Board of Education Meeting | June 16, 2022

001i'm calling open session to order we're gonna start with the pledge of allegiance pledge of allegiance of america to the republic for which next up mission statement join in rehearsing our mission statement with me learning today leading tomorrow yeah we sorry we need a motion to call the meeting to order motion second all in favor say hi all opposed eyes have it so i believe there's a change we want to make quickly to the agenda and have recognitions moved under the open forum i think we've got someone commuting so i'd make a motion to just flip the agenda to put the recognitions behind the open forum second we have a motion in a second all in favor all right okay next up public forum guidelines for the public forum are as follows each resident of

002the district requesting time to speak during the public forum will register his or her name address state the issue to be discussed with the recording secretary prior to the meeting being called to order at 6 30. the board president will call the speakers to the floor each speaker shall give his or her name and address upon recognition by the president speakers will be allowed three minutes for their presentation unless extended by board president if more time is required for presentation the citizens should consider district policy for placement on the regular meetings agenda due to the possible number of speakers during the public forum the board president may limit it or extend the speaking time if a number of speakers wish to speak on the same topic the group shall select a spokesperson to present that

003information a speaker may address the board only once during the public forum speakers may offer such objectives concerns of the school operations as they deem appropriate the board will not hear personnel complaints or school personnel nor against any person connected with the district in public session matters involving personnel shall be discussed by the board and executive session an employee of the winstonville school district may address the board by following the public forum guidelines regardless of whether the employee is a resident of the district okay first up we have renee henke is it on okay tonight is dr kane's last public meeting i can't say i'm gonna miss him i'm sure he will talk about the new raptor system during the superintendent report and this is what i would like to know how is the raptor

004system used do delivery personnel sign in through this system to deliver goods to the schools several elementary schools held an art fair after school and parents didn't have to sign in through the raptor why not then on april 5th 2022 voters were allowed into heritage elementary and liberty high and they did not have to use the raptor system why is that sign holders were allowed in to use the restrooms and not did not have to use the raptor system why not did the raptor system prevent student on student crime did the raptor system prevent student on staff crime why doesn't deci reflect what we all know is happening for the um for the 2019-2020 school year timberland shows zero incidences but six out of school suspensions so you're suspending kids for no reason how about

005wentzville middle school zero incidences and zero suspensions for the 2019 2020 school year really really is that what you're going with okay dr kane has been in the school district since 2013 and he has never found a way to get a designated sro officer in each building i would like to know why our students are excuse me our kids have come home broken beaten and raped over the past years and dr kane did not make it a priority to get more sro officers in each school we the parents want more sro officers even though an apology can't take away the heartache and pain parents and students have suffered over the years a huge apology is in order from dr kane [Applause] next up donald woony good evening so spent a little time collecting some statements

006of appreciation to the administration and the current school board from parents and other community members going to read a couple of those for you now please enjoy as i waited for my daughter the last day at piney ridge elementary i saw a child after leaving the school teary-eyed crying and even sobbing never in my life have i seen so many kids disappointed for the summer they were devastated to be leaving their teachers and their school i heard mention of mr g and miss h who were both leaving this year and deserve a big shout out for the huge impacts they have had on these kiddos another reason why we must find ways to hold on to our teachers my daughter exited the building and sure enough she was also sobbing when i asked what was

007wrong she said i just want to go back i don't want to leave she cried for nearly an hour so shout out to piney ridge and the amazing teachers and staff we have and all they do for our kids we are so lucky to have them next one the lunch crew at frontier elementary and liberty are just amazing to my kids my kids have to have a special diet and they are just accommodating and incredibly sweet to my kids they take care of my kids they take their needs seriously i also can't say enough about the nurses at both of these schools they are a part of this team too and the relationships that they have built with my kids is priceless these these are life-threatening issues and the staff goes above and beyond i

008don't think they get enough credit or recognition so i wanted to give them a shout out i can't be here today to read this but please know that our family appreciates you and all that you do thank you i had time for one more uh let's see here my daughter who has a rare disease was again virtual this year i can't say enough how amazing the teachers are at liberty high school and throughout the winterville school district got plenty of these plenty more just want you all to know that our community appreciates everything that you do they appreciate all the work that our teachers put in and i'm going to keep coming up and offering these statements for you because we hear a lot about what's not being done we hear a lot of negativity

009about all of you in the news and in the papers nationally even internationally right just want you to know you're doing a great job and your community appreciates you thank you for your time [Applause] next up becky jennings president bryce members of the board dr kane good evening my name is becky jennings i'm a parent of two two students in the district and i'm also a teacher in our middle schools i've taught in the winsfield school district for 17 years i've taught at one of our elementary schools i've taught at all three of our middle schools next year i'll be at all four of our middle schools and at two of our high schools i've taught in our legacy buildings and i've taught in our newest buildings i've also had the pr the pleasure of

010experiencing this school district through the education of my own two children both of whom will be moving up to middle school next year throughout our seven years in elementary my children have had teachers nurses and staff members who've had a lasting impact on them as learners and as people this year my son had a science teacher who encouraged him and engaged him in amazing learning activities my son also had a writing teacher who gave him confidence in his abilities as a writer my daughter has also had educators who continue to impact her today her teachers have provided learning activities that have sparked new interests and have turned her focus towards her future i would like to share a couple of stories from other parents about their experiences in the district as well my family uh

011this is from a parent of a student at lakeview elementary my family's experience at lakeview sorry technology issues my my parents my family's experience at lakeville view elementary so sorry um will be complete as my fifth and sixth graders move on to middle school together next year so tonight i want to express my appreciation for i'm so sorry uh sorry about that i'll read another one um thank you to the wms staff for including our son as a web leader for a student who is often in different settings due to his needs you saw his leadership abilities and strengths seeing him in this leadership role is amazing i have seen with my own two eyes the dedication to our students that our teachers administrators secretaries custodians bus drivers instructional aides counselors and administrative staff have

012demonstrated our staff goes above and beyond every single day and every day i see staff impacting our students and i'd like to thank you for the for your support of those staff members [Applause] up next kylan stout hi my name is kylan i just got out of third grade from kindergarten to second grade i was bullied by a sixth grader i got kicked in the neck three times i felt helpless i thought he was going to kill me i had i don't feel safe at school because if a kid hits you the teachers can't save you and the bullies don't stop because they don't ever get in trouble for doing it they hurt our minds please make school safer and better a place for us kids thank you for listening [Applause] up next casey stout

013hi my name is casey i'm here to talk about bullying happening in our schools our district is having issues on a weekly basis i want to propose an idea to help prevent bullying and also a way that can bring money into our school district as well it's just like if you were to get a dwi you have to go into a victim impact class and say top class so bullies would have to go to a victim impact class where they would listen to parents speak of how they lost their child due to bullying stay top class would be an evaluation that the child would have to take they would need depending on the level of severity of where they're at it would depend on the class that they would have to take whether anger management

014therapy counseling the parents have to pay for each class and attend it with their child as well because who knows maybe the problem stems from home or the parent is unaware of mental issues that the child has this shouldn't be this hard to make a choice on what is morally right this should be about coming together and fixing this not just for my kids not just for their kids or your kids but all of our kids together because they are our future [Applause] let me leave this though with you tonight because most of you up here have kids could you imagine tonight kissing your little kid on the face and then finding out tomorrow that they committed suicide due to bullying when nothing was done for them you all have the power to make that

015change for them so help us do that let's do that together versus fighting constantly all the time together on another note though sorry i'm nervous a little bit talking i hate talking in front of people um on another note though besides having something so severe as your child committing suicide there's other things that happen as well like drugs things like that so could you imagine later on driving your child to a rehab because they developed an addiction problem to mask the pain while you had the power to do something and you didn't or visit them in prison because they were the bully that mentally murdered another person's mind while you had power to do something and you didn't bullies depression suicide and drugs don't discriminate so don't think it can't be in your home next

016while you have the power to make change let's do this together at the end of the day no matter what job or what title you guys have up there the most important title we have is parents if you do care about our kids our children and to keep them safe then this shouldn't be a fight and i shouldn't have to beg for you guys to help us we want action we don't want any more talk and we have to do this together thank you [Applause] up next suzanne shumway hi i'm reverend susan shumway i have been at wentzville district in the windsville school district for about 13 years now i am a proud parent of a person who graduated last year from timberland and i have another son who is in timberland now both of

017them have experienced the special education program and i have learned to be a huge advocate for them over the years last year i know that some of the procedures were changed for informing the teachers of the special ed program and in october when i reached out to the teachers it i got very nice professional responses back except for one who was quite surprised to find out that they needed they had an iep and they were required to give them different accommodations my understanding when i brought it up with a case manager was the procedures had changed so my request to you all is we have a large special ed pro program and these are the kids who fall through the cracks a lot of times i have educated myself greatly to the point where i

018was almost received my autism specialist i had done enough classes for that not every parent is able to take the time has the time to go through and get that kind of education so i am asking you to keep in mind your special ed students in the district as you make decisions as you change protocols as you change different things around these are great kids and they don't need to fall through the cracks thank you [Applause] up next jen olson regarding the most recent policy revision of board policy zero four one two i would like to reiterate to this board that ferpa does not protect teachers staff administration or board members from being named by a citizen during public forum it protects personally identifiable information of children in the most recent revision of this policy

