001i pledge allegiance i have a motion to approve the board of education meeting minutes for may 20th motion in a second any discussion all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed that passes next up we have patreon comments i'm gonna read a section here before we get started during patron comments citizens may address the board of education concerning issues related to the school district each speaker will be limited to three minutes if multiple citizens are speaking to the same topic they may combine their comments and the board will extend their time to five minutes please note that at the board's discretion the border superintendent may respond immediately to an issue raised during patron comments for clarification however our general practice is to respond to the comment at a later time via a phone call
002or written message if a response is needed we have a podium with microphones ready so both the board and the audience who is live streaming may hear the patron comments clearly board meeting proceedings are also recorded and posted on rockwood's youtube channel this evening we do have a number of patreon comments for your convenience our three-minute time clock is ready and we remind everyone to be respectful in their language and their choice of words this evening first we will welcome nicole r whedop to the podium cannot pretend that cultures do not exist right now a culture of fear is being stoked among some of our rockwood parents most of them are white these parents want to hide the full facts and contest context of past and present america from their children keep their learning and
003experiences particular narrow whether we admit it or not american culture is most often expected to be synonymous with white culture it was built that way white culture often defines each of us by what we are not rather than all we are we say we are inclusive but instead of adding to our definitions we often delete instead of adding to our experiences we delete instead of adding exploration empathy discussion compassion uncertainty discomfort or challenging curriculum we delete we do not admit that we are often defined by what and whom we exclude rather than include it's a culture with a lot of great comforting stories ignoring inconvenient facts about the foundations of our country and the complex truths of our history and the unjust facts in our present is not politically neutral it is decidedly political adding
004these facts back in is decidedly just i want to encourage and challenge the board the administration the students the teachers and my fellow parents to keep pushing for added truth added context added accountability added curriculum do not delete i am never going to convince some people that i'm not a marxist or a communist it doesn't matter race is not biologically real but the social context of race is very real whether this community is ready or not these things happened these things are happening and we cannot let our full community continue to be excluded and validated and silenced fake peace is not unity and it is not mentally healthy for our community especially our children two scenarios in one instance folks are basically saying here are some additional facts about our history present circumstances that were
005left out before here are some of the ways that people with different skin colors ethnicities genders orientations abilities and neighborhoods have experienced and are experiencing our country and a rockwood community let's think about that let's reflect on that let's compare and contrast that with our particular life experiences and let's discuss in the other instance folks are basically saying you will not learn these facts we will call it political yet we will be the ones who get politicians involved we do not have privilege but you will not take away the prioritizing of our children over other children in our district everyone's experiences are basically the same and if not personal responsibility it's on them there are only objective truths there are only a narrow range of them and they just so happen to match my truths
006and that and only that is what you should learn now which scenario sounds more to you like an education which scenario sounds like indoctrination patron to the podium is zadie ostermann hi i'm jd osterman i'm nine years old i go to bulls elementary in the rockwood district i think diversity and inclusion are important because you read books about black people and other cultures and you see that some of them they weren't treated right some people say that white people were the bad guys but they're not they were just didn't like that other people didn't have the same skin color so i think you should read books or just look on the internet and read some history about that because you see that there was a lot of fighting back then so i think you should
007not keep letting history go over and over because that's gonna happen and we're never gonna get to have world peace thank you thank you sadie [Applause] next is andrea hefner evening it's going to be kind of hard to follow up on that just adorable um but kind of on her subject matter she discussed history and that's what i'd like to um draw light to as far as um being transparent and how it could apply to um our school system i am a graduate a graduate of tulsa public schools in oklahoma of course uh most of you have heard about tulsa on the news lately because of the tulsa the tulsa massacre when i was growing up it was referred to and in my textbook was noted as the tulsa race riot you see how those
008two narratives contrast um i every year for freshman students entering east central high school you are it was mandated to um take oklahoma history the only interesting thing that year in history class was that there was this massacre what does this mean what and you know there were probably like three paragraphs on what what exactly that meant and so since i was an inquisitive child i reached out to family and friends and asked many many questions and some of the responses were bigoted and maybe just just benignly ignorant but the the point is is that no one it wasn't their fault they did not have the content to base an opinion on and i was asking them their opinion an opinion on something that did happen that was a great injustice and as far as
009i'm concerned if we are going to continue to cover up american history even the ugly ugly parts we are also doing our students a great injustice thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight ex-patron is juan cascarano hello good evening my name is juan cascarano i come from venezuela i'm here mainly because i love this country although i'm a foreigner i love this country and also i'm here because i love kids and i'm a 100 percent sure that the education is the key to the future and we have to provide our kids our kids the historically create facts of their past because in that way they are going to be able to understand their present and their future as a general surgeon i was taught how to deal with the complications in a surgery because
010in that way in the future if any a complication would have happened in any surgery to me i would be able to deal with it so are we giving our kids even the ugly facts of the history for them to teach them not to take the same wrong decisions that our past took years ago we live in a society where we are pushing people to do the right thing um but we are not teaching them what is wrong we are not teaching them the outcomes of being wrong the adults of the present which were kids years ago they don't know the difference on those i'm not saying everyone but they run the ones that i run into they don't know the differences between right things and wrong things um for me being that i come
011from a communist country knowing the fact that some people they don't know even the little difference between being a liberal and being communist which is not the same that concerns me a lot because that is what we are teaching our kids so as parents and as teachers i ask you are we providing our kids with the right tools to face the indoctrination do they know the differences between what is right and what is wrong because education is not just coming from school education is also coming from home and if we don't give our kids with the right tools to defeat those challenges that is happening in the future in the present story they won't be able to challenge to deal with the challenges in the future uh it's an honor for me having you all
