10/14/2020 BOE Meeting

001all right i think we're good to go okay welcome everybody uh adequate notice has been given and uh we're gonna start with the pledge of allegiance to that uh flag behind sean whoops pledge allegiance to the flag of the united united states of america and to the republic for which he stands one nation nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so we are going to start with recognizing our own and um is that shawn and robin thank you well good evening everyone um as we always do it our board meeting we try to recognize our own we try to recognize our students we try to recognize our staff and tonight uh we are recognizing some very important people in our different and one of the reasons why we want to

002recognize these individuals tonight is for reasons one because we're celebrating a very important event during the month of october but then the other reason why is because uh since we have been uh remote learning and response as part of a return to learn plan our special school district staff has done an amazing job of trying to make sure that they are providing services and needs and supports to our students in person with our students as as they can and i just it's been amazing so i want to start by recognizing leadership and i'm going to have leadership recognize of introduced teachers so i'm going to start by recognizing our director of special education for the central re region and that's d'andrea player so d'andrea if you could turn on your there she is if you

003could just wave your hand a little bit so we can see you and then we also have melissa logan who is our area coordinator district-wide for the school district of clayton and then we have kate pavlison who is our lead teacher district-wide for the district and i just want to take a few moments to say thank you to our district leadership our all of you have had such an impact in all of our schools and with our programming and i will say that we really work to try to be even though we're two districts we try to act as one and it's very easy to be able to do that with such strong leadership so we want to thank you um and then i'm gonna have uh melissa uh introduce our teachers who are here

004because our teachers are the ones who are working directly with our uh students and so want to recognize them and these are teachers that were recognizing as a representation of all of our special education teachers because we couldn't have them all here so we thought we would bring a few in just to recognize them as a symbolic way to say thank you so um melissa can you introduce our teachers yes thank you sean um so i would like to introduce darcy and she is our occupational therapist for the district she recently joined this year to clayton we also have um annette trantonella who is a speech and language pathologist at merrimack elementary we have tess buchter who is a new teacher at wydown middle school and last but not least we have jane sweeney who

005is the speech and language pathologist at why down to joining us and i just wanted to share um how proud i am of our staff to provide such um quality instruction and in-person services to our students i wanted to share that we have over 43 staff members coming in to provide the services to the students we also have over 50 kid students coming into the buildings for the services and the support families and students have been very appreciative of this opportunity and i thank robin for helping making this happen thank you so much melissa and thank you for your leadership for uh making that happen and i will say that doesn't happen everywhere and and i really want to say thank you to the dedication of our leadership and our teachers but uh we also

006need to recognize some other very important people who we work in partnership with to make sure that we're always striving to be uh the best in terms of serving our students and so robin do you want to take a few moments and recognize our pac-ed group yes thank you sean um it's a pleasure to be able to recognize the community leaders of pac-ed which stands for parent advisory council of children with educational diversity tonight we welcome chairperson christina blankenship steering committee member chris nguyen communications chairperson tawny jackson whitlock and graphics coordinator beth gracie pacquad has been an invaluable resource to families who are new to special education and they've provided such a supportive network for our district parents and so while the pandemic has impacted some of the activities that we had planned together in

007the spring this group has just really continued uh to keep the community updated on the resources available through ssd and um the different inclusive programming activities available through other community based organizations in our region the team has been busy updating their website so i'd encourage folks to take a look at that they've also been doing some work to support coordinated communication between the school district of clayton and ssd's initiative and they do have some parent networking socials in the works that'll be zoom meetings and so i hope that families will take a look at their website and be in touch with the packet leadership team um about those upcoming events so they can join um so again i just want to thank our packhead leaders uh just for your continued efforts to build a strong

008community for our families and our students thank you thank you we want to echo and we are truly truly appreciative of the partnership that we have with you and so on behalf of the administration and the board of education we would like to say recognize our leaders our teachers and our parent partners uh during this very unusual time and very special month and we just want to say thank you for all that you do to make sure that you hold us accountable for making us the very best district for our students and also just doing whatever it takes to for our students so thank you thank you awesome thank you and on behalf of the board i want to thank you all too it's really amazing to see the work that you have done and

009continue to do so thank thank you to each of you i think it's it's certainly part of what makes clayton a special place in a special district so thank you thanks to each of you we are going to um move on to 3.01 which is the disability history and awareness month and i think that maybe is that you sean or is it robin because i know we have a i don't know if you want to say something i know we have a proclamation i'm happy to read robin could you give just a little background and then um we could move just so that before we uh have the board approve that yeah so the month of october has been designated as disabilities history and awareness month in the state of missouri and so um the

010board of education in the school district of clayton is being asked to formally support this designation in the district awesome thank you and and i'll read the uh proclamation that we have um just for the board and we're going to ask the board to approve it but it's disability history and awareness month october 2020 the month of october has been designated as disability history and awareness month in the state of missouri a resolution designates the third week of october of every year as disability history and awareness week and encouraging our schools to provide instruction on disability history people with disabilities and the disability rights movement whereas there are approximately 126 thousand students with disabilities educated by missouri public schools and whereas the american with disabilities act of 1990 is founded on four principles inclusion full

011participation economic self-sufficiency and equality of opportunity for all people with disabilities and whereas a key method of promoting these four principles is for our schools to recognize the contributions by people with disabilities to our society and provide instruction in disability history people with disabilities and the disability rights movement through school curriculum school assemblies and other school activities and now therefore be it resolved by the school board of clayton missouri that the board urges our schools to provide intensive instruction on disability history people with disabilities and the disability rights movement especially during the third week of october and periodically throughout the school year and encourages other institutions to conduct and promote educational activities on those subjects and of course we're asking the board to approve it and so gary you want to read the motion yes

012i move that the board of education declares the month of october 2020 as disabilities history and awareness month as a way of encouraging the district to take time to honor students with disabilities as well as the professionals who work with them to provide exemplary learning experiences in the school district of clayton their second second it's been moved and seconded any comments or questions all in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously thank you so we're going to move on then um to sean to the superintendent communication thank you i am going to share my screen i practice this all the time so uh there we go okay thank you so much uh good evening everyone again um and so tonight what i want to do as part of my superintendent communications is

013to continue to make sure that i'm keeping the board updated on the work that we're doing around our responsive learning plan and uh that is a big focus for us right now in terms of transitioning our students continuing to do our uh remote learning and also thinking about what's next and so but i also want to make sure that the board understands that we're not just putting everything else on pause as well so we're continuing to look at ways that we can um um we're focusing on our work around equity our anti-bias anti-racism work we're looking at our capital safety improvement plans that we promised the community that we would be putting in place as part of our prop e we're looking at our curriculum and instruction and differentiation so this does continue to be

014the the main focus in terms of our responsive learning but we also are moving forward with other projects and other things that are priorities for us as a district and when we are thinking about our return to learn i do want to say just quickly thank you to the board for all of your support um and trust as we have been moving forward in these unprecedented times and um i was at straubs the other day and one of the cookies when i and the bakery said looking forward to precedent at times and so it's um it's uh if this is kind of an unusual time and i know that the board has been very supportive of some of the changes that we've had to implement both financially and just with additional encouragement so what is

015our current reality right now uh we started our transition with our kindergarten students last week and that was included with that was an orientation for our students and then also them starting full days and so uh it was great to see uh all this all the people who were skipping down the street uh last week and those that was just the parents as we were walking to school um last week and so this week we have had our first and second grade students go through an orientation process and then they started back full days on tuesday and so they will finish out this week and continue on and i have been had the opportunity to go through all of the schools over the last two weeks and all the elementary schools and i have been

016just so impressed by our teachers and also our facility staff who have been working to make sure that we're providing a very safe environment and our teachers are having to adapt to a new learning environment that's very different than when they left it in march and so uh really have been very appreciative of our elementary teachers and then next week we will have orientations for our third through fifth grade students and starting on october 26th we will have all of them start in full days and so um now as part of this transition for our elementary schools we have been learning from them and also planning for our secondary schools which includes wydown and the high school and i just think it's important for us to recognize and put it out there that this this

017all of these changes that have happened with the pandemic are big they're big transitions and so last year uh in the spring we had a transition to remote learning in an emergency setting and then we had that we learned from that and then we transitioned to a remote setting that was more synchronous and so that teachers had to learn how to do that and then now we're transitioning into how to teach in an environment that's socially distanced and has different procedures than what we've had and so i just need to recognize that this is a big deal and that we're having to do a lot and it does take a lot of emotional energy and i want to just recognize that people are uh really dedicated to it the other part of our current reality

018is that we are constantly monitoring um our data we concentrate to monitor the data for st louis county we can't monitor the data for uh clayton we also monitor just the data for what that's happening within our schools and we're trying to be as transparent about that data on our website and the reality is we know that not everyone lives within the zip codes that are within clayton and so it's important for us to look at st louis county um i think it's important also to put out there is that we are as part of this process for managing risk through our risk mitigation and our health promotion procedures and that there are going to be times where we are going to have positive cases within our community and there are going to be times

019that people are going to have to be quarantined and we have plans for that i have been very appreciative that we have a really strong nursing staff and communications department who are working with the contact tracing and the communication that has to go out when we do have cases and so we have been trying to be as proactive as possible to be prepared for that and also consistently monitoring the data so that way we can make informed decisions i do get questions about the why uh and why we're returning and um i think it's important to know that we did get the recommendation from st louis county health and so we have uh even before we got that recommendation we have been saying since the beginning of the year is that our goal was to

020try to get to uh the second quarter and to transition back and also give our students the opportunity to stay in the learning and home model uh we have connect we have also seen that there's data that supports that decision and it's connected to cdc guidelines and we are monitoring that because if something should happen that we are having to look at that data and there's a major change we know how to pivot back to remote learning if needed we also feel it's important that it's this going back to school is going to be providing us more opportunities to provide support and feedback to our students we know our teachers are doing a great job in remote learning but also there's something different about being present with students we also know those interpersonal interactions are

021are critical to a student's success and their learning i i will say that i've observed this week in in classrooms and seeing how people how the students have been able to interact with their teachers i've had teachers say to me you know i didn't actually pick up on this until i got them in person and got to see where they are in terms of a learner and it there is you do learn more about your students when they're in person um we also are making sure we're taking care of the social emotional well-being of our students and giving them time to be able to interact with one another beyond just on a screen and then we also need can again i said attend to the students needs in a direct way the other why is

