Kirkwood School District Board of Education Meeting - July 28, 2025

001Thank you. And before we move to public comment, I we have some new people to introduce. I'm very excited about this. First, u many of you have already met. Dr. Ken Rumpus. Um and he's been a joy to work with already. Um couple things. He has dedicated his career to public education, serving over 20 years in teaching and administrative roles. He began serving as the Francis Hall School District Superintendent in 2022, joining the district as dep deputy superintendent at the height of the CO 19 pandemic. He also served 13 years in Ritner, four years as an assistant superintendent human resources and leadership development. Before that, he was a writtener middle school assistant principal and principal. He's also worked in the St. Louis public school systems. He began his career in education as a teacher in

002the Melville and St. Louis public school districts. Welcome. We are thrilled to have you joining us. We also have two new members of the cabinet which we're very excited about. First of all, Mr. Scott Cook. He's our new chief financial officer. Um he comes to us from Mount Vernon where he was the superintendent. And while he was there, voters approved the largest bond issue in the district's history. He also oversaw the financing and construction of projects that included building a new early learning center, a significant expansion to an agricultural education center, installation of secure entries, and numerous deferred maintenance projects. Also, during his time there, he prioritized financial decisions to allow for substantial investments in professional and support staff salaries over nine years. Welcome. We're very excited to have you here. [Applause] And last, but

003certainly not not least, Dr. Brian Rich is our new assistant superintendent of human resources. He has more than 16 years in various administrative roles in Francis Howell, Rittner, and U City School Districts. He recently served as director of human resources for Francis Howell. Under his leadership, the human resource department revised their systems for harassment reporting and student teacher placement. He also worked to promote employee recruitment by strengthening and growing new and existing university partnerships. Again, welcome. We're thrilled to have you. And since Dr. Rumpus was the one who hired them. I don't know if you have anything you wanted to add to any of that. >> Thank you, President Motika. Um, yeah, I'm thrilled to welcome both Dr. Rich and Mr. Cook, I should say to our community that while he did pass the largest

004bond issue, we did not bring him here to do that. It was just a celebration of where he was at previously. Um, but both uh Dr. Rich and Mr. Cook bring 24 25 years of experience and commitment to public school education. Varied experiences um both at the classroom level which we know is incredibly important when you get into leadership roles also at the school level and both have significant experience at the central office level. So we're excited to have your leadership um and to be a part of the team. And really I just want to add that um they round out and really add to what is an incredible leadership team that is already here. Um, I've been here just about a month now, almost a month. Um, and working with these seven individuals is

005really amazing. Their commitment to this district, their knowledge and expertise, uh, and their commitment to making sure that every student in the Kirkwood School District is successful and doing that through helping our staff. Um, you can feel that and you hear that every single day and see it in their action. So, thank you for the warm welcome from the leadership team, the cabinet that we have. And, um, Dr. Rich and Mr. Cook, I really think you will add to and help build out that team. So, thank you. And now we have an established item for public comment session. During public comments, any citizen of the Kirkwood School District may make a statement or address the board concerning issues pertaining to Kirkwood School District. We have a set period time of 30 minutes. No individual will

006be permitted to speak more than once during this period. Speakers are not to address the board concerning specific personnel issues and we will not directly respond to a speaker during the meeting. But if a response is required, either Dr. Rumpus or I will follow up after the meeting and you each have three minutes to address us. Our first is uh team Mary Beth Kesler and Maria Tuttsky. Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Rumpus, and district leadership. On behalf of the Kirkwood National Educators Association, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Mary Beth Kesler, music teacher at Robinson Elementary, and this is Maria Tudsky, second grade teacher at Robinson Elementary. And we are honored to serve as the co-presidents for the K&A. As a new school year begins, we want to express our

007deep appreciation for your continued support of students, staff, and our schools. Public education, we know, is both complex and incredibly meaningful, and we're proud to partner with you in this work. We're excited for the year ahead and committed to strengthening the collaborative relationship between our union and the district. Whether it's classroom visits, attending concerts or art shows, taking a meeting over coffee, thanks Dr. Rich, or lunch, thanks Dr. Rumpus, or a birthday email from Dr. Rumbus. Your presence matters and reminds us we're all in this together. Our teachers didn't slow down over the summer either. Many continued their professional learning, presenting at national conferences, completing letters, coursework, leading through the guiding coalition, and pursuing advanced degrees in learning. Our advocacy also continued. Our K&A vice president, Dr. Ashley Luther, who's a KHS English teacher, participated

008in national level discussions at the NEA Representative Assembly. NEA also fought and helped recover more than five of the seven billion that was initially withheld from school funding. Finally, several of our members attended the Missouri NEA conference to learn how we can protect and strengthen public schools right here in Missouri. This year, K&A's priorities reflect our commitment to supporting a thriving learning environment for all. We hope to strengthen trust and communication between teachers and administrators. Support consistent due process and respectful interactions among everyone. Create clear paths for horizontal movement and professional growth. utilize our collective bargaining agreement as a tool for partnership and collaboration, a roadmap if you will, that brings teachers and administrators together. We also hope to follow the lead of neighboring districts Brentwood and Melville by realigning the salaries of our colleagues

009who lost pay in 201617 due to a frozen step. And finally, we hope to promote fair and transparent extra extra pay for extra duty compensation across all school levels. We believe these goals not only support our educators, but strengthen the future of our district. We're ready to work side by side with you to bring them to life. Thank you again for your leadership, partnership, and commitment to Kirkwood students and staff. We really are looking forward to a great year ahead. Thank you. And we also have our next public comment is from Tom Pachek. Tachek. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um, my name is Tom Tachic and I'm here representing an organization called Kirkwood for everyone and we are a local citizens group that's advocating for additional attainable housing here in Kirkwood. The problem of attainable

010housing is a growing one here in Kirkwood and within the throughout our St. Louis community. All you have to do is drive around Kirkwood and see one more small home torn down after another and being replaced by a million-dollar mega mansion to understand that that impacts our entire community, the diversity of our community, both and in our schools, both economic and racial diversity. And this is what we're concerned about. We've been talking to the city council about ways that we can try to fix the problem of what is growing, what we call missing middle housing, that kind of middle section of housing that's being lost in in Kirkwood. Um, we are starting a petition to try to get more people in Kirkwood to show their concern and support of this. And we have a petition

011that's online right now that there's a QR code which I will make that available for people to sign online. Um, so that's the main thing that I wanted to speak to you about is to try and get more support from the community to demonstrate to the city council that this is a concern from for many of our residents and students. We're seeing many older uh um residents of Kirkwood being forced out of their homes because they want to downsize and they can't stay in Kirkwood. We're seeing many children of current residents who cannot afford to move back into Kirkwood. They grew up here. They can't afford to live here because there's just no good starter homes, reasonably priced starter homes. So, this is an ongoing problem. Um in addition, um we've got two upcoming presentations

012that we are doing for the community. Um, on August 25th, the Kirkwood Public Library, we're doing a presentation on accessory dwelling units. Uh, if you know what those are, those are often return referred to as granny flats or, uh, mother-in-law units, but they are actual units that can be added to an existing house and can be turned into rental property that helps generate income. It's another way for people to stay in their homes and also to generate additional housing. So, we're going to talk about what that is, what Kirkwood permits and what Kirkwood doesn't permit, and what citizens need to know because very few people in Kirkwood know that's even an option. Uh, the very last thing we're doing is in September on September 23rd, we're doing a presentation on a community land trust. Uh,

013if you don't know what that is, that is there's one that was started recently in Webster Groves. The community land trust is is a nonprofit that we're hoping to start with other community leaders that then purchase our are given homes in Kirkwood and then instead of selling the home we own the trust maintains ownership of the land but only sells the house that makes the land the home much more affordable for the residents then they sell it back to the trust when they move out. It's a complicated subject. It's an important one. It's one that many communities have started to try to more people who are able to purchase and live in Kirkwood or in the community uh at what it would normally cost at a market rate. So that's three op things that we

