001good evening everyone I'd like to call this a meeting today attention with the Pledge of Allegiance of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right board I'd like a motion to approve the agenda for October 20th 2022 as presented so sorry Janice and Patrick and then everybody that's in the audience I'd just like to acknowledge uh I'm taking mayor's position tonight because she cannot be here she is attending one of her daughter's events and that uh took priority over tonight and I also want to make another acknowledgment we have a new superintendent that we announced last Friday thank you [Music] I know the board is very excited I'm sure this whole school district as a whole is excited he has uh has
002far exceeded our expectations uh thus far and as well deserved of this uh new promotion so thank you all right on to special recognitions Mr Miss I'm sorry do we not a vote sorry we at the event uh vote all in favor of the agenda say hi all right it passes all right thank you Mr zigmeyer tonight we have the honor of recognizing two groups of high performing students across the district who have our national academic honors we're going to start by celebrating our AP Scholars with distinction every fall the advanced placement program recognizes high school students who have demonstrated outstanding college-level achievement through their performance on multiple AP exams Nationwide only about 10 percent of students earn the distinction of AP scholar or higher by the time they graduate and to earn the top
003level award is an even greater feat a total of 258 Francis House students were named AP Scholars for the 2021-22 school year and 84 of those at the highest level AP scholar with distinction some of those students have graduated they were seniors last year but we are fortunate tonight to have many of those scholars in attendance with us please help me welcome principal Dr Dave wedlock to the podium to recognize AP Scholars with distinction from Francis Howell High School foreign [Music] black Graham is also a national American commended student [Applause] Colin Lewis [Applause] Tandy LaMotta [Applause] and Vita McKenna [Applause] Ethan Milam thank you [Music] Ethan's also National Merit commended Julia Pfeiffer [Applause] and the final Viking Emma sure [Applause] [Music] these are like this much there you go there you go one more [Applause]
004all right next I'd like to invite Mr Jeff Fletcher principal of Francis Howell North to the podium to introduce Scholars from his building foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] thank you Mr Fletcher and finally I'll ask Dr Suzanne Leake and her own principal of Francis House Central to recognize our final group of AP Scholars with this nation good evening Zane Bari Maya Bowen [Applause] Liam nachtra Trevor Nichols Braden pedrotti Matthew Tierney foreign right [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] all right the next group of students we are recognizing this evening all have one thing in common they were recently named National Merit semi-finalist Francis Howell is proud to announce that five district students have been named semifinalists in this year's National Merit Scholarship program the semi-finalists who were selected based on scores on a PSAT
005qualifying test will compete for National Merit Scholarships ships worth more than 31 million dollars their scores placed them in the top one percent of the more than 4 million students that take the PSAT each fall and with that I'd like to invite our high school administrators all at one time to come to the podium to introduce our semi-finalists your principals once again for Francis Howell Central we have two students who are named National semifinalists both of who are on the golf team and they are also celebrating this evening with their banquet our student that is not in attendance is Anna Mori and our student who is here tonight is Caitlin Vogue [Applause] we have two outstanding Vikings joining a party this evening and they are Julia Pfeiffer and Trinity yeah [Applause] Hal North has one
006uh National Merit semifinals Venetia [Applause] thank you all right now I'll turn it over to Francis Howell Union principal Rob Goff to introduce your student board representative for this evening [Applause] sorry good evening it's my pleasure to present Ryan Meester who's our uh representative for Francis for the board tonight Ryan is the son of Jeff and Debbie Meester he's a Francis out Union student who has attended Francis School District his entire career following a path of Becky David Hollenbeck middle Francis Hall North and Al unit Ryan's been a model student here at Union since his start his common respectful demeanor from the moment he walks in the room is noticed by all you can always greet you and inquire about how your day is despite how he's feeling at that particular moment Ryan decided to
007make the change to come to Union and get caught up on his credits to just move on when I asked about the best part of the union he replied in one word independence he said it's the best group of school staff he has ever had and all his years of school because they care about him and explain the expectations encourage him and I encourage him to meet it and help him with the struggles he comes with that day to explain you is a place where all kids actually want to succeed if you need help there you can get it due to the dealing with his chronic migraines over the years Ryan has gotten behind but will finish high school and begin his post-secondary education hopefully in the field of Neurology so it's my pleasure to
008introduce Ryan usner [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Christmas welcome Ryan Miss Janet there will help you with your tablet so you can follow along you can participate in the meeting you can do everything that we do you just can't vote all right next on our agenda is a best practice presentation about the innovate program at Fairmount Elementary I'll turn it over now to Dr Sherry Oliver and Dr Julie T Meyer good evening thank you Mrs Jones and thank you Lord it's a pleasure to be here tonight it is with great excitement that we have this opportunity to share with you something that is making a difference at Fairmount Elementary School tonight we are going to share with you innovate a teacher driven best practice aligned with the technology philosophies that support our teachers in implementing Innovative practices
009to engage students in their classrooms we are here tonight to share this model with you in hopes that we can spread this amazing model of teaching and learning Beyond Fairmount foreign good evening the journey let's go back about two years ago yes it was a pandemic Fairmont made a rather large turn through the pandemic as virtual learning forced us into an unknown territory of learning beyond what our experiences had provided provided us it brought so much new learning to the Forefront through the Fairmont virtual teachers we discovered different levels of student engagement that could be implemented digitally we also learned that more than ever we had to differentiate the learning for virtual students to support their learning environments and learning accessibility the virtual teaching team began to harness our learning and Drive Fairmont into another
010Direction with technology we shifted our thinking from needing devices in a quantity mindset so now thinking how can we innovate Beyond surface level learning sites and how can we use our resources to implement different levels of student engagement to take lessons to a high level of pedagogy our past technology professional development and areas of learning existed mostly with the Google Classroom Google level one and two certifications although these are all Great accomplishments many of these resources and certifications built teachers skill sets with organization and management of Google tools and docs while allowing small steps for student Choice voice and academic engagement we were ready to take our staff learning to an area of higher technology integration our teachers that had acquired these certifications wanted more as a result of our building mind shift innovate was
011organically created the goal is to learn technology tools and strategies to help Foster a one-to-one environment to enhance student learning the vision was welcomed by your innovate cohort of teachers this was a professional learning cohort open and optional to all building staff who had a drive for being different and stepping out of the classroom Norm to take risks the purpose of our innovate worked was to create a pathway for our teachers to learn how to enhance student learning in some of the following areas using technology integration to create resources such as flip videos digital learning boards and lessons to help fill achievement gaps and be accessible to all student abilities as well as using technology integration to create a classroom environment where every student has a connection to their learning and can become engaged with
012the curriculum and content at their own learning pace our next step in our journey was to base our learning off of a research-based model as a team we researched and learned among each other in this process with iste teacher leadership we access the international Society for technology education areas of focus in iste include digital citizenship Innovative designing creative communicator and empowering the learner this learning was supported and facilitated by our current iste certified teachers Mrs Melissa Kirchoff and Miss Jessica Hensley as well as myself I want to acknowledge the high International certification that these teachers have acquired through iste and the leadership used to take our innovate team to a higher level they dedicated a full year of work and portfolio artifact submission to acquire the certification an issue Remains the foundational basis of our
013innovate program the other research-based practices that provide a foundation for Innovation practices are the TPAC model and sammer model and these provide the technology pedagogy learning for our staff teachers are now asking is this technology a substitution level with no change to learning or is it at an augmented level that enhances student learning how did we spread the learning at Fairmont Elementary as our innovate team learned and began to quickly become inspired we wanted the same learning for all teachers in our building the innovate team created professional development learning boards for teachers these boards focus on iste learning goals along with actions and resources to build their content base this particular board is our level one board and some activities include learning about the iste standards joining a Personal Learning Network and a value evaluating
014your own digital citizenship practices this is our level two learning board that teachers can take themselves through as well and activities on this board go a deeper level the design process Universal Design to help meet student needs and how to collaborate with students and teachers our level three learning board is currently in draft where are we now our new innovate model has brought us to a whole new level of teaching at Fairmount teachers are finding Innovation enjoying their lessons they are sharing and collaborating among among each other as their ideas grow we now have three iste certified teachers four teachers currently in the process of issue certification three District technology ambassadors and free staff members partnering with Washington University's stem TQ program the integration and passion is spreading like wildfire you can say and students
015are logging in the innovate team have also created innovate lab sites for teachers to do pure walkthroughs our iste and Technology teacher leaders have opened their rooms for teachers to walk through to see and learn in the moment of light Innovative practices teachers can reflect with students on their learning paths ask the teacher questions and to see the tools and integration at first hand after the lab site is over teachers meet in the PLC for more reflection time the Fairmont innovate model has truly opened the learning for our staff on a whole new level confidence is growing within our students and they are truly becoming empowered Learners we plan on continuing to motivate our teachers to further their learning and certifications to make them powerful teachers we will continue to provide our teachers with differentiated
016levels of professional development in the world of technology integration and opportunities to partner with our fellow teachers through the Journey thank you for the opportunity to share our Fairmount best practices and our innovate model we welcome anyone and everyone that wants to come see the learning happening at Fairmont [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you ladies all right we're moving on to the public comments portion for tonight during patreon 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 child Ford in order to sign up and speak in order of the sign up and each speaker has three minutes to make their remarks please remember that only one speaker is allowed at the podium at a time and combining time or giving
017your time to someone else is not permitted the board appreciates that you have taken the time to come to this evening so meeting and we value your input and perspective I would like to remind everyone that we expect all speakers to 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 we'd like to welcome Jared Pillsbury [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I was originally going to talk tonight about privacy now it's something that we in our families all families should be able to enjoy without fear some extremist organization and its members putting our names or our children's names on a list for whatever purpose because of a group we belong to
018or supports we seek but after the admonition that director cook received for his teacher and librarian government list I can't imagine anyone in the district would think doing that again would be tolerated instead I'm going to focus tonight on a few good things some important developments in how we can take actions to continue on a successful path so a couple good things Francis Howell School District recently announced Dr rumpus will be uh our new superintendent of schools congratulations Dr Ruckus I'm glad to have you Francis Howell's named best District in Saint Charles County in number eight in the state congratulations Francis Howell School District it's a major Accolade something we should all be immensely proud of we have a considerable thanks to the faculty and staff as well as the administration to put the district