022the other is the other reason behind this is that our schools have are safe and when we've talked to our medical professionals who have been giving us advice they said that you are putting the right risk mitigation measures in place and you're also and you're providing safe spaces for them and that they're it's okay for them to return so um those are some of our whys now some considerations for our secondary is that this is going to be different than our elementary schools as i've told the board in the past we had did a comprehensive analysis of all of our buildings to see what was the capacity for our stu schools and we were able to look at social distancing and using that that measure of six feet and we were able to do that

023at the elementary schools with our space the middle school and the high school a little different and we are going to have to take into consideration that to have social distancing is um we will have to think about a different type of schedule where not everyone's in the building at the same time um the other thing is is that people have said that you know you can you can uh go back and forth in terms of you know what that space actually looks like we are going to try to use six feet as our standard and continue to uh look at that in our classrooms and we know that one of the most important things we could do for our students is wearing face coverings and so um beyond just the social distancing we are

024going to have other risk mitigation measures in place that are going to protect our students the other thing is that we want to when we were considering the secondary want to make sure we're having continuity of learning we purposely went to a synchronous model so that way we could have continuity of learning for our students each and every day and we're looking at how we can do that in a way in our schools um so that way we're not having uh such a disruption to to their continued learning we also feel that it's important to think about if we can do this can we do it in a way that's gonna be daily in terms of students having the opportunities to come daily into our schools and because we know that's really important for relationships

025and also for their understanding of content and their instruction and then the other consideration is that we have been proactive about making sure we have the right technology toolkits in place because live streaming will be a component of our of our plan which means that we will have students who are at home who are live streaming who will get a live stream of what's happening in the classroom so we're taking all those considerations in place for the secondary return and we know that there are um we know that not any there's not one perfect schedule and calendar that is going to be out there all of them have benefits and challenges and we're working to try to do what's what's best for our our school and um and when we're doing that is that we

026know that we have to take into consideration a lot of different information we need to make informed decisions not only do we look at the data that's happening within the region but we've been able to meet with leadership teams at both hawaii down and the high school and leadership the teacher leaders within those groups have given us information that have challenged our thinking and have caused us to pivot and think differently about the schedules that we've been trying to look at and so um we've also gotten input and emails from teachers what what's wonderful about our community is that they're not afraid to give their input and we do take that input and look at it and we take that we looked at it as that as a strength um but we know that we

027can't take into consideration every single aspect of every want that everyone has um we have taken the input that we've gotten from the the schools we've taken those into consider consideration we've made some changes and again i said we look at the data analysis and the positivity rates and then we also have the opportunity to learn it learn from the people who have already in the region who have done some things to effectively do this or to look from look for uh some things that didn't work well and how we can take that information and that's been a real benefit of having weekly superintendent meetings there i get to work with uh superintendents around the region and different counties uh that have given us information about some things that we need to consider and then

028the other thing is is that we're still going to be figuring out a way to honor the learning at home option for our students so that way if those family those students that are not able to or families who don't feel comfortable returning we still have that option so what could it possibly look like and so i don't have a schedule for you yet because we don't have it finalized what we are doing right now is taking a lot of information from people looking at um take getting that input thinking about how we are going to get some continued information on friday during our professional development day and we know that we're looking at a way for us to develop a schedule that's going to allow students to come in every day to school that

029might mean that it's not a full day of school it might mean that it's an alternative schedule and but we're also looking at ways to have reduced number of students in our building so that way we have social distancing and the other thing we know is that we're not going to be starting this second quarter on we're not starting the return on october 26th but that is the first day of the second quarter but we do need some additional time uh for some of the transitions and we also feel that um we want to make sure that we're absolutely prepared before moving back into a model um and so i look at this whatever model that we're we're going to be implementing as a stepping stone to uh our return to learn when we are

030able to bring everyone back uh i do want to just remind the board that we can we are taking consideration um all of those things for risk mitigation like the the ppe the face coverings we've bought additional barriers for students at their desk um we're continuing to do social distancing within the classrooms uh the orientations i got a lot of feedback from people that they felt that they uh the orientations were a good uh step in the right direction because it gave people kind of a an idea and the videos that we created were an idea gave people an idea what the classrooms were going to look like and then we're continuing to look at the best ways that we're going to uh make sure that we're cleaning our buildings as throughout the day and

031making sure that not every not just the adults but all the students also have ownership and and making sure we have a safe environment uh through them contributing to that um and again as i said before why do we feel comfortable about students returning is because we have put it the right measures in place we've getting advice from medical experts uh we feel that our buildings are been ready at the elementary level we still have a few things to do at the secondary level but feel confident about that we're seeing others are making it happen and then we're also being thoughtful about staffing and making sure we have the right people in our classrooms and the right medical support within our within our um offices so i'm gonna stop right there and to see if

032you had any questions um and any clarifying questions or anything that's pertaining to our return to learn at a time like this does anybody um [Music] have any questions and and maybe i'll just call on folks because i can't see with when if you share this right now on your screen it makes it yeah thank you so i'll just start stacy any clarifying questions um no i'm just curious have you had any families change their minds from their original choice like at the elementary level now that we're going back yes and so when we put out the communication for the elementary level we told people they had the choice and so we gave them the opportunity to move from responsive learning to uh learning at home and back and forth and so but we were

033very clear about what that meant so that might mean that you have a different teacher it might mean that you're going to have a different um schedule and so it um and what happened is that it actually was a complete wash so the people who wanted to move back into the buildings were able to accommodate them and those people who want to stay and so the numbers were almost exactly the same okay great thanks kim any questions sean how are we collecting data for the number of affected students is it is it self-reported voluntarily self-reported or is the county collecting that data and the reason i ask is i know of a positive case with a fifth grader that isn't reflected in your current numbers so i'm just wondering if we maybe need a hotline

034for school for self-reporting if we're relying on the county for that data so yes we are reporting on um people self-reporting um but i um we'll follow up with chris and heather about that as well because they are taking care of that data but i appreciate letting us know about that jason any questions no no questions thanks caitlin any questions thank you david any questions uh just one and sean i i realize you may not have this at your fingertips but it did um everything go well with the elementary installation and the building of the um hvac modifications i think we're still and i i think that um i don't have all that information right in front of you i still think we're in some of the process of some of our buildings um but

035i don't have that right in front of me right now so i apologize oh there's mary jo from my understanding [Music] um we are for with kindergarten through third grade and working on the fourth and fifth grade as they come back next week and i think uh they're also finished with family center so i i'll continue to follow up on it and i will email you directly david but that's where i know we're at right now thanks thank you gary any questions okay amy any questions i um i just have a quick question and sean i apologize if you already answered this question i didn't hear it but i'm wondering about the kids um that ride the bus the vic students if there's been any thought as to the bus and social distancing and who's

036kind of because it's hard to monitor that if if there's a plan in place or if there's any thoughts on it yeah and so we are um looking at wait yes we are whatever schedule we come up with we're able to accommodate our students who who ride the bus to school we do have students who are part of the voluntary transfer program who ride the bus to school their parents also have the option of bringing them to school if they want to we also have a bus that takes students to merrimack and then we um so we have been making sure that we have the right procedures in place in terms of assigned seating we're trying to social distance as much as possible there and um and so we are put we've we've thought about

037those things as well and we're able to whatever schedule we're able to that we devise we are we are going to be able to accommodate the students so that they can have that transportation awesome thanks and and and i don't have any questions sean just want to say um thank you to you and your team i know you guys are working tirelessly um on the best way for all of our students to uh return to school which is uh you know eventually is the objective the overall objective of us all so thank you so um the only other thing i want to say is that tonight as i said earlier is that our work is continued around equity and and working to develop a culture of anti-bias anti-racism and and so tonight we are very

038fortunate to get our first update from our director of equity and inclusion and i know that that's later down on the agenda but i i do want to just point out that um when we're talking about this work it takes a it's it's about developing collegiality with one another and being being able to create brave spaces and um and also being able to create vulnerability because as a district we have to take a really close look at ourselves and being able to say you know what that's something that we need to address and that's something that we need to develop develop do right away and so i just want to say tonight is that our focus on our report is around racial equity and the reason why we're focusing on that is that in our

039data that we show is that that is an area that we continue to need to improve upon that's uh in terms of access and and thinking about um students achievement and also the social emotional well-being of our students and so i wanted to let you know that that is the focus of our um of our work tonight and just really thinking about how we're building on our past to move forward in the future and we're so fortunate to have um cameron poole who's going to be joining us later uh to help us move it move into the future so um and we it takes all of us to be a part of that including the board the administration teachers and the students so and now i'm going to turn it over to caitlyn and um

040to see if she has a report and caitlyn might be a little tired today she took the p s 18 yeah so today i'll be talking about how teachers are innovating ways for students to have physical learning experiences even during virtual school so this has primarily been in the form of science labs which gives students an opportunity to go outside and be creative with the materials they can use for the labs so some examples are that in a ep environmental science they did a lab in the nearby park to measure biodiversity and they use tools that you could find outside like sticks and grass for ap biology there was a lab where we measured 30 samples of something alive to find a natural variation and explore that concept and also in some of the honors

041american literature classes they had a typography writing assignment where they went outside and wrote about a natural object and then connected that to a religious concept and i've heard that students have really enjoyed these opportunities and like having these screen breaks in order to do their schoolwork outside and enjoy nature and for orchestra they had an optional in-person rehearsal which was using social distancing and masks and the orchestra members seemed to like this and said that it was nice to hear each other play again and some upcoming events that the students have are that yes the juniors took the psat today at school and speech and debate will be attending their first full tournament which is hosted by francis howell north and will be virtual and that starts october 21st and on the side of

042student leadership then we met with the middle school district advisory council for our first meeting and we will continuing we will continue to be meeting thank you caitlyn so we are going to move on to our study items so 6.01 is the first reading of policy ic which is the academic calendar so i'm assuming that's probably milena right it's actually chris i'm sorry chris it's a christian did you just give a brief overview and we'll see if the board has any questions pertaining to this policy uh yeah absolutely happy to do that um the policy i see just makes two two main changes to um to the requirements and the policy that's already in place regarding the academic calendar uh first it includes language kind of related to a lot of the pandemic issues that

043districts are dealing with right now clarifying when is the board's role and opportunity to make decisions related to school closures and then it also includes language to ensure that the district has an ami an alternative method of instruction plan in place to continue learning when school is closed or canceled for an extended period of time thanks chris so i'm just going to go through amy any questions so my only question was um on page four at the top president it it looks like the new language says indicates that the board need that now we're making the final decision on amendments to the board adopted calendar so i mean i guess my question is like with all this covid stuff is that a change from what we've been been doing do we need to change our

