Kirkwood School District - Board of Education Work Session - August 25, 2025

001I would like to call this meeting to order. Mr. Cathy, can you lead us in the pledge, please? Moving on 4.01, the public comment session. All righty. Moving on to 4.02, approval of the agenda. We need a motion to approve the agenda for the August 25th, 2025 meeting as presented. >> So move Pangorn. Second. All those in favor raise your right hand and say yes. >> Yes. Oppose say nay consent agenda items 5.02 through 5.10. >> So move penguin. >> Second. All those in favor raise your right hand and say I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion passes. I need a motion for 6.01 new business to approve the financial statements for July 2025 as presented. >> So move. Sharon. Second. Ne. >> Good evening. I uh month of July really is a pretty boring month

002when it comes to financial statements. Revenues and expenditures are a little lower than normal, but we were in uh revenues for July, just a little under two million. Uh local revenues, a big chunk of that came from Proposition C. We didn't have any local taxes come in in July, but a little over 200,000 in delinquent taxes. So Prop C our first payment for FY26 648984 calculated again on that weighted ADA and average membership combined. So the plan is for the state to get to 14.95 per weighted uh membership and attendance, but they're not quite there yet. All based on that sales tax revenue as it comes in. That's been pretty strong in the last few years. So uh I would expect to see that do well again this year. We're at 7% year-to- date of

003our budget there uh as we made it through July. A little smaller amount but but relatively large for this month was revenue that came in from the other local revenue line. Uh as many of you probably know when it comes to McKenna Vento, school districts are required to pay for transportation for homeless students and then the the corresponding district reimbures for that. So the 142,000 there was mostly revenue coming from other districts, their share of helping us to transport our our homeless students. So that's about half of what we expected. Uh that can be a difficult thing to track down. So encouraged to see that much of that revenue coming in already. Really small amount of cap county revenue there coming in from utilities. Uh first formula payment of the year was on 6,900 SAT

004in July. That typically grows throughout the year. We're counting on getting to 7,145 SAT by the end of the year. It's what we've been promised. Didn't quite make it there last year and so we're optimistic and hopeful that we'll get there this year. Um, one thing to note I think in our formula payments and we're going to watch this as time goes by. Uh, we are able to count either current year attendance or one of the two preceding years. We're two preceding years out now for our weighted ADA and membership. So that number will fall off as we transition into next year. So unless this is a great year uh for membership and ADA combined, we will see a reduction there in that number that we get to count uh as that that number falls

005off. So we're that's not unexpected, I think, as we've seen those enrollment numbers u you know and a slight decline. This is reflective of that. uh classroom trust fund uh 212 651 uh that's another one that can fluctuate fluctuate greatly based on how many lottery tickets and how much gambling goes on. So and one of the things that is not commonly known is they take that amount and subtract it from what they owe us in the formula anyway. So it's a little bit misleading. We always pull that number out but it's really just part of the overall formula payment anyway. So, uh, FY25 mileage is still being used on the transportation payment. So, you've noticed probably the last few months that that payment is 7661. Uh, it takes until October for them to nail down

006those mileage numbers. Uh, and that's when we start getting that new amount of transportation. So, that kind of continues over uh into the fall. Little bit of state revenue for ECSE for work that went on over the summer, 170,872. Uh, one thing to point out in regard to federal revenues, um, you probably noticed our title 2A payment uh, was a huge amount of the budget already. That's really just because we were paid late. That's money that we were owed for last year based on services that were rendered last year and we just received that in July. So, we'll watch that budget amount probably exceed what was budgeted just because of that shift in the fiscal year. So operating expenditures were were pretty normal, a relatively small amount. There was that ESIP payment that came out.

007Uh that was probably the largest chunk of any one particular budget line, but again, not too remarkable. Last thing on my list was the self-funded insurance fund balance. We're at a little over 1.5 million. Again, we we talked last month about how that deposit would be pretty small uh as the payroll is much smaller in these two months. and we had just over a million dollars in medical claims. So the the fund balance again at 1.5 million there. So any questions on any of those items, >> Miss Penguin? >> Andrew Ben. >> All those in favor of approving the financial statements for July 2025 as presented, please raise your right hand and say I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion passes. I need a motion to approve the strategic plan for 2025 2026 as presented 6.02.

008So move Penguin second he all right so board earlier this month at our work session we reviewed the progress and data from the 2425 strategic plan and spoke to some of the focus areas that from that were developed for the 2526 plan which we bring tonight for your approval. Um I want to acknowledge that we recognize this is a bit of a bridge year as we have the fifth and final year of the current plan. excuse me, and actually begin tomorrow with the approval of the RFP a little few minutes ago um to move forward with writing the new plan, which we are very excited about. Um looking forward to 2031 already. Several of you have expressed concerns around this plan. I know that I've heard them in board meetings I watched last year and

009even at the work session, um while you acknowledge that there's consistency in the plan that we have developed that you find some of the goals are a little bit confusing and how they change year to year and what goals we're actually using. um especially when we're not necessarily seeing all the movement that we would like around our overall academic achievement, some of our subgroup achievement and ultimately the disproportionality in some of our discipline. Those concerns are valid and we share them as a team. Um we have spent our time together over the last six weeks um talking about the plan and what we would like it to look like moving forward. Because this is the final year of the current strategic plan, we are not reinventing the plan. What we're bringing you tonight, you will

010see it is the same for goal areas. um pri priority objectives and the annual measures really remain the same as what they were in the past. What's changing and what we've shared with you tonight are some of the specific action steps that we're looking at differently as we move forward this year. Uh the team is not going to walk through every priority objective. We did more of that during the work session. Tonight, what they're going to do is as they talk through the four areas, identify what are either some key differences this year or changes or there are a couple areas where you expressed interest in learning a little bit more at the work session and the team will touch on those as they go through the plan. Um, and then what we'll do is

011we'll stop at the end of each of the four main areas and allow you to ask questions that we can hopefully answer for you. Um, as I talk about the next plan, you know, we are really celebrating the success that's in there, but really centering our discussion on what does come next. We recognize that there is an opportunity to have more clarity in our academic goals and what metrics that we're using and really to build in at the front end of the plan what does that accountability um and reporting mechanism look like and I think that'll provide greater transparency to you as a board and to our community as we move into that next strategic plan really being clear about what we're measuring from the start of that plan next year through the end. Um,

012so like I said, as I said at the beginning, really thinking this about a bridge this year, um, allowing us to focus this year, but also prepare for the plan for 2031. So I'm going to turn things over first to Dr. Bailey and Dr. Grana, um, who will get us started. >> Wonderful. Thank you. One of the first things we want to make sure that we acknowledge for the board is that sometimes setting the goals and the percentages and looking at if it's a cohort or if it's the same grade level has been slightly confusing. And so we wanted to make sure that we point out that this school year, when possible, we've calculated any goals that we could based on cohort data and not based on a specific grade level. Meaning that in previous

013plans, we might have set this year's fifth grade goal based on last year's fifth grade ending data. And instead, this year, we're basing this year's fifth grade goal on that same group when they were fourth graders and their spring data. So that things are rolling forward. Um, that's not possible in every data set. for example, uh, tier three students and their growth, maybe different groups of students every year. So, we're not able to do a onetoone in that situation, but when possible, we've tried to base this on cohort data uh, as much as we could, and you'll see that especially in the academic and behavioral data uh, throughout the plan. But again, just there are some areas that we couldn't do it either based on the bands of grades or based on the assessment that's

014given. Uh, we wanted to make sure we acknowledge that for the board and for the community as well. And so that updated um strategic long the long page that's uh like a word document that has that update already made for you guys to review. So turn it over to Dr. Grant. What you'll see is we may be doing microphone shuffle sometimes with everything too just based on the numbers of microphones that are available. Um but we'll be processing this uh information for the board and for the public. So >> thank you Dr. Bailey. Good evening to the board and our community. Um the first thing I'm going to talk about in priority objective 1.1 is I am going to focus on 1.1.2. Thank you. In PLC's and oftentimes I've given a response to questions um

015they're pretty it sounds maybe oversimplified why I just where I I will just say well the PLC will take care of that. So, I thought it would be helpful to maybe go over um a definition and really dive into the um holistic approach, the datadriven approach, the systems that are involved, the way that the student um is brought into the PLC work, the classroom, the teacher, the school, and then the district. So, there's lots of ways that we're looking at this data, and the PLC process really supports that. So, when we talk about professional learning communities, we're really talking about a mindset. It's a way of working together that keeps our students at the center of everything that we do. And so there are really three big ideas. One is a focus on learning. This

016ensures that all students are learning at high levels. The second is that collaborative culture piece and probably most important collective responsibility for the data and the learning and belonging of all of our students. And then results orientation. So making sure that our educators are focused on results. evidence of student learning. That's student work. That's formative assessments, common summitive assessments. That's our benchmark data. Lots of different ways to collect evidence of student learning. So PLC's really are the way that adults in a school decide to act and to work together to ensure high levels of learning for all students. It's a commitment to continuous improvement. And it's where teachers collaborate around the curriculum, instruction, equity and inclusion, assessment, interventions, and also extensions of learning. Professional learning communities judge their effectiveness on the basis of results. So

017working together to improve student achievement becomes a routine work of everyone in the school. So PLC teams at every level across the district meet weekly to discuss the four guiding PLC questions, allowing them to respond to student needs and differentiate instruction in real time using student data from formative assessments to common summitive assessments to our benchmark data. Um, which we collect three times a year and use that data to drive our our discussions as well. And to talk a little bit more about assessment and to talk a little bit more about data and what that process looks like. um is Miss Lock. So, I'll turn it over to her. All right. Thank you. Good evening. So, those four questions that Dr. Grana was referring to, the first question is what do we want all students

018to know and be able to do? And the second question is how do we know? And so, that's really where the assessment piece comes in. How do we know what evidence of learning do we have? And it's at that point that we're reviewing whether it's um a a work sample that all students have completed that we can look at together to look for evidence of learning, whether it's a more formal assessment that the team has written that centers around the standard that they've been teaching or whether it's our B benchmark assessment data because it's timely at that time of the year that they're reviewing. But the beauty of the cycle is that they're able to use that data in the moment to then make instructional changes as quick as possibly the next day when they

019come back to school. So it is that continuous improvement cycle where we're teaching, we're asking ourselves what evidence of learning is there and then we're making real-time decisions based on that in the moment. >> Thank you so focused on the book. We did a book study on clarity for learning, right? So we know when students clear clearly understand what they are learning, why it matters and how to succeed, they become more engaged. They take ownership of their learning and achieve at higher levels. So this year um so focusing on moving forward for this year, we are um going to engage in a book study on highly effective teams and a PLC at work. really helping us support um our teachers in the classroom um around those four um guiding questions and making sure that we

020have those highly effective PLC's because they really are the foundation of all of our work. Um we also um will create a KSD PLC rubric which I talked a little bit about um last time as well during our work session. This really is going to help us universally define what highly effective PLC's look like. So our senior leadership team will take part in PLC fishbowls at every level, elementary, middle, and high. And then our our rubric will be created um around those um observations, look for and obviously best practice um solution tree and four are driving the research um and the data behind the work that we're doing as well. I've also shared with you that we have a KSD PLC handbook. We will continue to use that handbook as a reference point for our

