001remember school's board of education meeting number 1549 is now called the order dr lake do we have any changes to the agenda we do not i have a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved second by jen second by kathy okay um all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries 7-0 all right so now we will do the pledge of allegiance for all those who are able to stand but we'll invite our students from champion concord and gifted and pegs to come forward and lead us in the pledge one up don't be bad yeah come on everybody come on up come on there you go yeah you can turn your face you're ready and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] thank you
002guys for coming up um so tonight we are recognizing all three of those schools and programs so we're going to begin with dr parker from shapington oh we are so excited to recognize a fourth grade student a fifth grade student and our 2021 teacher of the year as well as our 2021 support staff person of the year so i am going to have my assistant principal mr norton come up and we will get started abdul and maya would you like to come up as well hey good evening everybody i'm first going to talk about our 2021 support staff person of the year ms leanne barrett our school nurse leanne has gone above and beyond to make sure all students and staff are safe this year with covet 19. in a season of incredible amounts of
003work with complex guidelines leanne has been consistent reliable and kind she's extremely cautious does a wonderful job communicating with parents many times this year we have needed to ask leanne questions and always answers promptly and is very informative these are there are not enough hours in the day for her to do every single task but she has been resilient throughout although her work has brought on many new challenges she has done a wonderful job keeping sappington safe and healthy thank you liam barrett [Applause] and let's have maya won't you come over here between dr parker and i this is maya what grade are you in fourth fourth grade here we go so maya stands up for her rights and others she is brave maya is kind empathetic and an innovative student she's always looking to
004include others and as a friend to all for example when a student in her class felt left out at recess without hesitating she immediately gave them a role in the activity they were doing maya is compassionate and looks for ways to help other students and staff when someone at her table needs help she will gently and quietly show them what to do or point them in the right direction when maya faces a difficult situation she uses her strategies to help her solve that problem or or the task at hand maya's is also a wonderful artist and is a fantastic writer she looks for guidance on how to grow as a leader and actively works to be a better student maya is also innovative maya works with others to design artwork and create a business you
005created a business in her classroom that's awesome finally maya is empathetic she regularly places herself in other shoes other shoes and stands up for what is right she treats others with respect and is an example to her friends and classmates remember community let's hear it from maya [Applause] maya we have a certificate with you with your name on it here for you and we also have a t-shirt for you as well so it's fitting to wear today if you want with the green so congratulations well deserved thank you you're welcome let's take a picture [Applause] thank abdul is our fifth grade leader abdul is always helpful and kind and always has a smile on his face he thinks about others and always strives to do his personal best he also has started organized and he
006is leading our lost and found club he shares slides with teachers with all of the clothing items so that they can have their students preview all of their items and claim all of their items and then he tells me that they're not claiming their items and asked me to resend the slideshow abdul is a student leader this year we have taken on tours for special district offer office administrators and abdul is one of our student leaders who shares the great things that we are doing at sappington please give a round of applause for our fifth grade student leader abdul abdul we have a certificate that recognizes you as student of the month so here's that and then we also have a t-shirt for you as well so congratulations well deserved [Applause] abdul congratulations i'm excited
007to present to you our 2021 staffington teacher of the year mrs jessica portell jessica has a few words to say okay jessica is our reading specialist she is always ready to collaborate and willing to brainstorm how to support our students and our teachers in the area of reading jessica is a wealth of knowledge she is patient and consistent she establishes positive relationships with everyone students are excited to see her because she helps them to feel valued and appreciated she constantly celebrates the growth of each of our students that she works with jessica goes above and beyond she is always a true professional and a stellar team player i'm excited to share with you our 2021 teacher of the year mrs jessica portell [Applause] jessica congratulations we have a certificate recognizing you as teacher of the
008year and then we also have a 25 gift certificate to our spirit wear store online so congratulations [Applause] now i will introduce dr angie moleman principal of concord elementary come on down angie oh dr parker she is such a comedian here we go all right so uh thank you for having us tonight i would like to also introduce our assistant principal miss liz quaitzer yay and if we could have our students come on down we would like to introduce these wonderful fifth grade students mr michael yao and brooklyn du hattaway so thanks for coming up friends all right i'm going to go ahead and begin with michael michael definitely embodies the flyer spirit and we couldn't think of a better student to be recognized as one of our concord students of the year and your
009teacher wrote a wonderful poem about michael so it all goes with the word flyer f is for feedback michael applies feedback from his teachers and peers to make sure his work is the best it can be l is for leed he takes initiative to lead his teammates to success in any project he is a team player and is always willing to help why is for yourself michael is proud of who he is and all of his strengths that he brings to our classroom his witty sense of humor is sure to make you laugh e is for excellence michael excels in his academics and always pushing his boundaries to learn more he sets goals and makes sure he takes the steps he needs to meet them and r is for respect i can always count on
010michael to do the right thing and set a positive example for his peers congratulations to one of our 2021 students of the year concord michael we have a certificate here recognizing you as student of the month and then we also have a t-shirt for you as well so congratulations well deserved we're gonna get a quick picture okay okay and our next special guest here is miss brooklyn duhadway i heard you wanted to give a speech no no she definitely was not interested in that all right but brooklyn is an amazing student at concord her teacher in the words of her teacher miss turek said she is a hard worker she goes above and beyond in all of her class work brooklyn participates in class discussions she's always ready to help and contribute to everything the
011class is learning about she is a natural leader she seeks out opportunities to help those around her and this is especially true of brooklyn even when her teacher might be saying oh here's a student that needs help brooklyn has her hand in the air ready to go to help those kiddos before the teacher can even get the the idea out of her mouth and she said brooklyn is always ready to go to help those around her i know this for a fact because brooklyn reached out she was in arc and and learning from home and this was so amazing she submitted a project there was a a call for service learning and brooklyn said i have a perfect idea she drew up the plan she sent him in and she said i want to make
012a box in the lobby of concord so that students can come and get a book if they need it and if they have a book they can they can contribute in it there and she put this together she built this plan who did you build it with grandpa yeah grandpa and and it is in our lobby so she is leaving her legacy today at concord so let's give brooklyn a big round of applause brooklyn congratulations um here is the certificate recognizing you as student of the month and then here is a t-shirt for you as well so congratulations well deserved all a right [Music] our next announcement we would like to share is our 2021 support staff person of the year and that is our custodian mr john bush unfortunately he was not able to
013join us this evening but we would like to share still some special words about john um he is one of our unforeseen heroes in our building we if there's a job that needs to be done mr john will for sure get it done for us he's such an amazing person and he does take such pride in all the work he does for our school and keeping it clean and safe for our children and for our staff so congratulations to mr john we wish you well and we will for sure pass it on to him tomorrow all right and last but not least we'd like to call miss spaghetti getty down as her students know her they call her miss miss spaghetti miss getty so this is our our wonderful art teacher at concord our 2001
014concord teacher of the year and this lady is absolutely amazing okay when you want to think about an individual who is so deserving of this honor it's mrs getty what she does best is build relationships with children and and that goes all the way up we just got an email today from high schoolers and how much they value the relationship that mrs getty builds with them as our art teacher she obviously provides excellent instruction you know within the art curriculum but she always tries something new and so i i will say in our time together she tried choice art which is an innovative way of teaching students using all different kinds of mediums and they just have a wonderful design time in art class but like i said most importantly katie builds relationships with students
015and she serves on many committees in the district works tirelessly to make displays of student artwork participating in this st louis symphony project and katie just has a wonderful positive attitude and we're so lucky that she is our 2021 teacher of the year so give a big round of a study [Applause] kd congratulations here's a certificate recognizing you as teacher of the year and then also a 25 gift certificate so congratulations well deserved [Music] okay and now i we're gonna kick it on over to the gifted department miss tracy ben eric all right thank you so um i'm first going to start with our students so we're going to recognize a peg student and a leap student so if i could have my two students up jacob and anya come on up and we'll go
