Kirkwood School District Board of Education Work Session - 05/01/23

001good afternoon everyone can you hear me okay it's now 5 p.m and we will call this meeting to order Mr boyko could you please leave us in the pledge all right thank you okay we will get started with uh 2.01 teacher of the year recognitions that they're over all right thank you very much and before we take the opportunity to recognize our honorees all very deserving of our time this afternoon I always want to make sure that I take this opportunity to thank Lisa Wade and the hours that she puts into this and organizing it for us to ensure that we do this in the in the right way and so the result of all of that work is is what you see here before you as a board so all with your permission Michelle

002I'll just toss it over this way but I always want to make make sure I take the opportunity to say to say thank you to you okay good evening everyone thank you for this wonderful crowd to celebrate our nine teachers of the Year this year these are our 23-24 teachers of the Year Kirkwood schools celebrated the announcement of the teacher of the year for the 23-24 school year in the month of February during school-wide assemblies morning meetings and even up pop by celebration at somebody's house these outstanding teachers were selected by their building level teacher of the year selection committees from literally hundreds of nominations from across the district from those nominations it led to the selection of these nine individuals that you see before you this evening we have a teacher in the turtle

003room we have for our youngest Learners we have two SSD educators we have two fifth grade teachers a language arts teacher and three library media Specialists making tonight's meeting location very fitting to be in the library here at North Kirkwood Middle School so while each of them have unique attributes they all have one thing in common they do great things for Kirkwood kids so now I'd like to share a little bit with you about a little bit about each of them individually and I'm just going to start to my left with Kayla Mahoney at the tert room at kecc and I promise we did not coordinate our outfits it just sort of worked out that we sat next to each other Kayla is one of the most kind compassionate understanding and fun teachers around she

004knows how to Foster student Independence while also keeping in mind that they have only been on this Earth for three to four years she instinctively knows how to make each child feel super important and loved she's a quiet Leader by Always setting the right example for colleagues and just going to work every day and doing amazing things with her time for her little turtles and I have to just do a Shameless plug here that my niece is in the turtle room and I have seen the magic she worked on my niece alone so thank you to Kayla for all you do in our Kirkwood tradition we're going to just go alphabetically through our elementary schools now so next we have Emily flesh with who's a SSD educator for us and supports our Kaiser kids she

005is dedicated to her students in every way as an SSD educator she balances her nurturing spirit with high expectations and compassion she is kind patient fun encouraging supportive and creative she is a model not only for the students she works with but also for her colleagues who work alongside her she makes Kaiser better congratulations Emily and thank you for everything you do for our students [Applause] okay moving on to Mandy kempter who is our fifth grade teacher from North Glendale and I'm learning that there's a fifth grade we just think it happens to seniors of the senioritis but there's a fifth grade itis and you'll see our two so there's no um A to Z countdowns for fifth grade we just count down from five too long to do those 26 letters so Mandy supports

006our fifth graders over at North Glendale and she's a true professional who takes teaching to heart she is passionate about reaching and supporting all students Mandy Works tirelessly to be prepared for her lessons and to be the best for her students she has dessert she has served as a mentor officially and unofficially for countless teachers on the NG team she is willing to do whatever it takes whether it is helping a student supporting a family or rolling up her sleeves to help any staff member at North Glendale thanks for all you do Mandy [Applause] okay we have Kristen Davis who's one of our three library media Specialists recognized tonight she serves our students at Robinson Elementary School over at Robinson Kristen instills a love of books and reading in each of our young road runners

007she takes the time to listen to each student as they share their interests and matches them with just the right book that gets them hooked she is a mentor to teachers in the building as well she has amazing thoughtful and developmentally appropriate lessons for kids in grades K through five she ties in literary events world events student interests and cultural diversity in all that she does she tirelessly organizes Book Fairs and school-wide events that encourage reading in community Robinson is so lucky to have her thanks for all you do over at Robinson Kristen [Applause] okay and we have Jamie Rose who's another SSD teacher supporting our students at Tillman Jamie is a teacher who consistently works hard to give her students everything they need to be successful she is laser focused on helping her students

008reach their goals and in turn she is always putting their needs first anecdotal story here when she was over getting her award for the building level teacher of the year she was more worried about supporting one of her kids than she was about herself in that moment she she I saw it firsthand it was really impressive so she always is putting their needs first most impressive about Jamie is her professionalism she holds herself to a high standard both making sure she and all of those around her are treated with respect and Jamie's role as an SSD teacher she is working with students staff and families often simultaneously to ensure success for her students this is a lot to juggle but Jamie does this with ease love and care and always seeks to understand first and

009her work is Guided by finding Solutions thank you for all you do for our Tillman kids Jamie [Applause] okay next up is another fifth grade teacher who's dealing with the fifth grade iotis over at Westchester we have Beth doad she is just amazing she is passionate about equality and ensures her classroom as a safe and nurturing space for all of her students she cares about her students and goes out of her way to include everyone and make sure each student feels valued and cared for and a valued member of her classroom community Beth has worked at Westchester for 15 years and has poured herself into her students every single year she is a leader at Westchester and has helped in a variety of ways to grow the school community Beth has a way of making

010sure everyone feels loved seen and cared for her colleagues at Westchester are so thankful to call her a colleague and friend thank you Beth [Applause] and I'm going to hop over to Ann and I'll do you next is our dog Christy I'm sorry let's see here we got it yeah we're good here sorry my bad um my mouse got a little crazy there got Christy white our library media specialist over at knifer Christy has changed the entire Dynamic of both the library and the school during her short time as nifer library media specialist she has made the hallways more inclusive with her thoughtful bulletin boards just walk into the nifer campus and their main office and you'll see the magic that she's working in that school she has brought in authors that excite the students

011she also made the library itself a more welcoming and inclusive place students who have not typically chosen to read for fun have been introduced to books by Christy that have changed their views we are so grateful for all that Christy does to make knifer a happy inclusive place for both students and staff thank you Christy [Applause] okay now we have Ann broble who's our language arts teacher right here at North Kirkwood Middle School Ian is a great communicator listener and collaborator with everyone she comes in touch with she has great empathy and patience and gets to know her students and is able to determine their needs and strengths she is then able to help her students gain the skills they need to make their to make them the best students that they can be she

012is able to help her students use their strings and Advance them in their learning and is able to give specific feedback when she says she has concerns about a student's learning she is someone that that her colleagues feel they can go to in order to bounce ideas off and for guidance she never puts herself first it is always others thanks for all that you do Anne [Applause] okay and last we have Janet Meese reinert at Kirkwood High School who is our one of our two library media specialists at the high school and Janet positively impacts the entire building at KHS she makes sure students have high quality engaging texts in the library's collection that reveal both windows and mirrors she helps keep the KHS community connected through her coordination of extracurricular book clubs for both

013students and staff she also invites classes to come to the library for engaging book talks and and excuse me informative lessons on using the library's resources such as databases for research she is a true partner and every teacher and classes could not do their research with their students nearly as well without Janet's help and guidance she remains calm steadfast during every every changing of during Ever Changing Times in her positivity demonstrates true leadership Janet was also elected as the Kirkwood School District teacher of the year for this recognition she went through an interview process conducted by the teacher of the year selection committee some sentiments shared and things learned about Janet during her interview process include that Janet tirelessly put students and staff at the Forefront of resource acquisition management and implementation KHS Library serves

