001welcome it is officially 6 30 and I would like to call this meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance foreign [Music] 2020 to as presented [Music] all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say no motion carries I will now turn this meeting over to miss Jenn Jones thank you Mrs bling tonight we are recognizing three individuals in the Francis Howe Community who share a commitment to Excellence in all that they do first up we want to celebrate the St Louis area athletic director of the Year Mr Scott Harris from Francis House Central I think he has quite a fan of Club here tonight Mr Harris was selected as 80 of the Year by his peers in the Missouri intro Scholastic athletic administrators Association he has served the Francis House school district for
002more than 13 years 10 of those at the house Central here tonight to tell you a little more about Mr Harris and his impact on students is from South Central principal Dr Suzanne Lee good evening ladies and gentlemen I have had the honor of knowing coach Harris and his family for many years his level of dedication and commitment to Francis Hall Central students and Community separates him from others and contributes to the multiple reasons why he is so deserving of such recognition coteris is constantly looking for ways to celebrate kids and the adults who work with them this includes not only the students coaches sponsors teachers but officials as well as you can see by the attendance this evening coach Harris is a loved man he does a phenomenal job of maintaining relationships with graduates
003and values opportunities to share their stories of success he promotes attachment for all students and constantly highlights and prioritizes character into and out of the classroom coach Harris leads by example he has introduced the what drives winning program into our extracurricular programs and embeds character building um into the Francis Hall Central programs for coaches and sponsors he works tirelessly to put Francis Hall Central into the spotlight his presence on social media combined with his presence and all of our programs substantially contributes to the family atmosphere that we pride ourselves in at Howell Central congratulations coach Scott Harris [Applause] is all right next we would like to recognize another amazing individual from Francis House Central Miss Anna Mori now if that name sounds familiar it's because Anna was recognized last month as a National Merit semi-finalist
004since then we have learned that Anna was one of just 18 students across the state of Missouri nominated by Desi for the U.S department of education's prestigious presidential scholar award this National recognition program was established in 1964 by executive order of the president and each year up to 161 students Nationwide are named presidential Scholars one of the nation's most prestigious academic awards for high school graduates candidates must score exceptionally well in the SAT or act and be nominated by the state to qualify for the national award semi-finalists will be notified next April and skull dollars announced in May I'll turn it back over to Dr Elite to tell you about Miss Anna I could do this all day long every day being able to work with and around so many Fantastic people is just one
005um great part of my job Anna Mori has only attended one class period at Francis House Central for the last two years because all of her courses for the last two years are college level courses currently she takes Spanish six at Francis House Central and I didn't even know we offered Spanish at some point we probably need to think about Dr Buckman just calling that bilingual foreign for those who know Anna they would tell you she's extremely hard-working and very meticulous her teachers describe her as a proverbial sponge one teacher shared that Anna's work is typically what she keeps to use as samples of Exemplar work for future classes her classmates as as well as her teammates on the golf team describe her as mature Beyond her years with an amazing sense of humor in
006the short time I have had the privilege of knowing Anna I've learned that Anna is extremely humble and has a unique desire to push herself she plans to continue her studies in the field of engineering and has countless options for the next chapter of her story Anna it has been an honor serving as your principal and I love to see where and this is going to take you I can't wait to see the next chapter of your story and how you leave your mark I know you will congratulations [Applause] yes foreign High School who recently set a State football record for the most career points for a High School kicker here to tell you more about Josh's football head coach Fred shanaki foreign education I'm grateful to be here and speak about Josh Steele and
007uh his accomplishments he's been a four-year starter for us at the kicking position um and like they said he's set some safe records but who he is as a character and his character in the in the school setting outside of the school setting is really what separates Josh Steele from a lot of his peers um phenomenal kid a guy that represents our football program our our core values as a football program um he's been just exemplary in all of the the roles that we've asked uh Josh should complete for us as a Francis High football player uh just to throw some statistics out there I'm just a physical education teacher and football coach but I will bring up some of his uh statistics um as a freshman he had 70 total kicking points as a
008sophomore uh which was in covid year where we were kind of shorting the season 55k taking points as a junior 83 taking points and as a senior 86 kicking points for a total of 294 total kicking points and we're fortunate to continue counting those kicking points hopefully tomorrow night the previous record for kicking points was 254 so he's now exceeded that by 40 points which is a great accomplishment and we hope to keep this thing rolling so he can separate himself even even further so congratulations Josh Joshua deal thank you [Applause] a little bit further there you go thank you yeah and since coach didn't do it I'll put in a plug for the quarterfinal game this Friday at Timberland to wish you all the best of luck um finally I'd like to invite Sager
009Middle School principal Dr Kennedy Worley to come forward to introduce our student order up for the evening good evening everyone I'm honored to be here I'd like to introduce Lily and Richter Lily and Richter who will be our board representative this evening she's an outstanding eighth grade student at Sayer Middle School she is a leader amongst our student body she is a great advocate for education and relates well to both peers and adults she seeks to challenge herself in every activity she pursues Lily exhibits leadership creativity innovation in all of her classwork and her after school activities she's a member of our Junior Spartan Ambassador Club where she helps new students become acclimated to Sager through our mentorship program she has a passion for acting and has performed in many Productions from plays at sacred
010to variety shows she is an amazingly kind and caring student who shows all the qualities that are looked for in a National Junior Honor Society student leader she has been in the Francis High School District since kindergarten we're very lucky to have her in our school district Lillian models that your pillars of respect responsibility and safety each and every day we are confident that Lillian is going to have an amazing High School career and Beyond and we are also very excited to see what will happen to her and her future thank you foreign thank you welcome Miss Miss Lilly do you like should we call Lily or Lillian which one all right so whatever works the cigarettes will get you all situated over there and you're welcome to interject at any time just just can't
011vote back one more time to call uh care Dalton forward she's going to present our best practice this evening about the Project Lead the Way Gateway program on middle schools a good evening Board of Education and got some patrons I'm Dr Kara Dalton I'm the Practical Arts concert leader here in the district and I'm going to tell you a little bit about our Project Lead the Way Gateway program at our middle schools so just a little bit of background about project leadalay it's a national National stem Focus curriculum that has strands in computer science biomedical science and engineering and they're very robust um rigorous engaging programs that offer a lot of real world experience in those stem fields and I do apologize for my scratchy Voice tonight getting over things like everyone is um some
012of the unique things about pltw we know that stem is such a huge area of need right now in the career Fields And there are lots of stem programs out there whether in in class or out of class that are offered to schools and um one of the reasons why pltw really Rises to the top as one of the Premier programs if you look at some of the data surrounding pltw and students who take one or two or more pltw classes they go to college and hire numbers and the big thing is they enter stem careers and go into Center careers in much higher numbers than students who aren't in pltw and so when we look at that need in the stem Fields this is a really important program to help kids find their passion
013in these fields and give them the Knowledge and Skills to uh to go for those in the future um they offer a lot of again opportunities to connect with professionals through those programs especially at the high school level and for our teachers and teacher support there's a huge national network of support for the teachers the program and the training for the teachers to teach it is really robust and just a fantastic opportunity for them plcw does a great job of updating curriculum to stay up to date with technology and some of the trends in those Industries and so just an overall really great program for us to have in our schools so a little bit about project Lee the way in our district uh for many years we have had the strands and the computer
014science engineering biomed at our high schools really robust uh thriving strands in all three schools and the middle school program which is called pltw Gateway is really meant to help students at the middle school level start to show some interest in these career Fields so that they can pick those classes when they first get to high school Success in pltw and later on is really contingent on those kids taking that class as a freshman and if they don't know about project Lee the way they're less likely to take that class as a freshman and so it shows that if they can take these classes in Middle School it starts to trigger some of that interest in them and so as we looked at trying to figure out how to come with some continuity between our