044process somehow to comply with this policy yeah yeah that's a that's a great question um so that that does change a little bit of what of what the practice is i guess if you look at the the three parts of that last sentence it talks about the board being involved in uh amendments to the calendar um closures that are expected to last longer than a week and decisions to end the school calendar early two of those three so the very first thing so amendments of the calendar and then decisions to end the school year calendar would actually involve changing the calendar which is actually something that the board has to approve as any changes um to the calendar so that that middle piece um is just put in there to to deal with school closures

045that are expected to last longer than a week um what i'm not entirely clear on is you know we've yet to actually close school at any point during this pandemic other than you know a day or two back in the spring to to try to get ready for our emergency remote learning so i i'm not sure if if we think about you know the decisions that we made beginning the school year system we made last spring in terms of transitioning to remote learning those really aren't decisions that are that are closing school as much as they are decisions about how uh what's the best way for us to deliver teaching and learning you know in in the current pandemic environment so amy can i add on to that i i was really going through these

046again before the meeting and i that hit me too when i right before the meeting and i um i'm wondering about um i am i feel like we do need a clarification on that about whether or not that means closing school or closing our buildings and going into remote learning because that would be different than what we've been doing in the past and i think we need a clarification on that um gary any questions no i i do think um given that this the the summary or the information that we have just suggests that it's coming from sba we probably should clarify what they were meaning by that whether closing school means closing it physically or just entirely and i can't think of why else they would have prompted this change right now [Music] other

047than what's happened in the last few months so i think that would be good to get more input on great thanks david any questions thank you caitlyn any questions yeah jason thank you jason any questions no thank you kim any questions okay thanks stacey any questions no i i had the same question as amy but i would say that the first sentence of that paragraph does say decision to close school buildings so let's definitely check on it great thanks and i i agree i think it would be good to clarify that so i don't think any thank you chris appreciate it so we're going to move on to our next uh study item actually the next two are melana so sorry i mixed that up but um this is a 6.02 the first reading of

048policy ihb which is class size good evening so the the change in the class size policy is really related to if a student is attending a school that loses accreditation and the transfer into another school in that system or another school in an adjoining system and it's on the last page is the big change and it just talks about that the district would allow the transfer as long as it does not result in a class size that exceeds the standards set by the state so when you look at our class size standard in comparison to deci standards our class size standards are actually smaller than decis so we did reach out to msba to get some clarification on do ours which class size standard is the one that we would use and their interpretation right

049now is that we would use deci's standard but deci has two standards so they have a class size standard and then a desirable standard and when i asked the question about which one um they would use they did not have an answer for us they said until until this happens that a school would be found unaccredited they don't feel like there's much direction from the state on it right now great thank you melana stacy any questions um yes so sin because of what you just said molina and it says msba does not recommend that we officially adopt these standards do you do you recommend that we um [Music] vote in favor of this or not or not vote on it yet yeah when we talked to the lawyer she said because of the fact that

050it's tied to the house bill that we should go ahead and move forward with it um and that we would get more direction if this becomes a a situation if it becomes a law i guess okay well if if a district becomes unaccredited yeah okay thanks thanks uh kim any questions how much what is the difference between the two different standards and our standard and so you see classes yeah so you see our standard on page three um for decis their standard for k through 2 is 25 and the desirable standard is 17. for third through fourth grade is 27 and their desirable standard is 20. fifth through six is 30 and 22 and 7 through 12 is 33 and 25 so as the students age up it's significantly larger than what our preferred standard

051is thank you jason any questions yeah can you hear me pretty well okay so yeah so what's the origin of this change i don't really understand like um uh like where it's coming from like why are we like what what is the what is the change and what you know what's the origin of the change you know millennial it's coming from that house bill 604 um and i i'm not sure why it's coming like at this time um because it feels like something that probably should have come a while ago um and and i didn't get any clarification for them as to why it's coming at this time yeah so that's so i i don't you know i look online i don't see anything either of course play with me it's kind of fairly new

052it's not really uh resolved but um i didn't see anything either which which also makes me skeptical about why he decided because the the um the communities that are most impacted are ones that are obviously uh poor um and strongly and african-american um so i i i'm not sure if i understand where it's coming from why now and what's the origin origin of it i thought yeah so i just need more information before we before i personally am going to say yes i don't want to go behind this okay so i'll seek out some more clarity for that for you well malaya can i ask you a clarifying question on what jason just said so um but the way the way that i'm reading this this would um this would this say it says that

053uh if a school becomes unaccredited that the kids from the unaccredited district um would would be eligible to transfer to um into our school district which is i think what which i think is a good thing right which is what we i mean we we you know that's what happened with normandy and riverview and those kids still are in clayton um that chose to stay in clayton but i mean if a situation like that would arise again this is it's basically uh reiterating that those children would be able to to transfer into our schools correct am i reading this wrong right the one thing that i wonder about that jason's also jason i wonder if you're wondering about this also is that that it puts a limitation on it so it's it's it's not saying

054students can just transfer in it's saying students can transfer in if we we stay within the class size um determined by deci and so the way i was interpreting what jason was saying was does that almost like constrict too much am i interpreting your thing right no you're 100 correct and you know it so at first i thought it was conflicting so amy i saw i saw what you read as well and then i had to go back and read what the and it does sound like there's a cap on on how many uh you can allow into the district which which essentially we're working on a match that per class on average so essentially no kid could uh would be able to transfer and then i was wondering also wondering is that is that

055retroactive or is it you know starting the moment it's it's approved you know when does it start and how does that affect um the current children that we have now coming from normandy uh right now so is your question with that part meaning if if the uh if our class sizes currently were bigger than deci standard would we would a district turn those students away like even after they had been enrolled exactly yeah in in particular i'm thinking about why down yeah i'm thinking about that situation there and then of course some of the other schools as well but yeah yeah exactly we have to jason it makes me wonder a little bit about the policy that we looked at last year that we actually ended up changing the language to be more inclusive as

056opposed to the the restrictions um right so i'm wondering is the board interested in me pursuing that with the lawyers also of like could we write this as a as a more inclusive so if a district is becomes unaccredited the district would take students um or are you saying like so regardless of class size or or i guess i'm asking what what should i be asking the lawyers i mean so so um i think wow that's a good question i haven't thought that far on this point we should be asking but go ahead sean i think that um i think there's some some clarification we need to get on this and if i if i understand this correctly the reason why this is being revised is that when we when previously when unaccredited districts became

057uh when schools districts became unaccredited there was no um there was no guidance in terms of how many students could come into a district and so what happened was during that time and i can't remember the year the district that what happened was that uh deci put in place like what are your class size standards and then that's the number we'll use because it was unlimited in terms of students could come into this as many students as possible could enroll but then at that time they put in these standards saying what were the district's class size standards and that's what they adhered to so right now i think what they're doing is saying you know so putting in policy that we would adhere to the class size standards basically putting in practice what they did

058in 2011 and um so it would limit i um i think that it'll be good for us to get some more clarification on that and we can get some additional information about it that's if that's the reason why the other thing too is that right now we don't there aren't any other school districts that are unaccredited right now right so so that's what makes me give pause a little bit cause i'm thinking about maybe there's something we don't know you know it's always something you don't know right so people live now sorry so let's get ahead of this before he gets out of control like there's gonna be a you know kobe can be causing a lot of problems that we don't know about there's some data hasn't come back yet but we'll find out

059in january and then they're like well we're going to deal with some of these schools to be unaccredited and then all of a sudden that policy is in place which just shapes how we're going to take in children so okay okay so i'll ask some further questions on that all right thank you i appreciate that thank you jason uh caitlyn do you have any questions okay thank you david any questions thanks gary any questions i have a lot of questions i'm not sure any of them can be answered by any of us but um it does seem like since this was passed in the spring session 2019 it's worth taking time to at least try to get some answers questions before we adopt it i would be kind of hesitant about adopting this policy at

060the moment um given that the triggering event of an unaccredited district certainly hasn't happened um so it seems like we have some time to sort it out so yeah i know that's easier said than done but appreciate those efforts okay great thank you and uh amy did you have any other questions all right great thanks um i don't think i have any questions but just a uh i do think we need more clarification because the practice when normandy and riverview were unaccredited that school districts went by versus the law and what the missouri supreme court said were a little bit different so i just you know just as a reminder right they were not necessarily the same um and and nobody you know made a legal issue out of it but we should we should

061do a little more research into it because there's some history there from before right okay another question sorry go ahead go ahead stacy i don't know if this is new this time around malena or not but am i understanding correctly by that first paragraph that the first step even though it's a district as a whole that's unaccredited the first step is to move to another school in your district with a higher apr score and if that isn't an option then you would choose outside the district that's how i read that also okay thanks which is also different stacy than last time okay that's i wasn't sure if that was the case last time or not it wasn't it's not it was not so it's confusing because districts are get the accreditation but each school gets

062their own score um that's right it was all or nothing last time if the district was unaccredited it didn't matter if there were schools that had a score that would have been the equivalent of accredited you could still choose to transfer to a accredited school the preference is keeping kids within their district but maybe at a different school if possible okay okay okay great um thank you and so uh melania we're gonna move on to uh 6.03 which is first reading of policy ikf which is graduation requirements and also you yeah so um this one to me feels a little bit easier you we asked we did this policy last year also and so it's back on the table and the the really the only change is number six um under earning credit and substituting

063credit and alternatives um and we had spent some time actually on this section the last time you all approved this to clarify language and so they're just further clarifying the language to to limit it to one credit um of a math science or practical art by replacing that one of those with computer science course um so this one feels like a very small minor change but the one credit limit does reflect uh what deci's graduation handbook says also that's your thanks stacy any questions no thanks amy any questions gary any questions no that one things are a lot more straightforward jason any questions no no i don't have any questions but you know once again i do wonder like what who benefits from this and context behind it we're just getting the policy and we're

064just supposed to i mean of course we're all reading it and at face value it reads whatever it reads and it's like oh it's not big you know but in but it might be something i don't understand about it you know so um are we passing this tonight or next time no next time first reading yeah yeah yeah i gotta tell her million you is there any way you can just find out a little bit more about the origin of that as well the origin of this but it just seems so assumed yeah this is a little simple and some will change but i wouldn't i'd hate for one of our students or any student to be caught up in a trick bag right so with this one oh sorry jason with with this one