014the needs of the entire School an academic Community with Grace and strength under her leadership Janet Endeavors to make sure that every student at KHS is represented in the library in the library she has created a welcoming space that is full of students every hour before and after school she connects with teachers and supports their work across the content areas making sure students can connect to resources in the library that extend their learning in the classroom Janet believes the most essential part of teaching is to grow good human beings she leads the KHS peer tutoring program as well as sponsors the National Honor Society thank you Janet for all you do for our Kirkwood High School pioneers [Applause] so congratulations again to all these outstanding teachers of the year who represent the many Kirkwood teachers

015and staff throughout the district we look forward to celebrating you more during the 23-24 school year during opening day the Greentree parade and rotary lunch thank you for all you do to support our students thank you [Applause] did you have anything to say or we're going to do a group picture so we'll just yeah we'll yeah whenever you want to speak and then you let us know when you're done congratulations to you all I know as an educator sometimes it can seem like a thankless job a lot of times um but you're living proof right now that it it you guys are wonderful for the kids and we thank you and continue doing the great work that you're doing thank you foreign s and colleagues that came to support them as well thank you okay

016all righty so before we start go into more business I would like to address our community on is that better I know I couldn't hear myself thank you all right on behalf of the Kirkwood School District Board of Education we first want to thank everyone who has reached out to us regarding the treatment of transgender staff thank you for using your voice and advocating for what you believe in this is what community looks like coming together to show support for one another secondly we want to reassure you that the board of education is committed to diversity equity and inclusion it is one of our strategic goals and we are continually working toward holding the district accountable to this commitment we respect and honor all people regardless of race sex gender identity Etc and we support

017all of our staff students and families in our lgbtq plus community we believe that it is important for all students and staff to be able to see themselves in their school space unfortunately the allegations circulated online include former employees and a current employee which prevents us from providing details to the public we can share that we support the actions taken by the administration related to these recent staff matters staff must follow District policy when educating students and we will continue to uphold this standard in all district settings we recognize that this Kirkwood School District continues to have work to do in the areas of creating a sense of belonging for our students and staff we are committed to making noticeable changes in placing action behind our words we are proud of our progress as a

018district but we also recognize that important work remains to be done we cannot reach this goal alone and we need your continued support to make the Kirkwood School District a place where everyone feels seen heard and valued in Partnership the Kirkwood School Board of Education and Dr Dave Ulrich superintendent next item 3.01 curriculum review Dr painter well good evening thank you I did not have the pleasure of talking to the board at our last meeting so congratulations President Sharon and welcome Mr Kathy we're glad that you're here um I can probably continue to fly through the first part our introduction because I know Mr Kathy's been attending the board of meetings this is not brand new to you and so tonight we're going to go pretty quickly we have a number of areas that we're

019going to be talking with you about but by all means please stop if you have any additional questions as we go through these as always when we talk curriculum when we go through a review process we begin with our strategic plan always this is our guiding document this is our Touchstone text this is what we build off of and so we are always having conversations about the Strategic plan and looking back to make sure that we are aligned with that we do have our curriculum cycle does include four stages over six years what you're hearing about tonight are again curricular areas that have been in the development stage this year I think we have 18 or 19 areas that are in development this year but if you look across all four stages we are I

020believe around 52 or 53 areas that are in one of those stages with well over 100 teachers working on those curriculum committees with our facilitators and and they're all doing a fantastic job we appreciate their support once again tonight as we're going through the seven curricular areas eight curricular errors we're talking about we'll be focusing on the desired results in the the area and the top cue ball there that we'll be talking about are the priority standards the essential questions and during understandings and the scope and sequence by all means this does not mean our work is done we actually have areas that were approved by you as recently as two weeks ago I guess or something like that that have been meeting already on implementation so they can be ready to go for next

021year as you can see on May 1st those are the areas we're going to be talking about tonight good news is we're over halfway there and so we have lots of areas that have checks on them you'll be hearing more tonight and then we'll be bringing back four areas actually it's more like six areas on June 5th at this point I'm going to pass it over to I believe well we've got it all lined up so I'm going to welcome Miss Elizabeth Locke and she has two of our fantastic gifted Specialists gifted Area Teachers with us and they're going to be providing an update on the work they've been doing around our two through eight gifted curriculum thank you sorry just trying to figure out the best Logistics sharing the mic so good evening everyone

022thank you for having I think I know most of you but just I'm Elizabeth walk I'm the mtss coordinator which stands for multi-tiered systems of support and one of the many things I get to do is having the pleasure of working with the gifted program and the gifted facilitators and this evening we actually have two of them with us we have Jen Moore from Robinson and we have Cindy voller from Westchester that will talk a little bit more as we as we go through this so as we worked on the curriculum we did have the involvement of all the gifted Specialists as we did this work together and we began by examining programs in districts nearby we looked at the national gifted standards and then in the process of this Missouri actually came out with

023their first ever Missouri gifted learner outcomes and so that was perfect timing for us and was a big part of guiding our process as well to make sure that we included those same outcomes in our program as well so on the on the screen now you can see just some of the second grade priority standards um and I'll let I don't know who's talking about which grades Jen will talk about second grade I'll move over okay yep we'll roll okay so um an example of an activity that might cover these priority standards in second grade is the large theme in second grade is relationships and so we start with the relationship within ourselves relationships among our peers in the second grade classroom and then we start to dig into the rest of the world so

024we talk about biomes and we end the year with a study on a national park and we talk a lot about interdependency and interconnectedness in second grade and by studying a national park we can study its relationship with the people around the park we can study the history of the park we study the animals and dangerness in the park and it really brings together the relationship piece and how we are all connected sorry I probably should have said before I started we identify for students for gifted during Second Grade so services are about the last half of the second grade year so a few smaller amount of priority standards compared to the other grades so here you can see some of the third grade priority standards we start to engage in creative thinking and practice

025taking risks with our thinking socially we continue to have students become more aware of themselves as gifted Learners and learn strategies to manage their often strong impulses and emotions an example of something we might do in third grade is a creative activity called forced relationships and this really encourages students to build on what they learned in second grade and think outside of the box so we might ask two students to give us two random items for example a microphone and a piece of paper and they have to meet in groups and discuss how these two items who seemingly don't go together would be connected and it encourages them to think a little critically think a little creatively and also in third grade we really dig into our personalized learning plans where students choose their own

026topics of study and it teaches us a lot about their research skills and we can dig in with that and really encourage the critical thinking there foreign all right then during fourth grade students begin to expand their thinking skills by analyzing products to reach a deeper meaning they engage in the creative process and they continue to practice social skills as we start to shift some of the focus to some of those executive functioning kinds of skills also start to work on empathy respect active listening and especially within conflict resolution as they're hearing each other's ideas and sharing their ideas with others and then in this grade we also begin to look outside to looking at the contributions of various cultures other parts of the world Etc okay big one oh my gosh I need bumper

027boats so in fourth grade we typically take on the oh gosh I can't I'm pretty loud okay um my kids would say that take on the role of a historian we learn what a historian does that's different from other experts who study the past we look at the critical skills that they utilize we understand on a deeper level chronology context and then and we talk about artifacts we talk about primary sources secondary sources how to make sure that when you research you're getting a wide variety of sources of information and we we really teach them to question and to wonder is this the whole story is am I getting the whole picture of history and sometimes that looks like the history of Kirkwood sometimes it's histories of different cultures and different countries it kind of

028depends on the kids interests and where they want to go with that yeah then fifth grade brings higher level thinking and reasoning skills as they begin to synthesize ideas and use knowledge in different ways again continuing to focus on social skills as they work collaboratively and again becoming more aware of their own needs as a learner foreign 's probably my favorite they um we we looked at history in the past and fourth grade and then fifth grade we changed our lens to the Future so we talk about science fiction we talk about how science fiction authors project problems today into the future and propose solutions for those problems we talk about ethics of those Solutions because just because it solves one problem does it cause other problems and unintended consequences um they're really great thinkers