021teachers. We have also added a couple of items to that as well. More detailed information about setting clear goals, so how we measure those goals and what those goals look like. Also some protocols for how we're assessing and reviewing data as well. And then for the summer of 2026, I can't believe I'm saying that, but the summer of 2026, we are going to host um our fifth PLC summer institute. This ensures there's really no gap in the learning of our leaders and also our PLC teams and guiding coalitions. So this really gives them um the opportunity to um expand their learning, grow their learning and also for those who are new um kind of get caught up to speed and become leaders in their buildings and on their PLC teams. So that's a little bit

022about 1.1 um.2 and I'll speak to the others here a little bit later in the presentation as well. I'll speak to them right now. Okay. Talking a little bit more about 1.2.3 um this comprehensive literacy plan. So, moving from job embedded coaching um through the link um to this the literacy learning labs that I've spoken to you about as well. Um those will be led by the link as well and support really whole group and grade level team learning. We're going to focus on collective learning and shared practices across the classroom um across each grade level um in every building. Really creating that consistent and equitable experience for our students in kindergarten through 2 grade. We're going to strengthen those foundational skills again based in the science of reading. And then we're going to also

023emphasize three through five, the vocabulary development and grammar instruction. talking I talked to you a little bit about Marzano's six-step vocabulary process that explain restate show discuss reflect and apply and then also that grammar instruction it's not just rules and mechanics but it's really about effective communication so this was also identified as an area of need in the middle school and specifically at the high school level to prepare students for the ACT so we're really working on creating that alignment and continuity through our curriculum so we are in development for ELA at the middle school level and um we are also in development for um the high school as well. And we want to ensure there is a cohesive experience for our students kindergarten through 12th grade and we've even even done some work around

024um the early childhood um experience as well and some letter training letters training there also. So really even starting um that as early as um our youngest learners also. Desessie has required that we um are engaging in a literacy plan annual review and the six domains that they want us to focus on with that review are leadership and sustainability, standardsbased curriculum, intentional instruction, intervention and and enrichment assessment partnerships and then that success ready students and workforce development. And they want us to take our literacy plan and review it annually um through those six domains. So, we're looking forward to that work and putting together a KSD comprehensive literacy um review committee this year as well. We want to continue with letters training. Last year was the first year um of the three-year expectation that all

025K2 teachers are trained in letters. And as I shared last time, we um have 63 teachers who have completed either year one um or are already in their second year, have completed the training or are in their second year. and we have 20 who are currently in their first year of letters training. Um the feedback that we get from our teachers around that work is just um it's so positive and has really grown them as leaders um and also growing our our readers um in the district and I think our data reflects that um as well. Keep going, Dr. Bailey. All right. Okay. All right. 1.2.7. I'm going to focus on that just a little bit. Um many thanks to the board for your support around the resource um the amplified desmos math resource and

026also the job embedded coaching. Um without that support and those resources these initiatives really just don't take off. So thank you so much for your support um with this work. Just explaining a little bit this summer we had um a few opportunities for teachers to come in and gain comfort and confidence with the resource um in training um which was great work. So, all of our teachers prior to starting this school year have been um trained in the resource and also have resources available if they have any questions um around the resource as well. This fall, we are going to engage in um professional learning on the PD days. The mornings will be dedicated again to understanding the resource and for teachers to ask questions. training will be provided. And then in the afternoon, probably

027the most important piece, there will be time for teachers to collaborate with their grade level teams, really talk about what's working um and focus on kind of next steps as well. So that will be for both professional development days um for the fall. And then in the spring, we have Amplify Desmos Math coming in to work with our teachers in every single building. Every building will receive five job embedded days of coaching um where they will work with our teachers in the classroom um on things like differentiation, concept development, unit planning, lesson planning, open question forum, supporting multilingual learners, family engagement and also on assessment. So a lot of great work to support our teachers um around the math instruction. Um, we also, and I should have brought this up earlier in our PLC process

028and also MTSS, we use this acronym, and it's called RICE. And what it stands for is relationships, instruction, curriculum, and environment. And this is the order that we really look at things when we're reviewing our data, right? Are the relationships there? Do students feel a sense of belonging? Do they see themselves in the curriculum? The relationship and belonging piece. Then we look at the instruction. And I bring that up because with the math resource, we are asking our teachers to look at their instruction in a different way. I'm sure that many of you probably just like me when we uh we were in school and we had a math lesson, you probably had the I do, which is the teacher explaining what you need to do, then the we do, let's all give it a

029try, and then the you do, right? So like this gradual release model. Um the the resource that we're using uses this launch monitor connect process. And if you can recall that um ruler example that I gave you last year, we really give students the opportunity to go out and explore on their own, examine their own thinking, collaborate with other students in the classroom about their learning and then we bring them back for kind of that direct instruction piece. So, we are asking for different instruction here and there's a lot of research around that um really structured problem-based um instruction. So, we're excited about that. And again, one more time, thank you for the support in that area. Right. I get to talk about the 1.3 area which mostly focuses on post-secondary opportunities and ways that

030we can prepare our students for a variety of career pathways. And so, I want to highlight a couple areas. One, the board has been made aware of our interest and our work in in increasing market value asset opportunities for our students. Uh this is a way for students to learn valuable skills and valuable u opportunities through mentorships or apprenticeships uh to develop the postsecondary skills that they can use either at the college level or the career level. We want to grow this and expand more opportunities similar to you may have seen a couple articles recently um and you may recall when we had Mr. Button and Mr. Kirk come back and talk to us about their marketing classes and the experiences they provide with advertising agencies. And a great example of a market value asset

031opportunity is when they met with the owner of Salt and Smoke and talked about their entry plan into Kirkwood um and what that could look like including participating in the Chili Bowl advertisement. And if you really read the article, you'll see that the owner's like, gosh, I didn't think about some of these things. What a great fresh way to get ideas from students. And the students had to present genuine marketing plans. So, he gave them feedback on the plans they were giving while also taking their ideas as a way to look at his entry into the Kirkwood market um and and being able to be downtown Kirkwood. So, those types of opportunities our teachers are already starting to work on and take a look at that throughout the summer work. We just keep asking teachers,

032are there ways you can embed some real world learning into what you're doing. Real world learning also doesn't have to just be something that's connected to career technical education. It could be the essay topic that you're using in an English class. could be ways that you're examining um challenges through the American government class, whatever that might be, expanding some of those market value asset opportunities uh for our students. Another area that's up up here is 1.3.2 using IRC. So an IRC is an industry recognized credential. That is not just a high school credential, but an opportunity for student to take a credential and carry that on beyond the high school realm. Desi uh offers about 40 pages worth of industry recognized credentials and some of those could be Adobe um Adobe certified professional food service

033and culinary skills. Uh the beginning assessments for careers such as dental assistant or dental hygienist. Those types of assessments can be given to start the students off down a pathway along those career areas. We're going to take a look at ways we can increase that usage at our high school level and increase opportunities for students to take those. Um, those are just ways to build out their resumes, ways to build out not just college applications, but job applications and ways to help them stand out when it comes to comparing them to other students for either jobs or college entrance or other mentorship or our internship opportunities. So, really focusing a lot on those post-secondary uh plans for our students and post-secary opportunities. And then we're continuing to look at ways we're expanding our virtual options.

034We've added a few new vendors this year. Um, for example, we have two students that are taking online American Sign Language as a way to increase um e exposure to a foreign language. We have a few other students that are taking advanced level of Chinese. And we actually have a few students that are taking calculus 3 at Washington University through a partnership with them uh because it's not offered with us. I know I'm shaking my head too. I wouldn't take it. Um, but taking calculus 3 through some of those partnerships. So again, really looking at there's a traditional path through high school where every class is taken at the high school and then there are other ways that we can focus on student need and student growth and student opportunity. One's not better than the

035other, but they really should be tailored to those individual student needs uh so that we can increase our opportunities. And then just tagging on to even expanding some of those as well. We have some students who are English language learners and we're looking at um putting together we actually have for a couple of them something called an IAP individual academic plan which focuses more on their individual needs and growth as a pathway to graduation as opposed to 24 required credits uh that they may need in in various areas. So continuing to look at flexible options for our students and and those are some new things we'll be focusing on this school year. The board and the community have already seen these. These are again just summaries of what we'll be focusing on throughout. So we

036won't spend too much time on these areas. This is exactly what we had presented in the work session previously. Um but these academic areas do focus on reading, math, graduation rate, ACT we talked about and as always we'll pause at the end of the red section for any questions. >> Thank you Miss Neman. Thanks so much for sharing this additional information. Um I'm not sure if we're going to be going over the um specific goals that are laid out for 2026. I know we had other materials and I don't see it in the shared material. Um but I do think it's important to call out the specific goals for 2026. Um I know Dr. Bailey when you first kind of opened up the presentation you shared that we're looking at cohorts. um not just kind

037of year-toear but instead kind of carrying the students through as they progress through school. So um personally I had a little bit of challenge trying to track kind of at a row level um how we how we set the goals relative to what we accomplished in spring 2025. So just want to make sure can you explain a little bit how to read that effectively so that our community members um can see how those goals are continuing to increase year-over-year. >> I can try my best. Thanks. I I don't know that we have that. That's a challenge. I don't know that we have something. Yeah, it's not a visual that we'll be able to present. So, I'll try to describe it as best I can. The way that we've set a reading goal or a math

038goal, for example, for a broad group of students is we've looked at what that spring benchmark percentage of students who are at or above benchmark. And and for most of our grade levels, that's in that 70ish to 80ish range. So, I'm just going to pick I'm looking at one pick second grade, for example. So for second grade, we looked at in the spring as first graders, they had 78.6% of their students were proficient or advanced in the reading assessment that was provided. Then because we were focused on growth and and looking at ways to get to this 80% sort of threshold, that's that's kind of a baseline threshold for a lot of our MTSS processes. So there's going to be a lot of percentages. I know it's going to be a lot of confusion with

039everything, but if we zero back and just say we want to look at the amount of growth that we can see from a group of students one year to the next, and if that percentage was below 70%, we wanted to see a 5% overall increase. If that percentage was between 70 and 80%, we wanted to see a 3% overall increase. And if that percentage was greater than 80% because we're still focused on growth, we wanted to see a 1% increase. So for that second grade group, we had 78.6% of our students while they were in first grade that met the proficient or or sorry were at or above benchmark. So because that's between 70 and 80, we add 3% to that and I'm looking and seeing that there's an error that I'm seeing right now.

