FHSD Board of Education Meeting - February 8, 2024

001[Music] all right thank you everybody for coming tonight uh before we get started we'd like to have a moment moment of silence um observe two young students who passed away tragically last month Jameson a first grader Daniel Elementary and his younger brother Julian who attended Parkway early Childhood Center both lost their lives and a house fire so let's just take a moment of silence honor of these two boys U who will be in this [Music] for thank you very much let's begin in tonight's meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Bo like a motion to approve the agenda for February 8th 2024 as presented second

002all those in favor say I I all those post say no eyes have it next we're going to introduce Miss Jing Jes who's going to introduce our student board representative thank you president Bertrand and as you know the purpose of the student board rep program is to honor and recognize talented students Elevate student voice and provide growth opportunities in the areas of public speaking leadership and governance students are selected for this Honor by their principal with input from the student body they have an opportunity to prepare and deliver a short speech to the board and the public that is focused on their school or the district and with that I'd like to invite Dr Dave wedlock principal of Francis how high to introduce our student board rep for this evening good evening tonight I have

003the pleasure pleasure of introducing tonight's student School Board representative Kush Mal swari Kush is a son of mohith and R malesori we appreciate their efforts in and guiding Kush and we are happy to see that they have joined us here in the audience Kush is an outstanding senior student who exemplifies the best in Francis how Vikings he maintains a 4.8 GPA has a 34 on the ACT which places him in top 1% of scores nationally so it's not just us that's says he's talented it's the world um he's number one in his class and a member of three clubs in which he's a leader in all three of them uh he's captain of The Scholar Bowl Marching Band drum line snare drum leader president and co-founder of the chess club he is now accepting offers

004from colleges um currently Northwestern and Purdue at top of his list with a future degree in biomed engineering most recently he was selected as the uh by a panel of Vikings science math engineering and Technology teachers as the best stem student at Francis how high school will be recognized by the St Charles Economic Development Council um later this month he also participates in the offallon mayor's youth Advisory Board where he is helpful in moderating Council candidate debate forums by asking questions of the candidates to inform voters the key question for tonight is what makes Kush so effective both as a leader and an individual performers his teachers always start with the obvious and say that he's very smart and talented and always nice but then whether it's a student or a teacher they always get

005this huge smile on their face and they chuckle in amazement it's just odd all these people have the same reaction and they have this reaction because they say that kush is always nice in every situation he accepts people for who they are appreciates their consci contributions that they're able to make at whatever level and involves them in creating solutions that make things better for everyone whether it's in a class or in an activity in talking with Kush I could see his excitement in learning helping his to grow and celebrating team's success as he described his ninth grade biology project in which he was to grow plants to describe his carbon footprint as he described the plants learning to uh grow them every day feel the excitement of getting up in the morning and give them

006everything they need to succeed and then celebrating the literal Harvest at the end I could see that he has such excitement and joy in working with others to make great success this makes me very proud to be his principal and I know many vikings including his peers here tonight that are going to present here in a minute along with his teachers could not be more proud to know that he is receiving this honor congratulations Kush and I'm privileged to in introduce you tonight as the Franc High School student School Board representative good evening everyone uh I would just like to start by thanking the board members here for giving me the chance to share a few experiences that I believe showcase the outstanding Community here at Francis how high school and the exceptional academic opportunities

007available in this district and at my school specifically I also would I'd like to thank Dr wedlock for all his kind words and for choosing to represent me uh represent Francis H high school at today's board meeting coming straight into Middle School into the pandemic I was not sure what activities and programs to join that would be of interest to me I was in the middle school concert bin but I did not think I had enough passion or interest in percussion to continue that further however with some encouragement from my parents I decided to try it out and I attended one of the early marching band and drum line rehearsals in the summer for Francis Hall High School it immediately I noticed a shift from the traditional band setting that I was used to the

008culture here was unique and different and it was clear that all the students a had an interest and B like to play music plus it was so nice to see how all how welcoming all the upper classman were and how they immediately made me feel like a part of their group and a part of their Community I noticed how they included me in their conversations and even though I'd only known them for a few hours they still invited me to their dinner plans after the practice to me this is what the how culture is all about creating a sense of belonging among students regardless of their background or experience level besides just the comfort from my peers the skill level and the high quality instruction from the experienced staff members I realized this is why

009how drum line and the band in particular was seen as one of the best in the area through this program we even had a chance to participate in the WGI World Championships my sophomore year an experience not available to many schools in this area and many drummers in the US through marching B and indoor drum line in the winter I learned confidence through expression and perseverance in my junior year I was chosen to lead the drum line as section leader and through this position I learned the importance of being a role model and a mentor another feature of how that stands out to me is the multitude of opportunities inside and outside the classroom many schools in our area limit the students on the number of AP classes or Honors cour that they can take

010and sometimes don't even offer different subjects like computer science or engineering that are important for students to know what they actually want to pursue After High School however at Francis Howell any student can take any class regardless of age for example me along with many other Juniors were able to take AP Calculus last year even though that is normally a senior level class at the majority of schools in St Louis I believe early exposure to more advanced coursework and material is a great way for students to prepare themselves for their future college education while simultaneously developing important study habits and discipline well I have numerous other stories that I could speak gone to demonstrate the high quality of education and community that Francis H builds and instills in each student I believe these were my

011two strongest examples again I would like to thank Dr wedlock and all the board members for giving me the opportunity to speak today I greatly appreciate it I confident that what I've learned at Francis how as a Francis how student has thoroughly prepared me for not just my future career but my life in general thank you [Music] you're welcome thank you [Music] get to sit right next to [Music] me welcome Kush we we are so glad you're here I'm Mrs Sage I'll be your Mentor for the evening so you can write me notes here if you want ask any questions uh we're on behalf of the board president beron vice president cook and treasur Miss hkar we're really glad you're here joining us um we love to hear from you you can participate in our

012discussions you just can't vote with us okay but we are really glad you're here so if you have anything just let us know thank you welcome nextt we have J Miss Jing Jes again we talk about our Spotlight right thank you and toight for our Spotlight presentation we are excited for you to learn more about the girls in stem program at how high this is a mentorship program that aims to help girls interested in science technology engineering and math and helps them pursue their passions this student Le Club was featured in a recent issue of mid Rivers's news magazine and involves a group of high school students you're going to meet some of them tonight mentoring younger students in the district and I'll invite Dr wedlock back to the podium to talk with you first

013about the importance of involvement and how Francis how high encourages students to stay active in clubs and organizations such as girls and stem encouraging and supporting involvement in club sports and activities at fhhs is a vitally important part of our success for many reasons the first and maybe the most clear to people who visit the school may be the great spirit of community at the school that people see in school events and they see in the long history of success written on the walls and shared in stories as people at the events enjoy um the history of Fran is how high school that dates back to 1915 for today's Vikings the feeling Community can be found in school activities that lead them to feel accepted appreciated and ultimately motivated to be their best and work

014hard to reach difficult aspirations their motivation may be clear in the 69% of students currently which is 1200 students after the fall semester who have already been involved in one activity this year they maintain a 3.64 GPA which is 710 higher than students that are not involved their attendance is more than two days more than students that do not participate and have marketly fewer disciplined referrals when compared to students not involved our efforts to improve all or involve all students include the activity director Sean Irwin's multiple emails and personal meetings with students who are are not involved to talk about opportunities our coaches and sponsors who actively recruit students to join and sustain their membership and our staff as a whole who has spent time each month this year talking with the en entire student

015population about the fun opportunities to get involved in some of the Great accomplishments of the many clubs Sports and activities at Franc out high school and outstanding example of what this involvement can mean is here tonight with the leaders of the girls stem Club there are four seniors who are an awesome example of this activity in action they are my angia and Via McKenna hja nagar gari and Bridget reichart who have this amazing and likely unique uh distinction of having an average ACT score of 35.5 among the four of them they are joined with their sponsor Maro kanig from ranc middle who they work together each week to develop activities for middle school girls to get excited about joining science technology and engineering classes once they get to high school they will do a much

016better job than I could of describing that so I'll invite them forward to walk you through all the great details [Music] hi my name is Maya I'm anva I'm Pua and I'm Bridget and we are Francis how high school girls in stem a club and nonprofit dedicated to reducing the gender gap in stem now we founded this club because all of us experienced the severe lack of female representation in stem classes at the high school and so to fix this we decided to inspire Equitable and balanced mindsets in our future Generations because building a strong Community starts with our future but we're also incredibly thankful for our past and that includes Mrs kig our sponsor our mentor and our inspiration she represents an integral part of the girls and stem Community which is those women