014have. All of that's in writing here. I'll pass that around. >> Thank you. Your time is up. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Moving on to 4.02 approval of agenda. I need a motion to approve the agenda for the July 28th, 2025 meeting as presented. So moved. Andrews. >> Second. Sh. All those in favor, please raise your right hand, say I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion passes. 5.01 consent agenda approval. We need a motion to approve the consent agenda items 5.02 through 5.11 as presented and or amended. >> So moved. Andrews. >> Second. Megan. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. 6.01 financial statements. We need a motion to approve the financial statements for June 2025 as presented. >> So motion >> second

015and >> good evening. appreciate the opportunity to share uh this evening on the financial statements. So uh operating revenues in June, a little over 2.3 million uh revenues in June and it's not traditionally a big month for uh current local taxes, just 114,000 there. Our final Prop C payment for FY25 403,000 134 state revenue uh was a little over 1.2 million. So everything going into that is basic formula, classroom trust, transportation, ECSE, state revenue, We had a couple three small DESIE grants that played into that as well. So in July, it's it's typical to take a look back at FY25 and uh the the operating revenues for FY25, you'll note, are in the financial memo as well. Uh district revenues totaling just over 93 million. A little short of what uh Mike Ray had had

016projected there. Uh couple of big contributors I think uh it looked like there. Proposition C had uh about 5 $30,000 prior year correction, which is not uncommon. It's one of the more volatile things you can predict. And so there were predictions made about what we thought we might get in Prop Cy and came in a little bit lower than that. Um I think that a lot of districts are going to experience that as the conversion to weighted average membership and weighted ADA get closer to each other and it seems like that happened to Kirkwood over the last year. a little bit less in earnings investment or investment earnings as well as compared to what was projected. We have begun working with a firm that has some long-term investments going uh for the district. And while

017those investments are showing yields, that money is not yet deposited back in to our account. So that that projection of revenue is not back home with us, but it is uh doing quite well uh in our in our new new relationship there. So uh I would still categorize FY25 is a very strong year for revenues. A little bit lower than projected, but still uh very good. On the expenditure side for June, just under 13.5 million uh expenditures in June, a big month for summer school checks going out and SRO costs were in that uh that second semester SRO costs as well. And then uh the district cellular enhancement project uh $249,000 payment there. Uh so a relatively larger expenditure amount there for June for FY25 total operating expenditures just under 90 million. So expenditures came

018in a little bit below projections too. So you always like to to see that if you're in my seat those those things happen. So uh another very strong year there. It looked like several counts just came in under projection which is always a good thing. So unofficially the district fund balance at 46.41 as we close out FY25. a great position for the district to be in. I feel fortunate to be part of a district doing so well financially. So, uh if we look at through the other funds that you have there in the memo, uh you can see activity and maintenance were increased very slightly. Uh the technology fund balance went up by 630,000. Supplies and equipment costs lower there too than expected. So, that's another positive. the KEC KECC fund balance grew but a

019little bit slower than projected and just kind of took a look at that to see adventure club receipts were a little lower than projected but again not not significantly there as well. Uh Prop I balance uh waiting on that last payment for the district cellular project that's coming up uh here pretty soon I think. And then our Prop R continues to dwindle down. I know that was a goal of Mr. he was heading out to get a lot of those projects complete and we're well on our way to that and that that's headed down as well. Lastly, I think on my list is the self fun self in self-funded insurance fund balance. That's a new one for me. Uh increased by 1.3 million as compared to from the previous year. So that balance is healthier

020than it was that I understand. But uh still bears watching. I think we will have a couple of months here with lower uh deposits as we transition to a couple of months where really the only deposits are coming from uh 12-month employees and so when the teachers come back that that deposit will get uh higher. We'll we'll just want to keep continue to keep an eye on that as well. But excited to see that balance higher and and healthier than it had been. So any questions? >> We'll start. Miss Andrews, >> just welcome. We're glad that you're here. >> Appreciate it. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Very nice. >> We need to vote to approve the financial statements. All those in favor raise your right hand and say, "I." >> I. Motion passes.

021Now we move on to class size reports. 7.01. 01. >> Thank you for having me. Board of Education. I'm thrilled to be here to present uh this as an updated class size and staffing update. Uh for those at home, recognize that this board has seen different iterations of this slideshow. So, if it were that I'm moving through some of the slides fairly quickly, it's most over but not much of it has changed except the numbers. So with that being said just to briefly uh uh reconnect us to the work this uh historical context for this work uh started in the mid20s as a cost savings plan. Uh the move was to keep an eye out on class size projections, utilizing enrollment, utilizing projections for kindergarten, making sure that there are clear thresholds for what we

022are accepting when it comes to maximum class sizes and when uh those class sizes are all exceeding or excuse me when even one class size amongst the grade levels exceeding the max. The agreement would be that we move to add a class size. So to that end, Just a reminder of those class side guidelines per grade level. Keeping in mind that it is lower at the kindergarten level uh first through second grade then moves up to 22 uh third uh fourth and fifth which will be the topic of conversation here this evening with our elementary slides. Um those max are at 25 as you move up to the secondary level. Uh some adjustments to standard operating procedures to add a little bit of relief for our uh principal especially at that elementary level who follow

023these board meetings with great intent hoping that no uh classes are being collapsed. In fact, as you'll see this evening, the hope would be that when they are on the threshold of potentially going to another class size, it's something potentially could be done. As you'll see, there's some pinch points here in the data this evening. And then this is just a slide that was presented to the board. Again, all of this presented before ect work that has been done by my successor Dr. Fields to present a very clear standard of uh each of these grade levels and the sections that they serve will move to an additional section. So from there we go to the numbers. Uh these numbers were pulled last July 22nd so they can be offered to the board of education keeping

024an eye on these numbers throughout the summer. We see that Kaiser is in a position total enrollment of 531 students um with uh no particular pinch points. As we advance to our second slide in North Glendale, I'll draw your attention to North Glendale's fourth grade where we see three of the four sections already at the max and in fact one section away from approaching the max with enrollment. Of course, it would be that additional kid beyond that student uh that would push us over that threshold and needing that fifth section. Robinson is in a similar situation where they are standing three sections at the fifth grade. Two of those sections already at the maximum, one just one below the max total on the far right. Tilman is in his position that there is nothing in

025red. Uh their classes and their uh enrollment is there. Westchester being our last elementary school. Now that we see currently in their second grade, five total sections currently, four of those five already at the maxing that next student to push them to the max section ready to give his or her best to our second grade. Say all that to say, uh, bring this uh to an update is that we do have as you've seen these three sections where there is one student reaching the max and one additional student additional section after monitoring these enrollment sizes throughout the summer sharing these class sizes with board of education uh and and as I've learned from you know watch on YouTube you get a lot of history from these meetings uh what I what I've gleaned is that

026this board has in fact challenged the leadership at to think outside the box if there's anything that can be done. What I'm hearing from this board is that you are willing to do just that. So, a bit of an update uh for those following from home is the idea that uh as of uh now all three of these schools indeed have the space and we have built contingency plans into our budget and that I'm happy to announce that at the end of last week we received approval from the board to open up these three sections and they are currently posted. Beyond just posting in July, I'm happy to report that having worked with our administrators at these three build North Glendel and Robinson. All three administrators have some great leads. They were kind of hoping

027they would be here. Candidly, they were they were hoping that the numbers would push them to the point that they would have to move on this. But um considering that u we have indeed thought outside the box and proactively put ourselves in a position to get out and find the best and the brightest they're ready to g our kiddos next next month and ready to get their educational best that we are in a position where we are happy that these particular classes which I will say having a little bit of anecdotal information from these principles you know bring other aspects to the table for success for kids. Right. So I think we've set up I know we've set up these three success principles and I say we appreciate this uh this and just happy to