040Um and so that 3% that 78.6 is not lining up correctly. That should be to um 81 roughly. So, I'll redo a couple of these because the math is we bumped it down a line and I'm seeing where it did not line up correctly and so that could be an area for confusion. >> Thank you. And I appreciate you kind of taking a look back at that because I do think it's important for us to continue to challenge ourselves as you as you've called out that we need to keep holding ourselves accountable for continuing to increase the bar and um help guide our students in that direction. So, thank you for kind of relooking back at that to make sure that we're aligned on what those goals are. >> And I actually just figured out

041what I was doing when I typed that up, actually. So, if you're looking at that chart, sorry, we've had a lot of numbers go through already. If you're looking at that chart in spring of 2025 for the first grade group, they were at 72.9%. That is then used to set the second grade spring goal of 75.1%. If that makes sense. So, >> so you kind of diagonal to the right down. I clearly am not ready for Cal 3, like we said, for those kids, but everything goes to the right. And so that's why that can be slightly confusing is because it looks like it's a cohort group um straight across when in fact it's a bit of a diagonal there. So yeah, if you start on the left, that is the spring when they were

042in that grade level and then it moves to the right for the current grade level. >> Thank you. Appreciate you. >> Thank you for asking. Clearly, we had to rethink about it. >> And I and I just want to make sure that our community members are again are able to look at a chart and be able to track so that we can see how we're continuing to progress and challenge ourselves for the goals and not if you look at it if you look at it as it would you normally read it. It looks like in some places we're reducing the goal um that we exceeded the previous year and in fact we're not doing that. We're continuing to push. >> Probably should have color coded it so it's easy to follow. >> Yeah. Great. Um

043so um Dr. Granite, I really appreciate the additional insight that you provided on the PLC expectations and um really direction that you're giving to those teachers and staff to make sure that we're maximizing use of that time um and really identify how teachers can best support their students in their growth. Can you share a little bit more about and I believe we talked about this during the work session but the the goals or or how the PLC's are being viewed not just at kind of a horizontal from a horizontal lens of the other team teachers in the same grade or teachers that are teaching the same subject in the same grade but also how we're looking vertically um through so when a student is progressing through their education um we'll we're seeing how the say

044ELA teachers are um continuing to move the students grade to grade. >> Yeah. So that that vertical alignment piece from grade to grade specifically um so important at every grade level but specifically when students change buildings right from middle school to high school as well. >> Um so the curriculum writing process really supports what that looks like to ensure that all teachers have clarity and understanding around that. And I would say that our ultimate goal, and Miss Lockach and I were talking about this today, is to make sure that in the PLC process, our teachers have that first question answered with absolute clarity. What do we want students to know and be able to do in second grade? And the next step to that would be maybe understanding what they are expected to know and

045do in first and also in third to help the continuity and ensure there are not gaps. So that would be a a really positive traditional pathway. Now, students who have potential gaps in their learning, it's also positive for that vertical alignment because we are again very clear when a student moves to third grade about what they should know and be able to do as well and to really address those gaps pretty quickly. So, um the curriculum writing process, those PLC conversations and data, and then also that clear understanding around standards really helps that vertical alignment piece. >> Yeah, that's great. Thanks. And I heard Miss Laku earlier mention um some of the measurement tools that are being used to track what that progress looks like. Um just curious what some of those measurement tools are

046and if you have the kind of resources that you need to be able to measure appropriately. >> Yes, of course. Um FastBridge, I'll just start with that one because that's one we're most familiar with is used again at the time of year when we're collecting the data when it's most appropriate in those meetings. But another tool that we have um recently been working with teachers to learn more about is a tool that we call DNA illuminate and it is a standardsbased assessment tool. So PLC's if they're working on a certain standard and they want to do like a pre-EST check-in during the middle of the unit and then a post- test, they could use that tool to ensure that the questions are aligned to standards. Um, and then be able to see how are students

047growing over the course of that unit. And again, at those halftime checks, if they're not seeing that kids are learning what we expected them to learn, then we can quickly um re-evaluate, think about retaching, think about what's next, so we don't get to that end of unit assessment and say, "Oh, shoot, that didn't work out the way we wanted it to." I think sometimes student work is also a very valuable tool especially in writing um when they can or math when they can pull together a common assignment and look for patterns and trends, common errors, common misunderstandings and then really use that to build upon for student learning. >> Wonderful. I'm glad really glad to hear of that more real-time assessment. I know in the past it has been challenging for teachers to have to

048have that lag time. Um so really glad to hear we have more real time assessments. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to say how much I love hearing about the PLC's. Um, wanted to just comment that uh this past year when Ms. Motica and I were touring the schools, one of my favorite things was getting to see where the teachers do the PLC's in the different buildings because sometimes we got to see them in action, like actually taking place. Other times there would just still be notes on the board. So, it was just really great to see that that time was really being used and seeing how the energy from the teachers and that they were really working together and supporting each other. So, I I just really um it was great having that firsthand

049experience with the PLC's. Um I also miss Lockach really liked hearing more information on the student assessment piece and um as you were just saying the student assignments thing I think was really interesting. So, I think shedding that light on it um for the community and for parents was really great. Um I just wanted to say I vividly remember the ruler example that you mentioned with the Desmos. I loved it. It made a big impression on me and I think that's the kind of experiential learning that um that these kids I think really benefit from and I'm very passionate about. So, thank you for bringing it up again because I hadn't thought about it in a while. Um and then Dr. for Bailey. I want to continue to support the work that we do on

050the market value assets, um, career readiness, all those different things. I think, you know, in the future, whatever happens with various strategic plans and things like that, I think having some emphasis on that really helps make sure that we're setting all students up for success. And um, so I just think that it's really great work. So, thank you, >> Mr. Cathy. M >> probably going to ditto what everybody said about the PLC's. I think that's a game changer and we'll continue to see more growth um academically for our students and um just shouting out like you're making the letters training a non-negotiable for all stu all teachers and so that's how we're going to see that growth. So, just thank you to everybody and I'm looking forward to like um Heburn said getting the student

051success like rolling that out completely. So, thank you. >> Miss Andrews, >> Miss Pangorn, >> um I really appreciate looking at the cohort data um where possible because I feel that we are acknowledging students growth yeartoear versus just putting a blanket um you know approval or or percentage there. So, I really appreciate that. I think that will help us really dive deeper um in, you know, as we as we go through the year. Um I did something kind of hit me as you were talking and I feel really loud so sorry. Um is there a way to get a list of all of the IRC exams that we are offering our students? And I asked that because I feel I've gotten multiple different questions over the years and specifically in recent past like what are

052we doing for students that are trying to prepare for something maybe beyond college or what are some of those other opportunities and I don't know if I've seen it all in one place and I just feel like we do a lot and we should celebrate that. So that was my question. we do and I can give you a short answer in that the number of actual IRC exams that we give is not very large um just because we've had such a heavy emphasis on some of the college career preparation and haven't taken a real deep dive into that. That's one reason why it's going to be a focus area for us this school year because it's it's a separate exam um that students would take. For example, in a previous high school, we did the

053Microsoft um certification office and that was a four day exam that we had to give because you had to be certified in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access of all things. Um and so it's an area that I think we can grow in for sure. Uh we do have students that take it at South County Tech depending on the area of um focus that they have for cosmetology or automotive or things like that. Um, and I think we've done a couple at the high school in our um, CTE courses, but it's certainly one that can expand for us. Um, and I think that talking to our counselors, you'll see a little bit later when we're talking a little bit about offering additional um, advanced planning advanced planning opportunities. It's an area that our counselors are focused on

054as well as looking at what are those different ways we can guide parents and students to have a little bit more knowledge about post-secondary pathways they can take. And um, I'll use the example of Honeywell. Honeywell is a big corporation that's based out of Kansas City. And when some of us went to Kansas City to learn more about market value assets, they had taken a deep dive into a lot of their jobs and realized that they may be asking for things that aren't necessarily necessary for their specific careers. So, they developed some independent in-house type IRC exams that they can give to those high school students in those areas to make a direct pathway into Honeywell and different divisions. So, in working with some businesses, those opportunities may arise as well, but it's certainly something

055that we can get with the high school just to see what ones we currently have, but it's definitely an area that we can grow in. >> Yeah. And and Dr. Rumpus, my thought was and again was what a great thing to celebrate, right? Um it just seems like a really positive impact that we're making with all these opportunities and to be able to see it in one place for not just as like a parent of somebody at the high school, but for our community. Um, so anyways, just a thought. Really exciting. Thank you. >> And we will actually as we start to roll out our data dashboard as part of our SRSN, you'll see some of those indicators on that specific dashboard that'll be public as well. >> This is all great and I just

056want to um echo thank you for the cohort data that I think is a game changer for how we look at things and thank you Dr. Grana for explaining so clearly PLC's. We hear it all the time and I thought I knew what all was involved, but it's really great to get the detail that you gave us. So, thank you. >> She explained that much better than I explain the go to the right on the hangle thing. So, >> yes, Mr. Kathy, >> on the cohort piece, which is great. Um I know a year ago we you started providing the longitudinal slides which is like one of my favorite slides that was cohort correct. Okay that's on thank you. Yes. >> And actually we were looking at that today in terms of celebrations when we

057start looking at some of the students where they some student groups have made 10 15% growth since kindergarten first grade and then even looking at kindergarten data like our kindergarteners in general have just made leaps and bounds and so we're very very proud and very excited and our teachers do such an amazing job and they have worked their backsides off in in getting these scores and getting these improvements. But our kindergarten data, I don't think it's anything short to say it's the best that we've ever had um in all our time tracking it. So, we're very excited about what that's going to look like rolling up. Um there are lots of pieces that roll into that. But yes, that cohort data you can look straight line I know on that one for sure. So, >>

058so Dr. M and I will be tag teaming parts of this and we'll have others that jump in. Um, as much as we have celebrations for our uh red area heavy academics, we do have some celebrations in these, but we know that there's a lot of opportunity for us specifically around closing achievement gap, closing disproportionality gaps uh for our black students and our students with IEP. So, you'll hear some specific focus around those areas. Um, I want to highlight um this particular slide is probably one that has a ton of stuff that we have going on this year. I'm going to specifically talk about two areas around student discipline and we talk about first our students with IEPs. Um while we saw a slight increase, not a slight but we saw an increase in the

059number of referrals, we did see a decrease in our overall suspension data. Dr. Davis, who's behind me for our director of special education and I actually got a chance to take a look at the data and in some ways there's a celebration in that um when you do a average a weighted average across all of St. county. So they control for the big districts and the small districts by looking at it as um number of suspensions for students with IEPs over 100 students. Kirkwood actually has the best rate in all of St. Louis County. And so for students with IEPs, we're in a very good spot compared to all the other school districts in St. Louis County. Doesn't mean we can't make improvement and we know that we can make improvement. We know that we

060can keep growing. Um but when we look at that disproportionality data, one of the challenges is that there's we've made such great improvements on suspension for students without IEPs that there's still a slight disproportionality um in that in there. But in terms of our students with IEPs, we've made some really good strides. However, in thinking specific changes and things that we'll be updating for this school year, that data report was something that um has been delayed a little bit from SSD. So Dr. Davis and I were glad we could pull that out. But the heavy focus for our IEP teams will really be looking at reviewing that data and meeting about individual students. So when we pull our edge of climber data, we can see how many students have, you know, multiple offenses, what those

061offenses are for, where is that located at, what is the function of that behavior and those IEP teams can meet and develop those individualized supports. So if you hear a phrase called BIP, that's a behavior intervention plan. That's something that's very specific to a student. It looks at what led to the behavior, what was rewarding the behavior or continuing it, and what are ways we can extinguish or try to eliminate that behavior. Um, we've also been able to work with a a group called SEBIT through special school district. That's countywide behavioral intervention team. Think of that as like a SWAT team for student behavior that comes in and does a ton of data and ton of data collection and then directly coaches the team members around specific students and around specific needs and in developing

062individualized behavior support plans. Um the uh special ed team was one of the first in St. county to implement charting the life course with the IEPs. And charting the life course is a collaborative approach that helps students make choices and plan for the future they want while engaging the support of families and educators to create IEP goals that develop um on on strengths and skill building. Why that has an impact on those behavior pieces is part of what they talk about during that is what might be factors that inhibit your ability to achieve the goals that you have. And if we're looking at specific behaviors for students, a level of independence and a level of prompting that they may need around those behaviors is a part of those discussions. And so that individual focus and