019it references missouri state statutes 610.021 items 3 and 13. this section of state statute does not apply to citizens speaking during public forum item three speaks directly to personal information being discussed in an open forum by a government body that's you guys not us in relation to the hiring firing disciplinary action or promotion of employees item 13 speaks directly to personnel records to include performance ratings or other records relating to employment applications this section explicitly states that it does not apply to names positions salaries and length of service to be clear section 3 and 13 both apply specifically to public governmental bodies meaning the seven members on the stage cannot sit in an open forum and discuss disciplinary actions of mrs smith the seventh grade science teacher at winsville middle that would need to happen

020in closed session if i want to step up to the microphone and tell you that mrs smith has been treating my child unfairly then that's my right to do so this board does not have the authority to restrict my speech based on opinion that is unconstitutional there is no board policy that you can write that will allow you to grant yourselves authority you do not have also i asked the board to require revision to challenge material policy the current process allows for the name of the person challenging the material to be made public but not the name of the committee members any person who who wishes to sit on a committee or board that will be making decisions or official recommendations to this board for our children needs to be identified to the public this

021increases transparency honesty and integrity in our process decisions about our children should not be made with the comfort of anonymity democracy dies in darkness and so does our trust in institutions and processes i am frequently asked by members of this board why is this such a big deal to you why do you care so much my answer is simple because every shred of our god-given freedom is important government bodies have been going rogue for quite some time now slowly chipping away at our rights and attempting to redefine our role as citizens i care so much because it's my duty and everyone else's duty as united states citizens to pass along a truly free country to the next generation even if that means you have to get down in the dirt and claw it back with

022everything you have we the people are at the top of the chain of command in this country let that not be forgotten fellow citizens please do not be afraid to exercise your right and your voice in the efforts to restore true constitutional freedom and liberty to this country it starts right here in small town america i also ask that president bryce allow the additional speakers to address this board tonight the sign up sheet was out prior to 5 30 and when i signed up at 5 30 there were only three spots left the additional speaker form has been given to you thank you up next glenn becker my presentation can be found at wsdr4.com for any views any anybody at home that like to follow along i'm here tonight to talk about the ehall pass

023system also known as the bathroom monitoring system that you're installing at holt next year this school has gone too far this system tracks kids everywhere inside and outside of school via their cell phone the school is sending personal identifiable information to this company that is allowing the teachers and the administration to profile kids based on race or gender to allow them to go to the restroom it's also providing the administration patterns of the children's physical health and it's contributing to the mental health data mining that's currently going on by third parties today i've asked this board to put this on the agenda tonight and you rejected it i've asked this board to vote this application out of the school for next year and i have received no response dr cain on may 19th you stated

024to the parents it's really important that our parents here if there are questions you have go to the faculty go to the teachers and they're willing to communicate with us you also stated that if those questions aren't answered that there is additional consideration that's needed that you will follow the chain of command and we will have working sessions in order to answer those questions that was at the 38 minute mark during that meeting that was a lie i've been trying to get this since this happened and i have heard nothing from the chain of command above dr skeeters and none of my questions have been answered so on uh may 25th you had a meeting with the students and you did not inform the parents during this meeting you introduced the e hall pass system

025you informed the the students and this is on slide 12 by the way that this application is available on their phone you have screenshots of that application on their phones and you also tell them the app is named classlink when i approached this to the school board i was told there is no application in that presentation it states if it was a restroom pass you have to go to the bathroom and come back and let your teacher know so they can stop the time why wasn't the parents notified i also provided you on slides 14 15 16 18 and 19 all of the contracts and screenshots showing that this application was tracking the precise location of the students that you are providing the gender ethnicity race a lot of private information to this company that's

026doing the password the the path bathroom pass system no comment back the principal finally contacted me and said it's not his problem it's i.t they should have vetted the program the principal sent an email to the parents and stated that there is no app it doesn't exist it's all web-based even though i've provided you proof that there is an app i pushed it yet again dr skeeters wrote me back and said yes there is an app for the phones so which is it is the principal lying to me is it dr skeeters surprisingly dr skeeters was telling me the truth i already had the information my closing note will be this when a student goes to the bathroom their laptop screen will go red if they're late the student behind them will make fun of

027them if they come back late and they have to tell the teacher why they're late give you an example dan if you're late the student behind you might ask you if you were whacking it off in the bathroom that's inappropriate but that's a in that's enticing bullying this application needs to be removed it's inappropriate to track my students or students in the bathroom thank you [Applause] up next a good evening i wanted to thank you everyone for taking the time to show up today and i also want to thank you uh each and every one of you guys uh for all the great work that you guys are doing and i understand you cannot be everywhere at every time it's a big district but i wanted to bring something to the attention i hear that's

028my first time being at this meeting and i hear a lot of our fellow citizens uh voiced their complaint and their admiration for this administration and i understand that in order to find a solution for a problem you have to first admit there's a problem in order to find a solution and if we keep hiding behind the fifth amendment pleading the fifth every time we ask a question for the administration and we can't get no answers we cannot go anywhere and we're just going to keep doing this back and forth and that's unproductive and we're seeing this at the highest level of our government and the opening remark over here at this uh meeting you guys says learning today and leading tomorrow i'm wondering what kind of leadership are you teaching our kids at school

029dr king what are you calling leadership when family members have problems we are the citizens we are the parents let's remind you guys that we paid your salary and for a community to drive all of us have to drive it's just now some parents have their keys thriving and some parents their kids are not driving we have to have inclusion all of us have to work together the parents and the school i'm not born here i came from uh togo west africa and our school system there is different and my wife here is uh was uh higher education in bachelor's degree in education and if i didn't hover on my side i would not be able to begin to understand what was going on at school with my kids because the school system here is

030totally different and it's failing our keys and just i don't know i only got 20 more seconds left wanted to point this out we are living in a very fast ever fast and changing words and these kids are gonna be the next generation the next president the next policy maker what are we teaching them please come to a conclusion i want dr kane and the boys school board to take action and make sure that the staff that we have in our school are trained properly and we work the community you know with the parents and the school so we can it took a community to raise a child and we got to work together not fight thank you up next paul tripp [Applause] my name is paul tripp my daughter beat a trip was humiliated

031and assaulted a couple days before school let out at woodsville middle school i've had five kids go through the winterfield middle school three of them went through high school went on for basketball baseball scholarships in other college two of them in elementary school one daughter just started wentzville middle school this year when she started within a month there's just been horrible horror stories about the torment that she's had to go through while at this school there's been horrible threatening emails very vulgar it's been reported to the school they've done nothing we've asked them to stop letting the kids email each other and only email the teachers they said that's not possible but other schools do this my daughter had a whole cup of chocolate milk dumped on her head while a staff member watched the

032person was able to walk away and come back 30 seconds later and hit her repeatedly over and over again in the back of the head while the staff member still stood right next to her how can any human being stand there and watch a kid go through that and then when i get to the school they tell me that i don't need to pick her up that she is okay well when i took her to the doctor the doctor said she wasn't okay that she had bruising in her neck and she would have a headache for at least four days i want to know why an employee or staff member would be allowed to watch something like this happen to a kid why the board knows things like this have been happening to these kids

033for years and won't even acknowledge it we moved to wentzville because of the school district and i'm sorry i did that like what my kids go through because of this this video went viral my daughter's gonna deal with this for life i went to have lunch with her the next day to make her feel safe because as i was driving by i seen her on the back field with a group of kids and i could tell they weren't being nice there was no staff in sight she was assaulted the day before this she was only there because she had to her finals i want to know what you guys are going to do to keep this from happening how am i supposed to send her back to your school next year she's scared to death

034because the staff member stood there and watched until an officer that was on the other side of the cafeteria ran over there and then the guy finally said hey and then the girl stopped hitting him or hitting my daughter all it took was a hay i really wish somebody would listen to the things that the community is saying i know even the mayor has requested you guys do take different actions and it's just refused and refused and refused please stop letting this happen to our kids because they are the ones that are going to lead this country thank you up next christina mccormick hello my name is christina mccormick i'm a parent in windsville district winsfield schools are trauma-informed and a trauma-informed school is not required by the state the state funding or the state

035statute that provide that states this statute for trauma informed is because of an incentive trauma-informed schools use uh sorry trauma-informed schools you restorative practices according to the international institute of restorative practices restorative practices is a subset of restorative justice which is a topic that is discussed in law school things like the privilege walk safety spaces little to no suspension adding students to our school board for insight using a racial lens in the curricula social emotional learning they're all part of what makes a trauma informed school restorative practices is a strategy that seeks to repair relationships that have been damaged including those that are damaged through bullying in a nutshell the bully says sorry and the victim forgives the institute for national restorative practices states that restorative practices has its roots in restorative justice a way

036of looking at criminal justice to emphasize repairing the harm done to people and relationships rather than only punishing the offenders the fundamental underlying hypothesis for restorative practices is that human beings are happier more more productive and more likely to make positive changes to their behavior when those and positions of authority do things with them rather than to them or for them trauma-informed schools according to missouri department of education states many students and educators are also experiencing trauma at a community level experiences such as poverty community violence racism sexism and homophobia many of these forms of community traumas are also rooted in historical traumas those traumas which may be started or have taken place far in the past and that continue have that continue to have far reaching impacts on the present these community these community