017who have already experienced the stem world and continue to fight for those in the future we are here to extend our support to her kindness her patience her care and most importantly her efforts to support girls in stem we're not just here to support women in stem though we're here to support everyone we accept all types of students and ultimately we are here to show that girls in stem is a place where everyone regardless of their gender or their interests [Music] belongs so Maya touched on this before but every week we prepare a presentation on a STEM related topic and outline an experiment related to this project that the girls will conduct that day this allows them to have some time to collaborate with their friends but at the same time also have a basis

018on what the project is actually accomplishing this is our Instagram account where we post weekly for parents and the larger Community to update them on these STEM related topics we prepare both long-term workshops like egg drop and building Bridge Project along with some short-term projects like our water testing and DNA modeling exercise our program has grown to over 25 members and each week as we do this short and long-term projects the students break off learning to work with one another in small groups our work has also been featured in both our school district website but also larger Community networks such as mid River's news magazine ultimately our goal is to expand this Outreach with girls and stem to other schools both within our school district and the larger County as a well obviously the students

019come to girls and stem to learn about stem stem Concepts in a fun and engaging way the most profound impact of this club is the supportive community that we have built having a support system to stand beside you in success and in Failure is critical in achieving personal growth in building the self-confidence it takes to persevere in a male dominated field so in this club we're not only girls who care about stem but most importantly we're people who care about each other thank you [Music] up next we have Patron comments during Patron comments residents of the district and staff members are invited to address the board of education on issues related to the school district speakers are called forward in the order signed up and each speaker has three minutes to make the remarks please

020remember that only one speaker is allowed at the podium at a time and combining time or giving your time to someone else is not REM the board appreciates that you've taken the time to come this evening and we value both your input and perspective I would like to remind everyone that we expect our speakers will remain civil and respectful when giving remarks if anyone fails to comply with those with board policies regulations and rules we reserve the right to cut those three minutes short for your convenience we have our three minute clock [Music] ready and we welcome Kirk wolf good evening Bo board um many of the decisions that you make are very difficult and it's often thankless work so I'd like to start by thanking you all for your service tonight I'd like to

021comment on one of these tough decisions the security vestibules project here we have what feels to me like deja vu a project that is suddenly more than 96% over the estimates provided 3 months ago by honer and Associates and our project manager it's hard to say what's really going on is it incompetence by the architect and project manager is it a mismanaged bid process is it extreme is it extreme inflation or some combination I'm not sure what I can say is that tonight's presentation and recommendations in the agenda are simply infuriating for example slide four titled quote primary discrepancies per honer and Associates I have to ask you why in the world should you consider excuse uses from them right your immediate concern here tonight is to decide between two bad choices either one delay

022the project or two continue it at almost double the cost estimates this is tough because everyone agrees that these security upgrades are necessary in the long run however if you send a message that you will accept these kind of blown estimates then that's all you'll get going forward in a broke School District in a broke school district will have much bigger safety issues and not many options in my career I've seen how good Executives deal with blown projects like this and they all do one thing they make sure that everyone involved suffers consequences they want certainty that everyone is supremely motivated to control projects and costs so what would a good executive do in this case I believe that they would start obviously to me by firing home owner and Associates next they would ask

023our facilities director to come up with a temporary plan for enhancing security at the five schools and give him the task of delivering this project under some reasonable margin over the original estimate like 20 25% a good executive would make his job dependent on fixing this you might think that such actions are harsh they are and they're tough they're difficult to make and you you'll not maybe not sleep nights doing it but I ask you to focus on what is best in the long run for the taxpayers and students and send a clear and unambiguous message of financial discipline thank you next we welcome adri [Music] anun hello directors of the board Administration and our community I'm Adriana and I'm running for the Francis heal School Board in the April 2nd election I'm running for

024many reasons a few of my top initiatives are supporting parental rights overseeing fiscal responsibility and improving academic standards today I'd like to speak on some positive recent experiences I've noticed within our district first I'd like to acknowledge the recent open Forum curriculum meeting thank you to our curriculum team for being available for this interactive and transparent Forum that allowed anyone to come and discuss proposed curriculum face to face with members of our Francis hell curriculum team I found this type of meeting refreshing and beneficial to speak personally with individuals building curriculum for Francis hell second I'd like to recognize the board for diligently overseeing our budget for the last few years many parents and citizens may not be aware that from 2014 to 2018 our teachers did not receive their yearly scheduled salary steps this

025was the direct result of a poor fiscal oversight in our district during that time for four consecutive years our district struggled to maintain the minimum requirement of 15% operating expense reserves currently due to the board's diligent fiscal oversight our district has expense reserves of approximately 30% we have not had such a high percentage of operating expense reserves in our district for many many years currently negotiations are occurring for staff salaries and with such large operating expense reserves I'm hopeful our board will continue to work towards reinstating Miss salary steps for our teachers lastly as we're approaching Valentine's day next week I ask everyone to consider taking a little time to email teachers and District staff that have positively impacted their lives let let them know that you recognize all the hard work they do and

026let them know that you value their meaningful contributions they make to your child's life daily interactions our children have in our schools may seem trivial to some but these daily interactions can have real meaningful long-term effects in the eyes of a child so this week let's flood our teachers board and administration with emails of support and appreciation thank you up next we welcome Sam [Music] young good evening board superintendent staff my name is Sam young and I'm running for uh Francis House School Board I'm uh from the other side of the state born and raised outside of Independence Missouri I grew up in and a product of the public school system I attended missou on a Navy Roc scholarship to study engineering and I spent 20 years in the US Navy first on attack submarines

027in the Pacific and later on major Fleet staff doing operational and strategic planning with my last deployment being on a carrier strike group staff during my time in the Navy I obtained two master's degree and qualified as a Navy nuclear engineer my public school education provided the solid foundation upon which my Naval career was build I've always had a close connection to Public Schools teachers Beyond those that taught me in my K through 12 education my mom was a public Ed public school teacher as were the parents my three closest childhood friends my father-in-law is a retired wizville School District teacher and I have a brother who's a secondary school teacher who I talk to frequently about what is happening in Missouri schools I value and honor the role that teachers have in our students

028life life teaching should be an emotionally rewarding experience instead I hear stories of teachers being bogged down with data collection analysis additional duties and more and more paperwork teachers are getting less and less respect from students parents and even administrators I'm making a firm commitment to support our teachers and reducing their workload so they can focus on actual academics such as Reading Writing Math Science and History we also must restore all steps and pay for every teacher in the district pay raises have to be budgeted in every year in the Navy I was paid on a similar scale to what teachers experience I expected to move up that scale every year but I also expected the base pay of that scale to be raised every year that should be our goal I have a diverse

029background living on both us coasts Hawaii Guam and in Europe I've visited and worked with people from many different nations and cultures I have worked with and for many diverse people from all over the us as well as immigrants from the Philippines Dominican Republic India South Africa Lebanon from my experience I feel we should value and appreciate diversity but not force it helping people grow in potential was instilled in me from an early age my career in the Navy allowed me to be mentored myself and to have the opportunity Unity to devel help develop others into confident and strong leaders the last four years I've been fortunate to volunteer as a mentor to the districtwide high school robotics team that each season builds a robot from scratch in running for the board I hope to

030continue being a part ofam your that builds up all students in the district thank [Applause] you next next we welcome Jared Pillsbury good evening board um first I want to uh direct a comment to uh director Ponder I had sent an email to you um last night in a followup to work that you've been assigned that was talked about with the director beran for months ago hopefully I can get a courtesy of a reply greatly appreciate it thank you um next Dr Romus I'd sent an email to you about a matter of safety concerning the last meeting I'm hoping for a courtesy of a reply to that email as well um next up I want to talk a little bit about booing and heckling I'm in various conversations with folks around the district and I

031know that they feel it's gotten out of hand I appreciate Dr rus' comments at the last meeting about it um obviously neither I nor anyone has total control over this room uh but I do understand that it's it's Troublesome and I don't condone it U for those who have felt heckled and intimidated before I can only humbly apologize I don't go in for it but I can't control what happens in in this room nor can anyone else um I hope it stops that being said um in a different space in a different time in August of 2021 I got up to a different meeting space gave comments as did another parent as did a CO Survivor and two doctors they shared their stories and they received heckling and booze from one side of the audience