065when when we talked about this last year one of the things that we talked about was the language around the district making the choice to fulfill that piece and that was part of my concern also because as a district we i had a lot of conversation with the counseling staff at the high school about this in particular because if you keep if you continue to read it starts to talk about the district requiring to let the parents know in writing that doing this actually could adversely affect them um with their with their college admission decision and so we are not in support of of replacing a math course or a science course um with a computer science course um so like replacing it within your sequence we believe that that the the sequence that we

066have put in place is the best sequence to set students up for success in college and so that's why we were super specific about making sure that the language said the district can choose to fulfill this um and we are not we do not have it in our practice right now um that this is that this is able to happen so the only change here is like when we wrote that before we weren't specific about the one credit so it almost made it sound like you could replace all of your science classes and all of your math classes with compscc which would not be a good decision and so that's why that's why they wanted to limit that to the one credit to reflect that handbook but this is not a practice that we have

067in place in the district okay okay so but then then does it matter does it matter to us no not really i mean the reason why we can't get we can't get rid of it because it's in statute but that's why we specifically wrote that the district can choose to fulfill it and then we would write it into our practices if we thought that was a good practice gotcha yeah i just feel like a total trick back i mean i just feel like geez like some kid wants to take off computer science classes because in growth in those classes are certain uh math you know metrics that need to be met to get into harvard all right cool that gave us pause was that part about like having to give a parent something in writing

068to say this might adversely affect you well then like our feeling was well then we you know that's definitely like that to me is like a red flag yeah it's a lot of ability also i think it's almost like i'm i'm pushing the uh the onus off into the district and that's he's like he's free on this sorry that's that makes sense okay cool okay all right yeah so we could we could we could effectively punch and just push it down online right or or what what what what do you say what do you think we should do what's your suggestion with this one i think we just need to approve the language because it limits it to the one um and because it's in statute that this has to like it has to be

069there um but but then the district then within the procedures determines whether we're going to move forward with it and we've determined that we're not going to move forward with it yeah all right cool that sounds good thank you appreciate that thank you good work caitlyn any questions thank you kim any questions thank you david any questions okay thanks molina thank you appreciate it so um we are moving on to um information it's an information item um which is the equity update and uh so joe can i just make sure i mentioned um cameron giving the report and i was i'm remiss and robin is also very integral in this work and i just want to make sure she is she i recognize her and um forgot to mention her and i apologize um but

070she helped contribute to this report and she has been such a leader in this area within our district in terms of looking at systems so i'm gonna say sorry robin and thank you for all the work that you're doing great thank you thank you no problem robin and cameron are gonna give us this is an information item but we know it's important so um there will be some time for questions after even though it's an information level so uh robin and cameron the floor is yours all right cool sounds good so i'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and then we can get going is everyone good i'm sorry i didn't see yeah we're good cameron yep okay cool all right perfect so um again this is kind of the first quarter equity report

071um you know it's been a lot of work put into it and kind of a culmination of the first 60 days that you know i've had in the job and you know the district has done an awesome job in terms of you know helping me learn the information that i didn't know within the district and you know really showing the focus and the commitment to uh equity you know and creating an anti-bias anti-racist um district for uh for our students and for our staff so um i like to always start off with a quote uh there are no shortcuts to equity we must commit ourselves to the slow painstaking work of anti-bias and anti-racism day by day and system by system um i said that because i think it's very important for us to know

072um you know it's we're at a point in society where you know we're kind of hit our head against the wall in terms of having a lot of the same racial discussions and talks and not really seeing a lot of movement um and i think people are definitely at a at a spot where they want to see a lot of movement and in terms of equity and looking at inequities and how they were created um it's a it's we're looking at systems changes um you know one thing that i said to a group of teachers is that you know in our time in education k through 12 we didn't take any any courses on character education that had to do with empathy and equity uh nor are we really trained as teachers to really have

073an a bar equity lens while we're teaching based off of you know whether it's undergrad masters or even higher in terms of classes so we're kind of learning something that no one's ever been taught or taught to use within the educational realm so it's we're doing a lot of soul searching and a lot of work in order to try to really fundamentally change the minds and the way we look at our students and the way we view education so here's a quick table of contents you know i'll kick it off with continuing with this introduction then i'll go into a lot of the ground work that was already made prior to the appointment of my position um then we'll head into kind of what the first 60 days i've looked like within my uh within

074my position and some of the work i've been doing um chapter four goes into the audit and analysis stage where you know we've compiled a lot of data whether it's quantitative or qualitative and really trying to see the conclusions of equity need that we've developed and want to use to spearhead our work moving forward and then taking it to the next level what are some fundamental conclusions that we're using in terms of creating next steps um and then some closing uh just kind of to drop something in closing in terms of kind of what we want things to look like um and where i think we're headed so first introduction um you know based off of of course just the appointment of this position and a lot of the things that have happened within the

075last uh year or so and just me familiarizing myself with the clayton community it seems that you know the school district of clayton is focused on being you know an anti-biased anti-racist district i think you know where it comes down to everyone wanting to kind of get the work done and and see some progress it's really looking at what inclusion and equity really means and i think kind of that's the first step in really setting the tone for our work i like the quote by lisa freitman here inclusion is a mindset it's a way of thinking it's not a program that we run or a classroom in our school or a favor we do for someone inclusion is who we are it's we must strive to be so inclusion is more so a mindset in

076a way of thinking rather than saying hey here's a strategy let's do it and it should clear up any inequities that exist so a lot of the progress made to this point um again a lot of great programs and work uh you know was already being done you know within the district which you know made my uh my transition into the new role easier than it probably would have been um in terms of starting from ground zero um so i know a lot of teachers there are a lot of passionate teachers in the district you know that have a you know that have a passion for a bar work um numerous book studies have been uh you know done especially over the summer and last school year in order to kind of you know gain

077education and a good foundation on what you know systemic racism and inequities look like you know not only within the school district and in education uh but in america as a whole um i know there's a uh there's equity focus with our new teacher cohorts you know as new teachers come into the district they go through mandatory trainings whether year one year three or year five so there's an equity focus with a lot of those cohorts that are going through those programs currently um and then this past summer um you know the district hosted courageous conversations where you know a number of our black faculty you know shared what their experience was like just with being black in america and within the school system and education and you know every time i speak with someone

078and kind of talk about work that's been done in the past they always kind of mention this uh you know this event as being groundbreaking um educational wants for justice has happened you know to speak out against systemic racism a lot of the curriculum coordinators are being critical of their curriculum right now in terms of making it more culturally responsive this year the entire district went through implicit bias training as a part of the opening up to the school year there's a bar presupposition committee that created the presuppositions for the district you can see those on the equity and inclusion portion of our website i know they worked really hard and coming up with the right verbiage to kind of set the tone and the framework for the equity work to be done a lot

079of work i know robin has put into the gifted education placement process in terms of you know making a more equitable you know make it creating a more equitable situation to have a more diverse population within our gifted uh placement um and then grading for equity you know grading for equity is trying to you know eliminate a lot of failing grades that might be at the bottom and i know the secondary and middle and high school have adopted um grading for equity which is a um you know which is a theory that's being used in order to try to combat against low grades so there's a lot of work being done and a lot of things that are already set in motion so then my first 60 days on the job what have i been

080doing so um here's a list of a lot of the trainings and professional developments that i've already led um you know one great thing is that you know i love being thrown into the game you know right off the bat um i don't know so my second day on the job i was leading new teacher induction um you know in terms of you know having equity sessions with them which happened by accident but it ended up working you know working out really well and i was happy to do that um then you know we let our clayton ed talks you know during the opening day um of our teachers returning in terms of you know myself you know robin and a couple of other black administrators in the building kind of sharing their experiences as

081being black with an educational system and that paying dividends for our uh you know to humanize the black experience within the educational system to our staff on september 4th on our pd day i led a uh a uh session on the power of humanization you you hear me say humanization uh and perspective a lot because that's kind of the foundation of uh the work we want to do in to equity equity through school leadership i led an equity session with our district leadership committee on the 17th of september on october 7th as you all know i started equity talks you know in small groups with the board of education and those have been going really well um this friday um i have a half day professional development um with our classified staff that i titled

082the field medics uh for equity um and then next tuesday with our missouri state elementary interns i'm leading a couple hour training um in turn to kind of get them familiarized with what equity work looks like as they get started in their careers um i've had like a million conversations in terms of just kind of getting the experience you know talking to teachers talking to administrators um about their experience and their work with inequity asking who are some good parents to contact who could i talk to in order just to kind of get what the experience is like you know within clayton um especially from you know some of our uh marginalized minority groups uh so i've talked to you know our abarth groups within the district and our uh avar parent group as well

083um as well as some you know young alumni and then a lot of teachers uh too students of interest i've been able to talk to teachers and staff of interests parents of interest like i said all building administrators i've met you know tirelessly with our central office personnel scrubbed in on some curriculum coordinator meetings um a lot of plc and teacher groups been scrubbing into the district pto uh and school pto sessions as well so really you know the the goal of this is just to really you know to establish myself in the community um you know as an active partner and to build relationships because i think relationships are key um and we all think building those relationships are key in order to uh you know have meaningful equity work take place and i've

084had a lot of equity coaching uh that's been going on um a lot of a lot of staff and administrators within the district have reached out to me just to kind of get my advice or to help with different uh equity snacks that have kind of come up and i've been able to kind of consult coach and have deep rich discussions with them in terms of their practice um and improving you know moving forward so a lot of that has happened as well um here's some just you know some titles in terms of personal education and development that i've been looking at um i love uh you know i've been looking at paul gorsky a lot in terms of um you know his equity and literary little literacy institute um that he had it was

085a seminar that went on for you know five tuesday evenings in september he also has a book case studies on diversity and social justice education that i've been using with some professional development as well as a few other books and podcasts that i've been looking at as well and then my building equity audit um you know we got together uh you know me sean and robin and we really talked about you know what's a good way to compile um some fun foundational data uh that has to do with just where we are where each building is in terms of equity um you know so we were able to create a likert scale style survey uh with comments um in each section for administrators and various staff and uh stakeholders to to kind of fill out

086just about how they feel about equity within the district or within their buildings uh they had it had categories of school policy uh organization and administration climate and environment staff assessment and placement professional learning and standards and curriculum development so that's pretty much been my 60 days what i've been up to um so as a result of that equity research of that equity audit as well as a lot of the interviews and conversations i've been having uh you know here kind of some of the general findings and conclusions that we were able to draw in terms of kind of where the equity disconnects are within the district so a lot of the quantitative data use came from our building equity audit our panorama survey data um which was you know the wellness survey with our

