001to data so you know the ask of us as a board eventually will be to approve the goals right so I want to stay stay focused on that I appreciate all the detail because obviously the objectives are is the work that's going to be done um a few of these have been touched on uh looking at the goals you know if it's our ask to determine if they're appropriate and where behind them is to make sure that we can understand how they were developed and I think I share the common sentiment of drilling through the percentages to True number of students and specifically when you get into a very narrowed cohort with a specific additional variable in play and I don't want to misquote anybody but it sounds like some of those numbers could potentially
002still be in flux as we're early into the school year in terms of who fits into the original cohort so um that would be some feedback that I would share is to feel confident that maybe when we get that true number of individuals that fit into some of these narrow cohorts to really look at and say is the number of students that we're looking to get to the goal is is it aggressive enough so um that then ties into I'll Echo what Miss pengbourne shared on the yearly Trends and it'll kind of coincide with some feedback that I'll hold off until the end uh Dr Ulrich but really being able to so my understanding as a new board members were in year three right of this so I think it would be incredibly valuable again
003to reassess where we take the goals for next year to see where these Trends um are looking at um and then I believe either um Miss Andrews or Miss Pangborn talked about ongoing goals so I'm really curious and again I'll have some more thoughts to share at the end about understanding where are we trying to get especially as we reach the end of this five-year strategic plan cycle again coming back to these goals where do they position Us in terms of where we want to sit say in 2026 and just throwing out that date range there so um that's my comment on the goals right now again kind of the main takeaway there is specifically with those narrow cohorts really making sure that we understand if it does come down to two or three kids
004can we reassess and say hey I think what we can do is Maybe stretch ourselves a little bit more I think we owe that and everybody would be on board with what we need to do for the kids there I do want to touch on plc's because it is a new um um tactic that's being used and from the teacher perspective my understanding and I've heard a few times that we are carving out time so it's preserved for the teachers to meet but this is something new and my ass I guess my question is as we've layered in these plc's in order for them to be effective have we looked at making sure that with this new layered on tactic and responsibility on the teacher's perspective as anything else came out we can we can
005preserve the time during the day but time is a fixed commodity you can't create more of it what are we doing to make sure that not only these plcs are going to be implemented and effective and up and running but that we're not just layering more onto our teachers on top of stuff that they've already been asked to do and in general just we're new into this any feedback in terms of how things are going with the PLC implementation right now sure Dr Rana say we've had we've been really lucky or fortunate to listen to our principles over the past week or so about the Strategic plans within the buildings and um and talk about how professional learning communities are working in their buildings we've received really positive feedback from our principals and working with
006Ed plus and also working with their guiding coalitions to create those Collective norms and Collective agreements so as far as far as I have heard the the feedback is positive from our leadership in the district and then some buildings are further along in the PLC process than others I would say our high school is pretty up and running with with the PLC structure and process and I think some of our elementary schools are at a different place and I think our middle schools are are almost at the same at the same place with where they are in their process with their plcs and so um I think I think it's a fair question and a fair ask of us to really find out how this time is being carved out I do know that grade
007level meetings planning time with grade level teams and also faculty meetings are being used for some of this time but I think it's a very fair question to ask what's being taken off and how are we really structuring this time to make sure that we're supporting our teachers and I'd be happy to go back and also get some more of that information as well yeah thank you I put that in my email to Dave just in some of the prep questions is specifically the plan time and are we preserving that as part of this so our teachers have a lot to do I think the PLC concept is phenomenal but it is incremental in terms of the asks that we're making of our teachers and we want to make sure that they can be done
008appropriately because they're a big part of this point yeah thank you thank you Miss Bernardi I'm so happy to go last so thank you I appreciate all your work and I I kind of look at this from a different lens you're doing great things for kids and I love that you have the benchmarking and as you had mentioned also the mtss protocol but as a board we're the governing bodies so for me it's more about strategic plan mechanics because you're definitely doing amazing things with the data with the students and they're making progress but the challenge for us as board members is how we can see the growth so how do we measure it so you have your smart goals and you have things to show us and what's improving so that you can refocus
009as Mr Kathy said so we have that Five-Year Plan it was 21 to 26 so we need to every year reassess and see what we're doing and refocus at the same time so there's something that I think might help us from a governance level and we had talked about it when the strategic planning Consultants were here it was a dashboard a strategic planning dashboard so whatever we measure the very most important things there has to be a way for us to look at it as board members from higher up to determine where we're going and if we're headed in the right direction if we don't meet our goals it's okay because we can refocus so it's not a bad thing we just have to know what to do and maybe there are three students who
010need to help there's three more and maybe they're right at the edge of benchmarking maybe they're on the skater pot very close so I think that what we're doing here and I know for me I have a unique lens I'm not an educator and I do look at a lot of strategic plans but you've given us a lot of detail here and it's very good to understand and know what's happening but I do um feel like Dr Ulrich I want to request that maybe we find a format that's more easily understood for our community and for our board and when I went back to the website for Kirkwood School District it says strategic plan dashboard but there's nothing there so in March of 22 we approved that we would have a strategic plan and it's