037and historical traumas are rooted in systematic oppression which has created an ongoing stress in communities through the disempowerment disinvestment and due criminal and discipline disincrimination they experience the trauma-informed approach to better behavior shifts from the mindset of rewards and punishment towards the rewards of accountability which we hear all the time in our schools policies are in place for the integration of new curriculum to ensure continued connection to the trauma-informed process happens we can get all the new curriculum we want but we have a policy in place to make sure this still happens principles of drama-informed care are embedded in the hiring practices including the john positions and interview questions i wonder if the new superintendent is pro-trauma informed schools and if they did well in that interview process i give more information on drum informed

038schools on the saint charles county parent association facebook page and just because all of you are bought and paid for by the department of education the wnea and your political parties doesn't mean that our kids are if you think that you can just throw us a few bones and run and then we'll just walk away you have another thing coming and you just cannot understand that you are mistaken and none of us are going to just stop up next nicole neely okay up next amber crawford um our asd admin said that they needed time and they needed parents to contact them about the crt critical race theory culturally responsive training and politically smeared attacks from the parents but the truth is we've been contacting the wsd admin since 2019 many many many times only to

039be met with complete neglect lies double talk rules for thee but not for me hypocrisy stonewall infestation and outrageous sunshine fees the wsd admin for as far as the weaker sunshine have recruited crt criminal critical social justice groomers from ncc jstl ecc ecc educational equity consultants who is also used by desi missouri school boards of education msba and many missouri school districts to train teachers and administrators administrators and create curricula core corrupt collaborative equity cohort included with crown apple lloyd webb and legarrette king from mizzou among others earl as early as 2010 the school district also routinely spends tens of thousands hundreds of thousands and even millions on the localism indoctrination and gender theory and lgbtqia queer theories sunshine requests through missouri aj schmidt's student first initiative has revealed that wsd spent 1.4 million dollars

040last year along on gender theory and the amount of money still work in progress we all know that desi msba and nea and down to the school districts are all weaponized to be the ministry of truth to cause hate division slander and false history to brainwash our children to not think critically but to criticize relentlessly irregardless of the truth fact or history they say follow the money and that is so true we have unveiled the money with webs of strings attached when the entities as small as school districts to council cabinets to council county council to big entities uh speakers desi nea msba via contracts and grants such as sr3 and title funds the systematic brainwash by our select marxist activists teachers educators want our children to believe that biology of sex is fluid and

041that will require a biologist to tell what is a woman and what is a man and you can pick and choose your gender depends on your mood that is simply not true so i'm here to actually implore parents and educators to have a to have the moral fortitude to stand up against the communism liberalism socialism progressivism national socialism new world water globalist u.n and the democratic party thank you your time is up there 40 goals of to destroy the united states since the phibian socialists in frankfurt school and our speech will continue [Applause] okay up next recognitions sorry hello um we will begin this evening's recognition by recognizing some life-saving efforts of several of our staff members this spring jill noble performed the heimlich maneuver on a student eram at heritage primary and saved his

042life kudos to jill [Applause] okay you're literally a life saver so we just want to thank you so very much for your efforts your your attentiveness uh and your willingness to jump in so i've already asked if you want to say something since you do not but we do want to thank you for your efforts thank you so very much up next mandy perez an instructional assistant at bar field early childhood center save student elijah from choking on a piece of orange by performing the heimlich maneuver as well [Applause] take your time you have a little bit going on there [Applause] up next erica way an instructional assistant at piney ridge elementary noticed a student cameron choking and hit him on the back a few times to dislodge the food that he was choking on

043coincidentally she had just completed her cpr training the week before the instant incident congratulations and thank you [Applause] laughs [Applause] anything you'd like to say so uh no one wants to step in the batter's box in terms of saying anything but literally this maneuver literally has saved lives and so we are so appreciative the constant uh well-being in terms of what you're doing in terms of looking out for our kids in all spaces clearly makes a difference in this case save lives so we're so very thankful again the training the maneuver literally works so we're so thankful for your efforts thank you so very much thank you [Applause] up next three wsd students will represent the lewis and clark career center at the skillsusa annual national leadership and skills conference this june these students earn

044first place at the state leadership conference with us this evening is colwolf from liberty high school who qualified and will participate in the national competition alex davis from timberland and caden moore from holt high school also qualified for the national competition congratulations [Applause] all right i appreciate the award one thing i would like to say is uh i'd appreciate if some of the teachers could really just appreciate the trades more because i mean we're the ones that are out there doing the work we're fixing your air conditioner on a hot day at 9 00 pm and some people really just don't appreciate that and everyone stay cool nicole we appreciate you and wish you all the best with the competition and all the best in your future congratulations thank you up next consent agenda we

045need a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented motion second we have a motion in a second all in favor say aye aye opposed eyes have it up next superintendent reports that k yes up first will be a presentation on security um that will speak to district security so clearly a lot that's going on across the country as relates to some security items so there's a lot that has been going on in this district for some time to help meet the threats that we are seeing and it's important to note that this is an ongoing situation as it relates to threaten so you're going to see some layers to some things that we are doing in the district but please know the answer today on june 16th of 2022 is one that is constantly

046going to evolve because we believe that is in fact what is needed in order to keep all of our students and our staff and our patrons i'm safe as well and so there's a tremendous amount of communication that occurs between staff in the windsville school district in law enforcement and to be frank with this community it doesn't just occur from nine to five monday through friday it occurs in a lot of different spaces in order to keep things up and going and making sure that all parties are aware of what's going on so this was with that mr schulte if you lead through this presentation i'm sure there may be a couple comments or questions that we'll address at the end here absolutely and i would welcome any questions the board has as i go

047through the information um this this is um a lot of a lot of the same information that was presented earlier earlier in the year with some updates but um as as a natural conversation it made service better to have the dialogue as as i go through so feel free to ask questions as i go through the presentation we wanted to start by providing you with just an update as to the different security upgrades that the district has implemented over the the past couple years a lot of these upgrades have been accomplished through different props that have been passed and then also using some of the capital funds through the district as well obviously we've had the ai phones and cameras and check-ins in place at all of our buildings those are the the buttons that

048visitors press to gain entrance to the building where we we check to make sure that they have a reason to be there in a lot of these cases our building staff know our parents and know the visitors that would be visiting on a routine basis so sometimes they do just allow them to be buzzed in when they recognize them but a lot of these upgrades and these processes that we talk about are also items that dr mueller and i have discussed and and have planned on revisiting over summer to see what improvements we can make and then what areas we can provide retraining with all of our staff as we come back in august we've also participated in security camera upgrades not just additional security cameras but then also making sure that the software packages

049are are current and we are able to keep both the interior and exterior of our our buildings um safe and secure and those cameras the police departments do have access to those as well so if we have events going on they can log on there we have phone system upgrades that have allowed us to have one comprehensive phone system throughout the district so that any student or staff they have the ability to pick up those phones and notify either 911 or the main office of any safety concerns if that need arises and we have systematic processes in place that are posted in in the classrooms and by the phones that make sure that everyone knows how to use those we have id badges that we issue each year to to our staff and all of

050those id badges um are on a rotation cycle so that each year we have a new new id badge that is that is issued and that allows us to not just look at a name and determine whether or not a staff member or a person has a reason to be on our ground but also that they have the correct badge on based on the color for that year so that any staff member that sees a visitor walking down the hallway or an adult that they do not recognize they've been trained to ask them you know what the reason for their visit is and and how they can assist them and if there's any issue there they should be directing them to the office so that we can make sure that they're properly checked in we

051have crisis plans that we update each year at the building level and we are going through a comprehensive review of those plans this summer to make sure that they have all of the updated information in in those plans for the for the new buildings for the buildings where we are modifying spaces and where we have classroom additions that will will come online next year with with middle school so those will be updated and we routinely work with local law enforcement to make sure that those plans are current and they know exactly what what is located in each of those plans we do have the vestibules that were added years ago through one of the bond issues and we've continued to add those safe spaces to all of the the new construction so that when we

052do give access to visitors into the building they they're not allowed immediate access into the building those vestibules um kind of herd them in through the office where we can check them in and make sure that they have a reason for for being there during the 21 22 school year which we just completed we did implement implement a new visitor management system that's the raptor system and we we made sure that we had trained all of the staff all the office staff on on that process before we rolled that out we rolled that out district-wide and the implementation of that has been rather smooth we do not have all of the bugs worked out with that but for the first year i would say that all of the building staff they're comfortable utilizing the system

053and we have positive reports of that we have had situations where we've had visitors enter the building and they should not have been in our building thereafter system identified those individuals and they were asked to leave none of those individuals were employees as it turns out they were vendors that were either working on site or delivering and so we were able to catch them as we do do require them to come in and and swipe through that system there we um had a security team that was working at the district level throughout this year and and last year for the upcoming school year 2223 we are planning on the summer installing exterior door management systems which will allow us to track who is going in and out of our buildings and those those doors will