012listening to me and as my foreigner experience from a communist country i suggest to you to start showing our kids the wrong side of the history and in that way you would have a void to have the same outcome that my country had thank you this except is igor prolego evening my name is igor praleko and well i grew up in a country which no longer exists luckily but um normally as a physicist i don't get concerned concerned in the social status issues but um i noticed recently that certain popular movements and politicians are not refusing endorsement from the organizations like communist parties and i want to speak history in the historical context in the personal context and in a current context so first of all i mean the oppression by any uh by any
013future is something that people need to be aware of and the racial oppression is not the only one which exists i grew up in the condition of the ideological oppression and those things could it could involve as suppression of any descending opinions it could involve um it could involve popularity of psychiatry and could involve political repressions uh as far as personally my personal experience i can say that well my family experienced being labeled uh enemy ethnicity it was on 11th of august of 1937 and before the end of the year 111 000 people's people were executed of the of the specific ethnicity so the communist oppression could take many different forms um now as far as the current events are concerned the legacy of communism lives even when the with with the countries which technically
014no longer communist recently a plane traveling from greece to lithuania was um was forced to land in belarus and the person who was criticizing the belarusian government was pulled out of the plane and disappeared later he was confessed in the undergarment activity uh now they're trying to put the dissidents also in the position of being criminally insane so i think it is important for the uh history of the communism its oppression to be included in the history curriculum and once again on a personal level whenever i tell about my experiences people like to tell me i'm lying or they surprised that things could happen that you could go to jail for reading a science fiction book that your grandfather could not be put in the hospital because your father was out of favor over the
015government so those kind of events together together with the all other kind of oppression need to be taught in school so the students will know that oppression could come in many different forms thank you patron is kim mcgrath so my name is kim mcgrath i work in the field of international higher education and i also serve as the volunteer director for the victims of communism memorial foundation st louis commission so i'm here because i have been asked by rockwood parents to share information on my organization and share one of the resources that we have which is a curricular supplement that was developed by the experts on our national team the victims of communism memorial foundation is an educational research non-profit human rights organization based in washington dc and devoted to commemorating the more than 100
016million victims of communism and to pursuing the freedom of those who are still living under totalitarian regimes so just a little background on the organization it was founded in 1993 by unanimous act of congress signed into law by president bill clinton uh there's a physical memorial in the capitol that was dedicated by president bush and this year the museum will or the foundation will open uh the nation's first museum interactive museum dedicated to teaching the history of communism so voc st louis is the first ever local commission we're very active in the community we host events workshops webinars we do informational campaigns including candidate surveys and the like we've also been working with individual schools districts and teachers in regards to our curricular supplement which is a free resource and it's designed to be used
017for very busy teachers to help their students understand the history of communism starting with the bolshevik revolution to the fall of the soviet union a lot of current research indicates that many americans in particular our young people are not aware of the history of communism 72 percent of americans don't know that communism has killed more than 100 million people in the past hundred years and one in five millennials believe that would be better if private property were to be abolished so this curricular supplement has divided into chapters and it first teaches the theory of marxism and then goes on to detail the history of the implementation of that theory the guide itself includes reading activities topics easy to use resources and just this week the lindbergh school board received a presentation from their leadership sharing
018details about how uh in their social studies program and how a topic such as communism could be taught in alignment with the program learning outcomes and state guidelines so this supplement can be a resource and an effort like that we also can provide experts including local st louisianans who've lived under communism the foundation also hosts a national seminar which is a professional development workshop in dc which is free to educators every year so i wanted to share that with you i do have copies and for those that are listening or interested in the rockwood community if you're interested in getting involved please visit our website at victimsofcommunism.org stl thank you patron is jessica risen hoover i always have something to say okay so the attacks on rsd and the efforts to diminish non-white and lgbtqia
019students did not end on june 3rd far-right well-established political groups are attempting to push their racist and homophobic agendas in school districts across the united states so the lady who just spoke tonight with voc my understanding is that they are a far uh right uh foundation affiliated with the heritage group and um one of the concerned parents who has been part of the consistent harassment of our teachers and administrators this year posted this on their personal facebook page voc will be attending rockwood school board meeting tomorrow night i hope our history teaches teachers take a look too this group has been in the fight to ensure extremist ideas and practices that originated out of marxism socialism and communism like crt which is not taught in this district are taught in a historically accurate way it's
020important that we don't forget what has happened in the past and continues throughout certain parts of the world today to oppress people the better equipped our children are with this information the better equipped they will be to stand up to the candy coated concepts that they undoubtedly continue to be confronted with until we're able to rid it from being taught as fact in our schools this parent has continuously advocated to uh end diversity in the school district to have uh even black history month one of the parents that says rockwood's committing reverse racism and that uh teachers putting uh their pronouns in their in their zoom profile is indoctrination into the gay lifestyle yeah that's who voc has the endorsement of you bet there will be a problem if there is any intent to use
021any of their instruction and i'm sure that you will all certainly look at it with some clear eyes just wanted to provide that context so yeah we're not pushovers we're not putting up with it so i do have suggestions for how to improve the situation locally i personally think the district needs to stop conducting business on social on social media these platforms should only be used for uplifting student achievements not making important announcements we all have email phone and text and public statements can be made via press releases encourage teachers and administrators to establish boundaries between their personal and professional lives parents aren't entitled to unfettered access into the life of their child's teacher it's okay to refuse a parent's friend request on social media and in fact it's probably for your best safety right