032that didn't necessarily go in for what they were saying so unfortunately this has been around for a time um anyway just a plea to the the plead of the community at large we don't have to go in for that stuff there's something you disagree with find your words that's the best I can say about that um my last point that I'd like to make is in response to a February 5th editorial that was submitted to Mid Rivers magazine by one Ken Gars of the Francis hell uh families pack Ken gars in response to his editorial I'm just putting this out there I've submitted it to the magazine I have no idea if they'll publish it Ken Gar isent president of the Francis how families pack an organization that believes in kitty litter conspiracies and whose

0332023 candidate and one of their newly endorsed candidates greed public education is trash and that the teachers union is quote pure unadulterated evil end quote in a recent radio interview Ken's family contributed over $20,000 to the last Board of Ed brace last cycle and hopefully hopefully with signs and spreading their Halle message on talk radio they hope to make you forget how their preferred office holders have done nothing to address real issues like attracting and retaining quality staff you know teachers those are those people they claim to be to be for despite the radio interview Mr Gars went on in his editorial to complain about gaslighting and express concerns over lawsuits that could be leveled against the district he failed to mention he himself Su the district Ken has been going on about critical race

034theory for years now I have not seen one Army of cultural marxists terrorizing any such neighborhoods in the Francis how School District what I have seene is a board favored by this pack ignoring St your time is up [Applause] allow next to welcome stepen Blair if you love something you protect it last week a board member and a board candidate were interviewed by radio host the radio host called Public School Systems trash a Francis H family's candidate not at their head in agreement later the host called the Nea pure unadulterated evil both the francile family's uh persons smiled in support you clap for teachers here but we hear how you talk about teachers with your friends if you love something you protect it if someone called somebody you love trash or pure evil you would

035stand up for him I'm waiting to hear somebody stand up to the radio host and tell them he's wrong those views are extreme views they do not represent the majority of the red blue purple or none of the above people in this District you might agree on nothing else besides this that the Francis House school district is a treasure for the whole community and it is not trash the Brian Middle School is a treasure did you see the performance of Music Man Jor it was great Hollenbeck Seager Barnwell Francis how Middle School are all treasures and you should hear it more often Francis how high is a treasure Francis how Central is a treasure Francis how North and Union are treasures and everyone inside them the elementary schools and their teachers are Treasures those teachers

036don't hate anything except for glitter Henderson and Fairmont Becky David and Daniel Boone Cosley and Central Warren and John Welden Independence Henderson Fairmount and Harvest Ridge are all doing beautiful work they are all treasures and teachers are doing all of this while being underpaid by thousands of dollars per student and they're Accused by one of your board members of Being Greedy for wanting the pay that they have earned they are doing this while somehow being both micromanaged and ignored there's a fifth grade math book that is asking students questions about DVDs and VHS tape but that hasn't been a priority Frances how families will put $10,000 of mailers into people's hands to try to get them to forget about the last 10 months don't let them get you to forget if students and teachers were

037a priority you would have heard something about it over the last 10 months but you haven't you have 10 months of Records to run on and you have nothing this election is a about teachers they're going to try to make the election about uh hot button issues and cultural Wars this election is about teachers and Carly Owens and I believe teachers should be paid more trusted more and respected more and it is not happening underneath the current leadership that's why they're not endorsing you the last 10 months of inactivity and the last 10 days of Silence have told us what all of you associate with Franc sou fames beliefs if we don't get this culture right nothing else will matter and if you are red blue purple or none of the above if you just

038believe that Francis House school district is a treasure and it's not trash it's one of the very best things about living here in this place and I invite you to vote for Carly Owens and myself on April the 2nd we will protect what we love up next we welcome Grace and Justice good evening and happy Black History Month uh before I went to my speech I want to say congratulations to my mom Amy Sorak who it was working here in Fr school district for 21 years so Mom if you're watching [Applause] congratulations elective ininal course of study let me say that again elective an optional course of study during the past months the board majority doesn't even know the definition of this word for the black lid and history courses instead they either want to

039cancel it or whitewash it this board wastes precious time and energy on culture War policies instead of genuine issues like teacher pay and hiring upgrading the schools and representing ation of all students on April 2nd vote for the candidates who doesn't put out culture War policies bullying and harassing students with investigations and not communicating with the community and other U board members vote for the ca vote for the candidates who support all students teachers and staff put out plans to help schools for the better and communicate with the community and other school board members and I with Isaac what who was our last student representative in our last meeting that there should be a Latin history and elective courses and I think there should be an lgbtqia history and elective uh history and lit elective

040courses in high schools and I would love to have those happening soon thank [Applause] you up next we W welcome Simon thank you Legacy may come from one's character reputation and the life you lead setting an example for others and to guide their Futures we are a district whose structure is in disarray we have board members going on talk shows that absolutely trash public schools and teacher unions we had a board member who voted to do away with curriculum when they publicly admitted out loud they didn't know what they were voting for we have a board member who made a promise to create a work group and it's 6 months later and we've heard nothing about it we have a board member who's called parents rumors and pedophiles we have a board member who doesn't

041trust that our teachers have the ability to teach a 15-year-old how to write a cohesive email you just heard a candidate this year who wants you to believe that the board has any say in teacher negotiation process that's false and another who wants us to get back to the basics you just heard we had a gentleman in the district who recently pinned a letter to the editor asking we leave politics at the door yet he installed five of you in front of me with the help of local and state politicians who would admittedly show up here more and more every month that same gentleman's pack and its nonprofit arm are currently floating on social media a personal attack against one of our teachers that is disgusting she was told to write a curriculum which brings

042me to our admin when will our director of curriculum get up and speak out loud for her teachers and our curriculum when will our superintendent get up and protect every student's right to an enriched education and protect our teachers abilities time and money director berand what is your legacy going to be are you going to lead a quidd proquo pack be Holden quidd proquo board be Holden to a political pack or can you hold these guys accountable and protect the reputation of our district what will your legacy be Francis Howell is in disarray will any of you stand up to protect our district even if your voice shakes thank you up next we welcome Harry Harris I knew you to know um first of all I wanted to say thank you to the young ladies

043who were here earlier um I was really listening to their speech and I I heard how they talked about their group forming because they didn't see equity and they didn't see people in the field that they wanted to go into who looked like them and and I feel like we've talked about this quite a bit and I'm glad that the kids are all right and they get it so I'm hoping that we can get it um I did want to speak tonight to to ask that you all pull it together these last few weeks have looked like nothing I've seen before and I'd really like to never see it again we don't have to be on the same ideological page to know that it's unacceptable for a board member to go on social media name

044specific members of our educational staff and speak badly about them director pushkar did that this week and I find it repulsive yeah you did in addition this last week director cook took the opportunity to speak ill of the Educators that put together the black voices matter March back in 2021 saying and I quote before I was on the board a group of Francis H staff organized a political protest and shut down mid Rivers's Mall Drive while twisting it to fit your narrative you lied that it was a political protest not that it was a March over the frustrations regarding the George Floyd murder I know this because I was there and I don't think that you were not that it was put together by Educators who saw and heard the frustrations that the student population

045was expressing you decided to call it a political protest on social media so yet again trying to vilify our teachers I heard all three candidates tonight talk about let's treat our teachers and our staffs better they don't need an email talking about how great they are they need us to public stand up and not degrade them they need the rest of us to back them we don't need this kind of vilifying of the people who we entrust our kids to be with every day if I thought that way about our staffs I wouldn't send my 13-year-old to school I love the teachers in our district even the ones that I may not agree with so it's time that we stop bullying our own employees our teachers and administrators and anyone on the district payroll deserves

046better than publicly trashing them by sitting board members or anybody else director Bertrand as president I'm asking for you to get this under control and that an apology be issued to our staffs thank you up next we welcome King gar board superintendent this evening I invite our patrons to celebrate acknowledge and credit this board for the notable list of accomplishments is achieved over the last 10 months Boy you have worked diligently this year to support teachers to exercise fiscal responsibility to promote academic Excellence to provide greater transparency to our community and our parents and to address delicate diverse social issues for teachers you have restored recess par Professionals in elementary schools providing relief to the heavy and demanding workload of our teachers you negotiated a new teachers contract that provided two steps along the teachers