029by fifth grade I mean not that they're not before this but they loved the theoretical ideas and ways of thinking in fifth grade and um problem solving like they they'll propose their own solutions to current problems that the world is facing and then we talk about pros and cons and how realistic is that and they loved debating about all of it is a favorite skill among gifted students as we move into Middle School the priority standards look similar between 6th 7th and eighth grade but the activities that they do in each year obviously are different um they're engaging in different projects they're continuing their social emotional development communication and thinking skills they do a lot with sharing their ideas and their projects communicating giving feedback to each other on their thoughts and their projects here

030are just a few of the essential questions that represent the two through eight gifted curriculum a couple examples are how do I use different strategies to effectively generate solutions that solve problems in what ways is creativity important and how does creativity play a role in self-expression and culture and how does my giftedness impact the interaction in life that make me who I am moving on to our enduring understandings you can see several of them up there but one example is through practice we can grow our ability to develop effective solutions to problems the scope and sequence for the gifted program are four basic units that students move through every year of the program so we look at critical thinking in unit one where as the as both Mrs Waller and Mrs Moore have mentioned they

031develop their skills in generating questions to problems finding Solutions make sure I don't forget anything also thinking both locally and globally about those kinds of problems and solutions unit two is creativity so thinking about how to generate multiple ideas be open-minded and learning to take risks which is hard for a lot of kids but is oftentimes very difficult for kids who are eligible for gifted service in unit 3 we look at both interpersonal and intra-personal skills so Cindy alluded to that a little bit earlier where we're looking at social skills not only how do we get along with others but internally how do I recognize myself and my own needs as a gifted learner and then lastly the gifted program places an emphasis on Executive functioning skills that we've called competency but things like regulating

032those strong emotions learning how to approach a project planning organization those kinds of things and then lastly how to set goals and how to achieve those goals thank you any questions start down with me I just want to thank you for all your work on this this is a very different way of learning and I know that one of my sons was involved in the gifted program he actually was pulled out from another school so my question is do you still offer that to students from other schools and then approximately what percentage do you currently have of gifted students because I believe Kirkwood's percentage is a bit higher than usual yes we do continue to have students who come attend private schools within the Kirkwood district and they come and meet with the classrooms as

033you know for the per the schedule that definitely still happens I feel terrible I didn't look this up I want to say we have about 11 to 13 of our population is identified as gifted thank you thank you so much for your work thanks Miss maltica Mr boyko Ms Andrews how has this curriculum changed from our current curriculum I'm gonna first let you guys think of is there anything that really jumps out well I personally I've noticed how much more rigor is in the homeroom classrooms nowadays and so I think we've had to re-examine the rigor that we provide and the ways that we approach the types of thinking we want our kids to do and that's a good thing that they're you know what they're getting in their classrooms makes us kick it up

034a notch um I think a lot of it is the individualized perspective of it and letting kids pursue passions and things that are interesting to them but also setting goals to help them be the best gifted learner that they can be and I think you know we've built that in more and more and I think the focus on those four C's that you saw that is really our program is not an academic program right it's focused on that creativity and the critical thinking and I think that that is a slight change from what it was before as well okay um so one of the things I think with gifted children um there's a social emotional piece to it and so um is that that's kind of wrapped in in here correct in everything we do

035yeah yeah it's definitely throughout everywhere and that unit three that's pretty much what between unit three and then some of the things in unit four under executive functioning but yes every grade every year there is a social emotional and then just from being a classroom teacher I think that sometimes um are you helping classroom teachers kind of understand that the how to help a gifted learner for sure okay um something you know that we might start with is a smart kid of high achieving kiddo versus A Gifted kid and what is the difference what how do they exhibit different behaviors in class because classroom teachers have such an enormous spread of capabilities and and strengths in their classes and we support them as however we can whether that's enrichment or pushing in and you know

036going in and helping support our gifted kids or all the kids I think too in the past several years at least I've noticed especially we have a lot more twice exceptional gifted students and so teaching teachers about that and learning about them and kind of incorporating that is important for us too perfect okay just a few more so I know that this curriculum how are kids identified so can you kind of walk us through that thank you sure so um it begins actually in first grade the gifted Specialists are pushing into classrooms and teaching some lessons about different kinds of higher order thinking skills creativity reasoning and they're observing and kind of watching how students respond to these lessons and that kind of gives us some initial information and then in second grade we universally

037screen all students with it with a screener and then depending on that along with what we've seen in the lessons any feedback from teachers then a certain group of kids will move on to have more individualized testing so that could be some individualized cognitive testing creativity testing some additional reasoning testing and then that would all be looked at together to determine eligibility so when when does this take place in about the first half of second grade after this second middle part it's got by the time we finish the screening look at the data then decide who moves on where um this year was a little bit unique because of covid we were a little bit behind because last year we tested a great two grade levels to make up so this year is a little

038bit different but going forward that's what the timeline will look like okay and so then um our parents notified of that yes of course there's a letter that goes out at the beginning of the year talking you know about the screening than any student who is identified for individual testing of course parents will have to give permission for that and then at the end they have they have a formal eligibility report that lists all the evaluation scores Etc that get sent home okay and then my last question is just in terms of resources um you know like you presented the curriculum and so I guess my my question to you guys is what resources do you guys need or how does that work well part of that is kind of what we'll be moving into

039once we get into implementation and we start writing actual units but if you guys want to talk a little bit about some of the resources that you currently use or what that looks like I mean we obviously a lot of things I don't even know how to I don't even know where to start there's obviously not like a package here's the you know A Gifted curriculum so but I guess what I I just want to make sure that if there are resources that are needed um you know there's a a way to get resource you know what he means uh and so is there going to be a time that that you're going to look for resources for these teachers or how does that kind of work I mean I think as we move forward

040if we determine we need more formalized resources like for the primary for K and one because next year we'll be pushing into kindergarten some as well that might be an option I will say that going to the National Conference is an enormous resource for us just meeting people who do things differently in different states and their talent development programs and what they provide is really helpful okay and then utilizing the resources on our team I mean we're really lucky to have a wide array of experiences okay and I mean the program and what we do for our kids is so individualized often it changes a little bit from year to year like we follow the same basic curriculum but we might do a different unit of study or do a different topic and so we

041gather things as we go a lot too there's no one gifted curriculum we could just purchase and the state has a great um what do they call it a repository or something of SEL lessons that have been accumulated by Missouri gifted Ed Specialists which is really helpful to have and it doesn't cost anything so okay yeah and I guess we're I'm coming from is just um you know if there's stuff that you guys need you know I think that we as a board want to support that and so you know we just but we need to know what you need you know so thank you and thank you for for all your work um I just have a couple of questions kind of piggyback off of Jean Marie's question about how kids are identified so

042there's only one entry point at second grade and then do those kids remain in it throughout yes so there's no other is there an other opportunity for other okay yeah yearly we look at at students anyone who would pop up or sometimes there are kids that when we do initial screenings are kind of close so we maybe keep them on a watch list and then the next year the next year we revisit so we still evaluate students and we still consider students for eligibility in in all the grades um it's just second grade is the one grade for the universal screening and can parents make that request so it's not just okay okay but yes there it once once you're in you're in you're stuck with me all right and then just hearing I would

043like uh Dr Ulrich to um Miss Bernardi's question about the gifted um it's okay if you didn't know but can we give that what those percentages are in um broken down um by demographics please and I usually if my computer was up here I could tell you pretty quick but we'll get them to you okay thank you Ms shern was talking it made me think of another question when you said that you know some kids are close but didn't necessarily make it I often hear from parents and um you know one of the things that I I have noticed is that then kids will be put some kids will be put into and at every school it's kind of called a different thing like a thinking one of the things that I've heard is a

