in clayton is different from the virtual grading scale yeah so it's the same way that when a student transfers in with seated courses we take it from the grading scale from the school that they attended okay um so the the same thing is true with the mocap providers so however the grade is on the transcript from the provider is how we then transfer the grade in okay okay thank you and um sorry um a couple

127places in here it mentioned district sponsored virtual instruction does that mean or district offered virtual courses clayton doesn't offer virtual courses so correct clayton currently does not have any virtual courses that we teach clayton is in the process of developing virtual courses that we will teach so like currently our district preferred provider is launch right um through springfield through springfield public schools we have been working to develop so like there are several courses at the high school in particular so american government pe health are all courses that we send a lot of kids out so i'm working with our teams right now to develop our own so that we would stop sending kids out and we would provide it within the district okay that would be great but i saw that language and i was

128unsure about that and it mentions in here too about um you know that we can we should be monitoring the like uh what was the wording the quality of the courses and um so i assume like how often are we doing that yeah so the um so when we chose to partner with launch one of the things that our coordinators did was to vet um a lot of the courses so go through so each of our coordinators has gone through and looked at the program of studies and looked at the curriculum with with those courses to determine whether we were in support of it that's how we chose that to be our district preferred provider but a child and a family can make a decision to go to any mocap provider and we don't have

129a lot of control over that what we liked about being able to say that launch was our district preferred provider was to be able to say that our staff has looked at those courses and has worked with that district to talk about what's being offered in those courses so like i as a parent i would feel more comfortable yeah um seeing that it's definitely not the same as a clayton education right um but it does meet states that are standards it meets state standards um and the mocap does do a vetting process of all of the of all of their providers and they just asked districts this past summer to go through and provide feedback on the other providers so we've had some other providers that we haven't had as much success with um that

130families have chosen to go with so i provided that information back to mocap um because my hope is that they're sort of cyclical in their process of determining providers in that sense but we're definitely very much like anything that's vetted and approved by mocap we don't have a lot of control over students choosing to go there right and sorry one more um when it mentions the students adhering to the district's code of conduct which district are they talking about and have you found like have we dealt with any discrepancies as far as like disciplinary issues not adhering to whatever whichever district code of conduct that's referring to right so that language is new um in this version of the policy i'm assuming but i'll double check i'm assuming that they're talking about our district code

131of conduct okay you might want to change that language to say that then because like so that was the local district yeah thank you okay thanks anyone else okay um malina do they i assume there's an attorney comment on igcd at the yeah i guess we're gonna get the answer to that that the yeah the answer is that the the one that they're okay with if it means the district so what they're saying is that when a student transfers in they're talking about who assumes the the cost of the remainder of that course and so if a student transfers in and they're in they're enrolled in a mocap course we would we the district would assume the cost of um the the rest of that course good yeah okay all right then let's um let's

132move oh i'm sorry steve go ahead um so could you who what students are actually using this is this as part of like the alternative school are these homeschooled kids or so the the way that the mocap law is written is that a student has to have been a full-time enrollee within our district prior to having access to these courses so homeschool students don't necessarily fit in that unless they were previously enrolled with us oftentimes before covid the this typically the students in our district that were accessing these courses were high school students mainly and sometimes it would be like a one-off course so sometimes just a graduation requirement sometimes a credit recovery or sometimes if a student was dealing with some sort of a personal issue of some sort that coming to school was

133difficult for them that we had this opportunity to provide to them since covid we have had more access from younger students so more middle school students and when we moved away from our learn at home model last year into this year we have some elementary students enrolled also thank you okay um i guess we are let's talk about the um policy ah use of tobacco and vaping products which has quite an extensive definition list good evening everyone and yes amy that pretty much captures the spirit of the updated policy i mean beef jerky yes so um msba has revised uh policy ah due to house bill 1682 which was passed in 2020 and also based on suggestions from the department of health and senior services tobacco prevention and control program which uh helps to help

134make our schools tobacco and vape free so the proposed changes in this version are actually not required because our current policy is already in alignment to house bill 1682 however this updated policy has some newer language to reflect the interest in taking a stronger stance on the dangers of vaping from school districts across the state so if you were to look on board docs right now to look at what policy ah looked like when it was approved back in 2015 as amy alluded to it's a lot shorter it does not have the definitions that are currently included on this so they define a lot more of the terms um and i also worked on this with uh kim schirone from the allen clinton coalition to get her feedback on it as well any questions gary