022now increase transparency when there is controversy there are two sides to every story and silence doesn't make the situation go away the community is still unaware of the level of harassment and vitriol rsd staff were put under by a small group of parents like the one whose facebook post i read there were literally seven emails exchanged regarding a rumored assignment that never existed no joke the email started with my son's friend's class so just please release stuff so that way people can stand behind you and see exactly what it is that you're going through you do have the community support we do love all of you and appreciate everything that you do every day thank you thank you next up is rachel pereira um i am a parent of three children in the rockwood school
023district um i've been a parent in rockwood for 10 years i have one in elementary school middle school and high school i'm advocating for our rock our rockwood school district to hire more staff of color because students of color need representation and racial mirrors in the classroom and adult academic leadership our white student racial demographic according to a report released by umsl is 76 as of last year our white staff demographic is 98 i would like to encourage rockwood interviewers and decision makers that when there are multiple equally qualified applicants and candidates for a teaching position please make more choices with equity lens on behalf of black and brown students and select an educator of color for the interview and the job for the past 70ish years when black and brown candidates have been considered
024for a job white people have been favored we have undoing to do to right this wrong of decades of racial discrimination to create equity we need to hire more diverse candidates there is no need to sacrifice on qualifications there are plenty of highly qualified black indigenous and people of color we just have to be more aggressive and creative in our recruiting we need to challenge and re-examine past practices that look good on paper but aren't actually accomplishing change we need to create a more welcoming culture for people of color and we need to create a more welcoming culture for people of color for example example dr tracy edwards informed me that a few years ago a focus group of non-white staff was formed to understand the challenges that are that they experienced by working in
025our predominantly white school district she reported that some of the challenges included their desire for more diversity among staff i imagine they feel alone singled out and like few if any in their building understand the challenges they face of being tokenized on a daily basis if we truly care about results and not just optics why haven't we followed up with this focus group why aren't we doing more i strongly advocate for repeated anti-bias training for all people in the decision-making process so that candidates of diverse backgrounds aren't discriminated against being deliberate about equity through hiring more teachers and admins of color is a win-win for all students and staff not just students of color whose academic experience will be lifted by seeing themselves in teachers what is healthy for some of our students is healthy
026for all of our students thank you next patron is kamma brown i'm hoping one day i don't have to keep coming to these um i don't mean to say that like the meeting could have been an email but i did email all of this three times since the last time that i came so i'm hoping coming here tonight is going to give everybody an opportunity to hear it and hopefully i can get an email back when this is when this three minutes is up um this is still about the blm assignment that my fifth graders um had and that um i spoke about last time so i talked to shelly willett um who's in charge of this and uh in her email she said that one of our most pressing concerns about adding the particular
027resource would be that it is recommended for middle school and high school students due to the reading level so i emailed the director who actually created this um and according to them they wrote this letter for you guys um or it says to whom it may concern so i guess it could be for anyone he outlined all of the ways that it follows the fifth grade ell standards in missouri and also all the ways that it follows the social studies standards for fifth grade so i'm hoping that that's going to help it be considered the other thing it said in the email is that we just adopted our new k-5 social studies curriculum last year and the u.s history is focused for fifth grade but the curriculum stops at 9 11 so the recent bln
028movement would not be included in our time frame the blm movement is not new that's what it's called right now but the fat the fight for black lives is not new um this is absolutely before 9 11 this precedes 9 11 in every way so i hope that can be considered [Music] my other thing that i wanted to say is that i've been more actively this is a bit more actively involved in everything that's going on in rockwood um and i've been sort of listening to what the other districts are doing and i feel like rockwood students might be left behind in this discussion um because according to things i've read and heard kirkwood lindbergh st louis university and webster they've all um made strides to have these conversations with their kids and um they're
029giving them a skill set that respect that teaches them to respectfully discuss this with their peers when it comes to the subject of race and racism in america so i'm asking the board that when a teacher embraces a resource that we make space for that resource and that we set the tone i know that you guys don't control the curriculum but you set the tone and you set the culture of teachers teachers are looking to see how this teacher is treated and using this and if it gets approved or not is kind of a big deal so i politely asked that rock would not leave our kids out of this discussion so that in 15 20 years when they leave our homes and they have to have the skills and education they need to succeed
030um because it's not enough it's not a matter of if they have to have these discussions but when they will be asked to have these discussions thank you next patron is jennifer allen good evening too many microphones my name is jennifer allen i'm a lafayette graduate of 1987. i'm the parent of a marquette graduate from 2017 and i currently own a home in wildwood in the eureka attendance area i have lived here my life thank you for making moves towards a more inclusive curriculum as i was reading about the curriculum concerns i saw the book dear martin so i read it wow in dear martin he writes a letter to dr martin luther king as he struggles with being racially profiled and hearing the microaggressions from his classmates in a very white affluent school the
031black and white characters in this book are multi-dimensional and have depth to the literature it provides a great opportunity for class discussion journals and essay writing i've heard parents talk about a return to the classics and as a former english teacher i can tell you it is better for a student to read a book that they're interested in than to not read a classic that i like as a teacher as a white adult reading dear martin i thought about what it would be like to be a black student attending an affluent school of mostly white students providing the students an opportunity to read a variety of texts from different perspectives builds empathy and creates a broader understanding of our world we study literature to engage in discussions learn different viewpoints and use text to support
032our opinions my daughter used to engage in spirited discussions at marquette and she supported her opinions using text-based evidence and some of our greatest conversations came from those discussions that began in her ela and social studies classes she was exposed to a variety of perspectives at rockwood and i hope that that continues and i am thankful the demographics of rockwood do not mirror the country we are looking at a country that is currently sixty percent whites and that percent is going to continue to decrease in the years to come our graduates will continue to go out into a more and more diverse work and college environment learning history that encompasses all people who make up our country is not to blame or shame white people rather i personally find it jarring to learn about some