016with oldest goes first so we're going to start with jacob unzikr and i have some words from your teachers that i would like to share jacob was always a caring and empathetic extremely determined student athletic and friend to all he absolutely deserves recognition jacob is fun loving and kind he balances a desire to learn and achieve with positive relationships with his peers and his teachers congratulations jacob the first word that comes to mind when i think of jacob is mature jacob is able to have respectful deliberations in ap government and sets a great example for others he is thoughtful with his words and has an inclusive demeanor that shows that he is willing to listen to all sides of an issue he is inquisitive and asks questions that demonstrates his ability to think critically we
017are lucky to have jacob at lindbergh high school congratulations we have for you a certificate here recognizing your student of the month and then you also get a nice new flyer t-shirt there you go we're gonna get a quick picture here [Applause] it's been a while since i've been a teacher i'm not as good at projecting my voice all right and now we have anya kashuk who is a kasich sorry i even asked her how to pronounce it so anyway anya is a fifth grader in leap and she has grown into an incredibly confident and articulate young lady she has expanded on our studies of robotics by asking her family to get her her own sphero mini and so that she can practice programming at home she is wildly creative can be counted on to
018be a peer mentor when collaborating with teammates and as a pensive and deep critical thinker her teachers go on to say she's also a gracious collaborator she goes out of her way to make others feel included and to give them a voice on the team she is willing to challenge herself and displays a positive attitude and growth mindset when working on learning new things anya takes pride in her work and pushes herself to achieve at a high level congratulations anya [Applause] anya congratulations we have a certificate here recognizing you as student of the month so that's for you and then we also have a new t-shirt for you as well so congratulations i think we're good all right and now we're going to have our 2021 teacher of the year come up this is chrissy
019brown and i already told her she wouldn't have to do a speech so i'm not even going to play that prank on her so we will you'll just get to hear good things about yourself so um the first is from the teacher that nominated you so she'd love to recognize mrs chrissy brown because you have such great student relationships social emotional needs are always put first in your classroom you're part of a team you were part of a team writing sel curriculum two summers ago and you're an expert on bibliotherapy you use those skills to write amazing lessons targeted at the student needs that arise in your classroom mrs brown you push students to think critically and make sure they see the real world relevance of your lessons you have rewritten the gifted science curriculum
020to make all of your units project based your this increases student interest and makes the learning more hands-on you often incorporate novel engineering into your formative lessons tying in literature and making learning learning rooted in real life situations more than anything your team member just thinks you're an awesome amazing team teacher a few more words from your other colleagues chrissy has been an integral part of the pegs community since she began she brings a tremendous amount of creativity to the science curriculum and has been a joy to learn it's been a joy to learn from you throughout the years as a professional your patients and care with the students is above and beyond and you help the students feel safe and comfortable in your classroom with you as their teacher you're able to find the
021balance of making learning fun meaningful and challenging chrissy was meant to be a gifted educator congratulations [Applause] chrissy we have a certificate recognizing you for teacher of the year and then a 25 gift certificate for our online store do not let your husband jason have access to that gift certificate please all right good so congratulations well deserved [Applause] somebody i have some people that would like to come up and talk to you and all of you so if that's okay could i have my two peg students come up to the front so we are always very grateful for our pegs program here at lindbergh that's part of the greater st louis metro program for exceptionally gifted students that also has a site at pattonville and i have two students in the pegs program that would
022like to share some words about the program [Music] all right my name is max harbuck i am part of the pegs gifted program and i think it is an important gifted program because um it changed my life and um without it i would be still in be in elementary school and um i the education wouldn't be like up to my uh level in certain classes and skills um i'm not bragging um um but uh also because of pegs i know what it means to be gifted and um and i also have uh real friends in uh pegs now and um i am really glad i ended up in there because it's great um and yeah pegs is also really helpful because it the teachers um are their uh learning programs that they um like enforce
023i guess um are more pinpointed onto like each student needs because each gifted student has like a different need and and it's really important for them to be focused on individually in the class while the teacher is also taking care of the class as a whole hi i'm adam harbuck pegasus is important to me because if i wasn't in pegs and i would be in third grade doing things that were not my level and it would be too easy for me and i would not have a challenge so of course that means in pegs i'm probably doing things that challenge me and i am and i'm really thankful for the pegs program because i feel like whenever you get into the pegs program most of the kids are really really friendly to you and that's
024why i'm thankful for the pegs program [Applause] thank you so much please stay up for just a minute i just wanted to say on behalf of everyone on the board thank you both for coming and we appreciate hearing this feedback all the time you guys did fantastic they did great right we love hearing the story and so you're not empty-handed here's a t-shirt for you max you only get one don't take two and you adam so thank you guys we appreciate you coming and now's the time anybody that came for just the recognition part we take a few minute break here and you can excuse yourself or you can stay for the rest of the meeting it's your choice but we'll take a guess and take a few minutes [Music] oh all right that uh
025took a little longer than normal we had a larger group this evening but we'll move on now to 5.0 which is resolutions and we have one this evening which is the lindbergh leaders resolution and this is a great event every year to recognize uh some of the things that across the board people are doing in within the district volunteers people who have contributed above and beyond so this is a resolution for that group and we'll have a banquet honoring them as well this year in person again so that's fantastic uh so i do have a motion to approve the resolution as presented so moved by matt second by jim okay all in favor aye aye opposed motion carry 7-0 thank you now we'll move to 6.0 which is citizen comments so at this time as
026you know the board will hear citizen comments regarding topics that are on tonight's agenda um it looks like this evening we have five speakers so as i call your name and the topic you're going to discuss please come forward we'll start with john strzok on library policy and just as a reminder for those of you who have not spoken or not been here we have a three-minute time frame for each speaker good evening y'all i'm john strzok i reviewed your change of library policies and i think i understand the intention of your policy and his proponents pay attention a little history i'm going to set the tone of this it was january 10 1963 congressman albert s sherlong jr from florida read the list of 45 communist goals for the america into the congressional record
027did you all know that i didn't the purpose of him reading this was to gain insight into the liberal elite ideas and strategies for america that sounds awfully familiar today goal 24 eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them censorship and a violation of free speech free press goal 25 break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books magazines motion pictures radio and tv gold 26 present homosexual degeneracy and promiscuity as normal natural and healthy this is the grammar skin agenda of the long march through the institutions spelled out explicitly gradual takeover the needs of communication and then using those vehicles to debauch the culture and weaken the will of the individual to resist today those few who still have the courage to advocate public morality are denounced and viciously attacked
028most americans are entirely unwitting regarding the motives behind his agenda so that's my research on this this whole thing so here's my thoughts and my understandings and it's purely my thoughts education management is all about three things power money and politics not the children that's my perspective from what i hear here children are being exploited it's cultural marxism parents are being shut out item three you represent a failing institution and agenda you are failing the students and the parents item four education the education relationship used to be a triangle student teacher parent now the activist agenda of a national policy is driving the local boards i've seen this all over the country when i travel it's everywhere it's not unique to here item five you are teaching what to think not how to think item
029six you should require posting all teachers curriculum and class lessons online for parents to review it's called transparency it'd be nice to see the videos of the classes and see what they're being taught it help the parents support the children at home item seven there's a difference between a teacher activist and an activist teacher eight i pray for school choice the money follows the student not the system parents rule item nine it's my understanding that teachers do not need to be in a union can opt out and save hundreds of dollars in dues and today that's real money and purchase better insurance than the unions for a fraction of the dues with the economy like this i'd look into it i'm ten critical race theory emotional social learning you cannot eradicate racism with racism all