047salary schedule in 20122 and one step in 2023 along with an increase in base pay P you installed school resource officers into more schools with the goal of getting them in all providing additional protection for our kids you placed American flags in every classroom instilling a sense of patriotism once again in our schools regarding academic Excellence you made substantial progress towards the correcting the reading instruction curriculum utilizing the science of reading research methodology which focuses more on decoding words and phonics instead of guessing on pictures you further Enlighten the load of workload for teachers by creating new procedures for giving surveys you focus more on academics by eliminating time spent on character plus curriculum and on diversity equity and inclusion you avoided buying the costly I ready math curriculum for grades K through five while

048highly touted has no definitive evidence that is any better with I being significantly more expensive than the current math curriculum you saved the district significant dollars you're considering a policy requiring middle school and high school students to be taught the truths of Communism and how nearly 100 million deaths have resulted because of that ideology you supported a new robust black history curriculum while resending the divisive Southern poverty loss Ander social justice of the old curriculum and finally you conducted a first reading of bathroom policy 2116 calling for the security and the Privacy for all for all pupil where students must use the bathrooms of their biological birth or you or use of a single use bathroom board well done our community thanks you salute you for continuing to make Francis Howell schools CPS in the

049state thank you up next we welcome Rosemary to voo um the boing of speakers last week by both sides was so embarrassing I'm aching for civility I want there to be ethical growth in our community not just in audiences but by their Leaders with our children on playgrounds I want to make personal moral I want our kids and our adults making personal moral decisions and not just what someone else tells them or gives them a limited Choice sign our kids are are too smart for other people's choosing only I was a 32y old I wish I was okay 40 years ago I was okay so I was a teacher in the district for 32 years I was on ambusher committees I was in PTO I had the pleasure of working with magnificent parents children who

050love music and some pursued it I got to know the way our district works and still so proud to be a teacher in this District we had unions that represented and I know we're not unions but we're an organization okay but we had leaders who would work for us to try to bring us good raises but then they would turn to a board of education and carry on conversations about what were critical issues and how they could be help the students last week who spoke at the Board of Education meeting have my respect and reverence because they don't want their peers their families their teachers and administrators thinking of them as only a gender or a race or a culture or a social status or some political division they know universality is what we need

051not cultural division we need to be uniting behind what we know as ethical and moral human beings can we can be proud to represent and don't have to go like this as someone on the radio is wearing a Francis hwood shirt okay got that out of my system all righty I am concentrated in the midst of creating an environment where certain topics are not to be discussed maybe they're going to be suicide gender identity and race we're teaching of historical events like the Tulsa Race Massacre and the causes of the Civil War are Rewritten are excluded from the curriculum where political agendas not the students needs are governing policies thank you your time is up [Applause] sign up for up for another minutes do I get six next we hit we welcome fhaa that was

052a legitimate question isn't working good evening over the last several weeks teachers in Francis Hall have faced personal attacks from our own District as I mentioned last board meeting director pushkar called for the teachers arrest naming them in a Facebook group for completing a lawful request with the district under the Sunshine Law in another attack director pushkar posted an email correspondence to Facebook in an effort to malign a teacher and the process for the original black history and black literature classes which were already eliminated by this board and are being Rewritten with no guarantee their curriculums will be approved then Jane pushkar appeared with a current board candidate on local radio show where the host disparaged public education calling it trash and calling the Nea evil to its core all while Jane and the current

053board candidate shook their heads in agreement the day that fhaa entered salary negotiations with administrators and Board of Education observers director cook posted a fable about greed and at the end of the post said moral it is not wise to be too greedy is this what you think of our teachers we are the lowest paid and highest performing District in this County we aren't greedy we are trying try to ensure that our children have great teachers every day all day at the end of the 2223 school year we had 82 resignations and 52 retirements fhaa can't help but Wonder as we have begun the Staffing process for the 2425 school year how many educators will we lose this year the same as last year or more who would we who would want to teach here

054if the board of education is attacking its teachers and how do we fix it so we can attract the best candidates for our vacancies of a of a deputy superintendent Elementary content lead or director of technology and to hire maybe 140 teachers or more how do we keep highly trained Master Teachers who have helped fhsd reach the Pinnacles of success from retiring early when they could still have five or more years how do we keep our younger teachers who will carry on the legacy of Excellence from leaving because they don't feel safe in this District here is something to think about you can't pay people enough to make them stay where they feel disrespected ridiculed and even hated and who would want to come to Francis how with this type of reputation do better thank

055[Applause] you up next we welcome [Music] Pisa good evening president bertran superintendent rumpus cabinet board and guests firstly we want to recognize all our teachers and support staff of the Year winners your passion and work ethic are a thing to be celebrated thank you for all you do in our schools all you have gone above and beyond and deserve all the recognition we hope you truly feel appreciated for all that you've done to support the kids here at Francis hell secondly we want to give a big thank you to the groups of custodians coming together to do tile maintenance in new North the building is really taking form it's come a long way and I'm excited for more people to witness what's in store it's truly beautiful we want to also thank all of the

056support staff that are dealing with shortages flu and illness has been on the rise requiring a lot of flexibility teamwork and commitment it's February and we would like to recognize Black History Month Unity is a beautiful thing Desmond Tutu's quote my humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together speaks to that we have to work together in unison we move forward in unison one howl thank you and have a great night Bo I like a motion to approve the consent agenda for February 8th 2024 as presented all those in favor say I I all those oppos say no eyes have it right board I like a motion to approve the certified and non-certified contract language for a 2425 school year as presented second har discussion board um thank you Adam

057for U pulling the the contracts that I ask you to pull um the reason I did that was because I think we need some legal advice on putting in some additional language to these contracts that we don't currently have um I didn't I I did didn't read the or I didn't get to the agenda the entire agenda all this weekend so that I apologize for the late notice for polling um I think if we put some additional language in there um which basically lines out some quantitative measures it gives us the opportunity and the impetus to get this done um it gives us full transparency with the public and so I'd like to answer any questions on any may have of me about M simpin can you maybe give some background on these contracts one

058for the public but also to make sure all the boards align what they're used for and how they're how we go about utilizing them sure um we do have our legal council review the contract language every year uh so that is a standard practice for us um it has not been a common practice to include quantitive data in an employment contract um it does include language that the leader agrees to comply with all requirements stated in their written performance standards and so those types of things would be more common to include in a in an annual evaluation for the administrator so that each Leader's performance U measure could be specific to the needs of that building into what's happening in that particular Leader's employment status um it would be difficult to include any kind of

059quantitive data than the standard language that we use the the contracts are provided through Frontline Central the language is similar for all so that we're making sure that we are being um consistent and not um putting oursel at any risk for any kind of discriminatory practices um we do provide one-year contracts to our administrators at this level we do yearly annual uh yearly evaluation sorry I couldn't say that word and address Performance concerns with leaders is necessary throughout that process um as we monitor student data in each building through our Sip and our regular data visits we have conversations with supervisors and address principal performance or director performance in that way because this is such an un it would be such an uncommon practice um I I do believe that it might cause our leaders

060to look for employment elsewhere or maybe even cause new hires to refrain from applying if that was in their contract noted in that way I think we can accomplish that goal um by using our evaluation tool in our performance evaluation we do have quantitative measures um our performance um performance is measured just in our our sip smals um attendance discipline data academic performance we use smart goals in those areas and our our district directors our superintendent who do those evaluations use that information when they are informing their decisions in a performance evaluation um such things like climate surveys have quantifiable data that we also use um and we use that you know just throughout our conversations with our leaders to have coaching conversations and then address any performance issues as they arise so um I

061don't know if that's helpful well somewhat the the only issue that I see with per um performance uh it's Bas putting those quantitative measures in performance um that you don't know until a full year has pass whether or not they've adhered to them as far as the discriminatory language um that's why we're getting um legal input to be sure that we follow all the rules and guidelines that we're expected to follow um I want I want my reason for doing this is that I want it to be known upfront that we do have these reg we do have these wishes for adherence to quantitative performance measures which I understand have not been put into contracts before um but I think I'd like to change that make it known upfront um so that everybody knows and