015middle school and these high school programs it really made a lot of sense to try to embed these Project Lead the Way modules what they call them at the middle school their nine-week courses and we had a course called engineering by Design which is one of our elected courses at the middle school and that seemed like a really good place to kind of switch Project Lead the Way into engineering by Design was a good program but some of the things that plcw offers like the teacher support the updated curriculum it just doesn't have and so again plcw is just really the um the nation leader in these stem programs so we started looking at ways to um swap engineering by Design Project Lead the Way essentially and looking at some grants to help cover the
016cost because they are there's always cost me Implement a new program so we had applied for our grants for a couple years and then in January of 2021 we were awarded a 20 000 Grant through pltw sponsored by Toyota that enabled us to uh completely switch EBD to pltw at Barnwell we applied for all five schools uh Barnwell was the only School awarded that year so we also were able to take some money from a Desi grant that is specific to Project Lead the Way uh new programs to offset some of the costs that that Grant didn't cover and we were able to in the summer of 2021 trained instructors to implement four pltw modules in sixth and seventh grade the quarter courses in eighth grade as a semester so we needed two modules and
017our goal was really to make sure we had a module that built into each of those three strands in our high school a previously only engineering was really getting any recognition and support So now computer science and biomed is also getting some opportunity to catch kids interest at a younger age I included our toss over rollout as well as our awarded reimburse dollars on there because I just wanted to show that we really are trying to do this um as frequently as possible and we're really working hard to offset these costs um and when you look at the quality of this program and the quality of the teaching and the curriculum that is there and the program the support um that's that's a pretty amazing deal um I like a deal and that's a good
018one um so moving forward we knew we didn't want to stop at Barnwell uh but that particular Grant was only for Barnwell so went back to the drawing board and applied again we didn't get the same Grant from Toyota they actually didn't offer it that either the next year um last full year but our other four schools were awarded a grant through pltw it just wasn't quite as much much money and so we did a plan for a little bit slower rollout just so we can absorb those costs to our academic Budget on a less per year basis and so we decided to roll out one course per year starting with sixth grade so our current sixth graders at all all five middle schools now are having have design and modeling which is kind of
019the foundational course in the Project Lead the Way Gateway leads into engineering but it's a great foundational course for all of their modules um next year the future plans will be terrible Medical detectives which um feeds into our biomed strain that'll be the seventh grade course and then the year after that app creators and automation Robotics are two modules we put together to form eighth grade we'll be rolling that out in 24 25. so in two more school years we will have Project Lead the way across the board in all of our middle schools leading into our high school so I had some pictures on there but I want to point out a few things um in the pictures here just to show some of the Hands-On pieces that the kids get to do um
020I have one of the uh the puzzle cubes they call them and I think of one teacher here Amanda Halbert from Sager um she brought this along one of the things her kids do they take these and they have to I'm gonna be very very brief on this because I not I don't understand the full thing they have to put this together in different ways um we start so many connections so many sides showing and then they have to create hand drawings of them from different angles then they use that they put it into tinkercad which is an early CAD style program if you look at the engineering classes the high school they do a lot of CAD type work and so it's a great foundational skill and an introduction to what they would do
021in that strand here are some pictures from Medical detectives so this is Barnwell since that's the only school we have Medical detectives at right now um they are dissecting a sheep brain and labeling the lobes um you can tell by some of the students they're really excited about that I get so many comments when I uh for people who've stopped by about just how cool that class is um and it really is you know um the dissecting and the labs and things they do are just really neat and Hands-On uh there's also some pictures there some kids doing some work with some Petri dishes and looking at how certain things grow in certain conditions and the the biomed final course at the high school they had to do a long research project and some of
022these skills really really apply um to some of the work the kids do in those uh those projects thank you uh app creators which pictures aren't quite as exciting as Medical detectives because kids on computers or tablets um but they have to design their own apps and then they did a happy hour where they kind of set it up like a professional happy hour type thing I bought some snacks and kids had to go around and uh play each other's apps and they had to kind of sell it to each other so trying to bring some real world um application into them designing computer apps and then Alaska's Automation and Robotics and in this class they they take these kits and they have to design code and create these robots to do to do some
023kind of task and so there's lots of creativity lots of different ways they can uh can build these and put them together as you can see just the few I have up there are varied and they are designed so that's just a really cool class too that kids who really like to build and get their hands on stuff um get to do that cool but that is our pltw program we're very excited to have that across the board in just a couple years um and we're very very excited to see see that program grow and help continue to grow our high school programs as well thank you sport any questions comments [Applause] okay next up we have Patron comments during Patron comments residents of the district and staff members are invited to address the board
024in education on issues related to the school district s are called forward in the order of sign up and each speaker has three minutes to make the remarks please remember that only one speaker is allowed to Podium at a time and combining time or giving your time to someone else is not permitted the board appreciates that you have taken the time to come this evening and we value both your input and perspective I would like to remind everyone that we expect the speakers will remain civil and respectful when giving remarks if anyone fails to comply with board policies regulations and rules we reserve the right to cut those three minutes short for your convenience our three-minute clock is ready and we welcome Donnie May to step forward good evening my name is Donnie may I
025try to watch every board meeting online however this is the first time I've attended or spoken at a meeting I am concerned about this school district every month I've watched multiple people speak about political and social issues yet very few speakers actually addressed the district's academic performance I am here tonight to advocate for the parents and District stakeholders who aren't able to attend every meeting send you multiple emails a week without rage or be a social keep social media keyboard Warrior striking down those that oppose their political beliefs or ideas I'm here tonight to speak about the importance of the school board being focused on in the students academic success rather than Progressive social issues let me give you an example last month the speaker advocated for the recommitment from the board regarding the equity
026pledge from 2020. let me be clear I as a parent have the expectation there would be zero tolerance for bullying within the district period this zero tolerance for boy includes everything from race religion and sexual orientation however these commitments and pledges are Hollow and virtue signaling instead let's make sure the district policies reflect the zero tolerance and enforcement these policies by District administration speak for themselves additionally I asked the board put academic Excellence first when making spinning decisions in writing District policies as was spoken about at the previous month's meeting recent data has shown the district has taken a step back in academic achievement some members of the community and even a district teacher have publicly chosen to immediately dismiss this information as politically motivated data I ask each and every one of you board
027members and administration do not dismiss the information because it is unfavorable to the district but instead use it to reassess its spending and policies to make sure we are doing everything possible to promote the academic Excellence of the students this is not a combination of all the district's teachers but this is instead the failure of some of the past and current board members and administration to put academics in the district's teachers first I do not believe it's a coincidence that this academic progression occurred during the time frame this District focused on hiring a social justice consultant all while cutting paraprofessional positions causing even more challenging environment for the district's teachers in conclusion board members administrators and teachers you all have an extremely challenging job you have hundreds of parents and District stakeholder voices pulling you
028in every direction in the finite amount usually the final amount of District resources you're not going to make everyone happy myself included with every decision you make I ask each and every one of you to please make their decisions with the mindset that priority number one is academic excellence finally please remember that there are a large majority of parents and District stakeholders just like me who are watching we're not the loudest however I can guarantee you this in April our votes cap the same thank you [Music] thank you [Applause] next up we have Steven Blair my name is Stephen Blair I'm a United Methodist Pastor in Saint Charles the two previous open board meetings a board member cook has had objections about teachers attending certain conferences he thought Francis Howell voters would not want taxpayer
