Board of Education Meeting | July 21, 2022

001or call the meeting to order and uh do I have Nick Sowers to do the Pledge of Allegiance okay I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one more nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right please recite our mission statement learning today leading tomorrow all right Dr tomola I think we're going to have before we get into open comments to superintendent to make some comments before we go into uh public comment period fantastic thank you so much uh good evening uh I'm super excited to be coming to you tonight as your new superintendent of the Wentzville School District over the last few months the Wentzville Community has just given me such a warm reception and I've had the opportunity

002to meet with many staff parents administrators community members and first responder groups to to begin to get to know the community I'm excited to present with the Board of Education this evening on the work that's been done to determine our common goals for this upcoming school year and look forward with working with our staff our students parents and Community Partners to move us forward as a district I'm very excited about what this year's holds and um and the work that we'll do together so just to give you a little glimpse into my first hundred days um I have some photos and things here just to kind of highlight the rest of my comments so if you're on Twitter feel free to follow me and our journey here in the district at Dr tormala wsd I

003will post frequently with photos just to give you an idea of the great things happening here in our community so I kind of I started off with driving a bus we had a great uh Drive the Bus event and I want to say we have amazing people in our transportation department and we are hiring so if anybody is interested please um Reach Out our students continue to learn through the summer we've wrapped up summer school but I did have the opportunity to pop into some stem summer camps and that was very fun to get get a little messy and dirty with our kids as they were learning through play last week we were able to invite in and welcome our new administrators we have nearly 30 brand new administrators in the district this year so

004we are excited to have them as part of our team last week as well we were able to welcome our custodians back let me tell you our crew of custodians are fantastic I've been throughout the buildings and they are working hard to keep our schools in Tip-Top shape and get us ready for the beginning of the school year this week on Tuesday we brought in about half of our schools to critically review and look at our school crisis and emergency response plans our emergency responder groups as well as other community agencies like the Red Cross and County Health we're there to help work with us through that process we will bring in the other half of our schools next week to do the same thing to make sure that we are ready to welcome staff

005and students back on the first day of school this week we were also able to dedicate the sharing shed at Heritage primary this has been really a labor of love of the staff at at Heritage as well as many Community groups including troop 940 949 and the caring and sharing organization that does so many great things on finding resources for our families and so it is a donate Center so if you ever have anything non-perishable items items for the home that are in our new condition you can certainly donate there as well and then yesterday I had the great honor of starting some quick visits to get through the schools yesterday I was able to visit nine buildings and really kind of see the character of our schools our our custodians and our administrators are

006there working very very hard getting things prepared for the back to school with students and staff so we're super excited about that and again we are hiring so if we have openings in custodial and transportation instructional assistance Food Service before and after care we would love to have you and today I had the great pleasure of stopping by our brand new North Point Middle School our staff had a voluntary Retreat yesterday and today and so I was able to welcome in 50 or 60 of our new staff members they were there taking tours getting to know one another and they are very excited to come together as a school Community to help lead our middle schoolers at North Point middle okay Brandon it's not working oh there we go this week also we were able

007to recognize one of our teachers at North Point High School we have Jennifer Willis Nichols who is our teacher of the year from last year she also has now been named as the top 10 Missouri Regional teacher of the year for the St Louis area so she was recognized this week and she is going on to um to in the running for Missouri State teacher of the year so we give her the best of luck in our full support then we also uh this week had a great Transportation award we received the total Fleet Excellence award um from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and just as a quick fact our transportation department transports over 11 000 students twice a day throughout the school year and they travel over 2 million miles each year so shout

008out to them for doing a great a great job so I just want to highlight on our Wentzville website we do have upcoming events and if you go to our website and you go to calendar and to the back to school calendar you can find lots of great events there I do want to highlight a couple of things next week on Thursday morning we will have the ribbon cutting at North Point middle we also are going to welcome back our new Educators at the new educator Summit on August 3rd we do have the back to school fair at Liberty High School on Saturday August 13th from 8 A.M to 11 A.M and we are looking for volunteers the day before to help us pack bags so if you have some time the day before or

009two days before Wednesday the 10th I didn't write that down on Wednesday the 10th Kathy delacquel would love to speak with you um we're looking for volunteers to help us with that as well and finally our first day of school is Monday August 22nd it's going to be here before we know it and so we are excited to see all of our students and welcome them back so the last thing that I'm going to share with you Brent if you want to queue up the video last weekend the city of Wentzville had a town hall meeting on safety and so we had a couple of board members that were able to attend vice president Goods Goodson and director lizac were able to attend since many of the board members and myself we were unable to

010attend and out of town the city did ask us to create a video to share at that event so we are going to take a moment to share that with you we look forward to the future discussions that we're going to have with the city about how we can partner together to strengthen our district and our community as a whole so with that friend would you press play oh no video no audio okay we have you know a couple Tech issues we're gonna work through them real quick hello I'm Dr Danielle tormala and it's my privilege to serve as the new superintendent of schools for the Wentzville School District I want to start by saying how excited I am that the city of Wentzville has expressed an interest in supporting safety throughout the community and

011in our schools safety is a top priority it is important for you to know what the district is doing to help keep our students and staff safe to help inform the community of where we stand the district provided a security update in its June board meeting I encourage you to visit the wsd YouTube page to watch the full report or explore board docs to view youth is already a very busy summer so spend this time to prepare for the upcoming school year and safety plans and training are part of those preparations later this month begins a two-day real-life active shooter training led by law enforcement more training including lockdown scenarios happen in August and again in December students also undergo two training sessions during the school year this summer we are also working closely with

012law enforcement First Responders and administrators to review each building crisis plan for existing buildings new schools and those under construction thanks to your support in the passage of prop s the district has implemented security upgrades to protect students and staff enhanced security features include camera upgrades phone systems upgrades staff ID badges vestibules that require patrons to walk through the main office prior to us entering the building one button emergency radios a visitor management system and more A system that manages exterior doors will be installed this year doors will lock with a key fob system administration will be able to detect if any doors are left propped open the following year an interior door management system will be installed of course we love visitors but before coming inside they are buzzed in screened through the Raptor