028report that this is where we stand currently. So what had been previously shared our initial updates on elementary sections with our total sections sitting at 126 update to this now these additional sections at these three elementary schools this has pushed our total sections to 129 section overall we had elementary last year right back in line I want to reassure this is a great what we do moving forward is something that I look forward to and finding ways to proactively communicate here. We are all stewards to this community's finite resources and I don't take this lightly. This is a great gesture to make sure strong start but office to get accurate proactive data so that we can be as early in this work as we can that I just say thank you and this slide offers

029a elementary student total enrollment and a closer look at elementary excuse me kindergarten sections as a reminder that we are still dealing with Dr. protect still work with Dr. forward uh little bit uh a little bit of work to do in North Glendale and Westchester to meet those projections but I can obviously show you Dr. Robinson pretty close to our reality still and as a former secondary guy I don't want to leave him until the very end but our our secondary folks as well obviously not as staffing meeting. Just wanted to share those enslarifying questions for you at this time. I want to provide one clarification just for the the YouTube recording that we did not receive approval from the board last week that there was no meeting. Um we communicated with the board our

030intent to add these positions because they were already built into the budget as part of the contingency. We were able to do that and share that information with the board, but I didn't want to be thinking there was a meeting last week. Um and Dr. Rich also mentioned the the data that we received from Mr. Coffron. Um this is a year though that we do go out for a request for proposal to look at um all sorts of providers and so that you know we very likely could still work with him but this is a year where we'll be going out and looking at um other options as well. >> Thank you uh Miss Ne. >> Great. Thank you. So really appreciate the um time and attention that's been put into monitoring the class sizes

031um the number of sections that are needed and very greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness that's been put into the decision to um not just monitor those sections closely but also to be thoughtful and creative about the approach that we're taking to make sure that for our kids um we are really ensuring that they get what they need. At the end of the day, that's what's of course most important is making sure that the kids have the support that they need um throughout the course of their education. This is one year. Um I know we've had a lot of conversations about the need to re-evaluate the process and the factors that go into d to determining class sizes. Um but we also can't just continue to kind of push it forward and say, "Okay, we'll look at

032it next year because each year counts for these kids." So, um really appreciate the leadership of Dr. Rumpus um and Dr. as well. Um and also the principles for providing their input as well as our community members. Um we've had several community members reach out and be vocal about the other factors that come into play. Um so you mentioned, you know, the interest and need for us to as we roll forward um look at how we might process those sections differently and take into different considerations. So um just want to express my appreciation for in support of that effort. Um, so don't really have any questions, but um, do appreciate the the consideration that y'all have put forward with that. Thanks, M. Heburn. >> Thank you. This has been a hot button issue for me

033for a while. So, I'm just so grateful to see just something that is common sense and I really, really appreciate it. Um, I also appreciate your comments that we're going to be looking, you know, in the future at the process and digging in deeper because I do, as as you very, you know, clearly stated and is totally appropriate that we do have to keep track of resources, which I do want to say thank you to um, Miss Andrews because she was somebody that really helped make sure that we kept those contingency positions in the budget and that really is one of the things that enabled us to do this. And so I just wanted to recognize that. Um, so I just thank you and I'm sure you're going to hear that a lot. So the

034last thing I will say is also uh thank you for skimming over slides that we've seen a million times. I really appreciate that. Um, and I think probably a lot of people do. Thank you, >> Mr. Cathy. >> Yeah, a few quick comments. Um, so I'm completely in support of this. Also looking at the SOP, some history going back to the beginning of the year. This board received many updates on the financial projections. And so I would just ask a few things as we look at the SOP that how does that marry up against what those kind of projections showed us and what some kind of semi goals were stated about FTEES and what they would look like through just normal attrition, absolute normal attrition, and where we needed to be in the future. So

035that's a component. And then um also we had some very um great discussion around kind of an ideal destination of not just numbers but needs of the kids too. That's very complicated. How do you get there? Where does the data live? How do you identify and how do you use it? But I want to make a plug for that ideal state as well. So thank you >> miss Andrews. Um, I'd just like to say thank you for um really using that SOP um to guide the change because that's how we remain on track and kind of um stay to the process and that adds, you know, we've got to have a process. And so I really appreciate that you added kind of some verbiage to the SOP. Um I would reiterate what said um with

036regards to let's really kind of try to think outside the box in terms of just all the different factors that go into um what impacts the classroom because it's not just number of kids. So um welcome and we are excited to um have all of you here. And I will just say thank you again. Having the foresight to realize there are ways to do better by our kids. And it could seem very simple. Well, we'll just add sections, but that's huge. So, thank you. And um I know our our kids and parents and teachers will thank you as well. Okay. Uh 7.02, you're still on the hot seat. The exit survey for staff. We switch things around a little bit. All right. Okay. Excited to present again uh to our board of ed this time

037on exit surveys. Uh being that we are a destination district, it is uh you know still incumbent upon us to um the relatively uh lower amount of folks that are leaving Kirkwood. Uh you know the wise, the what's the how's and how do we do better year after year to retain the good people that um may be considering other uh spaces and places. Uh we want to keep them here in KSD. So to that end, it's a it's a three-prong rationale really. uh why exit surveys first and foremost what you know why are people leaving that's the easy part right but the second part really leads very quickly into the bigger question is you know it's kind of the so what now what so I we know why people might be leaving so the people

038that are still with us let's keep them and that's about our retention and I'll be sharing retention rates with um this board in short order through a an upcoming slide I would say the bigger work the more strategic work um you know that fun balcony work we can step away and really kind of see this for how it impacts all sorts different organization uh departments uh not just in the HR field um but you know sharing this information with my colleagues on the cabinet you know what are different ways that we can share out information that's specific to a department or a building or a school how can we all be better um to support uh folks that are you know making a decision to to go elsewhere you know onboarding is you know sometimes

039a formal process um you're dealing with phenomenal colleague my name is Harris specializes that in our HR department on board can be as simple as the first kid or teacher that you see in your first day when you're nervous right so we all contribute to the onsilcractain So to that end, our our retention rates I would say are, you know, hovering where they've been in the very recent past. Uh a slight dip with both support and certified ret those huge swings. Just remind Obviously looking at wildly swinging rates that's post that's all positions happy to report don't have very hard on this shention A lot of those folks were working with us. These questions have not changed. questions. Then we move into our quality. data at home. But we really survey teachers organiz I also

040tell you'll see's a The trend of numbers So as they share that with us, one thing that I will say is the survey out to right where they typically were. In fact, chose a large percentage Typically our largest group asked about their overall experience as they broke down by race, gender, previous I said fact that some scale. reason I don't have moving quality. voice. Opportunities retirement. So that expresses one Very few people leaving us. So what are some of the trends? Beyond that saw what's best supports. proud to be a part of our qualitative feedback. There you go. >> So we look at that second leadership. So it depends right. Some people bragged about Inability to access something. And then this is There is an art that impact. We had a specific question about salary

041benefits. desire to earn more hours. Are things that could have done more effective. This one robust team another forcing additional hours coming up. plans for students. Johnny allowing teachers to attend more feedback on the way out. Any other comments? Lots of thanks to There were some obvious making sure we're assessing all positions are competitive and making sure that all organized. We've engaged in a bit of I said before. Thank you so much, Miss Andrews. >> Thank you. So one of the things that I have talked about in the past just with trust being so important when um surveys are given um and how there's how it's how the information is sought you know whether it's um you know an outside survey company or a Google doc or that kind of thing it does impact um

042the confidence in people to fill out the surveys. And so it's just kind of something that I want to bring up um and bring to your attention. Thank you. And thank you for including next steps. I really appreciate that that piece because it kind of gets us to the next Yeah. Right. Yeah. Miss Shern and I echo that. That was going to be one of my comments. um just being thank you for being open to using the data to improve. Um as with any organization and even us as individuals, we always have that room for growth and so looking forward to what it looks like next year um when you guys have a full year of being in your positions in this, you know, leadership team. So thank you, Mr. Kathy >> Sepurn. >> Um,

043I mean, I appreciate you addressing the numbers of uh associated with our black staff because that was definitely something that jumped out at me, but I did have a note in here that I I used to work with surveys, so I understand what it means if you only have one or I mean, if you have one person that identifies a certain way and then that I mean, I I understand how that skews, but um I don't know the number of people since the race demographic just showed 73% or whatever. So, I don't know if it was one person or two people or three people, but um if it weren't looking into I I that's something that was concerning. Um you know, in general ratings dipping across the board is concerning. Um I love how you've

044dug into this. I love the next steps. Um, something that I would love to see even sooner than next year is if there are any opportunities over this next school year to do a call back to this. I think something that our teachers and our community is really hungry for is to see a presentation like this and then if in two months or three months you guys have done some change or taken on some initiative or there's some new program for the teachers and we can call back to this and say we heard this and that's one of the things that led to this positive change. I think that's the kind of thing that our community really wants to see and that's going to demonstrate that we're listening and we're you know working for people.