033of the racial injustices at my age it makes me feel like we're trying to hide the past and that's what causes shame if your child is feeling a sense of shame and blame as a parent you should discuss a quote by maya angelou do the best until you know better and then when you know better do better to make that point in germany they teach about genocide in world war ii not to make children feel bad but to ensure that it never happens again james baldwin wrote not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced all of the students in rockwood deserve a curriculum where they can see themselves thank you and have a good night thank you and the final patron comment tonight is shamia reese
034good evening everyone um so i'm the mother of five children two graduates from the rockford school district and three children who are still acting actively in the district first i want to say thank you to the board for continuing the work and thank you for replacing brittany and with that being said i would just like to welcome dr grace as she embraces this new role in this new community um but my question to the board is how do we plan to support her how do we plan to stand behind her protect her mentally emotionally physically spiritually we know that this has been a tough ride and she's going to need all of that from all of us who supports this work of dni i stand here letting her know today that i stand behind her
035100 and will continue to walk in this walk with her as she does so as the co-press of rockwood real and i can speak for the group that we all stand behind her in solidarity um i also want to challenge the board and ask going forward as we enter into the new school year how will we protect our children the main thing here is everyone says that this is about the kids but the kids seem the furthest thing away from this because we're having these emotional fights every day and our kids are the ones who are being affected by this i've heard some concerned parents say that children of color should go back to their neighborhood schools in terry and brittany should go there and make a change but i want to stand here today
036and let you know that brittany and terry has made a change right here in rockwood in wildwood where it is needed the most we understand the issues that our neighborhoods face but now that the issues are arising in these neighborhoods and it's a broken community and it's the racism is showing this wearing this ugly head this is where the work is needed the most anyone who is bashing the transformations that are taking place is part of the problem collectively we have to work together to be effective in the future so with that being said if we don't deal with the consequences of the past that we face right now um we cannot and to do that we have to go back and we have to correct them acknowledge them and teach them so that we
037won't continue to um pass this behavior on from generation to generation so we all have a responsibility to learn educate teach and the main thing is to communicate it behooves me that we have all of these issues on both sides and no one is willing to come to the table sit down communicate and gain an understanding to see how that we can continue together and walk in one so that we can be the best for our children so that they can receive all that they need thank you thank you all right now we will move into superintendent and board comments i'll turn it over to dr miles thank you miss baez a few announcements this evening so this evening the board of education approved a new addition to our district administrative team dr aisha grace
038as our new rockwood director of educational equity and diversity dr grace if you would please stand [Music] dr grace replaces brittany hogan who resigned in april and will begin our new position on july 1st currently dr grace is an administrator in the ferguson florissant school district she has 13 years of experience as a principal in both the ferguson fluorescent and st louis public school districts over the past two years she has been selected to serve on her district's care team social emotional learning and restorative practice team as well as the district's equity committee she earned a bachelor of science in elementary education and a master of science in education administration from the university of missouri st louis and a doctorate in educational leadership from maryville university dr grace is in attendance tonight so once again
039let's welcome her and congratulate her welcome to rockwood [Applause] next effective this past monday june 7th face coverings are now optional in all district buildings thanks in part to rockwood's safe together mitigation efforts such as face coverings maintaining social distance stringent disinfection procedures in our schools and asking everyone in our community to monitor their health and stay home when they're not feeling well we've seen a steady decline in case numbers in our schools this coupled with the ready availability of vaccinations the continued decline of transmission rates in st louis county and the fact that fewer students and staff members will be in our buildings over the summer led us to this decision throughout this pandemic we have monitored the data in our schools and in our community and worked with our local health officials for
040guidance to ensure the safety of our staff and students and that remains our top priority we will continue to follow our other mitigation strategies and closely monitor new cases and quarantines if cases and quarantines and transmission rates increase we may need to revisit the mask protocol and we would do that at any time necessary we want to say thank you for your continued support as we work together to ensure the health and safety of our staff and students next the work of rising marquette high school senior dripta chakraborty has been awarded the top prize in the congressional art competition from missouri's second district drifter's peace innovation will be on display in the u.s capitol for the next year and she will attend a reception for winners from across the country in washington d.c later this
041year innovation was chosen by a panel of local professional artists from a pool of 38 submissions from high school artists from the second district which includes parts of st louis jefferson and st charles counties recent eureka high school graduate monica may also earned third place in the competition for her still life work past present future which will now be on display in the second district's ballwin office for the next year congratulations drift and monica on the talent and creativity you exhibited in achieving this outstanding accomplishment a round of applause for these two wonderful artists last thursday june 3rd marked the final day of classes of the 2020-2021 school year for rockwood students staff members across the district took the opportunities to bid their students farewell for now and wish them well as they headed off
042for summer break this school year truly was a year unlike any other and i would like to sincerely thank our students our staff members families and the entire rockwood community for making it another successful year in the rockwood school district as you continue to look around our district we have much to celebrate finally tonight i'd like to extend my hearty congratulations to the more than members of the class of 2021 who who participated in our graduation ceremonies at the powerplex stl facility in hazelwood last week the weather was wonderful four days in a row these graduates have shown grit and determination in the face of uncommon adversity during their time in rockwood and we cannot thank them enough for all their hard work care and perseverance they have shown we know that they'll do great
