001good evening and welcome to the rockwood board of education i'm lynn midd vice president of the rockwood school board and i'm filling in tonight for jamie bates we'd like to thank the administrative team and all of the staff and students at market high school for being gracious hosts for our meeting this evening thank you also to the ambassadors who are here from our schools to assist with greeting and signing in our guests the purpose of this meeting is to conduct the business of the district hear reports about our progress and listen to the community on important issues we want to remind all of our visitors that we expect the audience to remain civil and respectful at all times as the board conducts its business calling out verbal aggressiveness inappropriate language our name calling is not
002acceptable if the meeting becomes unruly the board may take a recess until such time that the audience is appropriate if an appropriate behavior continues by individuals they may be asked to leave the meeting if the audience becomes so inappropriate in their behavior that we cannot conduct our business the board reserves the right to adjourn this board of education meeting is live streamed for the community's convenience opinions expressed at the meeting are not necessarily the opinions of the rockwood school district youtube reserves the right to monitor and block inaccurate and misleading conduct content that process is beyond the control of the rockwood school district we want everyone to have the ability to hear the business of the district reports presented and the comments of everyone who's here to speak we appreciate your cooperation and that you
003took the time to attend tonight's meeting thank you hey glenn your microphone is breaking up okay i'll move it a little closer is that better well yeah that's fine but it was breaking up in and out okay um we'll see let me know good okay all right first is i need a motion to approve the tonight's agenda so move on second any discussion okay again that motion is to prove the agenda all in favor aye any opposed okay the motion passes next is the provo board of education meeting minutes for june 9 do i have a motion to approve the meeting minutes for june 9th 2022. thank you any discussion again the motion is to prove the board of education meeting minutes all for june 9th 2022 all in favor opposed and tonight we did
004not have any patron comments next on the agenda is 6.01 superintendent and board comments dr ricker good evening everyone earlier this evening board of education approved a new addition to our district administrative team dr christina berwin as the new administrative intern at westridge elementary beginning july 1. currently christina teaches fourth grade at the center for creative learning positions she's held since 2017. prior to that she taught for six years at the chesterfield day school and was a teacher and literacy coach in the melville school district for nine years she was named teacher of the year at ccl for 2021 and in 2016 she received the emerson excellence in teaching award highly prestigious award i might add she has participated in the rockwood ignite program and has served on numerous committees including rockwood professional development committee
005the gifted identification committee standards creating and implementing committee and the leadership and innovation committee christina earned a bachelor's of arts in elementary education from st louis university a master of arts in educational technology and a gifted certificate from webster university and a doctor of education in teaching teacher leadership from maryville university she also currently is working on a master's degree in educational administration from maryville help me please congratulate christina on her new position give her a round of applause [Applause] second item i'd like to share with everyone this evening is something i think is wonderful it's the rockwood school district's transportation department and maintenance staff and they pride themselves on keeping the district's fleet of school buses in tip-top shape for safe and efficient daily transfer of more than ten thousand students those efforts show
006in the bus's daily operation as well as annual bus inspection processed by the missouri state highway patrol this year for a sixth straight year rockwood earned a near perfect score from the highway patrol and our fleet of 140 buses earned a 99.3 percent approval rate with no buses being taken out of service the state average for this year is an 88.7 percent approval rate state inspectors judge school buses based on criteria such as braking performance lighting steering mechanisms windshield wipers tires and more our drivers do a great job of working with the maintenance crew members to let them know of any potential bus vents or any disruptions of service caused by equipment failure since moving transportation in-house in 2016 rockwood has seen around a half a million per year in savings as well as greatly
007improving bus safety inspection results i'd like to thank the director of transportation mike hayman and his team for their outstanding work not only keeping our fleet in tip-top shape but for all they do despite ongoing shortage of drivers to ensure we safely transport as many students as possible throughout the school year mr heyman is here i think there he is i'd like to ask him to come up to the podium here and say a few words if you would and that was unexpected i might add first of all i want to thank you very much and i i know that your your time here at rockwood was limited and i i really appreciate all the time that you were here my department uh you supported us you gave us guidance you um your sense of
008humor was valuable during many parts of the school year and i just want to say thank you very much the the transportation department for rockwood is very very unique we're we're a very good family um the staff of drivers that we have the staff of drivers that we have left we are 67 drivers down from where we were two years ago so there's a challenge there to recruit but the message i'm trying to get out to the the to the uh to the applicant's potential applicants is if you want to drive a school bus you want to drive for rockwood not only do we have excellent kids we have excellent schools we got excellent support all the schools are very supportive of our drivers they've welcomed our drivers in with open arms since we've become
009in district it's really the place to be we have excellent equipment i don't know what more it takes to bring them in so whatever you can do if you know somebody that's partially interested talk to them have them call me i will reel them in if i can get them on the phone i really will um but the department as a whole is is moving along very smoothly we we brought in three new staff members that we finally filled positions on which we promoted from our driver rankings which i think is very important to show that we do look at growing our people and giving them the potential to um have a career more so if they if they are interested we have a new router for the district who's is catching on just beautifully
