001please all right we'll start with uh i need a motion to approve the agenda we have a motion a second any discussion all right all those in favor say aye anyone opposed all right that passes next i need a motion to approve board of education meeting minutes for january 21st 2021 move motion a second a discussion all right all those in favor say aye anyone opposed all right that passes all right next we have uh patron comments and we do have one patron comment this evening so uh during patron comments citizens may address the board of education concerning issues related to the school district uh tonight we have one speaker so that speaker will be limited to three minutes and we'll have a timer on the overhead there please know that the at the board's
002discretion the board or 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 phone call a written message if a response is needed so we have a microphone right there and so both the board and audience may hear the patron comments clearly board meeting proceedings are also recorded and posted on rockwood's youtube channel so this evening uh we'll have the three minute clock ready and i want to welcome joanna boyden hi i'm johan um it's been a while since i've been here we withdrew our children from rockwood on september 1st we're back as of january 19th for um second semester and i was surprised to come back and learn that we have five flex fridays for virtual
003when i chose in person for my children and so now my husband who and myself who are both full-time workers are trying to educate three children at home on fridays you can imagine that that's a little bit insane as you all know because you did it for a full semester we took our children somewhere where they could have an in-person education and we expected that when we came back so i would like to understand if this ends at the end of this quarter or if we're continuing this so i can make the right decision for my children additionally i think that rockwood needs to look seriously at whether or not they continue any virtual learning there are obviously options outside of um outside of rockwood being a brick and mortar school that offer frankly much
004better virtual options for those who would like it um so i prefer we focus our attention where we're best and that is in person learning additionally this puts so much stress on our children i got a glimpse that there are some students here talking about mental health my 14 year old son's girlfriend attempted suicide this week she was not successful thankfully but this burden it is putting on our children is unacceptable and we as the adults need to find better solutions and not be just reactive and oh it's hard i get it it's hard life is hard it's hard for the teachers i get it it's hard for them doing virtual and in person guess who it's harder on it's harder on our children and we as adults need to step up and recognize that
005the last topic i'm i'm actually going to save i um think maybe if someone from the administration could reach out to me there are several concerns i have with um some things around diversity and inclusion in the district and um i'd like to collaborate further with somebody around whether or not our diversity equity and inclusion department is in fact inclusive so that i'll leave it with that thank you all for listening tonight next we have superintendent and board comments so our superintendent dr mark miles thank you mrs montal i do have a few comments this evening uh while we are fully engaged with our students in their learning for the remainder of the 2020 2021 school year we're also in the midst of planning for the 2021 school year i've authorized a rockwood task force
00621-22 to help us prepare for the upcoming school year the task force will work collaboratively with the administrative leadership team to develop a proposal that includes considerations for all grade levels composed of a cross-section of administrators principals teachers staff students and parents the task force will research analyze and consider establish parameters and then develop the best proposals moving forward process begins this month with a series of zoom meetings to connect task force and discussion and bring voices and perspectives to the ongoing conversations we'll do our best to provide frequent updates to ensure our school community has opportunities to follow along and provide feedback throughout this vital process as we work to continue to provide each rockwood student a quality education just want to give kudos to dr lisa counts our assistant superintendent for supervision of
007schools for leading that task force so kudos to dr counts secondly this evening a celebration for gege and werther elementary schools as they have been named missouri schools of character by character.org they're among only 76 schools nationally to achieve the schools of character distinction this year which is bestowed upon schools that demonstrate a focus on character development has positively impacted academic achievement student behavior and climate this is the third time each school has earned this designation which that designation lasts for five years and both are now under consideration to be named a national school of character this spring we believe strongly in the importance of character education for all of our students and i would like to congratulate geggy and werther communities for earning this honor congratulations february is black history month and rockwood schools
008are commemorating the occasion with a variety of events and activities celebrating black achievement rockwood south and wildwood middle schools are devoting their morning announcements to educating about notable black historical figures all month long while lasalle springs middle school students are producing a video series entitled a moment in black history ridge meadows elementary school has a periodic table of black history posted in one of its main hallways and eureka elementary has a walk of fame that celebrates important figures from the st louis area both of those displays incorporate qr codes that students can scan with their devices to watch a short video and learn more about each figure these are only a few examples of the terrific educational methods our schools are utilizing to celebrate black history month be sure to check out our district website
009and social media channels throughout the month for photos videos and more this week during national school counseling week we're focused focusing our attention on the unique contribution of rockwood school counselors and how students benefit from their involvement in our communities in addition to the normal roles they play in our schools our counselors have found new creative ways to be consistent reassuring resources for their communities and our students during the covet 19 pandemic let's listen to three of our school counselors to describe how they have served and continue to assist our students and families hi my name is robin guydon i am a school counselor here at lasalle springs middle school hi everyone i'm tila sax and i am the school counselor at personal elementary my name is jerry bullinger i'm a counselor at rapid summit