030right that includes concludes your three minutes okay in item 11 in florida the recent anti-grooming legislation is opposed to by the lgbt street community this will prohibit transgender sexual orientation in primary schools why the opposition where would this board stand on the legislation well thank you uh next next we have uh kristen gardner on library policy as well hi there are many books in the library that i as a parent would not allow my child to access i emphasize that i do not consent to my child having the ability to pull those books from the shelves these sections of the policy appear to be intended to bypass my parental rights and consent do the libraries and american library association have the rights to my child's mind more than her parents whose child is she who's
031who is responsible for the overall physical mental emotional well-being i contend it is not the education system when teachers support support students physical emotional and sexual puberty evolution they should have the parent involved and informed parental permission when teachers knowingly support the students and isolate parents by hiding interactions and action this is commonly referred to as grooming and potential instrument of pedophilia we all agree children are minor until age 18. parents have the responsibility and thus the authority to administer to their educational well-being when a student falls prey to the subject information and is supported by the teachers and administration and is fueled by peer pressure and ends up in a hospital physically or mentally damaged will the board the librarians the librarian association the union the lgbtq activists be there to comfort the child
032and tend to their healing and pay the bills no none of you will because none of you care you succumb to power money and politics and got your handlers agenda agenda installed a damaged child every now and then is a consequence intended or unintended sounds like textbook sociopath to me you the board members are supposed to represent the community from my research in excess of two-thirds of parents do not want you to invade their parental boundaries my call to action postpone the vote until the parental boundaries are well defined and supported in these policies rather than parents being required to opt out make it so parents are required to opt in probably would take much less policing if you do not support the parents you are violating my freedoms of conscience just like your policies
033are attempting to do for minor children in your education system focus on educating students to be contributing members of society i am quite sure there's an opportunity for significant and measurable improvement we let you be educators so educate and do not interfere with moms and dads being parents because they are our children not yours um also what do you all okay thank you next uh martha duchamp on the book challenge one housekeeping question first i have a poem to read and a comment i don't know if you want to start the timer at my poem or at the public comment okay where the sidewalk ends by shell silverstein there is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins and there the grass grows soft and white and there the sun burns crimson
034bright and there the moon bird rests from his flight to cool in the peppermint wind let us leave this place where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds and bends past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow and watch where the chalk wide arrows go to the place where the sidewalk ends yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow and we'll go where the chalk white arrows go for the children they mark and the children they know the place where the sidewalk ends why did i read this poem because it perfectly captures the unique and essential role that adolescents serves as a bridge from childhood to adulthood the issues associated with the book challenges don't stem from a desire
035to suppress the voices of various identity groups rather they speak to a broader value questions does exposing lindbergh students to mature content at increasingly younger ages short-circuit adolescents how does this impact student mental health when how much and what type of mature content should be shared with students where does the lindbergh family find itself between the competing interests of education and formation these questions need resolution and going through the book challenge process while ignoring the larger issues is negligent and only fosters more dysfunction the time to bring the linberg family members to the table for a conversation about these larger value questions is long overdue the fallout from divisiveness in the board chambers has led to a drain on staff time district resources and community patients quite frankly it's an embarrassment that this has been
036allowed to continue without recognition then an intervention is needed it's time for the superintendent to demonstrate leadership and ask the board to put a committee together to examine these questions working together to determine the place where lindbergh's own sidewalk should end thank you next is marylee sauer on library policy any member of this board that approves the new library policy should resign the library policy gif gives rights to the librarian who is a public employee and takes those rights from the parents and taxpayers does this board represent the community and taxpayers or politically biased groups like the radical ala second this policy allows the librarian to select books or allows library to select books in accordance with current trends in education and literature what does this mean what is the source of these current trends
037is it gloria lads and billings one of the most widely assigned readers in teachers colleges for the last several decades who wrote various influential papers explaining how to inject critical race theory into education or could it be richard rorty a man whose goal was to realize a radical leftist uh whose goal was to realize a radically leftist end and orient education toward crafting new forms of selfhood and social organization rorty's says that diversity does not exist in a classroom unless it's relativistic and irrational he does not believe in the individual he says that our individual choices obligates us to a group his goal was to remove morals cultural touchstones authoritative texts reason and rational thought and replace it with emotions to develop a tribal us versus them type of delineated thought to reorganize society thermal
038levine from pbs said dorothy you are the enemy of all that is good and true you are a philosophical antichrist here to bring our civilization to an apocalypse yet rorty is a continuing and current trend in education i spoke at the december board meeting and showed how the individual goodness how the individual goodness truth rational thinking has been removed from the syllabi and the classroom cultural touchstones like to kill a mockingbird or the great gatsby gosh even thanksgiving have been pulled from our curriculums and our school libraries replaced by contemporary novels many of which are vulgar and graphic and do not support our societal morals unity truth nor our american values and principles rorty would say that a child having sex with an adult is not rape rather that child is creating himself and displaying
039intellectual curiosity and sensitivity these educational trend centers are complete sickos this library policy is vague and lacks transparency for a reason in this district today there's no standard curriculum there's no standard historical text there's no standard for pornography there's no fundamental core knowledge base for our students there's no valid standardized tests and now there's no clear standard for our libraries this policy is poorly written unclear and can easily support a dangerous harmful agenda show this community that students are your top priority by voting no on this administration's policy thank you last we have scott sifton on masking thank you my name is scott sifton and so i am not wearing green today and i felt badly about that because it's st patrick's day but now i feel even worse about it because this is lindbergh
040i'm sorry my children attended lindbergh schools for several years some of their most formative years and i want to thank you and everybody in this district for the fantastic job you did for my for my children i represented much of this school district in the missouri senate uh for eight years uh and uh am currently filed as a candidate for the vacant united states senate seat that'll be on the ballot in november but before all that for nine years i sat where you sit served nine years on the afton board of education and uh two terms as board president so i know that serving on a school board can be challenging in even the best of times and heaven knows this last couple years with this pandemic have been anything but the best of times
041we never faced anything like it when i was on the board i cannot even imagine everything that you all and the teachers and staff in the district have had to deal with these last two years i know what it's been like as a parent you've had to make tough calls to do what you believe is best for kids and now you've been sued for it missouri attorney general eric schmidt is simply wrong on both the law and the policy masking policy should be and as a matter of law is a matter of local control in missouri but this is about more than mask it's about the rising tide of extremist intervention in our local schools the kind of extremism that results in toni morrison's very first novel getting pulled off the bookshelves not too far
042from here uh right at the start of black history month uh that got reversed and that was that shouldn't have even been a question to begin with uh the kind of extremism that pushes for don't say gay legislation the kind that seeks to erase painful parts of our history that are critical to who we are as a people last january 6th we saw an assault on our national capital and today we are seeing those same forces led by steve bannon working to gain control of our school building so all i can say is if you support local control study up on the candidates and be sure to vote on april 5th thank you okay that concludes citizen comments for the agenda items so thank you for coming tonight and addressing the board and we'll continue