062I the same PE they're there's always going to be people I think employees that look at a certain contract and some will like it and some some won't and those that won't obviously they may not come here if even if there's not they may not want to come here even if there's not anything in the contract or they may want to come here because there's something in the contract that would actually end up protecting them so my my reason other reason for doing this is that it gives full transparency to the public and and to the board and also has the board uh pushes the board I shouldn't use the word push it also requires that the board um make a decision within 30 days which would not hold up any any contract signing at

063least that I know of um and I just think it's a a good practice to follow I've always seen contracts with quantitative measures in them and I believe that should be done additional discussion or questions Bo I have a question I'm looking at this it looks like on consent we went ahead and approved some of the salary contact language already so exactly which ones are we pulling just the administrators and the directors there's there's three Janet the one was a non-certified director I'm sorry certificated non-certificated director a certificated director and a certificated administrator contract right I see that I guess I'm wondering what is it about those three that that are different from the all the other ones I I I just I would like to understand well they're not teachers I mean I I

064don't know what question you're you're really trying to ask well I just want to know why are we why are we doing this towards our Administration I I I guess I'm looking for as an administrator the district I mean we have content leaders we have everything what kind of quantitive data can you put in a who when she's out mentoring teachers that's what I'm that's what I'm struggling with Miss P okay I understand J I appreciate your comments um basically some of those I'm I'm not I don't want to say right now because it hasn't been run past the attorneys and I don't want to make any commitments or sound any alarms that are unnecessary every con every contract for administrative Personnel that I've seen has had some sort of quanti measures in this case

065like I said I don't want sound alarms but there are quantitative goals that this district has I think that those contracts should be well aligned with those I know I'm being vague I'm yeah I'm trying to answer your question okay I get it I just got a quick question I'm just is there anywhere any school districts that has this that you know of to be honest with you Chad I haven't checked with anybody anybody have have any of you heard of it Chad I think it's a very very uncommon practice um I I'm not aware of any contracts that have that but I did this this late conversation I I did not do that research but in my experience that has not been something that's been in an employment contract it has been goals that

066are Set uh during the evaluative process as you know Chad we were asked to just um approve the template um and the only change was going to be the 24 25 school year my concern was that if I have thought if I have things or the board has things that they want to quantify as far as performance this gives us 30 days to make that decision it could be Chad that we don't come to any agreement but it could be that we do other commentary board I guess my I I agree with you in the sense that we want quantitative measures and it sounds like we we have those within other meod and systems and and I agree with you there are a number of contracts that I've seen as well that have measures in

067them but generally when I see those they're more Project based kind of things if you have deliverables and you have to deliver those deliverables not like an employment type contract per se just throwing that out there other questions commentary board all right so we are voting on a motion to approve the certified and non-certified contract language for 2024 2025 school year as presented all those in favor say I all those opposed say no no eyes have it gon like a motion to approve the January monthly financial report as presented Some Mo miss good evening board so M heer's pulling up a very brief presentation for you and I think I've shared with you before that I've learned with my eyesight and looking that direction I need to have papers in front of me so I'm

068better equipped uh this evening so I will remind you of course I typically provide you with discussion objectives and I won't read those but I will also share that all of our regular Financial reports have been posted I'll draw your attention also to the budget amendment and transfer report that we're posting each month there are no budget amendments or transfers for this month we know that we'll be bringing more forward to you as we continue our journey in in uh reviewing our current year budget and getting that aligned we also have posted an updated Bond program financial report that's through January 31 for you and the public to you as well I'll I'll highlight too I shared it uh with you in the December report uh our operating trajectory and our fund balance you'll note

069in our current month's financial report we're showing our fund balance percentage uh ending this current year at just under 30% and the reminder that much of that is relative to the Esser funding so remember that there's $ 4.86 million that we've received uh for this year's budget that we will not receive moving forward so we have that temporary spike in our fund balance percentage so moving forward I I do also want to mention that when you consider the changes that may be brought forward for you relative to the operating traj and the ending fund balance percentage based on current year data so it changes every year because it's always relative to the fund balance and the total expenditures in operating funds approximately $2.3 million of either increased revenue or reduced expenditures equates to 1% of

070our fund balance so moving forward uh reminding you again of some of those other assumptions that were included in that December report flat enrollment Pro projections for FY 25 through 28 we'll be taking a closer look at that as we hone in on our revenues for the upcoming year also that reminder that the state adequacy Target is increasing in a two-phase process half of it in FY 25 and the other half in FY 26 but we currently are approaching that in a realistic view I don't want to say conservative but we are only applying a 50% funding level of that second phase also we've Incorporated a 2% increase on assessment relative to St Charles County data uh we know there will be a likely downward adjustment relative to Senate Bill 190 in the coming uh

071assessment years and uh hope that that will be offset by new construction values and then the governor of course in the current year had recommended the full transportation funding so uh that is still in place so this next slide actually provides you with a a snippet from the Desi January memo so every month we receive a financial Memo from the Department of Elementary and secondary education and the news on this one is that we are being told based on the sales tax revenue our propy Revenue at the local level should increase so the sales tax is that 1 cent Statewide tax that is then funneled to the state of Missouri so that they can distribute it based on uh basically pupil attendance and so that's how we received that and so in FY 24 we

072are expecting now that that will increase from 1,360 herada to 1,374 uh we'll continue to watch and monitor to make sure that that really comes to fruition and in the coming months we bring you a budget amendment for that and also a reminder it's a kind of a big deal when we talk about the state adequacy Target increasing because we uh We've basically remain the same for multiple years but it has been fully funded since fy20 this next slide highlights for you other changes and so uh and actually I have a another slide that shows the governor's recommendations but the Proposition C Revenue will increase further so that is uh included in that report from the Department also uh we are looking at um adjustments for operating expenditure so we'll continue to work toward that

073end and I'll mention to you that the capital transfer threshold can be adjusted as we look at um our fund balance percentage and where we might give and take in terms of uh ensuring that we remain stable uh throughout the multiple years so this now is another snippet from the governor's budget recommendations and that's how they word it when they plac it in the January Memo from desie that this is the governor's budget recommend Commendation of course there are a lot of days and months of the legislative s session that need to progress for us to have any Assurance of where this will land but the governor uh has indicated based on budget information uh that the state adequacy Target I'm sorry that the Proposition C would uh go up even further so uh currently

0741,360 and go to that 10513 level uh and then again that reminder on the state adequacy Target that's still included in there and you can uh read the footnotes that they provide they also state that these amounts will only be achieved if revenues available to fund them so that's why we're uh cautiously optimistic is what I would say so for budget presentations coming up I had indicated to you back a few months ago when I provided you with a uh budget calendar for the year the work continues behind the scenes uh working with Director of Finance Jacob Myers and other administrators throughout the district we will be bringing you presentations by Fund in the coming months so during the March meeting we have scheduled a review of The Debt Service fund and the health fund

075while we can tell you what we need to budget next year for The Debt Service fund we don't know yet what we need to budget for the health fund but I'll provide you with some statistical information just so that you can have a better understanding as we journey forward then during the April meeting we'll bring you the capital fund and bond fund information May 16th would be the general fund Teachers Fund and provide you with a revenue update uh then in June we would provide that comprehensive uh revenue and expenditure budget presentation followed by seeking your approval during the June 20 meeting uh as a reminder budgets must be approved prior to the start of a new fiscal year to be able to operate these next two slides provide you with information relative to the

076refunding issue that you approved and that uh sale uh was conducted the final sale occurred February 7th so this is just in time information and as you can see the district sold 20, 590,000 of General obligation refunding bonds the most important thing to highlight is that uh This was done with an accelerated payoff so often times whether you're doing a refy of your house or we're doing a refunding of debt you might decide to keep your payment link the same but what we've done is we've pulled back and we we're paying it down as quickly as possible possible and the uh ultimate result then is a a savings of 2,636 N3 that's accelerating the payoff by 36 months this next slide shows you that acceleration of the debt payoff and you can see the before

077and after of that so then the last slide I'm providing you and I I won't provide you an update on this any further publicly until it's time to bring you the bid recommendation but I we we adjusted the um the pre-proposal meeting so I wanted to be sure and say that publicly in the event any potential vendor who might bid might be uh paying attention to these meetings so this is the official bid calendar we worked with the Department of Elementary and secondary education School nutrition services office they had to review our RFP after we compiled all the data and they did that then we did push out those notifications they provide a list of all the uh vendors that are qualified to bid uh I did learn though that there could be some that