135so um question that i had about this and i didn't um i was just sort of comparing the two um just now but there's a reference in here to um long enough that i've now lost my place of course oh smoking cessation products that the reference that the policy does not prohibit adults from using products that are approved by fda for smoking cessation and as it happens there was actually just this week there was some fairly controversial new approvals of some products in in that category which i just happened to have heard about um and i was like oh we're just this is timely we're talking about this and then there's also a reference in that same paragraph robin to students may possess and use those products as allowed under policy jhcd which is the

136basically how you get medicine at school and the process for that and stuff like that so two uh comments or questions i guess i mean one i think the the the context of what is an approved smoking cessation device seems to be a little bit in flux right now so i wonder if we should be considering that and going into this policy and then also maybe i don't understand the other policy well enough but i'm not sure that this is consistent to say students may possess these products as a loud energy hcd i don't think they're allowed to possess those products under jhcd because the whole process is that this we it's how they can those medications can be administered when they're at school so that seems like a little bit of a conflict to

137me i'm not sure if it maybe i don't understand it well enough but it just sort of raised a little bit of a question for me so yeah i can take a closer look at that because we did just um if i remember correctly jhcd i think was up was updated sometime in the last 12 months so maybe that they're inconsistent with yeah i will double check that and also i will do some research on the approved smoking cessation products one thing i learned in this process is that actually this region does not have any um vaping cessation opportunities for youth so that is a programmatic gap in our region so while smoking of cigarettes and you know other substances those supports are available there's nothing currently available for youth related to vaping yeah go

138ahead kim yeah so to amy's point i'm i guess i'm a little perplexed on why we struck imitation tobacco products from the title but then we leave it in the body of the definitions and then you know why we strike electronic cigarettes but we leave imitation tobacco products in it seems like bubble gum shredded bubble gum that resembles chewing tobacco is probably less dangerous than electronics that are cigarettes i do i am not well versed in the transition away from the term e-cigarettes except for that i know i i don't know if it's kind of a relevance and change over time if the terminology has evolved what he did learn though is that with the imitation tobacco products a little bit more than 10 years ago the fda banned the use of kind of like

139the marketing of candy cigarettes so they're actually still produced but they aren't called that anymore and so the spirit of those changes um in the with the imitation tobacco products was a movement that felt that by allowing those candy products to still be available that it would desensitize youth to the dangers of tobacco and influence their choices as adults so i don't know if that's perhaps a vestige of that so then shouldn't it remain in the title yes we can include it i mean i just think if it's included in the policy and and the body of the policy it seems strange to strike it from the title i think it's oh sorry i thought had the same thought and then i found e-cigarettes and imitation like they're not just they're not they're under vaping

140vapor products the less specific the more specific right it's a type of vapor product i think is like it was listed in all the vapor products so i thought maybe that was what it seems like that was the intent of it very confusing so i think tobacco and vaping products includes imitation tobacco products and e-cigarettes like those are all listed below in the paragraph so i think that's probably what it was i was confused by that too so we can add it back in if we feel like that would make it clear or we can leave it as is just well you can research us yeah i think i think the the point is we want to make sure it's it's broad enough to include it whether it's in the title or not i think

141is i i read this to mean that the change in the title was because it was other things were being added that didn't fit into imitation tobacco products if that's not the case then maybe we need to revisit the title as well but i think the point is that we're including all of those things in the things that we're controlling right so yeah that's a good point so it was just looking at the title of the old one to see if it was which is interesting because we currently it's posted as use of tobacco and vaping products online so just real quick this is just this one about candy cigarettes that kind of used to eat without little dudes interesting man that's interesting no i mean it makes sense that makes sense yeah okay yes

142and beef jerky okay learn something new yes you do um all right thank you robin okay so we are on i think number seven which is uh our action items go i move that the board of education approved the personnel item listed below for sarah miller second it's been moved and seconded are there any comments all in favor any opposed motion passes okay we could probably go go ahead with the consent agenda we have a quorum yeah i moved that the board of education approved the consent agenda 8.02 through 8.12 second i have a question on 806 the professional service vendor contract for the clayton high school library i would admit that proposal went out when the board was not meeting over the or maybe right after we met in the beginning of september and