045Um so it's not a direct It's simply just uh I I think that's something that people would um really respond to. So, thank you very much, >> Miss Neman. >> Thank you. Um really appreciate the call out to the response rate. I do agree that that's very important and sometimes nonresponsiveness or non-engagement can indicate negativity that people don't want to engage and they're like, I'm out of here. I'm not coming back to that. Um, one thing I did want to point out and kind of ask about is, um, on slide seven where you lay out the survey demographics, um, you kind of alluded to or kind of talked through a little bit, the last row that talks about the average years of experience and it appears that that's declined over the last several years. So,

046to me, it looks like the survey recipients, regardless of the number of people that actually responded, um, the the years of experience is going down for the people who are leaving the district and I don't know if that you know if you could quite call this a trend quite yet over the last couple of years but it is a little concerning to me that are we seeing that maybe newer teachers or teachers with less experience under their belt are leaving sooner than they had in the past. So that might be a watch out to look at um both the why and um is there something we need to be doing in particular to be supporting our newer teachers. So I don't I I don't expect you to have an answer to that now. Um I

047don't know if you have any thoughts on that now or if that's just something to kind of think through and see what we might do about that. >> Yeah, I would say I believe I would say the story tells I would say there is justice. Yeah. So, so I do sounds like it's worthwhile to look at whether or not this trend is kind of consistent with the trend we're seeing across the profession. And if that's the case, you know, what is what can we do? I guess regardless, what can we do to encourage and support our teachers that are coming into the profession and how can we, you know, be an anomaly there and retain our teachers, um, our students. Thank you, >> Miss Heburn, you had one more thing. >> Yeah, sorry, it wasn't

048in my notes because it was something I thought of during, but Miss Neman reminded me of it. is actually in my experience um a lot of people don't take surveys if they feel positively because they don't have something to share and they kind of think well I don't really have constructive feedback and so they don't follow through with it. Now I don't know if that's true or not but one of the things I was going to say is um I don't know what the verbiage is in the email but it it's possible that that could be looked at more so than the survey itself or um in the past we've done things where there was a we would prefer this. This is usable. This takes about this much time, but if you only want to

049answer three questions, this is this option just to get something. Um, but yeah, that's that's it. Thank you for all of this. And I also want I'm very impressed and very pleased. you've been in this position about three weeks and you have you show so much insight and thought and with next steps and everything that's really exciting. So, thank you. Um, and also when we talk about, you know, Miss Neman made me think of this, when we talk about the teachers leaving earlier, um, and fewer people going into the profession, things as simple as adding a section so you have fewer kids, that is something that, especially for a newer, younger teacher, can make a huge difference. So, it all ties together. Thank you very much. >> 703 the student discipline report. Miss Dr. Bailey.

050>> Oh yeah. >> So I'm happy to show some posit in some areas and other specific areas that we're continue to work on. So, a brief summary about this. There is still a district-wide commitment to the reduction of behavior incidents, ISS, OSS, and closing gaps among subgroups. We did see an increase in our ISS. However, as you the board and the public will see, we did see a nice decrease in our OSS. So, more students were staying in our buildings with access to services uh and fewer OSS. All of our levels do utilize restorative practices. There are still disproportionate gaps. However, we did see decreases occur in these areas, specifically around OSS. And we did for this year, I wanted to make sure that we included some data on tardies uh just so that the

051board and the public can see the large portion that takes up when it comes to office referrals um and consequences that come through. So, jumping into some of the data for explanations, the large blue bar is the total number of referrals that occur during a school year. You can see we did see an increase uh in that number from 2234 to 2772 overall. However, the um numbers that surround our black students and our students with IEPs and black students with IEPs, uh we did see a significant increase on the uh IEP side, but not much on the other two subgroups. And then the gray bar just pulled off to the side is the number of office referrals that we could figure out because some of it and I'll explain that in a moment as well.

052We could figure out that were related to tardies or skipping also known as things that are not happening in a classroom. You know that's not dealing with the teacher and their interaction with the student or behavioral pieces and the other columns that are broken down there as well. So you can see a large number of our referrals are due to tardies and the next slide will show this piece as well. What this is is the number of those referrals that turned into an ISS. So, one student could represent 50 of these. One student could represent one of these. It just depends. We didn't count one student only once. Uh you'll see we did see an increase in the number of uh ISS incidents. However, on our subgroups, we didn't see that significant of an increase

053for our black students and our black students with IEPs. We did see students with IEPs ticked up a little bit as well. And again, from what we could ascertain based on our data, 172 of those were due to tardies. The reason why I say that is because we don't have a specific discipline code that's just for tardies or for skipping. And in the policy first read that's later today, uh you'll see that there's a proposal for that to be included. So we have some principles that are calling it, you know, other misconduct. They may be calling it disrupting a learning environment. They may be calling it two or three different things um when it comes to that. Uh so the data point is hard for us to find and we want to make sure that

054we're spelling out the consequences very clearly. Just for awareness um when it comes to tardies for the high school specifically tardies one through nine just result in a warning during a semester. So it's just hey get to class let's get going. Why are you running late? Tardies number 10 through 19 result in a one-hour detention after school. An ISS doesn't start until someone's been tardy 20 times in one semester. So it's not just you know hey this is the second tardy you're going straight to ISS. So when we see that we see that that is uh you know a large number of tardies that are occurring. Now I will say any of us that have walked the high school campus know that it is sometimes difficult to go from an art class to a science

055class with a full hallway in six minutes and to get there to and from. So there's some forgiveness when it comes to that. But there's also reasons why we don't start that until we hit a large number of those tardies. Uh however when you think about 172 of those that means that at least 172 incidences of 20 or more uh tardies occurred during that time. So it is a point of emphasis for the high school they've talked about that uh especially for this year. Um we'll see how any of the uh discussion that we have at the next uh work session regarding cell phones has an impact on that in any way. I'm going to guess that our bathrooms are suddenly be going to become more used during passing periods um by our students uh

056that are having a little fear of missing out or FOMO whenever they're passing through. So um we did see an increase in ISS. Now I do want to say when it comes to students who receive ISS, they still have access because they're in the building. They still have access to our counselors. They still have access to our social workers. They still have access to our therapists. And they're still required if possible to receive their special education services. We say if possible because some of those services might be replacement curriculum or direct pullout service. Um but usually our special educators are going to meet the students in those rooms, going to meet the students where they're at. Um and in many cases um if the teachers are okay with it, our principles will even allow this

057the teacher to request that student actually come to their class during a period of time during ISS to get the instruction that they need. So it it is less um restrictive than our OSS setting. I am happy to show that there has been a significant decrease. Now, one thing you'll notice that in previous years, I put four, five or six years of data up here. Dr. Rich said the C-word that we don't want to go back and say three or four times when it comes to COVID, but um we I did go ahead because that data was so skewed, we just pulled that off and started with the first full year that we had after that um incident. So, there's only four data points that are up here, but you can see that in terms