029money supporting those types of conferences regardless of their reputations I agree with the results of both votes I also think the idea of scrutinizing which organizations and companies get taxpayer money is a legitimate conversation I also wonder if the scrutiny is happening both ways are there receipts to Chick-fil-A to get reimbursed by a taxpayer money our teachers reimburse for decorating their rooms with item spot at Hobby Lobby Chick-fil-A has wonderful tasty chicken sandwiches but their views on lgbtq are not tasty Hobby Lobby is the manageable place with almost half the store or half off at any given day but there's something off about their views too while we're looking is there any taxpayer money for the new high school going to Home Depot and supporting their political donations if we are going to scrutinize the
030use of taxpayer money to reflect taxpayer values the scrutiny must be equal my second point is more of an aha moment there's been a directed attack on the Integrity of teachers at a national level teachers have become a boogeyman to be afraid of false accusations of grooming or that CRT is being taught or whatever they think of next are hurled at our teachers from DC and echoed by people close by my aha moment was that the people who hold these views don't know are teachers they don't know our teachers so they agree with what outside people have told them they don't know about the extra stuff teachers do like participating in Red Ribbon wheat to keep kids off drugs or bringing in veterans on Veterans Day so kids can say thank you they don't know
031how teachers work on pie in the face fundraisers second grade dance parties and other fundraisers to fund School needs because districts don't fund schools fully they might know about pajama day or crazy hair day but they must not know about stand on your head to keep their attention today or the loose sleep worrying about a student they put your phone down put your phone down day or giving out stickers with jokes on them to brighten the students Day Day and they must not know about life as life is hard at home but he's still bringing her a game day the people who are linked accusations must not know the teachers that they're in here or online I hope they get curious spend time knowing the teachers learn about their commitment to love and teach their
032students and you will see that they are not the villains and the story they are the heroes you will see that they are not the boogeyman you are told they were when you meet them you learn their names thank you [Music] [Applause] next up we have Carrie zielkowski hello um I'm so excited to be here and hear about all of the awesome things the students who are here the athletic directors who are being honored the Project Lead the week courses those are awesome and I'm so excited about that um I've changed my mind about a hundred times about how I want to approach my speech this month at first I thought I would just read the mildly hot tempered email that I sent to the board after last month's meeting instead I decided to share
033my feelings about the incident and then extended invitation to those involved to learn more director Randy cook I was very dismayed at last month's meeting when you request that two travel requests be pulled from the consent agenda for discussion I was shocked when you called out nagc and learning forward and said that you do not support the directions these organizations are taking you said these organizations support a quote Trend in Academia you specifically mentioned a session on lgbtq students and said it was inappropriate for the record I calculated the number of breakout sessions at these conferences of the 562 12 sessions only 12 mentioned lgbtqia Plus in their descriptions that's only roughly 2.1 percent There's No Agenda here director cook and community members lgbtq students are not a trend in academic Academia these students are
034here and have been here they live in my neighborhood they are my kids friends they are on Varsity Sports Teams and school plays and in countless other activities some are in AP classes and they are in various electives many are leaders in our school they deserve the same academic social and emotional support that all students should receive within Francis House schools their identity should absolutely be recognized and respected throughout their school experiences director cook and community members who share similar opinions on this matter I invite you to reach out and learn more and to listen with an open mind there are many books TV shows and other media out there perhaps the GSA or the transparent group um just in the district could share help share resources to help you learn more if you are
035willing to listen with an open mind I'm also willing to share my family's story I wrote a different ending to this speech last night before checking today to find out that another travel request was being pulled from the consent agenda obviously I don't know who asked for it to be pulled yet but I'm disappointed for the record I read through all of the 665 breakout sessions for the naea conference that is being discussed tonight and only 2.4 percent mention lgbtq in their description when teachers and staff are not trusted to make their own decisions regarding professional learning they're less likely to engage in it it takes a considerable amount of time and effort for staff members to fill out the paperwork associated with travel requests and Conference leap if this trend continues will fewer staff
036members seek out professional opportunities I hope not as a taxpayer and my kids teachers I hope they get changed [Applause] [Music] next up we have Helen Fitzgerald Noel okay next up we have Mark Dustin mark all right next up we have Elena Gibson good evening and thank you to everyone who's serving our community here I'd like to address the fact that we have our high school starting at 7 15 a.m in the morning well before the 8 30 a.m start time recommended by Mutual multiple medical associations um and professional organizations I think it's time for our district to review these times in the best interests of our students teenagers have a well-documented latest circadian rhythm than adults typical sweet sleep cycles begin around 11 pm for teenagers and continue through 8 A.M this means that
037in an early wake-up call me in six or seven hours of sleep per school night at most depriving adolescence of a critical part of their sleep cycle this is not a matter of kids being irresponsible it's physically very hard for them to fall asleep many studies provide evidence that late start times improve executive function classroom Behavior mental health including a reduction in self-harm physical health grade point average is teen driving and standardized test scores and that's just kind of the start um there's evidence that later Healthy Start later school start times can also have a positive impact on the adults who teach in these schools as well many people I have spoken to have expressed a concern the community would not support a change but I do not believe this topic has been visited in
038some time overwhelming evidence has been pouring in over the past few years on this topic we care for food insecurity for our children if it's for food we wouldn't even be having this discussion sleep matters just as much sometimes when I talk to others about this they will say oh but teenagers have to XYZ fill in the blank or this external organization demands XYZ fall in the blank um it's never actually something about our children's education um I firmly believe that we as adults need to solve these scheduling problems for our children to give them the best chance that they have at a solid high school education I also do not think it is appropriate for us to be worrying about what other school districts in this County are doing in this area and I
039hope that we can lead at the point that this can be done here are a few districts with better start times on Lindbergh 8am Rockville to 8 28 a.m Parkway 7 35 a.m not awesome but still better um Ferguson Florissant 805 am Columbia Public Schools 8 55 A.M I'd also be remiss if I did not mention that I also did not care for my child getting home from elementary school as late as she did often I was forced to pick her up because robust would have been bringing her home close to 4 45 PM making certain after school activities practically non-starters I'm not sure that we are doing our youngest Learners any favors with their extremely late schedules either I hope the board and our district take a hard look at this I think you
040will find more support than you anticipate for reviewing this people are quite literally tired of it thank you foreign School District thank you very much for celebrating the Veterans Day good job thank you very much tonight I'm respectfully calling upon the school board the administration and the curriculum committee to place the current black history curriculum with one which is not divisive nor agenda driven last summer it was approved by every board member by the former superintendent of the curriculum committee it contains the road map of quote social justice standards that will be taught there are eight units the first two are required the remaining six are optional the first five units extensively reference the social justice standards document which on the last page is barely a beatable print where we find a project of the
041Southern Poverty Law Center the Southern poverty in Los Angeles is viewed by many as a far left divisive organization its views are in line supported by the ACL ACLU black lives matter another far left organizations this organization vehemently supports the funding of police no cash fail and allowing criminals at time murderers to be let go from jail where why are we incorporating this type of curriculum into the our black history curriculum why do we have such social justice standards this is clearly activism and clearly agenda driven indoctrination other names for social justice that are being used of an equitable justice of subjective Justice racial Justice proportional Justice here is why these kinds of social justice standards supported by the splc of inappropriate and dangerous there are two e previous examples one during a recent weekend
042in Memphis Tennessee there were five murders fortunate by white men police charged all five men either with first or second-degree murder and presented the five cases to the district attorney the social justice district attorney sustained the charges against the four white felons but dismissed it against the non-white one why proportional Equitable Justice were the DA's justification in New York City this summer what we've all seen now the infamous video with another criminal went into the neighborhood store tried to rob the store owner at gunpoint and in self-defense the store owner killed the would-be robber incredibly it was the store owner who was charged with murder and not uh not by the police but by the New York district attorney again for social and Equitable Justice reasons these are not isolated chances of turning over in