013visitor management system and must wear a badge for the entire visit staff also wear IDs this allows us to quickly spot who should not be in the building also know that Wentzville police department and other law enforcement can access the cameras within our buildings if needed our school district also has a strong partnership with our local law enforcement officials and we have school resource officers who are quick to respond when health is needed the city of Wentzville has expressed wanting to do more to help make our card for with that in mind the district is asking the city to commit to paying 50 percent of the school resource officer agreement this increased commitment would bring windsville up to where other municipalities have committed to support safety in our schools we always look for ways to

014improve our safety and security throughout the district we look forward to continued conversation and partnership with the city and our first responder groups to ensure a collaborative effort in keeping our schools safe we plan for all stages of a crisis from the initial moments to the staff and student reunification efforts at the end all in the hopes that this training is never needed I'd like to thank you for your support and for doing your part to help keep our students and staff safe and with that I just want to say I'm very excited about the school year I'm excited to dig into the work that we have together to continue building relationships increase communication and really working together to bring our community together and reach the goals of the district so I'm excited to be

015here thank you thank you I think I can speak for the board we're also very excited to have you here uh it feels like you've already been here for a couple months um certainly the actions and the work put in Forth certainly speak for itself so with that we'll go into public comment so real quick each resident of the district requesting time to speak during the public comment period will register his or her name address and state the issue to be discussed with the recording secretary prior to the meeting the board president or vice president in this matter will call speakers to the floor each speaker shall give his or her name and address upon recognition speakers will be allowed three minutes for their presentations unless otherwise extended by the board president or vice president

016if more time is required for presentation the citizens could and should consider District policy for placement on the regular meeting agenda um we ask that all participants in the speakers follow our requirements as set forth in board policy 412 which was also revised in our last meeting with that being said I'll call the first person up and I have Jen Olson my name is Jen Olson I would like to welcome our new superintendent Dr Danielle tormola I look forward to working with you in the future I'm requesting that a member of the board pull the following items from the consent agenda for discussion in open forum item 11.5 bills for payment July 2022 on 7 13 there were two charges totaling around forty six hundred dollars for elementary library books I'm just wondering if there's

017a list that's available for review prior to board approval on 713 there's a charge of almost ten thousand dollars for Brink's armored car service I just want to know what it was for something new I don't know on 7 13 there was a charge of fourteen thousand dollars for heart rate monitors at North Point Middle School why do we need fourteen thousand dollars worth of heart rate monitors for 11 to 14 year old children on 722 we purchased four copies of the book flamer one for each High School considering the overwhelming number of parent complaints pertaining to non-age appropriate violent and sexually graphic novels why would we go out of our way to add another highly contested book to our libraries for those who are not aware out of the five districts in St Charles

018County Wentzville the district with the most conservative population has the most titles and the highest quantities of the most frequently challenged books almost as if we're being targeted by those who wish to ideologically subvert our community speaking of ideological subversion one of my main concerns on the consent agenda tonight are items 11.21 and 11.23 which are contracts for licensed psychologists and a PHD psychologist in the agreement it states that their job will be Consulting with the educational teams and serving as a member of a broader planning committee to improve the psychological functioning of students and improve the overall psychological milieu of the school community this is concerning to me as I do not want my child's psychological functioning to be manipulated by government schools or anyone for that matter without my direct involvement and consent

019there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this and I just ask that it be discussed in open public forum or open forum lastly as for the proposed revision to policy zero four one two that changes the paper sign up form for public forum to an electronic signup process which was not included in the board documents I asked the board vote this revision down with an electronic signup process there's no Integrity people have multiple IP addresses and devices that will allow them to sign up multiple people there's no way to protect against this with an electronic sign up process when we sign up in person we the parents become the check on the process we can see individuals standing in line and signing up to speak if the issue is timing I suggest we change

020the sign up period to be a 30 minute prior to open session it doesn't take 10 people 30 minutes to sign up and not having to be here an hour early would help accommodate the time constraints of members of this community again I strongly urge this board to reject the revision and consider my suggestion for the 30-minute sign up period thank you foreign next speaker is Vanessa Hagedorn good evening I'm Vanessa Hagedorn and um tonight I will be sharing from some Wentzville School District parents who wish to remain anonymous parent number one my children attend a local elementary school I have found that there is so much disruptive behavior happening where zero to no consequences occur that the focus is on that and not education when I ask my children at pickup how their day

021was the first thing they share is the poor choices made by other students this is a huge distraction especially to my daughter who has Nero atypical it is often the same child that they repeatedly are complaining about too and again this child doesn't seem to be receiving consequences I've spoken with the teachers about this situation it's not the teachers they are trying it's the lack of consequences from the administration I have even been looking into private school options as this is an immense issue parent number two I have children that attend both Middle School and High School in the Wentzville School District years ago we moved here to this district for it sadly it has been a huge disappointment in Middle School my son was badly bullied though we reached out to the principal continually

022there was never punishment now my son is in high school and in order to avoid bullying he sits out in his car in the mornings and dashes in right before the Bell I'm so frustrated that these people are not doing anything to punish these kids what kind of world are we setting up for ourselves parent number three I recently went to a job interview in our district for a special education instructional assistant position I saw that the position was listed for 1489 on the job website an hour on the job website at the interview I was told that kicking biting and hitting Could Happen regularly in the building and asked if I could handle that there was no way I was going to subject myself to that abuse for such little pay I have no

023idea how they would even find people to do that and sadly these kids will be under serviced oh and by the way White Castles currently hiring for 15 an hour also my kids attend a Wentzville high school they regularly complain that they can't use the restrooms at school either because of vaping or smoking of various things they enter the restroom and then have to turn around and leave they try to ask to use it the restroom during class hoping that maybe it will be empty but the teachers of often won't allow them to go in the middle of class my son will hold it all day long due to this unsafe restroom situation my daughter will walk out of the way to a different area and end up tardy just to use the restroom how

024do we fix this restroom problem do we need to hire more Hall monitors do we need to hand out harsher consequences to offenders do something Wentzville School District this is unacceptable next up Glenn Becker my name is Glenn Becker and welcome to the school district I'd first like to ask the administration and the school board to please reconsider the e-hall pass system outside of what I spoke about during the last board meeting with security concerns and privacy concerns there is a policy on the books to date noted as policy 2780 and it reads District employees are prohibited from requiring students to use an identification device that uses radio frequency ident or sorry radio frequency identification technology or related technology to identify the student to transmit information regarding the student or to monitor or trace the