010wonderfully a new dispatcher as well as a new trip coordinator so we're we're growing as a team we just need more drivers and i got i got to tell you it it's it's wonderful i i've been in transportation for 43 years i'm having more fun now than i ever have honestly honestly but thank you very much thank you mike very much give mike hand a total of 15 rockwood school district students representing all four high schools have been selected to participate this year in missouri's scholar academy program which is underway now through july 2nd founded in 85 the scholars academy is a three-week residential summer program held on the university of missouri campus in columbia for 330 330 of the state's top rising high school juniors the academy describes its goals as reflecting missouri desire
011to strive for excellence in education at all levels the program is based on the premise that missouri's gifted youth must be provided with special opportunities for learning and personal development in order for them to realize their full potential students in the scholars academy interact with students from around the state engage in curriculum that provides unique opportunities for students to enhance their academic skills assimilate acclimation of knowledge excuse me of their culture related to contemporary issues deepening understanding of themselves and their unique abilities to engage with others in critical thinking and problem solving a list of the students participating can be found in the district webpage and i'd like to congratulate these outstanding students and hope they have a good scholars academy as a part of the continued efforts to provide services uh that supports student
012wellness rockwood has expanded the partnership with hazel health to offer free mental health therapy for all students over the summer the heart program heart health service is available for all his students from the comfort of their homes and is available at summer school for middle and high school students enrolled in the summer academy refresh program at crestview rockwood south middle and marquette high with hazel heart students can meet with a licensed therapist from school or at home in a matter of days bridging the gap until local therapists become available referrals can come from school personnel or directly from a parent or guardian either way parental consent is required since its launch in rockwood on march 1st there have been more than 350 mental health visits with 68 students this service is provided at no cost
013to rockwood families the fall the physical and mental health virtual services will expand to include all rockwood k-12 schools and this is an exciting program for all of our students finally tonight uh at least from the news standpoint and nearly 120 combined students in the marching band at eureka high in lafayette high recently made a trip of a lifetime to hawaii from june 4th to 18th the students had the opportunity to put on two performances including one on the docks at pearl harbor in front of the battleship missouri at the memorial they also participated in included a clinic at the university of hawaii both bands boosters organizations were instrumental in helping students fundraise and pay for the trip you can view their performances on the lafayette lancers youtube channel and now finally last i'd like
014to thank the board of education uh specifically board members laura lee mondel and tom dunn who were on the last board of education and the current board of education for the continued support they gave me this year as your interim superintendent it was a privilege and an honor to serve the rockwood school district in a labor of love likewise i'd like to thank the district administrators who sit up here and some who are in the audience for their support of the board and myself in the work that we did cooperatively throughout the course of the year this is uh a bittersweet ending to a 45-year career in public education for myself but i consider this year to be one of the highlights of my career so i wanted one of you for the help that
015you have provided me and the guidance that you've given to the school district and specifically the work that you do for the students and my grandchildren um and i really want to make sure that i wouldn't be remiss to mention that i want to wish the board of education and dr curtis kane the best of luck in the future i think they've done a good job at hiring a great superintendent and this team up here has uh the sky's the limit which you all have to work together and then lastly because i am a community member i'm at your service if you need me you know where i am janet has my phone number if you can catch me um i'll be glad to help in any way that i possibly can but thank you
016very much thank you dr ricker and thank you for being with us for this for the 21 22 school district your service has been outstanding and somehow i don't think this is the end of your 45 year career we'll we'll see well my wife has comments about that i'm sure she does thank you so much all right at this point in time we're gonna oh board comments i'm sorry any other comments from the board i would like to um say thank you for the opportunity to attend the missouri school board regional conference in saint charles last weekend several board members were there with me we had the opportunity to attend concurrent sessions on m76 on [Music] legislative issues board policies and many many more plus the delegates assembly where we elected new officers for the
017coming year and i'm looking forward to attending the uh state conference next november so thank you for that opportunity and i want to wish everybody a happy national pink flamingo day just in case you didn't know that was that today or yesterday today okay we do have one donation tonight great donation from ccl pto center for creative learning monetary ten thousand four hundred dollars donations to support the students at ccl will cover technology and sel items for students attending the ccl for the next school year 2022 through 2023 another great donation thank you dr kander okay so we good to go all right uh do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda item 7.02 through 7.15 second any discussion so again the motion is to prove the consent agenda items as submitted all
018in favor all right any opposed lyn i need to abstain from 7.15 you have that yes okay thank you because randy's does randy sustain just from that or from the whole thing just from 7.15 okay good okay all right we're on to the approval of the budget correct janet yes thank you 8.01 all right adoption of the 20 22 23 annual budget i need a motion to approve and adopt the 2022-23 budget as presented second okay second thank you mr worthington so good evening um again tonight is the format we're going to ask for formal adoption of the other budget for the upcoming school year um got just a quick slide presentation we've talked about the budget um several months prior to this we gave you uh an update at the may meeting nothing's really
019changed since what's what we talked about in may and i'll kind of go through that quickly but to really the meat of the budget is the other attachment that is part of this and that's the actual budget doc book itself for the budget document for your daytime indoor nighttime reading it's 200 plus pages and that's the document that we also submit for the meritorious budget award to be recognized at the national level but just to kind of recap again just a few things a couple of slides here again the the focus of this is really on our operating funds which is our general fund or special revenue fund in capital projects and then the standalone fund of that service is this whole separate entity so really what we're talking about is the operating funds within
020the district and when you look at that from a revenue standpoint that far left column is where we expect 10 this year 2122 it's about a 322 million dollar budget and that's compares to the 2223 if you go in the far right column we're looking at a total budget that encompasses 309 million really the difference is the operating side of things are very similar to what we had in the current school year the main difference in the two budgets and why it's a little bit smaller is really attributed to the debt service fund if you look at debt service revenues 47 million compared to 30 million that really had to do with the refunding that we did last year it was a one-time event the same thing is true on the net slide for expenditures
021again about a 321 million dollar expenditure uh budget for last year and we're looking at it uh almost 310 million on expenditures for this site uh again the same thing debt service is is the is the wild card in this when you look at it as far as an operating fund recap strictly under operating funds or incidental special on building fund we're projecting a budget surplus of about 108 thousand which on a 250 million dollar operating budget um it's it's a minimal surplus but it is a balanced budget and a surplus and you can see based on that where we see our fund balances being it's going to stay in the 66 million dollar range as far as fund balances and reserves moving forward and when you look at the whole budget in its entirety
022you can see the breakdown and really the fund reconciliation is listed below when you take all the funds including our operating in our debt service uh capital projects etc that encompasses about 106 million dollars in funds and when you break that down on the far right corner you can see of that we're expecting about a 276 000 spend down the biggest part of that if you look at the fund reconciliation is that we're continuing to spend our bond issue funds from the 207 2017 bond issue completing projects that's about a 4.9 million dollars a dollar spend down we've actually got an increase in debt service balances operating fund again 108 000 balance budget and we're projecting for self-sustaining funds which is our child nutrition our early childhood community had uh about a 1.5 million dollar
023but that's a really conservative budget i think at the end of the day that that number probably balances out to zero the key takeaways again is that our operating fund balances will exceed what we've established in policy 3117 to where we want to have 18 percent stabilize regular reserve plus the 4 stabilization which is a 22 percent we expect our fund balance percentage to be in the 26 27 percent range so well above those standards cash flow will be sufficient to get us through uh the entire year and what we're adopting and presenting will keep us in a financial stability standpoint to where we'll maintain our triple a s p rating we'll continue to monitor updates as as we get current economic news and continue to update throughout the year the budget is a living
024working document that is modified on an ongoing basis and everything that's been established within the budget aligns very closely with our long-term strategic plan the way forward so at this point in time things we have a lot more clarity than what we had during the covid thing so we feel a lot more comfortable about the budget that we're presenting in the numbers that are being presented uh to talk about the next last bullet item when we're monitoring and updating things we actually just got some information um yesterday in regards to uh the lunch program and that they may reinstitute our free lunches for the 22-23 year there's been some action by congress to introduce that and they expect that to be voted on uh here in the next week or so so we may have
025some information and i know that was part of the one of the consent items to establish criteria for free and reduced lunches that may be a new point if this legislation is enacted for the upcoming school year so i know i went over this pretty quick but we've talked about it a lot over the last several months so any questions in regards to the budget all right thank you very much thank you paul one thing i would like to remind everyone uh paul and dan do a wonderful job first of all and and secondly if you remember we did some employee labor contracts this year that included some pretty nice raises and a raised plan over the next three years and if you remember also when we were talking about that we were talking about
026that we might have to do some deficit spending and a spend down where because of the better data that we've gotten um and because uh the department of elementary and secondary education is still using the previous year's attendance it enabled us to just do that hundred thousand dollars of a balanced budget but i think one of the things that paul continues to talk about is that if that attendance thing goes away that's a significant dollar figure for us to look for in the future so um congratulations to paul and dan for working their magic i call it and providing a balanced budget for the year so again the motion is to prove and adopt the 2022 budget as presented all in right any opposed the motion carries now i think we're going to have a
027presentation from dan steinberger and in reference to esther ii and sr-3 federal funds yes good evening um so we last spoke about sr2 and sr3 funds back in december so the purpose of tonight is just to provide an update from that last conversation and just kind of let you know kind of where we're looking at for the next for the next fiscal year so again uh these are funds that were established through various uh federal legislations um a couple key takeaways uh these are one-time federal funds um so they'll expire esther three goes through september of um so those have been our guidelines in regards to when we look at items that are going to be covered under here we have to have an exit plan for any continuing items which will essentially be part
028of our normal budget process um everything we run through so two and so three first goes through deci so any of our budget adjustments before we submit anything out of the district's office it's been approved by dusty so dusty is really hands-on in regards to the monitoring of these funds and we have a little bit over 11.4 million to spend between these two funds over the next couple of years so we're going to spend a couple of slides just kind of summarizing what those uses are so and when we have items that we are looking to utilize these funds for this is kind of the criteria that we have that dusty's provided is what is an allowable cost so it's a wide range of available items as you can see esther 2 and s3 essentially
029cover all of these areas but even though those areas are there the district's not required to spend in each of the categories so there are certain areas as you can see by the highlighted items that we have not allocated funding for and that's just a matter of determining is whether we those items are necessary for our funding so we like for example we already have summer academy uh we didn't need to allocate any additional funding for that program so those are the things we kind of take a look at we're going to first start with sr2 so this is um kind of the the first funding that we have of 3.5 million again all these allocations were determined by deci so these funds go through september of 23 and as uh through june 30 of
030this year we either have spent or at least allocated 3.3 million of those funds uh to specific items uh it's either going to be spent this year or will be spent it's been encumbered to be spent in the 22-23 school year so and we have about 200 000 uh that we'll have that will kind of um provide be able to provide other support as things kind of go through september of 23. so this is just a summary of what that 3.5 million has been allocated towards we have some items we've been able to upgrade and actually replace a lot of our custodial equipment at all of our schools we have student staff mental health programs alive and well hazel health we've been able to allocate resources to upgrade our cyber security platforms hardware outdoor access
031points at various campuses throughout the district we've allocated some funding for hvac upgrades and also some other items such as water bottle filling stations to be installed throughout the district as well as in child nutrition the schools have been outfitted with touchless point of sale systems so those are all items that have been covered and been approved by deci and kind of fit the criteria of those allowable costs that we shared earlier sr3 um 7.9 million so um really the the biggest change since the last time we talked in december you may recall we were still waiting for the state's approval to allocate those funds uh that was done in february of 22 so that kind of set the motion for us to start allocating funds and kind of working through there because at that
032point we're still kind of even though we were we had some items that we've allocated we're really waiting for that approval to ensure that we had the reimbursement process in place so um 7.9 million to be to be spent through september of 24. um it's important to note that again we work through dusty for all these items we're in compliance with all of their guidelines that are set forth through esther 3 and again any kind of changes that are made three years is a long time so certainly what we know now could change the next couple years so any kind of budget revisions will go through jesse uh prior to prior to being presented here for uh purchase this just to say a quick recap so through june 30 of 22 we have two we've
033uh spent or encumbered 2.7 million of our 7.9 uh so it's about 35 percent of those funds so we'll certainly um start utilizing those funds now that we've been fully approved by uh by the state um and then we have out of the sr3 we are required to allocate at least 20 percent to address accelerated learning uh so that comes up to about 1.6 million and we have a slide here and a couple that will kind of summarize what what those items have been again this just provides a recap of kind of the current allocation that we have that's been approved by desi again there's a 1.6 million for accelerated learning uh we're allocating additional funding for technology network hardware the largest piece there you can see is indoor air quality hvac controls and possible
034replacement of a hvac system in one of our schools that has an aging hvac but one of the kind of the hurdles we're gonna have to deal with with regard to that is just current environment lead time on equipment as well as costs continuing to increase so that's just something chris friend and his department is actively working on to ensure that we are able to utilize the funds the best we can okay the next couple slides just provide some additional detail as to what has been spent again i've kind of covered that you know we've updated our custodial equipment water bottle filling stations some point of sale systems we have our contracts to support our student and staff mental health needs from a technology again cyber security network hardware we've been able to be reimbursed
035for our zoom licenses for this past year and then on the accelerated learning opportunities these funds have been able to either support current programs that we have in place and in some cases we've also been able to implement additional programs items such as like math 180 dream box those are items we've always currently used and with federal funds typically there's a a supplant supplement issue where for estro 2 and so3 that was waived so we did not have to worry about any kind of supplement supplement we had some we implemented some tutoring at the grades k through 5 for reading and math so some additional intervention programs have been in place and as well as for reading intervention we've added a 0.6 fte for last year that will be in there for the 22 23
036school year as well and i think the last slide we have is just again just kind of a reminder on the indoor air quality and some of the things that we're looking at to do the control and unit replacements again we're just going to kind of monitor the current economic environment and see if we're able to kind of take care of those items so again these are sr3 uh that's where the largest part of the hvac piece is we have till september of 24 to spend though so um in the fall we're going to kind of revisit chris friend is going to revisit with vendors and kind of see kind of set that in motion for next year so at our next update in december we'll have a we'll be able to provide you an
037update as to where we stand with those so that's happy taking questions okay i want a question um on slide number seven i want to make sure i was hearing you correct if i'm reading the chart correctly it says one point two 261 000 for 22 we're accelerating you kept saying 1.6 like the total was 1.6 okay so we had 300 000 okay and stipends and all the programs okay i just want to make sure dan thanks for the presentations you and paul both i don't i don't think people realize how great a job your finance department has done as compared to other districts in saint louis and around the state there are districts in the state that have received this extra money just like just like rockwood has and they've just gone off a
038deep end and committed to things that are not just for one year but just through several years not thinking about esther's gonna quit in two or three years rockwood has consistently set up programs that when it's over we've done what we can with that money and we're not committed to finding our own money for example some districts have used extra money for salaries and that's a continuous thing from then on rockwood hasn't done that you guys have been an excellent in that and i've seen even in the classes i've taught this summer there are some districts in the saint louis county that are going to be in trouble when the esser funds run over and run out in the next couple years so congratulations to you and your department i mean i wouldn't have expected
039anything else and you guys were excellent did a great job thank you very much well thank you it was definitely uh excuse me a team approach last summer we were kind of going through this process of kind of setting the stage with what we can use the funds for um everybody on the stage up here was part of that conversation we had a lot of feedback from out in the schools and everything and i think that was kind of the approach that everybody took to kind of at the end of these funds are being used we want to make you know have a a good recap that they went in for uh good services for the for our schools and our students and staff thank you okay thank you thank you next on the agenda
040is the cope presentation professional development summer plan updates with dr renee tortilla i have to move this down a little bit good evening good evening dr ricker and to our board directors my name is renee trottier i'm the director of learning development and then this is donette whisker donette is our coordinator professional learning a wonderful you can come on in we're we're gonna actually tag team um if that's okay but professional learning in rockwood in the summer is really a long-standing tradition teachers are used to really a wide variety of a menu of topics that they can choose from that are all connected to our school improvement plan summer learning is optional for rockwood teachers they're not under contract but they are paid an hourly rate for their time as i shared our professional learning
041that comes out of our office is all connected to the school improvement plan so you can see the profile of a learner and then the goal areas up here we actually our teachers have asked for multiple opportunities to access the learning that they get so a lot of our professional learning that's offered in the summer was also offered during full day pd teachers can only take one thing at a time so they'll have pd in your pjs at night they'll have opportunities in their building they'll have the full day pd when the kids are dismissed and then summer so some we have about what 50 new probably 50 um repeated so if you've been on our board for a while you've seen that whole uh list of what we have offered we also do a
042needs assessment of our staff every february and so um this year it looked the results looked a little bit different so post pandemic a couple of new things that have popped up that our teachers are telling us that they need our help navigating controversial conversations and behavior supports behavior supports don't typically come up as high on the needs assessment as they have this year the other three there are typically our top three they're always wanting help with mental health and student and sel issues with diversity equity and inclusion and then of course curriculum instruction and assessment so those are our top five pieces adult learners tend to be problem centered adults like to learn to solve a problem you might have youtubed how to repair an appliance or something like that at your house and
043one of the things that we ask our teachers is what are some of those problems that you want help with and their top three were behavior was at the top since the pandemic again that's new to us academic support and then self-care and time management which is also new what we try to do in our department is we try our teachers are all over we have brand new teachers and we have veteran teachers who are masters and experts in their field so we'll have foundational workshops for people in the areas that they're looking for and we also have specialized workshops for teachers to go a little bit deeper ultimately what we want is we want um we want to see how their learning is implemented in the classroom and how it impacts students and so
044while we do that needs assessment we also evaluate all of our professional learning after each workshop and we try to go back and see like how okay how did that impact you later so done and i have a secretary that works with us and that makes up our professional learning department the two of us do not do all the professional learning for the whole entire school district it certainly is a team effort we organize and and put things out there we do present some some topics but we also work with the curriculum and assessment departments our instructional technology department our educational equity and diversity department our special led and gifted departments and then the other district leaders that you see here are all part of that work as well so we've been experimenting always doing
045something new with learning format so we started with canvas and zoom in 2019 so the year before the pandemic which was great because when the pandemic happened we had at least had a year to wrap our brains around what virtual learning could look like and so we've really evolved over time this will be the first year that the pandemic has not impacted decisions that we've made on summer learning all of our summer learning is offered in formats based on what's best for that learning and also we ask the teachers in their needs assessment and so we have a lot of in-person work going on this summer it's been wonderful um you know we keep i know our teachers are exhausted and we think they're so tired they're not going to sign up for summer learning
046well it's full the annex is full every day full of teachers it's buzzing again um it feels really great um to go in there and um and see their energy and and they can get renewed in another way too with learning and and they're always they're already working on what they want to do next year they're already setting up they're asking questions somebody came and talked to me about it last night after their workshop until 5 30. um you know we're kind of talking about how they're going to implement what they can do and you know can we can we work through um you know some of these things so that's been really fun i'm going to go ahead and turn it over to donette and she's going to talk a little bit about the
047micro credentials that most of you are hopefully familiar with hello and thank you for this opportunity move it back up again um so micro credentials those of you who were on the board the last time we made the presentation we talked about micro credentials those of you that knew it's kind of an exciting opportunity for teachers so in conjunction with finance and hr and others we really looked at how can we instead of having teachers go out and get these little an hour of college credit here an hour of college credit here how can we really help them target their learning to the things that are in the way forward and in our comprehensive school improvement plan so as you can see we really worked with all those departments to help provide a financial incentive
048for teachers with master's degrees to develop learning that was directly connected to their tei and so you know as we move forward we implement the new tei we're going to have opportunities to really support teachers in their growth and development and at the same time help them move along the plus 15 the plus 30 to kind of help them expand their career and that kind of financial incentive so you know micro credentials you get a great little badge when you're done it's really meant to recognize expertise that teachers are developing as they learn we want to celebrate learning it's important i was in a meeting with shelly today and we talked about how um a world economic forum report says that 50 of all workers will have to be re-skilled by 2025. i feel like
049teachers are going to need to have the same kind of hunger for learning we've all learned so many new things in the last few years you know we want to make learning we want to incentivize that we want to make that really appealing to teachers so some of the general statistics what we're seeing like renee said micro credentials are also getting people in seats and in professional learning so we have over 120 workshops offered this summer and as she said we're not doing all that work our friends in the curriculum department our friends and instructional technology we're all working together to support teachers as well as some outside presenters um so right now as of 6 21 you can see that there were a little over 3 000 participants signed up and of those 700
050almost 750 of them were unique meaning that that's that many different teachers that are choosing after last year to continue their learning and their commitment to you know improving for their students so out of all those courses we're offering 26 of them are being offered for micro credentials so people without having to pay a university can still earn that micro credential it's the equivalent of one college credit hour and that can then help them towards that plus 30 plus 15 plus 30 after their master's degree okay any questions about micro credentials hey don donette name some can you name some of the courses some of those 26 courses actually that's what renee is going to go through now she's going to go through each of those and then i'm going to talk about a few
051but yeah off the top of my head like today book studies are very popular so we're running a couple of book studies related to trauma and related to teaching diverse students and related to um we've had john converse from ed plus was in today talking about restorative practices so they're really the topics are all over the place with micro credentials we try to make sure we're meeting teachers different needs so i've been reading your mind thank you yeah can you explain to the board what the acronym tei means teacher evaluation instrument yes so so and you know the thing is is when we evaluate teachers we want to help them grow we really want to be able to provide them with saying here's an area for growth here's how we're going to help you renee
052and i are both very committed to that you know we want we want to provide teachers with the support they need and so the clarification.net this is only available to master teachers yes so you have to have your masters and that hasn't changed that was the way it was before with college credit so that's no change and in fact renee asked me to go back and look and compared to the number of in-house college credit courses we offered last summer we've almost not quite doubled the amount of opportunities teachers have so because we're doing it in-house it's allowed us to really provide them with more opportunities and there's no additional fee for them to do this nope or if they were applying for college credit they would have to pay an additional fee but they
053can still accrue points to go up the sca because what was honestly happening was we were working through a university we were doing all the work they were getting the money and so now we're doing the work but we're not paying it outside you know however they still can go to universities absolutely yep absolutely okay clarify that a little bit actually any teacher can earn a micro credential and any teacher their all of our opportunities are open to all the teachers to move on the pay scale it's the master's plus 30. so that's really um where the difference is okay so our biggest category is student academic learning so we just did a community survey every year um you know valuing and maintaining high academic standards is what comes out of our community survey that's
054something that our community values it's something that our teachers need and so by far the largest category is student academic learning in our in our topic so i just wrote curriculum writing up there and best practices up there but there's like biology curriculum writing facts best practices there's just like a million workshops on um you know different content areas that are writing curriculum we are having to also move um some of that into the summer that might have happened during the school year just because um we're wanting to reduce the need for subs during the school year and so we have more of that work happening in the summer um at this time and we also have buildings that are that they have some book studies and they have some plc work that's happening we
055have an added up math conference that is really kind of for the whole greater st louis area and um people even come in from out of town for that we have a lot of presenting by teachers so that's one of our shifts and so it's difficult a lot of times to get teach we have amazing teachers that can learn from each other and teachers really like learning from each other but they're tired yet the volunteers but we've been we have a lot more teachers presenting this year and like the design thinking as a teacher some of the book studies are teachers so we're excited about that um universal equity opportunity and access actually overlaps a lot of other categories so like if i go backwards and show some of the topics in curriculum and in
056a minute when i go forward and show character and well-being you're going to see a lot of overlap i didn't want to repeat anything on here so the list here are some of those areas that are just unique to this goal area during the school year we have also some meeting the needs of gifted students meeting the needs of students with disabilities aisha grace and her equity champions do a lot of work during the school year as well and then character and well-being as i've shared the behavior supports um was the biggest need and so you'll see that we actually have a lot of opportunities here um i'm just ready to pull that down a little bit um the quality sel implementation that's sel is social emotional learning a lot of these are really setting
057up your classroom culture and environment to prevent um you know to set kids up to be successful and and prevent the misbehavior in the first place and it misbehavior is not a really great word for it but really since the pandemic you know kids kind of learning what are the expectations in all of these different areas and then how do i support that work and so one of the book studies that donette's doing is that relationship responsibility and regulation the restorative practices today that was john converse one of our partners from education plus that came in today we have this acting right is super cool if it's actually an outside presenter that work megan meyer brings in she's our music and our fine arts coordinator and we've got alive and well stl the partnership that
058dr harris has brought to us they do a lot of great work they're doing regulation strategies and then our own dr jamie smith who's our director of special education she does don't poke the bear or de-escalating and so there's a lot of options there for teachers and a lot of different ways to to really kind of get into that same topic so um another thing on the staff teachers and learners community networks that we're really excited about just a few highlights here the exploring careers for your students so we've actually got teachers doing externships meaning they're going kind of out into the real world and interacting with you know especially our teachers who teach things like facts and those areas you know and business how are they out in the real world seeing what people
059in those careers are doing so that's an exciting opportunity and as you can see we've got lots of technology offered that continues to be a need teachers really now are looking for moving beyond survival mode when it comes to technology to how can i really use technology to enhance my teaching and learning so lots of exciting stuff and then finally we also really um appreciate and i loved that when you announced dr christina berwin this evening she's a graduate of our ignite program which is our in-house leadership development program so we really firmly believe in developing leadership in the people within our district and so some of the things you can do this summer that we're offering for that are obviously we've got some book studies and these are open to all district administrators some
060of them are also open to aspiring administrators in the district and then we also offer outside opportunities you know kind of regional events that administrators can attend so you can see that we've got a lot of opportunities here for our leaders to grow and our teachers to grow as leaders so i mean with that if there are any questions for rene or i we really appreciate the opportunity to come here and talk to you we both could talk about professional learning all day long so if you ever have any you know questions um please feel free to reach out to us donate or renee can you go back to the first slide which was the needs assessment maybe not the first well is that the first slide right back your third slide yeah that's the
061one that sets i think the tone for your whole presentation tonight you went out and you talked to the teachers in a survey and asked them what do you need what do you want now to be honest when i was a principal 40 some odd years ago we didn't bother asking the teachers we knew what they want and they needed so we just did a workshop and made them go and sit through it but now you've included and asked them what do you need what do you need help with and it's really interesting sel mental health behavior supports navigating controversial conversations diversity equity and inclusion curriculum instruction and assessment i could have guessed these and i think every member on the board could have guessed these as topics because that's what we've heard for the
062last two and a half three years now if you go on through and you're you had the different courses one that really stood out was the one that had the terminology lgbtq plus now you don't force teachers to attend any of these courses do you no so we're not putting it down in our throat we're offering it and if they feel the need to talk about it then they can or they can learn how to deal with it and that that seems to be a topic that students are dealing with teachers are trying to deal with and even school boards are trying to deal with and lord even in some states they're trying to deal with it so i think these are topics that are very relevant you guys are doing a good job getting
063it out there i'm glad you're i'm glad you're working with these different topics giving teachers what they need so they can navigate that because they have a tough job to begin with when you throw things barriers in front of them you really mess them up and i think this allows them to get into those different subjects and i think too that one of the things we find is that when teachers come to us and come to these workshops it's often because they've had an interaction with the student or they've struggled to help a student and they really come because they are committed to improving their practice and they want to meet the needs of every kid in their school community they really want to be the best that they can be and that you know
064we talked earlier about that district commitment to excellence and i do really feel that our teachers are committed to professional learning because they want to grow and they know that kids the world is changing and they want to change their practice to best support kids i want to add one thing to kind of add on to what doc go ahead before do you mind i just want to share also i don't know if janet has sent she's either going to or has sent to you an invitation if there's something that you want to attend so do you know that most of like that topic for example and social emotional learning those pieces will be repeated in the full day pd and as board members you'll be invited to attend anything that you wish to attend
065but if you see something that's up here that you're curious about and you'd like to attend that workshop um as a board member and we certainly welcome that and i know tammy has attended that one in particular with our staff and learning side by side with our staff is certainly appropriate for all of our administrators and board members thank you for that opportunity too to be a part of of the district when you learn what they're learning i want to add on to something that keith was saying and that is one of the strengths that i've seen develop over time is that we offer such great professional development but it's not just a flavor of the month or sit and get it is an extended strand of learning for teachers and so they can go
066deep into improving their quality of teaching as well as their professional growth and i think that really is is one of the really major changes renee that you and your department have been brought have brought to the district thank you that's been a big shift it is it is it's really great thank you one of the things that just went through my mind was trying to capture the voice of the student in the summer learning so i don't know if you do that or have thought thought about that but what did the kids say that their teachers need to learn that would be an interesting question to ask that's great we in the past we've done a conference like a summer conference and we typically have student panels um that are part of that conference
067and we haven't done that conference since the pandemic we cancelled it in 2020 and we haven't brought it back honestly for budgetary reasons but um that's a really great point i'm glad that you made it and something that we need to look for additional opportunities but we often have student panels and um and that we have also had some side-by-side learning where we have students and teachers together and that's really powerful um as well that'd be fantastic this are on one summer in counselors offering a brief workshop that will have students in it thank you other questions i do have a question all right do you over uh do you see like a having a conference that includes parents and children there are certainly opportunities that we've done um as well for parents and so
068i know that like for example um you know the one that dr kinder brought up the lgtbq that particular presenter has done some evening things for parents alive and well stl has done some evening things for parents um during the year as well but that's a really excellent point we've done all kinds of things and um that might be something good to look at that community survey and see you know what those needs are as well okay do we have anything in the near future for that or not we don't have anything in the summer for that thank you excellent presentation all right i think we're at proposed agenda for the 20 july 21 2022 board of education meeting oops dr kane will be here with us that's exciting are there any meetings coming up
069like what renee was talking and don't ever talking about right after that that we can still sign up for or do we need to commit now to go to these meetings meetings like the pd the summer we got a long list in the last couple days yep do we need to commit to those now otherwise we won't get to go anytime just yeah so i put some of them on your calendar and then i'll send you the whole list there's a lot of them so you can look if there's other things that you want to do and then just let me know or and i can let renee or donette now okay thank you i think it'd probably be a good idea to let them a day before or something would that be fine okay
070how many days before a day or so before they said 11 days before okay so are we good on the future agenda and we're at the point of having a patron comment for our non-agenda items i'm going to read the intro to that we will now hear from those rockwood patrons who have signed up to speak about the non-agenda items as a reminder each speaker will be limited to three minutes please remember that the comments about individual employees and our students will not be permitted in public session we expect that you will remain civil and respectful in your remarks if anyone becomes disruptive we reserve the right to cut your three minutes shard for your convenience our three minute timer clock is ready welcome welcome our speaker this evening is ben murray yes sir okay
071um hello i was going to start off by mentioning something about hindsight but i forgot to write that down so i'll move on for now i just want to say thank you to all of our teachers who continue to take time to improve their excellence in their craft despite a couple of years wherever real everyone has reached their wits end and a small number of individual individuals the community have taken the frustrations out on teachers and administration however the example set by the teachers shows rockwood's strength in the face of adversity thank you to all the maintenance kitchen custodial and other sports staff who keep all the rockwood facilities running and our children fed thank you to all the bus drivers and transportation team for tackling unprecedented challenges as they continue to get our kids
072to and from school safely thank you to all the administrators and other staff who continue to embrace new ideas and improve ways of learning and better ways to make our schools more welcoming inviting to every individual student while also handling a few of the more challenging personalities in our community with patience and grace and thank you to the board for taking time to think about not just how your decisions affect teachers administrators administrators and other staff but also how your decisions affect every student and parent in the district thank you for making well thought out decisions that continue to move rockwood forward and ensure rockwood remains the same highly regarded district that brings many great families to the area families who pay higher taxes by choice specifically to be here and i need to correct
073myself a little bit it's not exactly the same district it's always been when i graduated in 1993 i remember eureka high school being an award-winning school but looking back and seeing the school's eyes from or in schools from the eyes of a parent now the district has improved by orders of magnitude in every way i can attempt to quantify um rockwood was great back then but it is so much better now so on behalf of my family and every family district thank you for continuously finding ways to improve things for our students increase your levels of success across academics as well as social social emotional learning and thank you dr ricker for stepping up during this difficult time none of us myself included have made your job easy but you're up to challenge uh we
074appreciate your hard work as we all try to get back to normal and learn to listen to each other again and these past few years have been difficult for every rockwood stakeholder regardless of our political affiliations and beliefs the pandemic has taken a toll on every one of us had we known in early 2020 what we know now i'm sure many things have been done differently at different times and things have been far less heated as well although still very challenging but that's the thing i forgot about earlier about hindsight before events occur the future is just an infinite combination of possibilities looking back at the past we indeed do see things with 20 20 vision however that's the nature of time sir thank you very much can you tell me where i get a
075t-shirt like what you're wearing um i can i can find the link to it um i don't i don't know what it is where it is off hand anybody up here no are we getting we love rockwood we'll find out good thank you sir thank you very much thank you thank you ben for taking the time to be here tonight okay and i believe we're at adjournment are we and thank you for your patience with me taking over tonight i appreciate it thanks the best part so you