043New York City and Memphis we are now hearing about such incidents weekly if not daily even here in St Louis it's not social justice which we should be teaching or proportional non-racial law Equitable law subjective Justice it's Justice pure and simple just like we owe all of us proclaim the pleasure thank you God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] next up I have Amy Easter easterling I think there's maybe a stone good evening I'd like to read uh a description of a course from the National Association of gifted children's annual convention we analyze best practices to support gifted sexual minority and gender non-binary youth this session includes specific examples of curricular materials that Center queer experiences and literature as well as student-centered projects that advocate for lgbtq plus friendly policies the presenters share
044how to implement instructional strategies like sharing pronouns building community and decentering heteronormative language and policies that is the description of the session that is was included in the National Association of gifted children's annual convention that was deemed inappropriate in last month's board meeting as a member of this community a taxpayer and a parent with a child who benefited greatly from The District's gifted program I'd just like to offer another perspective if you are a parent or grandparent I think we can all agree that we love our children and that we want them to be happy and safe I hope that no matter who we are or what our belief systems or values are that can be our common ground parents of lgbtq plus children are at our core parents we love our children sorry we
045worry about their safety and we want them to feel accepted and valued for their authentic selves I would ask that those who believe that valuing our lgbtq plus youth is political or Worse some sort of Nefarious indoctrination to please stop and try to have some empathy for parents and our kids we are navigating a world that can be pretty scary I don't expect everyone to understand my family's experience or to agree with our values I recognize that we all come from different backgrounds and then the great thing about living in this country is that we're all entitled to our opinions and we're entitled to express them however it's really sad and hard when those opinions are basically that my child should not exist that sucks and it's hard my plea to you today is for
046empathy and kindness and I really hope we can make that our starting point thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] next up we have Liz Liz puster who lives we have a Jill Wright my name is Jill Wright and I'm A literacy coach at Daniel Boone Elementary and I'm really excited to speak with you tonight on Sunday October 9th my family's house was completely destroyed by a house fire we lost everything my reality was a nightmare I didn't get to save my children's favorite blankets and stuffies I didn't get to save the cards written by my husband's 98 year old Memaw you know what else I didn't get time I didn't get time after such a horrific event because my employer doesn't have a policy in place for situations like mine so here's what support looks like
047in France's house when you've been displaced from your home overnight three personal days I wasn't sick there wasn't a death so personal days seemed like the only fitting thing to do during those three personal days not only did I grieve but I found housing for our family got a rental car hired a lawyer bought clothes talked with Red Cross Insurance investigators we also were lucky enough to get thousands of donations that I had to sit through took a whole day while doing all of those things and more I pretended like everything was normal for my three small children six four and seven months old like they didn't just lose their precious belongings in the place they call home my own son is marked homeless in our system but as an employee there's nothing in place
048our school district basically said there's nothing they can do for me I should not have to use personal days or sick days when other employees get to take those days to chaperone their children's field trip or weddings I had to use them to recover from being displaced to sift through an extreme emotion from a traumatic experience I should have had time to focus on my family and to focus on myself but instead I had to focus on work I went back to work four days after that tragedy you're probably wondering why well I had a baby seven months ago I have no sick days so one thing I've learned in this situation is the days and weeks are unknown like Monday moving again for the fourth time in a month some wise person said when
049you can't control what is happening take control of the way you respond to what is happening and that is where your power is and that is why I'm here today I will do everything in my power to change what this district has in place which is nothing for the next employee that goes through something so awful I will fight with everything I have to change it for someone else because unfortunately I got nothing it's not okay for your employer to act like a tragedy like losing everything you've worked for is normal it's not okay to not have a plan in place for tragedies like mine and it's not okay for human connection to not be on the Forefront when your own employees endure such pain there's no excuse for not having plans in place to
050support our staff members who become homeless overnight not being given time during such an awful event makes me question my desire to work in this District in closing I have been blessed that we are I am part of two special school communities Daniel Boone and Becky David who have supported my son and I in this awful event um but not everybody will have that experience thank you we have Grayson Justice clothes because it's so close they did it wrong so anyone asked you foreign good evening my name is Grayson Justice I'm a alumni at the French Health Central of 2000 class of 2013. um good below me is all the schools that been affected by students and if you close a seat to the second to the last entry there's a red dot on it
051because I have a family member who was one of the victims of the school students foreign books are not harming your children communities like the lgbtq community especially trans Community especially the days the week of transgender Awareness Week are not harming your children mask and vaccines are not harming your children guns are I don't want to see on the news that my school district had a school student because it's going to have to be on this board with a huge Red Dot on it because it's my school district instead of of getting your child a gun give your child the knowledge and truth about our history American history history is repeating itself with a rise of anti-Semitic and women losing their rights this is why we need to teach the true history of America so
052it won't happen again a Hardcastle virus said to the people who rescue millions of Jewish people in the concentrated caps of Germany said never again look at where we are right now ladies and gentlemen look at where we are right now thank you next up we have fhea good evening Tuesday was the Tuesday of this week was educational support Professionals Day and we would just like to take a moment to thank the wonderful District staff members who do all the behind scenes work that make educating our students of Francis Howell possible to our custodians and bus drivers thank you our secretaries nurses and I.T technicians thank you our Paras interpreters and cafeteria aides thank you our Behavior Support Specialists occupational therapists and physical therapists thank you our permanent subs and vacation Station workers thank you
053our educational support counselors thank you and do any of the other staff members that I didn't mention we know that you help us to make everything work here in Francis Hall thank you and thank you to the board as well thanks thank you good evening Lord and Francis Hall Community my name is Jordan fruit and I'm vice president of custodians within Facebook I'd like to personally thank all involved in not only helping my department but all of the support staff within the custodial Department we are seeing an influx of applications and interviews our managers are working hard to support our schools and fill the vacancies in the critically short staffed schools there is hope on the horizon I could go on about the positive perspective and High Spirits my group is feeling but what was
054incredible is that we accomplished a lot for all of the groups we have so much gratitude for all involved in the negotiations process Dr rompes thank you for hearing us Chiefs and directors thanks for all of your hard work and board members thanks for your support when you help your support staff you're taking care of your teachers your students and the schools we are all in this together and I hope that we continue the work needed to make everyone feel valued have a safe and happy holidays thank you [Applause] okay next up we will have our prop s update Mr Jeremy Balor good evening um so it should be a quick update tonight uh not a lot of changes from last month but uh we'll go through them so 801 is substantially complete keep kind
055of going over this but uh we really have two things left to do in that project one is to um have the partitions delivered they're supposed to arrive in December again we've talked about this a couple times those are the partitions that actually separate the walls into subdivide them into a large space in the smaller spaces and then I know the facilities Department the tech department along with Hoff construction is kind of working on finalizing the future boardroom the locations of cameras stuff like that so there's some coordination that's going on that'll be happening over the next month and then uh once those two things are done hopefully we're getting close to uh being able to open it up in order to use it whenever the district the size you're going to do that um
056the pack so moving on to frankenstyle North package seven was the fencing bids we did receive four bids which is great we're having a hard time getting bids on that packages over two times so good news on that front they look they appear to be on within a budget so um I think I sent will Center myself will be coming next meeting and actually giving those to the board presenting them for approval but um it does look like everything's right where it should be and no big problems on that so good news on that front um the only reason it takes a little bit to get them is they actually have to vet them they call the subcontractors to go through their scope to make sure they have everything included and stuff like that so