019in this top two percent of Missouri schools tremendous I hope to see this tradition of Excellence continuing now onto some developments a neighboring District Rockwood School District has recently uh ran into a bit of a a rough patch and I wanted to share a story this is longer than I have time for but in short the board and specifically uh board member Izzy Emig whose campaign was backed by an anti-dei group in the district recommended cuts to three established programs supporting marginalized students and these Cuts ultimately pass they talked to students who are predominantly black in need and low income these are the only programs that were targeted there was no replacement they were cut abruptly and with no Community input the group who worked with director inning is the same group that had terrorized
020that District over two years uh regarding masks critical race Theory and library books the programs that were cut were had been around for four or five and ten years respectively if we aren't careful Francis Howell may find itself divided into two camps those who would protect this district and haul as primary stakeholders and especially the students versus those who see no issue in seeking to Target particular groups to gain traction political favor or those who falsely portray themselves as Fighters for children Eric Schmidt and the recent reporting by Fox News and Casey Stark is failures to close and prohibit operation of the Agape boarding school which is right with credible allegations of abuse torture trafficking and even slavery in Southwest Missouri comes to mind sadly many who have claimed to be stopped supportive of children
021have been quiet on this development which I add Schmidt has known about for over a year the truth is people lie they claim to be Fighters for children they spend they say they'll do something they sit on their hands instead or they stun us with their silence some of those people occupy High office and seek higher office still things we can do to help in the district and stand up for the district want others fail we can consider the finance of a blue ribbon panel report that recently was published we can Safeguard our programs after all we got an A in clubs and activities in the recent reporting and lastly I'd ask for a recommend from the board regarding the equity pledge from 2021 I believe it's the year to include our newest board members
022and because it's the right thing to do issue a statement of support for the resources clubs and other activities and programs available to the student body thank you very much [Music] [Applause] [Music] speaker Grayson Justice hello my name is Carson Justice I am a alumni to the Francis Health Central uh Central High School um I pronounce it as he and she this month is lgbtq history month and today is Spirit day a day of awareness of bullying and harassment in schools and means like this to lgbtqia community lgbtq history month was created here in Missouri by a high school teacher named by the name of Rodney Wilson in October 11 1994. he didn't want to celebrate and remember the people of the lgbtqia community who have influenced this country from Washington P Johnson partly milk
023and people dance also events like Stonewall AIDS marriage equality and Pulse Nightclub it would be nice if students learn these in history classes in school libraries age and great appropriate sadly people on the other side want to erase and ban books with people like me and so many other communities besides their own uh to the uh that the other side filled with their hearts with uh hate ignorance and bigotry the other side wants to have books like my tongue or the art of the deal but I guess those books like those will not be shelves in school libraries anytime soon there is nothing wrong with learning a different different communities and issues in books it helps with apps a student understand them and what it will be like in their shoes and here's the passes
024from middle school to high school should learn these but on these gray men and women who really made up what America great just like the black education classes and to those people who say we don't teach religion in schools I remember learning different religions in social studies and world history but they want the only one religion Christian indoctrination board if you support these people like the board member can commenting about people like me of rumors and pedophiles you're not here for the school you're not here for the staff you're not here for the students with the faculty you're not here for the teachers you're here for yourself and your cult thank you next up we have Barbara Bauer ladies and gentlemen Yeshua I pledge allegiance to the flag to the United States of America and
025to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all oh I think I got that wrong let me rephrase it I pledge allegiance to the flag of the divided States of America and to the Democracy for which we are pushing our nation toward underman divisible with liberty and justice for some this is where we are headed in the name of progress the vocabulary has been redefined to align with the concept of what is being perpetrated as education in the schools today and descending our children straight to hell we changed equality to equity which I think is something valued about my house Justice is social justice and guise of CRT 75 Pages worth and we all know it's there and we all know that it's being taught in
026one form or another you can't hide it pitting One race against another Dr Martin Luther King Jr fought and died to chase a segregated idea and here we are back again we've changed gender identity to sexual orientation putting pornography books in our school libraries as a form of health education and defined parents rights rewriting history tell me how you do that when history repeats itself and why not change the Department of Education as a whole to the Department of indoctrination it is said you reap what you sow and at that evident in our colleges and universities today this is not going away will become worse because we threw God out of our equation we threw God out of the schools our homes our lives and now even our churches we can't even mention his name
027in a neighborhood newsletter for fear of offending someone but the Bible states God made him male and female funny how come the animal kingdom still Embraces that concept be careful God is Not mocked that whatever you call yourself Christian non-Christian Jew Hindu atheists deities or agnostic we all will stand before our creator and to give account of our actions and for some it might be tonight thank you ready next up Steven Blair my name is Stephen Blair I'm the pastor at a United Methodist Church here in St Charles I moved here recently at Joe's Francis Howell after calling researching several other districts I paid more for our house because of this particular school district and I think that's just one of the effects of a good school district we are eighth best school district in
028the state that is awesome if you heard just a moment ago great job to our district superintendent our board our District staff our teacher who is here Ryan you made that happen next year let's go for top five at that board meeting last month um a Mr Bauer who I respect who loves this community loves his school loves his grandkids he made a comment that the kids are not your kids to the teachers they are our kids and I wanted to add that the words ours and mine have different meanings they could be exclusive words the red Corolla out there that's my Corolla not yours easy with all the entity everyone that's my curl the word my can also refer to responsibility and ownership this is my country I love it I have responsibilities it's
029also your country too I'm thankful for every teacher who views the students their class as my kids as an act of ownership and responsibility those are the teachers that we want I am thankful for teachers to dress up for Halloween and throw parties in their classrooms I am thankful for teachers who survive the days right before break and thankful for teachers who lose sleep when something is off with one of our students I am thankful for what is happening in Fairmont Elementary I am thankful the school district understands that kids learn best when they feel safe you have guest speakers talk about suicide prevention preventing sexual abuse and creating a bullying free zone the equality and safety of all students is not partisan it isn't about donkeys and elephants it is telling the young person
030in front of you that they are accepted and they are important as they are while other people who are here figure out blue or red ways to make sure everyone knows it I am thankful for those teachers who say those messages not paying for teachers who talk sports to their students especially those who try to talk sports I think well the teachers can hear National voices that falsely accuse them of teaching CRT or grooming or whatever is next and they shake it off they put their heart into another day of teaching I'm thankful for every minute The District staff and Boards been trying to find out ways to raise the pay of teachers pairs admins custodians so soccer teams don't have to sweep the floors every moment you spit on that because what is good
031for teachers is good for students I'm thankful for the next speaker uh whether they agree with me or not these are our kids these are also our teachers we have responsibility for all of them thank you [Applause] next up Courtney Kemp hi um Courtney here uh I brought my red book with me again it's been a while since I've been here um up to speak but um I'm flying off the Cat video because that's just what I do um I want to welcome you um in your new role um Dr lombis uh we are excited to start a new chapter with you and um just as a mother it was really cool to see you at Harvest Ridge on first day of school with the football players and the cheerleaders that represented um what our
032school district or whatever what my school building looks like actually um yeah I we are here every month and the conversations in this room um weren't just about prop us like you know obviously we we cover a gamut of issues but there's constant back and forth between the community and it's all based around um preventing our kids from being themselves um from one side and and another side seeing a future that is loving and accepting and how are we going to build this community together and and um and see each other um as not just our own opinions and our own thought systems uh sorry um because that's what I do when I'm nervous and uh how do we build trust um and these are the time to mess um we need boundaries and what
033are the boundaries in this room look like is when people come up here and um and speak only their point of view and um it forces other people out um we are you know there's going to be a pushback on that because boundaries are being broken um we need a reliable leader we need a reliable leader in all of you to talk to each other and and continue um building this community uh we need accountability and mistakes we need trust as a vault you don't share information or experiences that are not yours to share so whenever we hear rhetoric um forcing The Narrative of of grooming or things like that that's it's not yours to share um we need to approach every situation with Integrity um and generosity uh I want to end with I'm
034really hoping that our next round table I'm I'm actually really uh hopeful for all the communication that has been built with this group of people and you Dr rumpus um the surveys that have already been out the round table that was held seeing you guys at the community thank you your time is up is the next round table my apologies I unintentionally skipped our fifth speaker Andrew Swift thank you um I'm gonna kind of do this a little differently I will address you guys but I want to turn this way for just a second because I have an idea that I want to pitch to The Community to kind of fix a little bit of these things I was a teacher for a little under a decade and I learned to accept kids for who
035they are as they come into my classroom so I'm trying to figure out a bipartisan way that we all can have our needs met the main issue that I've been hearing a lot and I've been here since April everything I hear about is the books and I hear you when I get you the idea that I have is color coding our books within our school where parents can sign off on what they want their children to read and to also move different books to different colors so if you feel like a book is kind of at a bad place or maybe not appropriate for your child bring it to the school we can move it to the red we can keep it in the yellow we just kind of pin a great example for me
036Kite Runner is one of the best books I've ever read in my life there is a lot of adult themes in there do you think a 10 or 12 year old understands the complexity of an Iraqi culture and the issues that happen in that book they don't that book can go to the high school and that be A-Okay the reason the color scheme works and why I like it is because you can hear the parents and the parents can sign off to protect their children however they want because at the end of the day it's the parents decision to let the children read what they want to read what they're comfortable with while also not infringing upon the rights of parents that want their children to read that so parents can sign on to say
037I am comfortable with my children reading anything that is in this library or they can say I'm not comfortable with what's happening or what is in here right now I want my child to be labeled this at a yellow bookkeeper now I understand and I and I hear it it's hard to achieve because I've talked to both groups and I understand it will create a lot of work for the librarian and a plus tutors but I'm willing to take that on and have them do that and we can fill this room with not talking about this issue and actually fix it because that's what I want to achieve with it is to create ideas to fix this and even though we both might not agree on this total thing it doesn't infringe upon the rights