043things in the next chapters of their lives here's a video capturing some scenes from rockwood summit ceremony june 1st and some photos from the lafayette marquette and eureka graduation ceremonies let's watch [Music] bye [Music] good evening rockwood summit and congratulations to the class of [Applause] use just 2021 word one character trait that we all share it would be perseverance putting aside the pandemic our class has been pushed through a lot of adversity we'll gather this evening to celebrate and honor this distinguished class of 2021. members of the class of 2021 you're to be commended for achieving the significant milestone in your lives your high school graduation love life and its intricate twists and turns your treasures to be found in the journey and may your journey be filled with love compassion empathy and kindness grant
044fosler [Music] [Applause] [Music] kevin chen story [Music] um [Music] class of 2021 let's move our tassels together to symbolize the unity our classes felt and our many accomplishments together [Applause] ladies and gentlemen i present to you the graduated raqqa summit class of 2021 [Music] [Applause] [Music] best of luck to all of the class of 2021 and thanks to our communications department for putting that wonderful video together thank you round of applause for the class of 2021. that is all i have this evening i got me again it's a good week any board comments that's one of the highlights of being a board member yep yep and it was great to see those smiles this year i mean it was great that's great boy it's always nice when at the end of the year or during
045the year when our sports teams make it to state and to the final four and sometimes we tend to forget if they don't win state that they've done a marvelous job rockwood summit this last week i guess it was or or just a week or so ago actually went to state to final four and class five in baseball and they won third place in the state and you you take and tally up all the sports teams in the rockwood school district this past year and i would assume it's probably in the 20s or 30s the ones that made it to state and did well so congratulations to rockwood summit baseball team and they've they've already won it twice i think in state and then they came in third this year so congratulations all the way
046around all right i got a couple things first graduations were awesome and of course the highlight for me was handing my daughter her diploma eureka's graduation on friday the second thing i have is for dr miles this is going to sum up his tenure here and so hopefully the other board members are okay with this but anyway he was hired in february 7th 2019 and he looked like this [Laughter] i was elected april 2019. soon after the election i was in cincinnati area for my daughter's royal regatta and i remembered that you were in cincy still so i reached out to you to join me unfortunately you couldn't make the regatta but you did offer to take me on a tour of indian hill your old district i gladly accepted our friendship started to form
047so now this is where it kind of gets interesting your time here at rockwood can be summed up in four words you found a way so your first day of rockwood july 1st first year august 12th school year started almost like any other except that you opened the new eureka elementary school then you managed to visit all 29 schools plus the ilc in four days but then mother nature hit a flood and you issued a snow day in august the community and students start seeing more of you from meet mark series and school visits they started to see what the board saw that you care about students and their education the holiday season and winter break arrived and in december no one was really paying attention to a little virus in china that was causing
048a brouhaha and wuhan second semester was underway in february marquette girl swim and dive won their second consecutive state championship eureka girl squad took third even with a sub-par pool to train in and the lafayette girls took eighth three of the four rockwood schools took top ten awesome my apologies to all the other sports in the district that won championships because i have a bias towards swimming spring break started on march 13th in classes to resume on march the 23rd or so everyone thought remember back in the summer in that little virus that started in china well it blossomed into a worldwide pandemic and got a new name kelvin 19. districts across the country closed school doors thinking that covid would soon pass and that students would be back in the classroom in a few
049weeks we all know that didn't happen you soon announced that buildings would be closed for the remainder of the school year and all spring season activities sports concert plays etc cancelled no prom no graduation email started to come in the graduates of 2020 really lost out on some memories however you came with came up with senior car parade the class of 2020 and the community loved it you found a way it forced rockwood into the world of virtual learning and zoom not the pbs kids show from boston that ran from 72 to 78 but you assembled the great staff of rockwood administrators teachers support staff figured out how to educate remotely and then nail rallied the troops to go forward and teach until second semester ended on may 21st it is now the second week
050of june and the school community had something to celebrate graduation yep you found a way to have graduation ceremonies for all four high schools on a drive-in theater style at powerplex who needed stuffy chief at serena anyway because you found a way it is now summer and there's only one thing on everyone's mind will school open in august now the fun really begins the board and you get bombarded with emails the community wants open schools five days a week the community wants to keep schools closed and maintain virtual education school starts virtually how long the emails continue and the tone varies depending on the decision made open the classrooms keep the classrooms closed october november the students are back in the classrooms but they look different oh it must be the mask and the classes
051are different quarters mitigation strategies are embedded into everyone's vocabulary same with quarantine and contact tracing words that students and parents now dread more emails quarantine too long go back to virtual quarters are terrible get rid of the mess keep the mess no homecoming what about fall sports more emails kids need them cancel them you found a way to have fall sports so the kids can play and have some normal scene in an abnormal year some more emails not very nice ones but you still found a way the holiday season and winter break arrives again school starts up again at this time classes are on the semester schedule but a hybrid it works a lot better than the quarters and students much happier teachers are doing both in class and virtual lots of work and doing
052an amazing job they don't didn't get enough credit this past school year so thank you teachers emails starting to trickle and then uniforms school board elections more unpleasant emails from the community regardless of position you decide to retire at the end of the school year more emails and conspiracy theories surface about your decision and then you found a way critical race theory and of course mass once again more emails still unpleasant regardless of stance not all emails were bad we did manage to receive a handful of emails throughout the year supporting the district no matter what direction we took it is now the final stretch of the school year in your career in education each of the high schools had a prom although limited senior car parade and graduation at powerplex anyone missed chaffetz yet
053the only item left is tonight's board meeting and you found a way although your tenor with rockwood has some low points remember the positives you issued a snow day in august because of flooding you initiated rockland's very first virtual academy 21st century learning you started the senior car parade annual tradition you always put students and teachers health and safety first although some may disagree and i'm sure there are plenty other positives but i had to stop somewhere because you found a way this past year i may not have agreed with you on all the decisions you made however i did understand why you made them of course that didn't stop me from trying to change your mind so with that enjoy your retirement dr miles to my friend mark enjoy the next chapter in your