087students to see how they're feeling especially amidst the pandemic that we're in um and then looking at discipline data from the year 2017 on up to this year and then the qualitative data just consists of a lot of the student parent and staff interviews and conversations i was able to have and take notes from what they said and you know kind of pull some commonalities and parallels from each conversation so here are some of the main conclusions i was able to able to pull and kind of put them in in four categories uh the first one is communication um i think the main idea for that is communication whether it be externally and internally um in regard to equity data initiative needs to improve um there was a lot of work being done in a

088lot of pockets of the district and a lot of conversations being had but i'm unsure we were all unsure as to if the community if the staff if the schools actually knew everything that was going on um you know in terms of the data we saw within our building equity audit and matching that up with different things that have already been set in motion it seemed as if a lot of our staff and stakeholders just weren't necessarily aware that things were going on and the main thing is if you don't know something that's going on you're going to assume that it's not so that communication really needing to improve in terms of how we get out information and how we you know we show the progress progress that we're making um with the inequities that

089we have um a big focus of mine that i've noticed is kind of a disconnect um between just perspective and experience there seems to be a disconnect between our staff's perceived experience of our black students and parents compared to their actual experience um you know we had some numbers within the um you know within our um equity audit that you know staff for the most part in each school was 75 plus in thinking that you know the debt the data or the interactions between students and staff are respectable and really you know um equitable but in talking to a lot of the parents and the students we kind of saw a disconnect from that and i think you know that's when we talk about you know what we're going to do in terms of development

090um really focusing on the humanization of of each student's experience really building perspective on you know how each kid handles their experience within the district um and really trying to work on you know the soul murder that takes place within our school so i'm really trying to kind of bridge the gap between the different perspectives and try to bring them together so that everyone is a part of the moral community um you know that is clayton school district and then robin you can go ahead and uh you can go ahead and thanks cameron so um one of the other conclusions that cameron and i were able to make based on the data that we collected um was also some incongruence between the perception of discipline and how discipline is handled versus the reality in terms

091of what our student data says so in the building audit it asked respondents to rate if they thought that students were dressed in the same manner and held to consistent standards of behavior some or most of the time and more than 80 percent of our respondents our staff members said that they did believe that students were addressed in similar ways and held to consistent standards in addition um more than 75 percent of the staff believed that discipline infractions and or appraised were distributed equitably in the classroom and when i took a closer look at the discipline data from the last three years i found that the results from the building audit the teacher reports was definitely in contrast with what our discipline data says so for example while black students make up approximately 15 percent

092of our overall student population at the secondary level more specifically grades 6 through 12 nearly half of all the suspensions both in school and out of school were actually given to students who were black and in addition when we look at student referrals that have been made so again not all of those referrals end up in suspension they might go toward other types of consequences um african-american students made up a little bit more than 40 percent um of those referrals and so there's a disconnect there between the perception and the reality of our student data also in our building audit um a couple things came up related to equitable access so several staff members articulated some concerns about how students were able to access special opportunities particularly opportunities that happened before or after school some

093respondents talked about fees and fees being a barrier to participation for some students others talked about transportation particularly for our out of district students and some of the problems that that created in terms of you know it being discouraging for students to want to participate in those things um and i think that feedback reflects some of the challenges that the district has faced in engaging some you know reliable transportation providers for those eligible non-resident students awesome thank you robin um and then you know kind of into chapter five kind of what are we thinking in terms of our next steps um you know after the conclusions we were able to draw um in terms of that communication um you know one thing that i've put into motion within the last couple of weeks is really

094stepping up kind of our district communication and in terms of what i'm doing or what we're doing as a collective in terms of equity um you know so i've updated our our equity and inclusion portion of the website um there's a qr code right there if you want to check that out to where it not only has our a bar presuppositions that were created by our a bar presupposition group it also has an online resource center in terms of you know if you want to have talks or learning how to have talks about race with your children or what are some great anti-bias anti-racist books to read or podcasts or literature or youtube series um there's a ton of information in terms of resources there as well i've also put in there a bi-weekly blog

095that i want to continue to write titled at the equity corner just to kind of talk about every couple of weeks what i've been doing what are some of my analysis and what are some of my thoughts in terms of equity within the district and what are some things that we're looking to kind of get going i've also created a twitter as well uh and just having the ability to you know tweet different articles or make different announcements um you know that kind of come up on the fly so you know really maintaining the website and really developing my twitter to kind of be a good means of communication between myself uh the rest of the staff within the district as well as all of our community stakeholders and then the step two with that

096is equity updates included in building level parent communication as well as staff communication and development again there are a lot of things being done at each individual school that you know people just aren't privy to so we want to make sure that you know from a district and admin level when we are compiling data and starting to analyze that data that we're really sharing that data and some of our findings and being intentional about sharing that with a lot of our uh you know building level staff in terms of so they know what our focus is so when we see them and we start to meet and talk about things it's not necessarily uh you know something that they haven't witnessed before so really opening up that communication in terms of the data and the

097information that we're gathering um as well as you know in the parent communications that go out as well really including some of that equity work uh that's going in you know that's going down in each building so kind of really stepping uh communication of not only from a district standpoint but from a building standpoint to our outside community as well as you know the employees within the district and then that perspective and disconnect is huge um you know the majority of uh rpd focus will have to do with humanization soul murder and perspective and kind of how you know how we define those terms is human not humanization is just humanizing someone's experience and having empathy with it um based off of your identity who you are where you're from just what makes you you

098you have a natural moral community of people that you naturally accept because you have a shared experience um and i think so often when we're putting to positions where people don't have our shared experience we fail to humanize you know their experience so oftentimes they either have to earn our humanization or people never get it just because you know what's what's foreign to us is uncomfortable as well so we lean on you know uh not being comfortable um so we shy away from really getting to know and humanizing someone's experience which leads to us relying on stereotypes and other data that might be false in terms of how we approach people um and talking to a lot of the parents just that disconnect our parents feeling like they had to work to be humanized or

099their kids had to work to be humanized before they were taken seriously uh with something that came up um so really working on our teachers and our staff and our administrators really understanding a student's experience and creating dialogue with students you know i always say ask the student you know if there's an equity issue or we're looking at numbers we need to get the story behind the data so really working on getting that story which leads to understanding perspective and i i use a term that i that i call soul murder because when when kids see the inequities and they feel the inequities and they see someone is being treated differently than me it's kind of it's kind of like a soul murder that occurs it's a dehumanizing effect that kids kind of go through

100when i see hey i did the same thing as this kid but they're 50 i'm 50 more likely to be punished for it you know our kids are very vigilant in seeing what goes down and our parents are vigilant and knowing how their kids are feeling and we really need to work on that experience so a lot of our pd focus in terms of training in sessions will focus around these three terms um then the development creation of students staff and parent affinity groups um and really having you know kind of a safe space focus to them um you know we've been i've been done working and we've begun working and creating affinity groups within our staff um and kind of you know game planning you know what that looks like in terms of you

101know with parents and students as well and really creating a safe space and a brave space as well and when i say brave space i mean to have uncomfortable conversations but we want to get in the spot where we're safe before we're ready to be brave so really kind of following that model and connecting those two together um as well as you know um really looking at creating you know and putting into place an equity group you know within the district that really spearheads a lot of the work that's being done and you know really looking at you know the teachers who are not only committed to the work but naturally humanize and do the work and how can we create a team that has a multitude of perspectives uh but you know humanizes their

102students and has the right idea um and then step three uh including student voice um based on identity and programming and decision making um again did we talk to the students is always kind of my big thing if we're going to help the students we probably need to know their opinion um so i think that's a big thing and our kids are very candid on their experiences and exactly what they're going through so in getting that information that we need in order to push things forward i think we will be able to get that as long as we open up good lines of communication with our students and then robin you can jump in i am still on mute there we go so in terms of action steps for our discipline related to perception versus

103reality the first thing is office of student services is going to be finishing up the analysis of the discipline data from the last three years we're also going to develop some common documentation and reporting practices for all of our buildings and then supporting our building leaders and sharing and unpacking their discipline data with staff so in the analysis of the discipline data some of the things that we're looking for our identification of any redundancies with incident types i'm also looking at any discrepancies with consequences and also trying to find points of uneven reporting practices and trying to find ways how we can make them more consistent we're also going to start moving into data collection related to the current use of restorative practices which was also an action step outlined in our end-of-year equity report

104earlier this school year and i'll be collecting that data through interviews with our building administrators um and ultimately i would like that to lead to a clear set of expectations for how our discipline is reported system-wide and then also finding opportunities where our restorative practices can be applied more equitably and then lastly this kind of goes back to our communication pieces you know it's hard to talk about um discrepancies um and disparate outcomes with discipline data if we're not having conversations um about discipline data and so i think through the improved documentation reporting practices that will lead to more effective and regular analysis of discipline data with our building teams so i look forward to supporting our building level leaders in that capacity as it relates to equitable access um i'd like to quote the

105words of cornelius minor who's an educator and author of uh the book we got this and he often talks about looking at different programs and asking yourself you know who is who is this designed for and how can i remake it to serve more students and i think that's a lens that we can apply um to some of our special opportunities in the school district particularly when we think about before school and after school activities not just at the elementary school level but also the secondary level and so one of my action steps is going to be working with our building leaders and communicating with activity sponsors um to really collaborate with them to you know find opportunities where we can make some adjustments or engage additional resources to make sure that we are really

106maximizing the opportunity for students to participate in those programs and try to eliminate as many barriers as we can all right so um in conclusion i wanted to close with a clip um a teacher at one of our elementary school sent me this and i think it kind of it kind of epitomizes you know where we want to be as a you know anti-bias anti-racist district um one big thing that i talked about was perspective and humanizing experience and one way we do that is kids being able to see themselves within their curriculum and really being able to see themselves within the learning so a lot of our elementary students recently read the book crown and ode to the fresh cut where it talks about you know the unique experience of you know black boys

107and black men in general going to the barber shop and kind of what that experience means within the black community um and it was awesome because a lot of our kids were able to dive in and not only you know and see themselves and see their experiences within the book and when that doesn't happen to you on a regular basis it's you know super exciting when you're able to see yourself in a lot of the characters and the stories that you see and it also opens up perspective and a lens to you know our non-black students as well for them to really humanize the experience of their black peers and really see some of the experiences they have you know from a cultural standpoint so i'm gonna play a quick clip um you know where