010high school where i've been a counselor this is my 19th year rockwood is so big and reaches so many families and community members that it's just it's awesome i mean and i can't describe it in any other way it's um it's we're a team and we're a family even as big as we are we're a family and so part of one of the things that we did this year myself and my my home counselor we picked some communities of students that live in in our rockwood area around our south springs area and we went out and visited those those communities i wanted to for them to know me see my physical self see each other and so i wanted them to know me know each other feel the sense of connectedness to school i think
011relationships are what are the interventions sometimes and so they started coming in for some practices you can see them from a distance they were kind of scared we were kind of scared it's like you know hey and then they started coming in for a optional coming in person and he was coming back yesterday office it's fine to get this great partition and the first kids came to the building it was like rejoice counselors are the heart we get to really um work with families not just students but really get to know families in the community and what's going on i think it's so important to have that stable person in the school that that students know i've got somebody at school that loves me cares about me is going to take care of me and
012so we have to love on them and nurture them and get them what they need in order to be the best that they can be [Music] just another opportunity to say thanks to our school counselors who do so much for our students and their families in addition patrons of the rockwood school district are invited to a virtual board of education candidates forum on monday march 1st from 6 to 8 pm hosted by the league of women voters of metro st louis this question and answer session will allow our voters to learn more about the board candidates seven rockwood citizens have filed their candidacy for two positions on the rockwood board of education and the election will be held on april 6th for more information and to submit a question for consideration by the league of
013women voters and the event moderator please visit the board of education page on our rockwood website and finally this evening later tonight we have a proclamation from governor mike parson recognizing february 14th through the 20th as school board recognition week in the state of missouri in rockwood we are fortunate to have a board of education composed of citizens who are committed to volunteering their time and efforts to help us fulfill our mission of doing whatever it takes to ensure all students realize their our potential school district board of education is composed of citizens who care deeply about our students staff and community they are committed to volunteering their time and efforts to help us fulfill our mission of doing whatever it takes to ensure all students realize their potential members of the board of education
014we are forever grateful for the dedication you continue to exhibit especially in the midst of a global pandemic that has tested us all happy school board recognition thanks for watching thank you rockboard of location thank you rob with border record he sent thank you rockwood board of education thank you rockwood board of education thank you rockwood for this education thank you rockwood board of education as a token of our appreciation some of our students have prepared i would say hundreds of prepared thank you cards and notes for your dedication and your commitment the two words thank you are simply not enough for all you do and all that you have done so thank you once again for your continued hard work and dedication on behalf of our students parents staff members families and community we
015appreciate you that is all i have this evening dr miles any board comments i'd like to thank governor parson for recognizing board of education across the state as well as all the kids that sent us thank yous moving along i need a motion to approve the consent agenda items as submitted move second emotion is second any discussion we have one donation tonight john and anne bedell other non-monetary estimated cost is two thousand dollars the trumpet will be used in the lafayette high school band for upcoming students it's a used cannonball trumpet from a previous lafayette high school student it is not a coronet it is a trumpet anybody wants to hang around afterwards i'll explain the difference between a trumpet and a coronet thank them for the gift very nice so that motion is to
016approve the consent agenda items as submitted all those in favor say aye anyone opposed all right that passes really i need to abstain from 7.02 okay janet do you have that all right good thank you all right next i need a motion to approve that the board of education proclaimed the week of february 14th through the 20th 2021 as rockwood school board recognition week motion and a second dr miles yes i do have a proclamation if i read it yes it would be so uh please allow me from the office of the governor whereas a system of quality public education is essential to the future of our state and nation and whereas the people of missouri have a long tradition of support for public education and their local school districts and whereas local school boards
017are the ultimate expression of the unique american institution of representative governance of public school districts and whereas local school boards acting on behalf of and in close connection with the people of their communities chart the direction of education in their communities and whereas local school boards serve as the key community advocate for children youth and the public schools now therefore i michael l parson governor of the state of missouri do hereby proclaim february 14th through the 20th 2021 to be school board recognition week in missouri and urge all missourians to recognize school boards as they strive with their communities to improve our public schools through quality leadership thank you a motion is to approve that the board of education proclaimed that week february 14th through 20th as rockwood school board recognition week all those in
018favor say aye thank you anyone opposed all right that passes thank you all right uh next 8.02 is a coke committee um presentation we're going to have tonight committing to equity access and inclusion supporting student emotional and mental health so we have dr terry harris coming forward and i know we have a whole bunch of our students which is fantastic welcome thank you for having us we're going to do something a little bit different today and so i'm going to have the students speak and then i'll come back towards the end you sir good evening my name is sneha chandra and i'm a senior at marquette on behalf of the mission mental health awareness leaders i would like to thank everyone here for their time and willingness to hear our voices over the past seven
019years six known students have unfortunately lost their lives to the deadly disease we call suicide i would now like to address a moment of silence as we remember thomas matthew jesh brianna avery noah and the other fallen students whose names we don't know of thank you [Music] okay that number is unacceptable it's probably a number closer to if not greater than 10. zero is the only acceptable number for the number of students to take their life in the school district ever but it's not the students who take their own life who are affected by mental illness and mental affliction it's their families friends and the community that suffers suicide is a pandemic just like the current virus but it's here to stay for decades if we don't do something about it that's why we're here
020today to not just break the stigma but to provide resources instruction counseling reform and community support we're not trying to reinvent the wheel what we have is clear and simple to implement this will make students and their friends and teachers aware of the resources already in place to help students before they are overwhelmed furthermore this also informs students and staff of the warning signs of trouble so that others can help students get help at a time when they might see no way out so let's get started who am i i'm isha diehl i'm a senior at lafayette high school 2021 i'm i've led and founded a group of 107 people called mission mental health awareness this initiative initially started as a mental health class which could take years to implement but these are things we
021can implement right away so the budget everything we want to implement that can help students and staff cost money but this is the exception to the rule promoting these resources and instruction will take time but it will cost no money to the district [Music] so overall we need greater access to resources and accessibility is the key to saving lives we have a link tree with several rockwood resources on it as well as some hotlines so one idea is to put that on that link tree and those links as a tab on the rockwood website where you see the schools and all those things and students will be educated on how to help themselves and others overall creating environment that supports one's well-being student-teacher relationship is one of the most fundamental in a school environment and
022we want all students to feel their teachers are a sustainable resource while further giving teachers certainty they are doing all they can to aid their students inside and out of the classroom we fully believe all rockwood teachers should undergo crisis intervention training thereby allowing teachers to feel equipped to handle their students mental health needs on a day-to-day basis moreover teachers can utilize this training to act as a resource to other staff members as well mental illness is not solely a student struggle a notion we forget all too often kudo kids under 21 has a simple free crisis intervention program that can progress with us in making certification of all rockwood staff a reality it is recommended that at most a counselor sees 250 students in the rockwood school district some counselors are aiding 350 plus
023students in course changes scheduling errors as well as acclimating a student to the roller coaster ride that is high school crisis intervention training for not only teachers but our students as well will greatly reduce the immense workload our counselors face certification of our teachers and these new found peer-to-peer resources will allow counselors to become a highly valued additional resource to any student who may be struggling making student counselor time that much more enriching and meaningful to both parties a consistent absence on all rockwood high school website websites our visual aid depicts lafayette high school what high school's website is a direct link or electronic tab to a student specific counselor the need for our student body to call or email their counselor's office to obtain an appointment can negatively reinforce a student from seeking help
024when they need it therefore a direct link to a counselor's next available time slot or free appointment time will positively reinforce our student body to meet with their counselors when deemed necessary all should be clearly presented on the home page under the guidance and counseling tab of every rockwood website for rapid and easy accessibility for our student body but we understand as students that teachers counselors and administrators all have many different duties whether that's in the school as well as taking care of their families at home so we're thinking about creating this presentation this brings us to our next resource which consists of student training and mental health support for us as students who are very passionate about this and want to engender some sort of change as well as many other students in our
025various high schools who want to work with us and work together to create a better mental state for all high schoolers it's important that we begin to train our high school students to support one another there are organizations like nami and archangels that can participate in building student skills as many as well as many other free trainings and this will be of no cost to rockwood if we're able to provide these resources to students we can be the first line of defense we can check in on our peers more easily and we can know what to look out for and the way we propose this is starting from freshman year there will be a optional orientation from the start of freshman year all the way through senior year this won't be required training for all
026individuals in the high school that will be up to them whether or not they want to take part but our vision is that we make everyone see the importance in this and there are so many students in our district that already see the importance in this and want to be able to help just don't know how so if we're able to provide this resource get this information out there there'll be more students who are better equipped to help the students around that okay so kind of like ashish was saying about how um students can get training so a lot of those trainings from nami and archangels are completely free so that's another example of how this costs no mean for the district so referring students to help in the community overall counselors cannot provide recurring
027therapy to students due to overflowing schedules it's literally on the website that counselors do not provide therapy free outside resources can build a support system outside of school archangels is a free resource kennedy brown is a representative at that organization she's the project manager management leader and it has the ability to expand if needed every child's hope is a free psychiatric treatment and therapy clinic they are on lindbergh boulevard and then hotlines are another resource that are money may sleep mostly completely free they're just a call away trained in mental health compared to a 9-1-1 for emergency responders in different ways [Music] which brings us to a survey administered to students around the district in mid-december on the survey we put two simple questions the first asked have you ever thought about taking your own
028life this was administered across all four rockwood high schools and this is the data from all four as you can see at the bottom there's 852 total responses across the four high schools and the number that i want to highlight is that across the district out of those 852 students there are 550 students that said at some point in time they had considered taking their own life 550 students out of 852 students said they considered taking their own life that's an unacceptable number and that is something that we need to stop the trend of something that we need to take care of right now and we need to consider how we can make this number lower and eventually how can we make this number zero among our rockwood students our second question was have you
029ever attempted to take your own life now both these questions are optional to answer so this one had a fewer a fewer number of answers this one had responses there were roughly 160 students who said that at some point they had attempted to take their own life but the more alarming number is that in the week before the survey survey had been collected there were 18 students who had attempted to take their own life 18 students out of 670 students in a week before the survey was collected had attempted to take their own life this trend is increasing at an alarming rate and we need to make sure that this this number does not increase but rather decreases close to zero [Music] thank you yoshisha really appreciate that um and thank you to lafayette student
030morgan truman for the contents and the data that survey i want to thank this board for all their time tonight i'm very appreciative as a student for you um hearing our concerns um and i want to talk a little more about uh some of the statistics we saw in this survey for example um i know that there may be we'll be happy to have discussions after this about the logistics of how we want to accomplish these goals right what does it look like to actually bring in external organizations what does it look like to uh rethink the way that we have counseling so that students are actually able to see their counselor for legitimate social or emotional problems instead of just visiting them once a year just to get a small schedule change um let's
031be real when i saw that number in the state of 550 students not just out of 852 but 550 within rockwood who have ever considered taking their own life let's spread the formalities that turns my stomach and it's terrifying because uh i've had two amazing young people in my life who have taken their own lives and i know i am not here tonight to tell you that we can create some perfect world where no one will ever have another attempt no one is ever going to have these kinds of issues i can't promise that perfect bliss world but here's what i think i know that taking action won't change the past but i know that taking action means we do everything we can to make sure we never lose another student i want to wake
032up every morning in a world where many more students know their counselor's name can comfortably talk to that counselor or a friend a sibling a teacher ap teacher music teacher whoever it is they trust so they can go to them to get the support they need and it is my hope that that individual whether they are a student who has received mental health training from a source within rockwood or from an organization that was brought from the outside of rockwood that they could have that knowledge and know how to act properly in that situations in that situation i want to walk the halls of my high school smiling and laughing knowing that we have taken these simple measures to ensure that these students who need help are given help i promise you that if we
033carry out many more conversations about this tonight and we ensure that these things are truly instilled students and staff are going to be given the guidance they need to see the signs of a crisis when they can and act properly when they're in the position to do so i'm very excited to have organizations like archangels provide counseling and other services to rock with students in need school district is a very i like to say prolific well-known district we take a lot of pride in who we are and i think we have every right to we have amazing teachers i've had a brilliant education in this school district and i'm forever grateful for that knowing that some not everyone in this country has had to have access to such a terrific education but um i was
034speaking to a teacher recently who is now an administrator or another part of a state but at one point was a teacher at lafayette and she affectionately once nicknamed lafayette lafayette academy in reference to the very high rigorous expectations we face there on an academic level a social level and i think that even though we are very high achieving and that we want to be the best if those limits are pushing if those expectations are pushing students to their limits and we're not prepared to offer help when it's there we have a problem i want to thank you so much for your time tonight and i'm happy to discuss this with you we're now going to take some questions so um all of us will be happy to answer any of those as we can
035so thank you [Applause] terry i'd like to just address the kids here um you know this is something that uh i thank you all for it's something very near and dear to my heart we lost a young man in our family a couple years ago on new year's day and uh you know he he didn't have any signs of anything you know it's just he was calling for help in ways that we just didn't understand and i think uh you know had he had something like this in high school he may still be here so i thank you all for this really thank you now i'd like to comment for the students you know a couple of you were nervous but you did an exceptional job tonight and this continues to show the type of
036students that we have in the rockwood school district tonight it was lafayette next week it may be another high school in the district but the caliber of students that can actually tell us something in a format that we can understand is outstanding i do have a couple questions on the survey did you did you survey only lafayette students i'm just still on um so this was administered through all four high schools this data is just added up through all the individual high schools we originally had individual high school data but just to make it more comprehensible we added all the data together okay then in one response it did 852 and the other one you had 677 that's out of uh 7 000 plus students and so we need to get more responses just to
037see what other people are thinking do you do you plan to continue and maybe try to get some more responses from students i think getting more responses in the future could be beneficial but i think the important thing to notice here is that even within the small sample size we still have such a big number such as for example 18 students in the week before the survey was collected had taken their own life no matter the sample size 18 is still or had attempted to take their own life and no matter the sample size that we're taking 18 is still way too high of a number and i think that's one of the things that we're trying to highlight through this one is unacceptable and we need to get down to zero and you guys
038are doing it guys and gals are doing a nice job of getting to that point thank you very much i know lafayette is represented here and marquette right okay what about summit in eureka um we were not able to get people to those schools to discuss um discuss their experiences and regardless topic tonight but we do have people um you may have seen in the beginning we have a very large i know i don't know if you're familiar with the app group me um we when we announced this initiative to push for this and rockwood um we had to put a hard cap on that group chat because so many people were wanting to join and be a part of this and our instagram not to obviously you know popularity is not always a measure
039of quality you know our instagram got about 200 followers within the course of just a couple days um so sadly there we don't have people from those two schools to represent us tonight but i think the immense interest in doing something about this shows that this is not just something that is important to a small amount of students or the students who it has impacted um maybe they've lost a friend maybe they've endured um you know a similar you know a crisis of that self-harm eating disorder you know whatever we're talking about i think that those high numbers do show that um we have a lot of interest and i can tell you for a fact within the survey we did have data from all data from all four rockwood high schools i believe it
040was a bit more heavy probably in the lafayette marquette populations but i can assure you we have interest in those places it's just a matter of i just personally don't know too many people at those schools so that's how things went your plan is to encompass all four schools absolutely i mean i i think that with what i mean and anyone else feel free to chime in here because go ahead so we actually do have people from both eureka and summit in our group chat obviously like james was saying we did have to close down the group but there were at least two people who from eureka who wanted to come tonight so remember last year we had a presentation from eureka as i recall anybody else about mental health uh so great great work
041there really that shows that this is you know an ongoing issue and you know these um initiatives are free so please consider that there are lots of resources out there so i as a board member would be committed to helping you all access those reset resources however possible again another thing we just want to emphasize is that with a lot of these um things such as the resources or the external organizations um are one of our main focuses and i think we try to emphasize this in the pamphlet a big thing is accessibility i know with dr calcutta who's our principal uh at many points in our meetings and zoom calls we had a lot of discussions about various rockwood resources um but i think if there was one thing that maybe we felt as
042students it was that sometimes you had to go you know too many clicks go through many doors jump through too many hoops in certain circumstances to actually access those um so i think we have a lot to gain by making these simplistic changes that kind of make the system much more focused on you know help and use the resources we have more efficiently and use them more properly so absolutely you're exactly on target i apologize for not recognizing the students from marquette i just assumed with karen here that everybody was in marquette from lafayette welcome marquette let me take just a second too to thank you all for being here and for the courage that you've all shown tonight and just previously for bringing us up to you know your social media people when you're
043speaking out you can tell it's extremely heartfelt and your passion is really important um i have two two of my kids are high schoolers at rockwood summit one is a senior and she did lose a classmate two years ago that had been a classmate of hers since kindergarten so this touch is very close to home for me um that was a a terrible experience one thing that i just wanted to mention is that i you guys are doing a fantastic job of thinking about the counselor aspect and how a student in crisis could reach out having teenagers and knowing at times they've come to me and said mom i'm worried about this friend or acquaintance it may not even be a close friend but somebody who just reaches out for whatever reason having a good
044um system for kids to you know on on behalf of a student in crisis reach out is super important and i i always try to reiterate that to my two kids and we have stepped in a couple of times and and and taken some steps to make sure kids are safe who who have reached out but sometimes it's super subtle and so to you know if you have an opportunity even ever to hear something i know you guys are having that conversation but i just want to bring that up tonight because i'm sure if you went out and asked that question i'd be terrified to know what the response would be about that but i bet it'd be really high i had a response to that um so we have so many students um in
045the rockwood school district who are just so passionate about erasing the stigma around mental illness and i totally understand where you're coming from with your um teenagers being worried about their friends um because you know there's a lot of teenagers in the rocket school district who are empathetic individuals who want to do all they can which is why we really considered peer-to-peer resources because i'm having our students um trained in crisis intervention as well they can adequately see the signs and help their friends and um kind of be able to figure out when to get an adult involved or when to get um really more emergency resources involved and so that's why we're trying to work with kudo right now and um us go through that training to see how effective and influential it can
046be but um yeah i thank you so much for bringing that up because that's something we were heavily considering as well well you guys have been off a huge thing here so i understand you can't just jump in and tackle all of it but i think that's a great part of the conversation i'm glad you're having it you guys are fantastic do you have any models from other districts not necessarily just in missouri but around the nation that have success with the similar program that you can tap to help build your program actually done research into this obviously but this i'm sure there are schools out there who do stuff like this like kirkwood is really big on having mental health resources i know kennedy can speak to that but this would in such a
047large district you know the largest you know most funding in missouri this would be you know the first of its kind at least in my opinion what i've seen or also what one thing that you might want to think about or there are grants out there to look look towards and see if that could help with some some of the resources i don't know if we can have her speak but they have they get several grants to do more work in the area of mental health so okay [Music] those are some of those i thank you for listening to the young people i just want to end with this because this is really important first of all i started meeting with these students probably this summer and we were meet once a month and uh
048they they they were very bold in their ask and what they were looking for and when we talked and we had counselors social workers administrators uh i was very um very much consistent with my thinking that we were not going to try to silence their voice so i told them that we'll get to the we'll get to the board and we'll have a conversation with the board and i'll let them speak their authentic voice and so what you saw tonight and heard tonight was a presentation that they put together and that's their authentic voice voice so when we talk about and how are their children we have to be prepared to listen to truly how the children are but i also want to say and i share it with the um with the with the
049students especially ashish when he made this video that part of what we have to do is work together with the school board family members and students so i want to be very clear that the issue of dying by suicide cannot be seen as a school issue alone because we know that's not true and so as the students talk about trying to alleviate this stigma the stigma is both in schools as well as in communities and so they ask really because we have counselors we have social workers we have therapists we partner with these organizations the ask really is how do we take off this mask of shame blame and guilt to really sit and have conversations and ask for help when students really need help i think that's what these young people are saying so
050when ashish made this video when uh isha called the principals to have these conversations what they were saying is that we cannot continue to walk in our schools anymore knowing that our fellow classmates are no longer here and i shared with them that the board will receive that message very well so thank you for all of your support thank you for the resources that you guys have given us as a district a lot of the things that the students are talking about we are already starting to work on and yet we will continue to make sure that we follow up on an annual basis one of the last thing i would say is these guys most of these individuals are seniors and so one of the things that i didn't think about when i was
051a student at lafayette high school graduating i didn't think about my quote unquote legacy but that has come up with this group multiple times their legacy and what they want their legacy to be is that we are as a board as a community having annual conversations about student mental health and that's part of our curriculum that's part of our planning that's part of our csip and that's part of the way that we do business and i don't think that anyone would disagree with that legacy and i think that we're trying to do that so thank you so much for listening to our students and supporting our students thank you thank you very much thank you very much all right next me a motion to postpone the approval of the 2021 2022 rockwood early childhood full
052day and half day preschool calendars until the february 18th 2021 board of education meeting okay motion is second so dr suzanne faustage is here you want to say a few words yes thank you um we're very excited about the calendar for next year it will allow the early childhood program and all of our staff to participate in the four full day pds and in the past we had some situations where some staff members because of the way the calendar fell out were not able to participate so we're very excited that next year we will have all of our staff participating in that so that's all i have to share about the calendar unless you have any questions how different is it from previous years in terms of quarters and days and things very similar it's
053it's almost identical to this year we did elect to participate in the four full day professional developments instead of the half day professional developments and that really streamlined and i think it also made it easier we're hearing for parents it was much easier for them to plan when they were only four as opposed to eight and having to remember was it am that was cancelled this time or pm and and so i think that was a a benefit to our families the full year correct then we have half day and full day or is it all full day the attendance for kids we still have half day in full day attendance the professional development days are full day as opposed to in the past they were half day professional developments and the whole district had
054moved towards four full day and early childhood elected to follow that a breakdown of what percentage attend full day students in what percentage attend half day or did i am i misinterpreting that i know you said you have half day some i'm can parents can choose a half day or a whole day for the kid is that right correct do you have a breakdown approximately of what percentage go full day and what percentage you go half day larger percentage a majority of our is half day um we have a much smaller percentage that i would say if i had to estimate it's probably like 80 20. you 20 yeah that 80 or half day and about 20 percent our full day can they choose morning or afternoon they can choose morning or afternoon still do
055you try to balance it out then like 40 in the morning and 40 in the evening there we do it's a little difficult um especially when with the younger students a majority of the three and four-year-olds want to be in the morning because they nap in the afternoons and so then sometimes our afternoons are a little a little uh lighter until the kids get older and then we have four and five-year-olds in the afternoons we do have a early childhood center in each of the quadrants now is that right correct there is uh vandover and fenton eureka and then we have clarkson valley that service is lafayette marquette correct okay thank you dr kinder we can follow up with some exact figures and numbers regarding half day and full day and the next bi-weekly update
056for you can you put it in our friday buildington yes sir thank you sir we'll put it in kendra's corner we'll do it we'll do a little research about naps sorry what naps okay for all of us all right anything else all right so that motion is postponed the approval of that 2021-2022 rockwood early childhood full day and a half day preschool calendars all those in favor say hi anyone opposed all right that passes all right next need a motion to approve the library media center handbook as presented okay motion a second dr willat and margaret sullivan welcome it's no secret that rockwood has fabulous media centers library media centers and that our students have access to a ton of wonderful resources that our librarians have procured and that they're all staffed with very knowledgeable
057very helpful librarians recently desi has decided to open up their exemplary library program award again and so we have some libraries that are wanting to seek that award so we'd like to talk to that a little talk about that a little bit tonight and the actual award that goes with it yes okay all right thank you so um so i'll start by talking about the handbook that you're approving we've what the librarians have talked about doing a handbook for a long time and i know there are times we've actually started it but you know get busy the great thing about this exemplary school library program is it requires the handbook so that forced us to get it done so that was sort of our main goal but also it provides an overview of rockwood's library
058policies regulations and procedures which is particularly helpful to new librarians to have all that in one place and it's a valuable resource for all the librarians there are some things that maybe you only do once a year like setting up the destiny calendar or you know other things like that and every year i say to myself how did i do that i don't remember it's been too long so the exemplary school library program is new this year it was modeled after the american association of school librarians national school library program of the year award it sets a very high standard for library media centers this program was created by senate bill 743 which was signed into law by governor parson in july of 2018. during the 2018-19 school year a dusty committee led by lisa
059scroggs who's the director of literacy focus work with a committee of school librarians from across the state to design the criteria and scoring guide for this program dusty introduced the program last year rolled it out had different meetings throughout the state at regional professional development centers talk to librarians talk to administrators about it this school year is the first year that individual school libraries can apply for this designation and what an interesting year to take on such a task right because nothing looks like it usually does but i'm really glad that dusty decided to move forward because i'm afraid this would have fallen off the radar otherwise it's important to note that this program evaluates the library program it does not evaluate the librarian obviously the librarian is a crucial part of any library program
060but in some parts of the state since the dusty standards for libraries have kind of fallen by the wayside there are library programs that just don't have the type of support from their buildings and districts that they would need to attain the status because there are many things outside of a librarian's control such as budget staffing space things like that so it's really crucial for school libraries to have support from the district and the school to receive this designation and i feel like rockwood libraries are in a good place with those two things um this is a quick overview of the score of the criteria so there are five categories instruction leadership library environment library management and staffing there are 21 indicators and those are broken up there under each of the categories there's a
061maximum of two points possible in each indicator so it's 42 points that are possible in order to receive the designation a library must receive 38 points and may not score zero on any indicator so if a library program receives uh 40 points two points for 20 of those indicators that gets a zero on one of those indicators they will not receive the designation as i said dusty set the bar very high on this um i wanted to talk to you about indicator 19 because that's the one that requires the handbook um it says to get the two points a library must have an up-to-date policy within the last five years including those nine different areas and we certainly have uh practices and procedures for every single one of those in rockwood that have been in
062place for a long time but when we looked at the board of education website and looked for those policies there were really only four of them so we took everything that we had and um created this handbook where we link to the policies that have been approved by the board we didn't change anything we just linked to those we may have expanded a little bit on the practice and we used what our practices are like we don't have a borrowing policy in rockwood it's up to the individual schools to decide what the checkout period is and so we just kind of wrote that as part of our policy that it would be at the discretion of the librarian to do that so okay good question dr kinder marcus good to see you again haven't seen
063you i have two questions of course do individual libraries within the district do this or is it a district you know it's individual libraries so we're talking 40 plus libraries could be working i could be working on it yeah and well in rockwood it would be 29 yeah the handbook is overall for all yeah it's for all of them because that was that was the most efficient way to do it was to have a district approved handbook that we could say these are the policies and some of them are flexible it's written in like you know that it's at the discretion of the librarian to decide if a checkout period is two weeks or three weeks something like that the things that are overarching are the regulations and policies yeah district-wide absolutely and then the
064things that are unique to each individual library in terms of length terms how many books they check out teach you right that's individual yes and it should be yes it should yeah if we get the handbook to be exemplary then it's up to the individual schools to do the rest is that right yes okay now here's the tough question okay i want you to take about a minute and give me an idea how libraries have changed since the years we were together which was around 2000. how they changed these 20 years because i'm just curious i don't know i know nobody else cares but i am curious absolutely okay you want to talk about rockwood libraries or libraries oh yeah rockwood libraries that's the rockwood library i don't care about the other ones okay well
065i do but i do but not as much certainly in the 20 years that i've been in the district um we have expanded many of our libraries built a lot of new libraries all four high schools have new libraries a couple of the middle schools do some of the elementaries i think that we've seen the biggest change obviously is in technology i know for instance when i started we had those cd towers where students access the databases that way now all of those are online they're on the web so you know as long as the internet's working that's a much more efficient way to do it but to be fair the cd towers used to go down once in a while too you had that problem certainly there's a lot more capability for students to
066create with technology like are we video licenses or certainly students can easily make their own professional looking videos so we have a lot more of those types of things we have 3d printers now which was certainly something i had never thought of when i came to rockwood 20 years ago so i mean there are just many more opportunities for students to learn about a lot of different things in libraries you're saying we don't have any abacuses in the library anymore not that i'm aware of now okay good thank you would you still have an overhead projector at some point i know because you know people like to use that to project it on the wall and make like the big figures and stuff so yeah for that reason i want to say um before the
067pandemic when we were doing our many walk-throughs through the buildings one of the questions i always ask the librarians is so tell me about your um checkout and um they would say actually that more students are checking out books that's right and ebooks and that just shocked me and that would happen again and again at schools and i think it speaks to your number one point was that that reading should be a lifelong learning experience yes and so um i think our libraries are promoting that yeah thank you for doing that i think that we i think all the librarians feel that that's our number one goal is to promote a lifelong love of reading yeah and to create lifelong learners so that's very important um that's why we've been offering curbside checkout um all
068the libraries did that when our students were learning remotely and we still offer that service for students who continue to learn at home and we will do that you know for as long as it's pandemic goes on and i it is true high school kids prefer a print copy of a book over an e-copy and we really did um add some e-books last spring because you know the buildings were closed and we wanted students to have access to popular titles and they've been checked out a little bit but if a student comes to the library and says i want this book if we give them a choice between the two they almost always take the print copy okay so thank you for all that you're doing well thank you another question sure does every library
069in rockwood have its own computer lab or is that only in the larger schools um i'm trying to think about the elementaries the elementaries don't have their own computer labs they have some computers and really that's another thing that has changed going back to your earlier question dr kinder the other thing is that has changed is it used to be the huge demand and the libraries were for the computers and now that every kid has a chromebook that's not it's true now a lot of them like to come to the library with their chromebook sit at one of our tables and work on the chromebook which is fantastic we like for them to do that but they don't really need the desktops as much if they're working on a video project or something that where
070they really have to look at the screen a lot they enjoy a larger screen for those types of projects so we still offer the desktops thank you we had debbie and we had to increase the bandwidth band length or whatever it is in all the libraries so that they can accommodate all the kids coming in yeah okay good thanks okay are there any other questions okay well thank you for your time thank you so much good job all right that motion is to approve the library media center handbook as presented all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right that passes all right next is the proposed agenda for the february 18 2021 board of education meeting we had a cope update on there yes thank you that one now since we're having
071a meeting tomorrow yep we're gonna have a copa yes we're having a physical meeting tomorrow uh coke meeting so we'll do a quote just an update on tomorrow's meeting at the next day well we're meeting we're going to be doing this we will spread love there anything else on that janet okay i'm not sure any of you have anything that's it okay future agenda presentations and events to attend there's a few things here dr miles mentioned the league of women voters that's a virtual event friday march 5th also virtual a joint legislative meeting hosted by pattonville school district um so i got an email right you guys all got emails on that okay uh and i have replied so did i uh wednesday march 17th at 6 30 p.m is a president's forum meet the
072candidates night and that format is to be determined or you're shake it to be determined is to be determined yes yes okay anything else dr miles i do have one more thing i would like to officially welcome to the rockwood family our new direct executive director of communications mary lapack this is uh her fourth day on the job she's hanging in there doing a great job welcome home mary lapak just a reminder that tonight is the relay for life kickoff night so just wanted to put that on our calendars oh okay all right yes doesn't marry doesn't marry have to get up and make a speech the first night well you don't i thought you did she looks happy not having to get up and give a speech all right unless there's anything else we'll
073join the meeting