054life any other board comments i have two so first i would like to welcome dr ricker this evening who's joining us he was here for our work session today and then he came back to join us for open session so welcome we look forward to showing you more of rockwood outside of this building in the days and weeks to come so welcome to you [Applause] [Music] and i think we will be ending board comments with a video roll the tape dr miles needless to say the journey with you leading the way here in rockwood has obviously come to an end way sooner than we had hoped way sooner than we had planned but please know that the two years that you were with us certainly made a great impression upon not only myself but i
055know the folks at green pines and rockwood you have shown such strong leadership um you're thoughtful you're kind and you've bled with your heart the entire time i've never been a part of a community that was led by an administrator that has dealt with the things that you have dealt with and done so with such grace you were a bright shining light ray of sunshine always positive steady and you did what you knew was right even in the face of adversity and pushback and probably the most inspiring thing to me was you always put the kids first what was in the best interest of our students and our kids thank you dr miles for being a very good superintendent every day and thank you very much for giving me that kindness award i think you
056should deserve one it's been an honor to serve with you and to watch your grace and your humor and your patience we really appreciated your lightheartedness and easiness especially at crestview one of our first encounters is when you became my other half and into this it was it was a fun day it was it kind of showed a much lighter side of that i enjoyed being your half and on many other occasions being your twin you are an amazing human being and you always uh let us know where we stand and where we and where you were there for us to help support us through an incredibly difficult time dr miles we want to thank you for being a tremendous leader and a wonderful communicator you've been a pleasure to work with and you made
057our jobs in the communication department so much easier we will miss you and we wish you all the best thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for coming to the rockwood school district it has been an absolute pleasure to be able to work with you and thank you for always putting the needs of our students first you will be missed and good luck i couldn't begin to tell you how proud i am of all the work that you've done for our kids in our community you will be missed beyond belief really enjoyed working with you and getting to know you really appreciate all the work that you've done for our district during this very tumultuous time i wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors and hope that our paths
058cross again soon thank you so much for everything that you've done for the district your heart that you truly brought to the district and your decision making it's been great working with you for two years and to wish you all the best on your next adventure so good luck to you and your family uh you've been such a good friend and mentor to me over the past couple years it's been a pleasure knowing you and working with you also net spring you got to remember to come back to retain our big bang toss championship title that we're holding dr miles we want to thank you for your dedication to the rockwood school district in your time you've taught us so much of being a leader today the hr team is going to go through the
059top 10 things dr miles is going to do in his retirement number 10 begin his career as a radio dj number nine sign up for aarp number eight ride his bike across the united states number seven so wake up at 4 am on snowy days to check the roads for a snow day number six become a professional kickball player number five redeem his aarp discount at dunkin donuts number four before the world was an 80s hair band number three open a jimmy john's franchise number two dress up every other thursday night and host his own board meeting and the number one thing dr miles will do in his retirement is enjoy his family thank you for the times you've made us laugh and smile and remember the kid in us you do do that so
060well doctor whether you're shooting the jump shot and making it by the way or jumping rope or playing foursquare you're all in it for the kids and it helps us to remember that that's the number one focus i'll never forget the way you've shown me how to be a leader with character strength and grace have a great retirement don't look back look forward you deserve it thank you for all that you've done [Music] [Applause] change your mind yet did uh thank you for that that was uh unexpected um it has been such an honor and a privilege to serve this community there's so many special people here [Music] mr dunn you said you use the term you found a way i i would say that we found a way throughout all of the challenges uh
061before us uh there's so many thanks to uh issue individually um but i'm going to miss all of the people that i see in this room i've made so many friends and um you know as i i complete my time and in k12 education i just hope to have made a difference in the lives of those that i've served children and staff members this board has been incredible the team of educators with whom i worked have been incredible and i will make an admission i've already signed up for aarp [Laughter] i'm not kidding rebecca didn't like that i'm already looking for my discounts i'm trying to figure out which ones they are but in all seriousness just want to say thank you for this this privilege to serve this community thank you so much [Applause]
062come and visit me and i'll show you the ropes for aarp and medicare if you need that all right now we gotta get some business done all right moving along could i please have a motion to approve the consent to jedna items know why that got me all right so the motion is to approve the consent agenda items as submitted any just we have a motion and a second any discussion yes we do have one donation tonight crestview parent organization non-monetary six thousand dollars to enhance experiences for student body and increase outdoor classroom areas banners adirondack chairs picnic tables patio umbrellas and stands for courtyards flag belt system for pe department light panels shelving headphones white boards and books congratulations thanks chris few all right so the motion is to approve the consent agenda items
063as submitted all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed and that passes and next one second we have bond issue purchases could i have a motion to approve the bond issue purchases and related contracts over 150 thousand dollars from truffera llc purchases of chromebooks motion and a second and we have deb catrin this purchase is part of our annual refresh of chromebooks as i've said before we refresh them when they're they reach the end of their four years so we will be purchasing enough for rising sixth graders and rising ninth graders during the course of the year for next year how many chromebooks that involved more than one eighteen thirty five hundred yeah it's about around eighteen hundred for sixth grade i think and around that many for ninth grade you anticipate that question
064i did not anticipate that question okay thanks any other questions so the motion is to approve the bond issue purchases and related contracts over a hundred and fifty thousand from chaffera llc purchases of chromebooks uh all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that passes all right next we have uh this one is an approval so could i have a motion to approve the 2021-2022 testing calendar and assessment planned plan as presented motion and a second we have glenn hancock hey everybody long time no see uh presentation is only about as half as long as this afternoon so we're wearing a good timing here uh tonight uh have before you the assessment plan and assessment calendars uh for the 21 22 school year the assessment plan is a an important part of our curriculum