063that individualized support for those students along with a few new folks that we're partnering with when it comes to our autism effective pra p practice specialist, our social emotional effective practice specialists um and our kind of academic coach that we have through special school district will be helping us in providing that support for our our IEP teams. The special ed team will actually be at the office tomorrow and we're going to take a look at some of that data as well with them. In addition, you'll hear me talk about this for our students of color as well, that we have access to disproportionality funding. So, one and maybe the only good thing about having a disproportionate number for uh discipline is that we do get access to a decent amount of funding through special school

064district that we're required to spend on activities that have an evidence-based approach to reducing the uh disproportionality for students with IEPs and for students of color when it comes to discipline situations. So, a lot of that funding this year is going towards uh new learning for our school psychologists and having them take a deeper dive in participating in our behavior support teams at our schools, continued restorative practice training. And then something that we're going to focus a lot on and and try to build out and develop is a community mentor program similar to a Big Brother Big Sister program and looking at having somebody be a spearhead for that through the Kirkwood uh team. And so, uh, potentially working on developing a role or position, uh, to be able to do that, thinking about highly

065successful or just successful or whatever you want to measure, Kirkwood graduates that can come back and connect with students directly about, uh, future plans and opportunities and really talk to them about, you know, I've been through Kirkwood. I've lived this life. I am, you know, can give you lots of advice and provide that sort of learning for the students and make those direct connections um to the folks. And we've got several people that have already expressed an interest in doing something like this. And so we're excited to take a deeper dive on that as well. And in some cases, we also have to admit that there's still learning for us and learning for our leaders and learning for our teachers to do. And so we'll uh go to a national conference that's around innovative schools

066that has five different um conferences all kind of rolled into one for alternative programming, student discipline, um special education support. We'll take a team of teachers and team of administrators there. We're also taking part in an SEAL fellows program through Castle, which is the kind of standard bearer for social emotional learning and what that district leadership around SEAL support looks like. And then our coaches will be doing walkthroughs with our administrators around a universal checklist. So last time I mentioned it, um, but the universals are really just those standard behaviors and standard routines, rules, procedures that we want to see in every classroom. So, if you guys walk in any teacher's classroom, you're probably going to see things like the rules posted, the routines that they have for turning in papers or getting their their

067Chromebook or sorry, getting their iPads or getting supplies or the way that they line up or just all those routines that they have in place. Um, those are ways that we help support students provide predictability for behaviors and provide uh ways that they can return to a a regulated state. For our students of color, we're continuing the restorative practice training. I think we counted 180. I know you'll touch on this too, Dr. M. 180 staff members that we've already uh provided training to in the past year and a half. Um, and that is not including the introduction that we've done for all the new teachers that we do. And Dr. Map will touch on this here in a moment as well. And then continuing with that disproportionality funding, we'll extend our work with Dr. Cox

068around trauma informed u approaches and trauma support for our staff and then uh deepening that with some of that disproportionality funding and then like I mentioned the uh mentor program uh really looking at ways we can build that out and hopefully recruiting a few of you to be a part of that as well. So Dr. Matt, >> yeah speaking to um and I think kind of uh piggybacking off of Dr. Grana in terms of really explaining restoative practices um really want to make sure that there's a good understanding um of what that really means and how that really plays out in our organization um and that is that when I really think about restorative practice I really think about two things and that is work focusing on relationships and focusing on trust um and those

069two things are things that come about through the work of restorative practices and building and creating relationships number one um and thinking about how we proactively and intentionally do that work. Um 80% of what restored practice is is proactive. Um and only 20% of it is reactive. And so trying to make sure that we are creating opportunities for that to happen proactively. Um and creating that sense summ trust. Um we really I think that one of the things that we kind of almost take for granted is that trust is a given and it's not. Um unfortunately uh when you think about our black community particularly in here in Kirkwood um you have 80 plus years of very bad relationships in terms of trust um that can't be rectified overnight. Um and that is something that

070we are working to do through the idea of restorative practices um through that idea of making sure that we can create opportunities for having something to restore back to. And so that that's a complicated process. It takes time. Um but it is something that we are de committed to in doing the work that we do with restorative practices. Um like Dr. Bailey said, 180 have been trained since we started this work. Um and then throughout the opportunities we have this year, there's opportunities for at least 120 staff members to sign up if they chose to. And so this is something that we do believe is something that is set up to create opportunities for staff uh to grow professionally and improve in the culture and climate in which we have in our schools. Um those

071opportunities are varied. So some full day, some two half day mornings. And so really trying to meet the needs and making sure that staff can sign up for those as as we would have planned. Um, a couple of the other things I would think about, you know, we really talked about and I talked about this um, with our one of our teams this week was the idea of, you know, communication is so huge. And so again going back to that trust piece um when you think about communication um one of the slides and the information that we use with our coaches and the training that we do is understanding how much of communication is really three different things and that is words the things that we're saying um the tone of voice in which we're

072saying it and then our body language and the most impactful of those is actually our body language. 55% of the communication is based on how we our body language is. 38% is the tone of voice in which we're actually communicating with people. And then finally, only 7% of what we communicate is actually the words that we say. And so really being mindful of that and thinking about how our culture is truly set focused on supporting staff to be able to communicate uh effectively and efficiently with students uh with families with community uh is a big part of what we really talk about when we talk about what restorative practice is about. Um a couple of the other things that I want to touch on is just the focus on trust. Um again that idea that

073trust is something that we have to be able to have something to restore to. And so creating the opportunity for that relationship upfront. But then also one one of my other favorite quotes is that change happens at the speed of trust. And so again, if we are meant to be able to change something, it's going to take building relationships to create that trust in the first place. And so that's where our work lies and the work that we do with restorative practices. Uh it is something that will take time. Uh but we believe that the things that we're doing now are the right things to keep us moving forward in the right direction. Um all of our staff, all teachers and staff have opportunities to be a part of restorative practices. This is something that

074started since I came back in the district in 2022. Um and in 2324 all of the coaches and myself went around to all the staffs across the district and we had a conversation with about restorative practice. So again, this is something that has been throughout our organization and we plan to continue to have at least my when I talked about it last year and we started working forward, I had said at least twice a semester we would offer an opportunity for short practices. As it's set right now, we have at least three opportunities within the next two school years and there's no plan to change that moving forward. We will continue to have opportunities for people to sign up for those opportunities. Um and then new new teachers are having that at new teacher orientation

075as well. um having opportunity with coaches and myself to have restorative as part of that work. Um, another thing that I would highlight is just that our principles are working with our coaches and they have res a restorative piece that they do as well and assessment of looking at where is their building in terms of restorative and then what are our next steps for them? What are their goals to continue to move that bu that work forward and so that's something our coaches and our principles are working on within their daily work and then setting goals each year in terms of that as well. Um, and then finally, the one last thing I would I would highlight that I I think is is hard to see because it's hard to measure um is the work

076that I get to do in my role uh to support conversations around restorative across our district. Um I have supported a number of I would say at least 20 plus staff members through different conflicts, different issues throughout this last school year. um sometimes at the direction of our human resources office, sometimes at the uh the ask of a building principal. Um that's what my role gets to be able to go in and do in our buildings. And so really from that restorative approach when I when I go in I really have four things that I talk about and that is to understand to number one honor dignity to address problems not people to make sure that we're able to understand our intent and our impact. Um and then finally to make sure that we are

077able to blank one last one. Um I should have wrote those down. I didn't write those down. Um so intent and impact address problems not people. Honor dignity. Um and finally to it is not coming to me. It will come to me and I will I write it down. I I'll bring it back uh when I come back at 2.3. So give me a second. Um and I'll bring back bring that back. but really focusing with our staff on understanding what happened, who it impacted, and then how we make it right. Um those are the three questions that we really focus on when we have conflict, when we have issues within our organization. Um and that's work that again I'm I get to do from my seat uh is supporting our staff through those things

078so that we can have relationships that we can restore back to uh and truly continue building that trust within our organization. So, um those are just a few things that I would want to highlight in terms of restorative um and that'd be 2.1 2.3 all throughout um things that you'll see throughout the rest of the presentation as well. >> I'm going to speak to 2.16 the PLC process, but specifically that last portion of that sentence with an emphasis on learning growth for black students and closing gender gaps and performance in the areas of math and science. So, we are using the Amplify Desmos math resource to really create that universal um experience and equitable access for all students. Um we have also um speaking about robotics, we continue to expand that program for our fourth

079through 12th graders. And just something that's excited exciting, I know I shared it last time, but the world robotics competition is actually here in St. Louis this year and trying um to get our students there is something they are very excited about and have already shared uh with teachers and with me. also idea lab. Um it's really about expanding those real world opportunities. I shared a little bit about the erosion project at Westchester and what that looks like moving forward as well. We also talked about measuring impact. Um and I think we were all a little disappointed to see the data from that Panorama survey. Um so we we kind of went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out some ways to capture data um in a in a better way. Um

080we are going to give pre and post assessments when students are actually in idea lab. The very first day and then the very last day of idea lab. Our K12 um assessments or surveys will look a little different. They have a sad face to a smiley face and then our third grade to fifth grade will be a little bit more detailed, but we're hoping that even just the window of time will capture the actual idea lab data that we're trying um to gather as well. Something we also um figured out uh as we were working through curriculum and talking to teachers is that teachers may not be making the explicit connection that idea lab is science or that my unit on playground cooldown or bugs and blooms is science and you are a scientist when

081you are doing this work. So um we have partnered with our teachers and they have agreed yes we will be more explicit with that. I don't know if it's um you know the direct correlation to help with that data. We hope, but really talking about and using the word science when we're in our units um of study as well. Looking at that gender gap piece, we're going to continue to use the PLC process and encourage our teachers to really look at that gender um disparity and gap within math and science. And then our middle school and high school curriculum writing, we're in development right now. Again, expanding those real world opportunities. I used the earthquake in Russia last time, but there is now hurricane Aaron to use this time. Right? There are so many realworld

082opportunities that are happening every day um for our students to learn from as well. And then um also making sure it has that tight alignment to the next generation science standards which Missouri has adopted and we have as well moving forward. So we're excited about that work and to continue supporting um this initiative. >> Right. Moving on to 2.2. This is expanding and ensuring and expanding educational programs and access. Uh as we shared previously, the ACT test has changed its format and they have made the science portion of that optional and they have actually decreased the number of questions um throughout there without necessarily adjusting the time. So, our students actually have a little bit more time for some of the ACT testing piece. Some of our students have already started to take that in

083the July version. Um that'll be slowly transitioning over. As a part of that, we're offering additional uh preparation test options and practice test options even starting in the freshman year to really help us with that course selection and course guidance throughout. Uh our curriculum team is constantly looking at that ACT uh preparation as ways to look at our curriculum at the high school, but also down to the middle school and elementary level. One exciting thing, and it may take a long time for us to see, um, but exciting thing about seeing those super high scores for reading and math in our kindergarten levels, that eventually that will trickle its way up, um, and and support students even taking the ACT. Sometimes people forget that the ACT is a time test. You had originally 60 minutes

084to answer 60 questions in the reading section, and that's including all the passages and reading pieces. So, if your pace of reading doesn't improve or get better, the fluency level of your being able to read, you might run out of time in taking that test. So, in seeing our students get uh those reading scores, that will have a long-term impact and benefit on us. We'd also like to uh highlight and as Miss Pangort said, I get excited about the different pathway pieces, too. Um that was the old high school principal in me. So, um, but just looking at the different pathways and continuing to expand options for our students, we've had success increasing the number of traditionally underrepresented student groups and advanced courses. Uh, it was we had a 17% increase from the year to

085year last year. Uh, that includes dual credit, AP, honors, early college, South County Tech, STL caps. I could give you lots and lots of acronyms. Um, but essentially these are courses that provide students with a non-traditional or an advanced opportunity to be able to express their knowledge. Uh, STLC CAPS, if you don't know, is our St. Louis Center for Advanced Professional Studies and students can do an engineering, business management, entrepreneurship, even some medical um, e exploration during that. And uh, our Kirkwood students, I think we've mentioned this before, were the winners on a project in developing a a sort of bridge between the Eids bridge and the new arch grounds. Um, the design project. I think you might have seen some of those. They're pretty cool design. Um, and and looking at ways for that.