108one of our young students is is kind of giving their um they're giving their opinion on the book and kind of giving a a brief overview and summary of uh you know their experience with it oops let me go back i like the guy who locks um i like um his why his hair was long and i like the kid on the front page cover because he looks like me and his hair texture is the same um as me and so yeah i just wanted to share that clip one of our teachers shared that with me um you know and she was you know proud because she saw a moment to where you know a kid had an equitable experience and saw himself and we want to be able to know the perspectives and experiences

109of all our students so that we can create these types of experiences for everyone on a daily basis so that concludes uh that concludes our report thank you cameron and thank you robin um we'll we're just going to go through and ask folks if they have any i know this is very important it's an information item but i'm just going to ask folks if they have questions for either cameron or robin or thoughts so i am going to start with you kim no i mean i i think it's an excellent uh report i think actually if everybody has not done so the written report contains even more information than the slide report so i wanted to thank cameron you for your work you've obviously been very busy your first 60 days on the job and

110the the report is is very well done um and rob and i want to thank you for your continued work in this area along with the rest of the other administrators and teachers so thank you thanks thanks kim stacey any comments or questions um i would echo kim's sentiments cameron you've had a busy 60 days um thank you to you and robin for all you've been doing um and i do agree with one of your main focuses about the communication i think that's been um one thing we definitely have not done well with our equity work in the past and like you said if they don't see it hap if they don't read that it's happening or understand it's happening then they assume it's not so i'm really happy like i love what you did

111with the website i looked at that i think it's so great that we you're gonna do a better job communicating our work to the community um i was curious you had that pie chart um the building equity audit like where you asked the staff where are we you know on becoming an a bar district did was there any um correlation like did the amount of the percentage of teachers that answer disagree for example did they come from the same mostly the same school or was it across the district i'm just curious if you were able to pinpoint maybe certain buildings that's a good question um for the most part the the data that we collected you know was fairly fairly even across the board you know give or take 10 or 15 percent um you

112know we didn't see many disparities in terms of whoa this is at the high school and then at these two elementary schools they're completely you know on the uh on the other uh another spectrum so i i think you know we got a good mixes in terms of you know clearly there's a lot of work that needs to be done uh but at the same time you know there are some things that you know that are happening that are moving the needle forward uh but also again understanding understanding that perspective of our students i think was the biggest my our our biggest takeaway that we kind of talked about just in terms of again if you've never if you've never had the experience or the training in order to really you know be an equitable

113educator because it just has never been a push within our system you know it's really letting the teachers know that you know we're we're kind of starting this work from ground you know from ground zero but at the same time you know the system also failed us for not preparing us to be able to do this work straight out of college so you know kind of you know trying to build camaraderie with knowing that you know that fact and hopefully you know everyone coming together to push the work forward good and and i also appreciate you saying about in the beginning it's a marathon not a sprint i think it's it's hard to be impatient because we want changes to happen so fast but we need to understand that big changes do take time and

114we want to make sure we get it right so i appreciate um that perspective and i i also like how you talk about humanizing it and and i do think it's so important to see each student as an individual in some of my own like personal work um anti-racism like work and research i've been doing lately i so much of it says how um white people and white students are seen as individuals but often black and brown students are labeled as a group so i think that the humanization that you talk about will help so much in individualizing this for each student so um it's great so thank you for all that i think you made some really good points and you obviously have been really busy and um anyway great start so thank you

115so much thanks thanks stacey amy comments or questions yeah i'll just still make a comment um so well first thank you so much to cameron and to robin for putting this together i know that it took a lot of time and energy it's a wonderful report um i enjoyed reading it um it seems like we're on the right track i was kind of reflecting as i was reading through it today on back when i was first elected to the board and back in 2015 i think joe was around that time year after me and it was like i would be remiss to not also thank sean and sherman and susan and lily and other board members and passports and um community members too who have pushed us and pushed us to adopt um an equity

116lens and i think that we're far from perfect but i think all of this these people's support um and dedication have have helped to push us and set us up to succeed and to really um take it to the next level so i'm excited to to do that and to see our black students continue to succeed and to do even better and um it's going to be a great thing so thank you thanks amy david any uh comments or questions um yeah i've got a couple of questions and i i think amy amy said it well so not to not to believe the point but cameron i'm um i'm impressed with with the work that you've knocked out in 60 days it's um it's a hell of a hell of a mountain to climb to

117start to build a foundation that we can grow from and learn from and track progress and you know i'm i'm um i've got nothing but optimism that the foundation is going to be something we can work from so thank you for the work that you put in and robin for the support for laying it together uh just just a couple just a couple of questions on the on the panorama stuff because i'm you know i'm you know one of the most junior board members so i'm still getting my feet wet with panorama data i see that we had a 60 response rate um so just two questions on that is 60 kind of what we would normally anticipate in a regular year from a student survey and then secondary to that is the uh is

118the distribution of our of our different racial groups reflective of the population there or did we skew our waiting in any one way form that's an excellent question david so in the times that i have been in the district um you know last fall was our first really big data catch grades 3 through 12 related to the panorama survey and we were able to get up into the 90s but we also were able to have a much longer response window um this one was a little bit smaller mostly because some of the questions we were asking about were related to um student social emotional well-being right now during remote learning and we wanted to make sure that that data didn't get old before we could start following up with students so we had a slightly

119shorter um admissions or i guess open window one of the other challenges we had was that because we were in remote learning it was a little bit trickier to kind of have that dedicated time to have all the students completed um so uh you know so for some buildings um you know we were able to get a really really high response for others you know it was a little bit more of a challenge but i do feel confident in the the amount that we did get um was a was a good sample on how students were feeling and it was really helpful and i've already had conversations with our building counselors about how we can use the data and a few things that jumped out to me right away by looking at it in the

120in our distribution the racial distribution aligns with the the district is that right yeah okay cool sorry i'm sorry if you said that um thank you guys i um i i i i recognize it's a starting point where you're st you know you're trying to turn an aircraft carrier here um and and it's uh it's great to see the work i appreciate the uh i appreciate the focus thank you david caitlin any questions or comments yeah thank you mr pool and mr wiens for all of you your work i had a couple questions so starting with the discipline data i was wondering if that's if incidents like students being sent out of class is also reflected in that data i say this because black students on the district advisory council have consistently mentioned to me

121that not only have they been noticing student black students are disproportionately facing disciplinary measures like detentions but they're also being dis uh disproportionately sent out of class more often so i was wondering if the data has any information on that caitlyn you just totally nailed it um yes one of the things that i have found thus far in my data analysis is that one of the things we need to improve upon are tracking all of those removals from the educational setting that aren't necessarily a suspension of in school or out of school but where students to your point of any grade level frankly have been removed from the classroom due to some type of behavior or where the teacher has you know sent them to an administrator's office for some particular reason and i think

122that is really where we can start connecting some dots around humanizing the student's experience because you know there are other things that happen disciplinary wise that don't always result in an in school or out of school suspension and so those are really the things also that impact our school classroom climate and our school environment and so by tightening up our reporting practices we'll have a much better idea on um how how students are missing class and for what reasons and what are the patterns in that and are we seeing disparate outcomes either based on race on gender or ability so um so that is one of the areas that i'm looking closely at of how we can put some systems in place to improve in that area thank you uh my next question is about

123the conversation i really like the conversations um i've noticed that they're also focused on like specific groups if you looked into like sort of developing allyship between different minority groups by having like collaborative or joint conversations yeah i mean that's that's a huge goal of mine um i think the wrench in that right now is just the pandemic and not being able to really dive into you know huge stupid interaction just because you know everyone's kind of you know going frantically right now just because we're not in school so hopefully soon with a return to some level of normalcy we can really start to make that connection um like i said that's the one thing that i do miss in terms of seeing kids and having those conversations and wishing i could have had more

124student conversations um you know if school were in so yeah definitely in terms of you know i want my goal is for each kid you know regardless of how they identify whether it's racially you know by gender religion or whatever that is to have a safe space to where they can have some common people that you know share the same characteristics as they do but then also using those groups to spur a lot of conversations to where uh each person can share their experience and perspective um i have tons of strategies i want a model that i've used in the past you know with a lot of students so you know um you know caitlin i know we talked about meeting um you know fairly soon to kind of you know talk and see how

125we can kind of get that going and you know what that can look like even if it is virtual yeah and kind of on that note i noticed that the presentation mentioned students of interest so i can like communicate to the students and like for any students watching this now how can students kind of uh show their interest in being like one of these students to like have discussions with you and talk with you that's an awesome question uh just shoot me an email you know and i'll work it in like i said a lot of a lot of the student conversations were based off of me reaching out to different faculty members in the schools and saying hey who what's a good group of kids i can talk to to have these conversations with

126so i really haven't been able to do that organically so yeah if you if you could definitely pass a message out to the student body and really let them know how they want to reach out have a conversation about something specific or if they just want to you know talk about things in general then we can definitely set that up and get a good group going so that we can uh open up that dialogue thank you thanks caitlin jason any comments or questions yeah um first i want to say uh sam ray and robin good job that was a really well done support and for the most part it did a great job of managing expectations um and which curved my enthusiasm on how i would want to deal with um this topic this this

127issue that we're facing um i do have a question i want to know a little bit more about like this is kind of a two-pronged question but um first question is how have the teachers the faculty responded to [Music] the suspension data and then what kind of what kind of pushback have you received from faculties centered around this uh the subject matter um robin did you wanna yeah so i would say that um you know one of the things that came through in our building equity audit data was that a good chunk of staff um had weren't really sure what their discipline data was like they just didn't know what it looked like how often it was being talked about and so cameron and i realized like that is that is a very easy piece

128to address in terms of like we need to make sure those conversations are happening so people can be more reflective about the teacher moves they're making in the classroom um and again how that that intersectionality with humanizing our students um that also comes to a point around um one of the things i'm looking more closely at is the redundancy we have in some of our incident types in that we use when we report discipline and by incident type i mean um the way we label certain types of behaviors um and there are some labels that i feel like are duplicated they may not say the exact same thing but certain behaviors that might actually be the same could be potentially coded as a different type of behavior and so i'd like to bring some consistency