078have been added and we don't know about those so it is important that we continue with our public notification and uh and so we have it posted on our website as well so we have that mandatory meeting on February 16th we'll go through all the process and review all the bids and conduct interviews as necessary and then we will be prepared to provide you a recommendation April 18th as a reminder our current food service provider is sedc so that concludes my update happy to answer any questions if you have any questions m i can you remind me in the public with this accelerated Bond schedule what's the estimated pay off date that these are all for all debt yes well the yes yes okay let me see I might have something I don't have it

079memorized I can certainly send it to you but I also have a document that we compiled for last year I don't know that I'm going to be able to pull it up quickly so it looks to me like 2042 would be our our payoff That's Not Unusual because if you enter into debt when it's you know one thing that I do typically and I can do that for you when I talk about debt would be to show you how much would be paid off within different Windows of time like in a 10-year window that kind of thing so Happ you do that I believe that's correct I'll I'll verify that but that's what I have in this chart before me other questions for I'd like to ask a question about the health fund any any

080pread on any information how how much it's going up or down or not currently that that was explored you know in time for the December presentation and at that point we the the information led us to believe 8% likely absent plan design changes U but we'll continue to engage with Marsh mlen agency and monitor that and bring you information when we have it again excellent presentation thank you all right motion to approve the January monthly financial review as presented all those in favor say I I I suppose say no I just have it board like a motion to approve the purchases over $225,000 as president second all those in favor say I I I suppos to know I have it we have a motion to approve the purchases over 2500 number six curriculum Associates as

081presented yeah I can share a little information with you about their request um this is for our middle school math intervention so we currently use hooton Mifflin hardcourt Math 180 I'm of the let's keep it simple Camp so we'll call it Math 180 for ease uh we use that tool with our middle school math intervention classes we've been having some internal conversations about the success of this intervention and possibly exploring some potential alternates that might produce some better results at the same time we recently learned that the resource was going to have a significant cost increase if we chose to continue using Math 180 that we currently have and so for those reasons we decided it was time to reevaluate the current resource and look at the options that would be available for that middle

082school math intervention class so members of our curriculum Department gathered input from other districts to see what they were using where they were seeing success with their students in terms of impacting student growth and those conversations led us to look deeper at three different resources our content leader facilitated the process used our typical resource selection process worked with some Middle School Math 180 teachers they engaged in the vendor presentations evaluated them based on our predetermined criteria and at the end of the process I ready was our Top Choice which is the recommendation that you have tonight in your memo um the intervention will be used with our math interventionist at the five middle schools those individuals will receive three full days of professional learning that'll be provide or spread throughout the school year to support

083them as they implement this new program um as outlined in the memo the request includes the cost of of the teacher resources both print and online the student resources both print and online excuse me and the professional development that I mentioned um by switching to the re new resource not only do we anticipate seeing stronger student growth um but it's also about a 44% cost savings compared to what we would have spent if we continued with our current resource like many of our resources I just want to mention that this purchase because it includes those online materials there is a recurring cost that we would experience each year uh we have that figured into our annual budget um that would also be true with Math 180 there's a license for that as well we'll continue

084to monitor the impact of the intervention um and the resource uh we track the growth of our students who participate in the intervention we analyze our assessments both through the intervention tool and then just in general the benchmark assessments of kids who are in the intervention compared to students who are not what does that growth look like as we compare those um the end of year assessment data I'm happy to answer any questions that you have Dr L is here if you have any questions questions board comments um I appreciate you pulling this one I I asked for it to be pulled up my concern really was and it it also ties back to our the Middle School intervention uh teachers that we approved last month um you know we mentioned a lot about monitoring

085the progress and I guess what I would like to ask for is nothing complicated but kind of a simple plan of how that's going to be done um and then what what success would look like um for instance if we've been using Math 180 for the for you know the recent past and we have not had Middle School intervention dedicated Middle School intervention teachers um you know we're seeing I don't want to speculate whatever the growth is X um I think it would be reasonable to expect now that we have dedicated teachers U we have substantially better growth that that's the reason I think we all approved that um but what what do we expect that way we can have something measurable next year as we look at both those positions and then also the

086renewal of unfortunately this isn't very scientific because now we're going to have two variables the math intervention and also a new resource um that's that's where we're at so that that was my only reason for wanting some discussion on this is hopefully we can see some sort of a a rubric on how this will be measured um so that next year we can have some quantifiable sure thank you vice president cook we'd be happy to provide that I do just want to point out as you acknowledge that there are two different variables here it's new positions it's also a new resource that um I believe it would be challenging to necessarily make that determination at this time next year that it might you know often when you implement a new program there's a implementation dip

087you might experience and so just recognizing that it might take us next year will be Baseline data but then we'll have something to compare that to as we move forward sure yeah I think if all that spelled out in the plan with the rationale that would be helpful for me and the public questions session board motion to approve the purchase of $2,500 over $225,000 number six curriculum Associates as presented all those in favor say I I I all those oppos say no I have it next I'd like a motion to approve the purchase over $25,000 number 11 International Language Center and language access Multicultural people lamp as presented second evening V I'm here to speak to any questions the board may have these are services that are provided to a little over 200 of our

088families um speaking over 25 different languages um each year we uh we anticipate um with the amount we're going to need in this year we we see that by the time this quarter ends we may need some additional funds to cover some unforeseen costs um after getting this request tonight I kind of went through and looked at what those costs may have been this year and saw some expenses that that we may not have normally seen in the past things like a new reading book that went out to families because of the new reading legislation the letters that went home there was actually a book that had to be translated in several languages that was a little over $22,000 um so there's certain Big Ticket items that came through this year that we would anticipate

089in the future um but we still need to be able to provide interpreters for parent teacher conferences special education meetings and then just the letters that go home um enrollment letters um um update the the handbooks things like that so we just want to make sure we covered for the rest of the the year yeah thank you for pulling this Adam um I was one that requested this the reason I did this Dr vanderpol um it's my understanding that not all of these services are are done in person meaning um interpretive interpretive um information from uh person that doesn't speak English I understand that but I it's also my understanding that the some of these services are written and my my concern is that there are programs that will do such a thing for free

090I mean you can yeah yes get things translated for free um so when you look at the items that we have um translated there there are things like the um student handbooks for every building the enrollment guides and you're right we do our teachers will sometimes use and parents will use like Google translate or some other systems um and that can interpret a real rough message to families but it is not 100% um those those messages don't um send the same um um information as so we need to make sure that there's a person reviewing that and actually translating the same information that that all our families would get in English you know what percentage of those charges are for written and the other and what percentages for oral inter um I don't have that

091right in front of me but I could could definitely need that to I've got a spreadsheet that lists out all of the services that we provided throughout the year um at every cost and I would say there's probably more this year in written because of a couple of big um things that we've had to send home but all of those are going to have to have some human eye on them to make sure that they're um that they s send the same message okay well I appreciate if you could give me those numbers that'd be great absolutely just just to clarify like you said just want to make sure I'm viewing this right make sure it's clear so like we we we approved a bucket BL a blanket bucket earlier in the year you've kind

092of run through there gotten towards the end of that so we're looking to proove finish this out through the rest of the year kind of like we would with fuel for transportation yeah that's a similar yes any other questions board yeah just real quick so are you going to is this year a Learning lesson for probably next year um we I looked back at the budget for the past few years and we have always budgeted on the high end um even this year we have but then we we typically spend less um so what we brought to you in June is is close to what we spent last year so we that's we didn't want to ask for more than we needed um but we had budgeted a little more just in case uh this

093came up so um we were we are prepared for this this expense if it came up voting to approve purchase over $25,000 number 11 International Language Center and language access Multicultural people lamp as presented all those in favor say I I all those post say know eyes have it uh next board I'd like a motion to approve the construction bid recommendation for the security vesle project for five sites to integr incorporated as the lowest bid before we start on this I just want to make a comment real quick I'm part of a company that was asked by several gc's to provide numbers we did and we're going to be discussing one of the gc's and I we did provide a number to them so I'm going to back out of any discussion and I'm going