038and protects parents where it needs it so that is what I'm proposing for that and what 30 seconds left right so I can address here um thanks for giving me opportunity congratulations thank you for what you do and I'm so glad you're appointed you've been doing a great job so far word of caution and the word to everyone that is out here the issues that we had financially before happened in those two seats the CFO and the superintendent it is important that as a community we keep them but keep an eye on them and just keep them accountable for their actions because at the end of the day that is what's most important within a school we need to hold the school accountable not just the words and actions of the community thank you thank
039you [Music] all right back to proper order uh Christopher Brooks forget everyone and you're great uh now we need to go to follow it and ask them about that because they were going to implement a rating system for the Librarians wouldn't have to do it but Librarians complained so I encourage you to find that middle ground and see if we can implement it here uh I'm also wanting to celebrate the niche number eight ranking here for the district um that is not a little bit happy to celebrate three years ago which is what their date is based on pre-pandemic uh if you go to the Missouri school rankings put out what you show me Institute they have updated 2021 data and that shows in those two years we've slipped in a lot of areas and
040a lot more than other districts around us including our math scores that have gone from 65.5 proficient to 53.7 that's a decrease of 12 and about 2 000 students that are no longer proficient in math according to the state scores now you can't just put it on a pandemic because Zoom walks only slipped six percent they're ahead of us in math now let me look at the aggregate scores and you look at a bunch of other rankings on there were 50 seconds and they actually show their methodology Niche is a lot more subjective they're kidding me uh the reason I'm here to speak tonight though is because instead of looking at the problems in our math department they seem to have doubled down on trying to change things what's changed in the last three years
041okay if you think about it what is the math department done for the last period introduce pilot programs and a full world out of the middle schools of the CPA math textbooks now CPM is a very interesting program it's been around since the 90s it was part of California new map Wars it's also called Discovery math ever heard of that one there's one teacher doesn't teach any words he just sits there and facilitates student group learning now this is this is an interesting concept it works great when you have people who already know the material but when you have middle school students who are getting their first foundations in pre-algebra algebra algebra 2 some geometry this isn't helpful because they didn't you know chronic right Danielson wax on wax off right he didn't understand what
042Mr Young was doing well Mr Miyaki knew what he was doing because Daniel had to learn the basics so that he had them down instinctively before he could learn anything more complex and that's the problem with CPM by jumping straight to the group work it misses that instruction that a professional math teacher needs to be doing now I'm going to try it because my daughter went through the CPM math and her advanced math classes the middle schools they didn't do the CPM away of this they would have used the textbook but they didn't do this whole group luring thing they supplemented other materials and so I don't understand why you're going to approve for the accelerated math 7 program this textbook series that at best if you look at the original studies at best it
043keeps in touch with the other stuff at worst it ruins it uh let's see where was it in Fairfield Connecticut the first cohort that went through the CPM math arrived in calculus went from a 26 scoring of five on the AP test to five percent scoring five the number of students that fail that test doubled and this was the first cohort that arrived from CPL so before you approve that sixty two thousand dollars for the seventh grade students think about that and we're going to hang over in your neck next election to continue to do it and don't improve thank you [Applause] next up sexy warm-up good evening I'm here tonight not only is the current District educator and parent but also someone who's benefiting from the compassionate support and guidance found within the fhsd
044transparent support group over the past couple of years I have listened I've listened to my child I've listened to my heart did I fully comprehend the entirety of where my family's transgender Journey was going absolutely not but most importantly I was open and willing to learn so that's what I did I am by no means now an expert but most certainly have been most certainly have been a better awareness empathy and understanding of individuals who identify on the gender Spectrum along the way it's been encouraging to have some in-depth conversations with many of my son's teachers and several colleagues across the district the thing is they always have lots of questions many have expressed that their personal and professional knowledge is lacking specifically on what to do if and when they ever have to support
045a student in their class who identifies on the gender Spectrum many have expressed that they would indeed like to know more about how to create a gender affirming learning environment seeking out more information wanting to learn and understand more about gender diversity in general that got me thinking it got me thinking for the past several years that fhsd has been District driven to educate staff in trauma-informed and restorative care practices because the need was there you listened and provided that but based on our current reality and increasing number of students who identify on the gender Spectrum it is time it is time to acknowledge those needs at all grade levels learning is going to be the key element of this process Educators and administrators need to be provided with engaging professional development training in order
046to become more gender literate and most importantly in order to build a school climate that avoids gender stereotyping and affirms the gender of all children all adults and Francis have including members of the board who must act as protective agents committed to the safety and well-being of all students in addition to those who are transgender or gender diverse I encourage each one of you to seek out learning and work together to better understand what is in the best interest of all of our individual students in the meantime a couple of years ago the district esc's and Elementary administrators were given the opportunity to attend a beneficial training provided by a local consultant named Jess Jones specifically on how to create a gender affirming learning environment but beyond that as far as I know no additional
047gender education training has been thank you your time is up thank you [Applause] next up Liz poister thank you for saying it correctly like nobody ever guesses hi board Administration patrons both in person and online I don't know where the camera sits around here um first I want to um join an offering my congratulations to Dr Memphis um our family is beyond happy that you will serve in this position bored you did good you did real good and His short interim Dr rumpus has demonstrated his willingness to facilitate civility engage all members of the community and lean into transparency with his appointment to this position we feel reassured that our district will rise to the heights it deserves and earn the reputation as the best District in the area a quick story if I made
048back in January I had a strong disagreement with you all about your coveted decisions sorry I had a third grader who was really nervous about going back to school and Dr rumpus engaged with me over email but that's not what sold me what sold me was the next day he emailed me and said he had some time for it could he walk over to Central and visit with my son to see how he was doing and I said yes and then immediately called my son's teacher so that she didn't freak out he sent me a follow-up email complete with a selfie of the two of them and my son remembers this occasion very fondly and still refers to you as his buddy and he knew I was coming here tonight um friends our district is
049facing a lot of challenges our county is facing a lot of challenges but we can make a difference here under the leadership of you all and this Administration we've already seen how transparency honesty and integrity Can Build a Better Community in my heart there are at least two means to this end and I would venture to prioritize them over all others first we must we must have the best faculty and staff and as I've stated in my prior comments to you we are blessed to have teachers and staff members who make an impact but we have to be careful to not lose the ones we already have and to attract the ones that we don't to accomplish this our district must have Fair pay a healthy culture for teaching and learning and Community Support as
050a community we must be willing to let teachers teach find funds to hire the best Paras and Trust Librarians to build up our kids this only works if we step back and let the professionals do what they do and pay them what they're worth to do it for a strong Community we must consider safety for all the last several months I've been blessed to serve with Missouri citizens for safer communities we are a group that promotes safe environments for all community members it's an organization that works tirelessly to promote an all-inclusive and welcoming community and support system for any Soul who feels unsafe we've made small but significant impacts to date and we look forward to promoting Francis Howell and St Charles County as a safe Community for all thank you for serving this district
051for taking steps forward and providing an open and inclusive learning environment for all students [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the last step is Carrie zolowski or Jamie Martin sorry Jamie my apologies I was hiding hello I'm Jamie Martin my pronoun so she and her and um like the speaker before Andrew uh I was a teacher we're just a little under a decade I have four kids in the district and I want to talk about faith because I'm really faithful an active person in my religion and I think sometimes when people speak about faith at this Podium sorry it's time for my little boy to get ready for bed sometimes when people speak about their faith from this Podium they speak about it in an exclusionary way I think like we heard earlier and I want to say
052that that's not part of the religion that I follow and I don't think that we find it in scriptures of the Christian religion we know usually Satan and church are kept a little bit separate but when we hear comments about faith they just want to qualify I want to say there there are people in this room who are members of my own faith and I just want to share a couple of thoughts tonight when Jesus Christ I apologize if you're not Christian you can just ignore cool with me but when Jesus Christ is asked um a question and he responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan I think it's important to hear what he says before he starts that a person who asked him in Luke chapter 10 verse 29 he says but he
053willing to justify himself said unto Jesus and who is my neighbor the person who had the scriptures tell us that the person asking the question was willing to justify himself and ask who's included who should I love and when they say you respond he tells the story of the Good Samaritan how an outcast right is willing to serve and help I do right and so what we learned from this and I'm a little nervous I hope I'm not getting detailed strong but what I know about the story of the Good Samaritan is that we can serve and we can love outside of our culture we can serve and we can love outside of our race and we can serve and that will add love outside of our agenda because love love isn't about boundaries right
054we heard Dr King quoted tonight uh I'm a student of Dr King I love to read his words he said many many things but one of the things that he said was the Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere right so if we love all of our kids if we want to serve all of our kids that means all it means all it means when we meet when we make financial decisions when we consider how to use our money we consider all kids it means that when we come to this Podium and when We Gather in this room we don't say hateful things to one another because we are community and if we have Christian values and if we don't we all live here together thank you [Applause] now on to FHA comments first
055of all we would like to express our thanks to the board of education for making their decision about Dr rhombus we believe this will help prospective Educators choose fhsd because of the stability of this decision we also appreciate the collaboration that we have already had with him and look forward to even more even more so that we can ensure our students success secondly we would like to thank fispa and administration for coming together to negotiate raises that will hopefully help us fill positions and keep our existing people custodial sub and para shortages impact all our staff and students so we hope this helps lastly we would like to encourage the district to invest the remaining money from the sr3 funds and the staff once these funds are in our account we hope they will be
056used to ensure our staff who did whatever it took during covid crisis to meet our students needs and continue to navigate The Learning and behavioral challenges that were a result our reading on Niche shows that our staff continues to help fhsd excel in the face of adversity thank you foreign hello Board of Education members admin and community my name is Henderson and I'm the president of the Francis Howell education support professional association also known as Facebook Facebook is sure we are all aware of the shortages throughout the district within the custodial and paired groups especially with this in mind FIFA admin and the Board of Education came together to help alleviate the stress of shortages through several hours of open and positive negotiation we did come up with a memorandum of understanding or an mou