057that's what they're in the process of doing right uh concrete steel installation are almost completed at Francis all North that's the structural the big structural pieces we'll have some pictures of that but you know that's a that's kind of a big timeline for in the Construction Industries once we kind of get those two things done we're probably starting to work on finishes and the final products within the building I have a picture of this but it is kind of fun the light bases for the future Stadium have been installed so you can actually start really seeing where the action stadium is going to be sitting and how it's going to be oriented which is kind of fun um and then in the future I just I talked to SN Wilson and you know it's as
058it gets colder out we're kind of done with the outside not done but done with you know making big new things on the outside we're probably going to focus more on the inside with some of our videos in the future so we'll focus on the Google stairs we'll focus on classrooms maybe something like that so I think that'll be more interesting for the board right there to keep saying the same exterior videos especially once the you know the we're still working on the brick but other than that most of the work is happening inside now over the next few years here's some of the highlights on the Francis Howell North project specifically we've been talking about brick veneer installation continuing going on throughout the building the roof is getting very close to being done we'll
059have some pictures of that a second that's a big milestone for us as well getting what we call drying get those roofs completed and that pretty much they can Vapor up the windows we can turn some heat on and we can just work so a big milestone getting ready to hit on that we talked a little bit about the steel and just how close they're getting mechanical electrical Plumbing fire protection installation continues throughout the building but really heavy in the lower classroom areas Framing and CMU I've been talking about it for six months and we got 18 months to go so it's a big masonry job and they'll be there for a long time so they're moving right along painting has continued on the in the classroom Wings just exciting starting to see some actual
060color on the wall and stuff like that um it's the only grid starting which is great that actually opens up lighting and HVAC finish work and stuff like that and then we talked about site preparation for this stadium and track so winter is not the best time to go into grading for the stadium but they'll be working when they can they're right on schedule for that but it's it's kind of fun that they're starting to work on that phase of the project so again we have an aerial view there'll be a drum video in a little bit um just always try to get everyone oriented this is the new parking lot the existing schools down here about Jane here's where the actual future Stadium will go you can see all these roofs now being completed
061which is exciting this is this white stuff you see here is stacks of insulation being ready to put down in this area but they they pretty much have set all the seal out in this entire area just this little area to go this is actually the storm shelter so a lot of progress happening the blue you see I'll talk about that that's a fluid applied barrier that they put on but behind the brick to keep the building waterproof we've talked about that before I get a lot of questions whether the cuss school is really going to be blue so show you a picture of that this is a neat picture this is actually looking at it sort of Orient yourself but this is kind of looking um Henderson's back here this is the two main
062hallways of the building so this will actually be the main entry of the building the main entrance out here this is a big hallway that you'll come through as we look to the left here this is actually the student entrance so we start the buses will be stacking out here the kids will be getting out this is actually the storm shelter which it will become the auditorium so just kind of you're starting to actually see hallways and what the building is going to look like and it's kind of exciting so uh again more pictures of just steel you can see these temporary lighting we turn that on at night just to keep the place safe and lit up again just some more pictures of masonry this as well scaffolding that the Masons use this all
063becoming you see all the block work Happening Here steel to be completed this is actually the practice gym you see the walls going up in the practice gym and so on and so forth not very exciting picture but um you know this is metal decking before the roofing goes down they do a good job of documenting all the penetrations in the roof looking at all the parapa Caps getting them all inspected before we cover up the roof that's just good practice for us it's something that sun Wilson's been doing um here we actually are down in the middle of the uh we can start to see some of the uh what the actual Mason finished product is going to look like so we have three different colors of masonry we have the red the black
064and the white um this is you know this is like a limestone color but you start to see the capping going on the walls are really taking shape on the lower level this is with the exception of the windows being in this is finished products so now the brick hasn't been washed yet they'll wash it and clean it up but you can start to see what the buildings actually um this is a future art room um I I like this picture because what it one of the things I get asked a lot about is HVAC and you know we do it we try to do a really good job of keeping all of our HVAC capturing construction um these are put on every duck Inlet and they're kept on all the time you know if
065we see them we make no we notify them they put them back on but this tries to keep a lot of the construction dust out of the buildings when you turn on the HVAC system it's not just blowing dust everywhere so it's a good practice it's something that most people do but um even 10 years ago this wasn't happening as often as it's happening today so just something interesting to note all the duck penetration Cycles caps on them again here we can see the Mason's building um you know the brick and the scaffolding and uh going on top of the fluid um so we're starting to get some HVAC equipment this is boilers and sprinkler piping and everything else this this room is boring to a lot of people but excited to people like me
066this will do all the mechanical equipment and heaters and boilers and everything will be sitting so starting to get some of those deliveries starting to see some of that product roll in that's good you know that'll be a big push over the next you know 18 months to get those systems set so and here we finally see the light pole so they won't set the entire light pole we'll just set the bases um so the lights are tall in this but we can see one here you see one here you can see one here we can see one here so the existing School is right here so this is the orientation of the actually the new stadium so this is looking out from a classroom window so just kind of neat you're actually starting to
067get a feel for actually where it's going to be so chainsaw View oh there's a gym new gym Varsity gym JV gym weight rooms over here actually looks out over the field here we can see all that those roof materials being stacked and being ready to put down finished screws here finished roof here again these big holes you see this is where the HVAC equipment will actually be located this is basically like the tech Area Industrial Tech CAD stuff like that that's what happens down here if you ever been a house similar to that these are classroom additions two stories again I said this before to the board but these are built structurally we could add an addition at some point in the future you don't have to actually do anything else not saying that
068would ever happen but we build these structurally where you could add an addition to the school district or whatever grow and need additional capacity that's something that actually could be done so you wouldn't have to rip these additions down you would just go on top of them um we talked about the student entrance because it's kind of where the bus has come down um you get a machine all the wall sessions going just how amazing much masonry work extra has to get done we have about 200 guys on side every day we have to find places to park which is always fun um see all the cars the other guys working uh certainly some of these These are watt pads for the roof so you don't damage the roofs when you walk to the hpvc
069units roof curb here is our seal over a roofing get completed so they're done to here now with all the roofing this was a couple weeks ago and then here you'll see our final session of building that the steel just got set on we'll finish some of the decking in the roofing a lot some of this is actually adapt already as of right now it's just like I said about a week week and a half ago they shot this and then here we have the storm shelter which has a finished refined as well so exciting times um you know it's uh it's coming along I always get asked the same questions you know how are we doing we're we're on schedule so it shouldn't be uh any problems with our opening date of the spring
070summer of 2024. so I will show you guys this if nothing's changed on this one the last week um or last month excuse me a million dollars still remaining on the escalation allowance um that hasn't been spent today uh eventually this will probably roll into contingency at some point um and then on the billing they build us 45.2 percent to date so we're just under halfway which is about right where we should be based on schedule so be happy to answer any questions you guys have happy hey Jeremy I just have a question about 801 um are the controls all in place because I had heard that it's really really cold there yeah at Union like in you know 60 degrees Yeah so the last board meeting we approved the control package I don't know
071the status of where the facilities department is with installing that okay the controls are in the middle of being installed I know that the electricians had talked about working or the weekend um planning that that should be thank you claiming that that should be done in the first part of December they did bring in uh some portable heat units the issue was primarily that the gas system the gas furnace system was is having problems as well the way the electric with the controls but there should have also been a gas furnace system there they've been working on trying to get the gas furnace to work properly um this these last few days uh this morning it was much better than the previous morning I think we have 60-ish heaters scattered throughout the building we've cleared