043with board business at this time we'll go to 7.0 which is communications and we'll start with calendar calendar of events with the board secretary all righty here we go so if anybody is not aware we do not have school tomorrow and next week is spring break so better prepare um what's that they're all aware we're all aware okay we're gonna make this a really long meeting then so we can't leave early for tomorrow march 29th is teaching and learning board advisory april 5th is an extremely important day it's election day so as scott sipton said make sure you study your candidates and get out and vote that night we also planned a virtual parent speaker series so maybe next year let's not do that so we can make sure everybody goes out to vote lhs
044has senior one act so it's seniors doing presenting one act on april 7th through 9th april 8th is our bloomberg leaders banquet at royal orleans always wonderful to honor our leaders in the district april 11th is the gifted speaker series and april 12th we have this special board meeting where we will swear in our board of education members our new ones and that's two seats open and four candidates running april 13th is middle school percussion and april 14th is student life april 15th is no school maybe that's an advantage so we can get our taxes filed i'm not sure make sure you do that by midnight the 18th is technology board finance board advisory is april 19th and then another parent speaker series on april 19th as well uh and then april 21st we're right
045back here for more fun for a regular board of education meeting thank you hey go ahead can i ask a question about the calendar joshua the speaker series is virtual and recorded right just to make sure okay um thanks i think april 5th along with the election is also the november foundation scholarship night too that's a wonderful thing and a lot of kids get well needed money for their uh college education that night it's it's a really a great night so vote early is what you're saying get out and vote early load early yeah um 7.02 is report of meetings it's the time where everyone can report on any meetings they attended um i attended the ssd governing council meeting last week um so the peer review committee that was formed this year they meet
046every four or they're formed every four years to write the report they gave an update they are pretty much at the end of their data collection process and they'll start writing their recommendations soon so june i think is when they'll present the actual report um they did their budget workshop about what they're doing for next year's budget there is a powerpoint presentation in their board docs if you want to see it they are adding 47 additional staff members to be spread out through ssd and partner districts and then two new board events well they aren't new two board of education members were elect appointed for sub district three which is parkway is miss katie potroff and she was an incumbent candidate and was running she didn't have anyone running against her and sub district 4
047which is ferguson flores pattonville and riverview gardens mr scott moeller was appointed to that position so thanks thank you anyone else so i have a meeting i want to i like to go to meetings um on march 7th monday march 7th was our legislative forum with msba and i'll just start with a few of the bills that we need to be watchful of and one as always it's coming up again is moving school board elections to november election time which msba does not support they actually talked about clay county and missouri moved all of their municipal things and to the april election and freed up the november for all of the political type positions so they're seeing if that'll take traction in missouri if others will do that literacy and school innovation senate bill 681
048is coming up and then charter school expansion is still out there they're assuming or thinking that the st louis piece of that will actually drop off this year and it may just have kansas city on it so that's that's what's going on there and so then the meeting was actually really is very exciting normally when we go it's you know a speaker and we talk and we learn things but this year is really neat um it was women in leadership month and so we had women senators as the panelists and so senator carla esslinger senator elaine gannon and senator cindy cindy o'loughlin and senator jill shupe which we're all familiar with her were the panelists and what they talked about was that i talked about the fact that there are 36 women currently serving as
049senators in jeff city which is the most it's been in all of history there's been a thousand 118 men served but 36 women and that's been the most so what they decided to do was actually create a book that features all of the women and senate and it's super cool it's got um all of their biographies in here and how they started and how they evolved into these positions of leadership within the state of missouri and so these ladies went ahead it's actually a group of 11 that did this and they went ahead and they had enough published from hold on now the missouri humanities committee funded it and they had enough publish for all fourth grade grade classrooms in every school district in missouri and one available for every school building in missouri and
050so i reached out to our senators to have them bring us the books to our district and i just want to give a shout out to senator doug beck who showed up on tuesday with all of the books for our fourth graders in every classroom at every school here so thank you doug for that really appreciate that the other piece of it is that the literacy bill by o'loughlin 11 currently serving now or 11 women in jeff city and so they got together as a group and they had dinner and they talked about what is it we want to accomplish what do we want to change create fix and so they chose literacy so o'loflin along with msba wrote senate bill 681 which addresses literacy and dyslexia and they do expect that to go through
051so that might be something that you want to watch in the bill includes some funding better assessments and training for higher education training for teachers who are actually at the university level to learn about using you know how do you teach children with dyslexia so anyway it was very exciting and something new they added this year is we all went to the capitol building and then the governor and margie van dieven talked to us at that point and we had not done that before and so the governor talked about teacher retention starting wages and building the workforce so that if you are not necessarily a college driven person that you might go into a trade school but um encouraging schools to do that and i know we do that we do that through caps and
052different programs and then van diven's talk was about assessments and the map test and getting ready to change that up so anyway it was a fun day and it was cold that day so i stood out waiting for the bus and the bus never came that's a personal side note but here's the book everybody can look at it if you want to um but follow those bills it'll be exciting to see what happens in jeff city thank you and i just wanted sorry i wanted to tag on for just a minute because i was very excited when i got the book at my school and page 47 is anita yuckel who served on the lindbergh school board um 1980 she was both president and vice president so senator anita thanks thank you 7.03 is announcements
053we have done this month so we'll go to the upcoming board of education agendas and back to you madam secretary there we go upcoming board of education as i stated earlier april 12th at 4 30 will be our special board of education meeting followed by a board workshop and then on april 21st we will hold our regular board of education meeting the special board meeting on the 12th is where we'll swear in our new members and our workshop will be the learning report and then our meeting on the 21st will be regular agenda items human resources financial consent as well as listening and learning report thank you 7.05 member appointments we have none so we'll go to the msba report which we will now watch the march report colin hello everyone and welcome to the
054missouri school boards association's board report for the month of march we thank you for the opportunity to share some news and information during a few minutes of your board meeting we begin with a look at the importance of advocacy on the state level it's critical that board members and superintendents communicate frequently with state legislators about the impact of proposed legislation in your school district one example of such advocacy work occurred recently when a group of parents and school board members from st louis public schools visited the capitol in jefferson city one of those making the trip was emily kelso a parent and chair of the st louis parent action council there are a lot of us who choose to send our students to st louis public schools and are proud to do so and are
055willing to come here on our own time with no compensation uh and and say you know we we are proud of our schools we choose slps and and we want to see the legislature here invest in our students another parent gloria nolan says it's important to be an advocate for all children we have to be an advocate for children across the district and so when i think about it i'm advocating for the children that don't live in my house that don't have a mom that might show up to something and might not know all of you know how they can express themselves so i can be that voice and i promise to do it i promised myself that i would do it the st louis school board also has formed a legislative advocacy committee aimed
056at having a greater impact on legislation being considered in jefferson city as the legislative session progresses we will keep you updated on developments again this year through our legislative voice newsletter sent to members via email each friday during the session our twitter feed with up to the minute developments through critical issue alerts and periodic webinars missouri has its first ever national superintendent of the year he is dr curtis kane superintendent of the wenceville school district the award was announced at the recent american association of school administrators conference in nashville dr kane says school boards and superintendents working as a team can benefit the educational opportunities available to students and he says that's especially true in the current environment the ability for school boards and superintendents to effectively work together has always been important but now