094to abstain from any any vote so that to eliminate anybody saying there's a conflict with me still looking for a first and a second I I had a [Music] first Miss good evening again so yes this evening we are bringing forward for your consideration the security vestibules Bid And as a reminder this encompasses five separate campuses that include three Early Childhood centers and Henderson Elementary and Fairmount Elementary uh again I've provided you with discussion objectives and I'll uh turn right to that as noted in the chart provided the bid opening results that occurred January 25 2024 are noted there were four companies that provided bids and the bids as noted are higher than the uh cost estimate that had been provided to you for recommendation and moving forward with the bid during the December meeting

095I have noted the percentag is exceeding the cost that does include the alternate uh that is listed there and the alternate is relative to the Ada faculty toilets and finishes at Henderson Elementary we did ask uh honer and Associates our architectural firm to engage with the low bidder to ascertain what are the primary areas that uh were the gaps relative to the estimate versus the the bid that came forward I I should have also mentioned the previous slide I had included that the bids were priced within 34 % of one another so they are all higher and um they are relative to Market changes as uh I'll describe for you here so honer and Integra did meet to identify the primary areas those are listed on the slide currently on the screen and the first

096one is the aluminum entrance framing estimate uh using the November 2023 price point of $170 per square foot uh changes in the market then resulted in a bid of $440 per square foot so the total estimate of 221 grew to a total approximate bid of $500,000 the second item noted is relative to electrical work and the total estimate uh provided by hi hii is $122,000 and the total approximate bid $350,000 again due to the Copper Market impact the last one um was an error that occurred air handling units estimate for Central School Road and Hackman Road Early Childhood centers were not provided to the administration nor included in the total estimate reported to the board due to timing of the field work so while the estimate was brought to you based on a Moment In

097Time new information came through the fieldwork of the mechanical engineers and it was added into the construction documents for bid purposes but not CED back to uh bring it forward to the board for awareness of the additional $150,000 uh we know that this is a has been based on discussions a high priority project to affect change in these buildings and provide the final security vules needed in the district and um so I'm bringing to you considerations and a recommendation uh that rebidding could result in a higher bid could result in a lower bid but the way this trend has been in our economy it seems that everything is growing all the time so dependent on Market changes primary supplies and and also construction timeline limitations could inflate the bid and we know for a fact

098that if we do rebid if and that is an option it will result in delaying the security vegle work for one year so for purposes of providing you a motion for a starting point uh for administration we're recommending that the board approve the award of the security Vestal project to integer Inc in the amount of 1,663 846 base bid with performance bond and 98,000 bid alternate regarding next steps and also reminders uh honer and Associates uh has committed that they will have a thirdparty perform costing for Assurance of estimates for both the Henderson and Fairmount renovation and addition projects uh as a reminder the Henderson Elementary addition and renovation will be brought forward forward for your final consideration March 21 2024 and then the bid will be L March 28th Fairmont Elementary the addition and

099renovation the construction document phase will be provided to you during the April 18th meeting for the bid to be let May 2nd and then following that we would issue a request for qualifications for architectural services for future projects um we also have mentioned to you previously in other discussions that we are planning to work with you to schedule a work session to discuss other Bond program projects for your consideration so all of that is a recommendation at this time and we certainly welcome your feedback as well as a a decision on this current bid recommendation happy to answer any questions you may have clarifying question yes did I excuse me did I hear you say that if we don't move forward with honer on the security best bus for Henderson and Fairmont that that will

100delay us a year did I hear that or not that would be well I certainly am saying definitely on the security vestibules I can't speak to the delay relative to Henderson Fairmount but because a lot of the work needs to happen in the summertime we could be at risk for that basically we're we're focusing on getting in the schools and and working toward doing accomplishing a lot of work during that time so that's not definite I mean we would need to explore that but that would be my my expectation okay thanks car additional questions board yeah I would like to have a kind of a comment and everything the first thing I would like to say is being part of the Board of Education that went through this with Francis hel North and I do

101agree with that speaker that went Deja when I heard this that's exactly what I thought at that time it was explained the difference between it is the communication this time and while I don't always agree with some decisions that are made I would like to thank um president Bertrand and everything for going through the processes and director cook for going through and making sure that this time we did go through the processes and as you can see it still came over uh budgeted them what we expected so the process is there it's in place we made changes based on what direct what superintendent rumpus brought to us and I think that so I want people to know the transparency is there while it's easy to be sitting in those seats out there and not up

102here it's a very difficult decision to make when you have to do what's best for all kids and the Safety and Security and the renovations of our buildings is what's best for those kids so I have absolutely no qualms with voting yes for this project now that you opened that door Janet yeah I can say that was this was one of the biggest disappointments that I think I've had since I've been sitting here and you're right absolutely right it's easy to be out on the other side and say wow you guys weren't watching we were watching and we all know we were watching and it still happened right I'm not sure that I how can I put I'm not sure that I agree with um I guess honer's s their uh discussion and and reason

103why this all happened I just from the the memo that they wrote I didn't I didn't see 96% overrun right there but who knows but thank you for bringing them up Janet um I think the you know as we're being asked to approve a project that's almost twice as much as what our architect estimated um the question I've struggled with since since learning about the bids is whether I still would have voted to move forward with it um this past several months um if we knew that the estimate was 1.7 all along I think the answer is yes at the end of the day we we identifi this as a security priority um and that's we that was that that was our decision this student safety obviously is it's almost unspoken it's such a top

104priority um so that that said we could spend billions to make every school like Fort Knox um but I think we all recognize that's not practical but I do think that this particular Improvement if you will is it's not Overkill and I think it's unfortunately necessary this 2024 um the estimate is incorrect um and I think estimates by definition AR just that they're estimates we all expect some variation nobody's going to guess it perfect I think we typically expect within 10% is nice that would be fantastic but uh you know the I think the Common Thread here is is um is the architect I'm I'm sorry to say so I'm happy to see that you know we're going to issue an RFQ for architectural services here in the near future and um and we've had

105a long long relationship with with honer and obviously they're they're welcome to submit on on our RFQ but it might be time to or I think it's time to to just see what else is out there and go from there so unfortunately with with a program like props we have limited funds here so this additional money means something isn't going to get done down the road we're doing the safety aspects first that's that's the the portion of the money that reduces the risk to students the most um they don't like to be hot with air conditioning or cold with heaters but we want them to be safe um I think uh you know typically I would like to see if if this went over um you know what project on the back end at the

106bottom of the list is is off the list um and unfortunately we uh still developing that list as you alluded to we have a um we need we need to have a workshop here to finish that so I think this only delays that process a little more as you have to recalculate the Administration has to revisit um that's very frustrating um but um at the end of the day that life safety is the aspect for me and um I understand we've we have asked Carol is that correct if we can reduce scope got I mean yes few months ago we already did some scope things here from the Das and uh try to reduce a little bit of scope so I like to think that we still save some money over what it would have

107been had we not done that but I guess you never really know but yeah and and the few options that were identified weren't really viable uh I I think I mentioned you know an option could be to not accept the alternate bid for that work it's something that will need to be done to provide ADA compliance down the road as the future renovation happen so it would basically be basically shifted from one project to another and could potentially cost more uh at that point in [Music] time yeah I'll just say with we're not really discussing Henderson a fair mile so I won't get into too much but those concern me those estim I think we all I think we're all con I'm concerned about it I won't speak for um with respect to U um

108you know some of the explanations for copper and aluminum um director p and I were just sitting here looking at the the aluminum and copper histories and um I don't see they've been kind of volatile but I don't know if that's a at the end of the day it does really matter what the reason was it it's over it's a binary decision that we have to make here neither option is good but uh at the end of the day I think Student Life Safety is is important so reluctantly I will support this this questions comments uh Missy no other questions I do have one for the requests for qualifications um is that going to require a board vote we would we would definitely we we don't need a board vote to let that process uh

109making you aware is really the focus and then the way that works is you post a request for qualifications you ultimately conduct interviews and um then bring a recommendation following uh that process and entering into a contract at that juncture you negotiate fees that's the typical process uh required for that I guess my only commentary to that is I would be supportive of moving quickly with going out for RFQ for additional for other architectural services okay um board see no other discussion or commentary we have a motion to approve the construction bid recommendation for the security VES project for five sites to Integra as the lowest responsible bid all those in favor say I I all those opposed say no eyes have it um just for the Public's viewing we have a number of First