072the Home Depot shelf small portable heaters are staying on overnight and we should be good to go hopefully tomorrow morning this morning was better than the day before um and so I think we're on our way to being there okay thank you forward any other questions or comments all right thank you so much Lily you doing okay um okay bored I would like a motion to approve the consent agenda for November 17 2022 as presented like this and then okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed singer emotion cares Board of like a motion to approve the Personnel report as presented okay all is in favor say aye all right any opposed to know and I'll be abstain as well I'm just saying because my son's going to be a student custodian question
073carries all right border making a motion to improve the travel request as presented so discussion well I'm not going to be able to support this travel request either oh since my rationale for not supporting some travel requests in the past have been misunderstood by several people I'm going to take some time here to explain some of my reasoning I'll begin with a hypothetical I thought experiment this is how I work through my own personal reasoning may not make sense to everyone but this is how I come to a conclusion on whether I can vote for something like this I look at whether I'm consider to ask a travel request with some hypothetical crazy thing that no one would support consider a hypothetical conference talk that was named effective strategies for ensuring parents stay out of
074the library I think we can all agree we don't want to support that in public education given that we have a student rep here I'm not going to read some of the other more egregious examples I put here but things that are things that just no one would support in that right mind of course these are hypothetical type things they aren't real it's not to equate some of the the talks at any given conference to this it's just a thought experiment again but um you know we would not send our tax dollars to to a company or an organization that's so blatantly undermining parents with a talk like that um that that's really the uh that just on it for me all all these conferences and purchases boil down to how much knowledge we have
075about them and whether we support the organ the direction that these organizations are trying to push in public education it's impractical for us we're volunteers to go through every single session and every single description of every session at every conference we approve this one I know it'll be a question has over 700 sessions um no I didn't read them all it's 2022 I can search certain terms I can just browse and that's the thing I can just kind of scroll through I can take five minutes looking at this out of 700 sessions and find any number of things you know last month I pointed out one session of several that I found an objective to I don't think we want to sit here every night and listen to me uh rat off 166 sessions that
076are objectionable I've I had no desire to do that myself this particular month I can't do it either there are no less than four sessions here in this one on how to use critical race theory in our K-12 classrooms I'll name them a culturally sensitive model mapping Colonial artifacts to critical race Theory and other contemporary discourses critical race Theory the boogeyman prohibiting knowledge of cultural and racial diversity in K-12 schools disrupting discipline critical alternatives to behavior management in the art room which using disability critical race Theory discrete as a lens we will analyze existing practice and collectively imagine racial restorative alternatives and the fourth for Museum Educators Transforming Our approach to teen Council programs in which participants will explore and discuss the ways you participatory action research and critical race Theory and art education can
077reshape the ways Museum Educators approach the traditional teen Council model and art museums so do we honestly support getting taxpayer dollars to organizations that are openly pushing critical race Theory upon the K-12 public education sector I could go on with sarcastic comments about how people such as myself have been gasoline over and over with the notion that there's no critical race there in K through 12 schools and how it's a college course in law school but I digress it's right here in front of us yeah we're being asked to send money to this organization the critical race car is a new thing do we support Elementary School students making political art and protest posters I do not I still believe Elementary School students are nowhere near mature enough to take a political stance or protest
078and I think our society recognizes this because the voting age is 18. yet this conference has a talk titled making protest art with Elementary students participants will engage all right I'm sorry participants will experience a protest art unit facilitated with kindergarten through second graders you'll learn to gather resources about a unit that explores social concerns protests and political art you can teach your students to make original art about topics close to their hearts I have no doubt that uh this presenter will offer some topics so each conference committee that runs these conferences they select papers and presentations humans are deciding what direction to take the future of K-12 public education and we as humans on this board are making decision whether to support their selection and direction reasonable outlines can disagree on academic matters such
079as how to teach math and we've done just that I have no objection to conferences that have focused on different strategies regarding math instruction reading pedagogy and the line it's only when the conversation steers away from traditional academics into the social character values type education that I become skeptical not immediately dismissive but my antenna goes up in the 60s and 70s too many of this country's public school children underwent values clarification education mako's curriculum in the 1780s it was transactional analysis affective education by the 80s self-esteem education was going to fix everything by the 1990s there was a trend with so-called death education and taking kids to Moors then there was outcomes based education now we have social emotional learning transformative SEO critical race theory on and on the basics of stood the test of
080time and I think we need to get back here as a district and as a nation so to the extent that our taxpayer dollars go towards national conferences and organizations I urge that this board to the extent practicable and it's not practical in every case but we support our support from those organizations that are pushing these type of agendas and and trends that I don't think we agree with thank you boarding questions comments I do have one would we have our elementary students making protest posters would that ever be allowed in our district if you don't mind I would just offer a couple pieces of information um just about the conference in case books there's some questions the this conference is the intended audience is K-12 educator Pre-K 12 Educators their target audience is also
081University staff art Specialists Museum Educators researchers administrators and so the sessions would also Target Museum Educators University level professors the sessions that our participant or attendee would attend would obviously be related to the goals that we have in our district the curriculum work that she's leading out tied to our district schools um you know the content leaders and our teacher leaders in our district that part of their job responsibility is part of their job expectations are to maintain expertise in the field in their content area and part of that is attending high-level conferences where they're able to obtain that information to keep those skills sharp and often that's going outside of local conferences at the state level and so there aren't a ton of options when you get into some of the specialized Fields like
082art the National Art Education Association is the National Conference for our team art Educators and so you know it's challenging to find a conference where you know to Mr Cook's point where we're not going to find any sessions that Veer into those areas it would it will be a challenge for us to find a conference that doesn't have any session that would tow into those Waters and so um you know I'll just put that out there foreign perspective on it uh I think the amount of sessions that are offered in these different national conferences I think if you were to take a look at any individual in our district being around 150 000 people I'm sure there's going to be a group or a person that doesn't agree with something and so I think it's
083our job and duty to try to have a balanced approach in sending our Educators to national conferences that my appearance has a wide swath of attendees that do have different offerings whether it's a college level uh perspective or or some of the things that director cook uh stated earlier but I think that the thing that's lost upon some individuals is the fact that we have teachers who specialize in these areas that are able to think for themselves decide what they believe in what they don't believe in if they do go to something like this I'm not suggesting that they are but any of those sessions that you mentioned maybe they walk away saying I don't agree with anything that was just presented to me just because your presented information doesn't mean you absorb it and
084then spit it back out to the uh the rest of the the student population and that's not how it happens in this District because there are processes for when individuals that lead curriculum have to come back in and there's layers to this so anybody that's kind of paid attention in the past you've probably heard me talk about that those different processes everybody that's tuning in today it's not something that they can just go off choose what session that they want to adopt it blindly bring it back to Francis Howell School District and then it's automatically implemented that's not how it works and suggests that a teacher can't decide for themselves on how to approach information and that they blindly accept it and that they're going to be immediately indoctrinated and bring that back to the
085school district I think is just simply not giving the credit that's due to our employees [Music] just like to make the clarification I made earlier again um my objection and concern isn't with teachers attending Francis how teachers attending this conference my concern is with the show of support for a conference that would deem something like critical race Theory or protests are for elementary students acceptable in K-12 Schools public education yes other districts and other states may choose to do this and if they want to support that with their tax dollars that's their prerogative the notion the idealism or the concern is not with Francis how teachers per se it's with giving the Francis how tax dollars to organizations that would deem these things worthy of teaching K-12 Educators would we you know would we do