058of OSS, very, very positive progress with that. Only 6 office referrals turned into an OSS. Um the numbers for the subgroups are all decreased as well. And because some of these students might be counted more than once, uh you'll see a slide later that shows the percent of our district that did not get suspended or that did get suspended. But I can tell you um that this is comprised of 65 students across the entire district. Good and bad. Good in that that means there are thousands who didn't receive any OSS. Um, and I won't say bad, but an opportunity for us is that with 65 students across eight buildings, there's an opportunity for us to follow up individually with each one of those students and figure out the why behind that suspension and really learn

059about, you know, making sure we don't have repeat offenses or future occurrences that are occurring. We get a little bit more tricky when it comes to some of the data that's breaking down here. So, I'll explain. The the bars on the left would indicate the percent of our district enrollment that is made up by our black African-American students. So this past school year, 8.7% of all of our enrollment were our black students. However, 30% of all of our referrals comprised of black students. Now, that is a decrease, but you can see just it's a very simplistic way of looking at it. you would assume that if it's 8.7% of our total population should be 8.7% of our referrals, 8.7% of each of those consequences. The numbers for ISS and OSS for the population did go

060down um ISS a lot specifically when it comes and and if you remember that we actually saw an increase in ISS but the percent for the our students our black students definitely went down and the same for OSS that percent went down. Again, a student may be counted more than once in this, but I'll show a chart where we just count students one time. The same sort of data explanation for our students with IEPs that comprise 13.5% of our district, but 30.6% of our referrals, uh 33.8% of our ISS, and then 53.7% of OSS. Unfortunately for for some of our students um they may have some significant behaviors that are a part of or a function of their disability um that may lead to some out of school suspensions. Those students do get additional protections

061that are in place through a manifestation process and through other special education protocols that are in place, but those protections don't start until day 10 of an out of school suspension. And so for some of our students, they may have only gotten one or two or three days. Um but our staff do provide those for them to take a look at. This is a little bit different where we only count one student one time. So, if a student got five suspensions, they're only counted once. If they got one suspension, they're only counted once. And you can see across our entire district, only 1.1% of our students had an OSS, which means 98.9% of our students across the district did not get suspended out of school during the school year. Uh, it's a great number. You

062can see that that number has gone down consistently over the last four years. Um, and I'll talk about some of the reasons why we believe that's happening. In addition, you can see that 5.2% of our black population had an OSS, much closer to that overall percentage when it comes to the 1.1 than some of those other gaps um during the ISS and OSS. And then you can see and again a nice steady decrease almost uh half of what it was in prior years. And then for our percent of students with IEPs receiving OSS, again you can see that dip down to 4.1% of all of our OSS was comprised of students or sorry, all of our students with IEPs, only 4.1% received an OSS. So each of those data points trending downward, it is indicative

063again of some of our students that get more than one um suspension or more than one office referral um comprising some of these data points. And I do want to touch point on on a couple things that we think um were working for some of these data that's here. We had an increased emphasis uh on restorative practice training. We had many many groups that went through our restorative practice trainings. We did many uh two half-day sessions and then we also did one full day session. Dr. Rich was talking about feedback. We had some feedback that said this would be great across one day. So we split it into two days. Then we got feedback on the two days that said this would be great just in one day. So we can't win either way. But

064we had a large number of our staff that have gone through that and we'll continue to offer that. Um, districtwide, we had in our districtwide PD day after winter break, we had Dr. Candace Cox come and present on trauma and on the ways that that can impact. So, all of our staff, including support staff, receive that training during that time and then she did additional follow-up with the high school. Uh, we're also working with special school district on our what's called CEIS, coordinated early intervention funds. Um we are required by uh DESIE and by the federal government for now to be able to provide some of that funding. Um and we get funds allocated for us. And so we're looking at ways to impre increase our professional development specifically around some alternative programming and specifically

065around discipline. There's a couple conferences uh that we're looking at taking a large number of folks to and then setting up some mentoring uh programs with some of our successful graduates being able to have some touch points with our students during the process just to give them some counseling and support um and somebody that they can connect with. Uh we do review this information with our principles on a monthly basis. We do give directives to continue to look at um you know multiple offenders and to really review a student and really make a a very educated decision when it comes to looking at a consequence for a student. What other ways can we look at um keeping kids in classrooms as much as possible. And I will say that the the number one thing that

066I attribute to seeing this decrease is sitting behind me. Um, our teachers are fantastic and our teachers are very strong at what they do and our teachers are very, very good at working with our students. They don't want to see students put out of their classrooms. They don't want to see students put out of the school. They don't want to see students who are not getting the support they need. But as teachers, they also need the support they need uh to be able to provide the support for those students and and to give them um adequate adjustments in class. So, some of this is professional development for our teachers as well and those had some students that have struggled. They've been very open to that PD and those experiences. So, we do want to thank

067the teachers. Uh they're a huge part of why that number has gone down. So, I'm happy to take any questions that the board has. >> Miss Andrews. >> Um I would just say thank you Dr. Bailey for all your good work. >> Um I was still writing my question. I thought it was going to Lisa, but no, you're good. Um Thank you for this information. I do want to point out one thing is language um matters and I I would like to offer um instead of us using subgroups that we use student groups I know that that has been updated in MSI um six and going forward it's just language right when we talk about sub it's below it's beneath and sometimes those little things that we don't know can help change how we um

068come forth. So that's just one thing. Um secondly, um I know we it's gone down and thank you for letting me know letting us know um some of the things that are in place, but like overall let me see which one is this like the overall OSS it's decreased um decreased last year but still um African-American students and and those with IP they still represent almost 50% or more of that number. So, um you know, you said restorative practices and those things that are helping just you know it it's been the story we've had for a number of years. So, just glad to see that the numbers are decreasing but looking forward to seeing more things being done. >> Mr. Kathy. >> Yeah. So, I think there's areas of improvement but also some things to

069celebrate with in this. So where my head goes just as a board member is kind of down two paths like the metric in our strategic plan is office referrals for African-Americans and students with IEPs and then we have strategies. So I would just offer as we look to develop the strategic plan for this coming school year and then the larger plan going forward is are we chasing the correct metric here? Also if this is so largely influenced by getting from art to science over the course of a of a school day, are we chasing the same the right metric? Because if not, if we are, then do we need to look at altering the strategies? And as you look at the strategies within our plan, I don't think anybody's debating where we're spending our time,

070right? So, just a thought. I don't have the answer there, but as we formulate next year's this coming plan that we'll be looking at here pretty soon and the larger five-year plan going forward is just are we chasing the right data point because there are some things to be >> that reflect that some of our strategies are making a positive impact. And I will say one reason why we do highlight the office referrals is under the assumption that that's where most of the consequences start. Meaning most of the kids come into the office. However, the discrepancy between the number that actually result in OSS or ISS versus the number of referrals does tell me there's a big gap in office referrals maybe here and those punitive consequences maybe down here. So in some ways it's

071good that we're not pursuing that, but in other ways they're still being sent to the office and missing some class time. Yeah, >> I do think that there's yeah, lots of different metrics that go with it. >> Just from the the board member seat, what we would like to see is either we if we're not making progress on the metric we're chasing that our strategies change or we reflect back and say we believe in this work, we do see some areas that are reflective of our strategies working and we kind of recalibrate. >> So, thank you, >> Miss Heburn. >> Yeah. Uh Ben almost said my note verbatim. Um, you know, I was looking at our strategic goals and I was matching them up with with what we're seeing here and I had the same

072thought of either we need to change our strategy or change our our metric. Um, it I I did want to say I wanted to call out the good that of anything if I could see us do any improvement with with regards to discipline. Obviously, it's decreasing out of school suspensions because that's what harms students the most. Um, so that I'm so happy to see that because we want to keep kids in school. Um, so that is great. I did find it interesting that the ISS is so much higher while the OSS decreases. It's hard not to wonder if maybe some of those numbers are just getting shifted around. Um, especially since we're seeing the referrals not decrease. So um, it's just hard to get a clear picture here. And with regards to the tardies and