086So again, market value asset, real world opportunity, and a way for students to shine in what they're doing. And as I mentioned before, we've also increased the number of vendors that we're connecting with for the online course option. Again, giving kids flexible opportunities to explore passion areas. Uh I'd already mentioned the the American Sign Language as just another way that technically is a foreign language that students can learn. And um doing that on the online version, we'll see how well it goes. And if it goes really well, that's a a hot topic that a lot of students have been interested in. Um, we have also used at the high school and this was put into place Dr. Herrell and Dr. Havener before that a stop day. And the stop day essentially is we're stopping instruction

087for that day and every teacher becomes advertiser for their courses and for the course pathways. And we spend a lot of time talking to students about which courses would lead to the future options that they have and sort of backwards planning with some of them if they want to land in certain spots for everything that they're doing. We're also starting to work with a few organizations to develop a mentorship and apprenticeship database that's available uh for employers to put opportunities in and for students to then look up and access and try to um take advantage of those opportunities that are out there. We've got two or three things in the works with that. But there is it's kind of a community job board essentially that's a digital version of that. Um, and students can match

088their interests and needs with community area businesses. And those businesses then can bring students in and provide them some opportunities to learn and grow. And it helps create a nice ecosystem of uh work that's available for students after high school. Uh we've also done a worked with our counselors looking to add a new online program at the high school. We're going to pilot that this year. Uh it's a new program that allows students to complete some career and post-secary lessons. um explore college and career options and do a lot of interest inventory and personality inventories. I will tell you our counselors took a dry run at that as students through the student lens and at least half of them landed on a career of counselors. So it did work out for them. Uh I randomly

089clicked things and it said I should be an astronaut which will not go well with motion sickness. And so um but it was definitely very interesting to see that based on answers to questions this was a career area that popped up. if I could explore the career pathways and the career clusters, but then it said now take a personality test and does that actually fit with those two different areas and ways we can explore that. So, we're excited about that. It also has a um college um exploration tools that will give people the real cost, estimated cost, and directly link them to the college website about doing their financial calculator. Um I learned that St. Louis U is out of my price range at the moment and so just looking at those opportunities to expand

090knowledge for our students. Um and then if that goes well pilot year then in the future years we actually that gets opened up for parent access as well so they can explore those things with students um additionally and then finally I do love to highlight even though we're talking about postsecary and some of these I do love to highlight our parents as teachers one uh with 2.2.8 eight. Uh Penny Chastain has worked very very hard to grow that program and we have reduced our weight list to basically not happening like there is no wait list. We increase the number of visits that we were able to provide, increase the number of events that we were able to provide. Um and that is really our first opportunity for for a lot of families to get connected

091to the Kirkwood School District. You can access parent as teachers and access our parent educators while you're still pregnant and they can work with you all the way up until you enter kindergarten. Um, for a lot of our families, that's that first uh interaction with Kirkwood School District. And we have amazing parent educators uh that do such tremendous work and they have funky hours. So sometimes they may be meeting with a family at 7 p.m. and other times they may be 7 a.m. And so it depends on when that family needs arise. Um this is also in some instances a pathway for us to see some developmental screenings and some other uh screening tests that they can be provided as maybe there's a need for additional intervention or additional support such as early childhood special

092ed. So that has increased that as well. Um but just providing those additional opportunities for our students um to be able to access these pretty pretty cool programs. So finally looking at uh our intentional work around retention and recruitment of staff of color. Um that specifically definitely falls within the work that we continue to do. Um thank you to the board and the approval of our building liaison. I think that that is one of the biggest roles that we have in order to create that beyond just certified staff. Um it is our opportunity to be able to have staff within our buildings um who get to focus on the relationships and how to how they create um belonging within our buildings for example color. And so that intentionality around that is a huge piece of

093our retention work. Um one of the things that we were able to start uh last couple week or last week I guess at our opening uh lunch for staff of color we really focused in on stories the stories of our staff of color so far throughout our organization um and then helping that to frame how we move forward. And so, um, it was a really good opportunity for us to really frame out and, uh, our lead mentor for teachers of color, myself and our work with leading staff of color and teachers of color throughout this year. Um, really focusing on that story aspect and continuing to let that stories of our staff um, be what guides people um, and what helps us be able to know where we have work to improve um, and know

094where we are doing well within our organization. And so, that's a big piece of the work that we have in that area. Um, as we talked about before, a new would be adding in uh community opportunities for racial allyship meetings. Uh, continuing our staff ones uh as as we have already had throughout the last year, but adding in the aspect of our community being able to weigh in and have the same work towards that. Um, really when we talk about the work of racial allyship, um, it is a multi-step process. We hopefully if we can start with being allies, we move towards being accompllices and eventually work towards being co-conspirators. And so, how do we work towards all of those aspects? And how do we help people on their journey um no matter where they

095are in the work to be able to continue to be the um people who work to create opportunity uh without a reliance on race, but truly equitable opportunity for all. Um and then again with the Leadership Institute, and it was on one of the other sides before, but really truly being intentional around that work and continuing to have our administrators be able to have that as a piece of their work. Um, and then reflecting on that and thinking about how do they bring that back to the buildings and to the district. Um, and focusing on retention and looking at how they let the stories of our staff speak to what they do differently and the work to support their staff of color um, and to work to improve the conditions for those staff of color

096and all that. Again, going back to and working on that idea of trust. Um we have at least three buildings that will be working with um our organization to really work with the understanding of trust. Um using uh the thin book of trust is part of that work um and really improving the culture through improving trust uh through improving relationships and trust. Uh we believe that that will be working towards continuing to improve recruitment and retention for our staff of color throughout the organization. So with that uh excuse me we are through uh section two again uh these are things that you have seen before and all the things that we just talked through uh and we allow you all opportunity for questions >> Miss Pangorn. >> Okay. Um thank you for all that. I

097absolutely love how much we've grown to really create and expand our opportunities for our students. um from when I started on the board to now it is just like we are you know light years ahead. It's really exciting. So congratulations on all that work. I did have one quick question. Um for restorative practices, are we requiring all of our staff to go through that or it's optional? >> So we have opportunities for all staff to go through that. Yes. Um and so we as a as a district will continue to establish what that looks like, but the opportunity is absolutely there for all staff to go through it. Yes. And again, different aspects. Again, we had opportunity where staff had training a couple years ago and then we continue to have the opportunity throughout the

098years moving forward. Um in addition to new teachers, all of them are part of that as well in their new teacher orientation. >> Thank you, Miss Andrews. Um I will just say if we don't have expectations um for our staff then then for with regards to um restorative practices, how how can we have the expectation that that be what they use? And so, um, I would just again encourage you to, um, if this is something that's important to us, if it's something that we believe in, then you make it an expectation. And I get that that you can't make people um, but what you can do is have the expectation that this is what our students will receive. Miss Shern. >> So, yeah, just to I guess so I'm struggling with the the discipline data

099goal. We've talked about this. Um I I personally struggle for measuring the right thing based on what I heard a month ago. I just I'm really struggling to connect the dots. Um, I also, so what I'm hearing is the restorative practice component is a big part of our efforts to influence the numbers of students with discipline referrals, IEP, and African-American, but it's it's optional. Is that correct? Restoter practice training is optional. >> Dr. M, correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is previously all teachers had some level of training through either districtwide work or at staff development trainings at the building level. Um it was more of the introductory piece of it to understand what the components are, what it looks like. Not everyone has been required to go through the multi-day full training. So

100all new teachers are now getting that training. All administrators are getting it with an expectation that they're utilizing it in the building, modeling it among the adults and their interactions with students to see it. And so it's just requiring everyone to go through the multi-day training is what hasn't happened at this point in time, but I understand the the concern or the request that that would happen for all teachers. >> Okay. >> Well, I mean, you can you can speak. >> No, just saying last me. I think at the work session you said it wasn't required by everyone. >> The full two day two two day or full day training is not required for everyone. Partly because even in terms of thinking about staff, that would require us a very different model of supporting the

101need for covering our buildings. If we had all staff do that and to Dr. Rumpus' point, we do that's why we do all all staff trainings at staff meetings or different opportunities like that. Um, we do have our coaches again do that training with our teaching assistants as part of specifically how do you deescalate at recess? You you saw that in the plan as well. So the two the full day training or two half day training that is not something that we've specifically said all staff will do but some training and restored practice absolutely something that all of our staff have had and would continue to have moving forward. I'm just I we can so where I'm at with this is understanding. So if this is what we're choosing to measure there there have been

102slides in the presentation comparing kind of the 2425 focus to the 2526. I'm not understanding what we're going to do different this year. And we've repeatedly lost ground with this goal. Um, so I don't want to take up a ton of time here. I've expressed my my thoughts on this one. Are we measuring the right thing? But if it is, what are we doing different this year? Because my strong concern right now, and I will I will voice this in speaking to to employees within the district, is that this goal specifically is becoming something that people are are sensitive to in terms of it potentially influencing their behavior and not wanting data to look bad. And I don't think that's a good place to be. So I would urge us to to to reflect on

103that. But I would like some just followup. It can be, you know, down the line, but what are we going to do different this year if we think we're going to make an impact on this goal? because this one specifically, and I'll I'll include it in my wrap-up comments, um, is one that we've established our goal for 2026 at a place of performance where we've already been, and that's just a a flaw of the plan in general. So, but what I would like to see um is just what are we going to do different this year. So, thank you. And I just want to say I we've engaged in the same conversations of whether or not that's the right measurement because yes, you know, historically I've heard that concern from teachers that were encouraged not

104to or discouraged from writing a referral which would impact this data. I would also argue that you just pointed out that we haven't necessarily gone the right direction. So I don't know that that's the case. Um I would also say in this data we're talking about a K12 cohort of students. That group of students is different each and every year. And so while the group of students that just left had a higher number of referrals. So the next year the number drops down because that cohort of students moved on and is that necessarily related to anything we did. Maybe or maybe not. And so all that to reinforce we've had that discussion of is the number of referrals the right data point moving forward. So that's something we need to decide. >> Miss, >> um

105I just wanted to say how excited I was about some of the things Dr. Bailey, you were discussing around um the innovative work that you were telling us about with the IEPs and the uh teamwork with the SSD and just the mentorship programs and the how you're exploring, you know, going to conferences and looking at those groups. I just think it's really exciting to hear you come and present on, you know, one of the goals that I'm especially passionate about is, you know, focusing on those students and um I just it was really cool to hear you come and say we're going to be innovative with it and we've got funds and we've got ideas and we're going to be looking at that this year and so I find that to be really exciting. Um

106and then same uh kind of in that same vein, Dr. Grana, with the idea lab, I know at the work session, this was kind of a little bit of a conversation. So, um from what you said, you took all the feedback that we had at that meeting and you put it to use. I mean, everything from how we're evaluating, making sure that it ties back that the kids know that it's science. I mean, ev pretty much everything we discussed at that meeting, you kind of came up with a a plan to address that. And I think that that was a just awesome to see something go from talk to action so quickly. And I think that's really exciting because I I believe in the idea lab. Um, again, experiential learning is something that there's so