086uh would we would be for an organization that had a a session titled uh strategies to create a Nazi educator Alliance organization cloud and Elementary School no we wouldn't do that because because we do not support uh you know making the Nazi Club in an elementary school it's crazy and so sure our teachers may not go to that but I don't think we'd be sitting up here saying well we trust our Educators not to implement that of course we do we also don't support any organization that thinks that that's worthy of teaching uh K-12 Educators and so that's the thought experiment that's that's the objection so the notion that we can't trust our teachers or anything like that is is really not the point it's whether we are going to support this direction education and
087by doing so we're putting a we're putting our tax dollars behind it yes we're one school district out of hundreds of thousands or thousands within the nation but um it's one small step so that's the nature [Applause] and to the point I I guess I I understand your point and I think that my point still stands that we can still have the benefit of that conference there are obviously benefits when you think that there's some uh things that are some negatives to it to where if we just scrap it and then we pause continuing education and we can't find a National Conference that has the same values and benefits I think that does this school district a disservice I think we can be smart on what uh sessions yeah well I think we can be
088smart in some sessions can I ask for quite out there please this is a business meeting thank you I think we can see that there are values in sessions I think there's values in networking I think that being the ability to have a teacher learn a different perspectives is not necessarily a bad thing they can take and parse and bring back and the benefits outweigh the negatives any other questions comments okay all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed say him no no question cares border like a motion to approve the October monthly financial report as presented Mr cook Dr Hawk this month on the financial report I just wanted to point out and provide some clarifying information about the challenges of trying to create good Trend data for people to look at
089in a world where uh coveted funding has set our revenue and expenditure Trends arrived I'm trying to figure out the best way to share that information with the public is is super challenging because you want to be totally transparent and say this is exactly what our books read which I think is our best practice to do um because we want our presentations that we share with you to align with the asbr we want all the numbers to match but when you look at that it then makes it confusing for the public uh when they look at the reports because you have millions of dollars of coveted related funding coming in and going out so your Trend data when you look at it over time is sometimes confusing even on our Revenue Trend data our sr3
090funds we thought we would be getting them in in October and so we estimated when that arrival would take place but now to due to a host of reasons that won't take place until later in the spring and so that is one thing I just wanted to try to provide some clarity for the public um try trying to make the complicated world of school Finance um boil it down to two or three papers so that it so we can get information to the public in a small enough bite that people will be willing to at least look at it and take a taste sometimes will cause it to be kind of complicated along the way so if at any time you ever see something about school Finance when you're thinking oh my goodness what is
091going on with these numbers I would encourage you to reach out and and give me a call and we would would be glad to sit down and try to make things make more sense because our books are open books and everything that we have from a financial perspective is there for the public to look at um and if you have any suggestions on how to make it even easier I'm open for that as well because we want you to feel confident knowing where all of your tax dollars are going and knowing how much money we have on the bank and what our expenditures and projections are for the future foreign any questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say no motion carries like an emotion to approve the purchases over
0927 500 as presented Dr Hawk do you have any questions and you just got any questions or anybody okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say no okay border like a motion to approve the adoption of the transition from accrual to cash-based accounting as presented second Mr Lang Dr Hoff we are working through the process of moving from the accrual to cash basis of a county um this first year it has been a relief on one hand and a challenge on the others how we did make the decision late in the game in August that right after arriving um the folks in the finance office are really excited not have to redo everything every now at the end of the year and put it in a cruel format so long term that's
093going to be a big Time Saver in a money saver for us this year as we go through that process we're working through our Auditors to make the conversions and so that has taken a little bit longer than we thought it might but we're getting close to a close on that we're also working with our Auditors we've had some challenge areas in our sr3 fund distribution related to stipends or even the psrs and that has been an more involved cleanup task so we're trying to uh very hard to hit the December 31 deadline of having that audit complete on time um and the Auditors are a little nervous you know they're not sure with some of those outstanding situations that they're going to for sure hit the deadline but we are pushing hard and working
094hard together to make sure that that's taking place I have been in touch in touch with Desi and you're aware of where we're at with that as we're working together to accomplish that task so that's kind of the update on what we're at with cash versus accrual most of the challenges aren't in the transition from cash versus accrual it's uh some other outstanding situations that we're working through and Gathering data off for the otters board any questions or comments thanks Dr ha I was wondering if you could maybe speak a little bit too you can talk about going from from cash to parole and The Time Savings there can you speak a little bit to that time savings and then what are we going to do with that time savings well we have a long
095list of things to do with that time savings um everything from taking a look uh one of the over 7 500 items that you had a chance to look at was our EMT Transportation purchases creating a multi-year analysis of that and working with our team to try to find a a way to continue improving and saving money in that area so just taking processes and pro and project areas one at a time and doing the Deep dive uh the the time savings comes from the way that our funding is reported we spend the whole year at a cash basis of reporting and then we have to spend two or three months changing the way that the items are recorded and and tracked to an accrual basis and then we have to go back to a
096cash basis because that's what deci wants in our reporting so not spending the time changing the way we record our assets and some of the some of the more detailed record keeping that takes place on an accrual basis will be where the time saving happens not just at the end of the year but throughout the year um and a list of projects that we have is very long lots of processes procedures and systems because the work of trying to do financial management just as tight as you can is kind of never-ending I like curriculum it's never and I mentioned in your memo but over 95 of the other school districts in Missouri utilize this so this is nothing new team school districts this is the norm this is the way yeah this is the way
097things are done across the state of Missouri except for just a handful of schools so we'll be doing things away the rest of the state for the most part is approaching your accountant bored any other questions comments okay all right all those in favor say aye aye I was opposed to Young motion carries born are like a motion to approve the revised 22-23 school year calendar as presented sorry distinguished Miss Simkins thank you this is the first of several calendar revisions and presentations that are going to come forward to the board um tonight we're presenting the current school year calendar the 22-23 calendar with the revision of how we'll handle snow days a committee was gathered and Dr Buckman handled that with our folks and lots of stakeholders teachers and so forth to get input
098on how we would handle our snow days this year the decision this year was to look at our calendar and build in four snow days so the first sports notes are built into the calendar meaning they will not need to be made up at the end of the year if we have snow days five through ten those will be considered traditional snow days will be made up at the end of the school year um if the board approves this revision tonight uh Mr Delaney our director of human resources and I will start to work and communicate to staff what that means for them for their work day snow days one through four and then we'll follow those traditional snow day guidelines for five through ten if this happens I hear the Persimmons are spoons and
099so we are expecting lots of snow this year so we're going to be ready for all of them in case that happens um to give you kind of a preview next the committee is still considering Dr Buckman is still working with the committee to look at Ami possibilities moving forward they needed a little more time to get that plan so they're working through that um as well as when we did the survey for we're going to skip a couple years here the 24-25 school year there was some Community uh comments around looking at the semester and dates and so we're really just vetting out those comments and looking to see what we can do in our calendar um and working with our teachers and Gathering some input there a little more input there from the
100surveys so we are holding on bringing you the revised 2324 calendar waiting for the Ami decision and how we'll handle snow days for next school year as well as holding on to the 24-25 calendar so we can vet out a couple of those things so we will bring you the revised 2324 and the 24 25 calendar in January tonight we're just asking that you look at that current school year as we build in those snow days for this school year with no plans for AMI at this time happy to answer any questions you have over the next three years of school calendars four questions comments I would like to ask Miss Lily what her thoughts are on um I really like it because then we're not out in June thank you yeah board anything else