025location of a student this is in direct pile this policy is in direct basically um direct sorry this policy is direct contradiction to the e-hop pass system and what it's set up to do at your school it has also come to my attention by talking to other schools that students that know the username and passwords of other students and Wentzville has had this problem for many years the usernames and passwords are very easy and everybody knows them are able to log in and track the location of another student in the system so I'm asking please reconsider the use of the e-haul pass system and do not use it at the Holt High School this year also I'd like to also ask that you suspend the power lunch program that you're looking to put in at

026Holt High School this year it's on basically it's unstructured unsupervised time for the entire School Wentzville Middle School where my child attended had the most violent year on the books at the Wentzville School District last year we can't ignore that over the last three years Holt High School has found two guns on campus and this year we have decided to allow all the kids to roam free for an hour we're asking for trouble do a risk assessment just think about it unstructured time is the time that kids will things will happen kids will be violent so please go back to the normal block schedule and stop with the unstructured time or the power lunch program as you've put it thank you [Applause] okay with that that ends public comment next we'll go into consent agenda

027we need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented and amended so moved second it's got Julia and Besson any comments from the board discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed nay the eyes have it okay moving down the agenda and superintendent reports we've got a program update on our Athletics and activities Dr tormala turn it over to you um I'm going to actually turn it over to Dr Janelle Mueller and she is going to introduce our program review thank you Dr tomorrow so I would like to invite our athletic directors from Holt Timberland Liberty and North Point high schools to give a brief presentation about our athletic programs and activities good evening thank you for having us here tonight uh I think we'll just start with

028a brief introductions of ourselves I'm Jason Green the activities director at Hope High School I'm Todd Hayes I'm the activities director at Timberland High School and my name is Jacob Adams I'm the activities director here at Northpoint and our end of your end of year report we look at a lot of things that we look at Trends um so that we're able to assess GPA participation rates and hopefully look at ways that we can improve those things for our students look at problem areas so that we can collaborate together um this year I believe for all four high schools uh all program gpas across the board were above a 3.0 and I think the lowest one was might have been whole at 3.1 for all students involved with activities and this goes across all of

029our academic uh programs as well I can speak for us this year given all of the changes with with North Point opening up it was it was a really fun year to see the community rally around a lot of different things that went that happened for us including a trip to the state football championship a robotics team performed well and that's a district level program but our robotics team almost always does well our dance team many of our groups really too many to name there are a few mentioned on these slides but as you can see um uh but uh we could be here all night if we talk about all the groups and the various successes that we had um I I do believe our school board and our Administration does a great job

030of recognizing our kids throughout the year which is very beneficial and I know that our communities appreciate that the only thing that I would like to add to what Jason said is as the slides sort of speak speak for themselves is I think if you if you take a look at this we preach uh to parents and students at just about every opportunity we can the importance of being involved in schools and being connected in schools and your academic performance will have a higher chance of being high that didn't sound very appropriate but uh your your academic performance will usually be higher and I think this this data shows that and so we're always looking for ways to to include more kids and find opportunities for students to be tapped into into our schools so

031this first slide that you see up here and in in the information we sent you you probably have 10 pages of nothing but numbers I don't think the public wants to hear all those but you guys can look at those you can do a deep dive we go we have the GPA of every level of every program uh all the way down to the final page for each is a five-year Trend where our numbers are at so you can see whether they're going up or down now we're also you got to remember in those five years we had two years that were really different from from any we've ever had I've been in this job for 15 years and those two years really changed things so it's going to take us a couple years to

032get back on track so if you would please go to the next slide the next slide and it's probably kind of hard for some of you to see but what it does it highlights each of our schools and some major things that went into that happened this year so for Timberland what did I talk about real quick is uh we had our first girls wrestling state champion girls wrestling is only a couple years old and we had and it's only one class so you're talking all every school in the state of Missouri she was the state champion and what's unique about Kate and you met Kate here is uh her brother was our last state champion as a boy so it was pretty neat for both families we also highlighted our band who had had

033a great year as they always do but they also made the final day of the bands of America at the at the dome which is an incredible accomplishment our dance team was second state and top 12 in the nation our cheer team were the state champions this year for the second time in history so we're real proud of that so that was a little bit of the highlights from Timberland and as you can see um like Mr Hayes said just for North Point this is our first year so pretty much everything we did was record setting burst of something um and so we really rallied around our kids and celebrated that I also like to take just a quick moment to thank all of our other District ads they helped us help me out tremendously

034in transitioning to this job from being an assistant principal at hold so um you know huge thank you to those guys they made it a whole lot easier to slide into that role so at North Point we also had a female wrestler state champion Cassidy binwell um and again like I said first of our mini Grace Rogers who's a North Point golfer was our first state qualifier in school history we did a nice send-off for her we had a number of great individual accomplishments we did tend to be a little bit younger in almost everything but we had a freshman Alyssa Anderson who was a four-time district champion in track our dance team also finished first in the 3A division of the hip-hop competition at state dance and we were really proud of all of

035our programs we had a number of kids who had not purchased debated previously in things and they just tried it out because it seemed like that was kind of the thing to do so we we'd like to see our numbers get to the level of our fellow high schools in the district and I think we're off to a great start and moving that direction regarding some of our successes the thing you see on the board we we won several conference uh championships including uh you know uh boys and girls tennis our girls cross country team won the conference championships I know I'm gonna leave somebody out because I'm speaking off off my memory uh we had an individual state champion uh in track and field in the 110 hurdles he was a really interesting story

036Chase Vickery had never competed uh in track and field uh in his life until he was a senior this year went out for went out for track because he wanted to be involved and uh ended up being a state champion in the 110 high hurdles we had a we had uh our first uh where our second boys District championship in soccer we hope to be competitive again uh this year as well there and among some other sports um and that's it uh the one thing I think you can highlight um in in it was on the previous or it's in your data uh the the numbers of student athletes that move on to the next level and have the ability to compete in in college athletics they're pretty similar between the three of us sometimes

037there's one school that has a few more but I think two of us had 25 and the other had 33 if I remember correctly from the from the data so students both from a uh participation social academic standpoint and from a resources and having the tools and opportunities needed to move on to the next level can be had here from our schools and in the Wentzville School District foreign that being said um do you have any questions for us any questions comments from the board I have just one question so I saw the goals and stuff that we have for all the activities can you maybe just speak quickly to you know because I find that you know activities or Sports participation by students is a great thing to have um and so can you