073um, and kind of tied in with what Mr. Cathy was saying with with the metrics and the coding. I don't and I don't know how it works, but um I don't know if it would be beneficial to see if we're moving the dial in certain areas of issues more than others. Um another metric that I would personally be interested in after looking at this data two years um is uh reduction in repeat referrals. um since we're looking at these individual kids because I mean if if we're if there's a way for us to intervene and use restorative practices and like support these students in a way that you know we can get ahead of it. Um again that's probably looking ahead to the next strategic plan. Um, and then the other thing I would just

074say, and I think you're going to be here for the next presentation as well, but I I did notice that there was um an increase in discipline being a concern in the family exit surveys. So, when I'm pairing all this together, I'm just feeling like it seems like we need to step back and just see what we can do differently. Miss Neman, it's kind of hard to go last sometimes because everyone makes great points that you kind of check off on your own. Yeah, I totally agree with Miss Hubburn about the um interest or concerns around discipline. And so I I appreciate us having this information, but also agree that maybe doing a deeper dive and breaking it down in different ways could be beneficial for us to not only see how the actions or

075strategies are affecting our metrics, um but also if we need to be at different like looking at the coming at the strategies differently. So I think if we can maybe dig a little bit deeper by breaking the data down in different ways it could be helpful. You mentioned earlier that maybe we don't have the cleanest data on some and maybe I'm reading into it but that sometimes the data points might be difficult to really pin down. So if there's a way you know thinking things like clearer data on the type of uh discipline issues that we're actually seeing. So if there is there a way to kind of code that clear and reflect that coding in the data. Um and then also maybe breaking things out by something like age or kind of building level.

076So is it elementary, middle, high school? Um that might give us better insights into what we're actually seeing. So to Mr. Caffy's point, you know, is it kids are having a hard time getting from one class to another in a certain amount of time or is it something some bigger issue that we're >> right, you know, we're seeing trends on? And I don't know the if you had any kind of put any thought to breaking out do you have that data available or is that become >> say yes and and so one reason why on later on the first reading for the discipline um updates includes not only requirements around Senate Bill 68 for cell phone and personal electronic devices but we did want to call out tardies and skipping in particular because those are

077things that aren't necessarily connected I'm not going to say 100% not connected but they're they're they're potentially not connected to a teacher student interaction or other students in the classroom. Um, and so being able to pull that out would give us an opportunity to really dive a little deeper into that particular data in in our educ system and the way that things get coded. We do see all the comments and we do see all the reasons why students were referred. Um, so we can pull those things out. I will say some teachers, those of you that have been know this that some teachers are very verbose on their office referral and others are very succinct on their office referral. And so sometimes it's hard to get to the true um core concern of what may

078be having a kid come to class or come to the office for a specific situation. Um and and I will also say having worked with these teachers and coach these teachers and supported these teachers, many of our teachers are doing everything that they can think of to not have a kid leave class. And so really it it um part of our work moving forward with other additional strategic plans is going to be what support do the teachers need? um they're tremendous at what they do, but some of our students, especially coming out of you know what, four or five years ago now, those students are now in first grade, second grade, third grade, having grown up in a different world. Um and some are experiencing just what I like to call big emotions, big behaviors.

079Um and you'll see that that's somewhat reflected on that family exit survey as well. Um that that some of the folks believe that we're not being harsh enough in some cases. Um and others think that we're being too harsh. Depends on the situation. So, I think we can pull it out. We do have data. We can drill it all the way down. We've done a live show of of edge of Cleur in the past, but we can drill it all the way down to even the hour that it was recorded in the office and what what time it was in the building, day of the week, you know, all those things. We do see a lot happens on a Monday because they're kind of catching up from everything that happened the week before. Um but

080yeah, we can certainly break all those pieces down um and then continue to drill down to even see specific students and patterns through there as well. So >> yeah, and of course that you'd want to consider that based on the value ad. So if you're you know looking at the data and >> seeing what what really highlights things that we need to think about differently. >> Yeah. And I will say at our building level, our our buildings do have uh data teams that do that work on on a weekly or sometimes even bi-weekly basis that they are drilling down to that level with their individual grades or their individual uh teams or even during their PLC work. So our buildings are doing a lot of that work. We may not just as necessarily reflect it

081in this type of summary for you all, but they are accessing that very frequently. So >> great. Thank you, >> M. Sh. Yeah, I just real quick wanted to add to uh Miss Neman um about disagregating that data because possibly looking breaking it down by teacher because sometimes you know if there's a certain teacher that is constantly not well you know referring children like what is that's another data point to say what we need to do because learning doesn't happen absence of relationships and so just ensuring that they have that in that. Um, and then kids with the tardies, kids aren't late. I remember getting to the classes that I loved on time because I didn't want to miss something. So, even looking at those instructional practices, what's happening in the classroom um, and seeing

082how we as the adults in the space can improve. >> I agree. >> Thank you, Dr. Bailey. And I echo um much of what has already been said. I have two um I have one question and one request. I'm really happy that you have pulled out the tardies because that really clarifies things. Um I would think that maybe next year it would be good to pull out the tardies and the cell phone things. I'm sure it will work like >> I don't think we're we're going to have zero cell phone. What are you talking about? >> Just a thought. Um, and especially with the tardies because that's a really high number. Are we I know some kids are tardy because they're busy in the hall and they don't it doesn't matter to them if they're

083late. But, you know, I I had a kid who was consistently late to first hour. It drove me nuts. And then I found out that it was a problem with how he was getting to school. >> And so, you know, I don't want that kid punished because of something out of his control. And so, if we can, >> you know, look at some of those things as well. And I'm sure the grade level principles and everyone's already doing that. But I just wanted to put that on your radar. >> Um, >> and I can respond to so with our early warning system, part of that is fed by tardies and by absences and attendance. and Sarah Gibbs, who's our intensive support counselor, takes the the lead on kind of triaging all of those. And so,

084we go straight to um the support side. We're not looking at the punitive piece and digging into the why. But I agree that when we start looking at um especially where when we have late arrivals allowed for that first hour, some students think that it means later than late arrival um or they may not find a parking spot. I know that never happens at the high school um either, but I think that there are lots of factors that go into it, but I I would agree that um digging into the why is is just as important into as to other patterns that that follow. >> Thank you. >> And the cell phone piece I think you were referring to is that we're doing a policy first read of having a specific discipline code for cell

085phones. I think we haven't had that in the past, so >> it'll be fun. That's a good way to put it. >> Moving right along to 7.04, the exit survey from families. Again, Dr. Bailey. >> So, this is something that we started, I think, four years ago um when we were looking at our exit survey data. And so, we have used the same survey um for several years. I will tell you that we had the highest number of responses this year, which was 69. Um I did hear that some folks thought or some folks reported that they may have missed out last year. sometimes depending on when they transfer or the date of their transfer may impact whether they get this um and we always try to make up for it there with either the

086follow-up. So this data that you'll see so the data only includes students who started out with us last year and left either at some point or are not coming back for this upcoming school year. So they were in our schools on day one of the 2425 school year. the survey respondents uh um would include those. I backed that all the way up to somebody who might have left May 1st just because there was some concern that if someone left May 31st or they may not have gotten a survey. So, we did back that up a little bit. So when we look at the quantitative side, meaning um the the survey responses of of um dissatisfied or satisfied, that is backed up to May 1st, but the transfer numbers only includes those students who were starting

087with us um and then didn't finish the school year or are not coming back. Um you'll see the total number of transfers is lower than previous years. This does get updated for those of you that haven't seen um this or or don't necessarily look forward to the um enrollment presentation, but we will update that because there are some students that might have left today that are not a part of the presentation um for this today and then the data will obviously change. So we do break this out by the type of transfer that we have. So this is transfer out of state to a public school. So this is usually somebody that had to relocate. You can see we've always had positive numbers and and numbers that have gone down. This number I'm sure will

088change as we get closer to the start of the school year. Um, one of the things that we're required to do by the state of Missouri is that if a student leaves our school, we hold on to them as an enrollment until we get the official request from somebody else. Um, and so until we get that official request, they're still technically a Kirkwood student, even though they may have physically moved to Virginia or or Washington State, until that school sends us that request, um, we don't we don't withdraw or drop those students. One of the reasons why Desi did that is because they wanted to track by Mosis numbers, identification numbers, individual kids, and not have schools artificially inflate their uh enrollment or their dropout numbers um by just saying, "Nope, they're not here anymore."