054be locked on with using a fob system where the software will tell us exactly where and what staff are going in and out what doors may be left propped open and so we can better get a handle on all of the access points to the exterior of our building and then the following year 23-24 we are going to implement that same door management system for the interior doors not all of the doors will have the system but we will have select doors in different office areas and different areas within the building where the the security team and the building staff feel it would be important to be able to determine who has access to those locations other security measures that hey john can i ask a question yeah sure just try to make this interactive

055on the the tiering or the timeline that you got i think rick that was like prop c in us that we used some of that funding for and had planned there was a security team that kind of laid out a plan over time and i think this is correct me if i'm wrong john is is like the execution of that plan is it fair to say though there's some flexibility to dr kane's point that threats and needs shift with time to re-look at that and where that best dollar is spent on some of those things as i understand there's flexibility but maybe kind of speak to how we think about that over the next two years absolutely we are very fortunate because of because of our bidding process and because of the price of construction

056so many of our projects came in under under budget and so that that has allowed us to have the additional funding within those props so that that is what it has allowed us to explore these options and implement those and some of the some of the security features that we implemented five ten years ago are now outdated they obviously don't hurt but with the current research and the current threats that we are seeing in communities and in schools there is absolutely a need to revisit what what protocols we have in place and then what additional resources the district can implement in order to make sure that we continue to have a secure building so that will be part of that security team i'm sure we also have building level teams and another district level administration

057and staff that get together through the active shooter training and those facilitators to make sure that we're taking all of that into account a lot of the recommendations that that we have implemented have been based on all of that committee work other items that we have we have multiple means and avenues for students patrons staff members to communicate with us if there are issues that they notice whether it's doors being propped open or student behavior or staff behavior or parent behavior that they think needs to be reported because it's just questionable we have the blackboard alert system the wsd app we have the online tip tip line on the app courage to report all of those are avenues in which people may provide us with information so we are able to investigate we obviously encourage

058folks to email to make phone calls provide us with as much information as we can we have a tremendous working relationship with all of our local law enforcement agencies and to be quite honest we are on the phone with them on a regular basis at all times of the evening and morning because when those tips come in or when law enforcement is notified of an issue whether it's 10 o'clock at night or 5 o'clock in the morning where we are on the phone or on the doorstep of of those students homes making sure that everyone is safe and making sure that we are proactive and not allowing anything to um to happen at school the the first part of that is we have to be aware of the situation so that's where all of those

059tip lines and all of those different avenues for communication are so valuable we also have a one touch radio system and that's a that is a top view of that radio so that's actually one of the typical black walkie-talkies that you would see staff wearing in a building we took this view because that red button in the middle of that radio is a direct link to dispatch with our local law enforcement agencies so regardless of what's going on and regardless of how many phone calls dispatch may be receiving if we pick up one of those radios and when we touch that red button it bypasses all of those calls and goes straight to law enforcement so we have immediate contact with them that's something that we've had in place the last couple years and i

060believe county-wide they have worked to implement that and it's a great system we have to calibrate those and test those on an annual basis and dr mueller has coordinated all of that and works with works with the county to make sure that we are up and running so we do have everything set for next year with uh with the new school and that continues to be a great resource for us there i did speak to the partnerships that we have those are ongoing we have like i've said we've been very fortunate to have such strong relationships with them where we can just have open and honest conversations and make sure that they're getting what they need and we're getting what we need to make sure that we have everyone in a safe situation at school

061we did we have school resource officers that are in in our buildings we have dare officers or start officers as most of the schools are transitioning to the start program and away from the dare officer and the deer program the tornado safe rooms are obviously a mandatory part of any any new construction build or the additional construction at any school and then we have the individual department trainings that our different departments and schools participate in as well in order to make sure that all of our employees and students are safe there excuse me mr schulte yes i have a question sure can i know you talked about the relationship of law enforcement can you just talk a little bit more about how all the different agencies communicate together and how they all understand the expectation

062should there be an emergency at one of our schools or facilities absolutely i'd be happy to um all of our local law enforcement agencies whether it's lake st louis o'fallon wentzville the sheriff's department for unincorporated st charles county even saint charles county or saint charles st peters all of those law enforcement agencies work together to make sure that if there is an emergency situation they have their plan in place so regardless of who's on site first they have been training and they do continue to train together to know how to appropriately respond to any emergency situation on site so if we did have a significant situation at a school and and someone called 9-1-1 and someone responded the first person that would would be on site would be the person that would would make the

063initial contact and and start the process and then as the different agencies because really depending on the scope of the situation whoever's the closest is going to respond until they have it under control and then they may back off and turn it over to the local agency they they do have a system in place where they would um they would prefer that the local law enforcement agency would take the command but it is all hands on deck until they have the situation under control at the same time they work collaboratively with us through all of our trainings whether it's the active shooter training or other crisis plan training to make sure that they know exactly what our protocols are and and that they help support us they give us feedback and and they also ask

064for our feedback and and they make sure that we understand what their approach is so that we can share that with our staff so our staff need to know exactly what their their response is going to be and they want to know what our response will be as a district the the planning that we have in place is systematic and it is specific to the district and it is something that every every school is trained the same way there are some nuances depending on the building whether you have two stories or one story if you're a prototype building if you're a legacy building there's just nuances there but as far as all of the formal language and all of the process all of that is the same and and we have taken that approach because

065we want to make sure that all of our staff who may travel as a traveling teacher maintenance custodial substitutes who may be in different buildings regardless of what building they go into we want to make sure they understand exactly what the district protocols are so we do work very closely with every local law enforcement agency and and we invite them into all of our trainings and they want to they often reach out to us asking us when our trainings are so they can participate so they have that first-hand knowledge as well something new that we started a couple years ago we have implemented a staff safety day which takes place before the student's first day of school and for us um and our staff this was important because we wanted to make sure that all

066of our certificated staff who will be in charge of kids that first day of school had had the opportunity to go through our intruder training as a refresher or for the first time to make sure that they had that prior to day one so we hold that the the couple days before students come back and then after they participate in the this intruder training they also have time to go through some of the other mandatory trainings that they need to complete before students come any questions on the safety day okay on the staff intruder training we partner with tier one tactical and we currently have 49 staff trainers trained through tier one tactical tier one tactical is an organization that is comprised of st louis and saint charles county law enforcement agents who recognized that

067there needed to be a system in place that would would teach staff and teach students and then ultimately teach parents what options are available during the event that we would have an intruder in our in our building this july 21 we will have an additional 30 trainers that will either be recertified or will be certified for for the first time and that's just due to staff moving it in and out of the district but we do or after that training we will have enough staff trained to then go into all of our buildings and and train our certificated staff and we also have department leaders who are trained so that they can train all of their hourly staff as well so the goal is to provide this training twice a year which we run scenario-based

068training with them as well so they can kind of get a get a feel for what what some of these may look like in the picture here you can see the individuals in the yellow vest our at some of the facilitators and then also one of our wentzville sros who helped us with with the training there that's officer hyde part of that tier one training the four e's training is a communication piece with parents and we've started to push out communication through newsletters whether it's district or building we've been utilizing this program for several years and we are to the point where we've started to include students in the training not that we have students participating in active shooter type training but we do go through scenarios with them and and the teachers talk through

069with them what options they may have available and the importance to listening to the intercom following direction and then being aware of their environment so all of that goes through the teacher and the school and then we do also send information out district-wide when we get to a point where we're going to make changes at the district level any questions about that okay and then just some general information regarding other drills this is just a list of the types of drills and the number we do each year you can see the fire earthquake tornado intruder with students and then with staff only so you can see the number there our focus here is to make even our intruder drills as routine as our fire drills when when we think of a fire drill i think

070we can all remember back when we were in school and and when the alarm would go off we can all remember lining up at the door waiting for the teacher walking out single file we probably knew where we were going to go in the parking lot and then we were going to take take call hold up the green if everyone's there and then we'd go back in right we all remember that what we would like to see happen with our intruder drills is that same mentality so we built up that muscle memory um in our students and in our staff so that if there ever is an incident where they would need to utilize this type of skill they wouldn't have to think about it they would just be able to react and use the

071options that they've been taught some other annual staff trainings we have mandated reporter harassment whether it's student to staff staff to student discrimination title ix bullying de-escalation healthy boundaries confidentiality and then through student services we have the health bloodborne pathogens epipen iep 504 seclusion restraint student allergy prevention and or response and then also through hr and other departments the equal opportunity firearms employment hiring practices abuse rup staff conduct these are annual trainings for all of our staff that they participate in each year and then we broke it down by some of our departments because we did want to recognize that on top of all of those trainings we do have specialized training for transportation child nutrition and maintenance and castile in order to make sure that they're utilizing materials appropriately and making sure that both

072students and staff are safe there i'm happy to answer any other questions that you may have i have a question so we mentioned bullying you mentioned bullying on the slideshow i'm just curious is there a particular curriculum program um that teachers go through professional development just and how do we gauge or measure the effectiveness of that program and when do we maybe decide to adopt something else or use a different program or just you know truly out of curiosity sure sure so first of all there's state statute and district policy that outlines um how we we handle bullying so now all of that is reactionary because once once um someone has reported an instance of bullying then at that point we're just reacting to the behavior and then we're following policy making sure that once