038maybe speak to how we encourage that and and look to get more participation in all the various things that we do how do we advertise it within the student body increase that participation as best as possible for us a big part of what we do is either through Twitter our school announcements um we do send out quite a few email reminders over the summer uh to parents of all of our students not just returning athletes um and I think a big piece of what we do too is is through the the vetting and hiring process when we're looking to hire quality candidates we we look for those traits and coaches that will be for lack of a better word kid magnets I don't really like using that term and I don't throw it around a

039lot but we try to put those pieces those people in leadership positions that are willing to go out talk to kids encourage them and so we get a lot of kids that way it is one thing that with this pushback of school that has hindered us a little bit in our fall Sports because it's hard to start when we're three weeks into practice but we still have coaches that will go recruit kids those first whether it's at an activity Fair early on or our link crew day and those types of things you know the only bad thing unfortunately now in this day and age most these kids are all tied to one sport They're all playing one already they've been playing it for 10 years so you know they're going to play how do you

040get those other ones that's the important thing and though what we do like Jason said you find those coaches they beat the bushes at school especially for your sports like track I mean we'll have close to 100 kids running track every year sometimes one year we had 100 both sexes I mean it was it was awesome football tennis things like that you got to beat the bushes they get out there and they hound them at school they find them in the hallway they watch them in pee class see a kid that's an athlete they'll take it they want them all and and like you said those kids you know they're the the kids look up to them and the kids want to they want to impress their teacher their coach so they come out but

041that uh the bad news like I said on the other end your baseballs your softballs your soccer it's those kids they've been doing it for a long time I mean volleyball I'll have 80 girls come out for volleyball all 80 of them can play we don't have room for 80 girls I mean mean it's sad it is unfortunately I mean there's these girls play and that's all they do but they can't make the high school team unfortunately so um that's the bad news but again the good news like I said we encourage them then to go out for another we encourage them for tennis for track for football and things like that so they do their best any other questions comments I appreciate the presentation gentlemen yep all right now we're gonna move into Old

042business we've got a few revisions on some policies so we need a motion to approve policies 1300 1301 and 6206 as presented so moved second Betsy first and Shannon second all those in favor all those opposed all right moving down we need a motion to approve policy 1610 as presented so moved second it's Julie with a person Shannon with the second any discussion from the board on this one foreign just quickly checking to make sure I did not vice president Goodson yes comment Azure yes Dr tormala I just wanted to thank you um the board brought this particular policy to you and um just updating it and getting it more in line and and thank you for taking care of the revision so we appreciate that and really I want to thank our team too

043because they're a part of that process and currently we are working on revisions for the regulations and the internal practices that will then align with this policy I think that's where my comment was going I think we've got actions from the last discussion on this was around procedures the policies you know the regulations that support this policy you know there's no question this is a hot button issue and so I want to make sure we have our T's crossed and I started I do appreciate that so with that all those in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed all right so we've got we went in the new business we need a motion to approve the 2022-23 Board of Education Collective goals and professional working Norms as presented so moved second it's Betsy and Julie

044and I think we've got a presentation that goes and I think I'll hand this over to you great all right well this is um a collective presentation between myself and all the members of the board um we have two members that wanted to really be here today and unfortunately they weren't able to so they were part of developing these with us and developing this presentation so I'd like to just start by going back to the superintendent transition plan that I brought with me on this journey that we're on and so as I stepped into this role after being appointed as the new superintendent I launched immediately into individual meetings with our board members um from with the board that hired me and the board that changed about two weeks after I was hired so I

045made sure that I brought perspective from all of the board members during that time we also then then on May 21st had an open session work session it was on a Saturday we spent about eight or nine hours together and we really worked as a team to get to know one another um really spent time visioning the future of what we would like to see at the end of this this first year working together where we might like to be in about three years where we might want to be in five to ten years from now and through those conversations we were able to really come up with some outcomes that were excited to share with you we followed that up with another Open Session work session with the Missouri school boards Association they came

046in and spent an evening with the board and myself on effective relationships and communication practices to develop a positive board and superintendent relationship so we did that at the beginning of June and between those two work sessions we were able to create common goals for this upcoming school year that we're going to share in just a second we also were able to share create some collective commitments and professional working Norms that we're also going to talk about from there we were able to put some processes in place a structure for frequent check-ins on our Effectiveness as a a board and administrative team and it's helping us to also align and focus the work of the district moving forward for the year foreign I think you wanted to start with this slide just talking about effective

047governance and kind of what it means to be on the board I think it's important as we think about these as a baseline uh before the rest of the presentation so I'll turn to you thank you so as we were all going through this process together with Dr tormala we obviously were really excited and anxious to talk about the goals for this coming school year but before we did that we knew we really needed to land on the foundation having a strong foundation for governance and understanding what that means understanding what our purpose is and our purpose really is to do the business of the students and to set the tone and the policies of the district but with that said be very clear and intentional and direct um with the direction we give Dr

048tormala so she she understands what it is we're seeking um and so that she communicates well to the board the needs of the district so we can support that so our students do well um and then just obviously part of this piece is you know you had already mentioned that the board holding itself accountable and we discuss some of those pieces and then um just connecting with the community and as we go through this as we walk through this we'll talk more about that as we go along great thanks director silly and yeah I probably add I mean I think which goes yeah perfect to the next slide you know I think uh Betsy you said this to me when I was first elected I think we're a bunch of type A personalities Is What

049It Takes probably to be elected and run for public office and so um I find that has been one of my largest struggles is is really understanding where everybody sits and working as a team everybody's got their own views of the ways things work you had your own platforms you ran for you have your own experiences you draw from Etc and last year did not go as as all of us probably had hoped and planned to start the year and we had lots of things to do with certainly not an excuse but I think we wanted to make it a very you know Clear Point as a group you know to put the work and effort into aligning on those things it's hard to see from this side but if you pulled up in the

050board docs and see some of the words in here you know what could we do better what are our areas our opportunities and every board member for eight to nine hours was able to talk about their individual views of what they found to be the most important and I think we did a very good job you know ensuring all voices were heard in the room what did you mean by that why is that so important to you why isn't it and that's what I think this exercise is largely landed on why we you know on the couple slides here what our goals are and what that means and I think you know having something that we can hold ourselves accountable to but frankly we are stewards of the community we were elected and put in