057That Was Then brought to our members for a vote we are here to report that the mou was received and passed through our membership we know that mou will not solve everything however we do feel we are moving in the right positive direction thank you to the admin numbers the board members and the Facebook members that spent several nights in many hours to make this happen we all look forward to working with you in the future foreign [Music] tonight so 801 we as we talked about last month is basically substantially complete we do still have a little bit of ongoing work in the breakout room slash future boardroom areas the one thing that has happened in the last month is that some of our folding partitions were delayed on that project that does happen but
058the state of what we're doing and those are the room dividers that are temporary room dividers so it doesn't really hold up the use of the room from a big meeting perspective but little breakouts and extra separations of that room we expect those in December so it's not too long away but that was something that just recently came up so we're working through that um there's also a something that I would just talk a little bit about now then the purchase is over 7 500 there's a um something for TMI for the control system at 801 this isn't necessarily a prop s thing but it is related to 801 so I'm going to take a moment to explain it now and we can ask questions later or I'll Stick Around for purchases if there's more
059questions down but um basically when the 801 billing was built are bought it was 20 years old so you got a building that at 20 year old stuff in it and one of those things is the control system for the HVAC now a control system for the HVAC is just a fancy way to say thermostats in a residential application but those control systems are quite complicated in a commercial building they different zones the Energy Efficiency stuff like that so the building actually had what we would call um a system a language it spoke a language that the district just wasn't necessarily used to using so for Chevys kind of that kind of a deal so um in the last month or the last year or so we believe that that actually uh that system has
060failed on the first floor so in essence we don't have control of the system on the first floor right now we don't have control of the HVAC we've made some temporary solutions to it but we cannot continue to do that long term especially when we get into the evening season so some repairs need to be made to that so we reached out to um Hoff construction um the actual system that's there is called an Andover system we got a price to actually just change out the whole system upgrade it um you know as part of the process of reviewing these controls we found that some of the wiring probably wasn't installed the way it should have been or per the manufacturer's recommendations 20 years ago so some of that needs to be upgraded so um
061that process was going and as that process was going Mr Brockton tonight who's the mefp manager for the school district actually reached out to a company called TMI who uses an allergen control system that altitude control system speaks a language that the district is used to using so um you know they are trying to get their systems to all communicate the same way so um wisely reached out and said hey let's get a price just to upgrade this entire system to an outline control system rather than spending money on something that honestly our people aren't used to working on that outlet system actually came in cheaper once you take some of the credits from Hoff or the Andover system that we're using and then that's wrote as it purchase over 7 500 tonight so I
062just wanted to give a little background on that and necessarily um it wasn't related to construction that could have broken in time but um you know we're there we're working on it so it happened so just a little bit of background on that I can answer any questions later or Lance I'm sure be willing to PC or if you have any specific questions for him so um I will also say that Hoff continues to work close with the facilities department so turnover is a big deal just making sure that building's up and running and ready to go so it's very close but Hoff is still on site finishing up a little bit here finishing up a little bit there I think the relationship has been great really good and everything's moving in the right direction
063um that's right to sell North the last package which is package seven is out to bid we've talked about that that's for the fencing that is the last thing we need you're waiting on pricing on um I believe that is supposed to be now around November 8th so we'll get those bids open we'll be bringing that hopefully to the board in November for approval that will be the last package to kind of that's the one line item in the budget that we still don't have firmed up they have money allocated for it we just need to firm it up with actual fits um just a little bit of a celebration I would say the Highlight today so you know we had Monday meetings um not only with SM Wilson and Dr Hawk and some of
064the facilities people that come to those meetings but you know um the Francis Howell North team comes every once in a while too usually the principal um Mr Janice the athletic director and we really try to focus on student safety and you know I just wanted to highlight this because you know we built this new parking lot but getting our students into the school where they actually drop off a lot of work goes into that we actually talk a lot about hey you know it's funny you build a big grass pathway and you start seeing that way they're cutting through the grass instead of you know we get the brown grass so well why don't we put a concrete path there if that's the way they're using it so we're really trying hard to make
065the inconvenience of construction as safe for the kids as we can we haven't had any issues so far but this is something that's watched almost weekly you know we're building a new uh stair system because it just came that the kids are taking the path to the least resistance to the building and they're not going to walk around so why not build a stair there so there's a lot of good things that happen like that that not everyone sees but I think it's important to highlight those kind of things and meetings like this and just show how much attention is given to the kids and staff and Friends of summer so um and then we were beginning to talk about uh work that actually has to happen over um the summer of 23 they will
066they will be building the Broadway as we call it but from the stoplight all the way to Henderson that entire thing gets ripped out and redone um it gets upgraded to a double lane um four-lane road for the buses and there's a lot of work that has to happen there but we're beginning to talk about how that's going to look access to Henderson is going to be very limited on some of those conversations with their staff so you know never can plan ahead enough so um exciting stuff coming up for the next summer talk a little bit about right to sell North I'm going to go quickly through this um because a lot of it you've heard every month again it's a big project we keep her doing the same thing so exterior brick continues
067on the classroom editions um the roofing is is moving and it's moving towards the Henderson building um they're probably 50 done with roost that is very important as we get into the weather keep the rain out it means we can drywall and actually get things moving painting stuff like that so that's good structural steel is nearing completion we have just about topped out the building the last bit of Steel has been set you'll see that in some of the pictures that's always an exciting time the mefp or mechanical electrical plumbing and Fire Protection ongoing will be ongoing for two more years so that's just all the ceiling work all the stuff in the ceiling That You Don't See when it's all said and done but all the infrastructure of the systems that have to be
068installed and then we always talk about masonry there's a just a ton of Masons on site a lot of work going on not only on the interior above CMU block but also on the interior uh red brick and then of course we had black filler which is just a nice way to say paint um that is going on the main level classroom so we have a drone video as usual but the oversight of the building you know uh I am going to highlight a couple new things tonight just I try to focus on something that maybe if I hadn't talked to you about before but um the old building is down here Henderson is up here um I get asked a lot about like where will staff Park and stuff like that that's a good
069question so if you look right here uh that is where the student light is there's actually a large parking lot that will be put in right here you can start to see that happening this is actually the entrance to the building the kids will come in here this is the main entrance to the building the offices are here um this is actually where the buses will drop off so this has got some diagonal parking spots that in the end the buses will come up here they will drive around the back side of the building it's stacked here the main student entry is right here we think about Francis Howe High School how it is Adventure in the front and a student entry on the back similar layout student that you're here then the buses continue
070and they pull out there's a loop road that goes all the way around the building but you know this drive lane actually goes all the way out to Hackman road so it actually will be um two main entrances there there's two now one going up the hill into the kind of the front of the villain that actually goes away but the actual entrance moves farther down this way so just something interesting to kind of look at something a little different this is the Broadway we talk about right here unless we go to Henderson that will all be ripped up and removed so just something interesting um so you know as I said steel is finishing is the main entrance to the building this is actually the main doors right here we're going to be walking
071in um these are it's really these are the Google stairs we call them um very interesting kind of Cutting Edge concept these are actually stairs over here that you walk up this is the cafeteria area these are actually the best way to describe this large concrete bleachers with carpeted on them and they have USB ports and Outlets kids can actually sit there and and something that Google made famous but these are being incorporated into more and more projects so I'll have the Architects come to a meeting and kind of show your renderings of them but it's a really unique concept so kids would sit around in here and talk and do their homework and then over here's actually the steps to go up so you can it's kind of exciting to start seeing those develop
072um again we see a lot of masonry going on I would just highlight to the board we had 200 guys on site I have yet to see a piece of trash in any of these pictures so just to get out I don't know how dirty I am but it's one person working I can't imagine what it's like cleaning up for these guys but the site maintains very clean very good looking site um again more steel this is all in the upper end as we were building more steel going in we start to see some of the brick now so you know there is there's kind of three uh main pieces of brick on the building um this is the red brick that we call it there's a darker brick down here and then this is
073all a cast stone or a limestone that's put up here to kind of highlights this white you see is is permanent it's accent brick and uh it goes at a time here we see all the work that's going on the on the inside of the building we see ductworks going in pipe pipe insulation uh all the fun stuff that happens there here we start seeing some paint actually on walls so again roofs are above this so it's that's why the roofing is so important to put on the side of here again another nice picture of the brick this is actually looking in the middle of the Horseshoe um this is where the industrial Tech area is and stuff like that but you know the other good thing is we start to see Windows getting covered
074up those aren't the permanent windows but they'll Vapor over those we'll get the heat turned on and then the guys can work through the winter you know we try to keep it at 55 degrees wherever the tape can grind the paint dries and stuff like that so um they're all getting ready for the winter weather here's the roof looking out of the way these are one of the future HVAC units are go they haven't arrived yet um again more pictures here's just door frames on top of door frames um actually an interesting thing I couldn't figure out why Essen Wilson took this picture but it figured it out so this is actually the library if you've ever gone to Francis Howell High School's library you think of just that big Library two stores tall this
075is actually those beads that the kids put hand prints on so you can't actually see the hand prints because they're covered up but eventually in that Library you will look up and actually see those handprints on those beams that are all set across so a very nice feature they've all been glossed so you know they they won't get damaged in the weather but for now they keep trash bags on them just to cover them up but you can start to see this feature develop which I think is exciting I will do the drum video as we always do again gymnasiums right here Anderson's over here to our top right let's see how dusty the side is right now it's crazy if this hasn't rained in Forever um again this blue is vapor our membrane that
076we spray on the walls to keep the water out before the brick goes on you can see the roots going in here's where all the red brick is going the Brick's kind of moving from this side to this way the building's being built from this side to this side these are where the new HVAC rooftop units will sit talked about the bus stacking bust stacking is over here Henderson's now behind us or Jason is sitting we're looking the other way again here's some roof materials being put onto the actual practice gym you start to see the seal finally you know this used to be all openings for a couple of months now we actually see all being filled in with steel so like I said the steel Russians is just about finishing is always an
077exciting time in the project okay thank you there's one more slide I think yeah and then lastly we've talked about the allowances so we continue we haven't used any more of the escalation allowance we're still holding about um 1.1 million dollars in escalation allowances that's not contingencies those are straight up allowances that are just to offset any what-s on escalation if fencing were to come in 100 Grand more or something like that that's the first thing that they would pay for or how it would be paid we are approaching on 50 this is how much SN Wilson has built today we're at 40.7 so we are getting close to that 50 Mark which is exciting right where they should be built today it's about 66 million dollars I'd be happy to answer your questions sorry