065instruction uh process to ensure that we're meeting students needs intervention and also enrichment before we go into the 2122 just a quick review of the 2021 that we just went through we did make some alterations to the plan throughout the year due to social distancing due to students learning online um we'll begin with uh you know this year desi did charge us with uh using utilizing maps so we had to administer the map assessment and we had over 22 different 22 000 map assessments were given with about 92 participation that includes grade level students participating in the map so we participate normally grades three through eight um as well as high school eocs uh the high school has our largest group of students that we're still learning virtual at the end of the school year
066so getting those students in to take a test for the state uh was a little bit more difficult that's where we're at the 92 percent uh roughly about 97 of our elementary students uh participated that were supposed to participate with testing we also gave 3 500 ap exams that's still going on ap extended their window and we are accommodating as many students as possible that were unable due to quarantine due to any reason that may have prevented them from coming to the assessment during may we're working with them to reschedule many of them are now digital so they're doing those ap assessments from home but we're right along with them supporting them making sure we can schedule them i think our last one is set to be given june 28th so it's a ap went
067from a two-week window to a two-month window this year uh star and fastbridge assessments we provided those virtually this year and in person for screening and monitoring we'll talk a little bit more about star and fast bridge assessments but over 12 000 assessments given there we were unable to provide our cogat and pre-act assessments this year due to covet 19. when those were scheduled we were all learning virtually and there there's not a virtual assessment for those two assessments and then we did come back in person the social distancing prevented us from issuing or from completing the pre-act with our 10th grade students we did also begin to bring in students on campus for psat and then we also invited students to come in and participate with the act again act did not have a
068virtual option so we hosted it in person we did a virtual day for all other students grades 9 10 and 12. so that way 11th graders had the whole campus to complete the act testing and we had over 1500 students participate for those unable to participate due to health reasons we did allow or provide them a voucher that they can go into another testing center now that vaccines are available we might have more students feel available to pursue the test in person at another national testing day usually those are on saturdays in there any questions on this year then looking ahead uh again rockwood participates in a balanced assessment plan meaning we use state tests local tests our plc our professional learning communities our classroom assessments character and sel and as we work through the
069different types of assessments we have the state assessments are kind of the furthest from making a direct impact to students as we continue to use our balanced assessment plan utilizing district assessments that we have in there those interim assessments to learn ensure the students have the skills to acquire our curriculum and then as our professional learning communities meaning our grade level teams and our content teams begin to look at assessment results from students and finally our classroom teachers they provide assessments daily from checking in with students from listening to the read and those are the assessments that really make the difference on a day-to-day impact with students and really inform the instruction from day to day that our students experience our overall summary with our assessment plan really we haven't made many changes because we
070weren't able to fully carry out some of the things in our assessment plan last year many things continue to be the same our delivery methods will be mostly online for most the assessment still we still give paper pencil for the act and pre-act our content areas we're assessing remain unchanged testing time remains unchanged there's a slight increase with the ela listening compo portion with high school eocs the testing time is going to be consistent with prior years as well as our cost so again really not many changes from year to year we've worked with our vendors that provide assessment to keep our costs the same so we have not experienced the cost increase with our local assessments or even the state assessment going a little bit deeper with our balance assessment plan just this is
071just a graphic i really like that just shows the layers of assessment and how they kind of work together again we have state assessments that we're required to give again those are the furthest away you can see from our students and while they're important and they have a place they don't impact the day-to-day instruction that our students experience we do provide a series of district assessments such as interim and benchmark assessments such as star and fastbridge those assessments help us determine that students have the skills needed to acquire our curriculum and standards and that we can provide interventions and enrichment as students might need those type of interventions in enrichment we have college and career type assessments and readiness in terms of pre-ect practice act ap testing then we also share um climate and sel
072surveys with our our students and also our community as well and then the last two parts that again these are the assessments that really impact the day-to-day instruction those are our professional learning communities our teachers that work together in grade level teams that work in content area teams together in the inside the classroom that our teachers are you know responding daily to student needs through their classroom assessments that are ongoing that are authentic uh bringing in different audiences to listen to their presentations so those are the assessments that again make daily impacts uh for our students to go a little bit deeper with our balance assessment system just so you see how it works together um our formative uh just in time assessment so those classroom assessments those are those lesson sized bite-sized assessments that
073help teachers make those adjustments daily to their instruction that's one part we also give universal screening and benchmark to help us identify students that are at risk that might need additional support or enrichment those are assessments like our star reading star math fast bridge assessments if we see an area of need we also have other diagnostic assessments we can learn a little bit more we can drill through and see what specific area of need so therefore we can provide intervention and then monitor if that intervention is working and again we'll utilize similar assessments to continue to monitor to see if the intervention is working and then finally summative assessments these are evident this is evidence of learning over a long a larger chunk of time than maybe a daily classroom like a week or a
074unit type of assessment our assessments um kind of in blue on the ends those are the ones that we use to assess our curriculum standards on a regular basis and then our interim assessments those are the ones that we assess the skills to ensure that the students have the skills to acquire our curriculum and standards as we move through and then again we can use the progress of monitoring as our own internal as teachers monitor progress on our own then we also have our tools to monitor progress of the interventions as we're moving through and lastly our next steps for our 2122 we'll continue to monitor our reading screening process and continue to evaluate interventions and components outlined with the missouri statute we're going to monitor calendar changes due to covet 19 and for crossing