051place by the community and so the community can hold us accountable to those it's really hard in my opinion to um hold the school district or school districts accountable without very clear what are you trying to achieve what you know as you go into a specific year or a given event what are you trying to accomplish and what are those goals that in metrics that you can hold accountable the goal here is no pun intended to share that with the community really into a circular reference to to have the community hold us accountable to those things it also allows the board on down through staff to be on the same page so our four goals and the related metrics underneath those when we get to that spot really help you know Drive the purpose for

052the school year um I don't know director still if you had any other comments to add to that but I think it it was a really good exercise for this whole group and I ask if there's anybody else that's got comments to get on the same page because that is very hard to do yeah um thank you I did want to add that obviously it you can tell from the slide that it says that um there's governance governance tools um that the board really needs to use to guide us in our work and it's very easy to get off task when you sit up here because we all have so many concerns and we we want our district our students our staff to be successful so this is just we all committed like this is

053kind of a reminder um so we can all stay on task okay let's go to the next slide so we talked about four goals that we landed on this is you know when we took all the what are we doing well what do we need to improve on what's the focus what we actually you know took a lot of uh discussion internally around what's the feedback from the community what are what are the common threads what do we keep hearing and this is where we landed you know improving communication improving academic achievement improving School uh safety and improving the culture and climate so I'll take just a quick to kind of because those are big broad goals I'll take a moment just kind of walk through at least from my words and you know my

054peers please jump in to add something to that these These are you know I think our plan which I think you'll see in a later slide talks about next steps our plan is to have smart goals you know something that is measurable something you can hold us accountable to underneath each of these uh for example academic achievement is is a big ask and it's certainly nothing you fix if you will in one year and so how do we actually go to achieve that what's the how and so that's actually what the metric could be is the things that we are going to how we're going to to achieve those and hold ourselves we are doing those things to take that necessary step to improve academic Excellence you know in communication how how we talk to

055each other was important in that discussion how how we talk to the community how we interact how the school district comes across both from an internal perspective an external perspective that's important to us you know it's like perception is reality is a is a phrase that I live by and so certainly managing perception and understanding where that is is going to be important for us to correct there's no I'm shy I'm not going to hide behind the negativity that's existed here we want to improve that and through that we can do that with communication school safety been a Hot Topic the city you know had a great event last Saturday which Katie and I you know we're able to attend portion of and and so I think this is this is a collective thing that

056the community is looking for us to improve on on various fronts that can be from just a physical safety as it relates to the shooting in Texas it could be dealing with bullying and violence that's been happening in our schools you know it could be a number of things but we want to see that improve you know there's a number of ways to do that this is not an easy fix which we all agree and I think even some of the solution in that session last weekend showed that that there's a lot of ways to tackle these problems from you know mental health to the relation shifts we have with our parents and then lastly on culture and climate um I actually made some comments to this specific item in a meeting when we approved

057I think it was the Nea agreement this was a topic that came up in almost every negotiation group around what does it really mean to be at Wentzville we use this phrase and I'm not a big hashtag person but I use it it's like the thing to do I guess hashtag we are Wentzville well if I asked each of you we could Define what that means I think we'd all come up with different answers I think there was a legacy feel of a small town of this and that and we've grown out of that things have happened covet happened all these other things we had to get back to what that means you know the environment for Staffing and retracting Talent is competitive it's competitive within districts it's competitive to Industry the comment earlier about

058what White Castle pays not oblivious to that so defining what winsfill is so that it's a place that you want to be and you know why it is is important so fixing the culture the climate it's a top-down approach it's not easy but again putting smart goals underneath that baby steps to get there I think is where this board is and and the administration on down is committed to we put it in the event or the agreement for the Nea and our teachers that we are committed to some way of addressing this and and constantly thinking about that I'll pause I think that was my comments but if there's any other comments from my peers on the the four goals I just want to say thank you attend the Monday the safety review with the

059administrators um obviously not having been on the board before I didn't know if that those invitations were extended before but I learned a lot I observed a lot um I was reassured by you know some of the procedures that we have in place and um it definitely gave me another layer of of trust you know with administrators and it just I really appreciate being able to come any other comments before we move okay so in the next several slides there's gonna be a lot of words on the slides and I'm going to have each board member kind of speak to certain slides but this is uh for those that don't know we we have you know a series of commitments that we've made when we you know got elected and we're sworn in we took

060the time again back to my comments around I've got my own views of what it means to be a board member I've got my own views around what it means to communicate well so we actually went through various examples and and Dr turmerlock did a great job of bringing various things to the board to react to on what we want to commit not just to you but to ourselves um and how we're gonna you know effectively work together and what those Norms are um as a board and so that being said I think there's a quote uh uh director Scott I think you wanted to read on the next slide that I think we all had this resonate with us as we went through this exercise yes so one of the tools and the resources

061that we have is an excellent book called The governance Corps that really is a great resource to help individual board members administrators and superintendent kind of really learn to work together and one of the quotes out of this book effective governance requires that adults on behalf of the children they serve find Avenues of agreement so they can govern The District in an effective manner this really kind of spoke to our meeting when we were developing our norms and you know it really embodied the fact that we all do have to work together and even though we don't all have the same background and we may not all see eye to eye on every single subject we do our work with the children and the students of the district in mind okay director Bates you want

062to take the next one here on demonstrating professional ethical Behavior yeah absolutely so I kind of first want to just say I had the opportunity of being part of the board and I think I was on the committee when we first developed that first set of commitments and just want to reiterate that it was always designed to be a living breathing document and so it was really exciting to like see the group kind of come together and decide you know what as this board are we going to make that and you know just as we're called to be a governance layer for the district we are a self-governing body so you know as you look through some of these you think it's common sense but really it's just all all of us aligning on you

063know like Jason said how we're going to hold one another accountable um as well and so this particular slide is is really important because we want to make sure that we are holding one another accountable that we're treating each other with respect and the other piece is you know we're we're all so ingrained many of us have students in the district and so we're just embedded in the community that sometimes it's hard and we find ourselves getting stuck in the weeds so just really to hold ourselves accountable to how we are uh said to govern right through the policies strategic planning legal requirements and just a reminder of these are the pieces that we need to be considering um to kind of keep us up at that 30 000 foot view um when we're you