011not it's not work for any of you guys I'm talking to Dr Ulrich now about this so but also to get a consultant to do it and help us maybe because I think there are many good things going on and I think really what the board wants I know what I want we want to improve student outcomes and what's the best way we can do that with our wonderful resources and our wonderful people that work here so that's kind of my lens on in comments so I'm not going to ask you anything about any numbers or data but I do wish because I think pulling it back and then having something like that for all of us to know where we were headed for the five years and maybe just kind of do a reassessment
012where we are and in that General format so I hope hope that's okay for my suggestion thank you um go ahead I'll make one more comment on the you know where we're going towards 2026 because I want to make sure that comments for all of us um if we haven't established metrics for that I think that's something that we all have ownership in so I just want to make sure when I say that that the contacts and the way it comes across is um as I intended so thank you huh sure so Mr Kathy I just want to make sure I've Clarity this so I think what you're you're asking is is is almost like a a multi-year plan beyond the annual plan like we would do almost like a looking for something kind of
013in between the umbrella document you know that doesn't have something like you know in five years we're going to be at this percentage by at our Benchmark it's much more you know 100 000 foot view what I think I'm hearing from you is along with the annual goals maybe I want to use it with a small P but a projection to say if we reach our goals at the end of this year this is where that momentum would take us is that is that a good summary of what you're asking for um yeah I think and again if if that work hasn't been done I'm familiar with the Strategic plan but the metric component of it um I don't see so if that's work we need to do I think that's something that could be
014a takeaway for all of us here and say again back to judging whether or not these goals for this year are appropriate or they're positioning us specifically for where we want to be with each sub-component goal in say 2026. okay that hasn't been done yet I think that's something that we all need to take as a takeaway yeah that definitely would be a new expectation but certainly if that's something that the board would like us to include in terms of in terms of our planning I I think that's something our team could produce absolutely and I just want to Echo yes Mr Cafe I think that is a great idea and which it might be time to reassess again and look at those goals because it is getting close to 26 again but um that
015way we know where we're headed and we'll have all that work done in advance for the next round and I think to that point just thinking going forward with the end in mind so what is your vision like in 2026 what will we have accomplished and then we can backwards think of how we need to get there in the next wow almost two years because 24 is almost here and then um I would like to say just as an educated plcs can be great um if done with Fidelity um and making sure that yes teachers do still get their plan time but making sure that they're intentional and they're looking at data and that they're moving and so coming from a district that has weekly plc's for every subject they can have a great impact
016on student learning and student outcomes so I didn't want to say that um I did have a question because I know you guys mentioned Ed plus is helping out with the pocs and then link is doing things with teachers do we have a plan like when those um Consultants leave the district how are we equipping our teachers or our current staff to be able to sustain what has already been put in place and give them those leadership opportunities I think of feel like I've asked that before it's a great question and again a fair question um I think we are looking at how we can Implement job embedded coaching um with and without having the consultancy of other companies that requires resources and we're looking at where those resources come from are we pulling on
017our teachers to be teacher leaders and to support the learning of other teachers are we looking at potentially maybe instructional coaches I mean we're looking at all of those different opportunities and trying to be very thoughtful and very research based and really thoughtful about the resources that we have in the district as well and moving forward we have a lot of research and we have a couple of experts in our district who are our professors at local universities who really talk about the instructional coaching piece and and work on that so it's just it is something that we are definitely looking at but want to be really thoughtful about and have our research together and our data together um with that as well and so yes Mr machine you definitely have asked that question previously
018and I want to make sure that that is not falling on deaf ears ultimately and going back to Mr Kathy's comment about um the the what is all on our teacher's plate um we are absolutely committed to job embedded coaching um however there are opportunities that we are taking specifically to grow our teachers an example would be and I'll let you expand on a little bit if you would uh Dr granna the instructional leadership Cadre uh that uh technology Cadre excuse me that is exactly for that in terms of teachers helping other teachers grow in a particular area and so I don't know if you want to just give a couple of sentences on that you talked a little bit about that as a strategy but if you want to expand on it just a
019little bit I want to make sure that we are hearing you and as a board that we do want to grow our teachers As Leaders at the same time there is a there is a there's a finite amount in that bucket that teachers can pour out and thankfully in our district we have the the resources to bring experts in for some support whether it's lit link or whether it's our PLC coaches so again I want you to expand just a little bit on that to show areas where we are in fact reaching out to our teachers to help our to help other teachers grow specifically in this case in the area of Technology sure um our teachers are going to collaborate together across the district and that technology Cadre were relying on our Apple education
020resources and experts those are provided for our district because we are one to one in an apple district and our teachers will be leaders in the technology and educational instructional practices will work together to really support the teachers in their building and help them grow in those areas so not only will they be leaders in the building and themselves and in the district but also working with other teachers to provide those instructional resources as well I would strongly suggest looking into those instructional coaches I think that would be a game changer as well for our kiddos all right so I think the ask from the ones um Dr Bailey is to uh from what I understand and Lord correct me if I'm wrong create a graphic of trends of cohorts over time um we like
021the number of students represented well I think we'll look at Miss locks Dr lacks uh Miss Miss Lex um form that she sent us and see if that answers our questions and if not just send them in to me and then I'll forward her or Dr ulick um and then a format that's easier to understand and then let's establish where we want to be in 26 and where we need to adjust or just look at the Strategic plan do a check-in basically there we are am I correct in that did I leave anything go I just want to add back in about that strategic plan dashboard if you could add that as well yes I have that too yep okay yeah that's fine all right so in the interest of time um I think that
022we will uh because we do want to leave uh a ample time for our kecc colleagues you might be wondering why they didn't go first and why they're having said well because you will see that they're um that what they will talk about is actually aligned directly to the district's strategic plan um so we did uh so thank you for hanging in there give a wave back to our kec friends um so what I'll do is uh What uh Mr and I were just up here talking about is uh so my team as we look at um uh the blue uh the priority objective what what we'll do is let's just highlight just a couple of those strategies and then um specifically I do know we've had some questions that were generated in last board
023meeting uh specifically on how we're going to hold our administrators accountable for the work that they're going to do specifically in trying to ensure that we have as diverse a staff as possible so we won't go through each of these but I would ask that especially don't want to go short shrift especially to our diversity equity and inclusion goals but we'll just ask you to excuse me Dr Mapp if you would kind of pick out two or three of those that you feel would be representative of the work that you're doing and then the we'll we'll send it over the board for questions we'll try and save a little bit of time here all right thank you um so particular to the board in terms of what we have here and strategies for diversity Equity
024inclusion um I would guess I would mainly highlight a lot of work that we're doing in there it was sort of practice um we really are focusing on the pieces of the social discipline window and really focusing on that with model and doing things with staff as opposed to four two or not and in terms of that and then also the fair process and having that explanation expectation Clarity and engagement and so really seeing a lot of work in terms of that happening in terms of Staff culture we've already presented two staffs across the district and we'll continue throughout the next couple of months to present opportunities for staff to really pay attention to how they talked about earlier that PLC model how those plcs are able to really reflect on being able to repair
025harm and also but also to be proactive and and collaborative in the work that they do by focusing on their relationships as staff and so we have a pre and post survey we with that that'll be a big part of that really great work at the high school in terms of keep healing and overcoming struggles that's what the chaos there stands for it's an organization that will be coming in and working with our students within our within that population our black and African-American students to really focus on a sense of belonging as we've seen a very just a big discrepancy in terms of that belonging piece particularly for black and African-American students at the high school comparative to all students and so that's a big Focus for us as well as we move through the
026rest of 2.1 again I would say much of it you've seen and or know a lot about I would highlight real quick 2.1.5 and 6 looking specifically at our office referrals for black and African-American students and students with IEPs really working collaboratively with our special school district administrators in our special school district departments attending the disproportionality summit to learn more about how we in other districts can do the same aim and do similar work collaboratively to be able to approach those those problems and and really move towards that restorative and problem solving in terms of that and really really looking at um some Universal practices and checklists Universal checklists and thinking about our ISO model that many are familiar with so thinking about our instruction our curriculum and our environment as all the things that
027we need to adjust before we look at how we adjust kids it's not always about the learner and the kid that needs to be replaced that needs to change what is about our instruction our curriculum and our environment and the other piece that many forget about it that isn't clearly there but relationships and so some people even talk about it as a rifle or add in that R because the relationship piece is the most important piece of that and so in terms of that really looking at and thinking even about our personal biases and thinking about how we show up in a space and how that impacts how we impact our kids and so looking at work by zoretta Hammond conversations at work that that is out there from Goldie Muhammad and Dr patina of
028love as we think about the leadership think about how we take the things that we learn from leadership racism Institute as this team um really incorporating that into how we coach our teachers and how we continue to move forward to make sure that we are really expecting that we acknowledge that as we show up for our kids so that's a really kind of a brush through most of 2.1 and a little bit of 2.2 as well I'll let Dr Bailey highlight a couple things there and then Dr Fields to really bring it home in 2.3 yeah 2.2 a lot of this is focused on ensuring and expanding opportunities for our students and so again circling back to the ACT preparation we talked about that earlier a couple highlights that I want to bring up really
029looking at increasing participation for our family in different events you'll actually hear a little bit about that tonight from our Pat team and from KCC and looking at different programs like our Tech program our caps program early college program dual enrollment dual credit AP honors just really expanding those opportunities for advanced learning experiences for our students and then you'll also see that there's a goal on there about decreasing the percentage of kindergarten students scoring is high risk that speaks a lot to the early programming and you'll hear a little bit more about that from KCC as well but it also ties in some of the summer work that we did regarding the Jumpstart program and really getting our kids off on the right foot when it comes to the academic side but also the social
030emotional pieces that our students get to practice as well and I do want to give a chance for for Miss lock to highlight number five which is increasing the percentage of black African-American Hispanic students in the gifted program because our our gifted team did a lot of exciting work last year yes thank you we do I'm excited about this as well uh the gifted team has spent a lot of time um and I believe you guys saw some of this um earlier but just spent a lot of time looking at our practices and our process as we're they're a very very reflective group and always trying to think about how we can do better and so this year we specifically have a goal um to increase those numbers we've adopted a new screening methodology and
031are re-looking at some of our eligibility criteria to make sure that we're um not inadvertently making it difficult for groups that historically have not been part of the gifted program to be part of the gifted program and I'll go into um 2.3 as it relates to being very intentional when I say being very intentional taking a step back I'm proud of the work that has been taking place in this particular area specifically when we go back to the 15 16 school year in the document for the equity task force report even going to 2018 when we look at the governance plan the notion or the statement with regards to Recruitment and Retention of Staff has been the conversation as we go back to different board meetings Etc that feedback having conversations with k-tock building principles
032Etc we are excited about 2.3.2 which is updating the administrative evaluation system to include creates and maintains a system of recruiting and retaining minority employee groups and and I stopped there because the way that our evaluation system is set up it is based off of having evidence to support and when we talk about having intentionality in a system quite frankly as an administrator in the district we should be able to bring up different levels of evidence to show what are we doing as it relates to creating a system of Recruitment and Retention I'm looking at all of the language that's currently within the rubric I do believe that particular item will help us move forward in the area of retention as well as recruitment minority employee groups and then the 2.3.3 which is to oversee
033site-based plans for administrators I am excited to engage in the work with my colleague to the left Dr map we've already started to schedule those meetings we've already started to have those levels of conversations because at the end of the day inspect what you expect and what gets measured gets done and I think this is the manner in which we are ready to take the next step and when we say take the next step that's not just with regards to this strategic plan that's going back and doing a high level of research on both myself on Dr map and many of our predecessors I'll turn it back over to Dr Orrick to see if he wanted to add anything yeah and just uh and before we open up the questions for um our priority goal
034area I want to expand just a little bit because I do know that we got questions at the last board meeting and had some follow-up was specifically with regard to that and working with our administrators first and foremost as we have gone through our strategic planning meetings with our principals I have asked them if they didn't include to definitely specifically include first and foremost what is the work that we are doing to retain our staff of color because if we do that if we increase that sense of belonging and welcoming among our staff of color they will be our best recruiters for other staff of color that is just that that's a fact and so that is what we are prioritizing and what our administrators have heard a very clear message from me um our
035data shows and I shared this with the Board of Education a couple of weeks ago that we're having a deeper applicant pool of of of applicants of color that is not translating to the final hiring process and what I want to make sure everybody's board members uh my administrative team and our administrator we will never compromise on hiring the best person for our students period however when we see a an increase in our applicants of color and we aren't seeing a proportional increase in our hiring of Staff of color there's a barrier that exists and we have to acknowledge that barrier and Dr Fields Dr Mapp have made a commitment those met those meetings are already scheduled the first round of meetings are already scheduled um with our administrators one-on-one with our administrative team to
036engage in that reflection um and and really challenge uh any implicit bias that might uh that might exist in that process and so when you ask how are we going to hold a value excuse me our administrators accountable for this that process is where the where the root of the accountability will come from and that is the message that I've I've had of consistently since this summer with the administrative staff um and and going through that reflection in in a professional way but in a way that shows vulnerability is is something that I have as part of the work that I have set as stated as an expectation for our administrative team along with the other expect station that I have said very clearly is that either this summer in 2024 or in the summer
037of 2025 all of our leadership will take uh will attend the leadership and racism Institute the four-day Retreat I'll call it that my team we started by modeling this summer members of my team were able to attend that it was very impactful I'll be happy to talk with anybody I know we wanted to save time but here I am monologuing I'm sure and I apologize but this is one where in a system that we have where our principles are do the primarily do the hiring of the Personnel in their in their buildings this is work that we need to go through in reflective practices that we need to um that we really need to train our principals to go uh to go through because just like we talk with students we want to remove all
038barriers that we possibly can and can control this is another barrier that we are seeing and we need to get to the root of it Mr Sherman thank you Miss Bernardi oh just very quickly I just just highlight you've got collaboratively partner with local organizations to provide connection opportunities with an intentional Focus and I really I really like to see that and I know that you probably have a lot of detail with that because I'd like to see you actually mention who you will partner with and what the outcomes will be which I know best for kids but I think thank you for putting that in there and I'd like to see you know I'm sure there's more details on that and anyway the board can help you we're happy to be out in the
039community too Mr Kathy yeah so um retention is one thing and I'm familiar with systems where evaluations measure turnover and retention we we certainly want to get behind that um what I'm hearing though is that the evaluation specifically for principles will include showing evidence that they have they have individually moved the needle of hiring a more diverse staff and what and that evidence will be actual numbers of hires and the the breakdown of it no I didn't I did not mention anything with regards to hiring um okay we work very closely with legal and we don't want to get involved in quotas numerical values Etc two examples I will provide in terms of strategies when we think about opportunities we have the um k-talk networking and recruiting event evidence to support that would be I
040showed up to engage Etc when we're talking about having conversations with the retention as well as with the recruitment piece is I engaged in state interviews with staff to see what can I do I've looked at the exit survey data to engage so those pieces are strategies we want to we don't want to be involved in anything with regards to pressure for a particular quote or anything like that because that's not defendable for our legal team okay so the evidence then would just be participating in like for example the hiring fairs what would be other examples of the higher Affairs as we what started off as um Equity within the interview process has led to the standard operating procedure and so ensuring that when it when it relates to bias within the interview process so
041to speak as it relates to making sure that we are working to have a diverse group when we are engaged in interview processing those are examples of strategies and things that we can show evidence to support that we are working to create a system um to recruit and retain staff okay and then Dr Oak I think he referenced a deeper applicant pool which if we feel comfortable with that I'm I'm thrilled to hear that but we really feel that and I mentioned this more in the context of teacher shortage and labor shortage in every industry that you work in do we feel and maybe this is a conversation for a different day that we are maybe outpacing our calm competition but neighboring districts and that we're really experiencing a much deeper applicant pool amongst all
042areas of Staff I'm really just curious um I'll go ahead and take that although you said Doctor oh Rick I think he's getting a little rest having said that um bring in the data I want to be clear we are having less candidates for positions across the entire field having said that the percentage of candidates that are black African-American candidates of color that percentage is up so it's more or less both data points we have to look at as we try to make some data inferences again across the entire region as well as across the entire field the number of individuals going into education is down we haven't seen it at the magnitude of many of our comparison districts as well as St Louis County St Louis city et cetera however when we look at
043just the percentage of Staff or applicants of color that percentage is up okay appreciate the clarification thank you absolutely thank you for the question Mr Caffey Miss Andrews structured Dei training for our teachers and administrators I think um in terms of what we really focus on for our teachers administrators it really is around that belonging piece um I would say that there's like a one training I think that we look at and really talk about the focus on individuals and humanity and dignity honoring um and so I wouldn't say it's a training no but it's not a specific thing that we have now so I guess my question is if we have a new teacher what training in the area of Dei does that new teacher or administrator receive and I think that that yes
044back to the restorative practice piece I talked about before that's a big piece again that area of focusing on belonging and bias those are bigger pieces that come about as specific pieces to it but it's it's a it's a multitude of things it's a reflection on yourself as an individual and how you're going to show up in a space and how you're going to do what's best for kids recognizing how the things that you've experienced in life impacts what is best for kids so I think that overarching all of that is really what comes to play in terms of what that looks like but I mean again we're sort of practices belonging and overall focus on being able to I'm sorry so that Vector trainings all those things are all pieces of it but again
045it's it's a model that certainly is not limited to a certain specific training I wouldn't say all right and Dr Grant I do know that one of one of your many responsibilities is of our new teacher orientation week and I'm sure you have something to add with regard to uh intentionality with our with our new teachers sure we always partner with Dr Mapp and those who have served in his position and we also partner with Miss MC woods and Roberta comes in as well and supports us with really talking through the importance of affinity groups and Kirkwood teachers of color and what that represents so our first year cohort is more focused on culture and climate and instructional practices in the district but our second year cohort is really focused on culturally responsive teaching we
046use Dr shiraki Holly's philosophy and principles and we also talk about the history and the context of of Kirkwood and also the mirrors and the windows that we see in our district and um and and the work that we are doing day in and day out as well so I would say our second year cohort is really focused on culturally responsive teaching and Dr sharaki Holly's work are you good okay Miss Pangborn no okay sorry uh Mr boyco all right real quick when we were talking about the ones uh Dr Ulrich you mentioned you know what the data can we attribute the growth that we see to what we're doing uh I know in one of the recent meetings we saw data about uh what I would consider significant reductions in turnover for student for
047teachers and staff and uh increases in satisfaction as well have you reached a point where you can attribute those movements to things that we've been doing in the district specifically with regard to retaining teachers of color I would point to our overall our overall measure that we had with regard to retention I think we very very much from the feedback that we've gotten was our focus on uh was our focus on belonging and wellness last year we heard a great deal of not only anecdotal feedback but feedback that I shared with the board specifically with regard to survey data that we that we received after each opportunity that we had and so we do attribute that specifically to that retention level we do attribute that specifically to that focus on welcoming and belonging and wellness
048consuming and belonging um thank you for the intentionality that I see in all of these strategies and goals I really like the emphasis on family participation that is so important if we can you know as your as you know start that as young as possible I also want to thank you for revamping the gifted Assessment program that's that's really really important and to go back to the shiraki Holly I know a number of years ago before covid um he he came and did some workshops in the summer and I would encourage you if you think that is something that we should do again to bring that to the board to ask for the resources as a member of the Human Rights Commission I attended that and was blown away and I just think you know
049as many new teachers as we're getting who haven't had that experience with him I would encourage you if if you think that would be important bring it to us thank you um Dr Grana good question so you mentioned the cohorts are those new teacher cohorts like the first year second year yes that's correct so first and second your teachers are we support both cohorts okay and then is there any support for our teachers who have been in the district kind of to what I think what Miss Andrews was kind of trying to allude to was about the like is there um plan or a road map for our teachers if this is truly you know a focus of our district of where we're trying to get people to go what's the end outcome because we're
050doing great things there are lots of buckets being dropped in you know I love um the intentionality behind everything but what's our big picture I guess and I could add in like uh like Dr Granite was saying as far as the new teacher first and second year one particular piece that we have is we've been engaged with the partner and consultant that's worked specifically with that Serena Hammond work and so she has worked with our principals presented to them and she is the one that will be presenting to those first and second year cohorts as well as far as our buildings we really rely on the building principles to guide what their building needs so again it looks like those the SEO coaches and myself going in and doing the restorative practice training it looks
051like one day a few weeks from now I'll be at North Glendale talking about Dei and the entire building through all their plc's for a day so it's things like that is ultimately what it looks like in action um restorative practices Focus belonging focus and again focused on that work like I said with Loretta Hammond with with Goldie Muhammad and really focusing on what impacts there are for impacting student outcomes and letting that that dry drive again what's needed at one building may be different than what's needed another and so we let that be driven more so by individual staffs and you say you're leading the restorative practices myself and the SEO coaches have been leading a lot of the work with that and so we had an opportunity last year we were officially trained
052through the iirp and so we have we have training to be able to do the facilitate training for others throughout the district and so that includes hopefully an academy that we will be starting this year similar to what Ed plus has historically done we now have capacity in our district to do as well great we can get make sure okay so um we're holding principals accountable for for um Dei but but I'm I'm just wondering again what training and I guess kind of it concerns me a little bit if we don't have specific training for them um yet they're being held accountable and so um I think that it might be um helpful to have a um structured approach to absolutely and that looks like again this summer they got training specifically with with our
053consultant in such an area of the reserve the Hammond work they will be participating in Leadership Institute over the next couple of Summers they'll be meeting with Dr Fields and I to support them throughout this entire year so it is not something we're putting them out there to go do on fix that and figure out on your own but that's our support to be able to do that work as well and the only other thing uh Miss Andrews that I would like to add is being incredibly responsive to what we're learning in terms of what are we doing well and where some of the gaps and so we don't want to go in with preconceived notions as it pertains to the level of support that our principles and administrators need and I know Mr Kathy
054talked a little bit about principals but the way that it reads is administrators so that's administrators across the board so we want to make sure we're being responsive to their needs in addition to going through some of those things that we see have worked such as what Miss Motika mentioned we want to take all of that feedback and then adjust accordingly so I just wanted to add that as well okay correct no okay all right well for the sake of time I know we have two additional ones um and so since we're not voting tonight we're going to save three and four for next Monday's meeting um I'll ask that the board like if you have any additional questions about specifically three or four um email those to Dr Ulrich and he'll get them to
055the appropriate staff member and then we can come prepared and ready to hopefully vote alrighty thank you all for all of your work all righty next up oh we need to extend as we shift gears 5.02 kec overview come on up welcome welcome thank you very much uh Miss Andrews and I want to make sure that I take the opportunity uh before I let's just hold on how many maybe we should have voted to extend um president shern I apologize for that I like I said it's at the end of a long day uh for all of us and so I want to always take the opportunity to to celebrate uh the folks that are coming before us and and we are in a pattern now that we started last year when we're starting with
056kuc kucc again and before I turn it over to Dr Rose and uh and have her uh introduce the folks that she has up here with her I do want to take the opportunity as always board members are invited to be in any of our buildings and what I tell folks if you want to walk away happy and if you need a pick-me-up you need to go to kecc it is an amazing place where amazing work is being done and I'm just going to turn it right over to you Dr Rose thank you for your support Dr Bailey as well because I want to just make sure that you have all the time that you need to highlight your programs that you oversee Dr Rose our team couldn't be good evening thank you so much
057for having us with you this evening our team couldn't be more excited to be here to reflect on our prior school year and then share some of the aspirations we have as we look to the 23-24 school year tonight during our time together we'll be touching on upon what we call All Things kecc we'll be doing an annual program update for Adventure Club summer Adventure ecsc parents as teachers and our preschool programs we have a lot to cover and assure you we will be mindful of your time we are the end of your evening so we will try to be brief um when you look at this picture this is us it takes over 150 talented staff and team to come together to just make things happen for over a thousand students each and every
058day and we couldn't be more fortunate to have just a dedicated team who's here to do the right things for kids and I just need to pause and mention that three of those team members are sitting right here beside me and I like to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves and and the ways in which they support all things kezc hi I'm Penny Chastain I'm the program coordinator for parents as teachers and I'm Mary Pat blastowitz I'm the assistant principal at the Early Childhood Center I'm Jen Hahn I'm the program manager management and no doubt about it it is a Dream Team to work with every single day and so I couldn't be more lucky to get to work alongside them when we thought about how to truly share with you what we've been
059up to for this past year we put our heads together and decided that a 45 second just video and kind of walking back through some highlights of our past year together might be the best way for you just just take a sneak peek into what we're up to each day across the six campuses we have the opportunity to be a part of [Music] given we are in so many places and spaces we wanted to offer you a quick view into our various programs and offerings across the past year no matter the program it is our hope that you will know our core values shining through as you witness our Learners and our staff in action the positive impact of fostering connections through authentic relationships intentional offering of open-ended opportunities to spark creative thinking in students
060of all ages increase learner engagement through an array of Hands-On play-based experiences the power of collaboration and the importance of experiencing joy and wonder in all that we do across our various environments in reflection it was certainly a year filled with many magical moments from our team to each of you thank you for your support of all that we do all year long and truly thank you for all you do to support us all year long we couldn't make possible what we have the privilege to do for families each and every day without the support of each of you sitting here tonight as we start our presentation we would like to just cover a few celebrations within each of our programs you'll note we've highlighted four different celebration areas on each slide relative to each
061program for the sake of time we're going to highlight two of those this evening but welcome questions around any of them so when we think about Adventure Club one of the major celebrations we have is just increased enrollment there is just an increased demand for Adventure Club our before and after school program year after year when we came back and restored Services after the pandemic I think the peak of that year was like a little over 490 students that were enrolled in our program and has just grown incrementally with each year and now that we're in our third year restoring those Services we're already sitting at seven I believe 703 students as we sit here today and so so you know that really is just continuing to tell us that we need to be ready
062for families to just continue growing our enrollment together when we think about when we resume just assume responsibility for Adventure Club the largest site I believe back in like 2009 was around 40 to 50 students and so it's just really grown year over year uh Kaiser is our largest site with 155 students enrolled at that campus and Westchester is trailing closely behind with 152. every one of our sites has an enrollment of over 100 students each day the second point of Celebration that we like to just really focus on and I know some of you in this room have been impacted by this you have felt just the stress of being on the wait list for rb4 and after cares program and so what we're really wanting to celebrate tonight is just minimal wait list
063and also maximum Financial Partnerships in 2223 we had 96 students on the wait list and when we started this school year we started with around 28 and those 28 students and families were students who expressed an interest in August and as of sitting here today we're just so pleased to say that there's no wait list so that's really a huge huge celebration and you know just noting Jen and her team and just how hard they're working to serve families safely and and we'll just keep building and responding to the need in our community as long as we have space and can continue to hire hire this staff to do that um another really big celebration within the program not only do spots impact access and our ability to like staff the program also Financial Partnerships
064impact access and so really important to our team is is looking out how can we minimize any barriers and so we have a local sliding skill process that we make available to families that might need a financial partnership to be able to attend Adventure Club and we're pleased to say that within the Adventure Club program we have an unlimited amount of financial Partnerships so families Express a need and desire to apply and they qualify we meet them where they are based on that sliding scale and so right now at this time we have 26 Financial Partners ships actively in place with families and we're ready to just make adjustments to Partnerships and tuition across the year should something come up that a family would need that so those are two points of Celebration within that
065program moving on to our parents as teachers um program one of the points of Celebration we'd like to highlight is just increase Staffing and retention so last year we served over 300 families within the program and that equated over 1700 visits so it's a lot of being able to spend time in in the homes of our families were just really powerful relationships and Partnerships start that I think last throughout their whole career here in Kirkwood when we look at um previous the previous year that was a 12 increase in visits and so we're excited to just continue to make ourselves more accessible to families when we look at a waiting list we had a waiting list around 48 families back in April and when we put that data together for our presentation we had four
066families on the waiting list and so we're really aggressively trying to make our services available to families and we're actually now actively recruiting participants within the program we're pleased to say that we only lost one parent educator across this past school year and that was due to a relocation and beyond that we have expanded our team of parent Educators from 9 to 11 and so we're hoping that just means just more and more accessibility and availability to our families and when we think about another point of Celebration intensified screenings we really revamped our screening process to make it more child-centered and more play-based and conducted within a group dynamic so our in our um screening team can stand back and watch the kids in a more playful environment we feel that's just best for the
067child Beyond just changing our screening process we restored screening Partnerships with seven of our community preschools so obviously that allows us to just be supporting more Kirkwood kids and so we doubled our screening efforts we're around 175 the year prior and close to 350 this past year when we look at students being referred for further screening evaluation we had around 50 students that were referred in some area of development it could have been Vision hearing you know any of those areas and 15 went on to go through a more robust Early Childhood special education referral process and last in the way of celebrations in terms of our preschool and ecsc celebrations one of the points that we like to highlight is just the Panorama topic ratings that we received this past spring 2023 from our
068families they rated us over 90 percent favorable in six categories and so we really see that as a point of Celebration especially around school climate so we had almost two years where families couldn't even come into our classrooms or our building and so they really trusted us but you know it left space to really work on forming that relationship and positive just connection around their child's School experience so we've been working really hard at trying to um just improve in that area and it's a real really a testament to our teachers and their investment in those relationships daily as they're engaging and interacting with our families and we've just really also try to increase frequency of families being in our school and having positive and joyful experiences together another point of Celebration Within in our
069case he's sorry within our preschool and ecsc program really around our benchmarking scores so when we look to Spring of 2023 we had a we had 108 students participate at the 45 age level in our benchmarking process and when you look at just percent proficient or advanced in four different areas we had over 90 percent proficiency when we look at just how our students are doing and we really know and hope that those scores that we're seeing and the results in the data just helps them have a more seamless transition to kindergarten and carry over those skills in academic pre-literacy and pre-math knowledge to that next setting in kindergarten and so while there are definitely celebrations within that we were really focused as we looked in next year to continue increasing the number of students
070that score a profession or Advance because we know we want to get all students to just reach that goal line and so with our PLC model that I know they talked about earlier in the Strategic plan process us we're excited to be embarking on that Journey at kecc and really holding ourselves accountable for the success of all students so while we have a lot of things to celebrate tonight we also have a lot of ways in which we're looking to grow as we look to next year and at this time I'll let Mary Pat highlight some of our action items around the Strategic plan objectives okay I promise to be really quick um and so what we've done is just highlight for each of those programs within our program some of the objectives that we'll
071be working on this year toward the proposed District objective the way it relates to that and so for the first one we just wanted to highlight the kec objective to adopt the my igd's benchmarking system we have been implementing a multi-tiered system of support at kecc for many years now I think over 10 years now and from the benchmarking we've been doing related to our learning objectives we've generated data related to that and we've used those data to create local Norms my igds which stands for individual growth and development indicators is a program that will allow us to compare to National norms it will allow us to actually also use those aggressive growth targets that are consistent with K5 and it'll just be generally a more robust benchmarking system that is more in alignment with
072our K5 counterparts in terms of the focus on Equity diversity and inclusion we'll highlight our adventure club objective for the year and as Mandy shared we have been able to financially partner with families that want to financially partner with us to access our before Aftercare program of Adventure Club this year our goal is to meet with Mr romay and look at the possibilities of expanding those financial Partnerships um to the summer adventure program as well in terms of belonging you know at KCC we have a bit of a unique attendance schedule or hours of attendance for our students and so we have unique structures in place to allow us to meet with our staff it's difficult to meet with the entire staff together so we kind of break that into small groups the way we
073do that right now the structure allows for us to meet with age levels once a month so that the teachers have an opportunity to collaborate across an age level our goal this year would be to also add a monthly vertical team structure that would allow teachers to collaborate across age levels and then we're also committing to a monthly school-wide opportunity for staff to engage with each other whether that's something that we're doing within the workday or outside of the work day and finally in terms of community relations we wanted to highlight in our parents Teachers Program last year our parent Educators started a podcast called skip pop which stands for supporting Kirkwood and parenting at home or preschool and um the first season was a great success they generated the topics that they talked about
074in their podcast from parent need that they had heard from parents and that we had heard at kucc as well the goal for this year is to launch into season two which is super exciting of Skip Hop and truly that will just expand the library of resources for parents and although a lot of the topics are specific to Early Childhood they're also just some general parenting topics that I think would be great resources for Kirkwood parents district-wide and then we just wanted to say thank you thank you for listening tonight and also just thank you for your support that allows us to do the work that we do thank you well look at everybody smiling all right I'll start with who did I start with last time Montica you have any questions comments no this
075is awesome we go not a question but I feel compelled to make a comment in the last week I've had two meetings with parents who about other issues but they both happen to be parents of uh alumni of KCC and Mr Kathy was with me with one of the meetings and both of them gushed about the experience and Dr Rose do in particular so I appreciate that thank you Miss Pangborn no she can't breathe poor baby uh Miss Andrews this is amazing um you know when you look at this you guys have been busy and have done a lot of stuff I um just appreciate that you have really come out of covid and have grown in every single area I also really appreciate you offering the sliding fee I think that that's that is
076important because it it can be a true burden on parents so thank you for all your your hard work and go KCC thank Kathy just thank you and Mr boyko uh stole my word so thank you very much Bernardi it's because I want to thank you for your collaborations in the community and I was at the meet and part neighborhood Improvement Association backpack giveaway when I ran into Penny you are out there you're with people and thank you for the languages that you do the screenings in and I met an amazing person that you work with and most of all I want to thank you for letting me play with the snow because they have this really great snow but you and and also want to compliment your objectives very nice and measurable great job
077thank you and thank you all for this I have a question though about the Skip Hop Is there a link on your website like can we view that okay okay there is a link on the website we also have um penny has she's the technology genius she has QR codes and so the other idea is that as we see these topics they do tend to kind of cycle around um we have these QR codes that we can kind of post on our campus so that his parents are dropping off like hey however your morning drop-off's going you want to learn about boundaries here's a QR code you can scan and just listen in the car on the way to school so those things that kind of pop up from time to time we're looking for
078other paths to introduce those as well awesome and I like to say that I think Adventure Club like that's the only thing that gets my son to bed on time at night so they're doing whatever they're doing they're doing it right he's like I gotta get there to play such and such so he yeah he goes to sleep on time and can I just sorry can I just add a plug as well because not everybody knows you know this this team that's up here they work with probably the the besides the high school the biggest group of students when you think of prenatal all the way through uh age you know fifth grade with everybody that's there so continue to have that Outreach for our families because our Pat team can connect with expecting moms
079or or newborns or Early Childhood Program not only do they have Partnerships within our programming but with also other programs that are surrounding for for being able to provide students the best experiences and then it's just I I made sure to tell them emphasize the no wait list because everybody feels that everybody understands that and the team that's been working hard uh to do that and and speaking of late nights their programs start to drop off at 6 30 in the morning so some of them have been going for a long time as well but just to plug for our community as well there are resources for our families all the way down to if you're an expectant parent all the way up through that elementary school age that our Pat team and our KCC
080team and our adventure club team just works very closely with and so being able to touch thousands of students in multiple almost a decade span of years and all the families that's how you get that belonging and that connection that's how we start those early kindergarten programs that's how you start that pre-literacy and really have an impact on our community so it it is a terrific Dream Team thank you it's truly a privilege to get to be a part of just the experience with all these families and I just want to say not only are those podcasts really relevant for families with young children but I often listen to them with my three teens in the car we're you know they're relevant for that age group too so thank you for your support and all
081that you do thank you come visit us we will thank you yes we have a great lunch so yeah all right so at this time we will adjourn the work session I need a motion to enter closed session to discuss Personnel 610.021 313 rsmo so moved alrighty I need a roll call vote Motika boyko Pangborn yes Andrews Kathy and Bernardi and sharn yes thank you all thank you for staying with us