078Mr Butler my question isn't for you it's Mr Bryant Mr messenger here what do you think of Francis Hall Union in your new days over there your new day to new school over there hey I'm from the okay I'm old school I'm talking about this school looks amazing like you said those USB ports on those little benches like yeah I never thought that uh a school would have that but yeah it looks way better than uh North what about Union how was Union this year uh Union was good like the building mean yeah yeah oh yeah it was really nice I've got I heard a lot of complaints last year about how it was really cold but that's a lot better now now we're starting to make it really warm any other questions thank you
079thank you all right on to the consent item for uh the agenda just want to make note before I ask for a uh a vote on this that there have been two items that were moved just prior to the meeting that were pulled in uh placed at night items nine a and nine B so you still see the summary uh in item eight a I'm sorry eight I and so just to kind of clarify those summers are still there but the items have been pulled to be voted on separately for nine a and nine B so with that I would like a motion to approve the consent agenda for October 20th 2022 as presented Chad and Randy all in favor say aye aye any days all right board I'd like a motion to approve the
080travel of nagc as presented something okay Chad and Patrick discussion board appreciate you pulling this one um this is just an association nothing personal against the staff going there but um in the past I've had had issues with sending taxpayer dollars to some certain organizations and this particular one seems on its face like a great great organization and I'm sure they do a lot of good work but there's some some directions it seems they're taking that I just I don't feel comfortable supporting um I will go through a list of all of the different sessions but there's a whole Trend in Academia and these conferences that I just don't think are taxpayers by and large support uh for instance there's one session called querying the gifted classroom I do not think that's something that we
081need to be doing we don't need to be associated with a group that's doing it uh Park mandatory music training for sexual misconduct uh it starts staff not to council students and non-academic matters never engage students in conversations regarding their romantic or sexual activities so anything about queering a classroom I'm not in supportive or group that's promoting it for educators in K-12 I'll go into some of the other ones but it's that kind of stuff and that's the reason I just can't support it anything else from the board Edna hi for everyone what is nagc please it's the National Association for gifted children so we like to send our gifted teachers with our Spectrum teachers who's we climate teachers um when the conference is local enough that they can drive there's not a lot of
082learning opportunities for those staff members locally and so they share a room they carpool together so that we can keep the costs relatively low so we're looking to send I believe it's four teachers um four of our instructor teachers to go and then they've agreed to share that learning with their colleagues lead out some um learning for each other through the PLC through some of the PD days they're very excited about going we're doing some work with our evaluation process to make sure that Dr ramples he used to work in updating updating necessarily but just examining our practices as we do every so often and there'll be some learning there on that so they're looking forward to the opportunity and do you have had any idea of how many different sessions there are at this
083conference so there are 20 or there are 100 or you really don't know we don't have it in front of us directly for this conference but I'll just you know remind the board that at most learning opportunities there are sessions that directly pertain to the work that we do in the district and there are some that won't the expectation is always when we send adults for professional learning that they are choosing sessions and attending conferences aligned with the goals in the Strategic plan of the district um that that will be the learning that they would engage in while they're attending such events so just clarify of the sessions that uh director cook mentioned there's no requirement from the district to go to those sessions and even if they did there's uh it wouldn't be immediately
084adopted into uh any processes within the district it's kind of like the one we talked about last month that they've relevant to their work all right thank you anything further support all right on paper say hi nice eyes all right Lord I would like a motion to approve the travel learning for I'm sorry yes learning forward as presented any discussion board yeah some more issues here again nothing personal with the staff I'm sure the staff will will do things that align with their PD it's really the organization itself that I have a problem with who who is taking on these kind of Trends in Academia as I said over and over again um you know this particular one has similar themed conferences I'm not going to go into these um but yeah the name of
085the name of these groups is one thing and learning forward uh National Association of gifted children these all sound very nice um and I'm sure in the past you know kind of mitigation different things but there's this whole Trend here we are supporting it we're sending Educators there on their conference programs perhaps next year or the website Francis I'll attended this to say what sessions the trance is how teachers attended it looks like we support these kind of things we support this direction in Academia and I do not I just can't do it on behalf of the voters so that's why I just don't support these things a little bit more about um looking forward conference it's a professional development organization this one has been around for a long time not that the other one
086doesn't I just don't know as much about that one off the top of my head they were pulled a little late so I apologize I wasn't prepared um this conference we have sent people to for many years it is one of the most respected professional development conferences that we find when our top level leaders our administrators reach out and ask I want to do some professional development for myself as a leader what is the conference that you would recommend this is the go-to patterns that we recommend it is one that I can almost always guarantee any administrator can attend and will come back with relevant high quality varying networking connections every time I've never had someone attend and come back and tell me like that it was just kind of okay unlike some other conferences
087that folks May attend where it's kind of a hit or miss you know we've all been to things where you go and it wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be or it was just okay that doesn't happen at this one I've never and we'll come back and tell me that so um the uh the person making the request looked at multiple different conferences we had a I actually had a conversation about what are some different ones that that you could explore we looked at multiple different learning opportunities and this one was the one that was most relevant to the Bulls and felt they could have the sessions that were most relevant to what they were hoping to learn about and accomplish tied to the direct responsibilities and work tied to their position
088so I don't know if that helps make me feel more comfortable with that that was the reason for the selection of this conference any other questions or comments for it all right all in favor say aye aye Nate all right board I would like a motion to approve the Transportation Route report as presented Chad and Randy discussion board yeah thanks for pulling this one I just had a couple questions for Dr Haas um surrounding this I know you mentioned let the financial review we had earlier this month that we maybe weren't getting all the transportation reimbursement that we could from the states and so that may be available and so I was just curious on how much more spending above that that reimbursement that we could be getting are we spending as we take a
089look at our route approval we needed we're actually in the middle of our budget process and we're using our budget revision process and we're doing our state calculation uh we're at 139 above as a efficiency rate you need to be it's at 103 is that right Chad or 105 under 104 under 104 to be able to get full reimbursement uh every percent that you go above that you start losing State funding um for us as a as a district when we look at our transportation routes we have a lot of work to do we started that work this year it for some families has not been well received because kids had to walk around a corner or walk to the end of the road and folks have been used to being picked up at their
090door and that has been hard for some of our older families maybe coming up to the end of the cul-de-sacs but there's a lot of conversation that we need to have with that going forward this year to be able to save money and and be fiscally responsible in some of our neighborhoods we'll have three buses drive through to pick up kids one right after another and as we try to figure out how to stretch our money as far as we can there's a lot of work for us this year so I can't tell you the exact amount right off the top of my head I couldn't I can't get that number but I know that it was significant when we were taking a look at that initially did you recall how much how much we
091lost that was it the number two million comes to my mind but I'm hesitant to just speak it out loud but it is this year but because of our efficiency rating the maximum penalty is 30 so for the Sisters so we'll lose out on that 2 million plus we spent the extra money to drive around and drive to every door and go up and down every single street so by spending less we would get more on the back end and put out less on Friday how much we can save that's a big project that we need to do a lot of work on and we really need to find out how much as a community um we can stomach can we stomach walking to the end of the street right you know can we handle
092having fewer stops can we handle putting middle school kids and high school kids on the same bus route could we handle having kindergarten through 12th grade kids on the same bus route that happens in a lot of schools throughout the state of Missouri but it's not the way they've done things traditionally so we need to just really think through what what we have the stomach for and how much we want to how much money we want to save yes so what you're saying is this is purely within our control on what we want to decide to do it's outside everything from the state they find it and this is purely within our control to make decisions how we think we should operate Transportation yeah we have a lot of ability to do a lot of
093good work we're hoping that maybe in the future um we're going to get some advisory committees together to try to start having those conversations um we're trying to push to have as a round table topic I don't know if we'll make the cut list but we're hoping that it will make that cut list for the spring because there's just a lot of conversation that needs to happen and and people have to make peace with it so you know just just not going into cul-de-sacs this year I don't know how many phone calls you have to but I know it was a lot a lot of unhappy people because we didn't go down to the end of the cul-de-sac we asked the people to come up to the top so we want people to be happy
094and feel good about what we're doing and understand that we're doing it to try to be efficient and save money thank you and since bringing Transportation in-house several years ago Miss Simpson has worked incredibly hard one to provide a high level of customer service that we didn't feel that we had received previously using an outside vendor and I think we're quite she and her team have been quite successful in doing that and then the second piece is now being more efficient yes one part of it is saving money and doing it as efficiently as we can financially but it's also recognizing that under the current constraints of Staffing when it comes to bus drivers and monitors that's an area we have shortages you hear about neighboring districts that are having delayed routes cutting routes and
095having to make significant changes during the school year we want to be proactive recognizing that we may never be as fully staffed in that area as we were previously to identify how we most efficiently operate that department to still provide a high level of customer service while also transporting our students safely to school each day so we welcome our citizens and board members and staff members to help us brainstorm Solutions this is our year of brainstorming and fixing and you know I've said you think we could do a mid-year route turning so we can have enough drivers that freak people out um so we need to do a slower roll to get there but we need help in coming up with what what people are ready to do I just want to acknowledge that I
096remember prior to us taking the buses in-house that there were a lot of issues and saw some of those and felt some of those firsthand so I know the difference between the two I've seen the Improvement so thank you for that uh and then just one other question and not a suggestion but a question just to kind of contrast so correct me if I'm wrong on this some school districts if you live within a certain proximity of a school you're required to walk to school correct that is that is correct Jen what's the so all the kids that we picked up within that one mile radius there's no funding to support that gotcha not meaning that we want to make that happen but any other question for it all right all those in favor aye