064know making decisions and things thank you director Bates any other comments on this from the other team uh director leysig on the next slide I think engaging in the work of the board you had some comments uh yeah so engaging in the work of the board um I think we can all recognize that often the agenda can be long and sometimes it's complicated there's a lot of information on there the addendum added you know sometimes there's a lot of information on that with not a whole lot of time to review it so um I know that we are all committed to being prepared asking the questions that we want answered ahead of time coming to you know the meeting with um comments that we need knowing what we need to say when we need to

065say it and um I know that I'm not speaking you know only for myself when I say that it is a privilege to attend district and school events and I look forward to serving on committees and working diligently as an advocate for all stakeholders in this District perfect any other comments on the board on that one all right let's go to the next slide I think director Bates is back to you yeah so I think this thing's important because because as Jason said earlier you know we all have very dominant personalities and we all have opinions and voices but at the end of the day it's important for us to remember that we are able to make no decision as a single individual and it's only as a collective board that we can really make

066things happen and move things forward so it's really important to remember that as we're up here making decisions at the end of the day when we walk away whether a vote may or may not go in our favor that we walk away and we're still supportive of one another and where that decision landed you know also to say sometimes you know we have decisions that we have to make and you know we know about them in advance and it's really important that when a decision lands one way that we're not out of the community you know saying well I didn't vote that way we we have to remain a collective body because that's how we can best be effective foreign director Scott I think you have the next slide yep this slide speaks to the

067fact that the Board of Education our advocates for K-12 public education we are a public school district we will fight fiercely to remain an excellent Public School District and to preserve the public education system not only locally but at the state and National levels and that all of the decisions that we make are incredibly important to Advocate on behalf of the students in the district who are public you know public education public funded and that we need to be good stewards of the resources that we have but also continue to maintain and work towards bettering the public education system as a whole foreign slide director's toy yes thank you so this one is about listening and communicating effectively so we all kind of touched um on this it's kind of the theme throughout this presentation

068that we have to have respectful intentional productive effective communication or else none of this really works right and that goes with each other if we disagree maybe you know digging a little deep to figure out why another board member has a different perspective or you know um if one of us has questions reaching out to Dr tormala so she can she knows what we're seeking and making a decision and it's just listening and so we can do a great job together um I did want to kind of preview just a little bit I mean we did a lot of communicating as vice president Goodson said was listening to the community and having that two-way uh communication so we have heard that and we it's it's in its infancy but we hope to have more about

069that how that's going to be embedded and the things that we do as the fall approaches any other comments on the board before we finish up with next steps okay so on the next slide we talk a little bit about next steps like I mean we we can sit up here and I get made fun of a lot because I talk a lot um I can talk a lot but it really comes down to actions about what we're going to do and how again the community can hold us accountable so I've got some board next steps and then uh Dr Carmelo will give some next steps as it relates to the admin we've all agreed that we will reflect on each meeting like how do we think we how do we think the meeting went

070how do we you know perform if you will on an individual basis we've agreed that we'll participate in a self-evaluation process and I think that will also be with some Community feedback you know how is the board operating you know where extensions of the community et cetera and then we're looking for routine check-ins you heard that like how do you know you're actually doing what you said you're going to be doing I don't think this is I don't think this will not be the last time you hear about those four goals and the related things that we're doing to achieve those goals and so that's the expectation I certainly think that the board has set with the admin and that's the goal as we go into the rest of the year that being said I'll

071turn it over to you Dr tomorrow so taking it now from the cabinet with our leveled principal meetings individual principal meetings um other groups that I've been meeting with I've started talking about our four Collective goals and so we are in the process of um designing our administrator Retreat that's going to happen in August this will be a core piece that we do there as well to make sure that all of our administrators are very clear on the goals that we have as a district and how we can take our current csip or our strategic plan our current goals and work within this framework with everything that we do moving forward so we are going to be working as a team to create those strategic plans those measurable outcomes and then later this fall we

072will be bringing that back to the board for further review conversation and input we're also working through um the teaching and learning Department to look at our school Improvement planning process throughout the course of the year we've already created our master plan of administrative meetings over the course of the year we are going to and myself in particular working alongside our cabinet we're going to be doing learning walks every six weeks in all of our schools so that we can see where we are and the four common goals that we are aligning ourselves around will be parts of those conversations just to make sure that we're continuing to move forward and that our schools have the support and resources that they need in order to continue to move forward when we have our all of

073our staff back on August 16th and 17th we're planning back to school kickoffs which we are so thrilled to have our staff back and really have a clear focus of where we're heading this year and be able to share that out so once we start getting through all of this communication right communication is one of our four goals you're going to hear from me you're going to hear you're going to see our emails and our e-newsletters you're going to see the Quick videos that we're going to send out so you're gonna you're gonna follow me on Twitter you're going to see it every day right um and so we want to be very intentional and sharing the information out getting it to our public to our parents to our staff and through our administrators to

074make sure this is helping us move forward um and then this year as well the department of Elementary and secondary education is revising the Missouri school improvement process they're they're moving forward with a process in sub six so that is changing some of the processes protocols um things that we do in the district so we will be aligning this year with that we also will be starting later this year our planning process for our next strategic plan so our current csip goes through the end of the 2023-2024 school year so next year so starting second semester this year and all of next year we will be engaging with our community and our staff our parents our all of our stakeholder groups to really see where we need to head for the next five years and

075so we will begin that work to then Implement our new strategic plan in 2024-25 and we're gonna blink and it's gonna be here and the good news is is that aligning behind common goals like this allow us the opportunity to head in that direction and be prepared and focused with all of the things that we do in the district to move us forward and to give you just a little bit of an idea of some of the work that has taken place already we talked about our Board of Education workshops that we began back in in May as soon as I was announced as the new superintendent I really began being very intentional with stakeholder meetings as well within staff with Administration board members parent groups Community groups First Responders the mayor different groups like

076that so we've really taken some time to dig in and collect some feedback we've started our goal setting process as a board by June we had some meetings with the city of Wentzville more stakeholder meetings when I took over in July we've begun our communication out to all of our Wentzville School District family we've begun the work with our emergency First Responders and our other critical Community Partnerships to revise our crisis and emergency plans within the district in the video you heard about the active shooter training that's going to happen later this month we have other trainings that are scheduled for later in this fall around mental health and crisis planning and assessment at the building level as well we've been visiting schools working on back back to school prep and then in August we