057i believe with all the questions the comments the criticism the concerns that school districts are facing it is more important more now than ever before that these two parties work in tandem to support students and their success dr kane made those comments during the recent msba annual conference held in kansas city where he was named missouri's superintendent of the year msba spring regional meetings begin later this month and continue through april this year's round of meetings will feature presentations from school districts in the region you'll also have the opportunity to network share ideas with your colleagues from other districts in your area and learn more about current issues in public education you can register for the spring regional meeting in your area through the msba website msba's future builders foundation is now accepting applications for
058the 2022 early childhood education program of the year awards there will be three awards for exemplary early childhood education programs based on school district size applications will be judged by the future builders board of directors the deadline for submitting an application is april 4th the awards will be presented at the 2022 msba annual conference in kansas city application information is available on the msba website that's it for this month's edition of the msba board report thanks for allowing us to have some time at your board meeting and so long from columbia [Music] right thank you colin we'll move to 8.0 special reports 8.01 is the cabinet updates we'll start with joelle finance facilities financing facilities both met this month our finance committee met on tuesday to go over the board items in this packet we
059also had some additional conversation around the demographic report that was released and the data behind that and then the planning for the future of enrollment in the district and potential new subdivisions and things like that and then our facilities planning committee was kind of on the same path since the demographic report came out in february we went through the demographic data we use those trends as we plan for the master facility plan for the future and also future boundaries of new subdivisions you know the big topic would be the crestwood mall project which will bring 81 homes to the district and that's you know a couple years to roll out but you know planning for that in the future thank you dr mckinney hr our meeting this month was very brief we went over the
060monthly personnel report and had discussions about a few items in that in that document all right thank you dr sparks since our last meeting only technology board advisory has met and our middle school principals and instructional coaches joined us so we could do a deep dive on the use of google chat which is a very hot topic in our elementary and middle schools we temporarily suspended the use of it for for students back in december because we were having some challenges with appropriate use and so one of the things we've grappled with over the course of this year with the technology board advisory is what's the balance between giving students access to tools and teaching them how to appropriately use the tools so we really use the technology board advisory to develop a plan for
061how we're going to build systems of support for students to know how to use those tools so that we can slowly begin to roll them back out next year it was really interesting one of our advisory members talked about his role in the business community and how he is he is working through human resources with um employees because they are still struggling to appropriately use technology and and avoid employment issues so it's really essential that we teach kids how to do this well and so that is our work from here on out all right thank you we'll move now to 9.0 action items by consent we have action items by consent to 9.11 would anyone want to remove any of these items for individual consideration okay hearing none do i have a motion to approve
062consent items 9.01 and 9. are we approving in items by consent yes are we approving in an items by consent uh the review of the board policy that we're changing at this point because i know we've been presented it and we're here to you know move on approve or discuss it um okay so i would like although i'm in a very uh awkward situation uh this is i think as many of you know this is my final meeting my working meeting at least but i do feel as though we have to have a discussion of this particular item before we vote on it as part of a consent agenda so um i feel as though it really should be a standalone actually um i have noted some issues with it um and i don't know
063whether those would necessarily carry over into another meeting or not so i would uh entertain some discussion on this that particular you know again reconsideration of the policy as presented open for discussion now or you know polled or consideration individually at the next meeting well it was presented at the last meeting yes it was it was so we can still pull unless you know again we can also have a discussion about it before we proceed and again because this is part of a consent agenda and i know this happens here it happens with so many items we're left then to vote either you know for or against the whole consent agenda so i'm opening this for discussion you guys feel as though it's okay to go ahead and have a discussion tonight on this as
064far as providing this one for individual consideration or again we'll need to have a discussion and you're discussing which one item 9.11 so all of the policies because there's it's not just the library policy pardon it's not just the library policy no i know i know but there are uh there are policies i know it is not just a library policy they are lumped together i understand that so um i would move at this point uh because i actually believe the library policy should be a standalone discussion given the amount of things going on about this policy the level of participation by the community and their interest in it so i mean i would recommend pulling it uh if we uh you know i can do that as a board member i know but we're
065also in an awkward timing situation would anyone like to offer a recommendation in this discussion [Music] generally if you remove an item from the cassette agenda it will just be moved into this meeting's individual action items agenda okay okay and i think it's 9 10. 9 10 i thought it was 9 11. so so jen let me let me say did you just say that this if this repo that could be placed in separately within tonight's agent yeah yes why don't we do that that way we can proceed uh with a vote and the entire consent agenda okay with that exception okay so you want to remove i will move to do that yeah 9.10 and move that well it's 9.11 9.11.9 [Music] 911 for individual consideration to be discussed we can discuss that there's
066a there's a little i think there's a confusion because i keep people texting me and telling me it's 9 10 so i want to make sure that that we make the the right okay so here we have nine word policies okay so we had two excuse me yeah so 9 10 and then there was 9 11 with additional board policies but but the specific library policy is then in nine ten i'm looking into eleven nine eleven is the lnea agreement yeah there's nothing to do with the board policies okay so then why don't we pull nine ten just to have that as a separate item to discuss okay so then that will move to individual actions yeah just an individual i might went up right all right okay so i'm going to re-entertain a motion
067to have action items by consent 9.01 to 9.11 with the exception of 9.10 would anyone want any of those removed for consideration so we have to have a motion to approve consent items 9.01 to 9.09 at 9.11 noting that there are none for 9.07 and 9.08 still moved motion by jen second by mike so now we'll move to any other further discussion or comments okay hearing none all in favor all right close all right that motion carries 7-0 so then that will move to individual action items so then we'll move to 10.0 individual action items so we now have four this evening including 9.10 so uh we'll start with 10.10 on the agenda which is request for reconsideration the girl who fell from the sky for library use and i'll turn it over to dr
068sparks yes so once again we have an appeal for one of the decisions that was made out of our high school committee on the reconsideration of girl who fell from the sky you can see in our in our summary of this particular review that the committee did vote to retain the book within our libraries and so what is being asked tonight is for that that decision to stand i think one of the things i want to point out that i think is really important because it's become a conversation throughout much of our work with text specifically is what where resources fall within curriculum so when we write curriculum we have a cycle or rotation of different content areas where we write curriculum and those curriculums are written on what is typically a six year cycle
069it can sometimes vary based on other things that are happening within the district and when we write curriculum we always start with researching um getting the most current information about how we want to proceed we we do that with the support of our teaching and learning board advisory getting input from them as well and then our teachers really dig in and do the work of writing curriculum to align with our missouri learning standards the focus of curriculum is always what are we teaching it is what are those standards what are those learning targets in terms of the scope and sequence that's going to happen not just at a particular grade level but across the grade levels to have that level of alignment the curriculums come to the board without resources let me give you an
070example last year we brought or a year and a half ago we brought math as a curriculum adoption to the board of education we don't select resources prior to that point in time resources are selected afterwards if we were to start the curriculum process with resources then we would write curriculum based on whatever texts exist as opposed to what we want our students to learn which go back to the standards um so the idea when we talk about things like living curriculum is that we need to be able to flex the resources in order to meet the standards that have been written sometimes six years ago in order to have that flexibility to keep the curriculum relevant timely and engaging for our students so when we talk about things like living curriculum this isn't something
071that is new this isn't something that is unique to lindbergh this is the reality of how we keep curriculum relevant and it doesn't move the baseline of our work which is around the what we are teaching another example of living curriculum obviously as you know we're bringing first reading of ela curriculum tonight the previous curriculum was written six or seven years ago i don't have that memorized off the top of my head but if we did not have living curriculum we wouldn't have done things like the phonics impact study and selected new resources so i want to be really careful that we don't conflate resources with curriculum resources are how we teach curriculum they are not the curriculum so just wanted to clarify that because i think there's a lot of conversation around that topic