129to that so our conversations with teachers can be more meaningful and so we can even coach into those things about um the different types of behaviors we might be seeing and the functions of those behaviors and how that connects to building positive relationships with students i will say what we've seen so far again we haven't walked down this path as far as we'd like to at this point in time but there is interest in learning more so that way people can make changes to their practice for you robert real fast um regarding behaviors in coded language do they cut both ways so like um meaning that some behaviors for white students might be different than encoded differently although they're saying um [Music] ask for african american students where it might be coded differently but it

130was the same it might just mean something different like the way we coded you know what's going on that is what i'm looking for that is exactly what i'm looking for um and it's taking a little bit longer than i thought it would because i need to actually look at the narrative like the notes about the particular incident to see where similar incidences may have been coded differently does that make sense so that's part of my current analysis okay yeah and i think piggybacking off of that you know i think strengthening that data or that foundation of data is key in tackling you know the true work so we have two situations but one is coded in a more dehumanizing way than another and the description behind it you know says oh well little jimmy

131was just you know messing around but you know little johnny you know i was fearful that something was going to happen you know so really looking at what's being coded you know what are they using the coded and whether the what are the descriptions and if we look at you know kind of get to the nuts and bolts of it and see that the situation was identical but the teacher's lens viewed it a totally different way than what actually happened it's really trying to trying to get that data so we can use that as a teaching moment uh for those teachers right okay and does that answer anthony answers both my questions right i think so all right well i have another uh the other one is uh you know when you go to like

132a worksite manufacturing plant there's always like a dashboard and sometimes it's simplistic it's like we haven't had incidents uh in like 90 days you know say osha certified incidents do we plan on having a dashboard that makes it easier for faculty members to have access to this information that we're talking about that they didn't know about right some of this i mean this is not i think i know this is kind of early but is this something you thought of is it even worth it could we be then you know um i guess this could be a good or bad thing but like you know you know carving our behaviors toward or skewing our behaviors towards the outcome of what it might look like if we have that kind of dashboard go ahead yeah i

133i think that's a good idea i think that's where that communication piece that i was talking about in terms of teachers being aware and staff being aware of what the data is and what we're collecting and being transparent with that work um i think that could definitely be in the form of a dashboard you know if there was something among staff where they could click a link you know in in their uh in their email or in their google drive and see oh okay for this month the data's looking pretty good you know in terms of you know what's going on so yeah i think i mean that's a good that's a good idea in terms of being an easy you know and like a simple way to access and see that data um you

134know once we get to the point to where we have the system in place um you know that we want to uh you know incorporate yes one last question um so is there like a hypothesis kind of something you come up with already in your mind and you are thinking that could be a problem down the line but you haven't you don't know for sure but if you have problems online to make this really um just be substantiated and valid now that this disable artwork that you notice now but you're you're waiting to see based on more data more more um hands-on you know uh getting involved in this process i mean is there anything you see right now that you're that you need to mention that you might think might be a problem did

135this become reality well one thing that has already stood out to me and i don't necessarily i wouldn't characterize this as something as like going to be a problem down the line but i think it is a good um indicator of the individual desire to push one's own individual practice is that since cameron has been added to the team we have so many more staff members stepping forward one-on-one wanting to engage in conversations around uh race and equity in the classroom and wanting to engage in really authentic ways and having really tough conversations and willing to be vulnerable in those conversations with cameron and with other people and so you know cameron had mentioned in his presentation that he's done a lot of equity coaching and i think that was something that has really gained

136a lot of momentum and it's coming very organically where people who maybe aren't kind of at the front of the marathon pack when it comes to a bar work are putting themselves into an area of more discomfort because they know something happened or they saw something happen or they were part of a conversation that made them feel a certain way and they are reaching out to cameron um for advice on how they might be able to handle a situation like that again in the future or how to handle the situation they're currently in and the way cameron's been working with them is really um helping build their own capacity to continue to engage in this uncomfortable work and he's very straightforward about it but he's also very compassionate about it and so i think um

137right away one of the things that i have seen is that with the addition of this particular position people are much more willing to step into that uncomfortable place okay that's right well that's all the questions i like man i have a lot more but this is really really good okay thank you jason gary any uh comments or questions yeah thank you um both for for this and um i have to confess i've been uh listening to some of the uh supreme court confirmation hearings this week so i'm gonna do like all the senators do and say some things around my mind before i even pretend to ask a question so uh you can bear with me for a little bit but in all seriousness i just wanted to say that i think um you

138know cameron in particular like having you having you here and you're talking about your first 60 days i just was thinking about as you were talking about what a value that is and what it would have what a great thing that is for our district i mean we've had a lot of people over the years that we we've hired we've hired facilitators and we've hired speakers and and trainers and things like that but i mean somebody correct me if i'm wrong but none of them have been here anywhere close to 60 days so you might feel like you're at the beginning of your time with us but you're already way further into this than anybody else has ever been able to to get before and that's we're just i'm just really glad for that um

139you can see we we can see a lot of uh you've been been busy as a lot of people said so so thanks for that and i'm just i'm proud that we're we're we're able to do that and to have you here um i also appreciated uh you mentioning a lot of those personal resources and um one of the uh one of the things that i i recognized i stumbled on that nice white parents podcast and at some point in the future i can't wait to have a conversation with you about that because i wasn't looking for that and just kind of stumbled onto it but it was and it was it was it was a lot so um i'd love to talk with you more about that sometime um so i guess maybe some

140of the questions like like two questions that uh that kind of have come to mind as i've been been thinking about this one um i'd love to hear what if anything has been uh the most surprising or not what you expected about um working in the district um and two i'd love to get a sense for how settled you feel into the process of getting started i mean do you still feel like you're at the beginning of getting started and settling into this position are you are you firmly in it now are you somewhere in the middle that that makes sense but i'd just love to hear what you're thinking about that got you um for sure so you know in terms of you know my impression so far um you know i think you

141know i i've worked in parkway and i've worked in rockwood and in terms of looking at things from an equity standpoint you know there are a lot of similarities just in terms of you know demographics you know racial makeup and things like that and some of the issues that exist so a lot of the conversations that i've been able to have haven't necessarily been things i haven't seen or witnessed myself before um and i think that you know that's something i've been communicating in a lot of the discussions i've been having in terms of you know people knowing that these are city-wide county-wide education issues not just specific to clayton so it's a hill that a lot of districts and a lot of people are trying to climb up um and i think the uniqueness

142of clayton has definitely been something that you know has caught my eye just in terms of it's the first you know smaller district i've been in in a while so everything's a lot more i guess condensed so you know it's it's talking to so many different stakeholders at many different levels whether it's students whether it's classified staff certified staff tons of parents you know board members but if people want to access you they're going to find you you know so um you know really really uh you know getting used to that but but i think that's a good thing in terms of transparency and being able to you know to kind of get to the source um you know so that's one thing you know that's for sure and then just in terms of where

143i'm at i guess if if i'm about to run a marathon i feel like i'm warmed up if that makes sense because i got stretched i've gotten loose i'm warmed up i'm ready for them to blow the whistle so we could start the race so i think i'm warmed up kind of like in like day 30 i was like man i i don't know but um i think once i got to the point to where especially once we got you know out of the equity audit and really broke down a lot of that data and i started to get a good sample size in terms of you know just different interviews and discussions i was having you know when i could kind of get a good foundation i think i was feeling good so i

144think i'm warmed up and ready to start the race now if that if that answers the question well i i'm glad you feel warmed up because it seems like you've been uh you've been been running a lot so i hope we're not i hope we're not wearing you out and we're not uh not not not burning you out i'm in shape now okay great thanks thank you gary um i want to add my uh thanks to both you cameron and robin i think it's very strong report and cameron i think you're uh you're clearly doing a lot of great work and building on a lot of great work so thank you i will say robin said one of my favorite words in the data world which is intersectionality and my next favorite word is disaggregation

145and so my question i do have a question i can't help myself you guys might guess my question because i always ask this question which is you know in your audit as you move forward have you thought about kind of disaggregating the intersectionalities and disaggregating the data because if you look you know whether you're black or white or asian or multi-racial it's not necessarily the same if you have an iep or if you don't it's not necessarily the same if you're free and reduced lunch or you're not it's not you know et cetera et cetera and so um talk to me a little bit about your thoughts around both the the links the intersectionality but also the disaggregation of the data even the race data um i think the big thing is is you know

146concentrating on you know especially as we get deeper what those inequities are you know in terms of you know when i look at balancing equity within equity i'm really looking for the places where the inequities exist so as we look at the data if we see things that don't really show an inequity you know then i guess in terms of a focus and diving in you know it's something that's kind of not necessarily tabled but checked off to a certain extent because an inequity doesn't exist i think when you talk about things like you know ieps and free and reduced lunch you do see a lot of uh a lot of crossover you know just you know um nationwide you know black you know black boys are more than likely to have an iep so

147what does that look like in terms of the process of how we're identifying who has an iep is it they just don't understand the kid or is it this kid truly needs an iep so really getting to the point to where we're using that humanizing lens you know through all of the work that we're doing with its free and reduced lunch you know what exactly is the experience or what are some of the shortcomings that our free and reduced students have what does that data look like racially um and you know what are the differences between you know race within free and reduced lunch data so i think you know as we really get going and get into the weeds we'll really look for those things i think the big thing is really looking for

148where the inequities exist um and then kind of diving in you know for those specifics you know as we pinpoint those specific inequities yeah i think another example of where we're disaggregating um data is looking at gifted identification um you know our our testing cycle this year is a little bit um fragmented uh because we gave families the option to postpone testing to the spring so right now not all not all of our students who we wanted to move forward with individual evaluation um decided to actually test this fall and so actually today i just started taking a closer look to see if like what are the patterns of families who decided to wait until the spring and who wanted to go ahead and move now because that could potentially impact what our identification rate

149is just all together but throughout that process taking a look at for example like how many black boys are we evaluating how many students who have ieps are do we have in the individual evaluation process so those are some things that we're keeping tabs on so that way we can find um any discrepancies or at least keep our eyes peeled for them if they're happening great thank you well thank you again i'm sorry joe go ahead i'm sorry i forgot this earlier but what you just asked reminded me um i realize this hasn't been a focus yet but something in your report did catch my eye that said um something about that asian students do not feel as connected to their peers as their um as the black and white students i'm just wondering is