044thinking group um can you speak to that I said no because we're trying to become more uniform in the services that we provide because of the work that we've been doing to have more of a talent development approach rather than just a one entrance into the you know screening availability um so I think it depended on the school's need and the numbers of kids as to what structure they provided but as I said we're really trying to get rid of the variability so that we're all doing not the same exact thing but the same structure of services that we provide perfect and just to kind of piggyback on what city was just talking about is we are going to be yes going forward we'll be pushing into kindergarten and first grade to provide more of

045those thinking skills and creativity kind of lessons so that all kids are having an equal opportunity to presented with those kinds of tasks before we do the initial screening and so that will also help us just be get our program a little more consistent across so we're moving away from the thinking skills okay okay because in some schools the teachers the reach teachers would push in more to classrooms more pull out more academic based groups which is really not what we focus on or should be or we were pulling those small groups of thinking skills right so anytime I think that there's chain like you know change and that kind of thing I I think it's good to have change but just as long as we're kind of the the kids that parents don't necessarily

046always understand whether they're in a thinking group or a or a reach group and so just being really cognizant that it's okay to make that change and you as professionals are the ones that get to make that decision but just making sure that you're bringing parents along so that they understand that what what we're doing otherwise it becomes very awkward when they get to sixth grade yeah and those are harder conversations exactly exactly so and that is all spelled out in our evaluation that we send home I think it even includes thinking skills or the different components and so we encourage parents to ask us questions anytime if they have more for sure okay okay thanks thanks thank you thank you foreign all right here we go um we are excited to have Declan Fitzpatrick

047here he's going to be sharing with you hold on tight because you're going from K5 handwriting all the way to journalism um and with with public speaking in the middle and so um declan's had a very busy year working with a lot of teachers and you're not even hearing about all the courses right now that he's been working with teachers on and so I'm excited for him to give an update now on K5 handwriting thank you good afternoon thank you for this opportunity to address the board this evening the first thing I'm going to get to talk about is K5 handwriting instruction we formed a group of teachers to do a resource review within our existing K5 literacy curriculum and you can see that it's quite an extraordinary team of teachers and occupational therapists who

048got together to work on looking at the resources that we had available and trying to determine whether we needed additional resources to support handwriting instruction um we always identify the priority learning standards when we do a curriculum update in the Missouri Learning Centers for K5 Ela there are just a few standards that address writing production there's two standards in kindergarten and then one each in first second third fourth and fifth grade that I'll address Printing and then writing legibly and it just it mentions cursive in a second and third grade so we worked from those priority standards and did a review of research together looked at the resources that we already had available in the district and the resources that different buildings were using on an elective basis using their own building funds to use

049and the recommendations that the committee came forward with was that we all agreed that it is essential that students must Master legible and fluent printing that in order to be illiterate adult students have to be able to write quickly and clearly and capture their own thinking in their handwriting we also agreed that the the research is clear that students should be introduced to cursive writing but that cursive handwriting is not an essential skill to master that students have to get to the last bullet point there on the slide is that every person must be able to write by hand fluently enough to capture their original thought in writing and for some people cursive writing is the most appropriate way to do that other students will be able to print rapidly and fluently and capture their

050thinking in print but students all students have to be exposed to enough cursive instruction to make an informed and appropriate decision about what is the best way for them to produce writing and then of course students need to be introduced to technology and have some keyboarding skills so that they have all of the options for composing writing original text as they write so as we looked at the resources we had available we already used the Sunday phonics resource and an essential component of learning letters as a kindergartner is both letter names letter sounds and letter formation in writing so the instruction on how you form your letters both capital letters and lowercase letters is already embedded in that resource and it was very important to the teachers and the occupational therapies therapists on our committee

051that we not add an additional resource where we already had appropriate resources we don't need to be dividing teachers attention or adding a another thing for them to learn we have a number of schools and classrooms in the district that are already using Handwriting Without Tears to introduce students to cursive writing and we wanted to adopt that resource officially for cursive writing instruction across the district and make sure that every teacher had access to it and that we embed that into our instructional time and then we had a another recommendation which was a complete surprise to me in the process the teachers were and the especially the occupational therapist said we need to make sure that every classroom is well stocked and well supplied with handwriting paper because students move from writing larger letters to

052writing smaller letters to eventually doing handwriting and what we're all familiar with the composition notebook or a spiral bound notebook but they need access to handwriting paper to help them practice the right size and right formation and if we make sure that that paper is available in every classroom without any buildings having to budget for that separately but built into our curriculum on budget then they will have lots of practice on the appropriate kinds of paper for handwriting so I have some examples for you like this this excuse me this is the a resource that's already embedded in letter formation instruction in our Sunday phonics curriculum an example of a page from that um this this page they are learning the letter names and the uppercase formation then they learn the letter sounds and the

053lowercase formation together and they do have the the the practice pages that we already use as they're learning the letter names already have the instruction on there about you start with your pencil here you move down first and you go around and bump and bump and we don't need to add a separate resource for kindergarten first and second grade to learn printing upper and lowercase printing this is an example of the kinds of handwriting paper we're talking about students start on the three-quarter inch paper that's larger and then as their writing improves they move into the half inch paper um and right on smaller pages and we just want to make sure that every classroom has access to those resources um and then here's an example of this is the second grade cursive kickoff student

054edition book where students learn how to make the cursive formation of each of the letters and one of the important components of this is that this design of cursive handwriting was built from occupational therapy research from the very beginning so it's not just a style choice this is the appropriate letter formation for cursive writing that matches with how our hands and fingers actually work and you can see here that students learn the letter formation first then they learned ladder joins then they learn word joins and the variety of things what what how you join an O and A W together and how that changes when you have an l and and they work through the the whole process um we the recommendation here is that we start cursive instruction in the middle of second grade

055so up through kindergarten first grade and the first semester of second grade we're working on mastering fluent printing and then we would begin cursive instruction in the beginning in the after winter break in second grade and students would have cursive instruction through the end of second grade and third grade and then reinforcement of that as they move through fourth and fifth so um a really important consideration for this is where do we find the time and um in kindergarten and first grade handwriting instruction is embedded in letter formation and word formation instruction in the phonics lesson in second and third grade we'll have to find ways to include cursive instruction in that second semester of second grade and find 10 minutes of practice time and one of the advantages of the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum

056is that it has a fully interactive iPad app that allows the student to practice the letter formation and get immediate feedback about whether they're for they're they're forming the letters correctly and quickly enough that they're ready to move on or whether they need to continue practice and they're getting that feedback as well as the instruction and then the committee was very concerned that we also address the needs for keyboarding instruction which was beyond the purview of the review we were doing but it will need to be work that we do next this is the skill sequence it's much easier to see on your computer screen where the the teachers and the occupational therapists work together to identify what did we need to introduce at each grade level and whether it needed to be introduced mastered

057or reinforced through each grade level and and what was appropriate developmentally in terms of the research and then there's more work for us to do we need to Pilot the Handwriting Without tiers resource across the district so that we're sure that it is can be used sustainably um whether that it's cost effective and that teachers can embed it in their curriculum um we also need to develop report card language so that we can communicate to parents where their child is in their handwriting development we already have draft versions of that but we need to take it to the teachers to review and make sure that we have it lined out appropriately and then a next level of work is going to be to identify the keyboarding resource to ensure that we can meet the Missouri