107much data that shows how good it is for kids. And so, I'm excited about that. And then I I hate to say it, but I I do have a question about restorative practices. Um, So the the training that all the teachers get, the just normal built-in training that you were talking about, that's not the half day or the full day that's baked into every year and all staff get that repeatedly. Like once they've done it, they don't just never have it again. They redo it consistently like each year or multiple times a year. So they're they're constantly refreshed on the principles. So our we we are very fortunate. Um we have three social emotional learning coaches that are assigned to each of our buildings. Um and then they all collectively support KCC and the high

108school. Um and so that group really works daily with our teachers with our principles on restorative practice in their respective buildings that they support. Um and so again we do yes we've gone then as a team to present at different buildings throughout the last few years and we will continue to do that moving forward. Absolutely. Um to make sure that there is an understanding of what restorative practices is um again that's limited. It's like a staff meeting not a full training but it is an opportunity for us to share what restorative is um and how it continues to impact what our district is doing in that area. Yes. >> Okay. because I'm just thinking, you know, if it goes a couple years without somebody having, you know, it it just feels like the kind of

109thing where consistency and consistent exposure would probably benefit people because it's not something necessarily that they're applying every day. It's not like learning a math teaching skill or an English teaching teaching skill. So um I don't know if short of doing the half day or full day if there are some ways to pepper in you know specific techniques or specific you know ex example case study you know whatever just with some more consistency I don't know if that maybe bridges the gap between you know one end of the spectrum and the other end of the spectrum but it was just a thought that I had. So that's it. Thank you. >> Yeah I was just going to say I mean It is it's it's a practice restore. It is a restorative practice. It is something

110that people are doing every day. Um it's how again it's back to it's how you talk to people. It's how you treat people. There there's a restorative way to do it and there's a non-restorative way to do it. Um when we talk about the work of restorative practice, one of the pieces is the social discipline window which talks about am I doing things to people or for people or not or am I doing things with and so that that's a piece of restorative that is happening every day all the time. Um and yeah, you you can be doing it restoratively or not. And so it is something that we're practicing every day and and that's why our principles have been trained on it as well because they are modeling that they are doing hopefully staff

111meetings in terms of circles. We start our senior leadership meetings with a circle. Again, all those things are modeled throughout our organization to continue to expect restorative be at the center of what we do. >> Neon, >> um I'll try and get quickly off of the restorative practices, but just wanted to see u you included a mention of deescalation strategies as part of the restorative practices. Is that built into the restorative practices or is that a separate set of strategies that are employed? >> It is built into the work of the half-day restoratives and then the full day restorative. There would be a deescalation pieces with that. Absolutely. The deescalation that's in the plan really speaks specifically to things that our coaches do to support our teaching assistants and particularly in the K5 area of

112recess. And so having opportunities to learn how to properly deescalate when you have students with a conflict over a ball, when you have students with a conflict over what someone said or what they did, um those are opportunities for that restorative work to be happening again and for that training to happen and for our teaching assistants and other people who are not classroom teachers. that those are people who get that specific deescalation work is really to make sure that we can proactively um hopefully avoid the need for some of the reactive restorative through some of that proactive deescalation work. >> Okay. Thank you. And I I wanted to clarify because in 2.1.3 it says provide targeted training to restorative practices, management and deescalation strategies. So I didn't know if they were separate or one and

113the same. Um because I do think that deescalation could be really valuable in not having to get to the point where you have a conflict that then has to be go through I can add some context to M demon on that. There is a specific requirement that we have for every building that they have a crisis team in place and that crisis team gets evidence-based training through the non-violent crisis uh institute that includes specific deal escalation uh techniques that they're all taught. And so there is a requirement in place that each building send us uh usually it's anywhere from four to eight people that are those that are trained specifically in that along with all of our special educators have that deescalation technique training that then the coaches have embedded into restorative practice pieces. So

114that's there's a separate piece to that um that but they're connected in some way as well. >> That's that's helpful. Thank you. Um I was curious also um we have a goal in there to expand the number of Hispanic and black students in the gifted program. Do we have specific strategies for trying to accomplish that? >> That's something that I know that Miss Lock has worked on with our gifted team. However, uh there have been some legal challenges just to be very open and frank about that that present bit of a conundrum for us regarding that and so we haven't expanded on that specifically because of those not directly with us legal challenges but just in the scope of um challenges around uh efforts to do things like that. It hasn't been something we've expanded

115on. >> Okay. I think it'd be helpful for us to just have that awareness of context so that we're not sure >> putting that on ourselves if we aren't able to accomplish that for reasons outside of our control. Um so just wanted to I guess two quick positive things. Um love the idea of getting innovative ideas for supporting behavior by attending those conferences um and staying on top of new practices that are evolving. So that's awesome. And then also really excited to hear the call out for the parents as teachers and making sure that we really have that chance to um get in early with the students and set them on the right path for success from a very early age. So, congratulations on getting that weight list down to I heard almost nothing, which

116is awesome. Thank you. >> That is all Penny Chest and her team. They are fantastic. real quick. Um I want to thank all three of you for um for lack of a better term being able to pivot when you know just like Miss Hepern said we talked about at the work session maybe they don't know that this was science and you've already addressed that. Um, all of these things show um, real active awareness of what's going on and how we can make changes quickly. Um, I really am excited about the mentoring the big brother kind of program. Um, and so thank you and I look forward to what comes next. I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to Dr. Dickinson. She has been instrumental in the curriculum work, our PLC work, um,

117and supporting all of our science initi initiatives. So, just a huge thank you to the work that she has done for our department and the district. >> We will move sorry, we will move on to the social emotional area and Dr. M will take this person. >> Yeah. So, thinking about our climate of belonging and culture of dignity across schools, I'm really going to focus in just on this here. on 3.13 and really thinking about our work with focus groups. Um, one of the things that I had the opportunity to work with our uh our buildings with really more so at the secondary levels um just because our students are more able to be engaged at those levels. Um it is working with focus groups and so I had opportunity to have um 20 stu

11829 students that I had offered the opportunity to connect with uh throughout last year. Um we had multiple meetings throughout the year uh you know over lunch or during um a home room time to really understand their perspective of how we improve in terms of our climate and our sense of belonging throughout our or our organization and our schools um and really from that continue to work and meet with our principles. Um we have leveled meetings with our principles so where we get to share out that information and support our students um to be able to get that that information to them. And so one of the things I definitely want to highlight um that our work does um is thinking about ACIB and our board policy in terms of the three questions of whom

119does this benefit um does it differentially impact protected groups and then what should be done to increase or eliminate disparities. And so that's one of the things that I think that our work is able to do through always asking those questions. Um I know that I can think of multiple buildings where even in principal offices those are questions that they are asking NPLC's and throughout their processes of placement or of this or that that they are asking those questions. Um it's really a big part of how even even thinking about um one of the things that we did uh in our strategic plan is working to eliminate the barrier of transportation for early instrumental music for example. And so those are things um that those that policy guides our work to continue to do better.

120Um, and that's a big part of what our we get to do with our student focus groups is looking at those different things as policies. Um, looking at things like our um our climate surveys and really being responsive to the things that we get to see within that uh students being able to lead that get that information to principles as well. And so um you know throughout my opportunities to connect with principles quarterly um in our work with DEI and and HR um improvement of retention and recruitment we get to really focus on how our students can truly be advocates in that work um and really push our administrators to think and do differently. Um one of the things as Dr. Bailey said from before is we had an opportunity to have um chaos to

121keep healing and overcoming struggles. We had students and staff members that were trained uh in that program to support uh understanding of trauma and how to approach and respond to trauma. Um that was training that was done last year and then now those students and those teachers can truly be using th those methods throughout this school year uh and continuing to create more opportunities for more people to be uh responsive in that work. And so uh we're excited to continue to see that those things progress forward. Um, and then the last thing I will say is that I did remember my fourth one, which was that uh we use I statements. And so being able to speak from our own personal uh uh experience and not speaking for groups of people is is a big

122part of what I get to have conversations about as I support the work with staff across our organization. So um that's 3.1 and I'll turn it back to Dr. Bailey for 3.2. So, one thing that I want to make sure we recognize is that this is year seven for me. And in every year, the board has definitely reaffirmed their commitment to the social emotional well-being of our students and our staff. And that has been done through multiple avenues. Um, including a huge chunk of this being included in our strategic plan, allocation of resources, staffing, and and support that's throughout. Um and so this year our social emotional team um including our counselors, our social workers, our um seal coaches are going to receive some continued targeted training from West County Psychological Associates to broaden their

123scope and their understanding. Uh when you go through training to be a school counselor, you don't always get to practice some of the skills you get on the counseling side and you tend to be more on scheduling or documentation in some areas. And so coming back to um these folks that specialize in areas such as anxiety, depression, suicidal ideiation, and stress management so that those folks can take that directly back into their practices and work with our students in the buildings on those specific areas. Um, we're also going to offer, and I mentioned this before, but offer a parent learning series throughout the school year that's going to be focused on a variety of topics, including the anxious generation. Um, including a parent learning session on student anxiety and depression, signs of suicide, and then

124also looking at things like overscheduling and how that can have an impact on students. And so, we'll have that throughout the school year, some evenings um with with some experts in those areas. want to acknowledge the specific uh data in this in this goal area is focused on reducing the number of students who receive multiple office referrals. We did have success and so when we look at all of our discipline areas, this is a success area that we had. We saw a 20% decrease in the number of students that received multiple office referrals. We are nowhere near arriving if that's how you're looking at that. Um but always staying focused on what that looks like. uh we'll continue to use our early warning system, but a lot of those same things that I said earlier

125about working with our IEP teams, working with our mentor program, looking at the data with our principles. Um and again, I think personally adding that extra um carveout for a tardy in the discipline code will allow us to have clarity around that data. Um even when I was doing the the work today, I mean it was hard to pull up which ones were specifically for that and which ones weren't. Um and some of these students had gotten multiple office referrals because they got tardies in first semester and then tardies in second semester. Um and so this will give us more clarity around that for better problem solving. Um we also use the MTSS processes not just for academic data but for our behavior and social emotional data and every building goes through that protocol that

126Miss Lock described um around problem solving for students with behavioral concerns. We'll continue that direct collaboration with the SEBIT team that we mentioned earlier. Um our coaches will be working with a universal checklist like we said and then um the coaches will be going to South by Southwest to get some additional training to bring back to provide for our teachers. One of the areas that we have them focus on is what we would call our tier one support. So they're not just going in when a classroom teacher is having a problem with a specific student, but really looking at ways teachers can provide support for all their students around the rules, routines, procedures, processes, protocols, and things that they do in their typical classroom. They work very closely with all of our new teachers and

127have done so for several years. So they get that connection and then teachers can reach out and sometimes they are assigned to get help by their principles as well based on specific learning needs that the teacher has around their evaluation or around the support they need in the classroom. Um we will also work with our behavior support team through SSD around behavior intervention plans, functional analysis around behavior and implementing those supports for our students. actually get to hear from this end now for a second. >> Good evening board. I'm excited to get involved. Uh here I get a slide to talk about the adults and how we uh make sure that they are feeling as supported. Uh you know we we put our adults in the best position to feel engaged, healthy, and happy. And

128if that's not the case, then we know we're going to miss a step when they're working with our students. So this is uh very important. Obviously I was here a month ago to talk to you about exit survey ratings. So just a quick recap of the things that you already know that we're committed to doing with this work. Need to get more participation. Uh you saw a rate of participation in the presentation that I gave last month that um was at a was at a low for five years. So, that's a call to action for us to to get that feedback from those of our staff members that are exiting um to combine that feedback, making sure that they have options to do uh in person and online depending on who's doing that. Ease of

129use could be online, but I think a lot of folks would take up the opportunity um to meet with one of us to give us that feedback face to face and making sure all that information is calibrated and comes back to our data set. So, that is all actionable. and then keeping eye uh bless you, keeping an eye on the questions we're asking uh to make sure that it really drills down into the things um that we want to find. So that's what we'll do with the survey, but with the short amount of time that I have with the live mic, I want to let you know a little sneak preview of the things that are coming out of the HR office because the reality is when we're measuring our success in an exit survey,

130it's a measurement of what has happened before that, right? So what does onboarding look like in Kirkwood, right? are we offering opportunities for people to come in and feel engaged from the jump. Um in the past recent past a lot of our onboarding has been online and there again there's ease of use to that but I you know seen in other districts that that a in-person onboarding session can be a great opportunity for people right away to feel valued u meeting and greeting people not only in the HR department but also in the the relative neighborhood of uh Turner. Um, so that there may be some uh tours coming around on Monday mornings just to to to sneak preview some of that. Uh, how are we facilitating stay interviews, right? Especially around the holidays, right?