097hi anyways passes all right board on to individual action items I would like a motion to approve the September monthly financial report as presented Patrick Marine any discussion all those in favor hi any names motion passes what I have a promotion to approve the purchase over 7 500 as presented so creating a chair any discussion board all those in favor and emails motion passes forward I'd like a motion to approve the purchases over 7 500 for CPM as presented Chan Patrick any discussion board okay do something you need to realize thank you foreign a lot of questions about CPM in the board Docs file this month [Music] as a board member one of the newer one of the newest ones this is the topic I've heard most about which is which is surprising um teachers
098either love it or hate it I have heard from I've heard from Mostly teachers who don't like it hey it's probably a strong word they just they don't think it is the best for students I'm a data guy I try to keep an open mind with this I do I did not take CPM half as a student um but this this math program is a for those who don't know it's a I'm going to oversimplify this I'm sure but effectively students are are encouraged to learn in groups around four students um a topic during the class period and then uh towards the end of the teacher confirms that they understanding or something along those lines but it's a group group learning we've implemented here in Francis Howell we piloted it in uh I think the
0992016-17 school year for algebra one in Francis Howell North piloted the next year and then implemented it in all three high schools the following year which would have been 18 19. uh our Desi data for that for the for that span um this is great does he uh the the match score of the Missouri Assessment program they changed the way they scored the test so it's not really an apples and apples comparison when you compare 2017 2018 data to 2019 they changed the cut scores um so that the scores did go down but that's a probably in large part due to that cost for change I have asked and I understand other teachers have asked throughout the years if there's any other assessment data that is available that is Connie informs you at the very
100manual process to go through that many years of data to go pre-cpm implementation and by classroom to see what you know how students did in the classrooms where the teachers implemented this program and then compared to a control group for Michael Bayard we don't have that data to make this decision and really we've been making decisions on CPM without that data for for years um I guess before I can approve something like this I I would need to see that kind of day I don't know if we can go to the building principles and get if we can compare HTT scores got an email with from a retired math teacher who laid out several potential sources uh fourth and eighth grade math EOC score is going to be looked at for 2010 to 2019 is
101a good range uh enrolled in an intermediate algebra versus Algebra 2 in each High School act math source enrollment high school algebra three pre-capitalist trigonometry courses let's look at the trend of those over the past 10 years all sorts of things we can look at here and to my knowledge none of that's been done we're really just basing this on the way some teachers feel without necessarily surveying all the math teachers in the district I know there's some that like it this particular resource that we're approving tonight a textbook it's my understanding all of the the Middle School teachers who teach pre-algebra in seventh grade like it as we all know the way math is it builds on itself so those students will eventually move on to other math courses and really the students are
102in three hours we're going to take algebra and middle school and move on to to uh really the higher math courses in high school and it's those teachers that we hear from that are worried they see they say that uh you know the students just don't have the the understanding that they used to have when they're coming into these these courses so there's a lot of a lot of reservation about it oh I'll leave it there and let some other people come yeah thanks Jack well I had a number of reservations that Randy has had and we kind of spoke to on CPA math um really all right well no I guess number one I'd like to come in the district they've been very open with conversation around CPM as you can see a lot
103of questions been asked on board docs and interact there I guess one of the big takeaways I have and kind of just preparing for this meeting in general is I've noticed a lot in the district puts a great deal of effort into being Innovative for the good of the students um you're really trying to go above and beyond and not that applaud our teachers and our administrators for doing that um flip side of that however Innovation for innovation's sake is rarely a winning model long term and this kind of applies to the game as well as some of the other let's say that items that I I chose not to speak about um would review the historical data it's really lacking we've been doing this for a long time and we really need to the
104point where we understand that and I totally understand what what Mr cook is saying um and I haven't been able to do this we haven't really been looking at it I went through the history of CPM and the request from the board and nowhere in it haven't seen anywhere of a justification of increasing academic performance with all the pilots we've run why are we running a pilot if we're not looking at academic performance um now kind of based on that like and the other thing that I would choose in the documentation for CPM it literally says it requires significant change in instructional practices from the traditional classroom so we're saying we can't teach math the way we did or trust our teachers at these math they have to stick to a certain program and I
105have problems with that as well um however I know we're going to talk about we kind of went down this road we bought resources that otherwise I do have one question is this a textbook for the class or is this a workbook that uses the textbooks for seven and eight that's already available It's a combination of the seventh and eighth grade resource so it's a different resource and it's actually a digital of textbooks thank you I appreciate that um regardless we've kind of already gone on this path we're invested a lot a lot of time effort energy that doesn't mean you should continue something just because you've already invested money into it but but I see where we are and kind of we have CPM at least already pre-purchased for the next four years and
106so I can see the the argument that it doesn't make sense the change this one class in the middle of everything for that reason however I would like to make it make a motion um if we do move forward the change our motion and amend it to approving the purchase over 7500 for CPM as presented um but with a pause and any additional Rod of CPM educational program throughout the district and still a comprehensive review can be completed that at a minimum includes full comparison of CPM to other resources analysis of academic performance and Anonymous teacher surveys of all those teaching or attempting to teach uh committing our motion to approve the purchase over 7 500 for CPM as presented and pause any additional rollout of the CPM educational program throughout the district until a
107comprehensive review is completed that a minimum includes full cost comparison of CPM to other resources analysis of academic performance and Anonymous teacher surveys of all those teaching or intending to teach he has it I'll second that motion discussion on Amendment report okay based on what that what uh Mr burchan just said at Dr rumpus and Dr Buckman can you share with what kind of a time commitment we're going to be looking at having to do that as far as working with our teachers I mean what are we looking at hours months just the general so I would need to know that well we aren't playing there is no plan to continue to roll out anything you know there is no committee working on a next level of rollout at the moment so you're not stopping
108any work immediately um I think Mr returns accurate that the teachers need this resource right now they're using CPM in seventh grade they're using CPM in eighth grade those are both board approved resources and so this would be it's the pre-algebra class is a combination of seventh grade standards and eighth grade standards and so really what you're approving is just what you've already approved in a in a combined text if that makes sense um the what we've already had conversations about our content leader has already this year or I don't know if it's this year over the summer has reached out to the algebra one the geometry and the algebra 2 teachers when we write Kirk when we look at resources at the elementary level we look at K5 all in one we don't buy
109resources for first grade and then later look at resources for second grade and then later look at third grade we do it K5 and same thing at middle school we look at sixth grade seventh grade eighth grade we kind of do it all at once and for some reason uh at high school we don't always look at Algebra 1 and geometry and Algebra 2 all at once we kind of do them one at a time and his vision is really to to look at it more comprehensively uh when we look at it next and so he has already reached out to all three groups to say who would be interested in being part of that conversation it's Crystal Clear but there are a lot of opinions uh among our staff about CPM on both sides
110um and so he already has a list of names you may have heard Subs are in a little short supply so we haven't been able to bring a group of teachers together this fall to have that conversation because there are no release days to do that and so we've had several conversations about what would that look like when can we do that but we have to have Subs to be able to bring the folks together to have the conversation and so the next step is to bring the folks together to talk about what do we want high school math to look like what is important what are the next to house you know we had a conversation academic advisory kind of about what that process looks like in a typical resource adoption um the other
111thing we have to think about is that we have we did a curriculum audit we we have only so much money in the budget and so we can't always purchase algebra one and geometry and Algebra 2 in the same school year and so it is likely that we would maybe be ready to purchase geometry materials in a school year and maybe Algebra 1 materials would be in the following school year and so it it could look like the group having some collaborative conversations about what resource would we want when it's time to purchase but not all three may be ready to purchase at the same time if that makes sense so the process that you talked about you know looking at data talking to teachers um that is part of our typical process you know
112we have a teacher voice in our process is every teacher involved you know in the Middle School process yes every teacher who teaches the class was involved typically we send an email out to the teachers you teach the course and ask who wants to be part of it you know the when we selected CPM you know we've been very transparent that the folks that were running the process at that point in time aren't with us anymore and um it wasn't the typical process that we use isn't the process that was followed and I think that that's the pain that we're feeling right now and why it's just so messy because it wasn't our typical process that was followed and so that's what we're trying to correct that's why we pulled those purchases over the summer
113and why we didn't this purchase that we're bringing you tonight was a purchase that we went tried we brought the star and we pulled it because we recognized that we didn't follow the process until we followed the process which is why we're bringing you a purchase a couple months into the school year um and so you know I think we recognized that we want to we owe it to our teachers our students to make sure we're following those processes um so to answer your question long-winded answer if you're a very short question um how much time would it take you know I think it's just our normal process it's hard to it's a hard question to answer because it depends on how much people are in the group it depends on how much conversation there
114is it depends on how many vendors they find that they like sometimes there's only a couple that meet the criteria sometimes they find lots that they want to look at and we need to have folks come in sometimes it's an easy decision sometimes they decide they are tied between a couple and they want to do a trial between them because they really aren't sure which one they want to purchase they want to get it right so we need to try resources out so it really just depends on the group and it's not always black and white So based on that I think this pertains to the original motion and uh and likely to the amendment motion so I'm going to ask it now uh this is strictly for seventh grade uh pre-algebra correct so just
115one course amongst many and all the other ones sixth seventh and eighth grade all already have CPM and so I think uh director cook brought up a good point math does build upon each other so sixth grade they have that now seventh grade they would be if we didn't prove this reflecting back on something else that then they would like to go back to at eighth grade if nothing changed okay and then as far as the uh um the amendment goes if we do go down that path and it forces you guys to take a look at that if they're the ultimate decision is to scrap CPM and go to something else good sorry about that yeah so I just want to mention that what we uh had um that's how it envisions well we
116made that purchase uh I can't remember if it's six or seven years to be purchased in both so the vendor created at the time the vendor created the resource for us they combine the sixth and seventh grade or the 17th acre materials algebra research force and we bought all whatever it was at the time six or seven years worth of consumables for us and so we both purchased because that's cheaper um and so we had the pallets of resources sorry um and we have gone through those resources it was one purchase we've gone through those resources so we don't we don't have them anymore to use we did reach out and ask can we have you print another year worth of materials because we ran out and we didn't make the purchase this Summer and