089Or to withdraw kids suddenly right before MAP testing or EOCC testing um which some people did back in the day. And so this number I'm sure will change from two uh but that is our out of state. This is transferred to public school instate. Right now it's at 24. Again, this is likely due to somebody moving um out of the district and so those are not necessarily things within the control that they have. But this is across the state of Missouri. We did leave the one CO number in there. I may in the future pull it off, but it is very standing out. Um and that during that year we had 95 transfer to home school. many of those came back, but you can see that our home school has trended back towards what we've

090typically had anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10. Um, with homeschool students, uh, there has been an update, just so the board's awareness as well, an update when it comes to homeschool students being able to participate in athletics that used to have many more restrictions that has now been opened up um, significantly. So, some folks that maybe stayed for one specific reason uh, may look at home um, for a variety of reasons. in in there. So, homeschool numbers are down. The one we pay the most attention to because these are the these are the students who we believe still live in Kirkwood but are choosing to go to a private school um are the transfers of private schools. So, our most updated number is 72. Again, that is as of last week. That likely will

091change as we get closer to the beginning of the school year, but we have seen a downward trend um in those numbers since from a peak on this chart from 2020 and 2021 uh at 135 down. I will say, and the board will see this when I do the enrollment presentation, the majority of those transfers occur after fifth grade, before middle school, and after eighth grade, before high school. So, that's that's usually when those are happening. Um, it's not always, but that's the majority of our transfer numbers. So, the total transfers out, you can see again that number will get adjusted, but we have seen a downward trend uh during the course of several years um when we look at that. So, the good news when we have that is that we have people that

092are staying in Kirkwood, people that are moving to Kirkwood, um, and then people that are remaining in here um, as well. But we'll update this number as we get the official enrollment numbers. You can see that we have had a downward trend the last couple years in our overall enrollment. I mean, then uh, the numbers Dr. Rich presented are likely trending that way as well. Not huge, but a slight dip. So, lower transfer numbers may also be related to just overall lower enrollment. Now we dive into the questions that we've asked. And again, this this did get our highest number of respondents. 69. Not all of them answered every question. Some of them may have skipped. Um, and we group these in either very dissatisfied, satisfied, neutral, or satisfied, very satisfied. I am very happy

093to report that this year the majority of every one of these questions is skewed towards the green. Um, and and in some a change from previous years. So in our academic programs, we don't necessarily specify high school, middle school, elementary. We just talk about what's your satisfaction with their academics. And you can see very much skews towards the satisfied or very satisfied realm in this special education programs mostly neutral and that's likely due to their just not accessing special ed services. But the ones that either showed an opinion either way, it was again skewed towards the green in terms of satisfied or very satisfied. Administration, this is one that's actually improved. We don't specify district or building level, but I'm guessing most folks focus on their principles at the building level. Um although I will

094say that in a couple of the comments, not all principles were the only ones mentioned. So um myself being one. And so um and so in the administration you can see that most of the numbers skew towards the satisfied very satisfied with that. This is not um surprising because a lot of times parents will report concerns. You'll see another question about addressing your concerns. That's usually related to administration. However, very well-earned is that our our people are very satisfied with our teachers. Um you can see very much not even close skewing that direction. I don't know who thinks neutral when it comes to that, but um very satisfied overall when it comes to the teachers and the support that they provide for our students in class. Extracurriculars, it's not a deterrent for our students. There

095are very many options that are available. Again, very much skewing towards the satisfied, very satisfied. This one is an improvement from prior years. Then prior years, the red and the green were actually flipped and we had more that were dissatisfied with communication from administrators than we have this year. This year um we have much more on the satisfied very satisfied when it comes to communication with administrators um and even some of those that are neutral there. And then communication with teachers again very strong um when it comes to satisfied very satisfied discipline. You guys had mentioned earlier just questions around discipline. There's still a level of satisfaction, but you can see when compared just to the one before it. When we compare it to just the teachers and the consensus that folks have around the

096support they're getting from teachers, this one is a little bit more evened out when it comes to discipline. And there are some comments in in the uh board report or sorry, comments in the um open questions that come through specifically to discipline addressing your concerns. This one kind of goes handinhand with how they feel about administrators. Um you can see that again this was flipped last year to where the addressing your concerns was actually more red than green and this year you can see that it's uh satisfied very satisfied is higher. Um of the every chart that we'll show this one and the administrator one has the least amount of variance between very satisfied and and dissatisfied. Um so those two really play key in some cases for people in their decisions. Safety and security.

097People overall feel very safe when it comes to our schools. uh skews very strongly in that direction. I do want to specifically talk that there are three open-ended questions that are offered to everybody. Not everyone has to answer. You don't have to answer every question. So, if you're going through and doing the math, not every one of these adds up to all the exact same numbers, but there are three questions that we ask that people are um able to answer if they choose to. First one, how would you describe the Kirkwood School District to your friends, family, and neighbors? And so we get some um comments from folks that are in there. A lot of those comments were very positive things like great school district, met the needs of my kids. Um you know, wonderful

098place to be, great traditions. There are some that expressed things about not necessarily getting support or getting some of the um responses that they needed from administrators or teachers about specific issues. But that's the first question that we asked. Second question, are there specific areas of concern or ways that we can improve? Um, and so that data is shared with our administrators as well, but many of the folks in there said positive information as well, like, "Nope, love Kirkwood School District, and for example, every person in my family's gone to Biani, so I'm going to be or I, you know, I I'm have to move or we had to change for a job." But overall, the satisfaction um even in those open comments was higher than we've had in previous years. um and could be

099due to the number, could just be uh to folks um sending in their information. So, to your comment earlier, I was pleasantly happy that people were being positive about the school on these surveys because usually someone that had a great experience is like, no, I'm good. And they move it on. Others that are like, I can't wait to fill this thing out. So, um but it is open and those um we don't collect email addresses. However, there is a fourth question that if somebody wants to put their name to their comments, they can. and we did have about half the people that did that. A lot of times we'll follow up specifically um if there are concerns that we can figure out based on those comments. And then the third comment just really is is

100there anything else you want us to know? Um and and we got a lot of positive praise in a lot of those comments as well. However, there are specific things that fe people talk about u their individual experiences or maybe some overarching things. I kept the slide up about discipline because there were several comments uh about that leaning more towards um like I said earlier that that we're not being punitive enough in some cases or that we're not you know um to put it very mildly what somebody wrote I think putting a kid out when they should be put out or dealing with things um in that respect and and that they felt like there was a safety issue um or a concern around student discipline. Again, you can see the numbers of students that

101the offenses are resulting in an actual out of school suspension very low across the district. Uh but they may have had an individual experience that that created a struggle for them um or their child that was in school and they chose a different path. So, and I'm happy to take any questions. Uh one of the things that I do want to report is we do share this information with our principles. I'm happy to see that there are improvements in areas that we shared last year with principles specifically around communication. Uh that was a a point in our strategic plan as well for our principles to work on that. We even brought in um not necessarily the group you think about coming in to talk about communication, but our attorneys came in to talk about communication