072and i i think we all need to start with a common understanding of what we're talking about when we talk about curriculum and resources so with that i'll turn it back over to you okay thank you so i'll go to the motion first i have a motion to retain the book the girl who fell from the sky written by heidi w duro in the library without restrictions as presented by megan second by christy so now open for discussions or questions further okay hearing none all in favor i do want to make a comment on this mic i i feel like uh in of all the books that we've been asked to uh review here uh on appeal uh this is this is a profoundly moving book if you were to read the story and read
073the characters involved the protagonists but also the overarching themes because uh it's uh it really actually has some positive elements to it you have a young girl who is raised by her she's raised by her grandmother she her father was an african-american gi in europe uh and when he was stationed he met he was stationed there and he met a danish woman and they married they had children and their lives began pretty much falling apart after that and they eventually immigrated to the united states and i found the immigrant part of this to be very very very intriguing and as i read on you can see one of the themes here behind all of this is that the family which starts out kind of you know solid unified what have you uh eventually just falls
074apart and it falls apart really because of alcohol abuse substance abuse in the family but particularly alcohol and i think you know the way this has been portrayed in this book is that substance abuse alcohol abuse in this case is not good it destroys families and destroys people so just taking it you know for that but also some of the other interesting themes and there are some tough tough moments in this book um you know it's not illustrated but just the narrative itself there's a couple of issues there that i'm sure you know it's going to be concerning to some parents that for their children to read this or have access to it but i i've got to say it was a profoundly uh it was proudly moving book and i think one that you
075know students potentially could benefit from and particularly in the classroom with restriction and um you know again looking at these types of works even when they have in the end some positive messages while still containing some very difficult passages we need to provide obviously you know parents with some notification on that and an ability to opt their kids out for checkout purposes so i just want to let you know this this was a this is a very different book than the ones that we have been reviewing over the course of the past several months so um take it from there thank you mike any further discussion or questions regarding the motion okay all in favor of the motion aye aye okay motion carries six uh one move to 10.02 which is request for reconsideration of
076the girl who fell from the sky for classroom use um do you have any further comments no okay do i have a motion to retain the book the girl who fell from the sky written by heidi w rowe as a choice novel in the classroom with a content advisory as presented so moved motion by matt second second second by megan so we'll open it again for discussion or questions i think my comment is and as we started this journey as a whole is the list of books used in the classroom were all pretty heavy very social emotional heavy materials so i was very encouraged when i read the report that we've acknowledged that you know we need to kind of change the content up a bit and throw some more positive things in there and
077work towards not having materials that may have a warning on them so i think that's a little bit of a switch from when we first started the discussion and um i think that's wonderful so again that piece where we can flip right we're in the middle and we start here but we can move some other direction you can pivot right pivot sorry i should have used that word okay but mike i did like the book as well i thought in the end both main characters came out successful right and i thought that was there was there was hope yeah we often don't see that uh coming in with some books these days and also what i found interesting again we get back in just touching that substance abuse and how it destroys families uh you
078know we partner right with an organization lindbergh does i think you're familiar with christie many of us are step up which helps inform our students about the dangers of drug abuse alcohol abuse and so forth so yeah correct thank you it's also good that in this discussion in particular that we are shifting our thinking from talking about who this book is not for and focusing on who the book is for because we do have students in our district that can identify with it that can learn from it no matter what and i really want us to as a community to focus together on making sure that the students are what we're focused on and that these are for them and not thinking so much about who it's not for so i appreciate that discussion well
079i think any any student could read this i mean it's not like this is a book per se written for a type of student you know i think this is something you know any student could actually learn from i mean from based on the storyline and and it's a cautionary tale about you know not only what can happen in life but how you can potentially overcome it thanks okay the other discussion questions okay all in favor hi hi opposed okay motion carries move to 10.03 which is uh the revised green light plan uh dr mckinney happy to outline so fortunately in our community covid risk levels for transmission are very low so uh knock on wood i almost hate to say that out loud but throughout the pandemic the district has modified this green light
080plan to reflect community conditions new information that we learn about mitigation guidelines and safety the goal of the plan has always been to provide the least restrictive learning environment possible while keeping students and staff safely in school the green light plan tonight has been revised again to reflect current risk levels as well as updated guidance on mitigation and i'm just going to go through and highlight the revisions from this version of the plan and then answer any questions you might have so the revisions are face coverings are now optional at lindbergh ece and ece west and the federal mandate requiring face coverings on student transportation has been lifted the health screening section has been revised to provide school nurses with more flexibility as they work to determine when students are well enough to attend school
081so nurses will continue to to reference the washington university pediatric and adolescent cova 19 algorithms for clinicians in schools but they won't be strictly bound to those guidelines and they can use some of their own judgment as to when to exclude students from school the other and final change was we have a 1.5 threshold for a building's total population uh if we were to go back to a masking scenario but we have three buildings where 1.5 of the total population equals three or fewer cases so in one building one case would be above 1.5 one case clearly is not an outbreak so we've changed language to reflect in those three buildings which is central office the lindbergh service center and ece west when 1.5 of a building's total population equals three or fewer cases then
082three cases will be used as the threshold for requiring face coverings happy to answer any questions since the um spike in omicron how close have we gotten to 1.5 percent in any building do you know off top of your head uh well since we're since we're we've come down from the spike we're not close not close at all um yeah but we have we've we've you know had those situations where one person could be above 1.5 and that's something that we need to adjust because that doesn't make up that's not doesn't make common sense obviously so the trend in the community of the decline we've also seen that in the schools yes i think there was a report when we had one single case in the entire district at one time uh one of the
083one we do it we do we meet every week and look at the dashboard and so it's very very very low again thankfully any more questions comments uh do i have a motion to approve the revised green light as presented so moved motion by kathy second by mike any further discussion or questions all in favor aye aye opposed okay ocean carries thank you now we'll move to [Music] item now 10.04 which is the approval of the uh item by consent 9.10 which is the board policy updates so i will first ask for a motion a motion to uh for approval of consent item 9.10 board policy updates so moved motion by jen second second okay second by christy so now we'll open it for discussion questions comments um dr sparks can you it kind of
084explain the process of how revising the library policies came about in the process to actually do that please so the process actually began last year as our library media specialists were identifying a goal of going for the missouri exemplary libraries program and within that program one of the expectations is that your policies have been renewed within the previous five years most of our private our policies for library were from the year 2004 so significantly um outside of that excuse me outside of that five-year window so the process actually started last year obviously we've had a lot of conversations about libraries over the course of this school year and what what books are accessible to our students so in going further with the development of these policies we have worked closely with our school district attorney
085as well as our teaching and learning board advisory to get additional feedback before talking with the board at the december board workshop about the development of these policies and what was being recommended for inclusion and that is what has led us to a first reading last month and then for approval tonight and can you talk about the teaching and learning committee like when did they who was able to give feedback and how often they met so our teaching and learning board advisory received the the policy revisions prior to one of the meetings the teaching and learning board advisory as you know is comprised primarily of parents we have a couple of students who are on there as well as a couple of ancillary staff members as well so our our library media specialist joined us