143it looks like there were six bids that were returned back but we don't have a range of bids we just have that the board has picked board architects fund bond architects do we have any idea what that range of bids was and where bond is because i would expect that's a fairly large proposal compared to you know some of these other smaller things although the auditorium lighting is pretty big too but that needs to be done to be in compliance uh i do not know the um proposal in terms of how what the range was on it i believe right now it was just the rfq so i'm not sure if they even actually submitted a range specifically it was more just about the qualifications and are they meeting the criteria for it okay i

144mean it just seems like once you choose which architect you're going to pick and they do the study that you end up with that architect regardless of whether they are the highest or the lowest bidder at the end of the day no well the point of clarification bob was the architect for the study of why down middle school and the different architect was pitch designed uh okay middle school okay that's good okay so there is some like future checks and balances that we get to do there okay great that was the only ques that was the only one because i know that that's going to be a multi-million dollar probably project by the time it the board sees it okay um all in favor all right any opposed okay motion passes unanimously and we are

145on to are we on to public comment wow okay hi chris good evening uh so we have six six submissions for public comment this evening uh the first comment this evening is from lynn quarter lynn writes i wanted to write a note of appreciation for the detailed information that cameron poole presented at the last board meeting and for all the work he and others are engaging in to create a more equitable district for our students and families at clayton i was especially excited to hear about the equity and excellence master certificate partnership and also love seeing the data on percentage of new faculty diverse hires i believe that hiring and retaining a diverse teaching staff is beneficial for all of our students in clayton i also appreciated jason wilson directing our attention to the discontinuation

146of the vic program and the question of what our plan will look like as we move forward without that program in place i look forward to hearing more in the coming months diversity in our schools is something that i value immensely and as a clayton parent and alumni thank you to the board for your continued commitment to diversity equity inclusion and a bar work in our district second comment is from amber kempf it reads my name is amber kempf and i'm a resident of clayton and the parent of a sixth grader at wydown my son started in the district first at the family center and then at glen ridge before arriving at wydown i have been following the work of cameron poole our chief equity and inclusion officer and was happy to hear the la

147here at the last board meeting a detailed report of all the hard work he and other staff and administration have been doing i'm especially grateful for his obvious support of all of our teachers staff students and parents as they are learning and building their capacity to support individual inclusive and equitable learning experience experiences for all of our students i see mr poole is constructing a solid plan to build upon the equity and inclusion initiatives of our district's strategic plan that this school board our past and current administration students teachers parents and the greater clayton community has been advocating for and working towards the past several years we still have much work to do and i am happy to see a good foundation based upon data science and thoughtful planning being laid to support that work

148i am writing this comment not as an educator an expert in issues of social justice or someone that has a deep understanding of the science and data that so clearly shows what equitable and inclusive education is absolutely critical to both the learning and emotional well-being of every single one of our students i'm instead writing this comment as the mother of a white son and a white parent who only recently has been fortunate enough to have educational opportunities offers to build my own emotional capacity and support to understand how deep and pervasive racism is in our country and the history laws and systems maintaining it i appreciate this district for often being the source of that learning for me i am grateful to the district that my son will not have to wait so long to

149learn this truth and his educational experience will mirror the learning i am trying to provide at home about issues of racial and social justice i am happy to support him and everyone in this community as we all learn together even if that learning can sometimes be hard and cause discomfort we live in a time when lies are peddled as truth and folks often allow their fear and ignorance to overcome their better judgment however as a collective we are stronger than a few loud angry fearful misinformed people who clearly do not understand the importance of our community places on making clayton both a place where everyone is welcome and there is a true sense of belonging for all thank you to the board and all who continue this work my family and i believe the greater

150community of clayton supports you in teaching our children how to listen to each other feel and process their feelings in a healthy way and think critically about social justice our next comment is from marny dillard marnie writes my family received a flyer written by someone who remained anonymous that was intended to spread disinformation about efforts being made by the clayton school district to improve the quality of education for all of our students i want to make it clear that as a parent of a white owned student i am in full support of giving our teachers the freedom to teach our students the truth about our country's past and present issues surrounding systemic racism it is only through a thorough understanding of both our troubled past and our current challenges that our children will be able