117the kids are coming in August and we don't have the resources and they they said no we're not going to print you another year of materials um so it's we don't have another year of materials to use in our classrooms because they're consumable it's not like we could just pull the textbook out of surplus and keep using it it was a consumable material so that's why we don't have a resource for them okay thanks and so to kind of finish the thought then if we go down that path and we choose to go a different route from CPM at that point we're basically going a different direction not just military resource but possibly curriculum which can often only be hundreds of thousands of dollars if I'm correct is that correct it could be if it
118involves a complete resource adoption with a different company but the reality is that would happen as part of a normal curriculum review and revision process already not just um I think what Mr Burton is recommending would be as we continue to look at math moving forward not necessarily to come back in one year and change this one and he was referring to Future math um curriculum adoptions moving forward and I guess the reason why I'm asking is if that does end up happening then we have to factor that cost analysis into that because unfortunately we don't have large pots of money we can just spend however we want so that would have to be an influencing Factor at the very least is there any anything as far as the amendment go that you guys see
119is overly cumbersome or why we shouldn't adopt it I don't want to say cumbersome I think part of our process should be a cost analysis of any resource we're looking at adopting compared to other resources that are out there I also believe that analyzing the academic import academic performance is an important part of the process we should be doing that on an annual basis already as we develop action plans and see sips at the building at the district level to adjust instruction to best meet our student needs I think where that's a little bit challenging around one program is that looking at math performance CPM or any other resource is a part of that the curriculum standards are part of that the professional development our teachers have received how long they've been teaching were they
120fully trained on that specific resource the pre and post data of those students where they're at when they start the year versus where they end of the year so there are a lot of factors that influence that of which one is the actual resource that's being used I would say the only part that concerns me and I appreciate the recommendation to amend this in an attempt to move it forward given the unique situation this year the idea of adding in and Anonymous survey of all teachers while I think we should be getting feedback I just think that opens up an area it's one thing if you are as a board recommending that we review the process we use for resource adoption and making sure we include some of these things or look at it differently
121I think to include specific components at the board's directive under an amendment just gets into a gray area of the board directing the actual process and not leaving that to the administration to design although we do need to be sharing the process with you and getting feedback on an ongoing basis so it's a normal course of that process that teachers are asked if they want to join it and then if they don't join it they can still give their feedback join the intention is that your your colleagues are representing you and so someone in your team is part of the process and they're bringing the information back to the team they're taking the input back so you know if there's a team of four someone from that team before is part of the process so
122if Kim is on my team and I hate it and she loves it she's coming back to the group and saying I love it but I'll say Connie she's not a fan of it and here's her perspective so her my both of our voices are at the table that's how the process should work yes it does thank you so any other discussion I guess my question to Adam would be given that concern would you be able would you be willing to remove the survey component to that and then have it as a ongoing conversation rather than a part of the actual motion I think it's important to have I'm okay reviewing the the survey the the language or how it's being done from across standpoint I think it's important to have an ominous effect because
123I we've gotten feedback in some of the emails to the board of teachers feeling that they have been pressured into adapt again in the first place or that they were told we're not leaving this room until in which I I fully comprehend that you said it's a different process people aren't wrong here that's why I understand it but I think it's important for us to kind of Safeguard to that and make sure whatever information we're going we're moving forward with is has that in there and you don't feel pressured to just be swayed one way or another okay and so I guess uh from a consistency standpoint maybe that's a conversation I have is a process for curriculum is adding okay so then if that's the case that we have that conversation uh down the
124road with the process of uh academic advisory and selecting curriculum are we okay with it and removing the survey part of the motion yes okay I need to be clear we fully support getting the feedback and talking about what that looks like and how we can do that Randy made the second on the motion are you okay with that yes okay all right get anything other here's a comment Chad no I was just saying yes so Jan can you read us back with the amendment to the amendment yes thank you motion to approve the purchase over 7 500 for CPM as presented and pause any additional rollout of the CPM educational program throughout the district until a comprehensive review is completed that at a minimum includes full cost comparison of CPM to other resources and
125Analysis of academic performance sound good all right while we do this by roll call Patrick Lane Chad Lang Doug ziegameyer hi Adam Bertrand I Janet stiglitz hi Randy cook all right all right now we have an amendment motion anybody want to re-hear that so we can vote on the actual amended function we admitted the original so it was a motion to amend now we have to vote on the actual motion anybody want to hear it no I just had one more question um when we were considering geometry over the summer one of the uh points that was made was that the the current textbook was was old the copyright date was old I'd like to point out that this book that we're considering this textbook as a copyright date of 2013. and so we are
126adopting a book that's 10 years old and in the past we have been told that one of the reasons to replace the book is because the copyright was too old and I'm told ideally this was in our q a for the geometry over the summer ideally between six and eight years old flag a textbook for replacement so I'd like to find that copyright date it's not wear and tear that's honestly books that are 10 years olds that are 10 years old that's something to keep in mind here maybe I can I can get the information and follow up with you I'm almost positive that part of this is because the resource is really an online resource so much of it will be the online digital resources the kids will be using and that is so
127much more up to date than the class set of textbooks they would be using um the online resource is updated more frequently than the paper copy so yes there is a class set of textbooks that they'll use but the digital resources are updated frequently so let me let me get some information on that and I'll follow up with you but um I had asked a question about that a couple months ago and I I think that the answer was something in that ballpark so I'll find out any other discussions or questions all right let's do a roll call of the motion as amended Randy cook Nate Patrick Lane chadling aye Adam Bertrand aye aye Janet stiglish hi motion motion passes border like a motion to prove the memorandum of understanding and uh and revised 2022-2023
128salary schedule as presented any discussion well I just wanted to take a moment and Echo serene's comments tonight um at the leadership team we just appreciated the time and collaboration with FIFA to present this recommendation to the board we are experiencing such a very unique tight labor market and while we still have a lot of work to do we are hopeful that these salary increases will help us to retain the amazing staff that we have here in Francis Howell that are supporting our students each and every day in addition the increases to the entry level wage will just give us a better opportunity to recruit new staff so we're excited to bring this forward to you and we're happy to answer any questions that you might forward any questions and of course I put a
129net mount my mouth I wanted to thanks for running her team and administration it was a long two days a lot of gracious conversations but I think what we did about was right for staff it wasn't a perfect package but I think the package being presented to us really helps the support staff to keep them to maintain the stack we have them to attract more staff to the district and I would just like that uh Simon's there I thought that the conversations were uh very good I think they were positive and they were also cooperative and collaborative so I appreciate everybody that was in that room so thank you any other comments board all in favor aye opposed I always have it would have a commotion to approve the 2022-2023 pay increase in salary schedule
130for support staff as presented so Patrick and Janet any discussion same stuff yes just this just carries over the increases to those categories of employees that are not represented by Facebook we see turnover and are struggling to see applicants in those areas as well forward any questions Lisa one with the raises pay twice the increases will go into effect on November 1st for the hours that are worked on November 1st our staff will see the increases on their paycheck on the November 25th paycheck thank you any other comments a question Ford all those in favor hi any opposed I said we're gonna have a commotion to approve the membrane of understanding and revised 2022-2023 salary schedule as presented Summit Adam and Janet any discussion I would just say that you know we took over transportation
131we worked very hard as a district to be one of the highest paying districts for school bus drivers and monitors and we experienced um great levels of Staffing for a long time um it kind of became a bidding more and you saw that St Charles School District and Fort Zuma School District came together with their drivers and increased their rates of pay and since then we have can we have started to struggle we have many bus driver openings and monitor openings and that impacts our ability to serve our community and get kids to school we know that this dollar an hour uh increase for our bus drivers at this time of the year might help retain some but we have some significant work to do here in order to be competitive with our surrounding districts
132in this area we really are competing with our local school districts that are surrounding us and and they're they're outmatching us at this time we also have several drivers in the next year who came to us from student who will have five years of service and be eligible to retire and so we are going to see a significant number of bus drivers and monitors be eligible to move on to retirement here soon and it could be in the numbers of 19 or 20 drivers and so while we are struggling now with the 15 openings that we have in the in the next year we could see 30 to 30 plus openings and and that would be unsustainable to get students to to school every day so it's just an area that we really do have
133to focus on as we look forward to next year along with all the other positions too any questions or comments board all those in favor aye any opposed ocean cares and then we'll take a brief break to assign those memorized mou Lin yeah okay it's new if you miss like the foreign yeah why is it because we'll talk later congratulations um [Music] [Laughter] [Music] but I also just like you know making a decision yeah well I love your pictures um correct you know it's what I do something yeah all right guys we're going to resent in the normal meeting because all right Lord I'd like a motion to approve five additional permanent full-time substitute teacher as presented for some kids thank you for this is one of the challenges that we have been facing since
134the 1617 school year and that is the shortage of substitute teachers when our our teachers need to take a day off for illness or personal leave over the course of these years you'll see in our memo and you've seen this information before we have tried multiple different things to increase our fill rate meaning that when we are asked to provide a substitute teacher we have one available and you can see the no fill rate um the amount of times that we are asked for substitute and can't provide one has increased over the years we started really worrying about this when we were averaging three no-fills per day and now I just wish I could go back to that time right because now it's it's 13 it's 20 no fills per day and instead of being
135worried about three we're worried about how many are happening in a school and will they be able to function and provide a safe environment for students with out the number of adults that they need so um when we brought you a substitute teacher salary increases this year we raised our daily rate above and beyond all of our local districts hoping that that would help we also uh years ago created a tiered system so that we can encourage substitutes to seven multiple districts to want to focus their time here in Francis Howland and earn an increase in their pay as the year goes on it isn't a Francis Howell problem as we talk to our neighboring districts they're all seeing fill rates of 80 86 69 while we're in that 80 range but I will tell
136you that any no-fill um in a school building causes significant schedule changes it adds more work to our staff and our students aren't getting the education that they need so again we're coming to you with another solution another another idea we implemented permanent substitutes uh several years ago we started started with six part-time permanent substitutes we quickly moved them to six full-time we added then an additional six we're at 12 right now um that's a difficult position to keep filled as well but we were at a point where we had all 12 filled and thought it might be time to increase the number of permanent substitutes they are they are people that come to work every single day they know that they can they are guaranteed work every day they have benefits um as well