086to go through these policies piece by piece and analyze um where there were potential issues for instance as we went into not only i should clarify that the the board advisory looked at both the policies and procedures and procedures of course are not voted on by the board um but they went through and looked at those and gave some really good recommendations about clarifying the difference between a reconsideration request for a classroom versus for a library so really provided some high level of clarity reading it reading these policies and procedures with kind of an uninformed background for lack of a better term so that was what led us to bring the policies forward in december since then the teaching and learning board advisory has also given feedback on some of the forms correlated so for
087instance the reconsideration form has been updated with their input as has the checklist for what the committee is providing feedback on when there is a reconsideration process thank you you're welcome any more questions for dr sparks or comments uh sure um tara if you would you're just kind of going through the policy um i'm looking actually at uh well i'm looking all over it but i'm looking on page three which which is i guess that's the first page from the bottom where we've had some additions uh in red i noticed we see those have been highlighted for us and i'm reading through it and i you know i can see where you're you know citing the l.a i was wondering excuse me before i go on uh pico decided okay uh who recommended that i'm
088just curious was that like uh the attorney our attorney okay so it originally came up in our conversations with our attorney and then mspa added it as part of so we did not include that when we sent the revisions to msba okay as msba goes through and they look at the proposed policy they align it to um appropriate laws so pico is really the basis for what is in red there okay and i think i probably know who you conferred with on that uh at msba um i just noted that down towards the bottom um you know the students uh we're at the bottom of the page page three for those of you who might have access to to be able to look uh students will access materials that support their learning within their curriculum
089and materials for their own interests materials will not be excluded on the basis of ideological dis uh disapproval uh were on the identities of characters and authors and what i wanted to ask you was you know looking at some of the terms embedded there you know ideological disapproval i i saw that and i began thinking to myself you know as a long student of you know going back to political theory and he's a social scientist it it makes me a bit nervous to see that we're using a term like ideological in a school policy i say that because it's often the case that that term is used used as a loaded sometimes you know weaponized term against people and obviously many of you might be aware that when we talk about ideology we often are
090referring not to our own framework for viewing reality right we have our own frameworks that we use our own sort of set of ideas that we often use that to describe others i see it as othering okay uh and so i'm i'm very concerned that that we're using this term and i'd like to see something else in its place because when you start using a term like that uh and as time goes on and after all our kids and you know we board members and staff have moved on that term still remains and is it the most appropriate term to use here could there be another term it is the it is the term used in pico specifically um which for everyone who you know to clarify pico board of education versus pico is the
091supreme court case that guides first amendment rights of what is eligible to be in life eco uses a lot of terminology and i encourage people to read pico in its entirety um i have and um i i have to say that you know i just feel as though those types of terminologies and by the way pico is a 40 year old case they're using terms such as inculcation of students in pico do anyone know what inculcation means do we use that anymore dr lake i don't think so uh but there are there's a lot of terminology that is really itself in that decision dated it is a we're looking to the guiding light of pico as a three justice plurality decision three of the nine justices and two that joined in concurrence partially and with
092some objection and then four other justices who basically said we should be having nothing to do with this this is a local school based decision we don't even have all the facts here properly presented us it should be remanded back for that and so what you have is a decision where you when you read it you realize they're all over the place the three justices i think are being enshrined here uh in this decision because they're basically saying look uh public school libraries need to be you know a place for complete free expression that you know the free flow of information and and and you know expression and so forth open to students in fact some of the books used in this case i remember reading in college i still have them soul on ice
093by eldridge cleaver co-founder of black panthers who later rejected all of his views in a later book that he wrote but my point here is that this case is everywhere to simply use that as a guiding light for this plurality opinion i think is misleading and if you look at the opinion of one of the justices that agreed you know concurred our attorneys out there know what we're talking about that can concur with the plurality he though had to make a distinction and he said in terms of first amendment basically let's just put any book out there for students to have access to we have to you know maintain that freedom of uh first amendment process or first amendment freedoms this particular justice said and he agreed with them but said that this principle needs
094to be narrowed school i'm quoting now school officials must be able to choose one book over another without outside interference when the first book is deemed more relevant to the curriculum or better written or when one of a host of other politically neutral reasons is present these decisions obviously will not implicate first amendment values and even absent space listen to this librarians too and even absent space or financial limitations that a district may have first amendment principles would allow a school board to refuse to make a book available to students because it contains offensive language and this justice cites that in a decision that was made just a couple of years before or because it is psychologically or intellectually inappropriate for for the age group or even perhaps because the ideas it advances are quote
095manifestly inimical for those out there again this is 40 years old that means unfriendly or like very against something inimical to the public welfare an incites that case and of course school officials may choose one book over another because they believe that one subject is more important or is more deserving of emphasis that view which was kind of the middle ground view in this case written by one justice one justice who is famously or to some info infamously known as the author of the opinion of roe versus wade that's his opinion in this case that's all over the place so to simply look at pico and pull against some of their terminology back in the day when ideology anti-americanism all these other kinds of things were you know floating out there as terms and you
096can see it throughout the case we're in a different place today okay and so i get very concerned about this and as i've said before and i'm saying it again and this will be my last time everybody this is my last working meeting i strongly encourage the district and i know in this policy there is there's excuse me there is a mention of the balance that we need to have or that i'm sorry that um there's a discussion uh you know about seeking out or whatever i'm i'm in weeding so i'm already up to weeding by the way i like reconsideration is a better term than waiting i know weeding's the professional term now are they okay well reconsideration because that's been stricken through and has been replaced by we by weeding when i looked
097up weeding i saw it as a certain kind of set of things to be done but we are in effect reconsidering when we look at our collections and we have to make choices about what to keep what to move on i mean that could be from a variety for a variety of reasons if you know tara and it could be wear and tear it could be just this book is gone we lost it but then again you know what other kinds of uh you know what other kind of factors come into that decision making process is it relevancy is it is it say today you may find the girl that falls from the sky more relevant than a similar book similar and with a bad ending and a canadian by tolstoy do we even have
098andy karen in our library i hope we do i haven't checked i'm just saying because it's a classic and i often wonder you know uh in this process of weeding as well what are we losing and we're losing perhaps voices voices from the past that still can echo through to today and have significance as well as bringing on you know new text in that process though i think we need to figure out ways dr lake we have created a number of board advisory committees since you came on i have thought it's an awesome thing i am so glad it was done we have people who can participate uh in the community from the community so parents teachers staff citizens from the community can participate and provide input into you know what lindbergh policy it will
099be the directions we're taking you know i go back to our strategic plan process and everything that we did back there looking to with intentionality pull in the greater community in that process and i think we're at a point now where we have to pull in again the greater community we have to ensure that everybody has a voice at the table and for this reason since this is as justice blackman said i mean this is a this is there's tension here in his in what i just read you he goes on to say there's always going to be tension in this area but to help get through it navigate it i think the best thing to do would be to create an advisory committee of sorts to assist in the process but at least provide
100input to our librarians teachers staff those who are and even students who are impacted by this hear their voices um you know decisions will be made and not everybody is going to be pleased okay because that's just not going to happen but let's try and bring all the voices of the table uh in in every effort we can to do that i mean sorry it's it's the democratization i'm going to use that word of education you know so again i i just want to leave it with that i know we're not probably in any position tonight to even you know initiate any kind of changes or discuss you know this this matter because this is going to take a whole another meeting if it does or more i'm just asking that everybody be included in