073we're notified we've started the investigation we've completed the investigation and then notified folks in in the past we have addressed it through programs like pbis which we had district-wide in our buildings we did that for a number of years now we have house systems and we have student-led systems at the middle schools and high schools where where they try to address it either through their student groups the pbis was the last district-wide initiative that we had in place that work directly towards calibrating student student behavior and staff reaction to that behavior a lot of what they are are doing at the buildings now is is trying to be proactive and and trying to help students understand the difference between reporting and the difference between tattling whether it's the elementary level and and middle school and

074then we we do anytime there's a bullying investigation that's documented through the school so we have the information related to that whether it's unsubstantiated or substantiated what what we see a lot of a lot of times when you look at the definition of bullying a lot of times what we see is that we absolutely have inappropriate behavior students have participated in behavior that we would not deem appropriate and we would say it would violate our student code of conduct but it also at the same time doesn't meet the definition of bullying and so we are able to address the behavior sometimes through other descriptors within our misconduct policy even though it doesn't meet that definition of bullying and so um you know a lot of what we work with with our administrators on is is

075being able to help students and help parents understand those distinctions between what would meet that definition and and what would not and and not not discounting the fact that we need to address the behavior but just making sure that we're clear on what bullying is versus what harassment is versus what disruptive behavior is and so that's where a lot of that education goes in so we can both support the students and support the staff members support the family and work together to make sure that it comes to an end because at the end that's that's really the goal regardless of what's going on we want to make sure that it doesn't continue so i have maybe a comment or comments i should say i think that you know john the presentation around and i think

076this has evolved um this request for this agenda item when we first started talking about it um it was related to all the external factors um with with what happened in texas and the community members across the board wanting to to understand what the district is doing and i as i heard from law enforcement before those questions are everywhere whether it's coming to them whether it's coming to local you know governments um in all districts in the county and across the state and so like this presentation i think to me john is really helpful in terms of all the things that we do do and even embedded within that which is where my question was is improvements along the way and that constant need to get ahead of and be better so i appreciate that

077you know in this presentation and the work that we do do i think what what we've heard in comments here what we've seen in videos uh what my kids have experienced at winsfield middle i think that's where their time you know the community is tying also safety from an external waste with safety inside the school whether it's between fights or bullying and issues and those things and and i want to just make comments and i want to encourage my fellow board members because there's not material here that talks about it but we have spent a lot of time as a group in these workshops in the transition with our new superintendent and with curtis talking about this concern i think i can speak for all of you that we do not like what we see

078and we are concerned we want our students to be safe i think you'll hear as a community through the summer and some of our agenda and planned items the work that was done and what we want to do and see an improvement we have four goals as a district and this board is given that direction around improving communications academic achievements safety and as well the culture and climate here in winsville those are our goals and and i am confident in the work that this group is committed to do we aren't perfect we will omit that i'll admit that to anybody that talks to but we care about this issue about safety within our schools it is not an easy solution in my eyes i think that's why it will take time it will take multiple

079presentations it will take work as a collective group i love the ideas of partnering with this community on this issues i'm encouraged by you know comments from elected officials here in winsfield that seemingly want to fix the parity on expenses related to sros for example and so i think that i would encourage other members here to speak just kind of your general thoughts because it is a concern i mean i'm a dad i'm i've got girls you touch my girls it's it's all like i get it and so i think it's just talking about this work because we have spent a lot of time and it's not just this board i know this team this administration has done it staff have done it and there's no easy solution um but i think that we've given

080those goals and we've given those directions and i'm encouraged by what we'll see in terms of metrics and communication of success along those ways so i'll ask for comments from my peers there because it's not there's nothing here that's going to say is there a fix of a policy for bullying that's going to solve this but i think talking about it communicating what we are doing acknowledging our faults and recognizing where we can be better is the step forward i'll just echo what you said vice president goodson and i think it is the biggest issue is it is a very complex issue right and i don't think i don't feel like we can look at the school district to fix it right we as a collective community um community members stakeholders parents board members administration

081all have to work together um you know how can we get more more involved bring families bring parents bring you know everyone to participate and make a commitment to really improving it yeah and i would absolutely agree with that um you know i think the first the first item that needs to be addressed is the fact that you know no one wants their their child to go to school and feel uncomfortable we we all want our kids and us as administrators and as public educators want all of our students to be able to come to school and just focus on the reason why they're at school which quite honestly right now is academics and social belonging right they want to fit in with their peers and they want to succeed academically so we have to

082acknowledge that and that's what everyone wants so when a student comes to school and and they don't have the ability to just focus on on those items that's a concern and it should be a concern for all of us um you know also one of the items that that we've recognized and that we know needs to be addressed not just with the school district but with with community members with parents is that out of out of i don't have any data to support this but i would say that probably for every two occurrences that we hear about and we investigate at school we are made aware of the same situations that are happening at local parks happening on social media at home in the evening or on the weekends and parents are reaching out to

083us to try to inform us of what's going on and try trying to get us to be able to address some of those situations because they they don't know where to go other than to call us and they're they're looking for help they're looking for resources and we can't always address issues that take place outside of school we can absolutely monitor that at school and make sure that if something comes up at school that student has has a safe outlet or or we are aware but really for every two that we we investigate at school we have another one that's reported to us that has taken place outside of school and my point with that is is it is a it is a concern in in every school whether it's public or private that's that

084is where we are at but it's also a concern um in our neighborhoods and in our communities so it is going to take that collective um workforce or task force to to try to figure out systems that will alleviate some of it make it better over time and i think that moving forward and working with dr mueller and talking through this i know that this district is committed to it and is going to continue to look at ways to improve it and i'm glad to hear that you all are supportive as well because it you know the biggest thing that takes away from our kids ability to be to be able to focus on the academics is not feeling safe and not feeling secure on their seat i just wanted to add real quick and

085vice president goodson and director bates i mean and this is somewhat repetitive but i think everyone up here wants to give reassurance to parents that again we're committed we're we're committed to the internal safety into the safety of our schools internally externally and law enforcement relationships relationship with parents and that's that's going to require a lot of communication this is not going to be one conversation this is going to be a series of conversations that we're going to have but we we are seeking as director bates said we're seeking participation from you all and i'm confident you know moving forward that that we have a plan it will evolve um but we all have to work on it together because we're gonna have to find these answers together and we're only gonna do that if

086we all participate any other question thank you all right hearing no other questions dr kane if you would like to transportation presentation actually mr i'll hand this back over to mr schulte in terms of the transportation department it's a presentation on things as it relates to transportation so our director kev boyce will actually be leading this talk as well all right good evening i want to thank everybody in the board for the opportunity to present tonight so this is our evaluation our program evaluation for our transportation department so our first slide is showing the years from 2012 through the current year of 2022 the average daily number of students that we transported currently we ended this year with an average of transporting 9731 students these numbers are collected on a bi-annual we collect ridership reports

087in october and again in february this is the comparison that we've had we had data that uh we went back from 2014. so of october 21 we transported average of 9525 students and we ended in february transporting 9 936 students our next slide is a breakdown of our activity and field trips this year was a very busy year for us we added our new high school north point in a lot of their sports and activities we ended the year with the total amount of trips of 2114 that is quite a lot of trips for us to cover in addition to our daily routes you will also see that we had a quite a few of our trips that departed before 3 30 p.m we had almost 1 000 of those trips that departed those trips

088are basically trips that our regular route drivers cannot um currently drive so we have to rely heavily on our sub drivers to take those trips for us and make sure that the sports are completed um our next slide shows you how we are actually doing within our department we have a total currently as of june the sixth a total of 126 full-time drivers we have 66 bus aides we have a total of 12 office staff and that breaks down to myself as director we have two operation managers we have two administrative secretaries we have uh five routers and dispatchers two driver trainers we have one fleet supervisor seven mechanics and one fueler so that brings our total to our complete transportation staff of 214 employees this is just a breakdown of our fleet we have

089a bus fleet of 179 buses you'll see over the years back dating back to 2012 we have added new buses over the years last year we did not purchase any new buses the last time we purchased buses 23 internationals was back in 21. this is also just to conf to go over what our annual mileage is you'll see a big dip that we had of course back in 19 and 20. um our year in mileage has not been completed yet for the 21 22 school year but you will see that we ended our yearly mileage back in 21 with approximately 1.664 664 670 miles for the total year the next uh slide just basically breaks down these are pieces of mileage that our drivers drive on a daily basis that we are considered ineligible some

090of those are shuttles in between our work programs those are practices um they are not counting in our eligible miles for transportation the next slide not something we'd like to talk about but that does happen we have had an increase of accidents um this year we ended i think with a total of 25 total accidents you'll see that our highest month was april um the accidents we also break those down into the types which is the next slide and our accidents by type by the biggs percentage is our side swipes size types rear ends backing those are our most significant amounts of accidents that we have within our transportation department the next slide is our transportation department allowable cost we have the data from 2012 all the way to 2021. we ended uh 21 in

091total allowable cost of 10 million 481 thousand nine hundred and eight the next slide then shows you what our cost factor percentage efficiency rated rating is um we have data from 2012 all the way to 21. we ended 21 since we don't have data yet for 22 but we ended in 21 at 137 percent efficiency the next slide is one of the other slides that we are quite proud of so i'll end it with this one we do have 179 buses in our fleet we had all of them inspected back in march we came out with a 98.4 approval rating inspection rating and that was two defects that were found and they were serviced our state average is for this current year is 88.7 percent but i also want to um to just point out