102and just being um focused on what you're communicating and how you're communicating that. And I know Steph and her team frequently work with our principles around messaging and ways to say things. and her principles know they can reach out to her if they've got questions. Um, but a lot of the communication also circles back to not just what we're communicating, but how and just continuing to emphasize pick up the phone, see people in person, make those personal connections at family nights. Um, is do as much as you can regarding that communication. Um, but that was a point of emphasis from last year. So, I was happy to see that we saw improvement based on the surveys this year. So, I'm happy for any questions. >> Miss Nean. >> Great. Thanks. Um really also happy to

103see improvements in those different areas and it is cool to see that in some places what what had been negative maybe flipped to positive um kind of on the whole. Um but I do appreciate that we continue to send out these surveys and that we whether it's for families leaving the district, whether it's for um staff, it's important for us to pay attention to the feedback that we're getting and continuously seek feedback so that we can continuously improve. So really appreciate that we're doing that. Um my one question for this survey in particular is around the process for sending out the survey when a student is going to transfer. I know you mentioned kind of at the beginning of your presentation some timing around when you sign out and all that. Can you just talk

104through that process? >> Yeah, so I will say that every one of those surveys comes out directly from me. And so what um we do is I pull all of the data. I I put a date in our system that said did you leave between this date and this date? So if they left, go back to if somebody's transfer out officially said that they left from May 1st to July 1st, then we we would go ahead and they would be included in the survey. If they left on July 2nd or July 3rd, they wouldn't necessarily be included on this year's survey, but we would I would ensure that I back that up far enough next year for them to be able to provide an option to be able to do that. I've also it's not

105closed and so I'll probably circle back. Last year I went back pulled it closer to the beginning of the school year and resent it out just to give people an additional opportunity uh to provide some feedback. And so I'll take a look to see how different our numbers are between July 1st and August 15th, for example, to see how many more people maybe need to get that um and and send it out again just to make sure that people have an opportunity. We're not trying to miss anybody or purposely avoid getting any feedback, but sometimes it's just the way that the the by the time the survey goes out and when we're reporting this and when somebody transfers. The other part that I was saying is that um somebody may have already physically moved to

106another state or another district, but until their new school requests the records from us, which could be, you know, super fast or could be super slow, we keep them on our roster. So, they may not actually show up as a transfer yet until that new school requests their records from us. Um, and so that may put a delay in them being able to do this as well. >> So, does it go the survey go out kind of generally one time a year? Is that what you're saying? or do you do it kind of once a month or something? >> We haven't done it once a month. We usually do it one time a year just so we can capture the whole year. Um, but last year we did kind of a catchup of between July

1071st and August 15th and I'll probably do that again this year as well. >> Okay. Thanks. Yeah. >> Well, August 20th, whatever the second day of school is. So, >> that's great. I think that followup is important to capture people because you said there are so many life circumstances. >> Y, >> thank you. is that >> um is there is the main reason we just send that survey out once a year just the workload of it of just the management? >> Uh no, usually whenever we're seeing students that are leaving, they're usually leaving around specific breaks, meaning that they'll stay until semester or they'll stay through the entire school year. We don't have many that um leave on a monthly basis, for example. And so we could send it out on a monthly basis. Uh,

108but I would worry that maybe I'd pull somebody twice and so being able to send it out once a year. It does at least consolidate um a large time frame of folks, but there's nothing stopping us from sending it out more frequently. >> My other question would be if we're doing it once a year, are we sure we're doing it at the right time of year? Because >> I mean, what time are we sending it out in July? When when are we >> No. Uh, usually, yeah, right around July 1. I literally the second day of July, I grab that information and send it out and then leave it open till about a week ago. >> Yeah. Because I I mean, as a mother of three in July, >> you're busy. >> It's rough. Yeah.

109And I I just I can't help but wonder if if timing when it's fresh in school mode of I've made the decision, I'm leave, you know what I mean? More sure at the end of the school year. I'm just wondering if we could if and it sounds like we had good um survey responses this time, but it's just something I'm thinking about from a data standpoint. But >> beyond that, I I did want to call out um I I'm so happy always with this presentation because I love seeing our transfers out decrease. Um, it's yet another one of my pet peeves and talking points all the time in the community is this idea of people are leaving public schools and droves, people are leaving Kirkwood and droves. Um, the data is the data. It's just

110not true. Um, and so I love being able to have these cold hard facts on it. Um, so I really greatly appreciate that. >> Um, I I did um want to say so on and I know you said there's been improvement but on the questions around satisfaction with the administration and then also the communication with the administration and then concerns addressed those three slides those were the three that had more of this look to it um I went back and looked at last year's and they were similar a similar um proportion and so I I didn't know if that was something that um you know is this another opportunity where we can take this and say go back to the community sometime over the next year and I know you were just talking about the

111communication things that were done with the principles and I'm sorry I missed if that was just over the past year or if that was recently like this summer. >> No, that was based on the data we got from this survey last year. We were intentional about it during the entire school year. >> Right. Right. So yeah, just more stuff like that. um because it would just be great to see every single one of those slides be as good as what our teachers do. So that's it. Thank you, >> Mr. Cathy. Miss Shern, uh good. But kind of to piggyback off of Miss um Heburn, I know you mentioned with the administration, it wasn't separated from building leadership versus district leadership, and I think that would be a good data point to have as well. um

112just to see how people are doing and even be able to give constructive feedback to building leaders. Miss Andrews. >> So, just to kind of address that, you know, kids leaving, um, I think it's really important that we recognize that there are 110 kids that did leave. And if one kid is leaving because they they don't feel like they belong here or their family doesn't feel like they belong here, that is one too many kids. every single kid should feel like they belong here. And um I think that that is extremely important. And then the other piece to that is um when we look at Dr. um data and all of his stuff. Um he has a um a capture rate >> and that really looks at how many kids are born in our area

113and how many of those kids are we capturing in to our public school. So, it's not only the fact that we need to be looking at who's leaving our district, but we also need to be looking at are we capturing these >> meaning some that never even started with us. >> Exactly. >> So, thank you again, Dr. >> B. >> Real quick, um, and I'm really happy with this response rate, but one question I had because I was actually doing some math. Um, if we have 110 kids who transferred out, do we know how many families that is? >> Uh, I could probably look that up. Yes. Um, >> because that could even improve our response rate. >> Um, you know, if it's a family of five kids who, >> right, >> move to California,

114>> I'm doing math. Anyway, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I I will That's a great That's a great point. I'll check that out. >> 8.01 Policy Review second reading and approval. I need a motion to approve the policies submitted as presented. >> So movey. >> Second. Is there any discussion on these? I got nothing in emails from anybody. So I think we move on to a vote. All those in favor of approving the policies raise your right hand and say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. Okay. Now pol 8.02 2 is our first reading of policy draft JG-R1 student discipline and there are a couple new things here. Normally we don't have a big discussion with the first reading but I think there will be questions um about this. So the big things

115the two new aspects to this policy are standard 18 um which Dr. Bailey already referred to about the new discipline plan for excessive tardies, skipping class and skipping school. And I encourage everyone to review that. It's highlighted on the document. Um the other thing that is new is the standard 19 use or display of electronic personnel commu personal communication devices. And this is a state law. So it's not like we have a lot of flexibility with the policy itself. Where we have flexibility is with the discipline plan just like with the tardies. So I would encourage us all to review that. Um and I will say that next Monday when we all meet again um it's a work session. We will be discussing this. We will also then move into um a business meeting so

116we can vote on it and approve it. So, so it is in place before school starts. And along with that, since I know there are going to be probably some questions from the community about how this all happens, um I believe Miss Dedricch, you're going to give us next week a little preview of the communication plan and we are eager for that. So thank you. Um and that is policy. Future events as I mentioned we have a board work session on next Monday. Next week also begins new teacher orientation. August 11th is um the teacher work day. August 12th is the big opening day at the Keading Center. Um then we have staff development days. The first day of school is August 19th and we have a board business meeting on August 25th. And I

117think we're a journ less than two hours.