110reads both from curriculum and policy out there for people to review and offer any commentary to the district or board members as they see fit prior to Second reading and then up next we have superintendent comments thank you president Bertrand um this month we are celebrating black history this month provides a vital opportunity for us to honor the contributions and enduring Legacy of black Americans throughout history we have events of Celebration and learning that are taking place at all of our schools throughout this month and I encourage our entire Community to actively participate in these events and honoring and amplifying our black Americans both past and present I want to thank our entire Francis H Community for the incredible outpouring outpouring of support for both the Daniel Boon and Meadows Parkway families and especially the

111Kaiser family following the tragedy in defiance last month um thank you to our principals Kevin armor and Mary ckins and their staff Mike C our Inspire and counseling teams the pto's and the many other groups that came together and really supported our students and staff as they go through this grief and for organizing fund fundraisers and um other supportive events for the family uh thank you to our academic team for the curriculum review event that was held last week that you've heard mentioned this was the second event that was held this year as part of our updated process uh the team reviewed the results from over 203 different community surveys that were submitted there were 43 staff surveys um and that feedback was used um as part of the review process It ultimately resulted in

112changes to several of the documents um seven of them just saw simple punctuation or grammatical edits but there were also some substantive content edits in one case the removal of a unit um I just want people to understand that we appreciate the time they took to provide that input and that the committee ultimately used that um to bring forward the courses that were recommended to you tonight I want to give you an update on Barnwell middle band director Jared broadbooks broad Brooks who I got to speak to you about last month um following his competition at the Olympic Marathon trials this past weekend students and staff lined the halls and surprised him with a sendoff last week and then he headed to Florida where he competed he finished 26th out of 150 his final time

113was 2 hours 16 minutes and 20 seconds and while that wasn't enough to qualify for the Paris Olympic he was only just a little bit more than 6 minutes behind the top finishers which is pretty incredible so again we need to keep him here and not let him leave for a professional running career um I'm asking everyone here to tell their family and friends about the district's meet fhsd recruitment event that's coming up on Saturday March 9th uh this is a great opportunity for any prospective job candidates to learn about teaching opportunities in the district and no RSVP is required candidates can show up and learn more about the district the positions that we have open get to meet administrators from each of our buildings as well as throughout the district have the resume reviewed

114our HR department puts a lot of time into preparing this and um we generally get to recruit a lot of candidates so it starts at 9:00 a.m. at Francis H Central on Saturday March 9th um this week is a National School counseling week and we're excited to recognize the work of every counselor we have here across the district we could not have more dedicated staff in these roles and we appreciate the way that they care for our students and our staff on a daily basis and speaking of those incredible employees I also want to take a moment to congratulate all of the schools um they've each now acknowledged teachers and support staff members of the year um we will now as a district be selecting the district support staff and teacher of the year and

115announcing those in the near future we thank all of our staff and especially those that have been recognized this year for the work that they do day in and day out to provide amazing learning opportunities for our students um additional supports for our students and many of them providing clean and safe schools throughout the district they will all be Rec ized at the hall of fame ceremony in May speaking of the Hall of Fame those nominations continue to be open and will be through March 4th um think of the many different parents volunteers Community organizations or staff members that go above and beyond and represent the very best of Howell um you can submit those nominations on the website and we look forward to the committee selecting those winners here in the near future just

116a week ago today many divers from our schools competed in the GAC dive championship at the reclex this this was a great night especially for Francis Hall High Senior Lissa garbarini who earned a GAC dive Championship with a record-breaking score of 472 point6 this score not only earned her a conference Championship in dive but also broke the school record that had been in place since 2005 she now holds the sixth best score in the history of dive in the entire state of Missouri yesterday we hosted our citizens and our schools cohort they had their fifth full day program um the topic was classroom and curriculum and the groups split their time between Francis H high in the morning Francis H Union for lunch and then Harvest Ridge in the afternoon they learned all about curriculum

117development in that process they took the Youth Science aptitude test tool that we use with our students and got to see how that um helps our students identify career paths and many of them talked about how it actually aligned with what they may be doing now or the interests they have um they got to hear from a panel of Union graduates who really spoke about how that opportunity prepared them um for the great things they're doing in life now and several of them are actually teachers here in the district at this point then they went they got to try assisted technology tools that many of our students use on a daily basis to help them instructionally and then they went over to Harvest Ridge for the afternoon where they got to see plc's visit classrooms

118and then they got to go outside and help with Elementary dismissal which if you've never done is a whole job in and of itself so I want to thank um Dr Buckman Dr Altman and the entire academic team for coordinating that day um and all the leaders that have been helping do this each month we continue to get a lot of positive feedback from the participants the group will be back again with us on March 6th for school finance and Technology I want to let you know that we are planning a community Round Table event at the end of February on culture and climate with the goal of generating actionable items for us and how we can create a more inclusive and welcoming environment in all of our schools for students and staff more information

119will be sent out about that in the next week um but the date we're solidifying will be in the last week of February um so we look forward to that coming up shortly and then board last I I would like to thank you for the vote to move forward with the security vestibules we share the frustration you have um and that many of our patrons have regarding the difference between the most recent cost estimate we had received and where these bids actually came in um it is important we need to continue to say that until bids come in those are a estimates um we also recognize though that this significant discrepancy wasn't acceptable um in in a year where we feel like we have taken steps moving forward with the community around propess and around

120um our financial responsibility that this is a bit of a setback we know that there are some patrons who will be upset with the decision to move forward but we also recognize that in this situation uh the safety of these five buildings and having these vestibules in place is of Paramount importance so thank you for the the vote to move forward that's all my comments thank you any comments from the board yeah I have one I want to all of our wonderful talented and dedicated teachers that were at Francis Hall North today I understand that they had a fire alarm that went off and I know that it was very well handled and the children were all kept kept safe I hope they uh understood what a i a terrible situation but a wonderful time

121to be outside in the warm air and sunshine um and I'd like to say a few words about our our talented teachers and no uh know if fence to Wentzville School District I hope you're watching or um AR Archard Farm or any of the others that that suround us we do have the best the most talented and the most dedicated teacher teachers in the entire State I just want to make that perfectly clear and go on record to say that uh that we're very fortunate to have the teachers that we have that's I wanted to say uh I would just like to say just a short little thing like I know I'm not like really qualified to speak on anything that we talked about today cuz I actually didn't understand half of what you guys

122were saying but um but in general like I really appreciate the work everyone does here like I didn't realize this much like effort and like work goes into just the small things that happen in our school so I really appreciate everyone for doing this I just got a couple here um first off uh just want to say Happy black history month and I want to piggyback a little bit on what Dr RPA said about the Hall of Fame nominations up until March 4th we need as many nominations um if you could give a little bit more details to make it really hard for us to decide who's going to to become Hall of Fame winners I would like to thank kush here for his comments they were very well I tried explaining a few things

123here but it is kind of difficult you're trying to listen and everything but he did a amazing job and he asked very very appropriate questions so thank you for being here and for seeing um how this process works just a few quick things the uh just a reminder to anybody who hasn't seen it it's been plastered all over the social media sites but uh next Thursday cley elementary kids are hosting a a dinner for nurses and First Responders and and their famili so by all means if if you know any of those people and haven't seen it uh please you can see it on on my sites or pretty much anywhere on the schools anybody affiliated with the school has posted it by now so uh please sign up those kids have worked hard and

124uh they they love to serve those those First Responders and nurses um and then second of all we're we're well in the second semester and I think uh just a little reminder for those who can you know your teachers especially in the elementary schools um you know can always use a little help so maybe you know an Amazon gift card here and there helps them replenish those snacks for kids that forget and little supplies throughout the year so just little words of encouragement for for those who can do it it's a a little thing goes a long way for for a lot of those teachers so have a good rest of the month everyone president Bertrand may I share a little celebration that's slightly personal but also work rated sure so I just want to

125give a little shout out to the Francis House Central Freshman Basketball team we have some moms in the room uh for the first time ever Francis House Central history the freshman team won the championship of the GAC tournament so it was a a big deal for those boys last night um just want to thank uh Scott Harris and and all the coaches and um just everybody that poured their hearts into our boys to allow them to have that experience thanks thank you for sharing that um thanks everybody for coming tonight I would like to thank all the teachers that were involved in the fhaa negotiations as well as the administration and look forward to the results as that process continues and look forward to being involved or sitting in on the Aisa negotiations coming up

126here soon appreciate everybody coming and we will take a recess until and then go back in the Clos session thanks everybody