058learning expectations for writing production on a keyboard thank you thank you that's good any questions starting down with uh Miss Andrews yeah so um thank you for your work on this I think that it is incredibly important um so there's going to be kind of a gap right because kids that are in second grade currently clearly are not getting cursive the kids who are in second grade right now don't have a consistent resource across the whole District that is supplied to everybody that we don't have a consistent set of expectations for what mastering curf what's appropriate for a master in cursive in that grade level so it's okay so is there a plan to develop like are you planning on developing a plan to kind of bridge the gap I guess that's could be there

059for the kids that you know and you don't have to end like if so we don't have a plan for Bridging the Gap we didn't identify it as a gap because there teachers in the district are very responsible in terms of making sure that students are meeting the writing expectations what we needed to do was ensure that we had a consistent approach to it and um make sure that every student is getting the same opportunity to experience cursive writing and improve in it but but okay okay so I um so I guess maybe I need to ask Dr allrec Dr Ulrich can you guarantee that that all second graders currently are getting cursive I don't have that information to be able to use the word guarantee I can certainly follow up with Declan and the

060team he has been working with okay to ensure that we have implementation with Fidelity certainly okay yeah just because I guess if there's you know since we haven't had a consistent resource um not that there's a I guess I shouldn't call it a gap but um you know we want to ensure that every every kid is getting cursive and so um if if they're not then we're gonna need to I would think that you would need to develop a plan for that Dr Ulrich um and then with I I really am excited about the keyboarding um I think that that's an important life skill for kids and so when can you and maybe this is a Dr painter question when can you expect that that will will be brought back to us foreign I think

061that there's there's definitely a need for us to explore this further um I think part of it has to do with how much time we can dedicate to it um just as as Declan was talking about with cursive um it is something that we need to address but the reality is many of our students now are coming to us it may not be home keys but they're coming to us with the ability to to type either with their thumbs or their fingers or whatever else and of course with speech to text it there there's there's that as well that a lot of our students are coming very very skilled at so it takes I mean I think there's a lot of research that needs to be done on what is the best way for us

062to be teaching keyboarding um it I think looks very different than it did when I was teaching keyboarding to second and third graders 20 years ago at this point and so I I do think that we can we can definitely provide you an update next year at this time if not sooner but I think that that is something that this committee has spent way more time looking at um in in it than most of our teachers have at this point okay so president chern I would just ask that that we get follow-up on on that um sooner rather than later can I make an additional comment I I think this work represents uh uh a recommitment to teaching consistent handwriting for years Missouri learning standards didn't have state level expectations for handwriting in the Missouri

063State expectations and everybody was working on making sure that students were producing uh final products that students were reading and writing and producing the final product and it was only with the last round of the Missouri learning standards that the handwriting was reinvigorated and reincorporated and the the process of adjusting our elementary curriculum we've had to make priorities every year about what we're adding to teachers plates and then how do we fit all of the expectations into the instructional day and then how do we have time to ask teachers to focus on learning how to incorporate these additional skills into our entire literacy curriculum so I I don't want to for my response to sound to you like I'm not concerned about cursive instruction at all but that I that it is we're it's part

064of managing all of the work that we're asking especially Elementary classroom teachers to incorporate together into a literacy curriculum thank you yeah thank you um so first don't take any of this of criticism because I think this is a big step forward on the handwriting overall but I want to make sure I understand it too with respect to cursive is they're an expectation that the students are able to to read cursive that's that's built into this so um what's interesting is that the research is about what it takes for students to write cursive and that's learning to read cursive is a product of learning to write cursive but it's actually uh it doesn't involve motor skills so it's actually much easier to master it comes in a shorter amount of time and because of that

065there's not a lot of research about so what does it actually take learning to to read cursive is sort of uh it's something that that students it happens as a byproduct of students learn to write it so there aren't any assessments built into the curriculum to also can you read cursive because there's never been a need to find out if they can or not because the process just creates it and I might be wrong to even make this suggestion but looking around the library I see kind of an absence of cursive uh and so I I think it may make sense to try to find ways to integrate cursive you know into what the students are actually exposed to seeing in their daily lives to um whether that's you know a word problem and math

066that have to be written in cursive or signage in the building or um or you know reading a letter from a historical source that used cursor for something that they have to read and it definitely happens so I think that's something that if we could work that in um I think that would be an improvement and then the other thing is this wasn't a problem when I was going through school but to your point of kids coming in with some ability to type and manipulate electronic text um I'm just have a lingering concern about uh if we wait too long then the kids have developed bad habits that then have to be sort of untaught and certainly you know I've seen from experienced people who taught themselves how to type and they taught themselves wrong

067and now as professionals they're in their 40s and they still type in inefficient ways so I don't know what the right answer is with that but um perhaps it makes sense to sort of tackle typing in an order that is non-traditional in order to kind of alleviate some of that concern if it's appropriate thanks um thank you I had some similar questions as Mr bueco did but a couple of things I really like how you are so cognizant of the teacher's time that you are figuring out ways to to teach cursive to teach competency in read and cursive along with reading and phonics and all of that and I'm always going to urge you to be to continue to be protective of the teacher's time and I love the creativity in figuring out ways to

068you know kill more birds with one stone so to speak um so thank you for that and just Mr boyco I'm one of those people who made up my own typing format it's not pretty to watch but I I it works Miss Pangborn I'm sorry she said no no okay thanks Miss Bernardi Mr Kathy yeah thank you so much for this uh presentation I just have a question you mentioned about the report cards and you were working on that getting teacher input is will this be implemented for the 23-24 school year no the the plan is to add the use next year to show teachers the report card language and incorporate it as we make sure that the resource is appropriate and can be fit into the curriculum and then have add the handwriting language

069to the following school year to 24 25 okay as we consider that the implications of that awesome thank you so much you can move on public speaking oh that's you that's still me come on thank you for the opportunity to continue uh and present the public speaking curriculum public speaking is a elective course at the high school that's open to 10th 11th and 12th grade students and it is uh available for a dual credit course through Missouri State so students who can enroll in this court can enroll for dual credit um uh the public speaking standards are all uh addressed in the Missouri learning standards for English language arts there's a strand for speaking and listening in every grade level we use the standards for 11th and 12th grade even though there could be 10th

070graders in the class and we also include the standards for reading informational text and for writing uh narrative argument and informational text in the curriculum I want to thank particularly Colin Hughes who is the teacher who's currently teaching this course who took the time to work with me to to write the curriculum and um he will be handing the course over to another teacher next year um we have of course essential questions in the course the essential questions in public speaking all have to do with what does the speaker know about Their audience what information do they have and what assumptions can they make about Their audience and how do they can they tailor their message to match both what they know about the audience and the opportunity they have to communicate with them and

071then our enduring sorry and I'm highlighting one here this is a good example of that question what assumptions about our audience and the occasion for communication influence how we craft our message and then our enduring understandings are those large conceptual answers to those same questions where we answer questions like this one every author makes assumptions about their intended audiences background knowledge questions values and ability to process information within that occasion for communication and authors use those assumptions to attempt to address their audience's concerns in a meaningful way um the curriculum is built in five units so it's a semester course and it has five units in the one semester it's designed where the students have their first attempt at uh public speaking in public in front of the class in an ungraded assignment where they

072take on the Persona of a historical figure and make an argument that they should be considered in the top 10 most important people of all time um and then the they have five graded final uh summative assignments after that the next one where they introduce a peer and Colin Hughes thought about this very carefully and thought that most often adults very often adults have the opportunity to speak in public by either giving an award or introducing a colleague and so he's crafted that first assignment as a way to build community in the classroom where each student interviews another student and then introduces that student to the class um and and what in order to communicate what is exciting and unique about this person they also have uh an opportunity for inform speaking where they have