077will have a work session with our school leaders and the board to talk about where we are with back to school preparations getting the updates and then we are going to have our first day of school in August on August 22nd so we're excited looking forward to the fall then we're going to continue to work with our common goals and like I mentioned really create some of those strategic planning items with metrics to guide our progress over the rest of the year we're going to work with a new school improve government planning process with our principals with our ongoing learning walks every six weeks and then we will also be looking at our current program and evaluation process making some updates there as well so there's a lot of good work that has already been

078done and a lot of great work that is still ahead of us but I'm confident by being able to unify behind common goals Collective commitments we all will head together in the same direction yeah thank you I would Echo those things I think that's the exciting part is to you know see that we're aligned as a team around these things um you know I I think I think it goes without saying but you know the community has been heavily involved with our district and I'd like to think that the work that we've done is reflective of those opinions that feedback those concerns and certainly we don't want that to stop we want as we think about those goals or the metrics that we're going to hold ourselves accountable to we want that feedback as we

079move the word in this fall timeline and we see deliverables and things come up we want to continue to have the dialogue with the community I think to director still Lee's point we're looking to get to a two-way communication plan um you know as a collective group as well so with that being said I think we have the next agenda item all right so unless there's other comments yeah we do need a vote yep so all those in favor probably said hang on just a second yeah all those in favor aye any opposed i7 okay 14-2 we need a motion to approve the public comment guidelines as presented so moved second that's Julian Betsy before I I asked that board for comments I think um Dr Tomlin just on this one can you just speak

080to you know kind of how we're using these I think we've discussed you know where these would show up um and how we would start our our public comic period and what these are actually for these are approved by the board then we will move forward next month with adding in um a rolling slideshow prior to the board meeting starting where we list the guidelines here as well as other key components out of other board policies that would relate to our time here within this meeting so that all um all who join us for this meeting are aware of the board policies and expectations that would govern this space we would also make sure that we have those listed on the board page of the district website and then during public comments starting next month

081we would also list the guidelines up on the screen with the timer so everybody has those clearly stated and then the board president or vice president May reference those as necessary but they will be there as a reminder to all who join us for the meet great any other questions or comments from the board before vote okay all those in favor say aye any opposed say nay nice habit 5-0 okay last agenda item tonight we need a motion to approve policy 412 as presented so moved second I got a Julie first in Betsy second before I asked the board for other comments I think uh again Dr Morley I think there was um purpose behind this and to the extent the board approves this policy speak to a little bit of the the details behind

082next steps what we plan to do I know there's some concerns or questions around that so so if it is the will of the board to approve this process of moving to an online sign up process what I would recommend is that we take the month of September or I'm sorry we take the month of August to very intentionally and clearly communicate this change in practice and at the August board meeting then take time to show the process for online sign up so that then at the September meeting we could Implement that process I just want to make sure that we are very clear with all of our constituents the change and that it's a seamless process for for individuals speak just quickly if you might um around you know electronic access to electronics like

083that that concern that could exist with different parts of the population how we would overcome some of that I know maybe the devil's in the details post this but maybe speak to that just quickly sure if individuals do not have access to um internet or devices that would allow them to do this we certainly at the administrative Center will have access for individuals to be able to sign up we could also other neighboring districts who have this practice they also have Chromebooks available um prior to the meeting um at the at the site so individuals who do come ahead of time if if they want to sign up then they could certainly do so within uh the time period is allowed and I believe that the recommended recommendation right now is to open those online

084sign ups 24 hours in advance of the meeting and then close them 30 minutes prior to the start of Open Session any other comments questions from the board I have quite a few questions actually um so I just want to make sure I have all of this clear because to be perfectly honest I'm torn between leaving it the way it is and going to a digital platform I see the benefits to um the digital platform allowing additional people who may not be able to be here even 10 minutes before the meeting starts to be able to sign up I think it's convenient I know before I was up here I brought my kids to almost every single meeting and I did speak at some and so coming an hour early with them um and it

085wasn't terrible but it just wasn't super convenient didn't really have time sometimes to leave and maybe go get food and you know I'm going to try not to ramble but um so like legitimately I'm you know kind of torn I I see some pros and cons so my questions uh first how do we legitimately um ensure that those who sign up to speak if we go electronic are actual stakeholders I mean is it just check a box um and so one of the plans that we would have if this is the will of the board we would bring to you the form that individuals would fill out so we would capture the information that's currently on our cards or our sign up forms um where we can ask individuals to provide us the information of

086are they a parent are they a staff member are they a Community member are they are they other you know something different they can Define that for us if you remember we recently revised our board policy around that so we would make sure that the online sign up encompasses the current board policy and practice on what is required and what's recommended there are some different languages there on um on that piece of it as well but we would capture those in those pieces we would ask individuals to let us know what they wanted to speak on if it was an agenda item or if it was something else and then also we would make sure sure that there was a mechanism built in currently our process allows for 10 speakers after after those 10 are

087filled then number 11 and Beyond would also then be prompted to give their thoughts to the board via an email as well so it would where we're looking to have something generated to come to them so that they can also share those their feedback and their views to the board by allowing our board members to review that information or have have the cut off 30 minutes before as we're transitioning from closed session to open session the board president can review that list and then at his discretion then determine whether or not we want to amend the amount of individuals who are able to speak on the topic so if we see things coming in and there are multiple speakers on an agenda item then the board may want to say we'd like to hear more

088than our current 10. so that will give the board the opportunity to really make informed decisions on how they want to move forward with hearing from our community as well okay so um I have a few more sure um I know that there are things to take into account you know I.T issues what if the form is um inaccessible you know backup plan and I think my questioner on this really focuses around it's fairly easy for us to communicate to parents within the district because we have those email addresses we have um was it Blackboard that goes out with and even text messages but for the community as a whole because any stakeholder can come and speak um what's going to be our method of communication and I know these may not be questions that

089actually have answers but these are you know ones that are truly in my head um we talked about individuals about internet access personal information I guess you've already spoken to it'll just be the same thing that's on the sheet um where is that information going to go be stored I know it's still sunshineable just like you know the paper information um who's going to have access to it uh and then um I guess making sure that the the list isn't I I don't want to say tampered with but you know those top ten and you know what if I wanted to get on and just sign up myself my husband my two kids you know take up those four spots you know knowing maybe it's a controversial issue and you know then those just like