131So, we on board, we're checking in on them and then that stress comes, a first year teacher or a new TA to this work or somebody that thought they wanted to work with kids and they realize, whoa, I'm working with kids now, you know, and they go back home for the holidays and then that uncle's in their ear about like, join me in sales, right? And what do we do to get those folks to remember that they get to work for kids, right? And the secret to never aging is to surround yourself with young people as long as you can, right? These are these are bumper sticker mantras that we got to remember to get in the ear of our people that are just joining us so they don't come in and make a decision

132the lack of support. Hey, this isn't for me and I'm going to check something else out career-wise. I'm going to stay with this organization. We are a district that has worked hard to create outstanding benefits for folks. joining this organization and finding out about PPL. I mean, I'm I'm just thrilled to be an ambassador for this program. Can't claim the hard work that happened to get here, but I sure I sure will be uh letting people know about it, let letting people know about our employee assistance program and all the great many things. Benefits are only as good as awareness that people have to access, right? Uh so, making sure we communicate clearly our benefits to our people. making sure we uh communicate clearly about how to obtain advanced degrees and options towards tuition reimbursement

133and clarifying those procedures for our staff so that they feel like that's a a process that we can help them through. Um what are we doing to ensure robust m robust mentorship at all levels? Um, how does HR begin to collaborate as we've already done so with our CRD uh department to really make a special uh when we're looking at service milestones, our retirement celebration, right? Which might sound like a misnomer like you're talking about keeping people in the organization and retiring, right? People notice how you celebrate individuals as they're exiting the organization even though they may be nowhere near retirement, right? So handling and celebrating our people throughout the continuum of this work and then At the end of the day, when we're looking at the idea around the evaluative process and looking at

134a way to infuse additional coaching and feedback into the evaluative system, not just for our certified teachers, but our support staff as well. Um, that's work that I relish the opportunity to engage in here as I settle into Kirkwood here, finishing about month two. But, uh, again, you know what we're going to do with the exit survey. I think the important part with the time that I have this evening is to let you know about all the many things that we'll be doing to ensure those survey ratings are high by the time that people engage with them. And I think that's the key of this work. So appreciate the time with slide 3.3. And the last part for our social emotional area is to look at the comprehensive wellness plan. And this focuses a lot

135on our student attendance along with our overarching wellness plan. This year we're implementing just new processes and procedures to address attendance issues. We don't have a major major concern with it, but we do have a few students that did have some significant number of absences for a variety of reasons. Um, and so we've implemented just attendance committees at each building to look at that when students meet certain thresholds of attendance. Um, and just as a a broad sense for the board, we look at 90% as a great threshold for us to set in 168 school uh day year. That means that students are absent for 16 or fewer times, which sounds like a lot. Um, but then if you're out for an entire week because of the flu or something else that comes up, that

136can add up fairly quickly. Um, and so we want to make sure that we're addressing those concerns when students hit certain thresholds. In addition, our social workers, uh, we're working closely with them to develop home visit protocols when it comes to attendance, when it comes to coming to school and those communications with with families regarding attendance concerns. I will very openly tell you one area that is a struggle for us in St. Louis County is that there's not a heavy emphasis on the court system for truency. It it doesn't fall at the top end of things. You probably know from experience insurance and and not personally by the way for your job by the so had to make sure I cleared that up quickly. Um but just thinking about our students when we look at

137truency in some counties you're able to just say boom truency file that and that the court system steps in. For St. county that's low on their priority area um and often gets kind of sent out to Jefferson County. So, we hope we don't get to that point, but we we have set thresholds for filing truency if need be. Um we're working with our parents, but in focusing on attendance, uh those attendance committees, looking at the why and really what resources and support are needed, which is why our social workers are going to be leading those and leading the the work with that. And then the home visit protocol really talking about why are you missing school? What do you need from us? How can we help you? What support is it? What are the barriers

138that are in place? And identifying that and looking at resource allocation for that. Also thinking about our wellness plan. Last year our wellness committee and those that were present focused on learning about access to cell phones and social media in preparation to potential change for practices. Senate Bill 68 changed that a little bit for us and and accelerated and actually put in parameters that may have been different than where we would have landed. um with our wellness committee. So, we'll circle back with that team. Um one of the things that that we've done each year is have students that are a part of that wellness committee from middle school all the way through senior year. And those students have been directly asked identify some of the areas of concern that you have and some barriers

139and struggles that you have and that leads the focus of the work throughout the school year. Um, prior outcomes of this approach uh have included increasing the number of counselors at the elementary level, increasing the number of social workers available, adding an intensive support counselor at the high school uh who is a licensed professional counselor, partnering with various agencies including Chad's coalition to provide on-site specific therapeutic options for our students. And even if you've been to the high school commons, the the change in furniture in the high school commons was spearheaded by students in the wellness committee. I think you were at that meeting and and talking about uh not being able to write on the tabletops because they were they were more built for outdoor. And so just the student work and the student

140movement on that and the students being able to come back and work with us on it. Uh want to highlight that and emphasize that that wellness committee has had some tangible outcomes. And again to thank the board for their continuous support um around our students and our staff and their wellness um and their social emotional support. You've allocated resources, we've allocated staff and we've seen results. If you look at the Sabers data, we have seen continuous decreases in the students who are identified at risk. Um we've seen students take advantage of um our counselors and our therapeutic supports that are at school. They've got a full case load um of students that they work very closely with and families. So, uh that kind of wraps up our social emotional area. These again are just some

141summaries of of those and we will take any questions that you have. >> Before we move to questions, just in case this meeting goes beyond 8:30, we need a motion to um extend the meeting by 15 minutes. We need a motion. >> So move Cathy. >> Second. He >> all those in favor raise your right hand and say I. I motion passes. >> Miss Neman, >> thank you. I'll try to make it quick. Um so just wanted to clarify really happy to hear that the um students identified at risk for social emotional concerns has been decreasing. You can see that trend from since 2023, which is so hugely important. Um I'm curious as to why it looks like it's decreased over time and our goal um kind of at the top explanation is that it

142will decrease by 2% or more um year year to year. But from 2025 our number was 7.9% and then in 2026 it's 7.7. So that's not a 2% decrease. I'm just curious as to how we landed on 7.7 for our goal. 2% of the original number. So take 7.9 2% of that and that's what we subtracted out. >> Ah okay. I'm thinking seven minus two is okay five but got it. Okay. >> If you have questions that means everybody has questions and we're happy to explain. So yeah all of the goals even from the academic side are based on that starting number and the percent of that starting number. >> Okay that's very helpful. Thank you. Um, and then the only other point I just want to make is really appreciate the surveys and us

143continuing to um, gauge feedback both from our students, from our staff, from our families on place of belonging, how they're feeling. Um, as you mentioned, Dr. Rich, we had some uh, response rates that we want to increase and we want to continue to to gauge that because there is a lot of opportunity for enhancing that place of belonging and that's super important for that right foundation for learning. So really appreciate you staying on top of that and would encourage us to continue to to look at that and and en encourage engagement. Thanks >> Sethburn. Dr. Map, I haven't gotten to talk about focus groups in forever, but I love focus groups. It is my favorite way to get qualitative data. I loved hearing you talk about your focus groups. I think we can get so

144much good information out of those conversations, especially for the kind of work that you do. I just that was awesome to hear about. Um Dr. Bailey, I'm super excited and have been very excited about the parent education series that you have been talking about. I think that that does so much for our community and I I hope we get a good turnout and good engagement on that. Um I will definitely be letting people know about those uh those seminars and stuff because I think that's going to be great. I I think the mental health portion of our strategic plan is so so important. Um I was I was one of the people I was one of the people in the focus groups when they were developing the past five-year strategic plan and one of the

145things that I just kept telling them was that mental the mental health um needs of our students needs to be a priority because it's the issues with anxiety and depression and suicidal ideation is just we have to make sure we keep on top of it. And so I appreciate that work and I I don't want us to, you know, let go of that. Um, Dr. Rich, I just want to say thank you for using some of your time to talk about your brand and, you know, the energy that you're bringing and what kind of your vision is for some of the ways that we can um, you know, do some things to make our staff feel more welcome and excited to be here. I think that some of the things you mentioned sound so good

146to me and I'm just really excited to hear about it. So I really appreciate you sharing those things. That's it. Mr. Kathy, Miss Sher echoing I had student uh focus groups as well, but I wanted to understand more like the timeline how this works is long-term like just throughout the school year. Um because I thought the the uh student focus groups were a very good idea. I know continuously doing that but like first 30 days identifying the questions then 60 days developing a process for gaining permission but then it was longterm to get the students and I was just curious as to why the long sp like will it take that long and when in the actual >> Yeah. No, we had we had multiple meetings throughout last school year and the plan would be

147that those students who were part of it would continue and then maybe we would add in any new students to that group moving forward. But no, we did meet multiple times throughout last year and that would be the goal is to meet throughout the year. Yes. >> Gotcha. So just overall with the plan though long term does that mean like >> Yeah. So typically, yes, great question because I think that's threaded all throughout the plan. Long-term is usually if it's 90 or more days and then if it's going to be more of a sustained situation as opposed to just, yep, we've met that particular benchmark. Um, and something that then tends to inform the following year. This being year five of that, that's that's not necessarily the case for future, but you're correct. Longterm is

148something that's usually longer longer than one semester. >> Thank you, Miss Andrews. not to bring restorative practices back, but I do think it would be helpful to u maybe have, you know, like a written out and maybe you all have this, but a written out PD plan on on the restorative practices um because it's it's begins to become hard to understand when you're like half day, full day, this gets it that, you know, um and so I just want to ensure that we've got um a comprehensive plan for this. Miss Pangorn. >> Sure. Um Dr. Rich, I really appreciate some of your ideas. Like Miss Heer already highlighted, I'm excited to see how some of them can really make us, you know, whether it's the exit surveys or the stay interviews or you know, our