073to communicate an important idea or a critical concept and they actually produce a video for that so they do the voice over and produce the visuals and combine all the information together and then they give their intro to persuasion is a elevator speech they get two minutes to pitch an important cause or an idea that they want people to invest in and then they have um uh they work on the debate task where they have to work on their extemporaneous persuasive speech where they have to be able to respond uh to counter arguments and speak extemporaneously about a topic and then their final exam is an eight-minute presentation that integrates all of those things together where they have to give a long persuasive speech with audio visuals incorporated into their speech and they present it

074during final exam time and that is public speaking they're happy I guess just a comment as a self-taught public speaker that I wish this was available when I was in high school I'd be a lot better at it so thank you thank you and I just had one question this is amazing I know that some of the students take other classes where they do these things at the high school so I'm just wondering what's your target market for this class for students since it's only one semester um it's really a lot of students take this class who are dealing with their anxiety about presenting the especially students who are going into business or interested in any kind of teaching or political science public policy anything where they're thinking about I'm likely to have to present

075in public to be successful at my job it is this kind of topic is often embedded into our Business and Entrepreneurship classes also so there's a little bit of a split audience there oh well we all appreciate you offering this class thanks he's playing born I'm speaking for Miss Pangborn um she just wanted to know is this required or an elective it's an elective course thank you well I guess I'll chime in that uh I went to a school where it was required uh I don't regret that at all uh I think that was helpful so I trusted that's helpful for our students who choose it here thanks Andrew is this ever something that we would require the speaking and listening standards that we address in this course are in every English course also so

076in every English class students have an opportunity to create and present to their peers and have to present verbally in their classrooms okay so this is kind of like a if you wanna this is this is on top of that okay to the report card real quick question handwriting yeah yeah yeah I just wanted to um say for this class my daughter she's a senior and she I've seen uh a huge difference in how in her confidence and how she's able to present when she's been going uh before boards for scholarship opportunities and everything so this is excellent thank you so much I'll pass that on to Mr Hughes okay yes she loves him too by the way um so I guess this is probably more for Dr Ulrich um the goal of a report

077card right is to give parents feedback on their child and when we have things that are being taught that aren't necessarily represented in the report card it gets a little bit concerning and I know that Dr Ulrich you and I have talked about the report card um and I guess I would just ask um you know can we make it where our practice is if we're teaching something that our report card you know matches then what what we're teaching and we don't go a year teaching something and not have our report card match it and I mean it's a bigger question than just handwriting and so I just I think that we have you know I mean we've had conversations and and I just think that this is what parents get in for how parents

078get information on their kids and so I don't know if you can kind of speak to that I won't be able to speak to it in any type of specifics however I do agree with you and we have had long conversations that it is reasonable for our parents to have a timely updates on the progress of their students uh and uh that whether that's handwriting or social studies or math or Ela and so we are we are committed to taking a deep dive look at our report cards to ensure that that's exactly what they're conveying to our parents absolutely perfect thanks here we go um so the next uh piece of my presentation is about journalism courses through 9 through 12. there are actually five courses that you are included in the curriculum document that

079you have and these courses are the ways we have embedded in our school day the opportunity for students to work on and produce the Kirkwood call which is the newspaper and the website the Pioneer which is the yearbook and also uh uh Kirkwood High School television station and the daily announcements and that is not an opportunity that's consistent in every High School in Missouri to have courses that students can take during the day um and I I think you'll see that um that is embedded in the quality of the product we have world-class newspaper and and yearbook and it is because of the courses and the teachers that we're allowed to do that within the school day so um there are two sets of standards that are relevant to high school journalism we have priority

080standards in 9 through 12 Ela around writing and research and then because uh they're also a visual medium we have priority standards in the 9 through 12 fine arts media arts there's a whole subset of the Missouri learning standards for Fine Arts that address multimedia production and those are incorporated into our curriculum so you'll see two sets of standards in the curriculum document sometimes they're Ela standards and sometimes they're the fine arts media arts standards um the curriculum contributors Mitch Eden who is retiring this year Sean Owens who's the high school journalism teacher and Katie Myers who is taking over the journalism position next year we're very fortunate to be able to have Katie step back into that role um and continue the excellent work we have essential questions that cover the entire journalism curriculum

081that all focus on the value of Storytelling as a way to communicate accurate information that all journalism is a form of Storytelling using accurate and carefully responsibly used information and we embed the journalism ethics questions into those ideas too and then we have the enduring understandings that communicate the ideas that the principles of Storytelling are consistent but every media that you use to tell those stories change the tone and the focus of that and that every journalism organization every media Outlet is functions as part of a community not as a separate entity to a community that journalists journalistic Outlets are a function of the community itself and the Kirkwood call and the Pioneer see themselves that way as part of the high school community um the course sequence is a little hard to articulate exactly

082there are um three courses that are available to all students 9th through 12th grade um that include the broadcast the multimedia broadcast journalism that's the staff that puts together khtv the call and the daily announcements and that group of students has to get up and running before school even starts because they start daily announcements right away at the beginning of school and so that is a constant ongoing process and students can can start as freshmen in that course as interns in the class we also have a one semester introduction to journalism and a one semester introduction to photojournalism that students can take those are not prerequisites for the 10th through 12th grade classes a student could start their journalism career by starting in magazine journalistic writing 2 or newspaper journalistic writing um the the journalism

083staff are interested in making sure there's multiple entry points into the journalism experience and you don't have to start as a freshman in order to experience High School journalism and then not included in our curriculum update this evening is the are the honors sections of magazine journalistic writing and newspaper journalistic writing which are the the students who are selected onto the editorial staff for each of those products take the course as an honors course so I want to stop there for a second and this this part is confusing to articulate do you want to ask questions about how that works before I move on I'd credit my daughter for explaining this to me so I've already got it so thank you yeah yeah you can explain to me I just have one question is the

084honors can anybody take honors or do you have to be recommended or separate to be in the honors course you have to be selected to be an editor of either the call or the Pioneer so that that the these courses are are already Limited in enrollment and students have to apply even to be in the magazine journalistic writing to or newspaper journalistic writing there's just a limited number of seeds and then to get the honors designation you have to be on the editorial staff so there's a very limited number of seats for those thanks so just to clarify the multimedia broadcast journalism and journalism one and photojournalism anybody can take yes but then the level two classes you apply for yes essentially yes the the cat one caveat is there's always a limited number of

085seats right that there's a high school master schedule students make seat requests and then we staff to fit as many students into those seat requests as we possibly can thank you thank you um and then the last couple of slides are just demonstrating the unit scope and sequence um these are the two semester-length classes photojournalism and journalism one you'll see that the units in journalism one for first semester are exactly the same units as the first semester as each of the other journalism two classes and that way students are who are working on producing articles or sections for the yearbook can all be working in teams if they're in class at the same time and they address they move through those topics and students are always producing articles but they're the only the students who

086are producing articles that meet a certain level of quality are getting published and going out to the public so the journalism one course there is the same sequence as semester one for the newspaper journalistic writing and the magazine generalistic writing and then second semester is a constant cycle of teams working together or to develop story ideas to gather the content to write the article to design it to lay it out and and to publish it it's the end of my presentation thank you very thorough did any questions come up thank you so much thank you very much all right we are moving I feel like a okay um we're moving on to 3.02 policy review first reading thanks Miss Sharon um we have quite a few to go over so I just wanted I know