151to move this country forward thank you next comment is from ronald mallon ronald writes i understand that there has been nationally a great deal of public concern over material surrounding the history of race and racism in america that is taught in public schools as a clayton parent i want to say that i support the teaching of age-appropriate truthful history to our students a truthful history should of course indicate our various individual and collective achievements but it should also not shy away from difficult and painful subjects including especially acknowledging the history and reality of racial oppression in the united states i am not looking for our students to be taught a particular contentious political viewpoint but rather i ask for them to be taught accurate american history the good and the bad and to acquire the

152ability to reflect upon communicate and act upon this knowledge in the circumstances that the future brings finally i ask for the school board to stand up for our schools educators and students in the face of criticism of this mission to provide a frank and accurate understanding of our history to our children next comment is from melissa pillow melissa writes i am writing today on behalf of our family's ongoing learning and support of the school district of clayton equity diversity and inclusion work the anti-crt movement is founded funded and fueled by racism this is not a time or place where we can afford to grant false equivalency to both sides i expect the district to exhibit strong information literacy leadership and protect our teachers and students from this misinformation and propaganda campaign when taught embraced and

153supported by a school and community when integrated and scaffolded from grade to grade anti-racist learning poses no threat or adverse outcomes for our white children the impact of racism on the other hand harms us all in particular racism produces acute and sustained trauma and is literally life or death for our families of color i value the work cameron pool is spearheading for the district our students of color and other children who are marginalized need to see real structural change i want to see our community pull together and support families who are struggling with these both and concepts about our country's heart history alongside their children i want our school to show that communities can stand together learn together and grow together i want to see us actively and emphatically resist the influence of outside groups

154who are intentionally preying on local individual discontent to bolster a movement against teaching anything about our nation's hearts truths anti-racist learning can make some students and their families feel uncomfortable they may struggle with new concepts they might shut down and express denial of their need to learn to learn it at all they may get angry defensive or just express sadness or shame all of these things can happen in the best learning environments and about many topics our vulnerable planet new math pe when new learning is having this effect on your child it can be heartbreaking yet as a white parent with two white children it is when it this is when we acknowledge that this is learning this learning is hard for us to do we try harder pull in more differentiated resources we do

155not give up and we certainly do not allow racist propaganda to distract us and divide us to stunt our educational growth nationally this contrived coordinated anti-crt movement is drawing professional and personal energy away from the teaching that needs to happen i expect the district to one continue teaching heart history two continue supporting students of color and other children who are marginalized by the dominant culture three protect our students and teachers as they face explicit and implicit criticism for this teaching and learning and existing and four hold up models of learning from within our community that validate both and concepts we are one clayton with many different experiences our children deserve to see what it looks like when community is fostered and created making our schools a truly truly a place for everyone and our final

156final comment this evening comes from janelle lamarck as a white parent of two white students attending clayton schools i am grateful to the district for showing honest and accurate portrayals of america's often troubling racial past and presence my children benefit from learning true history i expect the school board to continue to support teachers who do this work and not allow absurd disinformation campaigns to push censorship in our classrooms and that's all okay um thank you and we are on to board communications um [Music] joe do you want to update us on the financial advisory committee meeting sure um we had the financial advisory um committee meeting amy and kim and i were there and of course nisha and then the advisory folks really the typically what we've done with that is have a hypothesis and

157then kind of have the committee members react and so the hypothesis was around the addition of mental health and social emotional learning supports that was presented and there was some i guess good feedback and uh there's i guess more information that needs to be created that's what i would say i think that's right okay um parks and rec um yes the parks and recs met again um last monday it was a notable meeting because it was the first one that was held in person in about a year and a half we actually met under the enterprise pavilion in shop park so a good conversation updates from from patty and her staff kind of again a lot of talk about the upcoming master planning process and they also commissions turning its attention to what might happen

158in terms of budget for the city and things like that so there was some good conversations including around the center of clayton i think it's always a good opportunity to talk with people about that entity and that that facility and what it exists for and what it does for both the city and the school district so i thought that was was a really good conversation and i've only i haven't been to one of those meetings in person in the year plus i've been a representative of that committee so i hadn't even met some of those people so that was that was nice frankly thank you for going i did forget that it was not a zoom meeting until about 10 minutes before so i rushed there from my office downtown well at least you got

159there right that's right better late than never um anybody does anybody else have any updates they'd like to share okay and i guess we're going to adjourn folks i move that the board of education adjourn second all in favor hi hi motion passes