101one of the only districts that does not do Ami days do we know especially painful we did reach out to I don't want to say every District but we have a sheet um that had plus helped collect that shares what other districts do for sure days and there's a variety I would say many of them have to have Ami as part of their plan some of them do a number of traditional days and then they move to Ami Ami stands for alternative methods of instruction um many people would say that's like a virtual snow day but it doesn't necessarily have to be virtual and neighboring District at the elementary level does packets some people might refer to that um I would say many a number of districts have Ami as part of their plan somewhere
102in their plan some districts they hit it they don't hit Ami days until maybe snow day six so I'll start with Ali some end with amides it's usually somewhere in there all those in favor say aye aye other suppose say no motion cares keep this next up we have our superintendent house good evening board I said a couple of celebrations and things I want to share tonight and a couple of announcements about announcements about upcoming events we have um the first one that I think was mentioned earlier was that last Friday all 23 of our schools held celebrations recognizing Our Heroes on Veterans Day many of our schools invited veterans to attend the events and included everything from meals to assemblies student performances guest speakers and dedications I had the honor to be out at
103Daniel Boone as part of their celebration really humbling and a privilege to be there as a guest where over 120 veterans were there in person every single one of them recognized individually at the breakfast and again during the assembly really a touching and emotional um day and I know a lot of people say why are we in school in Missouri on that day why aren't we celebrating in a different way and we can discuss that but I'll say the fact that we are in school that so many of our students and our staff put energy and time into celebrating our veterans really makes it a special day for everyone who attended so thank you to everybody who participated in that last week we were excited this week to host two events that really as we
104return to normal were pre-coveted events for the district and we're great this week the first one was our 13th annual iron chef competition it was hosted by Francis Howell High School all four of our high schools had teams compete they prepared dishes and they came in that night and had a set period of time where they prepared them there was a panel of three professional judges that scored them and then everybody who was in attendance also got to try and Sample the dishes Francis Howell North was the winning team but I will say that everything we ate that night was delicious and really I said that night that all of our students are the winners because it's one of those opportunities when we talk about career and college readiness it's a real world skill and
105a lot of our students might choose that as a career path and um it was just exciting I think that the guest chefs who were there you know talk that as young students was when they were first exposed to cooking and doing the work and so it was great it was a professional event what was and I want to thank um Sodexo our partner with our Child Nutrition helped organize it and they support it and so a lot of students teachers staff all participated connected to that we also held our first senior Pals event in several years and we all the guests that came were there to attend that event and eat and enjoy the food but they got to spend about a half hour with myself and our executive cabinet where we introduced ourselves
106being new to the district really since that event was last held talk about what each of our departments do and some of the great things happening in the district it was an opportunity to engage with some of our patrons who fall into that group and we really look forward to the events that will be held later this year involving our senior Pals um it's part of my entry plan one of the action steps that I had was to meet individually with groups of students and that was starting at the secondary level and so over the past week Dr Buckman and I have had the opportunity to meet with each of our high schools where they have a group of students for a second time this year and I'll say it's really it's energizing and refreshing
107to hear the voices of our students where they talk about what they're proud about here Francis Howell the things they celebrate and what they see as opportunities for us to do to improve you know they're they're unfiltered and have very honest feelings about the district and so it's great feedback we look forward to continuing those visits this spring where we'll do each one again and looking to how we can expand that to more of our middle school and younger Learners in the spring or in future years coming up we have a couple things I want to share our district also partners with savexo and the St Louis area food bank that on Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving from 11 to 1 30 we host Thanksgiving together at that event food will be provided to families
108in need it's open first come first served to the public where up to 150 families will receive all of the food to help provide a Thanksgiving meal for them next week and so we have students and teams and staff who volunteer and help with our Sodexo partners and the food bank at that event coming up on November 30th we have our next citizen Roundtable this topic will be around career and college readiness so you heard from Katie Vargas our amazing leader over that work for the district she'll share some of the information she shared at a board meeting earlier this year and then we're just going to open it up to get feedback through that Roundtable process about some of the work that we're doing what do we want our students to leave prepared to
109do and how can we realize more of that here within the district so that sign up is out there and it's available on the website that's November 30th at 6 30 and we're gonna be doing that at Francis Howell Central on December 6th we have at Westwood Trail Academy we'll be hosting our first family learning series event again another event that we used to do pre-covered and we're bringing back this year that first event we'll have Dr Amy Moss we'll be there to talk to parents about supporting their students um when it comes to anxiety and you know academically extracurricular activities that a lot of our students experience so talking through how we as parents can support our students so we hope people will attend those events that information is all available on the website
110thank you okay thank you oh one thing on superintendent cards you've got questions uh I guess first Dr Roberts just want to thank you are we are you asking a question are we are new business or no it's not your business uh uh there's a lot of questions this week upon the board meeting just wanted to say thanks to you and and all the staff that works on those um for the public who's interested in that sort of thing they're all posted on board docs but um I know there's a lot going on this week and certainly appreciate the effort from everybody on that um and then the only other question there was some um there's been some talk the last week or so about um around our private group or club would become District
111sponsored can you shed some light on that or are we working on clarifying that or College I believe that's a new business item correct that would be a new business item I would just kind of like too sorry let's move on to patreon or board comments and requests now okay I would like to piggyback and let that Pahrump instead about the uh veterans detail version so I had the opportunity to attempt one at Francis Hall North and uh to listen to that choir saying America the national anthem gave me goosebumps so I shout out to Dr uh to Mr Fletcher at North and his team for doing such a great job thank you to Sodexo for a great iron chef competition the food was wonderful the company was great and having a chance to talk
112to some of our seniors was very very interesting so I really appreciate the fact that we're doing that again and lastly I would like to say thank you to miss Lily next to me for being such a great seat companion uh she's got she did a great job and asked very appropriate questions finally Happy Thanksgiving to all our teachers their families and all their staff enjoyed that time with your family because you never know Facebook do you have anything to say I just like to thank my school the principals and the words for letting me be here tonight [Music] [Applause] we appreciate you being here um I would just like to make your weight make one comment um under consent this evening we approved a new revised Board of Education meeting schedule so our February
113meeting has moved up a week to the ninth any other comments and requests of course I don't talk about that I wanted to thank parents as teachers and Sandy torbeck and her team for the great report we had on our parents as Teachers program I was thrilled to see with covet that our numbers are back up we serve 1500 families a year as a prior kindergarten teacher hardest job I ever had in my life that had those developmental screenings come into the building it gave you a snapshot of each child that came in and I feel like our Pat program is Far and Beyond many of the school districts in the state of Missouri and it is recognized that way I also like to thank vacation Station for their complete report and I'm glad to
114see that their numbers post gobit are back up this program is far beyond what most districts offer their children and our private and our parochial and our home school students also utilize this program we also have as you read in conjunction with the development developmental disabilities for funds to help our children with disabilities attend vacation Station many of these parents have no resource you know what do they do they work till five o'clock they need someone to take care of their child so I'd like to thank Chris Garland and her team for a wonderful experience for our children and I'm glad to see our numbers are back up and we're able to serve all of our families thank you okay anything else for okay or I have like a motion to adjourn the meeting Mr
115ziggemeyer and here's a second Mr cracker all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say no motion carries sure