149retention numbers increase. So, uh just really excited about some of those ideas. Um, and Dr. Bailey, I really appreciate how we are using the input from our wellness committee. Um, you know, years ago we had the committee and they talked and they did things, but we're actually taking things and implementing them. And you highlighted some really good examples that I think are more opportunities to celebrate that work. Um, so my question is when does the well wellness committee meet this year and do we have an idea of what maybe some of the conversations are gearing towards or is that still TBD? >> The dates are TBD. Yes. And so I will say that the conversations for our students typically center around the anxiety. I'm very interested to find out by the time by the time

150we meet with them they'll have it had at least a month without cell phone access. So I'm curious as to what that looks like and that may actually drive some of the discussions that we've had. Students themselves have identified just student teacher relationships is one area they'd like to improve, but anxiety took a little bit um precedent over that. So that may be an area to continue to circle back to um for our students is just how do we keep building that relationship side not just in the classroom but high school students in particular were like I just want them to know me and know who I am as they become adults themselves as well. So, I have a feeling that since that's come up in a few years before that those will be kind

151of centered areas. Yes, >> that's that's great. And Dr. Rumpus and as a board member, I personally I'm using my eye voice, Dr. M. Um I personally would love to know, you know, when those ideas are brought forth because if there are resources that are required that can help us achieve this this goal and move the needle, um that's something I'm really interested in. So, thank you. I'll make it quick because we want to extend the meeting again. Um, I just want to thank you all. Dr. Rich, I I I love the excitement and your energy and being proactive with staff. We want to have fewer and fewer people who take the exit survey. Not that they're not taking it, but they're not even needing to take it. So, I like that. Thank you. Hi,

152Um so I wanted to highlight a couple of the uh initiatives we have through 4.1 and I will try to speak quickly so you can get your questions in. Um one and we talked briefly about this in the work session but I did want to highlight that um we've been working with our communications committee specifically about messaging around let's talk. Um, I know that's a tool that we've talked about quite a bit with the board um as we've rolled it out and uh we made some changes even that implemented at the beginning of the school year both with our messaging and with our website presence and wanted to share that um for the beginning of the school year we've seen a 31% increase in usage when compared to the same period of time last school

153year. So very much um want to thank the communications committee for their feedback because it was very effective. Um and in case it comes up I the dates for the communications committee are also TBD but we will be scheduling those soon. So I'll get ahead of that question. Um I also wanted to highlight the um inerson community engagement opportunities that we're going uh to be sharing um in the coming weeks. will have a lot more information, but just um I'm sure the board is aware, but wanted to share publicly that um our first one will be on September 12th uh ahead of the first home football game um at Kirkwood High School from 5 to 6:30. We'll be out on the field hockey and lacrosse field at Kirkwood High School. Um Dr. Rumpus is hosting

154an opportunity for the community to come out. Um the special guests can include members of the board of education. um members of uh leadership here at the district and we'll be doing several of those over the next several months at different times and places and locations to really kind of um hopefully public can have opportunities to um engage and schedule that works best for them. Uh so those are some highlights for 4.1. Uh also 4.2 two, I wanted to uh preview the fact that we will have um a style guide and as we go through our typical process around the communications plan, we'll also be sharing with the board for your information some of that work we've done on the style guide. You may remember we've had like a one or two pager that has

155highlighted some things. Make sure we use the right panone red and what are the fonts that we utilize, but we have a much more extensive style guide that we've worked on. Um it started with work in my office and then we engaged over the summer with our buildings just to make sure as we tightened some of the understanding of our branding, we also weren't restricting some of the work that happens in our buildings. But um you may have even seen business cards. You're going to be seeing some updated letter head. All of that is part of that style guide effort and really kind of tightening and updating our branding um while still keeping it really familiar with our community. And then also um for 4.2, I wanted to highlight that uh we are expanding the

156use of S'more in our district uh to make it more available to our teachers to use for classroom communication. We've talked for several years about wanting to provide um a little bit more consistent access when it comes to the communication going out and what families are seeing. And we still have work in that area, but um one thing that S'more does is it makes it easy for teachers to create classroom communication. It looks nice. It typically works well across technology and then it also has translation and ADA accessibility features that you can't from a typical email. Um, so we have expanded that just this year to make it a we did a pilot last year. Uh, this year we expanded it to allow all teachers and we've seen about 80 new accounts open up just

157by offering it. Um, and so we are excited to see where that goes. We we'll need to continue offering some tech support because we've had those sorts of questions. And also, um, very positive, we've had teachers who previously have spent their own funs or um, maybe even building funds on some more accounts. And now the district's able to take on that cost and uh absorb it for all educators. >> Pass it off to my friend Mr. Cook. >> So by my account, I have 17 minutes left to talk about the last slide before we run out of time. Uh just really want to focus and and stress something that came out in the work session and focus on 4.3.3 there. goal that we have to uh find some outside the box ways to make our

158community patrons aware of the ongoing uh scope of work that it takes to maintain our facilities that are aging and uh just celebrating I think the work that's gone in from our maintenance team but also uh just to stress through infographics and video what that looks like and and and how challenging that can be in the financial and human resources that go into that. So, uh, we've we've done some work to collect some of that data already from our maintenance team and looking forward to celebrating that and recognizing that and raising awareness there over the coming weeks through social media and other means. But that I think is the focus for us when it comes to that. I think we're always looking to share that financial information and the property tax rate calculator. Not quite

159as exciting as maybe some of the other parts there, but we we certainly want to not grow lax in those efforts as well. Those days are coming up soon, the property tax calculations. So, >> Miss Pangorn, >> perfect. Um, I'm so excited about the proactive engagement opportunities that we are doing this year. Um, I love that we're going to go out to people and not when we're asking stuff of them, but just being there. So, really excited for that. Thank you for making that happen. Um, I also really appreciate your example of the sharing of Let's Talk and whether it's education or just awareness that that is an opportunity and I think that really showcases something else that we had talked about um for both you Miss Dedricch and Mr. cook about celebrating and educating

160on so many different things. Your example about facilities and you know how much it costs and like I didn't know we could make that fun but I'm actually excited about it. So I think these are great examples that really can you know share more about what we're doing. So I'm very excited about our communications plan. Thank you Miss Andrews. Miss Shern, >> um, thank you for this and I'm just gonna give my last little comments for everything. Um, I want to say that we are doing some amazing things in the district for our students and our staff and want to continue that as always. We have room to grow. Um, but looking forward to planning and and getting the new strategic plan going um, to build upon what we've done. So, thank you. >> Yeah,

161I'll build upon that uh, with my kind of closing statements. So, um, Dr. Rumpus, I I wanted you to know that I really appreciate your opening statement because it kind of covered and encompassed a lot of the points I was going to make, and I appreciate you recognizing where we have areas of opportunity, but I also want to make the point that um, you know, I referenced the longitudinal academic data slides, which have become some of my favorites. Um, one because they tell a great story and they show a lot of tremendous progress that's taken place over the past five years. So, I want to I want to recognize that, but I do want to make a point and and these kind of closing comments will be directed mainly at my fellow board members and

162that tonight we in consent we approve the RFP for our strategic plan which is to me an incredibly exciting opportunity. Um I just want us to to learn as we go through that process um what we've talked about I've talked about for the past three years now from the goal setting perspective and that we really commit to and this is just my opinion but I would encourage everybody to strongly consider that a component of our upcoming 2631 plan includes kind of a final destination where do we want to be a tangible quantifiable goals but a part of that is it's really hard to commit to that and it's going to take a lot of courage from us to kind of put a stake in the ground and say this is where we want to be

163so that when we're reviewing where we are in 2031 we know whether or not we got there. Um so I want to recognize that that's a um an ask something I would encourage but that's going to be really hard work to determine what it is and it's going to take a lot of courage and backbone frankly to say this is where we want to be and know that we might come up short but at least we know where we want to head. Um, so I want to make that point and then in closing, you know, the goals are what they are. Um, I will say this just because I got the mic now. I think where we've got some of our academic goals for this year continue to reinforce the need that we as a

164board commit to dedicating agenda time to discussing the achievement gap. I'm in my third year on the board. We have not done that yet. Um, so, um, I think tonight's goals, um, further, you know, express the need to do that by seeing where we're at. So, I appreciate all the work and, um, thank you, >> Miss. >> Yeah, I I'm with a lot of the comments that, uh, Mr. Cathy just said. In fact, the upcoming strategic plan is one of the reasons I ran to be on the board when I did because I was really excited to be a part of that process because I think um there's a a I mean I think the goals in the strategic plan were great goals with values that align with our community's values. I think some of

165the structure and goals and methods are things that I'm looking forward to us um taking learning from this plan and and looking at and I'm very excited about that work and I agree it's going to be, you know, a project. Um in terms of tonight, I want to say uh Steph, I'm looking forward to being on the communications committee with you again and doing more great work. And Mr. Cook, I'm so excited to have you still. Um it was nice that I got to hear a little bit from you tonight. So that was fun. And then um just for the cabinet in general, I feel like tonight's presentation um the tone was great. I feel like there was a lot of um deep dives on specific things, a lot of really um detailed explanations of

166things, a lot of specific um next steps and actions that you guys outlined for us. And I just thought that the information you brought tonight was really helpful, really informative, specific, and clear. and I just really appreciate you bringing that information forward tonight. So, thank you, >> Miss Neon. >> Thanks. And just to add on to that as well, I know it was earlier mentioned that there was a very good responsiveness from the work session to tonight. So, just want to re reiterate that great progress too. Would love to see us as we work as we move together as both a board and a cabinet and moving into the next strategic plan continue this great collaboration and continue to push each other. um to continue to be better for the staff and the students and

167the families of the district. So, really looking forward to working with you all as we set the next strategic plan and looking forward to hitting all of these goals out of the ballpark. Thanks. Everyone has uh said a lot of what I want to say, so I'm going to be more broad. I want to thank you all for being so proactive and sharing the information that you did. This is my fourth one of these and I feel like I've gotten more information and understand things better than I ever have before with these. So, thank you. Thank you Dr. Rumpus for your leadership for, you know, helping the cabinet, encouraging the cabinet to be vulnerable and to let us know what's going on. It's really important and we It's an exciting year ahead and I can't

168wait. So, now we have to vote to approve. I did not forget, Laura. You knew I was going to. Um, so we have a motion to approve the strategic plan. All those in favor raise your right hand and say I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion passes. >> I'll just reiterate one thanking the team. I this is a new team. I mean, three of us brand new and the team coming together and um being able to have open conversations and challenge one another. And again, this team's been doing the work for four years already. And so to um their willingness to look at what we're doing and what's working, what's not, and what we could do better is fantastic. Um and I appreciate that you acknowledge that they did take feedback from the work session and

169incorporated that where we could. Um and again really owning our data and this is our reality and we look forward to that extrategic plan as well. Um and we're also excited that starting at the September work session that our schools will get to come because the reality is we can do this planning at a district level and then there are hundreds of people living this work each and every day in a very direct impactful way for our students. And so we will start with the early childhood center in September getting to share and highlight what they're doing at the school level. And then we'll work through all of our schools over the next four months. Thank you. >> Okay. Future events. Uh Labor Day is Monday, no school. On the 8th is the board awards

170and honors and the board work session that Dr. Rumpus just referenced. Uh September 12th is our first little meet and greet. I hope a lot of us can be there and then stay for the big football win. Um and then September 13th, the green pe green tree parade. So that's always a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing you all there. Uh board tax rate hearing on September 22nd and unified nightlights on the 30th. So with that, we are adjourned. Seven minutes to go.