137and they're paid a little higher because of that commitment to us they also have a lot of flexibility so we kind of hold on to them in the morning we wait to see where the no fills fall and then we can send out the permanent substitute based on needs of an individual building so if we see that there are five no bills at one Elementary versus one over here we might send more permanent Subs to the building that needs to close it's been our best tool in filling positions because those folks come to work every single day unlike a regular substitute who can choose to work when they want to or when they don't want to so we're asking for five additional permanent substitutes we know that the profile of a substitute is changed and
138this might be a way that we can fill maybe five more positions every single day out of the 2013 that are sometimes going unfilled so we're hopeful that you'll support us in in this next strategy to support our staff and our kids in finding adults to to give them a safe educational environment forward any comments or questions [Music] stop still long-term leads or do we use them not automatically uh we will we will look for a long-term sub first uh we will post for a long-term sub I'll tell you those are harder and harder to fill every every day every year um so if we aren't able to find a long-term substitute and we see that a particular classroom is really has a lot of inconsistency than we might use a permanent sound in that
139in that way thank you we are also using some of our permanent tubs to fill our pair of vacancies right now because buildings have multiple parent openings and they needed they needed some consistency so we've we've used them in that way as well thank you report any questions or comments all in favor any opposed motion cares next on the agenda is policy review first reading for policies any questions or discussion all right I believe we're all the superintendents superintendent so thank you Lord I also suggest we move superintendent comments to the start of the meeting so everybody can hear them before they all go home I am first you know a couple of celebrations we have each month I want to recognize that we held our second annual career fair on September 28th of last
140month um Francis House Central hosted it this year this gave over a thousand Juniors from our four different high schools the opportunity to come together to interact with potential employers universities trade schools as well as military branches Katie Vargas who has spoken to you a couple of times around our College and Career work our College of career specialist and her team did an amazing job getting this restarted post covid um you likely read about Josh Steele a senior kicker on our fan style football team um secured his place in State history becoming Missouri's all-time leader in points by a kicker when he reached 255 points earlier this month and I will also add that the young man also maintains over a 3.5 GPA so a scholar and an athlete everybody has one more opportunity this
141weekend to see some of our Francis House Central theater group perform at the St Louis Renaissance Fair which they've been doing throughout the month I believe it's a 10-1 this Saturday and Sunday are the final performances as part of that program I also want to take an opportunity to thank fispa and their president siren Henderson Teamsters the administration negotiations team that for our support staff is led by Mark Delaney the board members who participated and the board this evening for supporting the mousse that were presented tonight the salary increases as well as the additional substitute positions salaries just one component in the Recruitment and Retention of high quality staff but we do believe it's an important step to hopefully prevent further resignation as we move forward this year it also it's important that it shows
142our employees that we value them and that within the means that we have we are doing what we can to recognize the work that they're doing and that we want to um have competitive salaries and keep them here with Francis Howell I believe that it also shows problem solving and collaboration that really took place between Administration and our employee associations we know as Miss Simkins mentioned that in this economy um it's just a matter of time now before other districts begin to change their rates um that everybody's trying to remain competitive so we recognize as we move into negotiations with all of our associations for next year the competitive salaries and benefits are important to being able to not only attract but retain the highest quality teachers administrators and support staff here in the district
143we also recognize that this may not solve well this will not solve the problem it may only move the needle a little bit there's a lot of other problem solving that still needs to take place when we think about overall recruitment intention of employees and that's going to be ongoing indefinitely at this point and last night I really just want to end tonight thinking first of all you board again for putting your trust in me to keep me in this role for hopefully the next several years I'm committed to helping this District remain one of the top performing districts we still have a lot of opportunity we have opportunities for growth and there's a lot of work to doing to do but I'm committed to doing that and excited to work with an incredible group
144of leaders on this team at the building level our teachers and our support staff and each of you to make that happen I commit to our students that we're going to provide an educational experience both in the classroom and extracurricular that prepares them for whatever choice they make when they leave from Mississauga whether that's career whether that's College whether that's the military we want them to have had the experiences that are preparing them to be successful in life and I also want to commit to them that they have schools to come to each day where they feel welcomed and where they feel valued I commit to our employees that we continue to create a culture and a climate where staff want to come to work each day where they feel valued and where they feel
145that they have a voice I believe that we do invest in the adults and the employees in this District so that they can in return invest in our students and do what's best for them I commit to the parents and the community that we continue to really work on how to be good stewards with the resources that you bring to us one your children first and foremost but also the financial resources and being transparent how we use them and I fully welcome the accountability of me and our team to continue to do that for you and for this community and I commit to all of our stakeholders every one of you so our students our staff and our parents and taxpayers that we're going to continue to focus on how we can communicate with you
146and engage you in authentic ways that make you a part of the decision-making processes for this district and make you feel that you are part of a team and that your voice is heard as well so again I'm honored to serve all of you in this role and to be a part of an amazing team and I hope that all of our staff and students that get next week off enjoy a great week it's been a long first quarter and a lot of hard work and people have earned some time to rest and relax so thank you foreign any comments on the board right okay um so this is for Dr Hawk uh I love Union um and I it's a great school and I know there's a kitchen being built in there right now
147it could be almost done by now um but I'd like to address the the food quality over there and that's in there um because I can remember one time this was just not that recently I there were a whole bunch of nachos set out and on the top was a brick of like plastic cheese and like you couldn't microwave it you couldn't spray it like butter that's not how it worked um you know if it's not that the food's either kind of cold or you might have to re microwave it um so I was just wondering what we can do about that personally I would add some more fresh fruit options like some grapes oranges and I mean whole fruit not just juices uh as well as just uh well I'm pretty sure the kitchen
148will help a lot with the heating and stuff like that I'll just say you're speaking my language you know Cindy over here she is our Director of Finance and also coordinates our food service program you're speaking her language too uh we have been having a lot of conversations whoops sorry we've been having a lot of conversations with Sodexo who's our food service provider um about the importance of fresh high quality food that kids want to eat and also helping stretch kids palette like it's really easy for everybody to want to eat chicken nuggets every day when you're in elementary school but I think it's good for kids to have a lot of different things to try to eat besides just chicken nuggets and we are working with Sodexo I'm trying to get that role in
149um covid was kind of hard on people for a variety of reasons and that is behind us hopefully most of our supply issues are also behind us most recently we talked about student voice and getting the students they have an official name but basically Food Service student advisory groups still even all the buildings so the kids can give us input and we can make lunch better we've made some little Headway and like trying to have spice bars in the buildings because nobody likes food that doesn't have any flavor I don't like food that doesn't look like hot sauce and everything works for me so we're trying to do some of that to make food give you guys some choice so you can make your food taste well too um so you can be our first
150like you can make it start make it make the change um there's power and Leadership and and use your voice because when you just sit around and let things be mediocre that's what you get mediocre you want it better use your voice and we'll make it better so thank you and we're we've got our first candidate it sounds like and I know that Sodexo is really committed to it too um we've got some really cool stuff happening in some buildings we just need to get the really cool stuff happening in all of them it's hard to roll it all out is it at which Middle School this year I think we've got a cool program that they're launching and it's really neat but we need to get that going in all the buildings as well
151more than anything else just information for the audience there's a lot of conversation about teacher pay and something to think about as a conversation with my brothers and brother-in-laws we're all getting old and we go out to practice once a month and they're you know we're trying to clarify for them teacher pay in the state of Missouri minimum is 25 000 and that's occurring in more than one school district in our rural areas how do you equate that being number 50 if a young couple husband's a teacher he gets a job he makes 25 000 in the district wife finds a job for 12 000 an hour she makes twenty four thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars minimum wage it's a crisis and that's why we're not getting teachers so please please speak with your
152Congressman about allocating more money so that we can pay our teachers a fair wage and just just think about that twelve dollars an hour 40 hours a week [Applause] thank you um I just want to wish every other teachers staff custodians everyone a wonderful fall break enjoy this time off I would also like to thank the administrative team for bringing back our student Representatives I've had the pleasure of the last two meetings are sitting next to two very intelligent young people that just make me really proud to be in the seat and this is what this district is all about Ryan thank you for your attention I know that some of it was a little boring but I really appreciate the fact that you listened and asked the appropriate questions so everyone have a great
153fall break uh just a long time I know there's a lot of uh focus on some of the stuff I go against but uh I would like to bring out some attention on some of the things I was very pleased to see on this month's agenda uh one of the trainings letters training for for teachers uh reading teachers is uh something I was very uh very pleased to approve tonight additionally we have purchases for the elementary schools of various decodable tax these are helping the phonics instructions which I am ecstatic about as a parent and as a board member so still that's a good going on here every night for every night we're here so appreciate it uh I guess first off we're gonna welcome back to Rock House officially uh Mr fruit attendant um
154glad that you're here and excited to be working with you uh I want to kind of let the board know and the community and administration there's been a lot of confusion over the last year or so maybe maybe more and what a committee is what a committee is not so I'm trying to take some some work on myself I'm trying to figure that out and offer some maybe guidance or ideas to the policy committee so I'm working on that currently and if anybody wants to offer suggestions or feedback let me now um but I'll be hopefully having that done soon they go to the policy committee and they come to come to us for maybe some some changes that maybe will help clear clarify some things uh and then I just wanted to remind Patrick
155over there that he was going to say something about acts and was not able to go back to it if he wants to say something now I just wanted to say that we are one of the few districts that offers every child in our district public or private or parochial a chance to take the ACT test and that's commendable and the board has stood behind it for the last five or six years and not all school districts offer that for our children and you know we have children I don't want to go to college I want to go here but at 20 years old they changed their mind they have that score in their file and they're able to bring that forward and go to St Charles Community College London wood or wherever they want
156to go and I forgot sorry Jennifer it's National Transportation week if you see your bus drivers give them a special thanks for all they do for our children now I'm done it's also a national principal month so to all the principals out there too we thank you for your hard job all right board I believe there's some items of information that are on the agenda that you can take a look at also note it is the upcoming uh meetings and then I would like to entertain a motion to adjourn it's only all in favor