101this process as best as possible not as a subcommittee a teaching learning but as a standalone committee and going forward and bringing everybody to the table i'd love to be there myself as a citizen of lindbergh not as a board member anymore but just as a citizen if nothing else just to listen to what's going on okay okay that is that is the end of my discussion mr president thank you and mr superintendent dr lake thank you for for holding on to this and the rest of my colleagues i appreciate it thank you thank you for your service as well mike definitely uh but now given that we'll have to move to uh a vote on the motion as presented so all in favor aye aye aye opposed no okay motion carries we'll move now
102to 11.0 which is reports so 11.01 for the record we have four for the record reports and you can reach out to dr sparks or her team with any questions for english language arts curriculum library curriculum school counseling program evaluation or the multilingual learner program evaluation no other reports this evening so we'll move to 12.0 which is the um citizen comments on non-agenda items so at this time we will hear i think we have two i have to get back to my this one you got yours up sorry okay we do have two so we'll start with i'll call your name and the item you're presenting on so and you have three minutes like the agenda item so we'll start with mr john o'fallon bell in the state of bloomberg school district good evening at
103the outset i would like to make a request apparently dr lake was able to find favor with the board of all the board of education to play catch-up because of a missed board of education meeting and i'm just asking you to demonstrate a little bit of situational awareness given the changes in the board of education calendar the february 17th meeting was cancelled and rescheduled due to inclement weather the rescheduled meeting was regrettably reformatted as remote zoom meeting under these circumstances public comment was restricted to written comments only i'm asking you mr president to acknowledge this limitation and reset the clock permitting an additional three minutes afforded at the february 17th meeting i'm not seeking personal privilege rather i'm seeking established privilege denied not by poor judgment on your part but by poor weather so will
104you afford me an additional three minutes so at this time everyone else was allowed three minutes so we'll give you three minutes if you carry over just a little bit i know you've presented your comments will allow you a little grace with that and quite frankly i didn't think that i would consume the six minutes but i'd like to have a little bit of breathing room if i may so i think we hit a compromise yeah we'll see how this works out and allow you to go over a little bit because okay giving you giving you the length of your comments okay good enough so i i would assume that you did get my written comments and i made every effort in contrast to word salad is to try to come up with a clear
105and concise assessment of where we are as a school district and it seemed to me the best way to do that was to ask what i perceive to be sealing questions and the first question is what was the district's rank in 2017 in 2021 2017 it was number one out of 390 districts it's 76 out of 396 districts you're shaking your head and so here's what i would say it's 2014-15 so i just wanted you to have a year right but that is extended up to 2017. and what i find to be pretty interesting is that on march 16th of 2017 i don't know if director alonso remembers the exchange we had at the candidate forum do you remember that okay i listened to everybody who was running for the board of education and i
106approached you because i thought you know what this guy's a mathematician he teaches science he's rational he's reasonable and i posed a question to him i said let's be real clear about what's happening here the school district is being taken over by the teachers union it's plain and clear can you show me one school district that is a number one school district that's run by the teachers union i asked him point blank and then i tried to help him let's go east to west new york baltimore washington chicago st louis let's jump to los angeles and rebound back to st louis this is just not good i i i and from my perspective if i was to assign a grade to this district in 2021 i give it an a currently i'd give it an
107f and large part for these next questions how would you describe the the constituents of the board of education it's very clear to me and i've been coming to these meetings since november and i have perceived what is the prevailing culture and the district is clearly not serving the students the parents and the taxpayers they are serving the national state and district teachers union among others the next question how would you describe the culture for learning terms of order of magnitude and this is just so straightforward the order of magnitude in 2017 i think is a safe deduction is human gender race and ethnicity 2021 it's been turned upside down inside out a culture that promotes gender race ethnicity and human in 2017 it was an academic culture that eyed with what works the district
108has succumbed to an outlier agenda and i feel as though that it's interesting to note that the st louis soccer team just hired its first player he's from switzerland did you see the picture that was affiliated with that press release he was wearing a t-shirt it had in a column black white yellow red and there was a line through that and below that enlarger font at his waist was human we are all human beings first you're really misguiding students when you re-order that order of magnitude and i love your smile dr lake i really do what was the dominant pedagogy in 2017 reading writing and arithmetic now it's diversity equity and inclusion one in 2017 is useful it's purposeful learning 2021 give you a short period of time to get through six and seven and
109then that's fine okay i'll defer for my concluding remarks thank you very much it's uh it's a non-sequitur and we have a candidate at the candidate form who was very dismissive of these notions of diversity equity inclusion she surely gave a side look to the history and the depth of its origin and how it has seeped down through the culture and it's now present in this district what are the sailing questions you know i mean when these kids get off the bus at the end of the day they ought to be figuring out what's the difference between a newspaper article in an editorial what's the difference between a noun and a verb what's the difference in value perhaps in a factor that's been converted from a fraction to a decimal they don't need to get
110off the bus and say hey dad hey mom i don't know am i boy am i a girl am i whatever clarity of intention begets learning based on wonder and curiosity but what we've got now going on in the last question last question what are the expected outcomes confident secure problem solvers i made a living working with serious problem solvers and what we're going to get in the future based upon the culture is incompetent insecure maladjusted future adults what we've got to keep in mind is that overarching value of e plurinum not the other and thank you thank you we do have one more speaker mike muller i believe lindbergh's board and administration have stated critical race theory is not taught in our district based on my understanding of crt and what i've heard from
111concerned parents the practice of crt is actively being applied in our district critical theoretical race theory is not a class or a subject but rather is a hidden framework designed to create a lens which sees our country as systematically oppressive towards certain groups karl marx's writings focused on raising a subjective consciousness in people so they see and evaluate everything in terms of oppression herbert marcusa and other writers expanded this critical approach to seeing oppression in race gender ability and even language paulo ferreira put this practice into education his pedagogy of the oppressed is directly named in the teaching programs of cobb and crown apple the consultants hired by lindbergh for a belonging with dignity program which is currently in use friary said teaching is a political act and created a practice of education to engage
112the student with certain readings questions and exposures until the meetings become their own in other words it was indoctrination lindbergh quit teaching grammar and spelling years ago because it was considered oppressive today we are at the point where the crt ideology has expanded to intentionally manipulate thoughts values and decisions of the students the fifth grade history textbook refers to history as the story of the past which is always changing as each new generation adds a new perspective this book states the people of history also change because of the lens through which we view them when you cut through the lingo it's another crt presentation and a marxist evaluation of history that sounds eerily like howard's zen revisionism in high school us history to u.s history students are regularly asked about unfulfilled promises and what crt
113identity groups are excluded when reading historical speeches and documents this is based on marxist critical thought which creates an us versus them mentality this is not the same as critical thinking required under missouri learning standards genuine critical thinking equips students to become smart independent decision makers while marx's critical thought turns students into revolutionaries last school year lindbergh violated ppra when asking students to identify themselves according to crt identity groups the district self-reported this violation of federal law but they're clearly still focused on teaching crt unfortunately this focus has dropped once number one missouri school to number 76 a shocking fault that seems almost deliberate lynbrick schools once a pillar of the community are now a major liability one parent said many of her friends are pulling their young kids out of this district because quote
114it is failing the children it's time to return this district to academic success centered squarely on the students subversive critical race theory and doctrination has been fully exposed and will be actively opposed until it's removed you can count on that thank you for everyone that commented we'll move to 13.0 which is recess and we've already conducted our executive session so there's uh we will move to 15.0 which is adjournment do i have a motion to adjourn board meeting number 1549 summit motion by mega second second by jen all all in favor aye opposed motion carry or meaning 1549 is adjourned you