087that you've all looked at looked through them and there's a few things to discuss on each one so the first one is the staff conflict of interest it's gbca so the two things on this policy that you want to consider are the gifts we can either leave the gift at nominal value for employees to accept at two hundred dollars or as it reads now there is no accepting of gifts at all of any value so I'd like I'd like to let you Mission um see if there's any comments on that and the second portion is working outside of district employment so the question is would you like to add that section or would you like to leave it out it just goes through and it says if you do have work outside of the district

088work that it shouldn't conflict with your district employment so I just open it up them for discussion okay I would like to suggest that for number nine we do say that if it is worth more than two hundred dollars um teachers sometimes get a gift card to Starbucks or Barnes and Noble and it is very much appreciated and I don't want them getting in trouble for that wake up uh yeah I mean I think the point of the policy is uh to prevent people who are looking to do business with the district from giving gifts to people who might be in a position to um steer who would get that business uh so obviously a teacher Falls outside of that but also most gifts from teachers come from people who aren't looking to do business

089with the district um so I I'm completely on board that it should be written in a way that doesn't capture expressions of gratitude to our teachers um but also at the same time limits what I think most people would see is inappropriate attempts to influence uh the award income contracts I would just like to add on to what Miss Motika um said and um was a little concerned that it was 200 because sometimes in you know I've been part of classrooms where it's a group gift and it becomes more and just to note that um in conversations with Dr Ulrich if it's from multiple people then then it can be above the the 200 threshold just I I think it's important for for any teacher out there watching that they don't feel like oh my

090gosh I've gotten a gift card above 200 am I gonna get in trouble and so that is correct as we have looked at and how we interpret the policy would be that if you could determine that individuals contributed then that would in fact be okay that and that sounds great I think what I'm hearing is that we can leave this policy with the 200 limit from an individual student parent or Guardian and no one seems to have any objection then to the second portion about the um conflict with outside work is that okay with everyone as well okay perfect see I told you this this will go fast all right and the next one is gcqd it's professional staff organizations and we talked a lot about this and we have over the years and this

091is the dates for the salary committee and the committee work and then when to offer the teacher contracts so to change these dates to November from December we'll add 30 days to complete the work and then to change the date from February 20th to February 28th We'll add another eight days to complete the work so that'll be about 38 days extra for committee work and then as far as the proposals the next thing that's on the bottom is to provide the teacher contracts before spring break so rather than select a date we have that we will present the contracts at the first meeting prior to the observance of spring break and I want to thank Dr Ulrich for his creativity in this also because if um this if we rewrite our policy this way and

092this has been Rewritten over the years many times with different dates but I think we all have the same two goals and the two goals are extend the time for doing the work with the committee to come to an agreement and then to present the teachers with their contracts before spring break so those are the two issues if you want to comment on I'll start down here with Andrew no I guess I should be interested in hearing from the administration on whether they have any views on whether this timetable is workable or interrupts things or uh thank you for that opportunity Mr boyco and and yes in talking with uh Miss Bernardi and in talking with my team uh we believe that that proposed language um the board had already added in terms of the

093work that I had done um with Miss Andrews to bring the uh next year's uh next year's uh Board calendar to you we already proactively added a date which is the Monday before the observance of spring break and so given that timeline that's what we strive for anyway um and in in hearing and talking to again uh last month um we don't we don't want to get into a pattern of where we're adding at the last minute a a meeting that week prior to spring break it is real how our teachers feel about there's something psychological about that about getting that salary package approved before spring break and that's what we strive for so the language that uh that we have have come up with in terms of our conversations in the policy meeting the

094short answer is yes find that that timeline okay okay um sounds like the language is good so we can just put this through then for the second reading if everybody's in agreement okay the next two are gdbda it's um support staff leaves and professional staff short term leaves and these changes really are just to be consistent with earning one and a half days per month for a professional staff and then 15 days total for support staff leaves and then it updates to crime victim leave which is an additional five days which are in addition to those days in case of a crime victim leave as per Missouri law so if anybody has any questions or comments about those so it's an easy one okay we're rolling through them all right the next one is jfcj

095and that is weapons in school and the law has been changed to add box cutters explosives and also replica weapons those are all prohibited now I think we probably all agree on that okay great so that one's can go for a second reading as well the next one's a little more complicated it's the payment process but Mr Rome has reviewed this and the basic um things that we're covering here are the new payment practices we want to make sure that we stay within the limits of the law and also we have good records for payment there is one thing I want to note that the emergency authorization form amount has increased from fifteen hundred to five thousand and there's also a section on security verification for electronic Payment Systems so I think that's probably the

096only um change that we would have to consider that 1500 versus 5000. if anyone has any questions I think Mr Rome is here yep yes you're good with this one Mr Rome says it's yep you reviewed this penguin are you good you have any questions okay there she is oh we see you now Mrs Pangborn do you have any comments about that five thousand dollars for Mr romay no okay all right things are more expensive all right so that one's we'll send that for a second reading as well okay the next one is um also an easy one it's igbca it's to comply with Dusty and homeless students and thank you Dr Bailey for reviewing all the changes to that did anybody have any questions about that one nope there's one part in it that

097says well process is ongoing student must be enrolled and allowed to participate fully and receive Transportation so I think that's a good that's a good section that's being added okay the next one is J G R1 student discipline and this one is being updated to be consistent with our policies acaca and ah and it also includes the new Missouri law that will prohibit confining a student in an unattended space and Dr Bailey approved all these as well any questions or comments on those okay perfect it also incorporates our restorative practices all right and then the next one is the big one because this is these are two policies that are related to a new Missouri law Community engagement policy requirements so according to this law each School District after receiving Community input will Implement a

098community engagement policy that provides residents of the school district math and sub communicating with the school board and also putting things on school board agendas so um Dr Ulrich did you want to talk about this or have Steph talk about it because I oh thank you because this is um this is these are new policies and we have to have them through by July and I think that Miss Dietrich and Dr Ulrich did an excellent job in the structure of this and we heard about it at the policy meeting and I would yeah I'd appreciate however you think it's best after hour uh Miss Bernard are you being very gracious when you said uh Miss Dietrich and I uh it was Miss Dietrich who put this packet together and I think she is the one

099most appropriate uh to walk the board through this as it does include some color coding um and uh the board does have a copy of what you provided to the policy committee Miss Dietrich um and so with your permission Ms shern I'll allow miss teacher to kind of walk the board through why this is coming to them now and what steps we have taken uh including getting legal advice uh once msba gave us these examples Miss Dietrich sure and um is the mike working so now I can hear it um so yeah the version the packet you have is what we brought to the policy committee there were some suggestions through the process of the policy committee which is um reflected in the version that you see on board docs so sorry to have you

100flip back and forth but um so like Mrs barnardi said this is in response to state law which changed during the last legislative session requiring school districts to update their process to be effective for July 1. we did rely on msba to create sort of a template for us to work off of and then pursue legal advice to ensure we're in compliance with the law the interesting thing about this policy is that it does require Community engagement in order to finalize the policy so whereas many policies the board will review here and then second read at their next meeting what we would propose would be for the board to take a look now and then for us to put this out for public comment uh the draft that you see for public to respond to

101and provide us any feedback before we come back to the board again with a final draft based on that feedback the update to the policy is really about agenda items and allowing the public a process in which they can put members or they can put items on to the board agenda we have outlined the process for putting the items on the agenda and then also the process of Engagement when a board member does or when a member of the public or resident does come forward to present that item we've also flushed out a little bit of the public comment portion of this policy to better outline and codify some of the processes here and then also allow the public and residents to have both that public comment as an opportunity to engage with the board