090that four spots gone and I can do that in a second signing up online where you know if we have to approach the podium sign up they're already you know people here watching you know who's at the podium there's that level of trust and transparency with you know who is signing up that the paper form allows us and you know just a lot of things I think to work through any other questions comes in doctor tomorrow if I may um you kind of had touched on this a little bit but I wanted to make sure everyone heard this who's watching and who's here tonight can you talk about um just the times time stamp so someone oh yes absolutely signs up electronically so the other districts that currently employ this practice all have them set

091up so if we used a Google form or some other mechanism that all of those entries would be time date stamped and it automatically goes into a spreadsheet that you that any of us could see so the process itself on the back end would be very transparent on being able to see the very first person to the 10th person and then everybody beyond that then could also have the opportunity to share their thoughts with the board as well I thought a quick comment um I think the other thing that it does is it really allows us to more efficiently manage public comment you know previously in years past we used to if five people were signed up to talk on one topic we could go to those people and we would say hey you guys

092are all you know wanting to talk about X topic you know do you guys mind you know nominating a spokesperson right so that's something that we've done in the past um but I think this gives the board president an opportunity to see you know like Dr charmele said we have a multitude of people I'm going to talk about one topic and we have the ability as a board to kind of like make an informed decision about how we move forward because sometimes and I can say sitting in that seat it's hard when you're just getting a sheet and then you're trying to you know move forward um you know and and make sure that the board you know is on board with without everybody having an opportunity to review that so it just gives all

093of us I think an opportunity to make an informed decision yeah my comments I think director elizik I think I'm torn similarly um you know given some of the comments and and questions that you have I think for for me I I can be comfortable with the policy and the changes here has written but I think that the specifics there on how we can make sure it's transparent how we're going to make sure it doesn't you know create multiple people signing up for all the 10 spots and how that works how we'll communicate I know you're going to work through the next month and so we're not implementing this next month you know I think maybe bringing those details back to the board specifically on how we're going to do that in the August meeting

094May make some sense um just to make sure we have kind of all those you know details ironed out because I think there's a convenience factor that director Isaac points out that's you know very beneficial to those that can't rush here after work and get here to sign up and want to speak um or that just can't physically do it so um I like I'd like to to see it work I'd like to see that change for those reasons but at the same time I think those are real concerns and you know now more than ever we should to be transparent with our processes and so maybe just bring back those specific answers to director lysics questions how we're going to implement that and I know we want to communicate that and make sure everybody

095understands the change anyway so maybe that's just that opportunity to do that absolutely any other comments questions so I wanted to speak to number one having the opportunity to kind of think outside the box and be able to you know rethink some processes that might be a little outdated I think as a parent who you know the students of the district who you know works the it's already been mentioned you know the the convenience of that but also I think there was two a lot of discomfort from um maybe some other members of the community who didn't feel comfortable coming you know in times where you know you know kovid was high or you know um emotions are running high and they just really didn't feel comfortable and I think they have been maybe underrepresented

096in being able to publicly comment um and I also wanted to speak a little bit to also the concern from director Elijah about kind of maintaining the Integrity of the current of the sign up list and to be completely Frank that's been a concern that's been brought to my attention from multiple members of the community that the current system is not very well maintained in the Integrity uh is a little bit questionable currently in terms of people signing up others who are not present so I just wanted to bring that to attention that it wasn't our current system isn't perfect and there's definitely room for improvement and I would like to see I think it's an excellent time to kind of rethink how we're doing these things so we don't run into those issues in

097the future I just want one quick thought because you said something that and something we talked about right and we haven't ironed out all the details but it also would give an opportunity for those like you said if they're not comfortable even coming at least sharing their voice right because they can still share comment that will be brought back to the board so even if they aren't comfortable coming and speaking we have that opportunity to still receive that that public comment yeah if I'm a vice president yes go ahead okay so just to clarify um if we were to move ahead with the digital the online sign up um and just speaking hypothetically if I were to sign up you know myself my husband my two kids there's four spots right there but then to

098come to the meeting and it's just me you know so then we call out Katie my husband my kids and they're not here to speak um you know we've been able to we've sometimes passed our spots on to someone else um or do we just if no one shows up but you know because we've seen the pranks before where people have put names down that weren't like real names and then they read out loud and it's funny and um just things like that um so if those people aren't actually here and so then do we move to number 11 number 12 number 13 you know what I'm saying if let's say there's just one person that's legitimately signed up to speak and the rest are just nine fake people um I know those are just

099like real things I think or is that the part that's left up to the discretion of the board president yes president Goodson yes I already know that we have a motion on the table but before we vote on that motion I would just encourage my peers to consider tabling it until Dr tormala can go back and work out the fine details um just so we're all clear about what the process is going to be and so everyone is comfortable and and we can present it then but I do understand there's a current motion on the table I could support that I mean we're looking to come back with actions yes Kathy you would choose to table I believe we would need um to put this down director Scott to rescind her motion is that correct

100oh we could vote that down and then turn around yes thank you director Bates for clarifying it would actually be to postpone thank you to looking at my fellow board members maybe director Scott if you have comments or thoughts of that um that's fine I mean I think that would be I don't have any opposition to that now why don't we do this why don't we just take a quick vote turn down this motion if that's where the board is we can make a new motion to postpone okay all those in favor say aye all those opposed say nay nay motion fails do I have a new motion vice president Goodson yes director I would like to make a motion to postpone the recommendation as presented to the next regular Board of Education meeting I

101will second that motion any comments or questions on that nope all those in favor say aye nope you want to do Kathy go ahead okay um it was read it was moved by director Stoli to postpone the recommendation as currently presented to the next board meeting yeah can we add uh 412 into that commentary the policy 412 yeah just add policy 412 yeah thank you are you good over there good all right so with that revision um it it was moved by director Stoli to postpone the recommendation for policy zero four one two as currently presented to the next board meeting regulars foreign say aye aye those opposed no names the eyes have it 5-0 with that I need a motion to adjourn Open Session second yeah yeah all those in favor say aye aye

102aye those opposed okay the eyes have a 5-0