092how that was obtained with our mechanics some driving in the mornings mostly driving every single afternoon in addition to the duties and the maintenance for these buses this is pretty outstanding we're pretty proud of that and that concludes my presentation questions yeah president bryce bye kim on the slide with um the number of staff can i know it's probably not off the top of your head because you give me rough order of magnitude like what's our turnover rate in drivers aids through a given year like when we start with a year 100 whatever drivers what's the turnover rate generally been and has that changed over the years at all i don't have a figure for as far as a turnover rate but i will say this year was significant for us as far as the

093number of fmla and medical leaves and absences um we had quite a few that retired this year we had a lot of veteran drivers that were reaching up into the time that they were going to retire but i don't have a complete turnover rate president bryce can you speak to kind of piggyback on that just a little bit about how um kind of towards the end of the year how well we did in like filling those positions kind of where we ended the year and maybe some opportunities for next year to to keep those positions filled so we can have those routes moving along so that number of 126 drivers that was um as of june the 6th so those were the retirees and um the resignations that we received through june the 6th um

094we actually probably ended more of our school year back on june the 2nd with 130 drivers but again we were covering anywhere from 25 to 30 driver positions on a daily basis so going forward we had a very successful uh drive the bus event last year um that brought quite a few drivers in for us and we had them trained over the summer they were ready to go we're planning for another drive of the bus event next friday saturday so pass the word um we also have created some business cards and some flyers that throughout the year that we've gone to local businesses and passed them out and ask permission to set them out and display so we really kind of reached out to the community um within this year probably more aggressively in the

095past years to put the word out as far as that goes i had a question please um if you could just speak to i mean obviously you know parents no one likes a late bus right and i know that you know sometimes i get a communication and you know it's just like oh no they're my kids are going to be late you know getting home from school or the bus is late getting them to school what are some i guess things that the department is doing to try to improve the communication the speed of that delivery of the communication to notify parents of those circumstances should they pop up um so um it is not our goal to have late buses um but our ultimate goal is to get the kids to school safely so

096we have implemented an upgrade into our routing software transfinder pro is what we previously were using we're upgrading to transfinder plus this new upgraded into this our system for routing has allowed or is going to allow us to be able to route more efficiently more quickly um with that giving said that we have a absence that comes in we can quickly turn a route into a combined route give that route to the driver then there is no delay and there should not be well should not be but we we hope to not have any late buses um so that is one thing um the other thing is is that um we're taking some really close um look at how we communicate to the parents um we are probably going to start a process to having

097one designated dispatch router that is their sole responsibility when we do have the late buses to send out the blackboard notifications um but ultimately you know we will have some buses traffic whatever but we're taking steps to be able to communicate more efficiently president real quick just one more question so we've got in the i think it was pulled um to approve the bus route uh for the upcoming school year can you just maybe speak to the process around setting that route i know we've got now north point middle that was added to the route um just what goes into that assessment how we best maximize the number of drivers needed and get to those kids um as far as so we're adding our middle school for north point we are also making some adjustments

098for our routes that um are allowing our fifth and sixth graders to go back into the middle school so that is an adjustment um we are also looking into triple tiering a lot of our bus routes so they'll have the high school middle school in on one tier and then an elementary and then a second elementary so we're trying to maximize the needing less drivers by adding more routes and schools into an additional route any more questions i have one was current vacancies on any of the slides position vacancies for drivers was that on the slides no how many do you have currently um so currently we ended the year with approximately um 157 route excuse me 157 routes and those included what we call driver floater positions they are not necessarily assigned a route

099um but we had approximately 129 drivers at the end of this school year 130 drivers so we had a probably about a 30 30 driver shortage we are actually experiencing a little bit more shortage with our aids at this time any more questions okay thank you up next old business we need a motion to approve the 2022-23 board of education meetings scheduled as presented second discussion hearing no discussion we'll take a vote we have a motion and a second all in favor say aye aye aye opposed nay i just have it next up we need a motion to approve policy 0412 as presented i'd like to make a different motion if that's okay with the board i motion that we amend the policy for as stated in here to remove in paragraph 7 the sentence

100that starts with however and ends in the applicable law and then give guidance to the administration to update our procedurals around um our public forum second okay we have a motion and a second discussion just to make it so it's really clear did you get that kathy just make sure on the motion just so clear yeah your motion is to approve policy 0412 with uh an amendment to that in item number seven you would remove the sentence that begins with however um the bolded language and that ends with law is that correct that's correct and then the rest of the policy would stand as is that's correct and it includes approving the edit that so it's as presented which has got the edits that already deletes the last sentence in there makes sense okay can

101you clarify what you mean by procedures yeah so i think there's policy and then there's procedures meaning what is communicated out in in terms of direction to public forum that's done by dan um and so i think there's there's ways to to steer those speakers because look i think that this edit i think is appropriate given the climate given the concerns from a legal perspective that we have we've all been briefed there um i think there's ways to to uh implore speakers to to um speaking about staff or students in an appropriate manner recognizing you know you could potentially defame an individual and find yourself in trouble so i think how we describe that in our policy or procedure is important and so you know more getting to the procedural side than a you know

102pure policy that's trying to strike that language any other discussion on this okay hearing no other discussion just real quick and so i think we all recognize that um it's what was it sp 681 that that was that's going to get signed i think in august speaks to that by i think july of next year so next school year we'll need to get public input into what our policy looks like what our comment period looks like and so i would expect potential changes to this down the road given that need to do so under that new bill any other discussion okay we have a motion in a second oh can we get a roll call please stan yeah catherine roll call please thank you uh director lizack hi director stowley aye director scott aye vice

103president goodson aye president bryce aye secretary abbott aye director bates aye motion carries okay next up new business we need a motion to approve the june 16 2022 personal recommendation and resignation as presented motion second discussion i believe this was pulled from consent was just just for a separate vote okay hearing no discussion we have a motion in a second all in favor say aye abstain next up we need a motion to approve local 6553 agreement as presented motion second we have a motion in a second discussion anything to add jennifer sure um so this is a three year agreement and on the off years of the complete negotiation of the agreement we discuss economic conditions and that's what we discussed and presented for you this evening any other questions right hearing no questions we

104have a motion a second all in favor say aye hi all right pose name i just have it up next we need a motion to approve the budget for 2022 2023 fiscal year as presented so moved second we have a motion and a second discussion excuse me president bryce yes i did not hear who motioned and seconded it was betsy that motion and was it director's or was it director scott discussion i think we got a presentation from rick right we can't let that it's a sizable budget there's some presentation for the uh fiscal year 2023 budget so mr angevine this is dawson yes there's a presentation as a matter of fact we are required to present this to the board of education this particular budget it is a large budget it is over a

105quarter of a billion dollars first thing i'd like to do is introduce susan dawson our finance director who put endless hours with her staff into the development of this budget and it's very much appreciated and i believe it is a very good and a very strong budget before i get into the budget itself what i'd like to do is tell you where we plan to end this fiscal year it's important to say where the fiscal year ends when presenting a budget because the dollars from this fiscal year are are important on where we stand uh other either positive or negative to this year's budget so we can determine the fund balances next year and the required fund balances that this board expects us to have as far as fiscal year 21 22 that's the year

106that we are currently in we are expecting a surplus as we end this fiscal year there's reasons for this surplus and number the first reason is prop c sales taxes we never dreamed a year ago that the gross national product would be higher than it is this year and that more people would be spending more money of course prices are higher but the fact of the matter is sales taxes are up and we are uh favorable on sales taxes which is what we call the property sales tax not to get confused with the prop c bond that we've issued previously our federal breakfast and lunch programs have been very favorable in the fact that the government the federal government has been paying for breakfast and lunches they're paying us more than we even charge for

107our breakfast and lunches and since it's free the kids are eating them and we're getting that those extra revenues that being the case unexpectedly we also had a surplus in that area assessed valuations house prices went up higher for new homes and homes that are being sold then we would have expected them to go up this year and we were also experiencing vacancies it's hard to find employment and as people are not employed we've budgeted those people to be there when they're not there of course we wind up with extra money in the budget for those items also for those reasons uh we are having a fiscal year surplus in the year 2122 one thing i want to state before i get deeply into the budget is that the budget's more than just a spending

108plan for the district and what i mean by that is every year we determine and we do this back in november and december we determine what our revenues are going to be for the district and it's only after we determine what our revenues are or what our revenues are going to be that we can hit the priorities and decide and move toward the priorities of the district to fund those expenses we had major priorities this year and that's where our extra dollars went on our increased revenues the the largest areas being the staffing and north point middle school of which we have not had the staff before and new classes at north point a new class at northpoint high school wages and benefits it's always our intent to do whatever we can in the wage

109and benefit area especially the wage area and we have to know our revenues before we do that so once we get our revenues in line our priorities staffing wages curriculum enhancement we decided we wanted to do a technology audit this year that is a priority again we're prioritizing our dollars and of course in a totally different fund not to be colluded with the other items above or our capital funds we have to prioritize prioritize our safety plans maintenance and construction our operating fund for next year we are budgeting a surplus of 174 000 this is just the operating fund this is not uh any other or budget consists of several funds our operating fund is what runs the district revenues of 233.8 million with expenses of 323.6 million with a surplus ending our operating budget