102but then also that agenda item piece and just for clarification the agenda item piece is the part that is required under law so with that if there's any questions start down with Mr Kathy okay I just want to thank Ms Dietrich there there was a model policy msba and also legal so there were three different entities that kind of reviewed this and put it together and I think that it's a very nice format to have them separate the bddh and the KC and then it refers to the communications committee scanner operating procedure as well yes thank you I was um kind of focused on bddh you also see policy KC which there is a policy KC um as a part of our policies now but this essentially does rewrite it both with the guidance of

103msba but then also with our current processes it allows the community engagement plan to be a part of the communications plan which is a plan that the board approves every year we have engaged with the communications committee specific to that Community engagement plan in making sure that our draft was reflective of their feedback penguin do you have anything we can't hear you are you mute oh it's on the computer I think she's muted remember earlier here yeah I'm just gonna turn the volume up can you hear me yes okay perfect I was gonna say I I feel I still need a little more time to process all of this through how the rules apply right the rules starting on page three um and Dave have you gone through you or Laura Laura or both of

104you gone through like scenarios of how this is going to actually play out so that we are really clear on expectations and transparency uh the short answer is you might imagine is yes we have played out uh what scenarios could in fact look like and that's one of the reasons as we've worked through this Miss Dietrich didn't say so but one of the things that emerged if I'm looking at Miss Dietrich making sure I represent this correctly is that msba actually in their their work they indicated um I believe the recommendation was to eliminate public comment like we have it in our current form we are not going to do that we don't believe we don't believe that's appropriate we believe that there is still value in that process for folks to come and speak

105in front of the board and so what you see in front of you miss Pangborn is reflective of that and so yes we have we have taken various scenarios and kind of run them through what they could look like what they might look like you will see some language in there that's reflective of that based on what we heard from our legal counsel specifically surrounding what the expectations would be for a Community member that does get something on the agenda and is able to address the board however won't be able to ask questions of the board in terms of making sure that we keep the the decorum and the expectation of this is a business meeting and this is the board doing the district's business so again I think I did this to a board

106member earlier the short answer is yes we have talked through multiple scenarios especially as msba just recently came up with their model policy and then TK was able to give us some some in-depth feedback feedback actually that was shared with all the superintendents in St Louis County so I believe it is sound to the best of our ability to anticipate issues that might arise I believe we've done our best when we talk about the process the thought in my mind was to really maybe model the testimony process for the legislature when a bill is being presented an individual can come forward and provide testimony to the legislature on a bill give their perspective and then the legislature or members of that committee may actually ask that member of the public questions that would be I

107could see similar to what we've tried to outlay here as the process so it's not the person giving the testimony requesting information of the governing body it's still the person giving the testimony but then if the governing body asks questions of them I just wanted to add something on to um that um Miss Dietrich she put the law right here 162.058 and it's very long description of what we have to do it's a it's a lot and I can also email it to you but we don't have a lot of choice in it because we have to have it done by July first as per Missouri law but I think it's a really lot it's a big long policy with a lot of details but those details are directly correlated to this law so I

108will send the link to everyone so so you can refer to it as you review thanks Bernardi let's go uh so I mean I do have a concern that if we have three just a timing concern if we have three uh resident opportunities each allowed to speak at least five minutes uh and obviously there'll be some amount of questions and discussion among the board too um so my concerns are really just from a timing perspective right of whether it makes sense to I agree it doesn't make sense to eliminate public comments but whether it makes sense to shorten our maximum time period from 30 minutes to something shorter if there are resident agenda items to be discussed as well and the other thing I would offer up would be instead of it being five minutes

109by default make it three minutes by default and that way it matches the amount of time for public comment so you're not sort of incentivized to put something on our agenda as opposed to making a public comment I don't say the time limit is not outlined in law it's just allowing for a time limit is allowed per law so if that's a change that the board wants to make that would certainly be I think yeah so I think particularly if since we have language here that allows the board to extend it and actually personally I would just make it that the chair can extend it um but um my preference would be that that'd be three minutes to match the public comment period well I guess I would only say that you know um I

110think that the intention of this if I'm cracked is that they that a citizen or you know a constituent has gone through all the processes so they've gone through the public comment they've gone through meeting with the superintendent they've gone through all the things and this is kind of like intended to be like the the last right I would say that the public comment would be maybe would not necessarily be required to be a part of the process but the other parts of that having a meeting with the superintendent and pursuing resolution through the district before coming forward that that is right the way it's written right so people have to go through steps before they um are putting something on that agenda and so I just feel like if it's gotten to that point

111um then they might need more than three three minutes um and so you know I don't think that you can can you know connect public comment to that to this because um people can't just go to that step they have to have met certain criteria before they go to this step so I would just I think five minutes should be allowed but if maybe I need to read a little closer this isn't just for grievances or if someone is upset about something correct that's correct it would be for any Resident and I will clarify that so the agenda item portion the way it is written is for residents typically with public comment we have a wider amount of folks who are able to come forward but the agenda item is for residents as defined by

112previous policy where we Define what a residence is so that would um be accurate I think okay so does anyone else have um I guess let's say versus three three minutes versus five minutes um I I think the the good news is we can start with one of those three or five minutes and we can always update it or change it and see how things go but the law says that no um no items shall be placed under this section unless it is directly related to the governance or operation of the school district so it can't just be anything like a public comment like Miss Dietrich said can be anything anybody but this is more for community members with something they want on the agenda and then there is criteria that you have to meet

113with the superintendent and those so so there shouldn't be so many I would I would just say that and we can look it over Motika I I think since this isn't even the final thing because it hasn't had the community engagement yet and we're going to be looking at it again in June um that will give I think all of us time to sort of process the three to five minutes and anything else in here that we're trying to wrap our head around Kathy so you might have touched on this but what is the plan for what's Community engagement look like for us so so uh with the boards uh consent um again kind of following the model one of our state models when it comes to like the state rulemaking process or even when

114they're working on updates to the state code of regulations they do a public comment period um where they'll actually put it online and allow individuals to submit a form with their feedback so that's what we'd like to do here we plan to share pretty widely that we're in the process of doing that and I will check my notes so I can make sure I can cover all the different places we're talking about um so we would promote the opportunity for feedback through a board meeting and mention it at the announcement portion we would post the actual policy on the board of education page with the feedback form which we would likely use let's talk because that's a method which has been pretty helpful in garnering feedback um we would put out a news release to

115announce the public that the policies are out for public comment um that typically does run in our local media so we appreciate that partnership but just in case individuals miss it or it doesn't get picked up we would also purchase a public notice to put in the newspaper to ensure that there's that out in the world and then we would also include it in parent and staff communication so the emails that both our staff and our parents and families receive there would be information about the draft policies and then also a link for that feedback oh is it still related to this yeah just the dates are I think the dates are on here I think you have put the dates already is is it for public comment May 6th 16th to June 16th that's

116would be the proposal yeah thank you um this is kind of a side note I think I mentioned it last board meeting but since we're talking about public comment is there any way on the cards that we can oh already on it hey thank you just so just to finish that thought uh commission did uh ask if we could add the email address to the public comment card I did take that feedback to miss Heidenreich and that will be reflected on going forward thank you that's all the policies I know those are always we go fast thank you all for your comments thank you Miss Dietrich and thank you to miss Bernardi and Miss Andrews for working in uh Dr Ulrich as well [Music] okay I need emotion and a second um to adjourn this

117work session and move into closed so move second all in favor say aye aye question thank you you need to roll proper clothes need a motion to enter into closed sessions for the purpose of personnel six one 0.021 so moved second roll call yes yes Pangborn yes thank you this meeting is adjourned five minutes somebody to FaceTime okay I don't have a