075school year so again should we have to social distance again anything that might impact when we can give assessments so we'll continue to monitor that and adjust as necessary like we did this year uh we're our we are going to review our interim and benchmark assessment tools this year so um kind of as dev catching mentioned earlier today that a regular review of software you know we use star and fastbridge as part of our reading screening and assessment so we want to review and make sure that we're utilizing to the full capacity and if there's other parts that align may be better with our curriculum we can review to ensure that we're giving the best assessment it's given us the right information to make adjustments to our to our instruction and lastly we will continue
076to provide professional learning focused on ongoing assessment using ongoing assessments to inform instruction so the formative assessments those day-to-day assessments seen how children are doing and responding to their needs so we'll continue to provide professional learning in that way and we have throughout the course of this year as well so thank you for your time this evening and any questions i can answer one question regarding in the map is the map assessments from last year did we give the map a this year for special needs students we did are they included in the numbers that you gave yes okay how many years have you given been giving the seo climate survey we've been giving that uh i want to say this is the third year maybe fourth we started elementary and then we moved at
077uh the middle school and then this is this was the first year we had all four high schools participate anticipate ap i mean they're not those testing dates i mean obviously we locally have had a calendar change but nationally you know those testing dates are going to stay the way they're at right i mean we we foresee that to happen ap yeah for ap we we foresee them keeping the normally the two-week window they've always had emergency test dates after the window where we maybe have a handful of students participate this year is very widespread where students could select and move to different windows as they needed to and we're our building test coordinators and our staff did a fabulous job helping them prepare and get ready for that but we really see it going
078back to those two weeks and for ap what those shares around test security um and for those reasons that it'd be best again in person during those two weeks now this past year being a calendar change for us plus the coveted year was hard to really measure anything in particular but it's going to be interesting looking forward how our calendar year you know impacts that and i know our teachers felt a lot of crunch probably this year for all of the the reasons we've stated this evening but um looking at a quote-unquote non-coveted year when things normalize a little bit more it's me interesting to see how they adapt the curriculum to fit in but then also you know some of those testing dates are so early like may 4th and if we're in school
079for a whole nother month after that you know what you're doing in that in that classroom and things like that is a big question and we're also balancing that with our when to give the math assessments also yeah because the high school students participate in eocs that do can conflict with the ap windows right and so once the best times it to do before ap after so we kind of have a hybrid approach uh for next year yeah that's interesting how are those determinations being made so we work with the committee we have teachers administrators building test coordinators counselors on the committee to help review what would be some best dates and nothing's always perfect but we do our best for example government we're going to give after the ap window because it's only a
080semester course and so that way they have the you know the maximum amount of time to get their curriculum in asking them to go from middle of january to april is just too short for window to get their curriculum in you do give us some flexibility is that right ap generally ap doesn't generally ap is a pretty pretty locked in again there's some emergency windows that you can utilize for individuals but um you know for example building flooded they would open up those windows so we had to use those emergency windows i want to say four years ago when we had the large flood around here uh we did use those emergency windows during that time if we talk flexibility it has to be on the state's part because ap is national and they then
081the state would have to adjust theirs for state yes okay and this year the state did expand the window they expanded when we could give assessments [Music] all right all right so the uh where are we at the motion is to approve the 2021 2022 testing calendar and assessment plan as presented all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed thank you glenn all right next we have a could i have a motion to approve the review of policy zero four one two public participation at board meetings motion and a second and we'll have a discussion with mary le puck oh oh yes over the past year we've had certainly an increase in patron comments and a number of questions have come up uh we think that maybe some clarity would be helpful in
082the policy zero four one two and we are asking permission it has not been revised since 2015 uh so we are asking permission take a look at it and possibly bring some changes to the board questions we need to vote on that we are tonight just on approving the pin to be looked at yeah yep about the suggestions that you've made or you're making there's just a number of things we want to look at in terms of the number of people the amount of time we allow at the meeting should it be residents employees you know we just want to take a new look at all of it and again provide some clarity to the board and to our stakeholders we certainly encourage people to come and speak during public comment but when we have
083large numbers i think questions come up about how best to handle that you'll look at some other districts and see what they do absolutely and that will come back to the board correct yes will that be do you know next board meeting or a couple board members i'm not sure that we'll get to it by the next board meeting um lisa stump also has some recommendations so there's more people that really and i've been keeping track of things over this past year so we're going to try to go through some of those questions that have been coming up about some of the language that's in there that's not really precise that needs to be kind of nailed down right so the motion is to approve the review of policy zero four one two public participation
084at board meetings all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed and that passes next we have another pin could i have a motion to approve revisions to policy english language learner identification criteria motion and a second and dr willett is here to discuss one is really simple it's a change in title because the facilitator became a coordinator a couple weeks ago that's it oh okay the last one was an approval to look into it and this one is just an approval of the actual change because it's just a title changed all right any questions about this the motion is to approve revisions to policy 2818 english language learner identification criteria all those in favor please say aye okay anyone opposed that passes thank you next uh the proposed agenda for the june 24th 2021
085board of education meeting is up on our screens anybody has anything to add comment may 4th 24th yep yep apologize to the board in advance but i may be visiting my 91 year old mother i might go see my mom yeah i apologize i may be here [Laughter] i could see that we accept your apology oh goodness all right future quickly future agenda presentations and events to attend and this actually kind of brings me up to laura lee's comment about potentially not being at the june 24th meeting just to be aware if anybody everyone deserves a vacation especially this year so if we have people that are going to be missing meetings uh to talk about that i know that i will publicly say it will not be at the meeting the first week of
086august and i know i don't either know and i don't think director miller will either so we just want to make sure that we have a quorum here at all times so keep that in mind um if you're going to be gone just make sure you're updating the calendar so we are keeping up on that and check your google calendar all right that's it folks during the meeting do you have a google account