110for next year as far as our capital fund budget we are going to run an intentional deficit of four and a half million uh when we receive money into the capital fund that's normally when we sell bonds for example when we sold 125 million dollars of bonds many years ago and we sold 105 million dollars of bonds in in just two years ago in those years you will see an enormous amount of revenues come into here with very relatively low expenses it's up to us at that point in time to keep spending deficits until this particular fund has completely spent the bond money uh at this particular point uh we are expecting to spend a deficit of 4.5 million dollars to draw down our bond money which needs to eventually be drawn down by law

111to zero dollars our third fund is our debt service fund budget with revenues of 25 million expenses of 25 million with 179 000 deficit this is an intentional deficit as we issued 2021 general obligation refunding bonds just this year and when we issued those bonds it was determined that we would pay down debt early as we pay down debt early we are running a deficit in this particular fund as we still have a healthy fund balance here and we're paying down debt early based on our general obligation refunding bonds all funds total we are going to run a deficit again our operating funds are are budgeted positive the deficits are intentional in this case our deficit is to to run down the capital funds until we have zero balance in that capital account there always

112will be money in the capital count for things other than bonds but until that bond money is spent we will see we will generally see deficits in the capital account uh this particular screen you're looking at here this particular chart shows that fiscal year 23 our operating fund balance is projected to be the largest in district history we are going to have 59.2 billion dollars projected at the end of 2023 and our fund balance again that is a record for this district you can see in the year 220 20 the year 2020 that we dipped in our fund balance the reason we dipped in our fund balance in that particular year that was covid and uh during kova we ran at a deficit intentionally to keep this district afloat that's what our fund balance is

113here far since then you can see that we've gradually building that back up and we are at a record fund balance in our operating funds that being said there's a second side to that this is our operating fund balance as a percentage of our expenditures as this school district has been growing the percent of our operating fund balance is lower than it has been in the last 10 years again the lowest percentage of operating expenses in the last 10 years even though we're getting more of a fund balance we are dipping to at the end of 23 planning to be at 25.34 i've made a uh promise of this district and to the this board of directors and until i'm told otherwise i'm going to keep this balance at 25 above and do everything i

114can to moderate our expenses to stay at 25 percent it was hard to do for next year's budget we did it and we will continue that in the future where does our money come from it comes from two major sources the blue portion of this pie chart is local sources local sources is assessed values those are your taxes generally property taxes and personal property taxes and real estate taxes are second large and the second largest source of revenue is the green part of this pie chart these are state funds and that is primarily our funding from our formula funds from deci from the state since assessed values are such a large part of our revenues i do want to highlight uh what's happening in our assessed values fiscal y year 23 is not a reassessment

115year which means your property values are not being reassessed and we're not getting extra funds for your reassessed values in fiscal year 23. our assessed values are projected to be approximately 2.68 billion dollars which is a 3.95 increase in assessed values tax rates are expected to remain remain stable despite the hancock amendment taxing limitations the reasons for that is that it's a it's a reassessment year excuse me it's not a reassessment year and because inflation is so high the hancock amendment limits uh us going up to the amount of inflation or five percent uh with the consumer price index being so high uh we will not have to lower our tax rates to be in compliance with that hancock amendment again this is our largest forest source of revenue and we are projecting 134.7 million

116dollars in current and delinquent assessed values as far as state formula funding this is our largest funding source from the state uh our state formula funding is based on two main things the first is called s.a.t which is a state adequacy target which is expected to remain stable at six thousand three hundred seventy five dollars per student our enrollment is budgeted to be less than or equal to two thousand nineteen twenty enrollment of seventeen thousand three hundred twenty seven now if you take that s a t rate times that enrollment that's generally close to what we will get in formula funding there are many adjustments believe that many adjustments you can't just multiply those two numbers such as our free and reduced lunch programs as well as how often our kids attend school those are

117all weights along with many other factors that are going to determine uh our formula from the state but it's basically based on sat and enrollment we're we're our uh budgeting that our formula funding will remain stable between 22 and 23 and that's not normal for this district this is normally a very growing district uh but because the growth has not come in the last couple years since covid there's many reasons for that we hope that it does increase in the near future but we're not budgeting it to as again being a conservative budget where are our uh funds spent what funds do we spend that money and you can see that this is all of our spending completely together you can see that our general and teachers fund which is the blue and the red

118portions of this eye are general and teachers fund consists of 83 percent of our money goes to teachers and general funds the general fund runs a district and the teachers is our teachers pay and benefits if you'll notice that the capital projects fund is the green slice which is seven point seven percent that piece of our funding is what we build with and that's what we buy capital with the debt service fund at nine percent nine point one percent uh if i were going to consider can compare that to what that means in your personal budgets that's what we pay for our buildings it's like your house payment we pay nine percent one uh of uh debt uh to pay for the buildings that we have and that's the percentage that we have to for

119this building and every other building in the district uh since our uh operating expenses is uh what runs this district i want to let you know where our operating money goes as you can see 84 percent of our operating funds goes to salaries and benefits only 16 of our operating funds go to anything other than salaries and benefits purchase services is seven percent that includes tuition reimbursement to third parties property services professional services legal and audit services i.t services and it pays our insurance supplies which is the purple part of this piece of pie is nine percent that nine percent covers utilities all the utilities all of our tech uh technology supplies food service all of our food just those three items alone is 54 of our supply budget the rest of that supply budget

120which is about four and a half percent of our total budget covers a slew of things with four and a half percent our last four and a half percent covers furniture fixtures small equipment band instruments music sports uniforms classroom supplies instructional supplies camps student activities all of our health services evaluation testing chemicals waxes paper departmental supplies you can see that 84 percent is salaries and benefits the rest of it is split among that last 16 percent and is running very thin in the district as salaries and benefits is our largest source of expenses i'd like to just briefly tell you about our salaries and benefits this year or our budgeted year for 23. uh staffing has had to be increased to accommodate opening north point middle school and adding a class at north point high

121school new certified positions are 23 and the new support staff positions are 14. medical insurance benefits went up 3 percent and vacancies this is one thing i want to point out to the board and everybody here is that vacancies have been accounted for in the fiscal year 23 budget i think it's important that i explain what this is every year as i just recently explained we generally budget a negative balance in our funds uh a negative balance meaning we expect to run at a deficit and we budget a deficit but we always seem to come out better than our budget and the question is why do we always come out better than we've budgeted one of the reasons is we have never budgeted vacancies what that is is we always expect never to be 100

122staffed at any particular time where does that extra money go it goes to the bottom line what we did for the first time this year and this does have a major effect on the budget and i want everybody to be aware of this is that we are budgeting the vacancies which means that extra money that is normally there from uh open positions that we cannot fill at that particular point in time we have budgeted that money in other places that makes this budget a much more accurate budget but at the same time not only does it make this budget much more accurate it means that there's not as much fluff in here either and i want to make that very clear as we move into the next year that we don't have this extra thing

123called vacancies to make up for a lot of other expenses that we are going to be much tighter on expenses because we did budget vacancies and we budgeted a balanced budget this year one thing about our capital funds again that's separate from operating funds and these are the funds that i told you that we need to spend down to zero within a certain amount of time by law we still have three or four years to spend down prop c our last prop that we issued 105 million dollars of bonds on what i want to say about our construction and how these funds are being spent the district has completed each of the last 10 construction projects on time and under budget the capital budget includes the cost to complete all promised prop e and prop

124c construction we're planning on completing the promised items next year the long-term construction and strategy team will determine the best uses of available funds from being favorable to that budget we have a team that includes board members it includes about 15 people 15 to 20 people who are our strategy team that will determine the best use of those funds specific maintenance projects included in this capital budget are listed in the budget document which was approved by you at a previous board meeting we do have a long-term planning section included in the budget the long-term planning section includes a five-year scenario which is what we do for this district the five-year scenario includes a prediction of where we're going to end this year this year is going to end in about two weeks and we have

125a projection for our fiscal year ending fiscal year 2022. next year's budget is what you're approving tonight what i hope you approve tonight i'm not going to prejudge anything and then we also have projections for the next three years which is fiscal year 24 25 and 26. our long-term planning assumptions are included in the budget document and i am very happy to say that our operating income is forecasted to remain favorable through our entire five-year plan so we do look ahead we do look ahead of schedule and we do make sure that we're not on a trajectory where we should not be general highlights of the budget we have reduced the budget document by about 50 pages this year and i hope the board appreciates that and i hope anybody who reads this budget appreciates

126that we've removed all duplicate information we've got a condensed format with less pictures it's reformatted to flow and read more easily but we have absolutely removed no information from this budget as a matter of fact we have added information to this budget we have added a monthly operating budget to this which is a very difficult thing to do because our software systems do not budget on a monthly basis we created our own system it downloads from our sysfin system which is our financial system so now we can budget on a monthly basis what does that mean to this board what that means to this board is in the future starting in august 2022 let's face it this year ends in june we'll have our financials at in july and will be reported on in in