150that um like on your to-do list of something to dive deeper into at some point as well yeah for sure we um we uh we we definitely saw that parallel and we've had some some big dialogue on that in terms of you know especially that from a social emotional standpoint you know we don't really see it you know academically or um from a behavioral you know or discipline standpoint but kind of that social emotional you know feeling of acceptance seems to be you know seems to be something that we really need to work on so yeah for sure that was something that definitely jumped out at us okay yeah and i think also one thing that i haven't had a chance to look at um more closely is looking at the intersectionality between the students

151who rated feeling lonely et cetera especially our asian students and to see how that correlates to students who might be learning at home um versus responsive um again like i don't i don't feel comfortable making any specific hypotheses but that is one intersection that i wanted to make students you know so exactly yell students for example right okay thank you awesome thanks thanks again cameron thanks again robin um one question joel sorry one last question based on that thank you a lot of times to you guys because there's gonna be lots of questions go ahead jason so and you may not have done this and this may be a dangerous thing to do but is is there have you done um have you done any study on whether or not what the makeup of the

152folks at our home um versus who are coming back to school have you ever done a research on that question any data on that yes we do have data on that i don't know all the numbers off the top of my head but that's information that i can work with sean on to provide you guys with but we do have that johnson thank you good job all right i'm gonna say thank you again [Laughter] um we really appreciate it um and look forward to your subsequent reports right this this is this is it's great to have kind of this regular discussion so um thank you all very much so um we are going to move to action items board and the first action item is 8.01 which is the second reading and adoption of policy

153aca sexual harassment all right 8.01 i move that the board of education approves policy aca regarding sexual harassment under title ix for the second reading and adoption as submitted second okay it's been moved and seconded any comments or questions all in favor yeah one comment yeah well i don't like it that's my only comment okay any other comments or questions all in favor aye any opposed okay it passes unanimously so we're moving on to 8.02 which is the second reading and adoption of policy gbat id rather telework 8.02 i move that the board of education approved policy gbad regarding teleworking for second reading and adoption as submitted second it's been moved in court and seconded any comments or questions all in favor hi hi any opposed okay it passes unanimously okay so we're moving on

154to 8.03 which is the superintendent search firm 8.03 i move that the board of education approve sorry i'm on the wrong page here uh i i have these things on two different screens um is it i sorry i i don't i don't have the name of the the firm in front of me i didn't have an earlier agenda here nick nerson and jacobson sorry about that i just i i had that pulled up on another screen here let me start that over i moved that the board of cad education uh approved to hire mcpherson and jacobsen as a consulting superintendent firm to hire a new superintendent at a cost not to exceed fourteen thousand nine hundred again apologies second okay it's been moved and seconded and i just give a quick frame uh and then

155i'll take any questions so just as a reminder uh we narrowed it down to three firms uh rain associates school exec connect and mcpherson and jacobson they were all solid firms um we're thankful that each of the firms uh answered about 20 or 22 questions that the board asked them we had interviews with them in a subcommittee jason and amy and i we created a rubric sandy did some reference checks and in the end when we tallied everything up mcpherson and jacobson was the one that uh came out on top so just so having said that any comments or questions sure david go ahead um so you know when we interview it goes both ways right uh do we do we know um i mean have we followed up do we know that there did

156they like us i guess for like you know just for lack of a better way of putting it um you know and then because i might the reason i ask is if if if they felt like that we're not a good fit culturally for them um you know i'm assuming the rubric has a plan b that we can vote on on the next session right it does it does have a plan b and i will say um they seem to really really want this search and really be motivated to work with us so i'd be really surprised if they didn't we haven't reached out to them until we had you know have a vote right but um but i would be surprised if they didn't accept any other comments and questions or questions rather okay

157all in favor aye aye aye any opposed okay it passes unanimously um so we are moving on to the consent agenda so consent items see if i can redeem myself here and not not fumble through this one i move that the board of education approve the consent agenda 9.02 through 9.03 second okay it's been moved in seconded any comments or questions okay all in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed okay it passes unanimously thank you so um we are moving to public comment uh sean chris do we have public comment uh yes we do we have two public comments that were submitted for this evening i will read them uh the first comment is from suzanne whitman and she writes i'd like to convey my gratitude to the district and the school board for

158the work that they've been doing on equity inclusion and anti-racism i saw the redesigned equity page on the district website and cameron cameronpool's blog and it makes me so hopeful for the future i'm heartened by mr pool's humanistic approach to this work which recognizes that everyone starts where they start and his willingness to put his heart and soul into it to help us move forward to a better place knowing that dr dardy's heart was in this work all the while seeing it move forward into this action of hiring mr poole is beautiful i know as well as some of the school board members in addition to learning from mr poole are moving forward on their own reading and learning to get to a place of greater understanding the clayton anti-racism collective is facilitating book clubs

159for parents to read and discuss the book stamped by ibram kendi and jason reynolds thank you to everyone who is stretching to grow someone shared an image of generosity with me last week which at first i did not understand she said that generosity is like the bigger kids running around the toddler who was first learning to walk when i pictured this i imagined a bunch of four and five-year-olds running playing and totally ignoring the toddler i imagined them so involved in their game that they even knocked the toddler over once in a while how could this be generosity then i realized that the bigger kids by being themselves with the skills that the toddler needs were giving a gift and i mold over the fact that in my experience toddlers are totally unfazed by this

160scenario in fact contrary to being upset they usually pay an enormous amount of attention to the bigger kids in effect receiving the gift that is being given so that they learn to walk even more quickly than a kid who doesn't have that access i hope that our students of color will have the experience of being able to truly be themselves i hope that our white students learn the value of connection that does not have to be severed on the basis of skin color everyone benefits from this i'm grateful to receive the gift of mr pool's generosity in coming to our district as well as the generosity of the students and parents of color in our district who know what we need to change i will support it as best i'm able thanks for your kind

161attention this evening and always next comment is from chichi amumari she writes over the summer a cohort of clayton alumni joined to create a call for justice and equity for black students although the school district of clayton claims exclusive inclusiveness as one of its five core values we felt as though the school district had been failing as black students since the beginning a few of us met with the superintendent and other officials of the school district to talk about next steps yet we have not seen or heard any new developments on the side of the school board or the school district we asked for more transparency between the school district and their approach to creating an inclusive learning environment we have seen no advancement in this issue my main concern is black students and their

162ability to enter honors and ap courses to my understanding a student still must receive approval from a teacher before enrolling in higher level courses the only exception to this are the history courses i would like for the board of education to ask themselves why this policy exists the answer to to deter black students from achieving at higher levels i was told that models must be tested first to see the outcome of such a change but that seems like a roundabout way of saying that the district does not wish to address the issue head-on and just eliminate the rule of teacher recommendations altogether while i was in school i was literally the only black student in my honors in ap classes i am positive there were many other black students capable of taking those classes but

163the inherent racism of teachers towards black students blocked them from achieving at those levels from 5th grade students can enter into honors classes for middle school and i want to know why the school district does not believe black students can make it in those classes there was an attempt to block me from advanced math in the sixth grade yet i was able to make it through and years later check ap calculus bc as a senior i feel as though there are deliberate attempts to dissuade and prevent black students from achieving at higher levels in their classes black students are never given a chance to succeed like their white counterparts while i may have graduated from chs four years ago i and other black alums will never forget how the school district tried to hold us

164back from the beginning the school district and every teacher should work towards allowing more black students to take honors in ap classes if they want they have absolutely no right to prevent a black student from participating in higher level courses in fact they should encourage their black students to enroll more challenging courses finally they need to do better when it comes to ensuring a quality education for their black students i understand that the school board has other issues to consider such as ensuring the safety of their students during copen 19 but do not forget about the issues that have been ongoing before the pandemic began school district needs to take more concrete steps to ensure their black students receive an education just like that of other students i encourage the school board to finally start

165taking action and bring justice to their black students with the ever lasting inaction of the clayton school district this issue will not disappear and as long as it continues neither will my fellow alumni and i and that's the end of her comment thanks chris um so we're gonna move to uh board communication does anybody have a um committee or liaison report oh david go ahead all right so uh last night was i think it actually was the first pto council meeting for the year and so it was pretty well attended across all the schools i don't believe we had the high school there if i remember correctly um kind of a couple of the key points that were talked about uh that i wanted to relay to you guys you can share with with folks

166that you talk to is um uh there's a lot you know the all focus and all eyes are on the the food drive now so we can get the pantry stocked up the pto websites are all updated to reflect the donation capabilities and have the the need lists so hit your local schools pto site and see see how you can help and share the word um a couple of highlights across a few of the schools uh you know it's kind of interesting because things are different now right we can't do a lot of the back to school activities that most of our classes are used to but you know captain shifted their uh popsicles to popsicles on the porch i thought that was pretty crafty um glenridge you know held their um their readathon which

167is one of their primary fundraisers and this year they shifted the proceeds to that to go to the food pantry rather than keeping it in-house which is pretty fabulous um merrimack and glenridge both kicked off their funds for excellence programs but of course there's concern over the the uh the amount that we'll actually be able to pull in given the current state of of a lot of the families and family centers locked down a sponsor for community give back um i the date has been figured out and it's uh uh the sponsor's been figured out but i'll i'll leave the surprise for them when they announce it we should be able to see that hopefully coming out soon and the last piece that we talked through was uh kind of interesting for me because i've

168not actually sat through one of the presentations but all the all in clayton coalition presented the current status there uh just a couple of data points that were fascinating was the 30-day use data for um you know we track and trend uh alcohol marijuana and e-cigs alcohol and marijuana were up over the the data from 2018 but e-cigs are down so i guess that's a little bit of a small victory um but uh our 30-day averages are actually lower than the county as a whole and um but probably the most relevant thing that we should all take away is that the federal funding that all in clayton coalition gets requires a matching volunteer hour component so every dollar that they get donated requires a dollars worth of time in volunteer hours so that's where they

169struggle a little bit so if there's ever an opportunity that you see or your uh your contacts and friends see to help kick in some time and help the uh the coalition it would be well received i think that's all i've got joe great thanks uh kim go ahead yeah i just want to emphasize what uh david said about the drive for the for funding the food pantry so as of today only a thousand dollars has been collected and there's a 50 000 goal that's based on the thirty thousand dollars that was collected in early spring when school shut down so um please spread the word through friends family and uh community supporters because i know that our community is very generous and they will donate if they know that there is a need and

170there is certainly a need for a number of our students not being in school means no breakfast and no lunch and so this funding is to help to meet those shortfalls for the remainder of the school year thank you any other committee or liaison reports okay do we have a motion to adjourn the move that the board of education adjourned second all in favor aye aye aye any opposed all right we are adjourned thank you all