127our august board meeting that board meeting uh you will see a new monthly report that will compare actual to budget rather than year to year i think it would be very much easier for this board that's the reason we're going this direction i think it's much more plain for a person to understand not everybody can read year over year budgets and compare the years and say are we doing but are we up on budget and are we not on budget i think this is something that's been overdue in this district a long time it's a major addition to this budget this year and i think you'll much prefer looking at a financial report on a monthly basis that says where are we over and under budget on every item monthly so that we can act

128or so that you can act more quickly i think it's one of the best things that we've done in this budget and i'm looking forward to implementing that at the august board meeting all being said uh fiscal year our summary of what i've just discussed we are budgeting and operating surplus which is a great thing we're keeping our fund balances above 25 percent which is i believe the minimum that we need to do we have added staffing for north point middle school and north point high school the district construction is favorable to budget and we have extra funds to do more things in the future our long-term projections are favorable and we have great new monthly reporting process that we're going to be presenting to this board in the future and to top it all

129off this isn't made up this is these numbers have been approved by our auditors with no findings saying that the numbers we report and the way that we report our numbers is accurate and is believable and it is the way it is and it is the way that we say it is and again i i appreciate susan and the finance staff who runs this area i believe they do a tremendous job and i believe this is an area of the district that we should be very proud of and i'm asking for approval of the budget and at this particular time i'd like to open it up for any questions from the board president bryce may i ask questions what are you smiling for um it's more of a actually a comment um rick i would

130agree um with many of your statements as you close there i think you guys do a really good job with this document and then your work throughout the year with the departments i certainly appreciate the ad of the monthly budget that allow this board to kind of see where fluctuations will continue throughout the year i also that first bullet i think is incredibly important you know us having a balanced budget to start the year and show that and demonstrate that to the community is also important i think if i recall it's probably the first time in a while we've shown a budget to this board that's balanced in that way this is more of a comment to peers as it relates to the excess in our construction and that strategy committee that we've had we've

131had some conversations around that the number is in this document that we're talking in the budget document that we're talking about in excess through the work of you know rick's team john's team the past boards etc the past construction projects have yielded a bond excess of 30 million dollars and this district this governing body and those in the future that are on this governing body has a choice to make you know rick is saying in here that if you just you know increase salaries by three percent benefits by four percent and assume kind of steady you'll have a surplus um against your operating it keeps it right around 24 25 in terms of a surplus um but i think we all know in terms of competitive nature to salaries things that we have you know

132to consider in this in this um you know that people have expressed in terms of concerns that we should spend and focus money on there are choices we will have to make now recognizing that 30 million dollars is bond money and sits in a fund specifically um but that doesn't mean there's create there isn't creative ways to think about how that makes its way into an operating fund and i think we should really focus over the coming year around what we're doing with that money and how we think about what we want as a district and as a governing body around our salaries the competitive nature the staffing structure that we have to help our kids and their students in this district the best way possible to me this is a testament that money is

133a testament of the work that the district does to to to make it work and so we should take the opportunity to think strategically um how we address other concerns that are floating around we all ran on platforms had things we wanted and were our priorities and things that we wanted to accomplish i think this is an avenue that allows us to talk about those things and address those in various ways i'm not saying i have the solutions or what my views are at that point but i think that's what we have to focus on as we move forward so again rick appreciate the work that this team done it was a much easier read with the 50 less pages so appreciate that any more discussion i just want to echo the great work again

134and this is a little bit different approach than we've done in previous years so i'm interested to see you know how it all plays out but thank you for the hard work okay hearing no more discussion we have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye hi hi opposed nay motion passes next up we need a motion to approve the teacher fund transfer as presented motion second we have a motion in a second any discussion okay hearing no discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed eyes have it next up we need a motion to approve the capital project's fund transfer food service as presented so moved second we have a motion in a second any discussion all right all those in favor say aye all right opposed nice have it

135next up we need a motion to approve the capital project's fund transfer maintenance and renovation as presented so moved second we have a motion in a second any discussion your mic's on katie no discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes next up we need a motion to improve the capital projects fund transfer transportation as presented so moved second we have a motion and a second and discussion hearing no discussion all those in favor say aye opposed motion passes next up we need a motion to improve the new and revised curriculum as presented so moved second we have a motion in a second shannon i believe you pulled this actually i think it was me oh um yeah so i think there was multiple board members ahead questions here so i saw

136uh dr skeeters i'll just ask you just a couple more process questions around this one so it's you know it's pretty clear what we were trying to accomplish with the movement of the sixth grade and other things that we're trying to address talk to us a little bit about the committee that's set up the process to establish that and i think more so as we think forward because i think it was maybe three or four meetings ago we talked about the the desire to look at other curriculum and update that given you know the time since the last time we've done that and so kind of just thinking forward on those things how that how you may see that process changing with the committee so i just want to be clear when you speak about

137committee you're talking about the curriculum review committee not the curriculum not the community developing the curriculum that's right okay just want to make sure so um we have had for several years a curriculum review committee they meet twice a year to we during the fall meeting we present to them what curriculum is being developed that year and in the spring they review that curriculum and there's an opportunity to provide feedback ask questions and then we take that feedback and make adjustments to make it easier to understand to typically it's not usually changing content it's usually about something that's easier to understand um on the uh like the from the parent perspective we recognize that there is a need to involve the community to a greater degree in conversations around teaching and learning so the curriculum

138review committee as it is currently is actually now as it was we are going to stop that process and begin a new process we're in the process of outlining what that will look like but what we intend is for that to meet more regularly so two meetings a year is not really sufficient um and also that those were not designed to provide um feedback on uh you know a variety of things uh so we're looking to i would say probably meet about four times a year that might not be you know totally accurate yet we haven't like i said totally outlined it um but probably about four times a year uh we'll be bringing topics that we are considering um to to that um that committee to that advisory group uh to get feedback as

139we move through curriculum development looking at resources considering um you know different elements that impact instruction for our students in the district so that that is the plan we will plan to have that wrapped up as far as planning what that looks like by august so that sometime before around school starting we will share that information with the community so that they can let us know if they'd like to be involved appreciate the comment i i would welcome you know a chance to have more involvement from the community in this process so appreciate that dr skeeters if i may for for those that may not know again it's kind of the process of how you guys landed how your department landed on this recommendation can you just provide some insight i know you have it

140in the packet for but for those who didn't read you know the recommendation in full can you just speak to that a little bit regarding the curriculum we selected yeah just yeah if you could just provide some background so we we have sixth graders returning to middle school um everyone is incredibly excited about that when sixth grade moved from middle school to elementary school we were able to we had a little bit of space and time in the middle school schedule for seventh and eighth graders we were able to add an additional elective which is incredibly important given the fact that prior to that students were making really tough choices between things like year-long electives like band and choir and they could maybe only choose that and nothing else so this provides us the opportunity

141to expand uh students opportunities to engage in a variety of opportunities to learn uh different content when we're now we're moving sixth grade back we're looking to provide those sixth grade students with something very similar so this expands the offerings for sixth grades in addition in alignment with our csip goals we are working to expand opportunities in careertech ed areas and to ensure that we have created clear career paths or clear opportunities for students to engage in learning in particular career paths and so the changes that we've made to middle school electives allow for students to do some exploratory learning in the career paths that we've identified that align directly to classes at the high school so they have some time in middle school to try some of those things out see what they might

142like and then they'll be ready for course selection going into high school any more discussion okay thank you we have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed eyes haven't motion passes okay next up we need a motion to approve the 2021-2022 final route as presented so moved second we have a motion and a second any discussion actually had this item pulled or president bryce a lot of the questions that i had were addressed in the transportation presentation i just want to use this opportunity to just encourage you know obviously we have a lot of openings so anything that anybody can do to spread the word and encourage that because we all want our students to get the bus service that they need but also kind of use this as

143an opportunity you know that the transportation department recognizes the importance of keeping the community up to date on where they stand on on filling those positions shannon and i drove the bus last year so it's fun you should come out and drive it i promise it's a good time any more discussion hearing no discussion we have a motion a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed eyes haven't motion passes next up we need a motion to approve the bills for payment as presented second we have a motion in a second aaron it's just for a separate vote okay any other discussion on this okay all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed abstain it was too that obscene director stolen director abbott yes man thank you okay next up i think curtis

144had something to say i do this will be the last face-to-face meeting for dr hector and for mr schulte so jen for your four very furious years in this district there's been a great deal of work that's uh that's occurred in the hr department and you've done an amazing job and wish you all the best in the future and to mr schulte for 19 years if i remember correctly in the wentzville school district many years of boontrail but you've done an amazing job in your role in administrative services and so this district will move forward but uh please know that not only do i professionally but i personally wish you both all nothing but the best in your respective futures thank you for your work here in and i think we would also like to

145echo that as a board we really appreciate working with you guys we appreciate everything you've done and curtis is also dr kane you're also on your way out and i the board would like to say thank you for all your hard work i know it's we've it's been it's been a fun two years very interesting and one hell of a ride so we appreciate it and we look forward to your success in rockwood dr kane when you started there were 14 063 students and now there's over 17 400 students you added six buildings in that nine years as well as 1.4 million square feet to this district and i appreciate that work because that's not easy i think aaron can attest boundary changes and other things are not an easy thing to do and it

146takes a lot of work from this collective group the community to do those things and it's appreciated okay next up we need a motion to adjourn open session and go back into closed session for the purpose of personnel and student matters motion second all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes